fundamentally correct which does not place in the control of the citizens the power to make effective their developing ideals. No method of accomplishing this purpose has yet been discovered except the ballot box.

As has been pointed out in comment on Mrs. S.'s first argument against this bill, the election of a school board should be entirely dissociated from all other forms of election.

Provision for election of the school board has already been delayed far too long. It is a form of suffrage against which no constitutional objection can be raised. It should not be required to wait for the solution of constitutional difficulies, which in no way pertain to it.

Senator ROBSION. How are these three colored members elected? Mrs. BANNERMAN. You mean in the bill, or at the present time? Senator ROBSION. Under the bill.

Mrs. BANNERMAN. The colored schools, every person votes in the school building where his children attend school. The colored schools are grouped into one division, not geographically, but as to divisions.

Senator ROBSION. I understand that this bill divided the city up into three districts.

Mrs. BANNERMAN. Not on geographical lines, but on the basis of where the children attend schools.

Senator ROBSION. So the colored people of every district might vote for their three colored members.

Mrs. BANNERMAN. Yes.

Senator ROBSION. Would the whites then all over the District vote for their six white members?

Mrs. BANNERMAN. No; there would be two white divisions, with three persons on the board from each of those two white divisions. Senator ROBSION. So the city then is divided into two parts as to the election of white members of the board?

Mrs. BANNERMAN. Yes, sir.

Senator ROвSION. But there is no division of the board as to the colored members?

Mrs. BANNERMAN. Yes, sir. It is all on the basis of where the children attend schools, and the grouping is by divisions, not geographically.

STATEMENT OF GROVER W. AYERS, REPRESENTING THE TEN
MILE SQUARE CLUB

The CHAIRMAN. Who are you representing, Mr. Ayers?
Mr. AYERS. The Ten Mile Square Club.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell us about that club.

Mr. AYERS. This is a little organization with very few members, the object of which is to study the government of the District of Columbia. I don't believe one of them has a better library than I have on the history of the schools of the District of Columbia from 1790 to date. I think I have one of the best in the city of Washington, and I think I have read some of the books. I think I have one of the best small libraries in the District of Columbia on the history and science of government, and I think I know some of the books that are in it, and I think some of the men who give me their sympathy, and give me some of their cooperation, are themselves fairly well informed on the processes of government, whether it be municipal, State, or national.

I would like to say the very first thing that I have been able to get an invitation from only a very few organizations in the city of Washington to present the opposite side of this question. Since 1920 I have followed this question, and I probably have as good a scrapbook as any man in the city of Washington on the very subjects which affect the District of Columbia, be they economic, social, financial or political. So I do feel that if some of those who are in favor of this bill or any form of an elective bill for any of the officers of the District of Columbia, could get some instruction, if you will pardon the praising of myself-if they would allow me to come before their association and present some of the facts, as my reaction has been to these facts, it would be helpful.

Mr. Stengle said that there was one person present here who was opposed to all forms of suffrage. I acknowledge that fact. I am opposed to it in the District of Columbia, yes. But that does not primarily affect this particular bill to which I am opposed, concerning the election of a school board. But I do want to say this; there has scarcely been a thing said here by the proponents of this bill that I do not agree with 100 per cent, except the solution, the selection of the school board, and I want to qualify that. I do not agree that the election of the school board is necessarily a solution to the question.

So, I do not think anyone here can very well say that I am opposed to everything. A young lady just handed me a note a minute ago that says, "Are you against every bill introduced in Congress?" Perhaps she is not up here to hear every bill presented in Congress. I don't come to oppose all of them.

It was said here by Mrs. Bannerman, I believe, that in 81 per cent of the small towns, and 72 per cent of the towns of over 30,000Mrs. BANNERMAN. Seventy-four per cent.

Mr. AYERS. That the school boards were elected. I agree with those figures as far as I know. That doesn't, however, prove anything in particular other than to say that the people want to elect their school boards. I have had some contact with educators throughout the United States. It has been my pleasure to have had a great deal of contact with them, more than most people around here might imagine, and I do not find, in my investigation, that the school boards or the schools in any particular political unit that are elected show any particularly greater efficiency than those school boards which are appointed.

I grant you the tendency is toward the election of the school boards, but I still bear in mind in the reading of my history that school boards in the United States up to within the last few years showed a greater percentage of appointed school boards than they did elective school boards. Thomas Jefferson was the president of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia at one time, while he was President of the United States, and from that time on up until to-day there never has been an election of a school board in the District of Columbia. Up until the time that one of the justices now sitting in the courts in the District of Columbia was a commissioner, the Board of Education had been appointed by the District Commissioners. Away back, up to 1820, I believe, they had been appointed by the President of the United States, but until this particular gentleman was elected to the Supreme Bench the board was appointed by the District Commissioners. My contribution to the

constructive end here, ladies and gentlemen, and Mr. Chairman, would be that the school board again be appointed by the District Commissioners.

Every other feature of what the proponents have said here I agree to 100 per cent. I wish to emphasize that.

Another thing, the qualification of electors. In the Constitution of the United States it says this: That each State shall have the right to say what the qualifications of an elector shall be. Any State might find objection to some one voting here for a member of the Board of Education should they want to retain their suffrage in that particular State, and I think that would develop very quickly, so that to say it would not affect a man's legal residence is far beside the point.

I am sorry Mr. Yaden is not here at this moment. I think he would confirm this statement I wish to make, that of the 60,000 employees of the Federal Government, departmental employees, 30,000 or a few more are under the apportionment act. The State of Virginia and the State of Maryland have about 100 to 150 per cent more than they are entitled to under the apportionment act. The State of Delaware has, I believe, one more than it is entitled to. New Hampshire 7, and the District of Columbia is entitled to 151 appointments as of December 31, 1929, and on that date it had 12,848 appointments.

I hardly think that any man in the United States working here in the District of Columbia would agree to give up, or take a chance on having to give up or losing his residence in a State, by taking up a residence here in order to vote for board of education or any other form of suffrage, if in doing so, he jeopardized his position that he holds here. So I do not think that we can very well say that everybody could vote here in the District of Columbia for this board of education and in no wise jeopardize their citizenship in the States.

Some reference was made to Senator Harrison's speech in 1920. I have that speech and have it all marked in blue and red pencil, just like Mrs. Bannerman has, and I thoroughly agree with what Mrs. Bannerman has to say about what Senator Harrison said and the conclusion she herself arrived at. I agree with her completely, but there were some other things in that speech that Mrs. Bannerman did not read that might make it more convincing that we do not want a board of education elected here in the District of Columbia.

My conclusion after some few years of newspaper work, about 40 years, may be a little longer, is that I don't believe that those who ask for suffrage here for the election of a school board would be satisfied with that only. I do agree, however, I believe, that more are in favor of the election of the school board than any other form of suffrage, if we could have only one. However, some of the very strongest advocates for suffrage in the District of Columbia, that is, for the election of a school board in the District of Columbia, are also for the election of commissioners and for two United States Senators and Members in the House in proportion to the population of the District, and therefore I feel sure that no man or woman who favored other forms of suffrage would ever be satisfied with electing anybody to a school board who, in turn, was not also in favor of electing commissioners or electing two United States Senators and Members of the

House in proportion to the population. That is only human nature; to make that assumption follows out the logic of the situation.

So, just the election of a school board will solve no great political question here, and, as some lawyer said, one of the prominent attorneys in the city, and who now is being considered for the bench in the District of Columbia, the Board of Education under this bill-and he opposed it-would have no greater power than it has at the present moment, and therefore being purely an administrative unit could not solve these questions of the $5,000,000 building program or any other sort of a school program, other than laying out a policy, and then it is up to the District Committee of the House and Senate, and the Appropriations Committee of the House and Senate, and the Budget officers and the commissioners as to whether anything that they say is carried out at any time. So the election of a school board in this instance solves no question other than satisfying some people.

I can see no particular solution in this, and if I may take the national educational system-Harvard University, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, and the various organizations of college educators or public school educators, or parochial school educators, as I get it through the Literary Digest and other periodicals, anyway, they are not satisfied with the results attained in any of the schools that we have. That is, from the highest university down to the very lowest, whether the boards that operate them are appointed or elected or whether they are under the supervision of foundations, or whether they have their own funds to operate their schools. Apparently the opinion is, for some reason or another, no matter what the form of selecting those who make the policy, we are not getting anything like 100 per cent on the money invested, and a great deal of that I agree with.

Such are the reasons why I would oppose the election of school boards. Mr. Clayton just awhile ago said he is in favor of national representation, election of the Board of Commissioners, election of the school board, and that is one of the gentlemen I had in mind awhile ago. There sits another over there the treasurer of the federation, who is in favor of every form of suffrage one could ask for in the District.

Mr. GREGORY. Wait a minute. You are wrong.

Mr. AYERS. Am I?

Mr. GREGORY. In the beginning of Mr. Ayers' talk, Mr. Chairman, he said that none of the organizations that were in favor of the election of a school board had invited him to speak. I would like to ask Mr. Ayers if he is a member of the Federation of Citizens Associations.

Mr. AYERS. I am.

Mr. GREGORY. I would like to say that when this question came up, you were present at the organization and you had every opportunity in the world to express your opinion, did you not?

Mr. AYERS. No, sir; not by a long shot, and that is one of the things I am asking for. If we have tyranny here now, what would we have with suffrage? I am going into that on the subject of national representation some time or other.

Mr. GREGORY. He was there, and if he had any objections he should have made them then.

constructive end here, ladies and gentlemen, and Mr. Chairman, would be that the school board again be appointed by the District Commissioners.

Every other feature of what the proponents have said here I agree to 100 per cent. I wish to emphasize that.

Another thing, the qualification of electors. In the Constitution of the United States it says this: That each State shall have the right to say what the qualifications of an elector shall be. Any State might find objection to some one voting here for a member of the Board of Education should they want to retain their suffrage in that particular State, and I think that would develop very quickly, so that to say it would not affect a man's legal residence is far beside the point.

I am sorry Mr. Yaden is not here at this moment. I think he would confirm this statement I wish to make, that of the 60,000 employees of the Federal Government, departmental employees, 30,000 or a few more are under the apportionment act. The State of Virginia and the State of Maryland have about 100 to 150 per cent more than they are entitled to under the apportionment act. The State of Delaware has, I believe, one more than it is entitled to. New Hampshire 7, and the District of Columbia is entitled to 151 appointments as of December 31, 1929, and on that date it had 12,848 appointments.

I hardly think that any man in the United States working here in the District of Columbia would agree to give up, or take a chance on having to give up or losing his residence in a State, by taking up a residence here in order to vote for board of education or any other form of suffrage, if in doing so, he jeopardized his position that he holds here. So I do not think that we can very well say that everybody could vote here in the District of Columbia for this board of education and in no wise jeopardize their citizenship in the States.

Some reference was made to Senator Harrison's speech in 1920. I have that speech and have it all marked in blue and red pencil, just like Mrs. Bannerman has, and I thoroughly agree with what Mrs. Bannerman has to say about what Senator Harrison said and the conclusion she herself arrived at. I agree with her completely, but there were some other things in that speech that Mrs. Bannerman did not read that might make it more convincing that we do not want a board of education elected here in the District of Columbia.

My conclusion after some few years of newspaper work, about 40 years, may be a little longer, is that I don't believe that those who ask for suffrage here for the election of a school board would be satisfied with that only. I do agree, however, I believe, that more are in favor of the election of the school board than any other form of suffrage, if we could have only one. However, some of the very strongest advocates for suffrage in the District of Columbia, that is, for the election of a school board in the District of Columbia, are also for the election of commissioners and for two United States Senators and Members in the House in proportion to the population of the District, and therefore I feel sure that no man or woman who favored other forms of suffrage would ever be satisfied with electing anybody to a school board who, in turn, was not also in favor of electing commissioners or electing two United States Senators and Members of the