absolute necessity. The Patent Office alone will in the course of time, with its accumulating records and models, occupy the whole of the present Interior Department building.
I am informed that similar complaints come from other departments of the government; that the Post-Office Department finds its present quarters insufficient; that a large portion of the force of the Treasury Department is located outside of the main building; that the Department of Justice is in a rented house; and that the new edifice erected for the Departments of State, War, and of the Navy will not be large enough to accommodate all the offices belonging to those branches of the public service. Under such circumstances it appears that the exigencies of the government call for the erection of not only one but of several public buildings, for the Interior Department, for the Post-Office Department, for the accommodation of the Department of Justice, and for different offices connected with the War and Navy Departments which do not find accommodation in the buildings now existing and in progress of construction.
In view of this fact I beg leave to repeat some remarks I had the honor to address to the Hon. George L. Converse, chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, House of Representatives, on the 18th of May last, in reply to a letter of inquiry from him:
If such public buildings are constructed upon a harmonious plan, they will contribute much to the public convenience, as well as to the beauty of the national capital. I would respectfully recommend, therefore, that the following suggestion be considered:
It being desirable that the executive departments should be located in as close proximity as possible to each other, as well as to the Executive Mansion, it would seem to me that no better place for the construction of new buildings for them could be found than the blocks surrounding Lafayette Square on the east, north, and west, opposite the Treasury, the Executive Mansion, and the State, War, and Navy Departments, leaving the square itself undisturbed. A group of four public buildings surrounding that square, erected upon an harmonious plan as to architecture, would, with the buildings now existing, probably become one of the most imposing and beautiful groups of public edifices in the world. The purchase of the lots surrounding Lafayette Square would indeed be somewhat costly, but the public convenience, as well as the architectural beauty of the group mentioned, would no doubt compensate for an expenditure but little larger than would be occasioned by the purchase of property in other parts of the city. These buildings could be erected one after another, as the necessities of the case may require, but a harmonious plan for the whole group should be made by competent architects and accepted by the government before commencing the erection of any one of them. I respectfully submit this suggestion to your consideration and that of Congress, believing as I do that the erection of the public buildings that are now and will become necessary, upon such a plan as here stated, will finally be more satisfactory to the people of the United States than would be the scattering of a number of public offices in places more or less accidentally chosen, and thus losing much of their architectural effect, while being but little less costly. I would add that if such a project be entertained it can be initiated and partly executed at much less expense now than will be possible ten or fifteen years hence, when its non-adoption at a time like this might possibly become a matter of very general regret.
