f>46 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



Mr. J. W. GRIMES. I have a word to .say on that subject. 1 am 

 opposed to the adoption of that amendment. In the first place, I do 

 not know any reason why there should be a distinction made between 

 a debt that is due to the Smithsonian Institution and a debt due to 

 anybody else by the United States Government. I understand that 

 by some construction or other the Treasury Department have decided 

 that this is a kind of trust debt, and that from this time henceforth 

 they intend to pay the interest upon what they call the trust fund in 

 gold. The purpose of this amendment is to make this retrospective 

 and to pay some $40,000 in currency, being the difference between the 

 amount which has hitherto been received by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion and that which they claim they ought to have received and would 

 have received if this money had been paid to them in coin. The 

 Smithsonian Institution is a very wealthy corporation, and is able to 

 reimburse itself and to rebuild and refit the buildings which have 

 been recently destroyed. It will be remembered that when Mr. 

 Smithson made this bequest, or shortly after he made it, the Gov- 

 ernment created a corporation. That corporation, or their trustee, 

 saw fit to invest their money in Arkansas bonds. Those bonds mostly 

 turned out to be valueless. The Government, however, assumed it, 

 and we now pay, and have for many years paid, the Smithsonian 

 Institution upward of $30,000 a year upon this amount of $515,000, 

 I think that is it, which is the amount of the permanent fund of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



Mr. CHARLES SUMNER. Allow me to ask the Senator whether the 

 Government did not make that investment in Arkansas bonds? I 

 think it was not an act of the corporation, but of the Government. 



Mr. GRIMES. It is perfectly immaterial, so far as this question is 

 concerned, whether the Government made it or whether the Regents 

 of the Smithsonian Institution made it directly themselves; for if the 

 Government made it, the Government made that investment at the 

 instance and the request of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Mr. SUMNER. No; it was before the organization; before there were 

 Regents. 



Mr. GRIMES. Mr. President, the amount of the fund belonging to the 

 Smithsonian Institution is $515,000. They expended in the building 

 on the public reservation $325,000. It is claimed by them that to put 

 the roof on the building, and put it in about the condition it was in 

 before the fire, there will be required from $36,000 to $40,000; but to 

 improve it as they want to improve it, to make it entirely fireproof, 

 to change its construction very materially, they say they have the 

 opinion of an army engineer, Colonel Alexander, but who is no 

 architect, no expert, and whose judgment, therefore, is worthless in a 

 matter of this kind, that it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood 

 of $100,000. This Institution, besides the $515,000 upon which we are 



