1378 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
that is purely incidental. The real object is a much higher one; and 
the District of Columbia has nothing to do with it. But if we allow 
this amendment to continue, it gives to the District of Columbia a 
joint title and interest with the United States in the specimens that are 
to be put there. It gives them, and ought to give to them, a voice in 
its management. And we ought to remember, Mr. Speaker, that the 
present anomalous and un-American government of the District of 
Columbia can not exist always. 
I beg the attention of this House for a moment that they may recol- 
lect that this experiment that weare making with the District of Colum- 
bia is a wholly un-American and anomalous experiment. We control 
the District of Columbia through our legislation. We appoint the 
officers—that is, the President of the United States nominates them, 
and they are confirmed by the Senate. We determine the amount of 
appropriations and expenditures. We therefore fix the rate of tax- 
ation, and the people of the District have no voice in their own govern- 
ment. This can not last always. When the city becomes, not a city 
of 200,000, but of 400,000 or 500,000 people, this form of govern- 
ment must give way to some more American form of government. 
When that dissolution of partnership takes place, as indubitably it will, 
we ought not to have this addendum to the Smithsonian Institution as 
a part of the joint property of the Government and the District. 
We are taking an exceedingly narrow and temporary view when we 
take the view of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations 
[Mr. Cannon] and of my friend from Georgia [Mr. Blount] and other 
friends that this is a local matter, to be made by joint expenditure. I 
voted in the Fiftieth Congress for the appropriation of $200,000 to buy 
this property with very great reluctance, simply because it did make 
the District pay half of it. I thought it an unwise experiment, the 
District of Columbia having no interest in it, and I only voted for it 
because the friends of the measure thought that was the only way, so 
late in the session, to start the experiment at all. 
In this Congress I protested in the Committee on Appropriations 
against the amendment reported, and I now earnestly believe in the 
motion of the gentleman from Maryland to agree to the action of the 
Senate. I want so far as possible to have this discussion to be based 
on the hypothesis that this is not a local matter, nor for beautification 
or adornment. Iam not doing this asa favor to the District of Colum- 
bia. I have no other interest in the District of Columbia than any 
other Representative. Iam here purely asa transitory resident, com- 
_ ing here in the discharge of my duty. I have not in one way or 
another any interest except to do justly. Iamagainst allowing—that is 
the form in which I shall put my protest—I am against permitting the 
District of Columbia to have any interest in this matter, and of bearing 
any part of this expenditure. I want it to be wholly a matter that is 
