5. Information.-Consular reports from all foreign countries to the Public Health Service, with free use of cable when necessary.

6. Nonpolitical.-Appointments in the Public Health Service are for life, dependent upon good behavior and efficient service. This is essential to scientific progress. Permanent appointments for quarantine work insure an accumulation of experience.

7. International sanitary treaties.-The United States is a signatory of two international sanitary treaties, under which are operated the international quarantine regulations, which are subject to revision every two years, in order to keep pace with scientific advance.

8. Precedents.-Sixty-seven State and local quarantine stations have already been transferred.

9. Quarantine a national function.-All immigrants entering the United States are examined by Public Health Service officers, and all persons, whether immigrants or incoming passengers, are examined for quarantine purposes at all ports in the United States, save at New York and Baltimore.

10. Arrangements for boarding are made to suit the needs of the port.

11. Facilities.-Equipment is provided in fixed relation to the amount of commerce and immigration. This applies also to the number of medical officers and attendants assigned.

12. Financial.-The Government usually rents a quarantine plant at a nominal sum until its purchase as a result of an appropriation from Congress. No fees are charged for boarding or inspecting vessels.

13. Cooperation. The quarantine service operated by the National Government has access, when necessary, to cooperation and aid from all branches of the Government.

PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

An examination of public-building legislation covering a period of several years shows a lack of system and a disregard of economic consideration in authorizing the construction of public buildings. Acquisition of sites has been authorized years in advance of any need for them, and buildings have been authorized at limits of cost bearing no reasonable relation to the needs of the communities in which they are to be placed. The limit of cost fixed by Congress appears to have dictated the type of building to be erected, and its cost has usually been made to equal that amount. Needless and unjustifiable waste of public money has resulted.

Several thousand public-building bills are introduced at each session of Congress. These are, as a rule, all referred to the Treasury

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Department for estimate and report. No satisfactory report can be made in the absence of an investigation of local conditions by qualified inspectors. In the absence of both the necessary corps of inspectors or any appropriation for travel and subsistence of such a corps the department is forced to resort to the unsatisfactory expedient of obtaining data by correspondence. The information thus obtained, prepared by officials unfamiliar with the technicalities of the subject involved, is naturally unsatisfactory and at times unreliable. A very sensible plan for the correction of these conditions, and one which meets my entire approval, was suggested by one of my predecessors, Secretary Cortelyou, in a report to the Speaker of the House under date of December 7, 1908, as follows:

Further change, it is believed, could be made to great advantage. The present system employed in connection with bills for public buildings is not conducive to the best results. A great mass of bills is annually poured in on the department, with requests for early reports. In many instances the buildings authorized are unnecessary for the public business, and in the interests of economy the construction could be postponed for several years. Insufficient time is allowed for investigation as to the requirements of the building proposed, or, in fact, for an accurate estimate of cost. As a result, it frequently happens that a number of buildings are authorized which are not required, and, on the other hand, no appropriations are made for localities in which the Government is urgently in need of adequate buildings, and is in all probability paying large rent for insufficient quarters.

Public-building appropriations should be put on a basis similar to that now employed in connection with appropriations for river and harbor work. If this were done, the Congress would submit to this department a list of localities, with the request that at the next session a report be submitted showing:

1. The necessity or advisability of a building in the city or town suggested. This would necessarily embrace the size of the city, the cost of the building, and the price at which rented quarters are to be had.

2. If a public building is recommended, the area and probable cost of the site; the size, cost, and character of the building that should be erected; the branches of the Government service that would occupy it when completed, and the annual cost of its maintenance.

3. The amount of appropriation necessary to carry on the work during the ensuing fiscal year.

With such a report, carefully made in detail after consultation with the other departments interested, the Congress would be better able to judge of the advisability of authorizing a building and of the appropriation required. I am confident that by this method a great saving could be effected and that buildings could be more satisfactorily and economically distributed.

For the purpose of improving the conditions relating to the construction of public buildings I issued an order to the Office of the Supervising Architect establishing a classification of buildings. Its purpose is to provide a rational system of uniformity and business economy in designing and constructing public buildings, so that

buildings suitable to the public needs may be built without waste of Government money. Four classes have been established as follows:

CLASS A.

Character of building.-Marble or granite facing; fireproof throughout; metal frames, sashes, and doors; inte

Definition.-Buildings that include a post office of the first class with annual receipts of $800,000 or over; the site forming part of a city develop-rior finish to include the finer grades ment plan or situated on an important thoroughfare of a great city; improvements on adjoining property reaching the higher valuation of metropolitan real estate.

of marble, ornamental bronze work, mahogany, etc. Public spaces to have monumental treatment, mural decorations; special interior lighting fixtures.

By the application of the classification above indicated it is intended that buildings adapted to local conditions and in keeping with the importance of the communities in which they are to be erected shall be constructed, and under this policy like conditions. will receive similar treatment. It is estimated that many thousands

of dollars will be saved in the construction of buildings already authorized by Congress, but not yet reached by the Supervising Architect's Office.

In nearly every community where Federal buildings have been erected the growth of the public business and the inauguration of the Parcel Post Service have rendered such buildings inadequate for the purpose for which they were constructed. In numerous instances it has become necessary to rent quarters outside of the public building for various branches of the public service. In the 875 communities in which Federal buildings are occupied the Government is paying in rentals a total of $2,452,036.08. As against this annual outlay, only $632,059.04 is being paid for the rental of post-office quarters in all localities where post-office buildings have been authorized but not yet erected.

Many of the buildings which the 1913 omnibus public-building bill authorized to be erected are for post offices in small communities where the service is now being properly handled in leased quarters and where the annual rental is less than one-half of what the maintenance of Federal buildings will cost when constructed.

Under existing legislation the responsibility for the construction of public buildings is placed on the Secretary of the Treasury. He is required to determine, within the limits of cost fixed by Congress, what sort of a building shall be erected to meet the needs of each community and of the Federal service. He has no discretion to say that any building authorized shall not be erected. If buildings are authorized to be constructed in communities where they are not needed the responsibility rests upon the Congress. The Secretary's duty is to comply with the directions of Congress. It is, however, a fact that many buildings have been authorized in the 1913 omnibus public-building act in small towns where there is no actual need for them and that there are many places where public buildings are sorely needed or where the public business has outgrown the public buildings already erected. These must suffer until a more satisfactory plan for the authorization and construction of public buildings is adopted by the Congress.

Under the authority given this department to employ special site agents all sites authorized in the so-called omnibus public-building act approved March 4, 1913, have been carefully inspected and reported upon. Of these sites, 136 have been selected at an aggregate saving of $571,775.

In the matter of the acquisition of sites where buildings are not yet authorized, it is manifestly unwise and unbusinesslike to buy such sites years in advance of their possible use, except in cases where the opportunity of securing particularly desirable properties might

be lost through deferred action. As a general rule, it is not to the Government's interest to take title to sites years before they are required for building purposes.

I am convinced that the public interest will be best served and a needless waste of public money will be avoided if the practice of authorizing the acquisition of sites in advance of legislation authorizing the construction of buildings is abandoned and if both site and building are authorized at the same time under a single limit of costMay I respectfully recommend that the practice which has come into existence in recent years of legislating for public buildings in omnibus public-building bills be discontinued? Each public-building project should be considered on its merits. When omnibus bills are employed items of doubtful merit are pulled through by those of undoubted merit, and there is no means of eliminating the former. The bill must be approved or rejected as a whole.

When the last omnibus public-building bill became a law on March 4, 1913, there still remained in the Supervising Architect's Office, awaiting the attention of the technical force, an accumulation of work under previous authorizations. With the exception of less than a score of buildings which can not be disposed of until further legislation is enacted, this accumulation has been properly taken care of, and on July 1 of this year preparation was begun of the plans and specifications of buildings authorized in the 1913 public-building act. Attention is being given first to the extension of buildings which are no longer of adequate size to meet the needs of the public service and to buildings authorized to be erected on sites acquired under previous legislation. The next class to be given attention will be the buildings authorized by the 1913 public-building act to be erected on sites the acquisition of which was also authorized in said act.

Judging from results obtained during the last quarter of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1915, it is believed that by putting into full effect the policy of utilizing, whenever practicable, the plans of buildings previously constructed, and with a few additional technical employees to equalize the capacity of the several divisions the output of the Supervising Architect's Office can be materially increased. It is possible that the turning point has been reached in Government architecture in large cities. The policy hitherto followed of purchasing sites of sufficient size to permit of placing the Postal Service on the lower floors only has been extremely expensive. Confronted with the fact that the $1,750,000 appropriated for a site for a new post office in Chicago (West Side) is inadequate to pay for land of sufficient area to accommodate a building of the cus