Evening star., 1936-03-22
Capital Sidelights
BY viii p. Kennedy.

One of the outstanding fighters "for
cause" in the House is Representative
John j. Cochran of Missouri, former
newspaper man, now chairman of the
House Committee on Expenditures. He
has turned the heavy artillery of his
oratory and satire upon the newest Gov
ernment publication-the Official Regis
ter, with $50 employees. He emphasizes
that three appropriations totaling
$289,760 have already been made-that
$4,000 copies of the Register are being
printed, at least four times a week. and
there were only SO subscribers at $40
year or 81 month.
"In the language of the street, there
was going to be plenty of bull in the
Federal Register" he pointed out, and
continued: History will record that the
first executive order published in the
Register has to do with Bulls Island, 3
miles off the South Carolina mainland,
providing that it be reserved for the
Department of Agriculture pursuant to
the migratory bird conservation act. 1t
took two pages of the Register to print
this Bulls Island order"
1t took four pages of the Congressional
Record for Chairman Cochran to block
one of the bills "for relief of sundry
claimants" Describing this bill, he said:
"A man made a contract with the Gov
ernment to take the garbage from
cantonment in North Carolina, and he
bought himself lot of little pigs to
feed the garbage to. He claims some
of this garbage was diverted and stolen.
1t was diverted to the inner man of the
soldiers. They did not believe in leaving
anything on their plates to feed the
pigs. So after the war was over he
comes along and wants the Govern
ment to pay him $33 900 because he did
not get enough garbage to feed the pigs
he had purchased" Proponents of the
bill figured the claim of $4,000 by de-
Quoting the contract price of the gar
bage and purchasing enough corn to feed
the little piggies who did not get the
expected soldiers leftoyers.
Americas greatest contribution to
medicine is the Army Medical Library in
Washington, Representative Maury
Maverick of Texas emphasizes in valu-
able history of the Army Medical Corps,
which is being printed as public docu-
ment for general distribution. During
the Revolution WaShington's Army in
cluded such men as John Morgan and
William Shippen, both graduates of
Edinburgh and successfully medical dl-
rectors general of the Army. They were
pioneers in medical education and the
principal founders of the medical de-
partment of the University of Penn
sylvania, the oldest medical school in
the country u765). Associated with them
in the Continental Army was the even
more distinguished medical officer,
BENJAMIN Rush, founder of the Phila-
delphia dispensary, the first in America
in 1786, ablest clinician of his time, a
signer of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, author of the first exhaustive
work on yellow fever.
First data concerning the weather
were recorded by the medical depart
ment of the Army in 1914. In 1870
Surg. Albert j. Myer, for whom the post
at Fort Myer, Va, was named, created
the Signal Corps of the Army, which
took over the meteorological records and
continued them until 1890. when the
Weather Bureau of the Department Of
Agriculture took over this work. 1t
was Myer who introduced the wigwag
method of transmitting messages used
by the Union Army.
Leading medical authorities in both
Europe and America have pronounced
the Army Medical Library Americas
greatest contribution to medicine. 1t is
the largest medical library in the world,
contains the most modern information
on all medical subjects and one of the
most complete collections of ancient
medical books and manuscripts-aVail-
able to every physician, sanitarian,
nurse, dentist, veterinarian or student
in the United States. This library is
100 years old this year, though its real
development was begun just after the
Civil War by Surg. John Shaw Billings,
one of the greatest men OF science
America has produced. He designed the
Johns Hopkins Hospital, built and di-
rected the New York Public Library,
helped to reorganiZe the United States
Public Health Service, had large share
in the vital statistics work of the Census
Bureau-and was professor Of hygiene
at the University of Pennsylvania.
In view of the exceptional character
of the United States Capitol it is only
natural that its care and maintenance
have been intrusted to a specially trained
and selected force of employees and that
necessary mechanical shops are main
tained-painting carpenter, metal, elec-
'''''A 'lH7''ns and machine shops