Evening Star Newspaper, September 22, 1935, Page 51

Stage — Screen Autos — Radio .ert 4—12 Pages GIVING i By James E. Chinn. o OW that Congress has ad- painters, plasterers, plumbers, cement finishers and tilers has give it a “new deal” renovizing From the tip of the dome on the halls where once rang the golden voices of Calhoun and Webster—the tions and improvements Nearly $2,500,000 is to be spent on journed an army of carpenters, taken possession of the Capitol to outside to the historic walls within— building is undergoing extensive altera- the reconditioning. UNIT . Painters are clinging to scaffolding | on the exterior of the great dome, dabbing on paint 180 feet overhead. More painters are on the inside touching up unsightly spots. The Sen- ate and House Office Buildings, and even the subways below, reek with the odor of fresh paint. Democratic economy has delayed many of the needed improvements since the advent of the Roosevelt ad- ministration, but now that the de-| pression definitely seems to have| turned the corner Congress is spend- ing money on itself. David Lynn, supervising architect of the Capitol and generalissimo of that domain, does not regard the activity as much out of the ordinary. Congress, he said, gave Washington, ws well as business generally, a breath- ing spell, and he is merely taking ad- vantage of the opportunity to give the Capitol a delayed overhauling. THE biggest job, and the most costly, however, has not yet reached the blue-print stage—the complete air- conditioning of the Capitol itself, the Senate Office Building and the old and new House Office Buildings. That project alone is going to cost more than $2,000,000. In the sweltering days of last July even $2,000,000 did not look like a big investment in heat relief to the economy-minded, humidity-suffering members of Congress. They told Lynn to go to work and make the Capitol, as well as their own offices, bearable | in the Summer. Although both the Senate and House chambers have been air-con- ditioned for some years, the members suffered intensely last Summer in their offices. Some caught colds rushing from the air-cooled chamber to their offices and back again. Others developed acute sore throats. But that will not happen again. Despite the temperature on the out- side it will always be cool and invig- orating in the future in every nook and corner of the Capitol, as well as the three office buildings. Engineers are now making an ex- haustive survey preparatory to work- ing out plans for the extensive air- condition installation — the largest project of its kind ever undertaken in ‘Washington and, perhaps, in the United States. Lynn expects to be ready to advertise for bids in Decem- ber and the work will start soon thereafter. ‘The job is so tremendous, however, that Lynn believes it will take at least two years to complete. That means, of course, that some of the members of the Seventy-fourth- Con- gress will not get any comforting [y | benefit out of their action in approv- | ing the $2,000,000 appropriation—th2 American voters will see to that in November, 1936. For the sake of economy in con- struction and operation a central con- | ditioning plant is planned. The pres- | ent plant, which keeps the House and Senate chambers cool in hot weather, probably will form the nucleus for the new plant. NEXT to the new air-conditioning project, painting of the exterior of the Capitol is the biggest job fac- ing Lynn's office. The huge dome, from the bronze figure of the ton typifying armed Liberty, to the rotun- da, is to be given two coats of light gray paint. In fact, the entire Capi- tol Building, with the exception of the Senate and House wings, is to be glistened with fresh paint—a total of 62,766 square yards of surface. It has been four years since the building was last painted, and because of its sandstone construction moisture has seeped in, destroying the oil in the paint and leaving the pigment in a chalky condition. . For this painting job alone an WASHINGTON, D. C, FEATURES Che Sunday Star SUNDAY NearlyTzwo and a Half Mil- lion Dollars Are Being Spent to Recondition the Great Building From the Subcellar to the Dome, Improving Iis Equipment and Adding to Its Longevity. gress gave Lynn $28,000. At the pres- ent cost of paint and labor every cent probably will be expended. The cost in the past has ‘ranged all the way from $23,200 to $38,700. - In addition to the more than $2,- 000,000 for the air-conditioning sys- tem and $28,000 for painting the cen- tral part of the Capitol PBuilding, Lynn has $280,000 for improvement and maintenance of his domain in the current fiscal year. g An unestimated amount is to be spent for modernizing plumbing, odd painting jobs about the Capitol and the three office buildings and the al- | teration of a number of rooms. In the Capitol Building itself two important alteration projects already are under way—enlargement of the Senate .press gallery and transforma- tion of the old office of the chief clerk of the Supreme Court into a new home for the disbursing office of the Senate, ELMORE CROPLEY, chief clerk of the Supreme Court, and his staff nave been provided with sumptuous quarters in the new Su- preme Court Buliding, but, the old H o A g MORNING, SEPTEMBER Upper, left and right: Cleaning and repairimg the great dome of the United States Capitol—painters shown scaling the highest columns of the lofty structure. Top, center: The west facade of the Capitol Building as it appears today, and, immediately beneath (center), the front of the Capitol -as it looked in 1850. Extreme left: Left, center: great bronze doors. the Senate Office Building. ceilings. Extreme right: Oiling the Painters at work in Right, center: Retouching A massive crystal chandelier with cloth cover fitted after its annual bath. Lower, left: Repairing and reupholstering congressional chairs. Lower, center: basement of the Capitol. A unit of the air-conditioning machinery in the Lower, right: Repainting and repairing the subway leading to the House Office Building. ‘:'Supreme Court chamber, with all its atmosphere of solemnity, is to be kept intact as another historic shrine. Not a drape is to be disturbed, not a chair or a table rearranged. It will be pre- served in the same condition as the court left it when it moved into its | impressive new home facing the Capi- tol. It was June 3, last, when the Su- preme Court said farewell to the time-mellowed chamber where N. R. A. was killed just a week before, and many other major questions were set- tled years ago. Next month the nine justices will convene in the classic white building facing the Capitol it- see further tests of the New Deal. The court left its old chamber vir- tually the same as it was when the Senate occupied it from 1819 to 1859, with only two exceptions: 1. There is a false flooring which covers the old flooring of the Senate room, which was arranged in tiers of seats. 2. An iron gallery which extended around the back of the room has been removed. THE contrast between the new and modern hall of justice and the series of inadequate quarters the court had occupied during its busy life is strikingly vivid. ‘The first meeting of the court was held in New York City in the Roya} Exchange at the foot of Broad street. In 1801 it followed the other branches of the Government to Washington. No provision had been made for it herey but the Senate permitted jus- tices to use & small room on the first floor of the Capitol, just south of the B7 1008 the emal pad be- 1805 the I‘OT self—there to open a term which may | {is not unfancifully formed by the come wholly inadequate. In 1808 the Senate chamber, which was then on the basement floor, had fallen into such condition that it was necessary to reconstruct it. During the rebuild- ing the Supreme Court moved across the hall to a room which at that time was occupied by its clerk. Reconstruction had progressed far enough in 1810 so that the Senate could move upstairs to the now de- serted Supreme Court chamber, where- nupon the court went down to the room directly under it on the basement floor. - As Charles J. Ingersoll de- scribed it: “Under the Senate chamber is the Hall of Justice, the ceiling of which arches that support the former. The judges in their robes of solemn black are raised on seats of grave mahogany, | and below them is the bar, and be- hind that an arcade still higher, so contrived as to afford auditors double rows of terrace seats thrown in seg- ments round the transverse arch un- der which the judges sit.” After the Capitol had been burned by the British,”in 1814, the Supreme Court moved again, this time to a house near Second street and Pennsylvania avenue southeast, occupied by Elias Boudinot Caldwell, clerk of the court. In 1819 $he court moved back to the Capitol. The new Supreme Court building stands as a memorial to William How- ard Taft, the only man in American history to have the distinction of having been at the head of two of the three great branches of our Gov- ernment and who served the Nation in a wide range of important posi- tions—as Solicitor General of the United States, United States Circuit Gourt. judge, president o the United 29 &y 1935, Children’s Page Books—Music [+ Quistanding Among Ren- | ovating Plans Is the Complcfv Air Conditioning of the Cap- itol and House and Senate Of- fice Buildings, Soon Be Undertaken. States Philippine Commission, first | civil Governor of the Philippine Is- | Iands, Secretary of War, when he had | charge of construction of the Panama | Canal; sent to Cuba by President Theodore Roosevelt to adjust an in- surrection there, provisional Governor of Cuba, twenty-seventh President of the United States, co-chairman of | National War Labor Board, president | of the American Red Cross, chancello? of the Smithsonian Institution and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. THE press gallery alterations are to be extensive. A private rest room for woman guests of members of the Senate is to be torn away, as well as a room used by the Committee on Printing, to provide increased accom- modations for the press, The Senate press room, much smaller than the one on the House side, will | stretch from the west of the east wing of the Senate when it is completed, as does the House press room, on the op- posite side of the Capitol. Additional accommodations for the press have long/been needed on the Senate side. Ever since the “New Deal” increased Washington’s prestige as the world's news center, more and more special correspondents have been assigned to “cover” the activities of Congress. 1| vestigation conducted by | | Which Will press galleries—newspaper men who are granted the extraordinary privilege of reporting for the American public the history of legislation in the mak- ing—has nearly doubled during the present, administration. When President Hoover turned over the reins of the Government to Frank- lin D. Roosevelt the press gallery membership slightly exceeded the 300 | mark. Now it is close to 500. The Senate press gallery, because of its limited size, felt the pinch of that increase more than did the com- modious press gallery in the House. Newspaper men were crowded into corners so close that on a busy day their elbows rubbed together while | typing out an important dispatch. Noisy teletype machines and clicking telegraph keys, all within earshot of | the correspondents, added to the din | and interfered seriously with concen- | trated thought. Now, however, the ecorrespondents and the telegraph apparatus are to be | segregated. All telegraphic equipment and the operators are to be placed in the addition. The news men are going to be given ample space in| which to work. | Enlargement of the Senate press | room is the second step in a program adopted by the Senate two years ago to give the men who write about its activities mfdmu accommoda- | forced to stand while reco; of the important proceed | pictures on the walls. ED STATES CAPITOL A NEW LEASE ON LIFE tions. A section of the visitors’ gallery was reduced last year to provide addi tional seats for the reporters, who up until that time very often were ing some 'l‘HE “odds-and-ends” improvements. which Lynn expects t before Congress returns in January constitute chiefly the painting of com- mittee rooms, washing of walls in offices of certain members and the general overhauling of all mechanical equipment One of the major prejects in that classification will be the renovation of the large caucus room in the old House Office Building—the scene of many an important House inquiry among which was the recent lobby in- the Rules Committee, headed by Representative 0'Connor, Democrat, of New York. Some of the so-called minor jobs include the cleaning of the thousands of brilliant glass crystals on the huge chandeliers, which hang in various committee rooms in the Capitol Build- ing. These crystals, and there are a thousand or more in each chandelier must be removed by hand, washed and rehung—a job that takes two men at least two days. After the cleaning process the chan- deliers are “bagged” in dusiproof cloth and are not again disclosed in all their brilliancy until Congress convenes Incidentally, the washing of walls in the offices of members of Congress, while classified as a minor job, is one that keeps the custodial staff busy for several months after Congress ad- journs. Every time a member moves from one office to another the walls must be cleaned. This is necessary because the removal of pictures vividly reveals the dust and dirt on the painted walls The only way to remove the “spot” is to wash all of the walls. While there was comparatively little moving at the close of the last ses- sion—that will come after the 1936 elections—many members, just before leaving on vacation, rearranged the It was a silent order to the wall cleaners. 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