STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM C. POWELL, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. POWELL. My name is Adam C. Powell, Jr., a Member of Congress from the Twenty-second District of New York.

I shall be very brief, Mr. Chairman, because I know you are pressed for time. I would like to say just a few words about our town-mine and yours-because we are living here.

Coming down here this morning I was riding on the surface car when I saw a placard or bulletin. On it they showed an everyday worker and this man was quoted as saying "My vote is as good as anybody's else; with my vote I elect Presidents and Congressmen.'

I think there is no greater travesty on citizenship than to see such a placard here in the District of Columbia. The situation here is a situation which has been forced upon the people and is more intolerable than the situation which gave rise to the Boston Tea Party. Here we have taxation without representation being forced upon American citizens by American citizens. It is a form of colonialism which has never existed in any democracy.

As the author of House Joint Resolution No. 30, which I introduced at the first session of this Congress, I would like to withdraw that resolution and place myself squarely in back of the so-called Auchincloss plan for the home rule of this city. [Applause.]

Mr. AUCHINCLOSS. Thank you, Mr. Powell.

Is there any other Member of the House of Representatives or the Senate who would like to make a statement at this time?

There being none, the first witness we have is the president of the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners, the Honorable John Russell Young, who is here, and we are very glad to have your state

ment.

You may proceed, Commissioner Young.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittees, my name is John Russell Young, president of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

I want to make a report which I am happy to say represents the views of all three Commissioners. We are in complete accord and I think that in itself is something important because of all the committees and different bodies I have served on, they are not always so successful in getting everybody in accord on something so important as

this.

Many details of the bill will require careful study before a final report can be furnished. We are accordingly presenting this interim report on its fundamental provisions. The report is made under five headings:

I. Merits and Defects of the Present City Government.

II. Financial Stability and Decentralization.

III. The Two Objectives of H. R. 4902.

IV. The Objective of Administrative Streamlining.
V. The Objective of Home Rule.

There is nothing new or original about this statement. It has been
said over and over again, by past Commissioners and District officials,
by Members of Congress, and by experts who have studied our gov-
ernmental machinery. It was set forth in my statement to the Auchin-
closs committee last summer. The causes are analyzed in the prelim-
inary report of your Subcommittee on Home Rule and Reorganiza-
tion for the District of Columbia, dated November 2, 1947. Essen-
tially these causes are two in number:

(1) The multiplicity of agencies which administer the city gov-

ernment.

(2) The fact that many of them are autonomous, and that there
is no single individual who has control over them, and can therefore
be held responsible for their coordination.

II. FINANCIAL STABILITY AND DECENTRALIZATION

One of the greatest benefits enjoyed by Washington is its financial
stability over the past three generations. It has had no debt in that
period, except short-term debts to the Federal Government for special
purposes. Therefore, it is not staggering under the interest and amor-
tization charges which so many of our great cities must carry. Neither
has any part of its income been diverted to the improper enrichment
of individuals, or squandered on ill-advised improvements undertaken
under transitory political pressure. For these reasons the District
government has been able to pay its way as it went, and to provide our
citizens with a continually expanding system of municipal improve-
ments for a continually expanding population. Only in the last few
years, by reason of the rapid increase in population and of the unex-
ampled rise in prices, have we fallen seriously behind on this program.
Largely by virtue of this wise and conservative financial policy,
Washington has escaped a disease which is producing critical effects
in many cities-the disease of excessive decentralization. This has
appeared throughout America with the development of the automo-
bile. It has produced a movement away from the central parts of
American cities of residents in the middle and upper income brackets,
and of the businesses which cater to them. Within limits the process
is inevitable and healthy. But if it goes too far, it can cause blight
and decay in the heart of a community and undermine the founda-
tions of its finances.

Here is what has happened to the assessed values of the central busi-
ness districts, from 1930 to 1946, in some of our big cities: In Mil-
waukee its value declined 39 percent, in Louisville it declined 29 per-
cent, in Philadelphia it declined 51 percent. Detroit has lost $200,-
000,000 in taxes from its central district in 10 years. Baltimore has
lost $53,000,000.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the assessed value of our central dis-
trict increased 5 percent from 1941 to 1946. Since 1946 it has been
increased still further. It pays 22 percent of our real-estate taxes
alone.

Thus, the damage in Washington has been relatively minor. Cer-
tain old residential areas have been blighted. But the central busi-
ness districts have continued to flourish, and to carry much of the
burden of our municipal finances, in a period when similar districts
in other cities have lost a large part of their assessed value.

There would be a peculiar danger to Washington in excessive decentralization. We could not combat it by the course which a city ordinarily adopts-namely, recapturing departed citizens and taxpayers through the annexation of adjacent suburban areas. Once a taxpayer has crossed the borders of the District, his direct contribution to the city's finances is lost forever.

Therefore any financial policy which would load the city with excessive debt and excessive taxation would soon destroy the most important sources of taxation. More and more of our upper- and middleincome classes, more and more of our businesses and corporate taxpayers would move across the line. Decentralization, like inflation, operates in a spiral, and once it is has been set going is hard to check. I shall now turn to an analysis of H. R. 4902 from the two viewpoints of administrative streamlining and home rule.

III. THE DUAL PURPOSE OF H. R. 4902

H. R. 4902 would accomplish two separate and independent ends: (1) It would reorganize, modernize, and streamline the administrative machinery which operates below the first levels of control; (2) it would provide a new elected body at the first level (a District council), in place of the present appointive Commissioners, and would vest this council with wide legislative and financial powers.

This dual purpose is fully recognized in the preliminary report of your subcommittee. It is spelled out on page 2 of that report. Home rule (the report states) would give our people representation, and would relieve Congress of certain burdens; but it would not guarantee an efficient and economical government, even though it did give either representation to our citizens or complete relief to Congress.

H. R. 4902 proposes to make both these changes. But it would be quite practicable to enact legislation providing for either one but not for the other. There could be home rule without reorganization, or reorganization without home rule.

This obvious fact has scarcely been noticed in the current discussions of the subcommittee's report and of H. R. 4902. The reason is probably this: Every American citizen is familiar with the fact and significance of the vote. But very few of our citizens have had experience with executive and administrative work, or understand the importance of good organization in producing good government. Therefore the ordinary man tends to think, in a vague way, that any defect which he observes in the city government is automatically referrable to his lack of a vote, and would be automatically cured by giving it to him. The clear statement by your subcommittee that this is not the case fails to register in the average citizen's mind. Nevertheless the distinction must be recognized in analyzing H. R. 4902.

IV. ADMINISTRATIVE STREAMLINING

The provisions of H. R. 4902 that deal with administrative streamlining are principally contained in titles III, VI, and X.

TITLE X

Enactment of the substance and intent of this title into law would abolish at one stroke most of the autonomous agencies which com

plicate and delay the transaction of District business. In their place would be 12 close-knit departments responsible to a common head. No single step would be more effective in giving the District a smoothrunning, modern, up-to-date administrative machinery. It would have this effect regardless of who the "commo", head" is, or how chosen. Therefore, we wholeheaterdly endorse the purposes of title X. Some further study should, however, be given to the text. In one respect, particularly, we are not certain that the wording accords with the obvious intent of the bill, namely, to place all District departments under the control of a common head. Further comments on this will be submitted later.

TITLE VI

Another part of H. R. 4902 dealing wtih administrative streamlining is title VI. This would create a chief executive or District manager, directly under the first-level body, and in charge of the 12 departThus the two functions which the District Commissioners now exercise-policy making and control of the administrative machinery-would be separated. A group of men would exercise the first, and one man would exercise the second. The arrangement is the same commonly found in a large business organization, with its board of directors and its president or general manager.

If H. R. 4902 is adopted in its entirety, such a District manager, with high-paid assistants and an office force, would unquestionably be needed. It would be out of the question to divide the executive control of the city's departments among 12 elected individuals, no one of whom, at any such salary as is proposed for the District Council in H. R. 4902, could afford to give more than a fraction of his time to his duties.

However, if the consolidation and streamlining of the District departments contemplated in title X were adopted by itself-ultimate control of the city remaining in the hands of three appointed full-time Commissioners the question arises whether it would still be necessary to have a District manager under the Commissioners. We have not made up our minds on this point.

The "commission" form of government has the advantages of compactness and economy in overhead, since the same individuals make policy and perform top-level executive functions. It has the disadvantage of throwing a great burden on the Commissioners. Policy making-which involves lengthy discussions, the study of intricate legal points, frequent public hearings, and constant contacts with Congress consumes a lot of time. The task of running a group of departments is a different form of activity, which also consumes much time. Taken together, they are a heavy load for any group of men to carry. Bringing the present autonomous agencies under central control, as title X contemplates and as we recommend, would make it heavier. It might be that the Commissioners could continue to administer this additional load, as at present. On the other hand, it might be found that this administrative load, added to the Commissioners' primary duty of policy making and the control of the purse strings, would become too great. In that case a single responsible executive under the Commissioners, as contemplated in title VI, would be the solution.