Author : UNKNOWN. AUTHOR
Publisher : Forgotten Books
Page : 166 pages
File Size : 20,49 MB
Release : 2015-07-27
Category : Reference
ISBN : 9781332015696
Book Description
Excerpt from Hearings Before Subcommittee of House Committee on Appropriations: Consisting of Messrs. Cannon, Northway, Barney, Sayers, and Livingston, in Charge of Deficiency Appropriations for 1898 and Prior Years Mr. Hills. Well, in regard to last year, we should have asked for a deficiency, but we did not do it. The appropriation for furniture for last year was practically exhausted on the 31st of March. We ran those three months without any money, simply letting the requisitions accumulate, and deferred action until the 1st of July, when we took them up, and as a result there was about $25,000 worth of furniture and repairs paid from the current appropriation, which properly belongs to last year's appropriation, and, as I said before, we did not ask for a deficiency, notwithstanding the fact we went three months without money. The $64,000, of which you speak there, is a specific appropriation for furnishing four or five named buildings, and it is not available for use in connection with the other one hundred and sixty odd buildings. Mr. Sayers. Do you regard this amount as absolutely necessary? Mr. Hills. Absolutely essential, and it is a very low estimate. We have now awaiting in the department requisitions aggregating over $8,000 for furniture and repairs for furniture at the present time. Now we have nearly four months in which to run, and we need every dollar of the $25,000. We have furnished so far this year twelve new buildings out of the current appropriation, the building at South Bend, Ind.; Madison, Ind.; Meridian, Miss.; Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Mich., a very large building; Beaver Falls, Pa.; Allegheny, Pa.; Newburgh, N. Y.; Pawtucket, R. I.; New London, Conn.; Lynn, Mass, and before we got the specific amount for Omaha we had to put in $7,000 out of the current appropriation in order that they might occupy the post-office portion of the building. Mr. Sayers. Will you have to use all this sum appropriated for Omaha? Mr. Hills. Oh, yes, sir; that is merely an estimate for the upper portion of the building. Mr. Sayers. Not for the lower? Mr. Hills. No, sir? Mr. Sayers. The lower has been supplied out of the current appropriation? Mr. Hills. Yes, sir; and the building is now occupied by the post-office branch of the service. That is a very conservative estimate. Mr. Sayers. Do you not think you could get along reasonably well with $10,000? Mr. Hills. No, sir. We could get along by putting off everything, and it would embarrass the service; there is no question about it at all. The appropriation for furniture, in fact all appropriations in our office are handled in the most economical manner imaginable. Now, some furniture we put in some buildings is not in harmony with the building. The Appropriations Committee will be quite generous in appropriating for the erection of a handsome building, with mahogany interior fittings, but we do not think of putting in mahogany furniture. You take the building at Charleston, S. C., and Detroit, Mich., handsome buildings, handsome doors, and woodwork finished with mahogany, and we put in there a good quality of white oak furniture. That is the economy we are pursuing, and we do not allow a bit of furniture in excess of the actual requirements. You see a great many of these buildings were erected from forty to sixty years ago. Now, furniture that has been in a public building for twenty-five or thirty years is pretty good furniture. It is not the tearing to pieces of the furniture, but the abuse the furniture receives at the hands of the officials, and of course these buildings have to be refurnished practically every twenty-five years. Now, if you will take the public buildings, including the marine hospitals, we have 290 now occupied, you see this service is growing immensely. Within the last five years we have furnished 75 new buildings, and in 1886, with only 125 public buildings, the appropriat