76TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 3d Session

PROVIDE FOR THE USE AND DISPOSITION OF THE BEQUEST OF THE LATE JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

JULY 9, 1940.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. KELLER, from the Committee on the Library, submitted the

following

REPORT

[To accompany H. J. Res. 550]

The Committee on the Library, to whom was referred the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 550) to provide for the use and disposition of the bequest of the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to the United States, and for other purposes, having considered the same, report favorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the joint resolution do pass.

The full report of the committee appointed pursuant to Public Resolution 124, Seventy-fifth Congress, to make recommendations for the disposition of this bequest is appended hereto.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES MEMORIAL FUND REPORT

[To accompany Public Res. No. 124, 75th Cong. 3d sess., ch. 595, 52 Stat. 943]

The committee chosen pursuant to joint resolution of June 22, 1938, of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, Public Resolution No. 124 (75th Cong., 3d sess., ch. 595, 52 Stat. 943) respectfully submits its report to the Congress of the United States.

Section 3 of the joint resolution reads as follows:

"Pursuant to the suggestion made in a message of the President of the United States to the Congress, dated April 25, 1935, a committee of nine members shall be constituted, three to be selected from the House of Representatives by the Speaker of the House, three to be selected from the Senate by the Vice President, and three to be selected from the Supreme Court of the United States by the Chief Justice, which committee shall make recommendations to the Congress concerning the use of the bequest and devise made to the United States by Mr. Justice Holmes."

Pursuant to the resolution the following were designated as members of the Committee: Congressman Kent E. Kellar, John W. McCormack, and Richard H. Repts. 76-3, vol. 5—16

B. Wigglesworth; Senators Tom Connally, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and David I. Walsh; and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States Felix Frankfurter, Owen J. Roberts, and Harlan F. Stone.

Alger Hiss, Esq., of the Department of State, a former secretary of Justice Holmes, has acted as secretary of the committee.

Justice Holmes died on March 6, 1935. By his last will, after making various bequests, he gave and devised the residuum of his estate to the United States Government. The Government has received under the will, and has deposited in the Treasury to the credit of the account, "Donations to the United States, Bequest of Oliver Wendell Holmes," the total amount of $229,372.01. In addition, as authorized by act of Congress of June 22, 1938 (52 Stat. 943), the Government has accepted as devisee under the will, the residence of the late Justice Holmes at 1720 Eye Street, NW. This property is assessed for taxation by the District at $30,933 for land, and $18,400 for improvements, the total assessed value being $49,333.

Numerous proposals have been submitted for the establishment of a suitable memorial to the late Justice Holmes. All have received the serious consideration of the committee, but we shall comment only on those which have commanded the greatest support or attention. They are as follows:

1. The use of Justice Holmes' bequest and devise to the United States for the acquisition and maintenance of a collection of legal literature in the Law Department of the Library of Congress, to be known as the Oliver Wendell Holmes Collection of Jurisprudence.

2. The establishment of the residence of Justice Holmes at 1720 I Street NW., in the city of Washington, as a permanent memorial, to be placed in suitable repair and maintained by the use of Justice Holmes' bequest to the United States. 3. The publication and distribution to public libraries in the United States of a volume or volumes of Justice Holmes' writings.

4. The establishment at some suitable place in the city of Washington of a small open space or park, to be appropriately landscaped and beautified, and dedicated as a memorial to Justice Holmes.

After a thorough consideration of these suggestions, the committee has agreed upon, and recommend adoption by the Congress of the third and fourth proposals, viz, the publication of a memorial volume and the establishment as a permanent public memorial in Washington of a small park or garden to be known as the Oliver Wendell Holmes' Garden.

While the use of the Holmes' bequest for the purchase of lawbooks for the Library of Congress would accomplish a useful purpose, and while Justice Holmes gained his eminence in the law and was a profound student of the law, his appeal to the public interest and imagination was more universal. His profound insight into the thought and actions of men, his ability to clothe his thought in English of singular beauty and power, and his long and fruitful judicial service which has stirred the popular imagination to an exceptional degree, have made his thought and memory the heritage of all men, rather than of any single class or profession. It has therefore seemed to the committee most fitting and desirable that the memory of Justice Holmes should be perpetuated, and his life and services symbolized, by making readily available to the public the best expressions of his thought, and by creating at the Nation's Capital, where he spent the last and most influential years of his life, a memorial to be seen of all men which would in some measure represent the love of beauty and of the quiet open spaces of the city of Washington, to which he often gave expression.

The committee, after giving careful consideration to the possibility of maintaining Justice Holmes' house on Eye Street as a memorial, has come to the conclusion, in which all of those most closely associated with Justice Holmes in life concur, that such a plan is not practicable. Apart from its associations with Justice and Mrs. Holmes, the Eye Street residence has little to commend it as a memorial. The house was built many years ago; it is not of attractive architecture. The neighborhood is rapidly changing from a residential to a business district, and the house will soon be surrounded by high buildings, with no open space near it. As directed by Justice Holmes' will, all of its contents, which were intimately associated with his life with Mrs. Holmes there, have been widely distributed, either as specific legacies or by sale to various purchasers, many of whom are unknown. There is now no possibility of reassembling them, or enough of them to re-create in the house even a faint suggestion of the atmosphere which characterized it during their lifetime. To maintain the house as a memorial without some convincing suggestion of its association with the daily life of Justice Holmes would, in the opinion of the committee, have the opposite effect from

that sought, and would appear to be an inadequate expression of the public desire to symbolize in suitable manner the life and public services of the man whose memory we wish t honor.

Justice Holmes fired the imagination of his countrymen because he was that rare fusion of thinker and artist, which he revealed in enduring prose. As long as reason holds sway over the minds of men, and the English language has power to move them, so long will what Justice Holmes wrote be cherished of men. While the major part of what came from his pen consists of opinions or technical legal discussion, his more general utterances form part of the cultural heritage of the Nation. As such, constant recourse to it should be encouraged by appropriate national recognition. The committee is of the opinion that this can best be accomplished by the publication of a selection of his writings in an attractive volume of some 250 pages, by its distribution among the public libraries of the country, and by making it available to all who care to purchase it at a modest price. The selection would include utterances giving his underlying philosophy, a few of his opinions on constitutional issues of lasting interest, choice extracts from his available correspondence, and other expressions of permanent literary value. We believe that such a publication would, in the language of the President's message to the Congress, "serve as a permanent impulse for the maintenance of the deepest tradition that Mr. Justice Holmes embodied."

The publication should not be left to private enterprise. It should be made a national expression of devotion to the memory of the man by having the Government, to which he left his fortune, itself assume the responsibility for the production, by the Government Printing Office, and the distribution of the proposed volume. By its publication the Congress would, as it were, confer upon the memory of Justice Holmes a cultural congressional medal of honor. For such a volume the Government Printing Office has submitted estimates from which it appears that an edition of 12,000 volumes for free distribution to libraries and educational institutions throughout the country, and other appropriate distributees, would cost about $10,000. Additional copies for private distribution can be supplied at a cost of approximately 65 cents a volume. The editing of such a volume should, of course, be entrusted to hands specially qualified for the task. At the request of the President, and of this committee, the National Capital Park and Planning Commission has made a very careful study of the possibility of setting apart an open space in the city of Washington, as a suitable memorial. After considering the possibilities of many existing park spaces in the city, it has come to the conclusion that the proposed memorial could be best established in connection with the plans of the Government for the construction of public buildings in the near future. The Commission has for some time been of the opinion that in order to meet the need for additional public buildings, the Government should acquire the two blocks lying immediately east of the Supreme Court Building, bounded on the north by Maryland Avenue and B Street, on the south by East Capital Street, on the east by Third Street NE., and on the west by Second Street NE. It is thought that this area, which has much to commend it for the purpose, will be needed in the near future for projected public buildings, including a new courthouse for the Court of Appeals and the District Court of the District of Columbia, a courthouse for the Court of Claims, and for other needed buildings, such for example as would accommodate the invaluable library of the Surgeon General of the Army, and fulfill future needs in connection with the Library of Congress.

Suitable development of this tract will require open space for light and air, as well as for the purpose of giving the new buildings their proper setting. For these reasons, it is the opinion of the Commission that this open space might properly be considered an integral part of the architectural and landscape design for the development of the whole tract, and could, therefore, without additional cost to the Government, be devoted to a small park or garden in memory of Justice Holmes, in close proximity with the home of the Supreme Court, with which Justice Holmes was long associated. They propose that it be located immediately east of the rear entrance to the Supreme Court Building, and on the axis of the east pediment of that building, with a frontage on Second Street of say not more than 175 feet, and a depth of 330 feet.

As an initial step in carrying out this plan, the Commission proposes the immediate acquisition of approximately the northerly half of the block in the rear of the Supreme Court Building (known as square 759), consisting of a plot approximately 175 feet in width and 330 feet in length, facing on the west on Second Street, the rear of the Supreme Court Building, and extending through the block to Third Street, and bounded on its northerly side by A Street NE. It is estimated that this area with buildings thereon will cost approximately $350,000.

The purchase will be made in contemplation of the ultimate acquisition by purchase or condemnation of the entire block in which this plot is located, and also the block immediately to the north (square 758), bounded by A Street NE., Second and Third Streets NE., and on the north by Maryland Avenue and B Street, the closing of A Street NE., within the boundaries of the two blocks, and the devotion of the two blocks together, and the closed street area, to a unified building plan. So much of the plot presently to be acquired as is to be devoted to the Justice Holmes Memorial is to be set apart when title is taken, with appropriate landscaping, harmonizing with a tablet, bas-relief, or a piece of sculpture, distinguished, however modest, designed to emphasize the significance of the place. The Commission estimates that such treatment of the space set apart for the Holmes Memorial, carried out with suitable simplicity, need not exceed the sum of $50,000.

The Commission has adopted a resolution approving the plan for the Holmes Memorial as indicated, as a part of its larger general project for the development of the two blocks mentioned, and as a first step is prepared to recommend the immediate purchase of the plot approximating 175 by 330 feet (a slight excess over this amount being necessary to acquire full lots and enable the vacation of interior alleys), extending along the south side of A Street, from Second to Third Streets, and the devotion of a part of it (approximately 88 percent of the area), for the Holmes Memorial. This committee joins in that recommendation.

This committee therefore recommends to Congress that of the bequest and devise made to the United States by Justice Holmes, the sum of $10,000 be appropriated and used for the publication of a memorial volume of the selected writings of Mr. Justice Holmes; that the sum of $50,000, or so much of it as is required for that purpose, be used for the landscaping and beautification of the space indicated, as a memorial to Justice Holmes, and that the remainder of his bequest to the United States, and the proceeds of his residence when sold, be used for governmental purposes, as was his wish.

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APPROPRIATION FOR THE MARINE AND WAR-RISK INSURANCE FUND OF THE UNITED STATES MARITIME COMMISSION

JULY 10, 1940.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. TAYLOR, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. J. Res. 582]

The Committee on Appropriations to whom was referred the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 582) entitled "Joint resolution making an appropriation to enable the United States Maritime Commission to establish the marine and war-risk insurance fund" reports the measure without amendment and with a recommendation for its early consideration and passage.

The act entitled "An act to amend the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended, to provide for marine war-risk insurance and reinsurance and for marine risk reinsurance, and for other purposes," approved June 29, 1940, authorizes the United States Maritime Commission to provide marine reinsurance and marine war-risk insurance and reinsurance on American vessels and their cargoes, and insurance on the lives of officers and crews of such vessels. The legislation is limited to periods during which insurance adequate to the needs of the water-borne commerce of the United States cannot be obtained on reasonable terms and conditions from the American insurance market. This authority expires on March 10, 1942, or sooner under a proclamation which may be issued by the President.

The act of June 29, 1940, also establishes a revolving fund to be known as the marine and war-risk insurance fund and to consist of such amounts as Congress may from time to time appropriate thereto plus all moneys received from premiums and from salvage or other recoveries. Expenditures are authorized from the fund for the return of premiums, and the payment of losses, settlements, judgments, and all liabilities incurred by the United States under the act.

An initial appropriation to implement the fund and to enable the Commission to commence writing the authorized insurance was re