830 CONGRESSIONAL PKOCEEDINGS. 



NATIONAI. MUSEUM BUILDING. 



June 10, 1880— Senate. 



Mr. J. G. Blaine. I want the attention of the honorable Senator 

 from Kentucky [Mr. James B. Beck] to an amendment I am going to 

 offer, because I appeal to him to give it his support, much as he thinks 

 the bill ma}^ be weighted. 



The building now going up known as the National Museum build- 

 ing is one Avhich has been constructed at unusually small expense, 

 especially so for a Government building. They set out to build it for 

 $250,000. It is a very large building in area, as all Senators who 

 have visited it know. They are finishing it with a common concrete 

 floor, just such as you have on the street to drive on. The floor that 

 is now designed and that they must adopt if kept within the appro- 

 priation which is now granted them will be a simple ordinary rough 

 concrete floor on which the}'^ propose to put strips of boards for walk- 

 ing. I think that would be a great disfigurement to a building which 

 will be greatly visited, which will be an object and center of interest 

 to all the visitors to Washington and to the whole people of the 

 countr3\ 1 think the beauty of the building, the beautiful design for 

 which it is intended, and all connected with it deserve at least that 

 there should be a good floor in it. 



I had a conference with the chairman of the commission who are 

 building it, and they would be very glad, if they had the money, to 

 put in that building a marble-tile floor. I appeal to every Senator, 

 before it is too late, not to disfigure that fine building by making the 

 floor there nothing more than the common street way that leads up to 

 it. It will require to put a marble-tile floor in that building $25,000, 

 and I appeal to the honorable Senator from Kentucky to allow it to 

 be done. At all events I shall offer the amendment. It is a matter 

 in which no one Senator has a particle more interest than another 

 Senator. It is a matter that concerns the utility and in a very high 

 degree the beauty and comfort of a great national building. 



Therefore I offer the amendment to come in after line 1005, under 

 the heading of " National Museum." I have the estimate of Mr. Cluss, 

 the superintendent architect, in my hand, that it will require $25,000 

 to put down a marble-tile floor bedded in hydraulic cement. 



The Presiding Officer (Mr. A. G, Thurman). The Secretary will 

 report the amendment. 



The Chief Clerk. It is proposed, after line 1005, to insert: For 

 laying of marble-tile floor bedded in hydraulic cement, $25,000. 



Mr. J. B. Beck. I shall raise the question of order that that is not 

 in order, not estimated for, not reported by any committee, and not 

 sent to the Committee on Appropriations. Professor Baird has been 

 before us and we have given him every dollar that he has asked in 

 every form on that building, and he never even suggested this to us. 



