PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

HEATING AND VENTILATING E. V. BROWN SCHOOL.

The CHAIRMAN. "Public schools: For additional amount for installing heating and ventilating plant in the Elizabeth V. Brown (Chevy Chase) School, $15,000,"

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Gen. KNIGHT. There are several items involved in that, Mr. Chairman, but the main thing is that plans have been made to include a system of direct heating which could be used instead of the fan or Plenum system. There is no change of air so thorough by the direct heating system as there is by the fan system, which is continually forcing a change by either drawing in or forcing out the air. Now, that direct system can be installed for $5,000, which, with the bid made, will bring the cost of the building contract within the appropriation, but the commission does not recommend the use of such a heating system. It is contrary, I think, to the modern work of school construction. Certainly at my little place of Summit we would not think of using it.

The CHAIRMAN. You got $80,000 for an eight-room addition; did that include the heating and ventilation systems?

Gen. KNIGHT. Now, I will give you the full statement. The bid of the construction company is $10,000 less than the next bidder. The lowest heating bid is $19,589, and from that certain deductions can be made reducing it to $16,500. The building bid may be reduced by using concrete in one place instead of granite by $300, but the total excess over appropriation available on the basis of the lowest combined bids for all the different items is $11,280.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean by that that an eight-room addition to a school would cost $95,000?

Gen. KNIGHT. That would be the addition for these rooms. There is another item of a library, which would take about $2,000.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, that could not be paid out of this appropriation.

Gen. KNIGHT. No; that would have to be paid out of the addition, if granted. The municipal architect was convinced that the district will never get again as advantageous a figure as this bid for the construction of this school. The action of the commissioners was to recommend that the addition be granted.

The CHAIRMAN. Which system of heating was used in preparing the estimates upon which the appropriation was made?

Mr. BROWNLOw. The Plenum system-the forced-draft system. The CHAIRMAN. Which system is that?

Mr. BROWNLOW. The one we would put in if we got the additional $15,000. The estimates were made under the Plenum system, but the estimate was cut by the Appropriations Committee, and also the prices of materials have gone up. This $15.000 will permit the installation of a modern ventilating system in the entire building. The CHAIRMAN. You have no authority to do that.

Mr. BROWNLOW. We have got it in the old part.

The CHAIRMAN. You asked for $80,000 and Congress appropriated it and did not reduce the amount estimated.

Mr. BROWNLOW. I beg your pardon, it is the next school item where the appropriation was cut by the committee. This is altogether due then to the increased price of materials.

FOUR-ROOM ADDITION TO BURVILLE SCHOOL.

The CHAIRMAN. "For an additional amount for the construction of a four-room addition to the Burrville School, $12,000."

Gen. KNIGHT. The lowest bid for the work is over the total amount available by $1,160.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this a two-story addition? T
Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes, sir.

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TO The CHAIRMAN. This would make a total of $52,000 for a twostory building with two rooms on each floor. Does not that seem to be a great deal?

Mr. BROWNLOw. The change in that is in order to make it fireproof. The original estimate was based on a fire-resistant and not a fire proof building, and in order to make the construction fireproof, $12,000 additional will be required.

Gen. KNIGHT. The architect asked for an increase of $15,000, which the board of commissioners cut down to $12,000.

METROPOLITAN POLICE.

MAINTENANCE OF MOTOR VEHICLES.

1 Mr. BROWNLOW. The next is for the maintenance of motor vel hicles, $2,000. You may cut that out, because that was an antici pated deficiency which fortunately did not develop.

Congress appropriated $4,000 for repairs and alterations to the building formerly occupied as an emergency hospital, to be used as a laboratory and for such other necessary purposes as may be required. The Treasury Department, on account of the war, took the Emergency Hospital and did not give us permission to use it.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you spend any money on it?

Mr. BROWNLOW. No; we did not. Now we ask that it may be made available for such other public or private building as we can use for this purpose.

The CHAIRMAN. You add the language "and for such other neces sary purposes as may be required by the health department."

Mr. BROWNLOW. That is because if we did put it in a private building we wanted to combine that with the tubercular and venereal disease dispensaries which are authorized by Congress, and we think we may be able to get a building for no higher rental charge than is necessary to pay for the tubercular and venereal disease dispensaries and that will get upstairs rooms that we can use for laboratories if we have the money to equip them with the necessary plumbing. We would not pay any more rent than we will pay in any event for the tuberculosis and venereal disease dispensaries; but because the private dwelling we would rent for this purpose would not have the necessary plumbing to enable it to be used for a laboratory, we would have to have some fund with which to equip it for that pur pose. It would not entail a greater expenditure on account of rent,

and if it is possible to get some Government building which could be used for our purposes there would not be any rent at all.

Mr. GILLETT. You have not any particular building in view, then? Mr. BROWNLOW. I have one in view. I do not know whether we can get it. It is a building we can rent for $75 a month. It will be large enough for all three purposes.

Mr. CANNON. Let me understand about that. Do I understand you to say the Treasury Department seized this Emergency Hospital? Mr. BROWNLOW, The Emergency Hespital was abandoned, and the old building stood on land owned by the Government and in the control of the Treasury Department-six blocks lying along Fifteenth Street and running from Pennsylvania Avenue to B Street and between Fifteenth and Fourteenth Streets. The Treasury Department took that building and is using it for handling the correspondence in connection with the liberty lean. It was under the control of the Treasury Department, and the law which authorized us to use it made our use of it subject to the consent of the Secretary of the Treasury. He withheld his consent, and therefore none of the $4.000 was ever used.

Mr. CANNON. Are there not any number of other buildings down in that same Government reservation?

Mr. BROWNLOWw. We hope to get one of them if we get the money, but this $1.000 appropriation applied specifically to that particular building.

Mr. CANNON. And they have taken that building for another use? Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes. We hope if we get this $4,000 to find another building that the Secretary of the Treasury will permit us to use.

Mr. CANNON. You refer to that large number of buildings between the Washington Monument and Pennsylvania Avenue? Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes.

Mr. CANNON. I am very glad they are using even one of the buildings down there.

Mr. BROWNLOW. Of course, this does not ask for any new appropriation and it merely extends the authority contained in the appropriation in the current act.

PAYMENT TO JUDGES OF MUNICIPAL COURT FOR ACTING AS JUDGE OF

JUVENILE COURT.

For salaries for 1916, $30, and for 1917, $120. These amounts are required to pay for services as acting judge of the juvenile court during the absence of the judge of the court.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Commissioner, who sits for the juvenile court judge?

Mr. BROWNLOW. One of the judges of the municipal court.

The CHAIRMAN. What provision is there that he should get this compensation? How is anything paid to a municipal court judge in the place of the juvenile court judge?

Mr. BROWNLOW. I am informed by Mr. Donovan and Mr. Tweedale that this was tested out in the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, and the court of appeals decided that these judges were entitled to this additional compensation. The commissioners decided they were not, and a judge took it to the courts, and the courts decided that they were.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you a memorandum of that decision?
Mr. BROWNLOW. We can put it in the record.

Mr. CANNON. What is the pay of these municipal judges?
Mr. BROWNLOW. It was $2,400 a year. It is $3,000 now.

Mr. CANNON. And if they go out once in a while and hold this othr court, they want the extra pay, and the courts have sustained them in that position?

Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. We would like to see that decision.

Mr. BROWNLOW. We will put the decision in the record, Mr. Chairman.

(The decision is as follows:)

JUVENILE COURT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, SALARY OF ACTING JUDGE,

[Callan v. District of Columbia, Appeal Cases 43, p. 338.]

The court in the opinion stated the facts as follows:

* *

This appeal is from a judgment in the Supreme Court of the District sustaining the demurrer of the appellee, the District of Columbia, to appellant's declaration. The action is to recover compensation for services rendered by the appellant. Thomas H. Callan, while he was one of the judges of the municipal court of the District, as acting judge of the juvenile court during the years 1911, 1912, and 1913, as based upon section 3 of the act of March 19, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 73, ch. 960), establishing a juvenile court, and providing that "in cases of sickness, absence, disability, expiration of term of service, or death of the judge of the juvenile court, any one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia may designate one of the justices of the peace of said District to discharge the duties of said judge of the juvenile court * and said acting judge shall receive $5 per day in addition to his salary as justice of the peace, for the term that he shall serve, to be paid in the same manner as the salary of the judge of the juvenile court." The contention of the appellee is that this provision by implication was repealed by the provisions of the act of February 17, 1909 (35 Stat. L., 623, ch. 134), entitled "An act to change the name and jurisdiction of the inferior court of justice of the peace in the District of Columbia." That act provided that the justice of the peace court should remain as then constituted, but should thereafter be known as the municipal court of the District of Columbia, and should consist of the then justices of the peace, who should serve as judges for the unexpired terms of their then existing commissions. The act further provided that in case of sickness, absence, disability, expiration of term of service of, or death of either of the judges of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia might designate one of the judges of the municipal court to discharge the duties of said judge until such disability be removed, or vancancy filled. It is the contention of the appellee that the provisions of this act are so repugnant to the provisions of section 3 of the act of 1906 "as to constitute a repeal thereof, although there is nowhere in said act of 1909 any express repeal."

Mr. Justice Robb delivered the opinion of the court:

It is a well-settled rule that repeals by implication are not favored, and that when two statutes cover in whole or in part the same matter, it is the duty of the court to give effect to both unless they are irreconcilable; in other words, unless it is clear that the later act was intended to displace the provisions of the former. (Henderson's Tobacco, 11 Wall., 652, 20 L. ed., 235, etc.) In the present case, the later act is not necessarily irreconcilable with the former. The name of the justice of the peace court having been changed, Congress, as a matter of caution, and to save any question being raised as to the right of a judge of the newly constituted court to act as a judge of the juvenile court, specifically provided that he might do so. But it did not provide that he should so serve without extra compensation. It had expressly declared that the old court should remain as then constituted, but should thereafter be known by a different name, and later on it provided that "the said court (that is, the newly constituted municipal court) and each member thereof shall exercise the same jurisdiction as was vested in them as justice

of the peace immediately before the passage of this act, and no more, and shall be governed by the laws then in force, except as said laws and said jurisdiction are expressly changed or enlarged hereby." The provision in the juvenile court act providing for extra compensation concededly was not expressly repealed. We are unable to find any necessary implication of repeal, since there is nothing in the later act which destroys this provision in the former. That being so, both may be permitted to stand. This view is strengthened by a reference to the deficiency appropriation bills of March 4, 1909, June 25, 1910, and March 4, 1911, directing payment "for services rendered by acting judge of said juvenile court, as authorized by section 3 of the act of March 19, 1906, creating said court." While these appropriation acts, of course, are not controlling they are proper to be considered because they indicate the contemporaneous construction placed upon the act of 1909 by Congress.

It appearing that the compensation of the judges of the municipal court was not increased by the act of 1909, that there was no express repeal of the provision in the former act allowing extra compensation, that the later act expressly provided that the municipal court should “be governed by the laws then in force" unless expressly changed, that Congress for three years thereafter recognized the extra-compensation provision of the earlier act as still in force, we rule that it was not repealed by the later act. The judgment must be reversed, with costs, and the cause remanded.

Reversed.

Mr. CANNON. When you submit that, submit also, for the information of the committee, the provision you want to amend this law? Mr. BROWNLOW. Yes.

MUNICIPAL COURT-CONTINGENT EXPENSES.

The next item is for contingent expenses of the municipal court, $150. Not all of the bills are in yet, and we have not got the exact amount. We know that the items of ice, laundry, electric light, and ashes amount to $89.13; and there are some items, for which the bills are not in yet, on account of the cost of coal and court dockets, but it will be within the $150 asked for.

WASHINGTON ASYLUM AND JAIL-PAYMENTS TO DESTITUTE WOMEN.

For payments to destitute women and children the exact amount of this deficiency is $375.50 instead of $500. This is an ascertained deficiency.

REFUNDING TAXES AUTO LIVERY CO. AND FEDERAL TAXICAB CO.

The next item is for refunding taxes, the language reading:

Authority is granted to pay out of the above-named appropriation the sum of $69.58 to the Auto Livery Co. and the sum of $44.64 to the Federal Taxicab Co. for overpaid personal taxes by said companies.

The property of these two companies was valued by the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia. The Public Utilities Commission found the value as of June 30, 1914, found the value new, and then subtracted the depreciation on account of the age of the vehicles. These two companies, in making their returns to the assessor, inadvertently took the price of the machines as if they were new and not the price as depreciated, so that they paid taxes upon a greater value on their vehicles than had been found to be the value of those vehicles by the Public Utilities Commission.

The CHAIRMAN. Why should we object to that if they want to do it?