1452 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to say, with reference to that improve- 
ment out there, that the very next day after this Board of Regents 
had met and had approved the action of its Secretary, and had directed 
him to draw this fund from the Treasury (and it is the first authority 
he had to draw a dollar) there appeared in the Washington Post of this 
city what purported to be an answer to my inquiries, authorized by 
Professor Langley. I do not consider it an answer at all, because it 
failed to answer the very point of the inquiry. If it was desired or 
intended that the inquiry should be met in a full and frank manner 
why was the resolution addressed to the Regents of the Smithsonian 
Institution smothered in the committee? If this money was paid out 
pursuant to law what objection is there to the publication of the facts? 
Now, Mr. Speaker, I started to state, when I was interrupted, that 
the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Butterworth], of the Board of Regents, 
when we were discussing the sundry civil bill, said he understood 
that there had been two meetings, and the gentleman from Alabama 
[Mr. Wheeler] the same day said there had been three meetings. 
Professor Langley, if I remember correctly, stated before the Com- 
mittee on Expenditures in the Interior Department that there had 
been no meeting prior to the 27th, and the reason why there had been 
no meeting was because some members of the Board lived in distant. 
States, and it was not convenient to have a meeting oftener than once a 
year. Now, I want to call the attention of the House to the fact that. 
what I am trying to do is to get at facts-which will justify a change of 
the administration of this park. 
I want to take it out of the hands of the Board of Regents of the 
Smithsonian Institution, and to put it into the hands of somebody who 
has more sympathy with the taxpayers of this District and more 
sympathy with the taxpayers of the country. This Board, the present 
Board, is made up as follows: 
MEMBERS OF THE INSTITUTION. 
Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States. 
Levi P. Morton, Vice-President of the United States. 
Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States. 
James G. Blaine, Secretary of State. 
Redfield Proctor, Secretary of War. 
Benjamin F. Tracy, Secretary of the Navy. 
John Wanamaker, Postmaster-General. 
W. H.H. Miller, Attorney-General. 
Charles E. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents. 
Then follows the Regents of the Institution—the gentlemen who 
are supposed to audit these accounts and pass upon the administration 
of this park. Who are they? 
Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States, chancellor. 
Levi P. Morton, Vice-President of the United States. 
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