1474 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
answer to him and his colleague, I will do so briefly. Any Congress 
has the power to make with the people of this District any sort of 
adjustment which it may deem proper of the prvcportion of the 
expenses to be paid by each. The proportion has been fixed at half 
and half; that arrangement being made, as I understand, upon the 
theory that the Government, owning the streets and the reservations 
and the public buildings, really owns half the real estate in the Dis- 
trict, an assumption which every gentleman within the sound of my 
voice knows to be incorrect now, whatever it may have been in the 
past. 
Mr. Hearp. Then is it not the duty of Congress to fix a more just 
and equitable basis ? 
Mr. Ciements. Well, the gentleman belongs to the Committee on 
the District of Columbia 
Mr. Hearp. And that committee has no power whatever; but, on 
the contrary, the subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, 
for which the gentleman from Georgia is now speaking, assumes 
absolute control of that question. 
Mr. Crements. Not at all. My friend, on reflection, will admit that 
we take up only such matters as bis committee are unable to get passed 
and put them on this bill so that they may be got through under whip 
and spur on the appropriation bill. 
Mr. Hearp. Yes; and it is only fair and just to the District. Corts 
mittee to say that the gentlemen on the Appropriations Committee 
frequently resist the action that is proposed by the Committee on the 
District of Columbia, assuming absolute control over every appropria- 
tion of money to be expended within the District of Columbia. 
Mr. CiemMents. Certainly. The members of the Committee on 
Appropriations, being also members of this House, have a right to 
criticise any bill that comes before them, either from the Committee 
on the District of Columbia or any other committee. 
Mr. Hearp. But you gentlemen assume to negative legislation pro- 
posed by the Committee on the District of Columbia, as you did in 
the case of the girls’ reform school, and then refuse to recommend 
such appropriation yourselves. 
Mr. Cuiements. The gentleman very well knows that the Committee 
on Appropriations have no jurisdiction to report an appropriation for 
an institution that does not-exist under the law, and therefore he knows 
that if we had reported that appropriation anybody could have had it 
struck out on the point of order. 
Mr. Hearp. That is where I find fault with the Appropriations 
Committee, that it refused to allow us to pass the bill carrying the 
appropriation, and made the point of order upon it when we proposed 
legislation to establish the institution and to make the appropriation. 
Mr. CLEMENTS. I say to the gentleman again that any member of 
