So, we are not a viable community, number one, because we are shrinking in size, and fifty years from now I can just envision what will happen.

This city will be occupied almost completely by Federal institutions and by the various groups which must be located in the Federal capital, with living accommodations perhaps only for those who necessarily must be here, and visitors.

Your community, sir, in Virginia, and your community, sir, in Maryland, will be the bedrooms for the District of Columbia. There will be very few people, including you. There will be very few people living in the District of Columbia.

POPULATION DECLINE

Now I point to another reason why we are not a viable community. We are losing population. In the last two censuses, 1970 and the one preceding, in 1960, we have lost a total of-well, you can quarrel with figures but somewhere between 75, and 100,000 people.

Our total population is being diminished, and the nature of our population is being diminished. The medium and upper-income people, black or white, are exercising their prerogative to leave the city, this decaying city of ours, and go out into the suburbs.

So when we talk about home rule, home rule for what? The District of Columbia will lose its identity as a political unit and be as it was intended to be, a haven for the District government.

RECOMMENDATION

What would I do if I could? I would re-establish the Commission form of government, if for only one reason, and that was pointed to by the Chairman; the loss of the Engineer Commissioner has been a tragic blow to the District of Columbia.

The contribution of a senior engineering officer from the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, one of those who served just after my time, General Clark, was honored by being made the Chief of the Corps of Engineers. That's the kind of man we had, General Robinson, who served with me, the Deputy Chief, and three talented assistants.

Our streets are dirty, and they are a great contributor to the success of the automobile repair industry because they are full of holes. Our whole city is dying, particularly in its physical plant, and the loss of the Engineer Commissioner was a loss we ought not have sustained. But I know that you can't turn the calendar back. That's gone forever.

I think as a citizen of the District of Columbia that I am entitled to have representation in the Congress of the United States. I think the Constitution should clearly be amended so that I may have more than a vote, but a voice in both the Senate of the United States and in the House of Representatives.

I think it is tragic that our delegate is permitted to participate in the debates that affect us, as they affect all Americans, and yet is not permitted to vote. I think we should have representation in the House

and the Senate. I might even be willing to compromise because of the shrinking character, geographically, of the District of Columbia, and because of the decrease in population.

I might be willing to concede that we are to have only one Congressman elected by our people with a full power vote, and only one United States Senator.

We're not like California that has to have a representative in the Senate from Northern California and one from Southern California. Why, it's only a whistle-stop across the entire District of Columbia. I think, with respect to local self-government-and it's a fantasy; there's no such thing as local self-government for the District of Columbia-it ought not be classified as a city.

RECOMMENDATION: TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT

We are a Federal territory. Our chief executive officer ought to be associated with the governors, not with the mayors.

I think we should have a chief executive who ought to be called the governor of the District of Columbia and who ought to be appointed by the President to represent the federal interest in the District of Columbia with an absolute power of veto over an elected governors' council of eleven, twelve, fifteen-call the number as you

will.

That should be the structure of our local government with, of course, a continuing constitutional restriction on the power of any governors' council or legislative assembly in the District of Columbia to pass any bill which doesn't meet the approval of the Congress.

That's my view. It's a strange thing, looking through some old records. I found an open letter to the President of the United States in the Washington Post, April 20, 1952, at which time I was President of the Board of Commissioners, and the Budget Bureau had presented President Truman with a re-organized form of government for the District of Columbia, the same except warmed over a little bitkind of government, which they sold the Congress in 1967 and under which we now operate.

This full page ad is signed by the presidents of every important organization in the District of Columbia, including the signature of my distinguished friend and successor on the Board of Commissioners, John B. Duncan, as president of the then Federation of Civic Associations; bankers, lawyers, businessmen, veterans' organizations; all joined in asking the President to preserve the Commission form of government.

What's happened since then I don't know. Why we didn't have the same unanimity of spirit in 1967 when the present Reorganization Act was passed by Congress, or approved by the Congress, I will never know.

I know that my friend, the Commissioner, or the Mayor of Washington, is doing everything that he can. The Council is busy so they must be trying to do something, but what disturbs me is that every time I get a monthly publication from the Board of Trade, when I read the number of D.C. government employees for the month of November 1971, the latest figure available, and the number is 48,200.

That's about one person for every thirteen and a half or fourteen people in the District of Columbia. Now that's the burden we have assumed.

I thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you, Mr. Donohue. I think you made a wonderful statement.

You've answered all my questions already, so I don't have any to ask you except I would like to state the reason this government was changed in 1967 was the fact that the President himself called about every Congressman on Capitol Hill and put this on them. That's the reason, but that's already past, but I can tell you that's the reason, and every man who had a project here, in South Carolina, Texas, anywhere else, why, he was threatened by somebody-not the Presidentbut he was threatened by somebody that he'd better vote for this. It didn't frighten me at all.

Mr. DONOHUE. You one day sent the Mayor of your home city in Florence, South Carolina, in to see me in the District Building. He was here with a group of mayors from South Carolina who were complaining because of the installation of an airfield or some other installation, that six percent of the land area, the taxable land area of their communities, had been taken off the tax rolls. And I said, what the hell would you do if you'd lost forty-six percent?

Mr. MCMILLAN. Right, I agree with you on that. We try to help out by giving a Federal payment.

Mr. BROYHILL. Mr. Chairman, I not only want to endorse what you have said previously regarding Mr. Donohue's services to the Nation's Capital, I want to emphasize that I agree with the Chairman and, Mr. Donohue, that you were indeed one of the most outstanding members of the D.C. Board of Commissioners, one of the most outstanding members of government who have ever served here in the nation's capital.

You are a great credit to this city, and I do regret, as I regretted at the time, that you felt it necessary to tender your resignation at the time of the inauguration of Eisenhower, even though I admired you for it, because you did a truly wonderful job for the city.

I say that now, not just to be courteous to a witness before this Committee, but in all sincerity because I've always admired you and the great dedication that you had toward this city; and since you have left the Board of Commissioners, I am well aware of your continued concern and interest in the welfare of the District of Columbia, and I welcomed the opportunity from time to time to work with you on its many problems.

Mr. Chairman, making reference again to what I said earlier, I regret that more members of this Committee were not present to hear Commissioner Donohue deliver his eloquent statement this morning. If Mr. Donohue has no objection, I'm going to have inserted in the Congressional Record a copy of his statement here this morning, so that the other Members of the House can have an opportunity to read it.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I think what Mr. Donohue did this morning was to help to emphasize further that there are many people here in the District who have an interest in the city and who love the city,

and who want to remain here, and who are not in accord with changing this form of government, or rather, with having a complete home rule type of government here.

I don't want to imply by that that we should weight the votes here in the District of Columbia along economic levels. Certainly every vote should count the same. But this is not a matter that should be resolved by a popularity contest or by referendum, but by a consideration of what is in the best interst of the federal government as a whole, all the people of the nation, as well as the people here in the District of Columbia, as all Americans are concerned about this city and its future.

You have been here for 53 years. General Harris pointed out that in general the membership of his association are people who own homes here and who have lived in this city for a number of years.

Most of the people who are advocating home rule on the other hand, are people who have come here in recent years, if not in recent months, knowing full well the type of government that exists here, and they are not being denied any rights of citizenship. They can get those rights by going back to the place from which they came, but certainly if this city collapsed and became a less desirable place in which to live, the people who have come here in recent years will not be the ones affected nearly as much as those who have lived here over a period of years and who have a great deal of interest in the welfare of this city.

Again, I commend you, Mr. Donohue, for a very excellent contribution this morning to this hearing.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Mr. Jacobs.

Mr. JACOBS. Mr. Donohue, you and I share one thing in common. We were both in the Marine Corps.

I'm afraid you've suffered from the disability of having been an officer, but aside from that we do not share that.

Mr. DONOHUE. We share something else. I was a great admirer of your father. I knew him very well.

Mr. JACOBS. As I understand, Mr. Donohue, your testimony was that the budget of the District of Columbia when you were a Commissioner was

Mr. DONOHUE. $150,000,000.

Mr. JACOBS. Now, $1.4 billion. As I understand, the budget of the District of Columbia, not counting grants that come from the federal government that go to states generally, includes a federal payment which constitutes 20%. Would you accept that?

Mr. DONOHUE. Yes, I assume that's true. I heard some talk about 32% to 40% in the Senate bill.

Mr. JACOBS. I have been told that on the District of Columbia budget, not counting the grants that other states get as well, it is 20%.

Mr. DONOHUE. I think there are many grants we get that are not made available to the other states because we are the Disric of Columbia, the seat of the government.

Mr. JACOBS. But Mr. Donohue, just to put in perspective this metamorphosis or this change in the District of Columbia budget, I wonder if you remember when President Nixon raised the devel with President Truman for putting a porch on the White House.

Do you recall that?

Mr. DONOHUE. Of course I do. I have enjoyed that porch. Mr. JACOBS. Do you recall what that construction project cost? Mr. DONOHUE. No, but it wouldn't have made any difference to me what it cost, because I loved President Truman and I thought if he wanted a back porch to sit on he was entitled to it.

Mr. JACOBS. It was $15,000. Among the other things that have occurred in the current administration, the airplane that the President now rides in was redecorated at a cost of $750,000.

Mr. DONOHUE. That's a little more than they spent to redecorate the fifth floor of the District Building, but I think he's entitled to it. He is the President of the greatest nation in the world and I wouldn't want him to be going around pinch-pennying.

Mr. JACOBS. Now, in the case of the Defense Department, for example, I only want to put in perspective the changes that have come about to demonstrate, I believe, that we do not have an isolated phenomenon in the federal government.

Do you recall what the defense budget was during the years that you were Commissioner in the District?

Mr. DONOHUE. It was just as the Korean War was beginning, so it began to accelerate.

Now I can't talk about the Defense Department because the newly appointed Deputy Secretary of Defense just moved two doors away from me as my neighbor the day before yesterday, and I don't want to say anything about his Department.

Mr. JACOBS. Just for the record, though, the defense budget-
Mr. DONOHUE. $80,000,000,000.

Mr. JACOBS. No; that's now. In those days it was closer to $25,000,000,000.

Mr. DONOHUE. But you must know as a former Marine, and certainly as a Member of the Congress, that in 1950 we were the most powerful nation in the world and we could tell the whole world to go to hell, but today our children are born and live in fear because we are a second-rate, inferior power in the Navy, in the Air Force, and in ballistic missiles.

Mr. JACOBS. I hope the record will show, and that you will understand, sir, that I am merely trying to put in context the change in budgets over the years.

Mr. DONOHUE. Times change.

Mr. JACOBS. Exactly. I believe if you will go back to 1950 you will find a number of speeches on the floor of the Senate saying that we are supposed to be the most powerful nation in the world militarily, but we can't even hold off a bunch of bandits in Korea.

I recall speeches of that kind, and of course I was one of those who were assigned the task of trying to do so.

Mr. DONOHUE. Well, you know, we could.

Mr. JACOBS. I'm not so sure about that. I was in a company that suffered 75% losses, K.I.A.'s and wounded, in one night in the spring offensive of 1951.

Mr. DONOHUE. I'm sure you're happy about not crossing the Yalu River.

Mr. JACOBS. At a time when speeches were being made here criticizing the President for not invading North Korea a second time-it is a little bit off the point, Mr. Chairman.