} { 62D CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 3d Session. REPORT No. 1529. BRIDGE ACROSS MISSOURI RIVER NEAR WELDON SPRINGS LANDING, MO. FEBRUARY 17, 1913.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. HAMLIN, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28715.] The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 28715) to authorize the St. Louis & Western Traction Co. to construct a bridge across the Missouri River near Weldon Springs Landing, in the State of Missouri, having considered the same, report thereon with amendment, and as so amended recommend that it pass. The bill as amended has the approval of the War Department, as will appear by the letter attached and which is made a part of this report. Amend the bill as follows: On page 1, lines 10 and 11, strike out the words "the location to be selected by said company and approved by the War Department." [Second indorsement.] OFFICE OF CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, To the SECRETARY OF WAR: 1. Returned. 2. The accompanying bill, H. R. 28715, Sixty-second Congress, third session, authorizing the construction of a bridge across the Missouri River within 2 miles above or below Weldon Springs Landing, St. Charles County, Mo., is in the usual form and makes ample provision for the protection of navigation interests. 3. So far as those interests are concerned, I know of no objection to its favorable consideration by Congress. EWD. BURR, Colonel, Corps of Engineers, Acting Chief of Engineers. [Third indorsement.] WAR DEPARTMENT, February 13, 1913. Respectfully returned to the chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, inviting attention to the foregoing report of the Acting Chief of Engineers, United States Army. ROBERT SHAW OLIVER, 3d Session. No. 1530. BRIDGE ACROSS MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. FEBRUARY 17, 1913.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. STEVENS of Minnesota, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28571.] The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 28571) to authorize the Northern Pacific Railway Co. to construct a bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minn., having considered the same, report thereon with a recommendation that it pass. The bill has the approval of the War Department, as will appear by the letter attached and which is made a part of this report. [Second indorsement.] OFFICE OF CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, February 13, 1913. To the SECRETARY OF WAR: 1. Returned. 2. The accompanying bill, H. R. 28571, Sixty-second Congress, third session, authorizing the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minn., is in the usual form and makes ample provision for the protection of navigation interests. 3. So far as those interests are concerned, I know of no objection to its favorable consideration by Congress. W. H. BIXBY, Chief of Engineers, United States Army. [Third indorsement.] WAR DEPARTMENT, February 15, 1913. Respectfully returned to the chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, inviting attention to the foregoing report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army. O ROBERT SHAW OLIVER, 62D CONGRESS, 3d Session. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. { REPORT No. 1531. BRIDGE ACROSS MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN BELTRAMI COUNTY, MINN. FEBRUARY 17, 1913.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. STEVENS of Minnesota, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28673.] The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 28673) to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River in Beltrami County, in the State of Minnesota, having considered the same, report thereon with amendment and as so amended recommend that it pass. The bill as amended has the approval of the War Department, as will appear by the letter attached and which is made a part of this report. Amend the bill as follows: Strike out, page 1, line 7, the word "at" and insert in lieu thereof the word "in." Strike out, page 1, lines 7 and 8, the words "the section line between sections thirteen and" and insert in lieu thereof the word "section." [Second indorsement.] OFFICE OF CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, February 18, 1913. To the SECRETARY OF War: 1. Returned. 2. It is recommended that the accompanying bill (H. R. 28673, 62d Cong., 3d sess.) to authorize the construction of a bridge across the Mississippi River in Beltrami County, in the State of Minnesota, be amended as indicated in red thereon. 3. As thus amended, I know of no objection to the favorable consideration of the bill by Congress, so far as the interests of navigation are concerned. W. H. BIXBY, Chief of Engineers, United States Ármy. [Third indorsement.] WAR DEPARTMENT, February 15, 1913. Respectfully returned to the chairman Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, inviting attention to the foregoing report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, and to the accompanying copy of amended bill referred to. ROBERT SHAW OLIVER, LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE BUREAU IN LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. FEBRUARY 18, 1913.—Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed. Mr. EVANS, from the Committee on the Library, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 18720.] The Committee on the Library, having had under consideration the bill H. R. 18720, report it back with the following amendment and recommend that it do pass: Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the following: That there is hereby established a separate bureau in the Library of Congress to be known as the Legislative Reference Bureau. SEC. 2. That said bureau shall make available for Congress the legislative reference material within the Library of Congress and the departments of the Government and shall collect and index additional data with special reference to pending or proposed legislative measures. SEC. 3. That the Librarian of Congress, subject to the approval of the Joint Committee on the Library, shall appoint a director of said bureau at a salary of $5,000 a year and such assistants as he may deem necessary at such salaries as he may determine. SEC. 4. That the bureau shall be supplied with such space, equipment, stationery, printing, and binding facilities as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act. SEC. 5. That the service of the bureau shall be at the disposal of Members of the Senate and House of Representatives, and also of any employee of either body when designated in writing by the President of the Senate or by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Shortly after the Sixty-second Congress convened the committee began the consideration of the establishment of a legislative reference bureau. Your committee has given more consideration to this question than to any other that has engaged its attention. Extensive hearings were held in February, 1912, the systems in vogue in the various State legislatures and in foreign parliaments have been carefully studied, and this report, the unanimous conclusion of the committee, is the result of several months' earnest work. The legislative reference bureau will result in improvement in the form of bills presented to Congress by supplying members with adequate data relative to the subject of the proposed legislation. Necessary information will be collected from congressional, departmental, and judicial documents, from reports of committees, rulings of executives, and decisions of courts. Important data from every source will be placed at the disposal of the legislator to facilitate his work and make it more effectual. Members will be enabled to call upon the bureau for a report as to the exact state of existing law on any subject and of proposed reforms or amendments, whether in the national, State, or foreign legislatures. Translations of important foreign legislative enactments will be made, and complete indices of all matter germane to legislative subjects prepared and made available. In addition to the bill introduced by Mr. Nelson (H. R. 1720) the committee has also had under consideration a bill introduced by Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania (H. R. 12155), and we have examined bills introduced in the Senate by Senators Owen and La Follette. The opinion of the Librarian of Congress has been secured, touching the practical working of the proposed bill. The committee has also been favored with the experience of the Right Hon. James Bryce, author of the American Commonwealth; Mr. Frederick A. Cleveland, chairman of the Commission on Economy and Efficiency; Dr. William D. Lewis, dean of the Pennsylvania Law School; Dr. Charles McCarthy, of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Department; Hon. E. Dana Durand, Director of the United States Census; Hon. Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor; Mr. Middleton Beaman, of New York; Mr. C. B. Lester, of Wisconsin; Mr. James McKirdy, of the Pennsylvania Legislative Bureau; Mr. Ernst Bruncken, formerly with the Legislative Bureau of California; Prof. Ernst Freund, of the University of Chicago Law School; the Speaker of the House; Mr. Mann, minority leader; Mr. Sherley, Member of Congress from Kentucky; Mr. Berger, Member of Congress from Wisconsin; and Mr. Nelson, who arranged for the hearings and secured the attendance of many who furnished the data shown in the hearings of the committee held February 26 and 27, 1912. We have also had before us Senate Document No. 7 of the Sixtysecond Congress, first session, consisting of a report by the Librarian of Congress to the Library Committee dated April 6, 1911, containing an exhaustive summary of the laws of the various States and of Great Britain and the British colonies upon the subject. As the result of mature deliberation your committee is unanimously of the opinion that the Legislative Reference Bureau should be a department of the Congressional Library, where most of the data exists which will be collected, indexed, and made available for legislators. We also conclude that the Librarian of Congress should appoint the director of the bureau and that the assistants should be under his management, inasmuch as confusion would inevitably result were the director and employees of the bureau in the Library appointed by either the President, the Chief Justice, or under the rules of the Senate and the House, as has been suggested in the various bills before us. |