government, if there is anything in the voice of the people. I do not believe that the voice of such people within the District of Columbia, who want to exercise that franchise, will be misguided in its application of whatever powers have already been and are now reposed in the Board of Commissioners. There is no additional power, as I see it. I challenge anyone to point out to me any one additional grant of legislative authority or any other than the present Board of Commissioners now have. I am in favor of that and I think that that question is entirely divorced from and it is entirely separate from the question of the right to vote for President or national representation. They are entirely separate propositions and I will tell you why: This can be established without a constitutional amendment. The others will have to be established by a constitutional amendment. The variations between the kind of government that will be set up, because there are different conditions in the District of Columbia, the variations between the form of the State government as we have it in the States and the government that will have to be set up in the District of Columbia, whatever it may be, can all be covered by the same constitutional amendment that will have to be enacted to give us the right to either vote for President or for representatives in the national Congress, whatever that may be, whether it is Senators, Representatives, or both or whether we elect Representatives in conjunction with the State of Maryland, whatever it may be.

That can all be worked out in a constitutional amendment. That is a long, difficult hard road, because it requires not only two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, but it requires three-fourths of the States.

Here is something that we can get that certainly will not deprive us of one thing that we now have and will give us an opportunity to demonstrate that we, in common with all other citizens of the United States, are capable of local self-government.

That is all there is to it.

The question of whether there ought to be 7 Commissioners, 9 Commissioners, or 11, or 15, and whether 12 of them should be elected by wards and 3 at large is somewhat of a secondary question. It is a question of opinion. This bill as it is now drawn may be the better way of doing it. It is my opinion against your opinion or against somebody else's opinion. We all might differ on it. The thing that we want is a bill of this nature, worked out along the lines of this bill. I say, "along the lines of this bill," because I cannot see where it can do any harm because we are simply transferring an appointive government to an elective Commission. We are transferring what we now have to this elective Commission. If in your conclusion you finally decide that 7 is not a large enough Commission, then whatever your judgment suggests on that, because there will be a difference of opinion, it will finally be for you to compromise it; but do not let any amendatory provisions imperil the passage of the act. It is a workable act as it is. These are, the other things are, a difference of opinion of men as to the administrative application of the act, whether they want 7. So far as that is concerned, if we try it and we conclude that 7 is not enough, you can raise it to 11 by a very simple amendment, but let us get the thing into operation, try it out and see where we get. We know it cannot hurt anything. If we lose both of them we will be clear out.

I think that that voices our opinion on it and as I say, we are satisfied with the bill as it is, if that is your best judgment on it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. CONNAUGHTON. If there are any question, I would be happy to answer them.

Thank you for your consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. Is Miss Dorothy S. Strange here?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Cora Wilkinson?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harry Wender; is he here?

Come forward, state your name, residence, and what, if any, organization you assume to represent.

STATEMENT OF HARRY S. WENDER, WASHINGTON, D. C., PRESI DENT, FEDERATION OF CITIZENS' ASSOCIATIONS, OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. WENDER. My name is Harry S. Wender. I live at 6432 Thirtyfirst Place NW. I am a member of the District bar, with offices in the Woodward Building.

The CHAIRMAN. General practice?

Mr WENDER. Yes. I have practiced in the District of Columbiathis is now my twelfth year. I am a lifelong resident of the District and my family has lived in Washington for more than 60 years.

I was born in Knoxville, Tenn., but shortly after my birth my family moved back to Washington, where my mother had lived since her early childhood.

I am president of the Federation of Citizens' Associations of the District of Columbia. I shall tell you more about the federation in a moment, but I think it is best for the purpose of the record to state something of my experience in connection with the subject matter of the hearing this morning.

I am now serving my second year as president of the federation. Before that, I served for 3 years as first vice president and for 3 years as chairman of its law and legislation committee.

I have been connected with civic organizations in Washington since my admission to the bar. I have been a delegate to the Federation of Citizens' Associations for 12 years from the Southwest Citizens' Association, and chairman of its law and legislation committee for 12 years. I have served 5 years as president of the Southwest association, which is the oldest citizens' organization in the community.

For 3 years I was its secretary and I am now chairman of its executive committee. I am one of the founders of the District Suffrage Association and for 5 years I have served as a vice president. For a similar period of time, I have served as a member of the citizens' joint committee on national representation, of which Mr. Theodore W. Noyes is chairman.

For 3 years I have been a member of the district delegate committee, of which I was an organizer. Mr. E. Barrett Prettyman is chairman of the committee.

Several months ago I was appointed chairman of the District of Columbia Bar Association committee on suffrage.

I may say in passing, that I do not represent the bar association and am not speaking for it at this hearing. The bar association has not acted on this bill.

For the record it should be stated that the bar association, historically, has supported suffrage proposals, including national representation and local suffrage proposals and the District delegate bill. Our organization also has supported legislation to permit the popular election of delegates to political party conventions from the District of Columbia.

I have attended and participated in all of the congressional hearings on suffrage and national representation during approximately the past 10 years. I do not pretend to be an expert, because there probably is no such thing as an expert on this very controversial subject, but I do endeavor to be a student of the subject. For that reason during my experience in this work, I have attempted to create and maintain a file on all publications, all newspaper stories, editorials, and so forth, that have appeared during that period. I brought only a very small fraction of my file here this morning and a smaller fraction of that appears before me, including some pertinent material which I trust the committee will want to examine and have inserted in the record. I do not pretend to have a file comparable to that as such distinguished proponents of national suffrage as Mr. Noyes or Mr. Jesse C. Suter, who is in the committee room, but I have done my best to prepare for any questions that the committee might want to ask on this subject.

I think I am familiar with most of the opponents to this bill, who have appeared before the committee, whom I have either personally observed or whose testimony I have read in the newspapers or in the record.

Before my testimony is concluded I hope to be able to give some reasonable explanation for the various types of opposition to local suffrage which we find.

Before going into the general part of my testimony I should specifically like to give to the committee the official material which I have in my files, part of which belong to the District Suffrage Association which was the primary sponsor of the conference which brought about the referendum on suffrage conducted by the citizens of the District of Columbia on April 30, 1938. Undoubtedly this represents the most significant unofficial referendum of its kind that has ever been held in this country. Surely more people without compulsion and without official right to vote participated in this referendum than in any other similar event in our history.

As I say, this was sponsored by the suffrage association, which has been virtually inactive for the past year or so. The files have been deposited with me for safekeeping and I take this opportunity to present some of that material to you.

The first question is, or should be, "Who sponsored this plebiscite?" I dare say that there never has been any proposition put before the people of this community or, perhaps, of any other community in a representative way where the sponsoring groups were more allinclusive than this. I have here the list of 279 organizations, small and large, which participated in the Citizens' Conference on Suffrage. I do not suggest that all these organizations supported then or now

support District suffrage. As a matter of fact, some of them did oppose suffrage in all of its forms, and do now. The point that I make is that they had the democratic right of participation in preparing the rules for the referendum and seeing to it that all phases of public thought were recognized.

(The list referred to is as follows:)

LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE CITIZEN'S CONFERENCE ON DISTRICT SUFFRAGE

American University Park Citizens' As- Metropolis View Citizens' Association. sociation.

Anacostia Citizens' Association.
Barry Farm Citizens' Association.
Bennings-Glendale-Oakland Civic Asso-

Central Northwest Citizens' Associa- Rhode Island Avenue Citizens' Association.

LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS AFFILIATED WITH THE CITIZEN'S CONFERENCE ON DISTRICT SUFFRAGE Continued

Musicians Guild Organization Commit- Brookland-Noyes Parent-Teacher Astee.

Washington Section, National Council Stuart Junior High Parent-Teacher As