St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1908-10-17
WILL BE PALATIAL
NEW SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
NEARING COMPLETION.
Two Rooms and a Bath for Each
Statesman-TunneI andsElectric
Cars to Carry Member to
Chamber.

That palatial establishment TOr the
comfort of senators, the new Senate
office building, it is now announced
will be ready for occupancy by the
| time congress meets next December.
It is now about 80 per cent. complet-
ed and the purpose is to rush it to
completion in the next few months.
When finished the new Senate Of
fee building will have cost 81, 800, 900,
inclusive of the site This provides
office rooms for so members of the
senate and their attaches. 1t is rath-
er more than the cost of the House
Office building, which was occupied
early in the last session of congress.
There is no doubt that a genuine
need for an Office building of some
sort, both, for the senate and the house
| members, has existed.
In the capitol there are not enough
committee rooms to go around. Some
of the senators have little, dingy
rooms down in the terrace and many
are obliged to have their offices in the
old Melby building, known as the Sen
ate Annex, a short distance northwest
of the capitol. The senator who is
able to get an office room inside the
capitol building, even if it is dismal
and cramped, considers himself for
tunate.
When the Senate Office building is
completed it will connect with
the capitol by subway, as is the
House office building, and in the SUBJ
way will be a sidewalk and an electric
car line. One will be able to de-
scend an elevator in the capitol, get
into an electric car and get out at
the foot of an elevator in the office
building. The subway itself is al
! ready finished.
Each senator will be entitled to q
suite, consisting of two handsome
rooms and a private bath. The build
ing will have SO such Office suites in
the three principal stories above the
basement, ten single offices and six
committee rooms, besides a confer
ence room and a dining-room. The
larger room of each Office suite is in
| tended for the use of the senator him
self, and will be Is by 25 feet. The
smaller room. IL by rs feet, is for the
senator's secretary.
One Of the convenient features Of
the building will be the conference
room, back of the main stairs on the
second floor. 1t will be 81 by IA feet,
will seat 800 people easily, and is in
| tended for public hearings.
Not the least interesting room Of
| the office building will be the dining
room, BOXES, on the second floor,
overlooking the capitol grounds and
the library of congress. Here the
senators hope to be able to partake OF
| their mush and milk and senate pie
| in something more of peace and soil
| tude than they have been able to find
in the senate refectory at the north
end of the capitol.
One of the banalities of senate
membership is that, whereas the aver
| age senator would like to HE himself
away to some secluded spot for lunch,
l
| the troubles of pension-hunting and Of
| fice-seeking constituents, it is impos-
! sible to exclude the proletariat entire
| Iy from the senate restaurant as it
now exists. It often happens, even,
that senator has to wait for serv-
! ice while waiter is serving meal
to some mere private citizen. Sen
ators hope that under the new regime
they will be enabled to be more thor
oughly in retreat when they want to
partake Of something to eat.
In design the Senate office building
resembles the House Office building,
the two being fashioned to harmonic
with the exterior of the capitol. The
house members are allowed but one
room each. A number Of the COM
mittee rooms will be rearranged when
the Office building is completed, some
of them being in the new structure.
While in some respects the new build
ing is expected to prove a great con-
venience, yet it will have its draw
backs. This has been shown in the
experience on the house side.
| Many members find their rooms in
the Office building so convenient that
they absent themselves more freely
than before from the house chamber.
So it is expected to prove on the SEN
ate side, especially when Superin-
tendent Elliott Woods gets installed in
each Office the ticker apparatus that
will enable the occupant to see at a
glance just what is going on in the
hody to which he belongs. The new
office building will, moreover, greatly
increase the difficulties of finding mem
bers. This was the experience with
the House Office building last winter
The next great building that will be
erected by the government near the
capitol will doubtless be a commodi-
GUS home for the United States su-
preme court. The present quarters in
the capitol are inadequate and unsatis-
factory. Even the accommodations
for attorneys who are forced to at
| tend the supreme court sessions and
who are anxious to hear arguments
and opinions are insufficient On Mon
days, when opinions are handed down,
q large number of visitors, as rule,
| are turned away from the doors be-
cause there is no more room for them.
Homemade Barometer.