The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-03-12
BURNETT'S VIEWS
 ON BUILDINGS BILL
Depends on Action of Big
 Navy" Advocates
STANDS BY CAUCUS
Says That If Battleships Are Recom- mended His Committee Will In, ] sist on Bringing in Public
 Buildings Bill
By WALTER HARPER

Washington, March 11.-(Special.l-John L.. Burnett is very much in the public eye at the present time, Besides being char- man of the committee on immigration and naturalization he is the acting chair man of the committed on public buildings and grounds. This in effect gives Ala bama another chairmanship. and puts Alabama men at the head of six of the big committees of the House.
 The democratic caucus recently passed a resolution by majority vote that no public buildings bill should be reported to the House at this session, in pursuance of the democratic policy of economy. MT Burnett amended this resolution so as to also provide that no appropriations should be made for the construction Of lettle- ships. This amendment was suppl rted l by Majority Leader Underwood and Speaker clark, and other prominent party leaders, and was passed,
 Quite a howl was raised by the "big navy" advocates at the time, and recent l ly it has been rumored that the demo- cratic members of the naval affairs com mittee are proposing to ignore the caucus action and join with the republican mem bers in reporting in favor of two new bat tleships. The caucus rule is that to be binding on it's members, a resolution must secure a two-thrds vote. MT. Burnett contends that while that is true, he re- gards that there is a moral obligation upon both the public buildings commit tee and the committee on naval affairs to respect the action of the majority of the caucus.
 In an interview this morning. MT. Bur nett gave out the following statement in regard to the action of the public build ings committee which has instructed it's sub-committees to proceed with hearings i on the bills that are before them, for the purpose of getting data together for the framing of an omnibus public build ings bill.
 As acting chairman of the committee on public buildings and grounds, I called the meeting this morning and passed the l resolution instructng the sub-committees to go ahead with hearings in favor 1f a public buildings bill so that if the caucus 1 action is overridden in the case of bat l tleships, we will be at liberty and be ready to report public buildings will This ac- ton was taken for the purpose of fore staing the action of tho committee on naval affairs, and was done in the interest of the democartic policy of economy. l was perfectly willing for the public build
 ings bill to go eayer, because tue ssanis
 caucus provided that there should be no
 battleship appropriations. There would
 be about S24O0O0OO saved in the case of
 battleships. and about s20,000000 in the case of public buildings, making total saving to the government of sii,O000O1, which amount would make mp about four hfths of tl1e.revenue that would be lost by giving the country free sugar If the committee on naval affairs proposes to override the action of the caucus, the committee on public buildings and grounds will certainly not feel any longer bound and will itself proceed to report an omni- bus public buildings bill"
 As chairman of the committee on 'immi4 grafton and naturalization, MT. Burnett has recently been successful in getting the committee to agree to report d Jlil embracing the illiteracy test for the re- striction of undesirable immigrants. This has been his pet measure for years, and the fact that the Burnett bill may soon be reported to the House is evidence of the convincing manner in which he has conducted his fight and made his arell- ments in favor of excluding undesirable foreigners from admission into the United States.
 | He has also secured the favorable re- port of the committee on his bill in re- 1 gard to alien seamen and stowaWays. | Following is the resolution presented by l Mr. Burnett and adopted by the public buildings committee:
 | "Resolved, by the committee on public buildings and grounds That the clerk of l this committee be and he is hereby in- structed to write each member of Con gress having bill before this commit tee requesting him to designate to the chairman of the subcommittee having his district in charge the one particular bill which he desires to have considered by the subcommittee, and to file a writ ten statement with such subcommittee chairman showing the population of the town embraced in said bill the receipts of the postoffice for each of the past three fiscal years, and the receipts for the scv- eral quarters since the end of the last fis- cal year up to the date of filing such statement, and such other data as a member may desire.
 Resolved, further. That the :everal sub committees are hereby instructed to hold meetings as soon as convenient for the purpose of considering such state ments and for the purpose of having oral hearings in behalf of those having bills before them"
 Bills have been introduced providing for public buildings In Alabama as fol- lows: Decatur sl50,00fs New Decatur,