would have to be given to special conditions, because these additional floors were not contemplated, originally and steel members were not employed as to-day, which would permit easy vertical expansion.

Regarding the reference to the city-county building in Pittsburgh it may be explained that this building was won in a competition, so that an ideal untrammeled scheme was selected and built upon a clear site without any of the hampering considerations that have been advanced by some proponents of using the present site at Ninth and Chestnut Streets by the alteration and addition method. The Pittsburgh city-county building could use uniform modern building methods and its courts were placed high up, though not excessively so, so as to be naturally free from noise. The scheme of the building is admirable, but its relation to the city as a whole is unfortunate. Conditions evidently were such that Pittsburgh lost the opportunity of a fine civic group which can only be realized in the future at a great expenditure of money, involving the creation of a new appropriate traffic artery.

The present Philadelphia courthouse and post-office building which the Government plans to replace has approximately a ground area of 57,000 square feet. It has a floor space of 325,000 feet, which is entirely used up by the activities of the courts, post office, and other Federal branches. A fair estimate to produce the plans and specifications, demolish the present structure and replace it would be a minimum of two years. It is quite probable that it might take somewhat longer. To carry on the usual activities, it would be necessary to acquire space that could be adapted or transformed for the special uses of the various departments. Assuming a low rental cost of 90 cents per square foot, the total rental for the minimum period, as indicated, would be approximately $600,000. To this amount would have to be added the cost of damage to equipment and loss of time and efficiency in the work of the departments. The rented spaces would have to be transformed, adapted or altered to house the equipment which would have to be moved twice. While it would be somewhat difficult to estimate this cost in advance, a fair estimate would seem to be $200,000.

To this would have to be added the cost of demolition, which has already been determined by the Government to be approximately $100,000. This figure has been found by actual checking from several other sources to be correct.

Thus the total cost of demolishing the building, moving and removal of all the complicated equipment and alterations to the rented space to receive the equipment and carry on the routine would ap proximately total $900,000, without counting the cost due to loss of time and efficiency.

The project would derive no real benefit from this considerable expenditure. It would simply mean the retention of the present site, which, though adequate in area and in shape, does not measure up to the requirements set forth previously for an ideal site. There would be no freedom from congestion, noise, and shadows from closely placed tall structures, and there would be a lack of dignified approaches and vistas. The department store directly opposite serves as an amplifying sounding board to increase the noises in the district and its height prevents adequate natural daylight from entering the present Federal building. The type of structures surround

ing the site will never contribute to the setting and appearance of the proposed building and do not assure a stable setting for the future. The nature of their activities may change and the form that their exteriors may take in the future is not controllable, as would be the case if the courthouse were placed in relation to buildings of a civic or historic group erected wholly or in part. The expenditure of $900,000 would therefore be wasted, since no tangible benefit to the building could be shown.

If, on the other hand, a suitable new site were selected, the $900,000 item could be applied to the cost of the site and to the additional cost involved in retaining the present Federal building for use as a down-town post-office branch. The building, though not as ideal as a new building would be, could be made serviceable at a cost of from $300,000 to $400,000. Thus a well-built building would be retained, the appearance of the district hardly disturbed, and the services for the branch post office would be adequately housed and placed in a location suitable for its purpose and convenient to the public. The Federal court building would then be free from alien services and an ideal court building could be evolved, serving its governmental purposes efficiently and adding to the dignity of the city plan, not only now but increasingly in the future. The amount spent for the ground should not be taken from the original appropriation, since competent Government experts already have determined, after long study, what the cost of the combined court and post-office services should be. If the cost of a new site and provision for post-office services were subtracted from the original appropriation, insufficient funds would be available to erect a building worthy of the Government and the site selected. The quality of the materials would suffer and the desired monumental aspect of the structure impaired. It could not be assumed in fairness to the cost mentioned previously. should be taken from the original appropriation. Undoubtedly new funds would have to be obtained for rental. Similarly, additional funds would be obtained if a new site is to be used. The cost of the original Federal building at Ninth and Chestnut Streets was approximately $4,000,000, and appropriation of $2,900,000 for the new building, which was not too large in view of the more modern, complicated requirements and increased space needed for present needs and future expansion. It will have to be necessary to erect the building at a less unit cost than obtained from 1874 to 1884, and to further reduce the funds for erecting a fine Federal court building would be detrimental to the project. The Government should certainly not build less worthy buildings now than in the past, but, on the contrary, there should be an effort for improvement in efficiency and beautification. This can not be done by considering private interests but by giving unbiased consideration to the requirements set forth at the beginning of this report.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. What did you say the present building cost?

Mr. LADNER. $4,000,000. It cost 50 cents a cubic foot in 1884. Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. How do you expect to build a building comparable with that at the Parkway for $2,900,000 and buy land besides?

Mr. LADNER. Because our architects, who have been consulted, and engineers, who have been consulted, believe that this building on the

Parkway, monumental, as it will be, can be built for 40 cents a cubic foot.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Does anybody here know what the Franklin Memorial Building is costing?

Mr. LADNER. $5,000,000.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. What did the public library building cost?

Mr. LADNER. I guess that cost about $4,000,000.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. What did the Rodin Museum cost?

Mr. LADNER. That didn't cost more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We really do not know.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Now you are expecting the Federal Government to put a building on that Parkway and buy the land for $2,900,000, by the side of buildings that cost $4,000,000 and $5,000,000.

Mr. LADNER. There are 120,000 square feet there.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. How many stories high?
Mr. LADNER. It has to be approved first.

Mr. ANDERSON. There is this to be considered also, Senator, that those buildings were built with the high price of building and high cost of labor. Then the construction of the present building is entirely different from that of the new building. In other words, the present building is what is known as a wall-bearing building. The new building will undoubtedly be built of a skeleton type, steel frame, and built in with masonry.

Senator FESS. Mr. Chairman, it is necessary for me to go to the chamber right away, and I think that the committee will have to go. I wanted to ask a question before I go. I would like Major Heath to answer this.

Here is a resolution that is entirely different from anything that I have seen before this committee since we have launched upon our present policy of building. We have resolutions to authorize the appropriation for enlarging a building or to buy a new site, but here is a resolution that locates the site:

Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to acquire a site located on or near the Parkway in the city of Philadelphia.

I have never seen anything of that kind before.
Senator DICKINSON. It does not locate the site specifically.
Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Well, Philadelphia is an excep-
tion to the rest of the country.

Senator FESS. That is what I wanted to ask. I have never seen a resolution like this. Either go to the Treasury Department under the general law, authorization to improve the present site, or to buy a new site without specifying where, leaving within the judgment of the Treasury as to what is best in the location. I have never seen a resolution like that.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Haven't you discovered the unusual political ideas of Philadelphia for to-day?

Senator FEss. The chairman will excuse me now.

Mr. LADNER. I stress my argument mostly on the cost of remov ing the activities, taking them elsewhere, getting space and bringing them back after this building is built. I maintain that will cost

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$900,000, and I do not think that is an economic program, if you permit that to be done, where a few hundred dollars more will buy a site and place it in a position along the Parkway, where a building of this kind really belongs.

The CHAIRMAN. All right; we thank you, Mr. Ladner. Is that all, Congressman?

Representative DAVIS. Mr. Chairman, that is all we expect, except one more witness, which is Congressman Beck. I do not see him in the room. I believe he is on his way here.

The CHAIRMAN. He was here. I saw him.

Representative DAVIS. I just want to thank the committee for taking their time this morning, on behalf of the Philadelphia delegation. We appreciate your attendance.

Mr. GADSEN. Mr. Chairman, may we ask a few minutes for Doctor Tily, the president of Strawbridge & Clothier. He could not be here for previous meetings.

STATEMENT OF HERBERT J. TILY, PRESIDENT STRAWBRIDGE & CLOTHIER, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

The CHAIRMAN. Give your full name.

Mr. TILY. Herbert J. Tily.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you a doctor of medicine?

Mr. TILY. Doctor of music and a doctor of law, sir. I am also a master of arts. And yet I am in business.

So I am inclined to ask if I am another Baron Munchausen. You have heard several this morning-" Vas you dere, Chollie?"

I am a little sorry that you have had to listen to so many Philadelphia lawyers, and I have great sympathy with Senator Walsh in regard to his statement about Philadelphia politics.

This particular sweatshop area about which Mr. McNeal spoke is now appraised, at the low appraisals of to-day, at $240,000,000. If there is any danger of making it a sweatshop area, I am sure you do not wish to be accessories before the fact.

I am housed at Eighth and Market. I have no difficulty in hearing, notwithstanding the so-called reverberations from the Gimbel Building, which is just opposite to me. It is true they do make a great deal of noise at times.

I am also a member of the executive committee of the Ben Franklin Hotel, which is housing more visitors to Philadelphia, I believe, than any other hotel in the city.

Senator DICKINSON. Are any of them crowded?

Mr. TILY. None of them are crowded, sir; no. The white-collar class can not travel.

Now, I ask this, gentlemen, in all fairness to the whole situation: Why fiddle when Rome is burning? Because it certainly is burning. This job has been done and well done. Two million nine hundred thousand dollars spent at the corner of Ninth and Market in proper ways will be taken care of æsthetically in every way in which it should be taken care of, because we have some good architects in Philadelphia, and it will take a Philadelphia architect as well as good lawyers, and the architects can not afford to do anything but a good job, because their works live after them and can be seen.

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If a new site is chosen, whether it be on the Parkway or elsewhere, you take from us the taxes which we are now getting from that site. I am sorry that the Fidelity-Philadelphia, or any other institution which has property to sell, is finding it difficult under present circumstances to pay taxes. We have that same difficulty, too. We have the difficulty of paying taxes.

But here is a situation where there are $2,900,000 immediately available for use, and as I understood it that money was appropriated chiefly as an emergency appropriation to take care of conditions which we all deplore.

If this thing is left up in the air, if that thing is changed in any particular, there will be a great hullabaloo as to which site on the Parkway is chosen, and it will be held up indefinitely, and probably normal times, or maybe boom times, will have returned before that $2,900,000 is used to take care of the present emergency.

I have been associated with Senator Pepper in his great work. His united campaign and the urgency of immediate contributions has been stressed by him, and stressed by me as representing_him. The necessity of the immediate use of an appropriation made by Congress to take care of existing conditions is definitely before you gentlemen.

Philadelphia lawyers may go up in the air if they can not hear where they are. Probably they better get as near heaven as they can, because, after all, nobody knows where they are going.

All these arguments are a little bit without reason. I ask, gentlemen, if you let things remain as they are, if you let that $2,900,000 be used immediately to take care of the present situation, I think you will be discharging your duty to your constituents and to us. The addition of $1,500,000 for real estate in addition to taking away from us the taxes on that real estate is adding nothing to anybody except these trustees, who are holding this property for the interest of somebody else. It seems to me that every dictate of humanity, of common sense, and wisdom suggests that you let lie and do not disturb the action already taken by Congress, because I am fearful, very fearful that the game of the whole thing will be defeated and it will be an incalculably long period of time before the money is used.

Senator DICKINSON. Just a moment. There is a spirit up there that you should improve the Parkway that has been dominating the political and the public atmosphere of Philadelphia.

Mr. TILY. There is a spirit that it should be improved, but it has been generally conceded that it should be turned over to philosophical, historical, scientific, artistic things, rather than to courts of justice.

Senator DICKINSON. But you have established a municipal court. Mr. TILY. It was there for a long while, sir, and it is off the Parkway. It is not on the Parkway.

Senator DICKINSON. It is in the vicinity of Eighteenth

Mr. TILY (interposing). Opposite the new site.

Mr. SWAAB. It is just a 3-story brick building.

Mr. TILY. It was not built for the municipal court. It was taken for them. It has been given up to some other purpose.