Evening star., 1903-10-07
Papers Must Go to the Sec
retary of the interior.
REQUIREMENT OF LAW
ACQUIRING SITE ROR REPRESEN
TATIvEs' OFFICE BUILDING.
Superintendent Woods Has Not Chosen
Method for Clearing the Square to
Be Taken by the Government.

The requirements Of the law will necessl-
tate a delay in the passing of the title OF
the square south of the Capitol grounds to
the government as site for an office
building for the House of Representatives.
1t is not expected this delay will be over
three or four weeks. so that by the expira-
ton of that time Mr.. Elliott Woods, the
superintendent of the Capitol, will probably
have possession of the site and be able to
move forward with his arrangements for
the clearing of the site and the preparations
for the foundation of the building.
When the district attorney few days ago
forwarded to the Attorney General, for
transmission to the Secretary of the In
terror, the awards of the commission that
fixed the prices for the various parcels OF
ground in the square to be taken by the
government he did not send with them the
transcript of the evidence and accompany
ing papers.
Must See the Evidence.
The law under which these condemnation
proceedings were conducted provides that
the Secretary Of the Interior shall pass
upon the question of the fairness of the
amounts of the awards. That provision re-
quires him to look into the case Of each
piece of property condemned, separately,
and in order to do that it is necessary that
he should have all the evidence on which
the commission acted.
That evidence covers 800 typewriter
pages of testimony, besides numerous pa
perS submitted in evidence. In order to
carry out that provision of the law the Sec
retary has communicated with the Attorney
General, asking that the district attorney
be requested to send the testimony to him.
After the required papers have been re-
ceived by the Secretary he will decide as
ha xxyil TO fo;v,
the fairness of each of the awards He
may appoint commission for this purpose
and, by dividing the work between several
members of such commission, it is be-
ieved that the whole proceedings can be
reviewed In short time.
Validity Of the Title.
A week or ten days may be sufficient for
action necessary to warranet the Secretary
In forwarding the papers to the Attorney
General for his further determination as to
the validity of the title that will be vested
in the government. After the Attorney
General has determined that question he
will forward a requisition to the Secretary
of the Treasury for the payment of the
money to the owners of the property. When
the Capitol will be given possession of
the property and allowed to proceed with
the work of preparing the ground for the
foundation of the new building.
Clearing the Site.
The superintendent of the Capitol has not
yet decided what method he will pursue in
securing the removal of the houses now
on the site of the new Office building. A
contract for this work may be awarded to
soma responsible wrecking company or the
houses may be sold. one by one at auction.
the purchasers to remove them. Whatever
plan will give the bsat results considering
both the time required to secure possession
Of the site and the saving to the govern
ment, will be adopted. -. .- -,
In this square it is thought that large
part Of the bricks will not be available for
building purposes. Many of these bticks
were brought here from England. They
are much larger than the bricks now in
use, and it is not likely that they could be
made available for building purposes to ad-
vantage on account of the disnclination Of
the bricklayers to handle them. These
bricks also were set in cement, and 1t Is
believed the walls will prove to be so strong
as to form practically, a solid, mass. = If
these bricks are not available for building
purposes they will probably be Utilized for
the building Of concrete work. either for
walls or for street paving.