SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No. 47S 



SCIENCE: 



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THE PATENT OFFICE BUILDING. 



We have recently referred to the condition of the United 

 States Patent OfHce as revealed by the reports made at the 

 meetings of the Association of Inventors and Manufactures. 

 It will be remembered that it was stated that either a new 

 and much larger building is required for the work of that 

 department of the Government, or a great extension of the 

 present building and quarters. Every commissioner of 

 patents for many years past has endeavored to bring this 

 matter before Congress in such manner as to secure some re- 

 lief, but without avail; and the condition of things in the 

 building has now become, in consequence of the supineness 

 of those responsible for it, as testifled by the speakers in the 

 discussion in the Senate reported in part below, something 

 shameful and almost indescribable. It will be remembered 

 also that the Patent Office building was erected many years 

 ago, and especially for its present uses, at a cost of about 

 $3,000,000, all furnished by the inventors of the country; but 

 it is now so utterly inadequate to its work that clerks and 

 other officers in the office are actually in danger of asphyxia- 

 tion. But this is not all ; this building, built with the money 

 of inventors thus taxed for the privilege of making this 

 country the most prosperous and wealthy on the globe, 

 money contributed by poor inventors usually, is not now 

 even permitted to be appropriated to the use for which it was 

 constructed or the purpose to which it was dedicated; but the 

 Interior Department, organized since the formation of the 

 Patent Office, has been permitted to enter its " camel's nose " 

 into this tent, and has now succeeded in getting so much of 

 its body in that it actually dispossesses the rightful pro- 

 prietors, and it has even been suggested by at least one sec- 

 retary of the interior that the Patent Office be dispossessed 

 entirely. 



The Patent Office rightfully owns the building, which is 

 paid for out of its own earnings at a cost of |3, 000,000, and 

 the accumulations of inventors' money in the treasury 



amount to about $4,000,000 more; nevertheless, it seems next 

 to impossible to save the business of the country from further 

 serious expense and enormous embarrassment through de- 

 layed cases, or to preserve the employees of the government 

 from danger to health and life by the construction of a new 

 building which might be, and should be, immediately con- 

 structed. It seems unfortunate enough that the present state 

 of affairs should (xist; but it seems doubly so when it is cofi- 

 sidered that poor inventors taxed for the benefit of a country 

 which they have done so much to aid are not permitted to 

 even build for themselves a building in whicli their work 

 can be carried on in a business-like way, promptly and effi- 

 ciently and at their expense. We quote from the Washing- 

 ton Star : — 



"There was an interesting debate on local public buildings 

 in the Senate yesterday afternoon. Senator Carey offered a 

 resolution, which was printed in The Star, in which the 

 committee on public buildings and grounds was called upon 

 to report upon the condition of government buildings, the 

 necessity for new buildings, the probable cost of the latter 

 and the amount now annually spent for rent by the govern- 

 ment. 



"Senator Allison stated the rental expenditure as about 

 $140,000 per annum. He did not object to the inquiry, but 

 he thought it would d^ very little good. Everybody knew 

 that public buildings were needed. 



" Senator Hawley made several pertinent and forceful re- 

 marks as to tlie structurally dangerous and generally un- 

 healthy condition of the government printing office. 



" Senator Piatt talked pointedly of the Patent Office. Said 

 he: 'It is now at least eight years since I called the atten- 

 tion of the Senate to this matter. The difficulty has been 

 increasing ever since. Although we have been taking busi- 

 ness out of what is known as the Interior Department build- 

 ing, the danger, the overcrowding, the unhealthiness of that 

 building have been increasing all the time, notwithstanding 

 the room that has been made for the Patent Office. I said 

 then, and I repeat now, that if there was a factory in the 

 State of Connecticut where the employes were obliged to 

 work under as unfavorable conditions as to health as the 

 clerks in the Patent Office, the proprietors would be prose- 

 cuted and convicted under the laws of the State of Con- 

 necticut.' 



" Senator Gray had been looking into the matter also. ' I 

 had occasion,' said he, 'as a member of the committee on 

 patents of this body, to visit the portion of the Patent Office 

 building to which are assigned the documents and records 

 which have made the tremendous weight that is jeopardizing 

 the safety of that building, and though I expected- to find 

 some inconvenience there and a state of things which was 

 very undesirable, I was not prepared to see what was ex- 

 hibited to me, and I have felt ever since that there was a 

 personal responsibility resting upon every member of this 

 body and upon the co-ordinate body of Congress as long as 

 that state of thing continues for the lives as well as for the- 

 heftlth of those people who are compelled to labor there for 

 their daily sustenance. I found a room there in which sev- 

 enty or eighty ladies were performing their clerical duties 

 that was so stifling that a half-hour's visit to that room made 

 me so glad to get into the fresh air that I should be very 

 unwilling to go back there again and stay the same length 

 of time. 



" ' While we are waiting for the fire-proof building referred- 

 to, there is danger that some of these people may be asphyxi- 

 ated in the interval, and I think, among all of the important 



