The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-08

the ptOple arc cSpCStai1 ihhcaN NShe0 ~ provide for them every accessory and convenience of labor so that the pub lie business may promptly and properly be transacted.
 Upon examining and considering the seven sets of plans submitted. we found that the plans of Mir. Lockwood beyond all question made the best provision for the work of the Supreme Court. and of Its judges and officers, and of the bar, and for the preservation of the library and its use by the judges. by the pro fession and by the public. We found his arrangement and construction to those ends appreciably better than those made by the excellent plan of Mfr. Milburn: conspicuously better than those of MT. Hopson's plan. which de- served the third prize 90 far as these better than any of the four remaining plans. We found, what every lawyer will expect to find when he goes into the new building. the reading room of the library-its workshop-and its book room and the court room and the libra rian's' room on the same floor and &C., cessible to each other. so that books can the courts work brought into court when needed in arguments, so that counsel not engaged in causes on argu- ment can work on their own cases or attend to their other concerns in the library till the court requires their presence. and so that the marshal libra rian can at once discharge his dual du- ties. All these public rooms are on the ground floor, and thus open to the use of the public without disturbance or the individual and consultation work of the judges. The judges rooms are on the second floor. where they are easily accessible to lawyers and others
 having occasion to see them. but free from casual and unnecessary interrup- tions by the public. There, too, are the office of the clerk and the private sec- retary. in convenient relation to the consultation room and the judges
 rooms and as convenient as practicable to lawyers who only beside the judges have official business with them. Ev- cry lawyer will know that all this Is as it should be and as 1t always has been
 and that to have 1t otherwise would be a positive and material detriment and obstruction to the business of the court and the use of the library, accentuated
 by the fact that any change in these
 matters would do violence to immc-
 morial usage and habit. I need not go
 into further description. I will. now
 ever, add that in all the discussion Of
 this matter, whether in the commission
 or out of it, I have never heard any
 
 wood in respect of adaptation to the
 uses for which this building Is to be
 erected, Is the best that was submitted
 Plan of MT. smith.
 On the other hand, I need refer par
 ticularly only to the plan of Mir Smith,
 which has been made the basis of at tack on the judges. which the friends
 of Mir. Smith seek through public clam
 or, raised upon misrepresentation ana f4 trnr m State the decision of the commission to the contrary notwithstanding, and which the executive officers favored MT Smith in his plan and drawings delib- erately violated three important rules adopted by the executive officers for the competition. Two Of these violations had relation to the exterior and one
 to the interior of the, building. The latter only need be considered at this point of the discussion. As we have seen, the program of competition re- quired the competing architects to To- cate the library and court room on the same floor. Smith located them on dif- ferent floors. And he put the library. the room most used by the public, on the second floor, out of the way Of the public He sought to excuse this be- fore the commission by claiming that these apartments could not be placed on the same floor In a three-story build Ing. l suppose HIS oeFeAiction ~17 e~ cused by the executive officers on that ground. If the fact supported his claim 1t would also unanswerably sup port the utilitarian necessity for two story building; and if MT. Smiths pro fessional conscience would not admit or the two-story treatment-if he could not engage in the competition on the fundamental rules prescribed for it-he
 should not have presented any plan. But the supposed fact was four times disproved by the submissions Of other architects. Four other architects sub
 mitted three story plans. It has been stated in The Montgomery Advertiser that each of these four plans located the court room and the library on diff ferent floors. This Is affair illustration of that papers ignorance of the prem | ises and not the greatest Of the nu- merous misstatements 1t has made. The | fact Is that each of these four three- storied plans placed the court room ana | the library on the same foor. Smith was the only competitor to violate this | important rule of the competition. He alone of the five architects who submit | ted three-story plans did not apparent | ly know how to comply with this plain mandate of the commission for we as- | sume that only limitations Of architec- | tural capactty drove him to its viola 1 tion. .-.. | As we have said, and for the reasons
 to which we have adverted among oth- CTS, every lawyer will at once recognize | that this placing of the library on different floor and away from the court,
 the means of access even being outside | of and away from the court room
 would be such a defective and disad-
 vantageous arrangement. so obstruct-
 i've and hindering to the work of the
 court and of the bar as is not to be l tolerated if 1t can be avoided; and six out of the seven plans submitted do
 avoid 1t. The scheme is of such obvi- ous and vet peculiar viciousness as not to require and scarcely to admit of H. | Iustratfve analogy. It bears a similt-