Evening star., 1925-10-04
Nearly 5000 Men and Won.
en- Exposed to Daily Peril in
Tinder-Box Buildings.
GOVERNMENTS RECORDS
IN CONSTANT DANGER
Frequent Inspections Have Led to
Appeals for Congress to
Remedy Situation.

ticles on the need for neD Govern
ment-otcned buildings In the DIS
trict of Columbia to house tmpor-
tdnt Government activities. The
second article arill be printed to-
morrolc.
No. 1-Internal Revenue Bureau.
BY WILL p. KENNEDY.
More than 70 per cent of the space
occupied by the Internal Revenue
Bureau-which uses daily valuable
papers and records representing bill
, lions Of dollars and which has a force
OF more than 5000 employes-is in
temporary, fire-trap buildings, out
! lawed" by age, with the piles on which
they We're erected in a war emergency
rotting from under them and main
tained only at excessive cost.
There are approximately 5000 hu-
man beings in this one Government
agency alone exposed daily by the
Government they serve to the danger
Of fire in f1imsy. tinder-box structures,
where they swelter and suffocate in
Summer and shiver with cold in the
Winter.
See Great Saving.
Officials of the bureau estimate
and this is Official, made in a report
to Congress by the Public Buildings
Commission-that saving of 25 to
80 per cent of the cost Of collection
of the taxes which all the people of
the country pay could be effected
should the work be concentrated in
one building instead of being scat
tered in 10 buildings, some Of. which
are more than a mile apart.
Nine of these are Government
buildings-such as they are-and one
is a rented building at 462 Louisiana
avenue, which is the old District
Building, since occupied by the Army
Medical School. The rent Is $l1 800
a year and $1,000 square feet Of floor
| space is occupied.
Warning to Congress.
Congress has been warned by its
official agent, the Public Buildings
Commission. of which Senator Reed
Smoot Of Utah is chairman, that the
destruction Of one or more of these
buildings by fire could easily cost the
Government several times the amount
required for financing the entire pub
| lie building program" The comnls-
sion further warned that taking
risks of this sort certainly cannot be
classed as economy" and emphasized
that the need for remedying the
housing situation of the Internal
Revenue Bureau is by far the most
! urgent of any of the Sbuliolng
projects"
D. H. Blair, commissioner OK IN
| ternal Revenue, has advised the Pres
ident and Congress that very I'M
| portant increase in collection OF taxes
with a corresponding decrease In cost
per hundred dollars for making col
lections could be effected In sihsie
| building properly adapted Tor use OF
| the bureau.
Puts Papers in Peril.
Not only does this condition aftect
this vital work of the Government
and endanger the lives of thousands
of employees and put irreplaceable pa
! pers in peril, but it causes untold m
| convenience to many thousands OF
| taxpayers who come to Washington to
| transact business with the Internal
Revenue Bureau.
There is no camou1aging OF the fire
peril, generally throughout the Gov
! ernment service and specifically in the
! Internal Revenue Bureau. Nearly three
| years ago this was fully explained to
| the responsible officials Of the Govern
ment and to the proper committees or
| Congress, when attention was parttcu-
larly directed to the duty OF relieving
the Internal Revenue Bureau from
! this menace and Of removing tho tenn
porary war buildings. 1t was then
! stated by the Public Buildings Com
/ mission that:
Danger Of Fire. .
"The fire hazard at the present time
! in the buildings of the Government
! establishments in Washington IS ab-
| solutely appalling and so threaten
! insly iminent as to subject the respon-
| sible Government authorities to abso-
! lutte condemnation of the public at
! large for failure to provide adequate
| remedies for these conditions. AS
| typical illustration and representing
many other establishments. 1t Is desir-
I ed to cite the conditions found at the
! present time in the Bureau of Internal
Revenue The Internal Revenue oc-
! cupies space in buildings Of tempo
. rary frame construction. and Of the
! most highly infiammable character
possible to imagine.
| "These buildings are veritable tinder
| boxes. and only a merciful Divine
Providence has SO far spared our Gov
| ernment the most tremendous cataS-
trophy that could be imagined In the
| destruction Of these buildings. One
half Of the entire personnel OF the
! Income Tax Bureau. consisting of
| over 5000 employees. are crowded into
these inflammable buildings with an
utterly inadequate floor space, as
demanded by modern, sanitary fire
regulations The overflow of income
tax returns have been piled into a
building Of flimsy, wooden construc-
ton, Annex No. 2 of Building c, in
which the fire hazard Is unspeakably
great. and the congestion OF these
! records is so great as to render oper-
/ ating efficiency almost impossible.
Tax Unit Files. .-
| THE files Of the Income Tax Unit,
including over 100000 confidential
returns of income, 30,000.000 related
! letters and hundreds of thousands OF
valuable maps and special reports,
are packed and jammed into Annex
No. /. Several hundred thousand re-
turns and related papers. in course Of
audit, are temporarily held in Annex
/ No. ., d fragile wooden tinder box
| erected during the war. in which the
risk Of fire is constantly imminent. and
which, If it occurs, would quickly
destroy irrepla ceable papers represent
| ing hundreds of millions Of dollars Of
n