Evening star., 1947-10-21
BY Nelson M. Shepard

Harassed officials must squeez,
more than 100000 square feet O.
needed Office space from bureau.
long ensconced in the interior
Building to make room for three ol
Secretary Krug's old line agencie.
moving back from Chicago.
The squeeze" is being applied re.
lentlessly by Chief Clerk Royal E
Dotson and Assistant Clarence L
Dawson, who are shifting Offices
about in the big building. Squads o1
moving men are gradually bringing
order out of the chaos created by
Office fixtures being piled high in
corridors for weeks.
In crowded Washington this move
of the Indian Affairs Office, National
Park Service and Fish and Wildlife
Service stirs hardly a ripple. But
it's "a terrific headache" to the In
terror Department., Mr.. Dawson
means, and 400 individual head
aches to returning clerks hunting
apartments.
Many Lack Housing.
Since the first Indian personnel
began arriving about two weeks ago
only IS per cent of all returning
clerks have succeeded in finding
some sort" of housing here. The
characterization applies chiefly to
rooming houses, pitifully small
number of apartments and temper
ary rooms in the Arlington Farms
dormitories.
:. These people don't want tepees,
Parry T. Nice Curdy, chairman Of the
cooperative housing committee set
up to facilitate the move. remarked
of the Indian personnel. They want
comfortable apartments for their
families and decent single rooms.
b Moving a Government bureau
halfway across the continent in
wolves more in the way of problems
than the average person imagines
Office Space Worked Out.
Long before the migration from
Chicago started on October IL, when
the Indian Office began shipping 1s
freight car loads of Office effects
the Chief Clerks Office here had
worked out the arrangement OF
office space in the Interior Building,
There's about half million
square feet of usable Office space in
the building.
1t isn't as crowded as some others
in Washington, officials having had
in mind the day when the refugees
from Washington would return. But
its crowded enough to necessitate a
complete upheaval in Office arrange
ments to accommodate 400 more
clerks.
Bureaus Needs Cited.
For example, Mr.. Dawson ex-
planned, the space requirements of
the Indian Office are 10000 square
feet of desk room. The Park Service
requires $4,000 square feet and the
Fish and Wildlife Service, coming
to Interior for the first time, needs
at least 41,o0o square feet. This
footage includes the small liaison
Offices maintained in the building
the past five years.
It's question of how much space
other bureaus can give up without
too much crowding of their own per-
sonnel. To move the Indian Office
back to former quarters on the
fourth floor and some space on the
second and third floors had the ef-
feet of an earthquake on the status
quo. The staff of the Bureau of
Mines had to give up 10000 square
feet.
'The whole building has to shrink
to yield enough Office space" Mr..
Dawson reminded.
Others Surrender Space.
''The blow has fallen on the Land
and Management Office to the
equivalent of 10000 square feet and
the Reclamation Bureau is giving up
5000 square feet. Other bureaus are
getting off lighter but nearly every
one has to make a contribution.
Its too much to expect three bu-
reaus and 400 employees to move ex-
actly on schedule, as worked out in