Archive: 1941-2 Consolidation of Washington DC Police Court and Municipal Court H.R. 3167; H.R. 4852; H.R. 5431; H.R. 5784; Public Law 512 -- 77th Congress & typescript testimony

Washington DC: G.P.O. & House District of Columbia Committee. Very Good. 1941 & 2. Hardcover. Folio volume, maroon leather spine over black fabric covered boards, spine lettered in gilt,. The front free endpaper has the rubber stamp, in red ink, of the US House Committee on the District of Columbia. Above this is a clipped portion of an envelope with the (printed) Frank signature of Congressman John McMillan (long-time Chair of the Committee) - with a handwritten note in black ink: "Return to Permanent Committee Files." Above this is the Surplus-Duplicate stamp of the Library of Congress in blue ink. The volume's contents include four various draft House Bills intending to consolidate the DC Police Court and the Municipal Court into a combined "Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia." These printed draft Bills are in the "working" format, with large print, double-spaced lines and with line numbers in the left margins for each line of text. Tucked (but not sewn in) is a final version "Public Law 512 [H.R. 5784] (Approval date April 1, 1942 -- the Law was in effect three months after this date). 9 pp. printed text followed by 3 blank leaves (an octavo gathering, bound with two metal staples). This printed Law in is the usual GOP format, similar thin paper to the working drafts, but with much smaller type and without the line numbers featured in the drafts. The bulk of the volume consists of the testimony of various witnesses to the House District Subcommitte, divided into three sections, representing the testimony from sessions on July 26, 29 and 31, 1941. The three sections are all typewritten on tall ("legal") sized sheets, versos only. A mixture of ribbon originals and top-carbon copies. 72, 55, and 55 leaves & a table of contents. The three sections are divided by blue sheets. The second part (testimony of July 29, 1941 is partly typed with a blue ribbon, and has an illustration -- a leaf in white-on-black printing, showing the proposed organizational chart of the proposed combined Municipal Court of Appeals. In all, the Committe heard testimony from 33 witnesses in 36 segments. One in particular, Mr. Emory B. Smith, testified as to how the proposed changes might affect the growing minority community in the Nation's Capitol. At the time of his testimony July 29, 1941, Mr. Smith was First Vice President of the Washington Bar Association. He also stated that he was also speaking on behalf of Thurman L. Dodson who found it impossible to appear before the Committee due having to be in Court on a case. [Dodson was Regional Director of the National Bar Association]. As distinguished African American Lawyers active in Civil Rights work, both Smith and Dodson were intent on considering the affect of this consolidation of the Courts in DC on the "underprivileged community" -- (especially as regards the matter of appeals). Most particularly, Messrs. Smith and Dodson were intent on seeking changes to the legislation to insure that no discrimination was to be allowed in hiring, from clerks to potential Judges. "The one thing in which we are most vitally interested as an association, and as Negro members of the Bar of the District of Columbia, more than 200 of them, is a matter of personnel. We regret in a democracy that it becomes necessary to call attention to the matter of discrimination... but those who are familiar with our judiciary setup and the employees of the courts ... can't help but realize that there is a marked discrimination against a large element of the citizens of the District of Columbia." [It appears that the specific anti-discrimination language sought by the witness was NOT included in the final legislation]. As a matter of interest, it should be noted that in 1950, President Harry Truman appointed Emory B. Smith as one of the Judges on this very court. He was sworn in on October 2nd after confirmation by the U.S. Senate and, sadly, Judge Emory Smith died suddenly thirteen days later while speaking at the Lincoln Temple Congregational Church. Historically, the structure and practice of the D.C. Court system has been of more than just local interest. By Act of Congress, the District of Columbia became the seat of thenational government on the first Monday of December, 1800. On February 27, 1801, Congress established the Circuit Court of the District of Co-lumbia, consisting of a chief judge and two assistant judges. One yearlater, Congress authorized the court's chief judge to hold a District Courtof the United States with the same powers and jurisdiction enjoyed by theother United States District Courts. In this manner, the Circuit Court was bothfederal and local, and during its sixty-two years of existence it was the onlycourt of general jurisdiction in the District of Columbia. In further consideration of National significance of the DC courts, one has to consider the remarkable matter of William Cranch -- This gentleman was a staunch Federalist, who served as chief judge of the Cir-cuit Court from 1806 until 1855 -- one of the longest Judicial tenures in American history. Cranch was the nephew of President John Adams'wife and had originally been appointed an associate judge on February 29, 1801, the eve of Adams' departure from office. Because of this lame duck appointment by the outgoing President, Cranch was included among the "midnight judges" so bitterly condemned by incoming President Thomas Jefferson and the Democrat-Republicans.Yet, despite his political antagonism toward Adams and the Federalists,Jefferson in 1806 appointed Cranch the chief judge of the Circuit Court.In so doing, Jefferson was faithful to his declaration that: "We are all Federalists; we are all Republicans . . .the sole criterion for appointmentto office must be an affirmative answer to the questions: Is he honest? Is he capable? Is he faithful to the Constitution?" Indeed, Judge Cranch did rule on more than one case in direct opposition to the interests of President Jefferson, and served almost fifty years beyond the Jefferson Presidency. By the middle of the twentieth century, the long-time Chairman of the the US House Committee on the District of Columbia was John Lanneau "Johnny Mac" McMillan (1898 – 1979) -- a United States Representative from South Carolina. Little about his background seemed to prepare him to assume almost unprecidented power over the District of Columbia. McMillan was born on a farm near Mullins, he was educated at Mullins High School, the University of North Carolina, as well as the University of South Carolina Law School and National Law School in Washington, D.C. McMillan was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-sixth and to the sixteen succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1939 to January 3, 1973. He was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia from 1945 to 1947, from 1949 to 1953, and from 1955 to 1973. To say that McMillan was controversial is a substantial understatement. For example, he was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education. He consistently opposed home rule for the District; no home rule bill even came up for a vote in his committee, even when they had originally been passed by Senate. McMillan's tenure saw Washington become a majority-minority city, and African-Americans often claimed he was indifferent to their concerns, When Walter Washington, the Mayor-Commissioner of the District of Columbia, sent his first budget to Congress in late 1967, McMillan responded by having a truckload of watermelons delivered to Washington's office at the District Building! Chairman McMillan was defeated in the 1972 Democratic primary by a considerably more liberal Democrat, State Representative John Jenrette. McMillan blamed black voters, charging that "The colored people were bought out." It may be that McMillan's final departure from "his" District committee led to a cleaning out which saw this volume transfered to the Gift and Exchange Division of the Library of Congress -- whose workers stamped this volume "Surplus-Duplicate." Contained within the volume is the actual, documented history of an interesting and significant step in the consolidation of the DC Courts system. .