United States Code Annotated, which is in 61 volumes, together with their quarterly service. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know anything about their profits on general sales? Mr. KLEPINGER. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Of course, they have the advantage of all this information and of this material when they come to print their publications for general sale. Mr. KLEPINGER. Of course, Congress has no copyright on the statutes, and any person or company can enter the field and copyright its own publications of the Federal statutes. Their only chance of profit is in the sale of the United States Statutes Annotated, the preparation of which costs a great deal of money. The CHAIRMAN. They have not filed any statement with the committee as to their profits on accounts of sales, have they? Mr. KLEPINGER. No, sir; they have not. Mr. WOOD. Suppose this appropriation is denied and not made any more: What loss would the Government sustain by that? Mr. KLEPINGER. In that case Congress would have quite a problem on its hands, because I do not know to whom we could turn in order to insure preparation of the supplements and with any assurance that it would be done in such a fine manner as these two companies are doing it. They are the best companies publishing law books in the United States. The Edward Thompson Co.'s chief editor, Mr. Eldridge, is the editor in charge of the code and supplements, and is devoting practically his entire time to this work for the Government. In addition to editing these Government supplements and keeping the code up to date, I have turned over to him from time to time voluminous criticisms from the departments. For instance, I have transmitted to him some 300 or 400 suggestions from the War Department, and have asked him to study these. About 1,000 more will be submitted to him at an early date. He has done this and indicated in his notes in the supplements as to the force and effect that some statutes may still have or may not have. That is a part of the task, and, of course, we have to include that in the work that we are asking them to do for this $5,000. Mr. WOOD. How many copies of the code does the Gevernment get? Mr. KLEPINGER. Each Member of the House and Senate gets 10 copies under the law. Mr. WOOD. What do the Members do with them? Mr. KLEPINGER. They send them to their constituents or to lawyers who are interested in them. Mr. WOOD. Are they delivered to the Congressman or are they distributed through the document room? Mr. KLEPINGER. They are made available in the document room. If I may, I should like to add this: If the appropriation were denied, I should hardly know what suggestion to make in order to continue this very important and essential work. It ought never to be abandoned, now that we have the code and supplements, and we ought to keep them up to date. We hope, if the committee's program can be carried out as outlined in the remarks of the retiring chairman, Mr. Fitzgerald, at the last session, that ultimately. we can produce a new code, free of all obsolete and useless laws, to be smaller in size, in a more convenient form, with thinner paper, and with a finer index. PREPARATION OF FIRST SUPPLEMENT TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CODE The CHAIRMAN. You have an estimate here asking for the reappropriation of $1,432.55, which is the unexpended balance of the appropriation of March 4, 1929 (45 Stat. 1608), as authorized under the provisions of the United States Code, title 1, section 59, to remain available during the fiscal year 1932. There is also an estimate en route, as I understand it, for an appropriation of $3,000 for the fiscal year 1933, which will be taken up in the regular bill. I would like to ask you now about this deficiency appropriation which is intended for the bill we now have under consideration. Mr. KLEPINGER. Mr. Chairman, this is for the purpose of enabling the committee to have money available in the event we are able to secure the services of one or two lawyers in the District of Columbia to prepare a supplement to the District of Columbia Code. It now brings the laws up to March 4, 1929. We also hope, if that sum is reappropriated, to use some money to pay incidental expenses, such as clerical hire in the Library of Congress in the preparation of parallel reference tables, tables of statutes repealed, and comparative tables with the 1901 code, which was the old code before this new one. In other words, I think that during the last Congress we paid for two items one of $45 and one of $22.45—which makes up the difference between that sum and $1,500. That money was paid for photostat-paper supplies so that we could photostat some old obsolete laws that we wanted to print verbatim in the back of the reports, under the House rules, which is required when reporting bills to repeal or amend the statutes. That item represents the balance of an appropriation of $6,500 made about two years ago, I think, in the Seventieth Congress. Out of the $6,500, we spent $5,000 toward paying the two companies to whom I have just referred for preparing the then current supplement, and out of this balance of $1,500 we paid for two small items, which is enumerated, I think, in the letter to the Clerk of the House, dated December 19, from the chairman of the Committee on Revision of the Laws. I doubt very much if anything will be spent out of that sum if we do not secure the services of one or two men here in the District of Columbia to keep this District of Columbia Code up to date. Mr. WOOD. If it is the kind of work that they have done in connection with other business that we have gotten lawyers to do, I do not know how valuable it will be. Sometimes they do not seem to know anything about it. Mr. KLEPINGER. We have been very fortunate in our District Code situation, because we secured in the beginning two very splendid lawyers, Mr. Harry A. Hegarty (since deceased), and Mr. Edwin A. Mooers, to undertake the task. The late Mr. Hegarty, as you may recall, appeared previously. Upon his death the committee obtained the help of Mr. Howard Boyd, a prominent and able member of the District bar. These lawyers, under direction of the committee, prepared the new District Code, and did a splendid job. The District bench and bar have been unstinted in their praise of it. It should be kept up to date by supplements, the same system used to keep the United States Code up to date. The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it will take all this money? Mr. KLEPINGER. I doubt it very much. It should not, because the District Code contains the laws in force in the District to March 4, 1929, and the legislation, since that date, of a general and permanent nature that is applicable only to the District of Columbia is hardly sufficient The CHAIRMAN (interposing). If this sum of money is reappropriated, you will not feel under any obligation to spend it? Mr. KLEPINGER. No, sir. The item of $3,000, however, is essential, as outlined in the letter of December 19, to which I have just referred, to continue the employment of the special assistants to the committee in the work of preparing analyses of obsolete laws based upon comments and recommendations received from all the departments. This is for extra services as provided when a similar sum was appropriated under the Act of February 6, 1931. The volume of work of this committee has so increased during the past five years that the clerk has been handicapped by the lack of competent legal and clerical assistance. The appropriation of February, 1931, has enabled the committee to secure such necessary services to insure progress in this phase of the work. INDEX A Agriculture Department.. Federal-aid highway system, construction of. Forest Service.. Fire losses and cost of fighting fires.. Forest fires, salaries and expenses for fighting of Public Roads, Bureau of.. Albright, H. M., statement of__ Appeals, Court of, printing and binding for.... Architect of the Capitol... Architectural, engineering, and other assistance, authority to employ. Assembly room. Capitol Grounds, enlarging, removal of buildings, etc. - 11214 Contracts in the open market, etc., authority to enter into. House Office Building (new), furnishings and equipment-- House Office Building (old), reconstruction and remodeling of Unemployment relief, expenses of President's organization.... Crane, J. J., statement of. Crosby, Hon. H. B., statement of D Davison, Maj. D. A., statement of.. Page 108 112 108 109 108 112 140 105 253 257 261 260 256. 258 253 264 262 261 85. 31 100 154 202 1 196 105 245 199 265 151 59 116 116 59 85 68. 68. Demaray, A. E., statement of... District of Columbia. Appeals, court of, printing and binding.... Building projects, status of .... Colored deaf mutes, maintenance and instruction of.. Contagious disease department, personal services for... Municipal architect's office.. Building projects affected through failure to receive deficiency Building projects, status of.... Employees, number and salary of Personal services___. Making available unexpended balance of appropriation for. 140 68 105 Benning Road underpass at Twenty-fourth Street NE., construction of 791 71 85 100 100 80 68 78. 69, 75 72 275 District of Columbia-Continued. Nonresident insane, deportation of House of detention, alteration of No. 2 precinct for. Public schools. - Colored deaf mutes, maintenance and instruction of School buildings, stadiums, etc., furnishing and equipping of Relief of the poor- Water department.. Bryant Street pumping station, pump for.. Water registrar's office, purchase of labor devices for. Doak, Hon. William N., statement of.. Donovan, Maj. D. J., statement of.. Dodd, S. M., jr., statement of Drought relief, deficiency appropriation for emergency 09 F Page 102 95 95 95 85 85 86 103 104 104 104 176 124 68 62 46 Expenditures to December 1, 1931, distribution of Historian, traveling expenses of.. Pamphlets to schools, etc., cost of, and manner of distribution.. Printing and binding and rent_ Wakefield, dedication of.. Washington's birthday celebration. 16 46 59 59 56 46 57 245 154 62 31 31 45 45 35 32, 36 33 38 35 42 43 95 196 176 196 |