Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1942-11-22
Capital SideIights
By Will P. Kennedy.

Preparations at the Capitol for the
incoming new Congress is tremendous
task, little realized by people generally
or even by the Congressman. The brunt
of this work falls especially upon two
offices-that of the clerk of the House,
South Trinble and the superintendent
of the House Office Building Edward
Brown. The latter has to prepare all
of the Office suites in the two large build
ings, to allocate Offices to all of the LOG
new members, and to move to more
desirable Offices most of the heldover
members. 1t is an incredibly difficult
task to satisfy the rivalry of many
members and to make shifts so that
those from one State who desire to have
commodated.
The Office of the House clerk is an
extremely busy center before and after
each general election. Lists of candi-
dates and members must be kept cur
rent, corrected several times. AS a re-
suit of the election about IS lists have
had to be printed, 500 copies of each.
Coming at time when the old Congress
is closing its work, with several statutory
duties to perform, the clerk personally is
hard driven. He ties the two Congresses
together-a holdover Office until re-
elected (as he certainly will be- or
successor is elected. He has been re-
ceiving the statements of campaign ex-
penditures which each candidate is
obliged to file both before and after the
election. AS there were upwards of 1000
candidates, this in itself was a stable
task. He compiled the list of all nomi-
ness-their names, addresses, party
affiliations, both Senators and Repre-
sentatives, for both the Seventy seventh
and Seventy Congresses. Among
the new documents that must be pre-
pared are the committee lists. alphabeti-
cal list OF present members lists of new
members and list of all members by
States. He has requested and is receiv-
ing information giving the official report
of the vote cast for each candidate in the
last election, which later will be COM
piled as a public document and be used
in the new Congressional Directory He
has an extensive correspondence with
the secretaries of the States, each of
whom sends in certihcation of the Off
cial vote, and at the earliest possible
date certificate under the State seal
for each candidate elected-a total of
435 in the House. The clerk also has
busy time guiding each of the LOG new
members who already are arriving, re-
garding their Thanking privilege and
getting copies of their signatures Ito be
used on their franked envelopes and
documents. To aid the new members
he has prepared pamphlet of informa-
ton for them which this year contains
considerable new information, such as
the change of date for converting of
Congress, "at noon on Monday, January
4. 1913. the date fixed by public law"
1t explains to them how to proceed in
filing for their Offices, their allowance
for clerks. for mail and special delivery
and airmail stamps, the oath of Office
they must take, how they must file their
credentials, their compensation $4,000
per annum), mileage, stationery allow
ance ($200 per session., how to file their
requests for committee assignments. the
information they must furnish for the
Congressional Directory now being COM
piled. their quota of Congressional
Records (6S copies, their telegram privi-
leges, how to avail themselves of their
Library of Congress privileges, about the
liaison of1cer furnished by the Veterans
Bureau, the Civil Service contact office
and the railroad and airlines ticket
onices provided for their convenience.
The clerk also has written to all in
coming members offering them an op-
portunity to file in advance such bills
and resolutions as they may be planning
to introduce at the opening of the new
Congress 50 as to alleviate the pressure
In the office Of the chief bill clerk and
the Government Printing once during
the early days Of the new Congress and
their reference to appropriate commit
tees. Already the clerk is receiving in
quiries from several districts indicating
that there are to be contests over GER
tain seats. He is engaged on preparing
this material to be presented to the
House. These contested election cases
are an involved process. with the clerk
Of the House having an extremely Diff
dcult task to handle all the paper work
before the cases 60 to trial before the
committee having Jurisdiction. some Of