am here on my own. No one in the Department sent me, but I have been a friend of Mr. Washington's for many years. I was a student at Howard University under Mr. Washington. I took a course in commercial law from him and I served under Mr. Washington as Assistant Chief Engineer while at the Public Service Commission.

And during my many years, which have been more than 20, I have never had an occasion to see anyone question the integrity of Mr. Washington, not only while he was a member, or rather Chairman of the Public Service Commission, but while he was a professor of law at Howard University or while he was dean of the law school or on any other occasion.

Mr. Washington's character is of the highest. I can remember occasions when we were having hearings with the Potomac Electric Power Co. that Mr. Washington advised us to have lunch with other members of the Commission staff rather than have lunch with a member of the Potomac Electric Power Co.'s staff in order to get an atmosphere of cordiality, not one of overfriendliness.

And I would like to conclude by saying that I believe that Mr. Washington in his impartial stature has permitted anyone to take part in hearings, not only while we were holding hearings for Pepco, but while we were holding hearings for the taxicab industry and such associations as Mr. Curtis' which represents only three or four people, always had an opportunity to come before the Commission during hearings and state their views.

He has never at any time during the time that I have known him. been partial to any organization or any class or group of people. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. CLARK. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mr. Washington, we will be glad to hear further from you.

Mr. WASHINGTON. Mr. Chairman, and Senator Cotton, I would like to state at the outset that I conferred with Secretary Volpe about this matter, submitted all of the papers that have been filed as of that date to him.

We discussed it for about an hour in his office. Before then I conferred with Mr. Joseph Bosco, his special assistant there and pointed out and gave him copies. As a matter of fact, I gave him all of the

papers.

The second thing that I would like to state, this matter has been before the Supreme Court. It was before the Supreme Court in May of this year. Mr. Curtis filed not only a petition for a writ of certiorari, but he also filed a motion to remand. And the basis of that motion to remand to the Supreme Court which was filed in May was alleged conflict of interest on my part, and this is the paper that I have here. If you would like to have it for the record, you may have it.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. WASHINGTON. So the document that Mr. Curtis is talking about is a motion for rehearing. But the Supreme Court in May, I believe, or the first part of June, denied his petition for certiorari and also denied the motion for remand which was filed there at that time. I can only repeat

Senator COTTON. Excuse me, your point is that this question concerning employment of your children, do I understand, has already been brought to the attention of the Supreme Court of the United States?

Mr. WASHINGTON. That is right, sir. In May of this year on the motion to remand.

Senator COTTON. And subsequent to that they denied the motion? Mr. WASHINGTON. Subsequent to that they denied the motion and the petition for certiorari. The only thing that I would like to say now, of course, is simply this, with reference to the telephone hearing, it commenced in 1963, I believe. The telephone company asked for a rate increase of $10.5 million. The Commission allowed $2.3 million.

We discovered after the first phase of that hearing that our decision was on the low side because in the intervening months it was discovered that the rates were almost at a confiscatory level at the time that we began. We did not allow a return of 8 percent. It was 6.25 percent, which we allowed. It was on the low side insofar as rate commissions are concerned. I might also mention with reference to that opinion, the decision of the Commission was affirmed by the district court on its merit.

It was affirmed by the court of appeals on its own merits and the petition of certiorari was denied in the Supreme Court.

With reference to the question of the employment of my children, I did not know of my daughter's employment with the company at all. I understand from her that she responded to an advertisement in the paper, went down there, took the examination, passed it, and became a service representative for the telephone company.

And later because of her proficiency in English and writing, she was made a writer of some sort in the public relations department where she prepared a book for circulation to the public schools in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Curtis came to my office as my affidavit indicates one time and said he heard-it was during the proceedings in the case, that-that he heard a rumor to the effect that he heard my daughter was employed at the telephone company. I responded to that by saying it was a fact and at that time I invited him if he wished to make a motion before the Commission with regard to my qualifications to act as the Hearing Examiner in the case he should do so. He smiled and went out of the office.

So he has known of this matter for some time. And I cannot say whether he knew or did not know of the summer employment of my two sons. I cannot say that.

The CHAIRMAN. And your daughter's name is Mrs. Alexander.

Mr. WASHINGTON. My daughter's name is Mrs. Grace Charlotte Alexander and she was married at that time and living separate and apart.

The CHAIRMAN. I suspect she applied for the job under the name Alexander?

Mr. WASHINGTON. She was employed under the name Alexander. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

Mr. WASHINGTON. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Curtis.

We have a short time here before we have to recess.

Mr. CURTIS. Apparently, there seems to be some difference in the recollection of the facts. I never came to Mr. Washington's office. I wanted to be clear that you understand that. I never came to his office to discuss this.

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I called Mr. Greco as I stated earlier. I called Mr. Greco and told him that I had heard this rumor and the story I stated earlier, is the story. Now, if Mr. Washington has a different recollection, he certainly is entitled to his own recollection. I gave you my recollection and I will be glad to take the oath and say this is a fact.

I notice first, that, Mr. Washington does not say that he ever told me that he also had two children working for the telephone company who are living in his own home, and I would like, I don't know, I would love to suggest that you should put him under oath and ask him did he ever tell me, did he ever make any public disclosure that he had three children working for the telephone company, not one.

I had a suspicion that he had one, but I never knew until he filed this affidavit a couple of weeks ago that he had three children working for the telphone company while I was trying to practice a case in front of him.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that one week's employment, that might have gone by so fast that maybe he didn't know about it. He, with eight children, he might not have communicated with one of them in any given week.

Mr. CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, if you take a look at the affidavit of him and Mr. Zahn, you will see that at one time he had three children working simultaneously and one child worked two summers. What I asked the Supreme Court to do was to send the case back and see who were these people who were actually employed in addition to the three that he admitted and I wanted to have them inquire as to whether he received any economic benefit or political support from these people.

In other words, did he personally profit from the fact that he sent them over for jobs? His daughter is described as a lady of great intelligence. I never met her and I don't want to attack her. Yet, if she is a lady of great intelligence, she should have known that she should not apply to a public utility or anything regulated by her father at a time when he had this job. There were a lot of other places where she might apply.

If she was a schoolteacher, she should have gone to the school to save her father the embarrassment. She should have gone to the Hecht Co. We have plenty of other places, or to any other agency in the Federal Government, or, as a matter of fact, to the telephone company in Virginia or Maryland. That might not have been so bad. Now, Mr. Greco stated that Mr. Zahn first learned about this at a cocktail party at the house of Mr. Washington's sister, when Mr. Washington's daughter was introduced to Mr. Zahn as now working for the telephone company.

I would like to know just exactly what is going on here. Here is a cocktail party, the case is going on, here are cocktail parties in which the Chairman has a vice president of the telephone company present and he says here is my daughter, she is working for you. And Mr. Zahn is very much disturbed.

Now, I would like to know, don't you want to consider that as to whether it is a proper exercise of whatever it is that is going on? I see something bad in that for the Chairman of the Public Service Commission to invite the vice president of the telephone company to a cocktail party and have them both meet there and say here is my daughter, she is working for you.

At that point Mr. Zahn either should have fired her or said to the daughter you cannot do this, get a job somewhere else, or she should have said I want to get off.

So, obviously, there was something there. We may not be able to define it, but it is not right. And that is just another clue as to what isn't right. The fact that Mr. Greco said Mr. Zahn was very much disturbed is in itself a clue that something was wrong.

Mr. Greco said that Mr. Zahn was transferred to another job. But he doesn't tell you that that other job was being the assistant to the president of all of the four companies.

In other words, he was promoted.

Now, as to Mr. Greco. He is a very charming gentleman. When I first met him he was a leading Democrat. Then the Republicans came in, now he is a leading Republican. Now, maybe that is what you have to be when you work on a Government agency. I don't know, and I don't want to criticize him. I know he told me before I came into this hearing. I said "What are you here for, Joe? Are you going to speak on behalf of Mr. Washington?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I am going to speak against him." He said, "Don't do that, you are only hurting yourself and everything that you are working for to do that."

I think that you should be informed of this.

Maybe he did this through a sense of loyalty to Mr. Washington. Although at one time he wanted to be Commissioner himself and didn't make it. And in retrospect, I think that he would have made a better Commissioner than Mr. Washington. He may have three children, I don't know.

I do think since he has said he is on the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, I think he should resign from that because he cannot work in a responsible position in the Public Service Commission which has to do with rates of utilities and be referring people to those utilities for employment.

That seems to me to be fairly early in conflict with the conflict of interest provisions of the statutes which I have given you. However, I may say in a footnote that since I did not know about these until 2 or 3 days ago, I assume that maybe Mr. Greco didn't know about these 2 or 3 days ago and consequently I woudn't expect any public punative action be taken against him.

But I think that he should resign from this particular job as long as he is sitting on the Public Service Commission which regulates the rates.

The CHAIRMAN. How long has this case been going on down there? Mr. CURTIS. Three years.

The CHAIRMAN. How many lawyers were involved?

Mr. CURTIS. It was myself, and there was General Services. Now, Mr. Chairman, may I say

The CHAIRMAN. But there were a great number of lawyers?

Mr. CURTIS. There were about three lawyers. And nobody knew about this, nobody. And the General Services Administration recommended that the revenues of the company be decreased by $3 million to $4 million a year. That is in the record. So when Mr. Washington said all I gave was $2.3 million, he was giving $6 million more than another Federal agency said they are entitled to.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the General Services is pretty consistent in wanting lower rates. This is their responsibility to fight as hard as they can to get rates as cheap as they can.

Mr. CURTIS. Well, they have good evidence.

The CHAIRMAN. Which they certainly do. And they bring in their evidence and I guess they are one of the biggest users in the District of telephone service, I would think.

Mr. CURTIS. Well, they pulled their punches there, Senator. I was able to talk to some of the witnesses for GSA; they said they were pulling their punches against the telephone company.

The CHAIRMAN. One more thing, the Telephone Users Association, Inc.; would you put in the record the officers and directors of the company?

Mr. CURTIS. Yes, Senator. I formed that, I formed that in 1963 to fight this company because of the experience of my clients and myself. I am the president of it. We have a lady down in Florida who is one of the officers. The other one died. And we had several thousand people apply for membership. We went through the application cards, and we found we had people who are either officials or retired officers of the telephone company and so we decided not to have a membership organization.

We thought we would function like the Epilepsy Foundation which foundation is a nonmembership organization. And once we get it through the 501 (3) (C) of the Tax Service, we planned to invite distinguished people like yourself or Mrs. Magnuson to be directors, and be a real voice. We never got it through 501(c)(3). We ran into three people at the Treasury Department in the exempt organization branch who themselves owned telephone stock. These people decided that we are not entitled to 501(c)(3), and, that proceeding is still going on. So we still have these memberships in abeyance.

If you wanted to see the cards, I will bring you several hundred cards.

The CHAIRMAN. Do they pay dues?

Mr. CURTIS. No dues. It was $15. I have never received one penny. I want to get the thing on its feet to be a counterpoise to all of this power that the telephone company does have. I am not saying, Senator Cotton, that the telephone company should not be here. If it is a good telephone company it is entitled to a fair return. I have never said anything else. I have never been in favor of public ownership, although some of the people who have talked to me and wanted to join have been in favor of public ownership.

I think it is the government's duty to control, or else we will have public ownership, like they have in Canada and Mexico and England and Japan, and unless you gentlemen who have the responsibility of all of us are able to control this company and keep them from doing these things, then an important segment of the American industry will disappear from private enterprise.

The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions?

Senator COTTON. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, very much, Mr. Curtis.

Now, is there anyone else who wants to testify?

We will keep the record open here because we want to have some further communication from the Department as to what happens, if anything, to the papers. It has been testified that Mr. Bosco was