with this type of appointment because the District Commissioners' present citizens advisory council has no representation from either of the two civic federations of the District with a total membership of approximately 50,000 citizens and voters. This has been a tool of a small clicque working from the White House.

There has been no evidence presented that the President's plan will reduce crime which has risen more than 255% in the past ten years, and is still climbing. Many of our members believe that the remedy to crime in the District lies in the courts, not in anything else the White House or the Commissioners can do. We are alarmed at the increasing evidence of a complete working relationship of the Executive Department with the Judicial Department which strikes at the basic principle of our government, the separation of powers. In the case of the proposed reorganization the Executive Department takes over the complete control of the 31,000 employees of the District with no safeguards written into the Executive Order.

The only man I know of from the District who has admitted that he had any knowledge of the President's Reorganization plan before it was released is David Carliner. His wife, Mariam, was listed as a staff analyst for the Committee on Education and Labor in its Investigation of the Schools and Poverty in the District of Columbia. I have been told that Mariam Carliner and John R. Kramer, Counsel for this same Committee, are both personal friends of Judge David Bazelon and that the three were active in developing the attack on Dr. Hansen and the D.C. school system of which the hearings held in 1965 and 1966 were a part and of which the suit brought by Julius Hobson was another part.

In the hearings of the above Committee, Judge Bazelon appears as David Bazelon, advisor to the Model School program. In this he is closely identified with the plan to develop a program which would supplant the regular school system of the District. This is the same Judge Bazelon who, if he did not actually arrange for the transfer of Judge J. Skelly Wright to this court, was at least in such a position that Judge Wright would not have been appointed without his blessing. The views of Judge Wright in Louisiana were quite well known and any decision of his could have been freely predicted. It was by design that Judge Wright was assigned this case.

Nor has the picture completely unfolded. The Reorganization Plan has the admitted support of the White House. Could Julius Hobson, a full-time employee of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, have brought suit against the Board of Education of the District of Columbia, which is administered by the Executive Department, without its knowledge and concurrence? Was it a coincidence that our judges appointed another full-time employee of H.E.W. to the District Board of Education?

I was present at a meeting of the D.C. Board of Education last Saturday when it voted to set up a committee to select a new superintendent. They not only voted to ask HEW and the Office of Education for suggestions, which is a very good idea, but voted to submit the final list again to the Office of Education. The inference is that the final selection will be subject to the approval of the Office of Education and not our Board of Education. The fact that the chairman of this selection committee is the full-time employee of HEW minimizes the importance of this submission.

I understand also that the D.C. Board of Higher Education and the D.C. Board of Vocational Education are actually appointed by the President. Both of these Boards are dragging their feet. This is the type of leadership failure we get from the White House when education of District children is concerned. This failure of the White House has been vigorously protested by Senator Wayne Morse and we share his concern and anger at this neglect of the District's school needs.

Senator Morse's criticism of the court-appointed Board of Education for denying to Dr. Hansen the right to appeal a court decision which in effect branded him as a racist is well taken and is further proof of an alliance between parties of the court and parties in the office of the President of the United States with a dominant interest in the new board.

You ask us what will happen under the Reorganization Plan and I submit that we already have an example of White House domination of the District combined with a White House dominated District Court and even the U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. We have problems here with our courts which no other jurisdiction in the United States has.

I have dwelled at length on the reckless course of the present Board of Education because it shows what is in store for us if the Reorganization Plan with its built-in White House domination and control is allowed to pass into law.

We think the President's plan misses the essential point, to make this city self-supporting, to give it a tax base which will support it, and which will bring the talent of the suburban areas into the picture to help solve our problems.

One of the possible solutions would be to expand the District to include the counties in the metropolitan areas of Virginia and Maryland, and this could be done by a Constitutional Amendment, and we would find this far more acceptable than the President's plan which will only make matters worse. I would like to suggest for your consideration the following paragraph to be included in the Constitutional amendments offered by Senators Mansfield, and Dirksen, and Congressman Broyhill :

"To amend Section 8, article 1 of the Constitution to read as follows: "To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District (including the District of Columbia, and Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties in Maryland, and Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States.'"

Congressman John J. Rhodes, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, in his strong criticism of the President's Plan, said that "Home Rule' has been demonstrated to be a failure because of the lack of a tax base", and the President's plan is entirely lacking in any proposal which would even begin to deal with this basic failure. The lack of a tax base is complicated by the flight of business and citizens to the suburbs, and the failure of suburbanites who live and work in the District to contribute to the financing of the District by the payment of taxes. The Reorganization Plan will hasten this flight to the suburbs. The soft attitude of the courts of the District toward crime is driving businesses to the suburbs. The Judge J. Skelly Wright decision will drive to the suburbs the citizens, both white and Negro, who are most concerned about the education of their children.

The above suggested amendment would solve these matters, but the President's plan doesn't even recognize their existence, nor does his plan for representation in the Congress which is before the House Judiciary Committee and on which hearings will begin next week.

The entire Federal housing policy and other Federal programs have for years operated to destroy this city and other cities, while, at the same time, they have operated to build up the suburbs at the expense of the central city areas.

We do not think this reorganization plan, if it is adopted, will do a single thing to restore the core of this city to its former health and vitality. It ignores the real problems of the central city, just as successive Administrations and the White House have.

We were impressed by the testimony of former District Commissioner F. Joseph Donohue, that the reasons the Commissioner form of government had failed to work any better was because of the office created in the White House of Advisor for National Capital Affairs. This office will be continued, and it will undoubtedly be found that even if the reorganization plan is adopted, it won't work any better because the White House Advisor will continue to dominate the affairs of the City, through the appointment of the Mayor and City Council members.

We would agree with Congressman Rhodes who said "there is a serious question" as to whether any responsible decision can come out of an appointed nineman City Council. He based his view on the fact that the President's plan would authorize the single Commissioner to veto actions of the City Council with which he disagrees, but will permit the Council in turn to over-ride the Commissioner's veto by a three-fourths vote of its members present and voting, and it requires only five of the nine members to constitute a quorum. He adds: "Thus, a minority of the members of the City Council can over-ride the veto of the single Commissioner. Significantly, the President himself has omitted to provide for a White House veto, which would bring all these matters back to Congress for resolution without the guidance of White House action or responsibility."

We urge this Committee to reject the President's plan. I would also like to request that my testimony before the Government Operations Committee be included at this point in the hearing record.

We would like to comment, at this point, on the kind of attitude toward the Congress and community which this reorganization will spawn if it is adopted. The Washington Post, which is, without doubt, the prime force back of this meas

ure outside the White House was forced to take one of its proteges, David Carliner to task within 24-hours after he tried his sit-in tactics on this Committee last Thursday morning. This is the Post version of the event:

"David Carliner, co-chairman of a group supporting reorganization of the city's government, took his appeal for a hearing yesterday to House Speaker John W. McCormack (D-Mass.).

"In the process, he angered McCormack, who charged him with being discourteous and trying to use the Speaker to gain publicity.

"It was the second bad day in a row for Carliner. He was cut off Thursday when he tried to speak during a House District subcommittee hearing on the President's reorganization proposal. Subcommittee Chairman Thomas G. Abernethy (D-Miss.) called the police after he was unable to gavel Carliner into silence."

It would be interesting to know what Carliner's full role is in this drama. As a person exeprienced in Congressional protocol and custom his actions of last week could not have been accidental but must have been planned for a specific purpose unless his own personal interest in the Reorganization Plan is so great that he could not restrain himself.

We have raised many questions as to the source of the President's plan and have not received many answers but we suspect that Mr. Carliner could say a great deal about the plan and how it was developed.

The Post makes no defense of its protege, and reports that even the Speaker of the House, John W. McCormack, "told Carliner that he would prefer to see the city have home rule with an elected mayor, counsel and an elected School Board." Significantly, Speaker McCormack didn't call for voting Representation in the Congress, which is part of the President's program, and which is enjoyed by everyone of Speaker McCormack's constitutents back in Massachusetts. Or, if he did, the Post is silent on this point.

There are a great many liberal members of the Congress who are for the socalled "Home Rule" bill but who have never knowingly supported voting representation in the Congress for District citizens.

There is another kind of attitude with which we are concerned, and this is the attitude which the White House has shown in recent years towards the District Commissioners, and, unfortunately, it is a very cavalier attitude. That this is so was made clear in the hearings held by the House Government Operations Committee where we find this colloquy on pages 177 and 178 of the printed Hearings: "Congressman EDWARDS. Mr. Tobriner, I guess I have got a thing about this Collett report. What do you know about it?

Mr. TOBRINER. Very little. I think Mr. Collett was consulted by the administration in developing a reorganization plan.

"The provisions of the Collett report, the extent of their adoption or their rejection in the formulation of this plan, are unknown to me.

"Congressman EDWARDS. Are what?

"Mr. TOBRINER. Unknown.

"Congressman EDWARDS. Who is Mr. Collett?

"Mr. TOBRINER. Mr. Collett, I believe at one time-and this is mere guesswork on my part-was employed by a Government agency and is currently a consultant on economic and governmental affairs.

"Congressman EDWARDS. And who did he report to?

"Mr. TOBRINER. I couldn't tell you.

"Congressman EDWARDS. You don't know who authorized this report?

"Mr. TOBRINER. No, sir.

"Congressman EDWARDS. And yet it is supposed to have to do with the reorganization of the District government?

"Mr. TOBRINER. Yes.

"Congressman EDWARDS. Do you know who has the report?

"Mr. TOBRINER. I think the Bureau of the Budget has a copy of his report. "Congressman EDWARDS. Do you know how they got into the act?

"Mr. TOBRINER. No, sir."

This exchange seems to us to substantiate a reply which Mr. Tobriner made earlier to Congressman Brown (page 176) in the Hearings, when Congressman Brown asked this question: "Do the Commissioners at present have much contact with the White House in terms of the routine functioning of the District government?" Commissioner Tobriner's reply is most illuminating, and actually spotlights the real problem as we see it today in District life which has deteriorated in most areas, particularly crime. Mr. Tobriner's reply was, and we quote: "Not a great deal."

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The question then becomes, who is running the District? Certainly you cannot expect the commissioners to admit that all of the orders come from the White House!

The power of the House District Committee to influence matters has been declining for some time. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that the Government Operations Committee, which has had no experience at all with District affairs, is handling the President's Reorganization Plan.

The District Commissioners themselves claim that they have not had a great deal of contact with the White House, and they claim that the present system has not been able to deal adequately with District affairs, and state they think conditions will improve if the President's plan is adopted.

But they were not consulted by Mr. Collett in his study of the District government. Just who Mr. Collett did consult with in the District government is not made clear. Perhaps he consulted with a disgruntled employee or employees. Mr. Collett says he was requested, by Mr. Elmer B. Staats, then Deputy Director of the Bureau of the Budget, to make "a reconnaissance of management improvement in the District of Columbia government . . . as a result of that reconnaissance, supplemented by facts gained during subsequent contacts directly with the District government, I came to the conclusion that a separation of policy and executive functions and the creation of a single executive for the District of Columbia is imperative."

It is my understanding as a result of a meeting with Mr. Collett convened by the D.C. Office of General Administration before his report was issued that Mr. Collett was studying only one segment of the city's administration concerned with the creation of a Youth Council with particular references to proposed changes in the Department of Welfare. As this department has expanded very rapidly in recent years it is easy to see that Mr. Collett would get a picture of confusion but this is like the proverbial blind man describing an elephant based on an examination of the left hind leg.

Mr. Collett's remarks on need for improvement in the relationships of the various boards and departments should be given serious consideration. Yet this is an area which can be developed as successfully under the present commission set-up as it can under the proposed reorganization plan. This emphasizes the important point that the Reorganization Plan does not address itself to the really organizational problems of the District but simply transfers control and power of the District Government to a White-House appointed Council. One of the few things which the Collett Report contains which seems to us to have any basis in fact at all is the statement that:

"Uncertainty is heightened by over 200 citizens who serve on Commissionerappointed advisory boards, councils, and committees many of which operate as public support for the departments with which they are associated rather than being advisory to the Commissioners on the conduct of those departments. Though many of these citizens are members of citizen, fraternal, business, or service groups they are not appointed as such. As a result the organizations to which they belong and in which they may carry considerable weight are conveniently never placed in the position of having to accept responsibility for direct participation in the government of the District of Columbia."

His concern about the role of the citizens is not reflected in the Reorganization Plan which would further minimize the role of citizens by the substitution of an appointed Council. At this time, the Commissioner's Citizens Advisory Council does not include a single representative from the two Civic Federations of the District, which with their combined membership of nearly 50.000 members and with their families represent a majority of the voters of the District. We think the District Commissioners, and the White House would greatly benefit by turning to the two civic Federations for advice, but this is seldom done, and the District has suffered as a result. The President's Reorganzation Plan ignores the two civic Federations, and, in fact, its authors totally ignored them in developing the President's plan.

We want to be completely fair to the Collett Report, because of the importance which the Budget Bureau obviously attached to it. For this reason, we would like to call attention to one other paragraph in the report which has merit. This appears on page 320 of the printed Hearings of the Government Operations Committee on the President's plan and reads as follows:

"At the present time the Board of Commissioners is criticized regarding employment. more adequate housing, and provisions of capital outlay facilities with greater speed. The facts are these: (1) The District of Columbia Employ

ment Service is directly administered by the U.S. Department of Labor; (2) The National Capital Housing Authority was created by a Presidential Executive Order with a totally ex officio board and financed by separate congressional appropriations; (3) the Relocation Land Agency, governed by two Presidential and three Board of Commissioner appointees who are confirmed by the Senate, reports its activities directly to Congress and is financed by Federal funds; and (4) the National Capital Planning Commission, a Federal agency, has planning, approving, and executing (for example, in the acquisition of parklands) authority, and the Fine Arts Commission, another Federal agency, approving authority, over activities and programs vital to the District."

Mr. Collett adds:

"Should the first two functions, employment and housing, be transferred in whole or in part to the District government, additional changes would logically follow within the District structure by grouping with them presently separate departments or offices for economy and more effective service.

"The National Capital Planning Commission and the Fine Arts Commission represent an almost exclusive exercise of Federal interest at present. Possibly they should be cast in a common role of approving or disapproving District plans. It may be that the two Commissions should be combined. Planning Commission authority might properly be extended over the region-there being so much Federal agency building in the metropolitan area. Certainly recognition of both Federal and local interest in the makeup of their membership would require study and evaluation."

The President's plan obviously paid no attention to these cogent views of Mr. Collett, and, in fact, they are wholly gratuitous, for he says, with regard to employment, housing, and planning that:

"I have not been called upon to study them. . . . They require study, and I am sure the decisions would have to be made in the political arena."

We are disturbed that the President's plan entirely avoids these matters which are central to the problems which afflict the District. We are, we might add, extremely interested in Mr. Collet's statement that:

"The National Capital Planning Commission and the Fine Arts Commission represent an almost exclusive exercise of Federal interest at present."

Our interest stems from our concern with the Comprehensive Plan for 1985 which was developed by the National Capital Planning Commission and which, if carried out, would cost the taxpayers of the District and of the Nation a staggering total of $8 billion dollars.

What are the taxpayers going to get for their money?

There is almost total dissatisfaction with the plan on the part of District citizens and taxpayers, and with the Federal interest back of it.

Leonard B. Doggett, Jr., president of the Washington Board of Trade, who has been trying to respond to Vice President Humphrey's call for jobs in private commerce and industry to stop summer violence before it begins, says of this fantastic $8 billion dollar plan that it calls for:

"A continued increase in the number of low-income households instead of daring to make a change in the physical shape of the city to reverse the trend." He termed it a plan "without economic foundation. . . . Here is a real opportunity to broaden the tax base and provide job opportunities for the residents of the District. The plan is silent on a sound economic development program to enhance private employment and appears to depend on a dole of Federal jobs."

In a letter to NCPC Chairman Elizabeth Rowe, Mr. Doggett said the Comprehensive Plan for 1985 offers "no solution to the social and economic ills of the city (and) wishes away to the suburbs the critical problems of inadequate housing and unemployment."

The Washington Building Congress said the solution to the city's problems could be found in (1) a very substantial reduction in the number of families requiring public assistance; (2) the return to the city of many white families; (3) the movement to the suburbs of many Negro families who "will desire to live and work in the suburbs once it is made possible and easy for them to do so"; (4) a sharp reduction in the number of poor and ill-adjusted families from the rural south; and (5) adoption of birth control measures to ultimately overcome increasing population pressures.

Your Committee should concern itself with the NCPC and the Comprehensive Plan for 1985 if it really wants to do something to aid the Federal City. Certainly there is nothing in the President's plan which will do anything but aggravate our real problems.