Evening star., 1936-12-06

BY DOrOthea /. LezCiS.
T IE SUCCEEDED walking en-
IL cyclopedia and has become
even more of one in his job!
a 4 If you want to know any
thing about Capitol Hill legislation
how many bills are in, who put them
in, what they mean. whats happened
to them and why, just call National
1920, ask for the House Document
Room and speak to Supt. Elmer Lewis.
Lewis has a phenomenal memory.
He will not admit it, hedging with,
"Oh we'll, if I have, it's just freak of
nature" He insists he hasn't any
particular memory system, but he does
have grand card index file-cross-in
dexing galore, under subjects, numbers.
sponsors, etc.-with dates for intro
duction. report, House passage, Senate
consideration, etc. right along the
way until the bill becomes law, if it is
one of the 4 per cent of those intro
duced lucky enough to become law.
This constant reference, of course,
helps jog memory.
He can remember bills of sessions
ago and what happened to them, and
his records go back years and years.
He introduced the system of cross
indexing himself; previous records had
been kept in bulky books and the sys-
tenn was awkward and inefficient.
Lewis was born in Wisconsin some
40 years ago He went to the public
schools in Stoughton and had two
years at the University of Wisconsin
when the war broke out. He enlisted
in the Navy and served % months
He had hardly got home from this
service when his brother asked hlm
If he would like to come to Washing
ton and have a job Elmer said he
didn't know for sure, but he came
and has been here ever since.
LIE WORKED first as assistant su-
perintendent, helping Supt.
Grayson, the aforementioned walking
encyclopedia. He tried the first year
or so to go to night school at George
Washington, but finally Grayson told
him to give it up. The work is too
much for you and besides, your future
Is here. won't last much longer" he
told the youngster. So Elmer set out
to make service to Congress his career.
He gets to work every morning at
8 o'clock "at the latest" and averages
IA hours day in harness during ses-
Sions
He has 10 men and boys working for
him. Their job is to file all of the
bills, resolutions, reports, documents,
etc., introduced in either house of
Congress and to make them available
to members of Congress, officials and
the public. They get 500 copies of
every public bill Introduction i'm
portant ones they have to ask for ad-
ditional supplies promptly-and from
100 to $50 copies of private bills.
As soon as the bills come over from
the Government Printing Office. the
top bill is taken off each pack and
placed in the personal box of the
Senator or Representative who intro
duced it, and three more copies are
Immediately mailed to his Office. The
personal boxes were an idea of Ell
mer's, and they make it very con-
venient for the legislators. If they
want to know just what legislation
they're sponsoring, they need only step
over to Lewis Office and thumb
through their box-no one else's bills
are included in it.
Newspaper men and women have
their boxes in Lewis Office also, and
they get copies each day of every pub
lie bill introduced. If they want the
privates-pensions, claims, etc.-they
have to ask for them. Lewis binds two
complete copies of all House bills in
troduced each day, one for his Office
and one for the House library.
Lewis files contain copies of all
public laws of the United States since
the Forty-first Congress. Before that
there was no Government Printing
Office. Bills were printed by private
printers.
Long bills and short bills pass over
his desk each day. The longest which
that memory of his recalls is H. r.
10000 in the Sixty-ninth Congress, to
consolidate, codify and set forth the
general and permanent laws of the
United States in force on December
z, 1926" It numbered 2,453 pages |!
The shortest two are the 10 or II
words required by Representative Ba-
con of New York to ask repeal of the
pink-slip clause of the income-tax
law and the few words needed by
Representative Cochran to ask re-
peal of the Federal register act.
COOFY bills are legion. Here are
- our favorites. culled from several
Congresses:
House resolution 28 in the Seven
teth Congress, introduced by Let's Of