"I am particularly pleased to be working with (Mayor) Walter Washington I have known him and worked with him for many years (he) seems like a man with a mission and will be a great boon to the city," he continued. Thomas G. Fletcher is the deputy mayor. 5 YEARS IN AIR CORPS A fourth-generation Washingtonian, Hechinger has been president of Hechinger's Building Materials since the death of his father, Sidney Hechinger, in 1958. His father founded the firm. Hechinger came into the family firm in 1946 after spending five years with the Army Air Corps in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. He achieved the rank of major and was with a bomber command in Tinian. He holds the Air Medal, four unit citations and five theater of war ribbons. He learned early yesterday that the White House was considering him for the council post, but said he would not comment on his plans as council chairman until after the Senate acts on his nomination. "I was honored to be selected," he said, "and accepted the President's offer as a challenge. I hope to be able to do what he (Johnson) has in mind." WON'T RESIGN FROM FIRM Hechinger said he does not anticipate any problems facing his confirmation and said he will not resign as president of his firm. A graduate of Yale University with a degree in engineering, Hechinger is a member of the Urban League. He is past president of Columbia Hospital, is a director of the Boys Club of Washington, and a trustee of the D.C. Public Library. He also is a director of the American Security Corp., an affiliate of American Security & Trust Co., is vice president of the District Health and Welfare Council and a member of the D.C. Public Welfare Council. His wife, June, was a member of the body that started the city's Head Start program and is a member of the board of directors of the National Symphony, YMCA, and the Health and Welfare Council and was active in past United Givers Fund campaigns. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan. They have four children, Nancy, 20; John, Jr., 17; S. Ross, 16, and Sally, 11. The family lives at 2838 Chain Bridge Road, NW. [From the Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1967] AN URGENT MATTER Prompt Senate action on the nominations of the members of the City Council for Washington will rescue this community from a very serious interregnum during which important municipal business is in a state of suspension. The Senate District Committee has been moving expeditiously with the paper work preliminary to hearings. It has had the nominations only since last Thursday and is under no reproach for delay. Present intentions are to hold hearings Thursday and if possible conclude them and report out the recommendations of the committee. This would pave the way for Senate confirmation Friday and permit the new government to commence operations with the swearing-in of the council on Saturday or Monday. A start Wednesday would make it surer. This is a tight schedule and the Senate should not be asked or expected to move so swiftly on the confirmation of officials of such importance, but for the very practical problems created by a political vacuum arising out of the change of government. Fortunately there seems to be a clear awareness of the problem, in the whole Senate as well as in the District Committee. So great is the urgency of the matter that the Senate may have to act on six nominees, approval of whom would permit the new government to begin functioning. While this might be made to appear invidious to the three deferred nominees, their embarrassment would be less acute than the embarrassment that now afflicts the city as a whole. The important thing is to obtain whatever Senate action it takes, either on only six or on all nine nominations, to get the government to functioning. Thanks to the rapport between the old Commissioners and the new, and to the on-going functioning of the municipal civil servants, the essential day-to-day tasks are being taken care of. Mayor Washington and his Deputy, during the interim have had a chance to study the city's problems. But long-run and current operating issues are beginning to press upon the nominees who are in no legal position to act. While the old commissioners have legal power, they are not disposed to make decisions with which their successors are going to have to live, if those decisions can be avoided. The whole community thus stands at the door of the Senate with a prayer and a petition for the speediest possible action. This petition arises not from impatience or importunacy but from the genuine anxiety of a city which is, to all practical intents, without a government. [From the Washington Post, Sept. 29, 1967] THE NEW GOVERNMENT Senate confirmation of the nine-man Council named yesterday by President Johnson will put in motion a new city government for Washington, operating under the first major revision of the municipal establishment in nearly a century. The President used the ceremonies in the East Room of the White House to take appropriate note of this historic change and to express his hopes, and the hopes of the country and of the community for a new era in the affairs of the Nation's Capital. The new city establishment, under Mayor Walter Washington and Deputy Mayor Thomas Fletcher, faces very serious problems, at the outset. The President rightly stressed these problems, characteristic of American urban centers, in his remarks. The complicated social and economic difficulties of urban life are not likely to respond quickly to any magical solutions arising out of the genius of political institutions or of those who manage them. The city now has a welldevised system of administration which the President has placed in the hands of competent administrators. It has a strong Council which can be extremely useful as a contact between the people and their government-perhaps useful in proportion to the candor and openness with which it functions. The old city government was complicated by the curiously mixed duties of the Commissioners who were both legislative and executive agents. The new government labors under no such embarrassment. Its new "legislature," if it is to inspire and retain confidence, must operate in full public view so that citizens can participate in the thought, reflection and deliberation desirable in the conduct of public affairs. Interest in, concern about and contribution to city government can thus be widened and deepened so as to prepare increasing numbers of ordinary citizens for public duties. There are thousands of Washington residents who will continue to long for the self-government that is enjoyed in every other American city. This new regime they can rightly say, is no substitute for home rule. But it can be made a preparation for it and an avenue to it and a vindication of its principles if the administrative officials and the Council act so as to deserve and elicit the broadest popular participation permitted by the statute. If the high hopes with which this experiment commences are to be realized, it will take more than the faithful performance of duty by the persons the President has chosen. Congress, which retains so large a degree of responsibility, must also do its part to help this community meet effectively the problems of Twentieth Century community life. The attitude of the Senate and House committees, in fact, may be decisive for the new system. It deserves, at the outset, committee confidence, support and restraint. It needs the broad and general direction and guidance of congressional leaders who have a vast reservoir of knowledge about the District; but it cannot survive unremitting and meddlesome congressional intervention in administrative work that ought to be entrusted to local authority or surmount dictation as to the very details and minutiae of its budgets. A time of opportunity now commences for the city; but it is also a time of testing. It will test the skill and ingenuity of the national Administration which has fashioned this government and which now must continue to help it to function. It will test the Congress which has so many special interests in Washington. It will test the governmental principles incorporate in the new system. It will test the executives and the Councilmen and the people of this community from whose ranks they have been chosen. All these tests must be passed if the confidence of this hour is to be justified and the high hopes of this moment are to be realized. [From the New York Times, Sept. 29, 1967] AND PROGRESS IN WASHINGTON President Johnson has appointed nine capable, well-qualified citizens to serve on the new City Council to run the municipal government of Washington, D.C. He has suitably recognized the Negro majority in the city by choosing Negroes for five of the nine places. The avowedly militant Negroes are disappointed that President Johnson did not select one of them for the council. But if home rule is ever to become a reality, the new board's primary task is to win the confidence of Congress and of elements of the business community that have resisted self-government in the District. For that reason, the President wisely decided to err on the side of caution. Progress is also being made on two other important fronts. The House has passed a bill to provide for an elected school board, and early Senate approval is expected. The anomalous situation in which Federal District judges choose Washington's school board by arcane methods will thus happily come to an end. The House Judiciary Committee yesterday redrafted a proposed constitutional amendment to give the District of Columbia full equality with the states in Congress. Instead of merely enabling Congress to give the District one seat in the House, the amendment would now provide for two seats in the Senate and as many seats in the House as its population entitles it to have. This is a vast improvement which we hope Congress and the states will speedily ratify. |