The times., 1899-03-18
THE INVISIBLE REPORT.
Efforts to Delay Action on school
Building Disclosures.


Although two of the District Commits
sioners profess to be unaware of the fact,
the much discussed report of the commit
tee on buildings and repairs of school
trustees, which involves the responsible
ty of the District government for badly
built schoolhouses. has reached the Dis
trict Building 1t was mailed by the Sec
retary of the Board of School Trustees last
Thursday afternoon. Enquiry at the Dis
trict Building yesterday morning failed to
disclose the fact that any such report had
! been received at the office of the Secretary
to the Commissioners.
Both Commissioners Wight and Beach
made positive assertions late in the after
noon that they had not seen the report.
and one laughingly remarked that the doe
ument probably exists only in the mind
of newspaper writer's" At that time, new
ertheless, the report was at the District
Building. and was among the papers OF
Commissioner Ross, who was not at the
District Building yesterday. 1t was stated
that he had gone to New York on per-
sonal matters.
The letter of Mr.. Falck, Secretary OF the
Board of School Trustees, transmitting the
report, was at the District Building late
yesterday afternoon. Attached to it were
letters from Francis r. Lane, Principal of
High Schools. enumerating the faults found
at the Western High School, the Conduit
School, the Chevy Chase School, and the
Gross, Johnson, Hayes, and Bruce School
Buildings. The report itself could not be
/! located. 1t was not with the letter of
transmittal, and no one at the District
Building seemed TO know of its existence.
1t may be that Commissioner Ross took
the document to New York with him, al
though this could not be verified. The
| letters of Superintendent Lane contain da-
ia similar 10 that given in the Harries re-
port and to very large degree formed
the basis of the latter paper.
Each of the schools adversely reported
upon was built and inspected by different
persons The Western High School was
built by Baldwin & Peake. contractors and
builders, and was inspected by Perry Mil
Ter; the Chevy Chase School was built by
Payarini & Greer, in 1887, and inspected
by Superintendent Garrett; the Reservoir,
or Conduit Road School, was built by
William F. Beers & Co., and was not Off
cially inspected; the johnson School was
built in 1896 by Columbus Thomas & Sons
and inspected by C. W. Warnec!ie and
the Hayes School was built last year by
J. NJ. Dunn and inspected by John C.
Bright.
Ii has been the custom to detail special
inspectors at every new public school
building during the course of erection.
They are paid at the rate of 81 day out
of the amount appropriated for the work
by Congress. When the Reservoir School
was built small Congressional appropria-
tions prevented the appointment of a spe-
cial inspector and one of the four in
spectors of the corps attached to the Office
of the District Inspector of Buildings was
detailed to watch the construction. He did
this in connection with his other duties
In view of the amounts involved in the
erection of the new school buildings. and
particularly on the new Western High
School. the Connecticut Avenue School at
Chevy Chase. and the Hayes School at
Fifth and K Streets northeast, all of
which were erected last year figures show
ing the expenditures in detail are inter-
esting at this time The figures in con-
nection with the Western High School
are as follows:
IN