Mr. MCNEAL. You would have to take Fourteenth Street, which is Broad Street, because between Thirteenth and Fourteenth there are not any buildings. The buildings start at Fourteenth or Broad Street and Chestnut Street, and from there on out are all of the new buildings and the representative buildings of Philadelphia.

I would assume that the distance between, we will say, Broad and Chestnut, where I was for 29 years, would be approximately the same. That is, from Broad and Chestnut would be the part where the lawyers are located. I am now at Sixteenth and Locust. That distance is approximately the same between Ninth and Broad as it would be between Broad and the Parkway.

Senator DICKINSON. Do you think it is an all-imposing matter as to whether or not a lawyer walks an extra block or not?

Mr. MCNEAL. No; I do not think it is so imposing, sir, as to one block or two blocks. I have no interest in any property. I have no interest in where the selection might be. My only interest is to have a courthouse building of the Federal Government properly located. I drive by every afternoon in going home from my office to Bryn Mawr, where I live, and I go out the boulevard. I have watched the growth for the last 10 or 12 years and have seen all of these new buildings put up there, and have taken great pride in the fact that in the course of a very reasonable length of time Philadelphia will have probably one of the most beautiful boulevards in the world.

I have practiced in the Federal courts. I have been in the bar 33 years, and I know those buildings there. Judge Dickinson's officeall offices are the same-they have to keep the windows closed all the time. The only way they have of ventilating this, they have some little bird's-eye windows up in the top, and after it gets so hot in there and so stifling that you can not go along any further, the Judge will say, 66 Just pull those windows down for a few minutes and let some of this heat out," and that is the way we practice law down there.

You can not hear what it is all about. It is so noisy that you can hardly hear what is going on, because just opposite from the Federal post office is the new Gimbel Building which has been put up, which makes a sounding board, and I do not care what the sound is, it just goes up that alleyway and comes into your office. I moved I moved my office when they tore down at Broad and Chestnut, where I was for 29 years, to Fifteenth and Chestnut, in the Franklin Trust Building, which is a 22-story building. I thought I was getting away up in the air, and I would not hear much noise, but directly across the street from me is the new Packard Building, and that same thing, the trolleys go by, bang, bang, bang, and you can't hardly hear your ears, and you can't really concentrate on what you are doing.

The result was they just could not get me anything else except that, and I moved my office to Sixteenth and Chestnut Streets, which is not so convenient to me by two or three blocks, because I come on the Pennsylvania Railroad, but I would rather go an added two or three blocks and have comfort and be able to practice law in decent environment.

As far as the building is concerned, it is a beautiful building. If you would clean that building up you would have one of the most graceful buildings to-day for a Federal building and one that will

compare with any building that has been built any reasonable length of time.

But to go down there and spend all this money trying to rebuild and add something to that present building which would make it practically a monstrosity you would have nothing-nothing at all. Whereas if you put it up here you have absolute protection. If a lawyer is going to court he can go to Broad and Market, the present common pleas, supreme court is there, and he goes around the corner a few blocks and there he is at the municipal court. He can go just another block and he will be at the Federal court, and you would have all the courts and court records and lawyers all together and you would have a concentration of that industry.

A question was asked about a line. I know a number of years ago I was a director of two banks in Philadelphia. One was the Quaker City National Bank and the other was the Trust Co. at Fifteenth Street. The Federal Government wanted to determine whether I was acting in a dual capacity as a director under that act, which prohibited directors acting where there would be a conflict of interest.

So the Government came along, and in order to determine that designated Eleventh Street as a dividing line-the dead line-between the down-town interest and the up-town interest. When they counted the deposits which were in the two banks that I was interested in-and if you had more than 25 per cent of the deposits in the other district than the one in which your bank was located you had to sever your interest with the other. So I had to resign from the Quaker City National Bank, and by reason of that I relinquished my directorship in the Franklin Trust because the Federal Government determined that Eleventh Street, which is two blocks still east, was the dividing line between those two places.

So far as the district down there is concerned, there has been every effort made in the world. I do not think anything has happened in the city of Philadelphia that they should be made to spend $65,000,000 to make this beautiful setting which everyone in Philadelphia is really interested in-I say to you I do not care what the people come down here and say; I do not care what you see in the newspapers, but if you will talk to people who live in Philadelphia, who want to do things in Philadelphia, and talk about spending money in that territory which has proven so unsatisfactory, so miserably a failure in many industries, why, they just feel as though the Government again is having its pockets delved into for some ulterior purpose.

If you will take right across the corner, for instance, from the old Post Office building. Some people got together, like Mr. Cyrus Curtis, and like all the department stores down town, and they spent about $10,000,000 in building the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Well, if you were to investigate what has been the result of that investment and what it has done you will know that it has been a complete failure from the investment viewpoint.

If you will take all newspaper offices-when I went to Philadelphia 37 years ago all the newspaper offices were in the district where this building is, the old building the Bulletin, Telegraph, Ledger, Enquirer, every newspaper in Philadelphia. Every one has moved

from that territory into the new territory excepting the Ledger. If you will go farther and see where the people of Philadelphia have been spending their money: Recently we have had, for instance, the Franklin Memorial, which was paid for by contributions of the people of Philadelphia, $5,000,000. Did they select this territory down there? Not at all. They put it on the Parkway. That money is being given by the people of Philadelphia.

Mr. Curtis, who has an enormous interest and has put up a lot of money to help build that Benjamin Franklin Hotel, trying to save that neighborhood, nevertheless, when it came to a question of what he thought was the patriotic thing to do and Mr. Curtis always does-why, he said, "We are going to build the new Franklin Memorial where it should be, a proper setting and proper environment, where it can not be built up around with office buildings, factories, or anything else."

Because I will tell you that in the course of a reasonable length of time all of the territory along Chestnut Street through there has absolutely got to be used for factory purposes, for sweatshops, something of that kind, because they can not use it. [Laughter.] I am talking of Chestnut Street now. I am glad I made you laugh, because I would rather interest people than not to do anything. Let me talk about

Mr. TILY (interposing). Talk about the building at Eighth and Market that we spent $10,000,000 on.

Mr. MCNEAL. Would you do it over again? No; you would not. The CHAIRMAN. That does not interest us. Proceed, Mr. McNeal. Mr. McNEAL. I do not want to be critical, because it is easier to be critical than it is to be an author, and I would rather be an author. But they would not spend that $8,000,000 again, and no one knows it better than Mr. Tily, who just asked me that question.

What did Gimbel Bros. do? They went over on Chestnut Street 10 or 15 years ago, when things were not so bad as now, and they built an enormous department store. Have they ever opened it? Only on a few floors. The balance of it is being carried by the United States Government, paying rent at about the rate of $72,000 a floor. Now, the Government itself would be making a further appropriation to be used for offices during this time.

Now, there is not any use trying to say that Eighth and Chestnut or Ninth and Chestnut is a live neighborhood. You can take Caldwell's, which is the finest jewelry store along there-moved up in the new district. Every lawyer, practically speaking, has moved up to the new district, and when we go downtown into the old section we feel as though we are taking a journey.

Let us go along the Parkway just a moment. What has been done there? Not only $65,000,000, but we have the Rodin Museum, the new library, millions of dollars of expenditures. You have the new Bureau of Public Education Building. You have the new Franklin Memorial, Mr. Curtis's new building, which is going to be given to the Curtis Institute, which I understand will cost $2,000,000. Every single improvement that is going up is going to that section, and it is only a question of time when, if you go back and spend this money there in trying to rehabilitate this building, it is simply going to be another recollection of the time when an error was made.

I think I have tried to cover the principal things that I can think of. The only other point that I did have, the chairman made the remark a little while ago that the only function of this committee is to determine whether or not the appropriation should be made. I was wondering from that remark as to whether or not the appropriation as it now is-if you were again going to make the appropriation-whether as the bill now is because I have not read it-the Secretary of the Treasury would have a right to divide that money and take part of it for fixing Ninth and Market Streets and another part for building the new courthouse on the Parkway. I do not know.

Senator DICKINSON. The only question involved here is whether or not new legislation shall be passed authorizing the purchase of additional lands for another site. I think the Treasury Department has authority to go ahead and construct on the present site.

Mr. MCNEAL. But I take it if you put through the bill as it is the Secretary of the Treasury would not be confined to that particular location.

A SPECTATOR. At present it calls for appropriation of $2,900,000 to build the new building on the present site.

Mr. MCNEAL. And therefore if you pass it as it is the Secretary of the Treasury would have no authority whatever to separate that fund, using part of it for the rehabilitation of Ninth and Market Streets and part for the acquisition of a new property. That is what I wanted to call to the committee's attention, because what in my opinion should be done

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts (interposing). We understand that if no action is taken it will be tantamount to requiring the Treasury Department to go on and build the present building. . Mr. McNEAL. That is right. That is what I am opposed to. I just love to see-I just went out there each day and watched each stone going up. Some day my children will be at least proud to say they built in Philadelphia the greatest boulevard in the world, and that there is the Federal Palace of Justice, like we go to see in all foreign countries, to look at and say, "Isn't this wonderful? What a great country that is."

The CHAIRMAN. All right; thank you, Mr. McNeal.

Mr. McNEAL. Mr. Chairman, I forgot to put this before you. It is a bird's-eye view of the parkway, showing the various buildings and improvements that are on it. It gives you the whole idea. [Presenting photograph to the committee.] In addition to that I have a map of the whole city of Philadelphia showing you the different

sections.

Representative DAVIS. Mr. E. M. Harris, of Philadelphia.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD MONROE HARRIS, TAXPAYER AND REAL ESTATE OWNER, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Harris, will you give your full name to the reporter?

Mr. HARRIS. Edward Monroe Harris.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a real-estate owner?

Mr. HARRIS. A taxpayer and real-estate owner, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. All right; proceed.

Mr. HARRIS. I have come down, sir, to oppose the erection of this new building at Ninth and Chestnut on the ground that it is inconvenient, inaccessible, and impossible. The trend in Philadelphia today, sir, is westward, west of Broad Street, and the improvements that are being made there are being made in that neighborhood.

You gentlemen that are familiar with Philadelphia probably know that we have recently erected a convention hall. That convention hall, sir, was put down on the bank of the Schuylkill River without any regard as to whether it increased values in that neighborhood. It has never increased the property, sir, in that neighborhood a dollar, because it is nonassessable. It means nothing for Philadelphia.

The first principle, sir, of a public improvement is that it should be put where somebody will get a return on the investment. If it is put out, sir, west of Broad Street-I am not particularly in favor, sir, of any site; I have no site to present at all-the immediate neighborhood, sir, will be improved, and the city of Philadelphia will get some money.

I notice you gentlemen speak of the Government. If I understand it, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia is a part of this Government, and we are spending some of our money, and I think it should be spent wisely, not put down at Ninth and Chestnut Streets, where the values are established and where the neighborhood is established and where it means nothing to us. What we need, sir, in Philadelphia to-day is increased revenue to run the city. So far as an additional million dollars is concerned, if this building, sir, is used for a period of years, spread over a period of years, a million dollars, sir, would not buy you gentlemen a good cigar for that period. It means nothing. I think it is a grave mistake, sir, to put this improvement at Ninth and Chestnut. We have invested in the Parkway there something like forty or fifty millions of dollars. All arteries of traffic, sir, across the Delaware Bridge down Broad Street, in Fairmont Park, in Walnut Street, in Chestnut Street-all arteries, sir, lead to the vicinity of Logan Square, and I am of the opinion, sir, that this improvement should be located there. If it is a matter of money, a million dollars, I do not think, sir, you should hesitate to instruct the Treasury Department to spend a million dollars rather than spend three or four million dollars locating a building, sir, on a site that really means nothing to Philadelphia as an investment. I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

Representative DAVIS. Mr. Ladner, custodian of Federal buildings in Philadelphia.

STATEMENT OF ALBERT H. LADNER, JR., CUSTODIAN OF FEDERAL BUILDINGS, PHILADELPHIA, AND COLLECTOR OF INTERNAL REVENUE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ladner, you may proceed.

Mr. LADNER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I testified the other day, and I want to come back here to-day and contradict some of the estimable gentlemen and my neighbors in Philadelphia, General Brown, for example, Governor Morris of the Federal reserve, and my good friend Harry A. Mackay, former mayor,