Mr. BURKE, Yes; they are selected for ward representatives. They usually are white and selected by means of gerrymandering and other political technicalities.

They manage always to have a white leader. There are very few Negro leaders, except they work under white leaders.

That same thing is true in Chicago, it is true in St. Louis, it is true in Kansas City.

We are not, as a people, given to political control. We like to work along with our neighbors, and we find that by working with our neighbors, we get better responsive government.

We have not participated in any election in this country where bossism, slimy politics, or skullduggery has turned an election, or Negro treachery, or Negro participation.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that is very interesting. I am glad to have that light.

It is one of those subjects, I find, which people often say that you do not dare touch, that no matter how you feel about it, no matter how sympathetic you feel about it, the minute you touch upon it, some fellow says you should not bring it up.

And that is what I do not like. I would rather bring it out in the open and see what it looks like. That is the reason I am asking you these questions.

Mr. BURKE. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Pardon the interruption; you may proceed.
Mr. BURKE. I am pleased to have it.

On that point we feel we should have all of the people in the District of Columbia help govern the District while they are here, speaking now of those people who come here to help the Government on the Federal side.

The CHAIRMAN. Somehow I cannot take that so well, for this reason: We have now, in time of war, in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million people here who have no idea of making this their permanent residence.

Suppose you had an election now and they could vote; and as a matter of curiosity they probably would vote, if for no other reason. Having 150,000 or 200,000 such people voting would be a big factor in the election.

Now, we will say the war comes to an end and they go back home; maybe they intended to go anyway. They leave the District of Columbia with a council or a District Commissioner, or whatever you want to call it, with whom they will no longer be in touch; in whom they will no longer be interested; but who still will be saddled on, so to speak, the District of Columbia.

Somehow or other that does not ring up true to me; I do not know why.

Mr. BURKE. Well, in that instance, we propose a term of 2 years, and certainly the war effort would not end within the 2-year period, with dire effect upon the District of Columbia and its activities.

What we have in mind, as to allowing all of the citizens to vote, is that we are speaking specifically of this local election and allowing the State laws to govern the absentee voter.

In that instance, the voter here, even if he voted back home, would be voting for but one set of officials. He would not get a chance at two votes.

He would have a chance to vote in the District of Columbia, in effecting the city government here, and if he voted back here and the State laws permitted it, he would be governed by the local law at home. He would not have a chance to vote for a Senator here in the District of Columbia and then go back home and vote for a Senator in his home State, because there would be no voting in the District of Columbia on a national basis; so we feel in that instance that a 2-year term gives the population a responsive control over its city council.

We would like to have city-wide choice rather than having wards or districts, with proportional representation for minorities.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you would have proportional representation set up in the law?

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. For minorities?

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, I want your views on that. Do you not think that that would arouse the opposition and antagonism of your minority group if it was set up right squarely in the law and it said, "You cannot have any more than this"?

I am not saying as a group it would, but do you not think that many in the group would say "This law is set up against the minority, against the Negro"?

Mr. BURKE. I would say "No," based on my experience in Cincinnati and New York.

They feel that that is a principle and protection, and at the same time it assures our white neighborhoods that we would have no more than our proportional representation in the council and that we would not become the dominant voice but would become the cooperative voice based upon our numerical strength in the city.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you. Have you anything further?

Mr. BURKE. We would like to have the election in May, and as I mentioned, for a term of 2 years. That is to avoid the usual election seasons in other States.

At the same time we recognize that the Federal Government has a primary interest in the District of Columbia and is anxious to preserve that interest, but we also know that Congress is entirely too busy with national and international affairs to act as a city council for the District of Columbia.

Now, we are very desirous of knowing one another better, politically and economically, and we feel that goal can best be obtained by working together on every front, and we think that the McCarran bill, the whole home-rule bill, is a step in the right direction of permitting the residents of the District of Columbia to get together and work out their own destiny, and of permitting them to vote.

We feel that the citizens of both races in this city are capable of making a contribution in the advancement of the science of government.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
Now, is Mr. Millard here?

93606-44-12

STATEMENT OF WALTER J. MILLARD, FIELD SECRETARY, NATIONAL MUNICIPAL LEAGUE, CINCINNATI, OHIO

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Millard, kindly state your name and your place of residence, and any group or organization you may represent.

Mr. MILLARD. My name, Senator, is Walter J. Millard, and I am a citizen of Greater Cincinnati. My home is actually at the moment a mile and a half from the city limits of Cincinnati, though for many years I was in the city.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been in the District of Columbia?

Mr. MILLARD. About 4 hours. I happened to come for another reason. My good friend, Congressman Kefauver, of Tennessee, has introduced a bill providing for Question Day, and since one of the organizations I officially represent is interested in the idea, I came to call on him.

Last night I picked up a newspaper and found that you had introduced a bill on the city manager plan, and that is why I got in touch with Mr. Sourwine, and that is why I am here.

I have no stack of literature with me-what I will tell you shall come out of my head-although I can send that afterward.

I am the field secretary of the National Municipal League. This organization, which will have its fiftieth anniversary next year, was founded by Theodore Roosevelt, the late Charles Bonaparte of Baltimore, and the late Justice Brandeis, as an agency for bettering local government, as the result of the famous remark of Ambassador-and afterward Viscount-Bryce, that the outstanding failure of American government is the government of its cities.

That statement is to be found in American Commonwealth which is the book he wrote in order to explain American government to the rest of the world, because he was so interested in it.

Now, they believed that while it was true it need not be true, and they formed this organization in Philadelphia 50 years ago.

Very soon after it came into existence, there was set up a model charter committee as a means of offering leadership to the municipalities of the United States for the best form of government.

The chairman of the committee was Dr. A. Lawrence Lowell, who was afterward president of Harvard and who died last year, but he retained his chairmanship of the committee all those years.

The first proposal was a betterment of the then usual system for most American cities, which was a mayor who practically had no powers.

So, as the result of the experience of Mayor Grover Cleveland-afterward President-and at his suggestion, mainly because he found he really had no power in Buffalo, and the power was divided among 22 boards and commissions-he proposed a strong mayor plan; a mayor who appointed his subordinates and really had power.

The result of it was that a good many cities changed their form of government to that, and it was better than the old; there was no doubt about it.

Later, as the result of a tidal wave in 1900 that affected Galveston, a form of government sprang up, as it were, out of the situation, called the commission form of government, in which a group of men, about

five, divided among them the two basic powers of municipal govern

ment.

One has the determination of what shall be done, and they sit together as a council and then each individually takes care of a depart

ment.

The effect was that, without much thought, a great many cities of the United States adopted it; in fact, in some States they were compelled to adopt it, because there was very little home rule in those days.

However, the National Municipal League and its subcommittee was not satisfied, and about the year, I would say, 1917, a proposal was made that a city be governed in a manner very similar to a business, in which there is a board of directors, who select a trained administrator. The attempt made by Mr. Richard S. Childs, the first published statement that we have, who, at the time, was the director of the Short Ballot Association, resulted in a movement for having fewer officials to vote for, so that we could concentrate our attention on them. And his colleague in that organization was afterward President Woodrow Wilson.

Mr. Richard S. Childs proposed this to the city of Lockport, N. Y., but it had to go through the legislature and the legislature turned it down.

By almost one mind-call it instinct and intelligence-two cities still dispute whether they were the first city to have a city manager. One is Sumter, S. C., and the other is Staunton, Va.

But it is probable that Staunton was the first one to use the term "city manager," and it obtained from the Legislature of Virginia the right to have the system.

That, I think, was in 1908.

Today there are, if I remember correctly, 557 city-manager cities or villages or towns. The designation changes from State to State. For instance, Winnetka, Ill., has a village manager, but the village has 11,000 peole in it; yet there is a city in New Jersey, Bendix, which is a city having but 29 registered voters.

The total number of persons now who are receiving service from city managers are over 112 million. The largest city that has it is my home city of Cincinnati. For a while Cleveland had it, and I was the person who laid the educational movement in Cleveland, because my work since 1919 has been to get the city-manager plan used. I have made more speeches in more places concerning the plan than any other living man.

Directly the plan was applied, it seemed to operate well, and the National Municipal League Subcommittee rewrote its model charter, and the basis of that charter is the basis of your bill, that there shall be a trained, competent administrator selected and appointed, and responsible to a policy-making body.

Now, I think it is of historical interest that 5 years ago a scholar discovered that when this District was set up, George Washington himself was asked his opinion as to how it should be governed. And I should be very glad to send you the actual verbiage of his letter. He does not use the term "city manager," but he does call the officer a superintendent, and he says he should be selected by the commission and responsible to them, and he should be a man of property and judgment and training.

It is therefore of interest that you are reviving the method which the Father of our Country proposed for the great city and center of the government, named after him.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, we dig up old things every now and then.

Mr. MILLARD. Now, I would like, therefore, because I have read the bill in the few minutes I have been in here, to take up with you those places at which the proposal is in line with this general pattern which has been set down and where there are differences, and then, of course, you can decide whether the differences for the special purposes of the District of Columbia are needed or not, or what changes would be made.

I would first of all dwell upon the manager, and then with another phase of the matter.

Now, the bill reads:

The city manager of the District of Columbia shall be appointed for a term of six years, subject to removal for misconduct, after public hearing, by concurrence of any five Commissioners.

There is no city manager at present under a contract or term. Every one of them holds his office without term.

They have consistently gone on record in favor of that. They have an organization known as the International City Managers Association-and by the way, there are now city managers all over the world, particularly in the English-speaking parts of the world, and in a sense, as someone said, it is the only political device, since our own Constitution was adopted for the Nation, which we have exported.

There are city managers now in England. I was born there, although I have been a citizen here for a good many years; and they are very proud of their local government and its methods; and they are turning to the city-manager plan.

Ireland has a city manager for Dublin, and there is a minister of municipalities in the national capital who has announced that every Irish city will have a city manager as soon as the scheme for training men on a national scope can be set up.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the first time I ever knew that the Irish would let themselves be managed.

Mr. BURKE. May I state this, that having an Irish grandmother on both sides of the house, I have a right to say something on behalf of the Irish, because I was in Ireland after the adoption of the new form of government, and what I found was that an Irishman-and they certainly are in politics all over the world-went back to Ireland, and when they asked him, "Now, what is the best?" he forgot the political tricks they played in their own country and he said, "This is the best." And it was an Irishman in government in another part of the world who took the word back to Ireland that the best form of local government is the city-manager plan.

Now, as I say, he would be the city manager under a term of years. Now, whether he would be admitted to the International City Managers Association because he would have a term, I do not know; but they have consistently held that they preferred them to be without

term.

In other words, you can fire them in 5 minutes.

However, with this proposal which you have that they be given a public hearing before removal, mostly it is on majority of their council and not an extra majority.