rary detail, just as the detail at the Naval Academy and at West Point. Mr. GARBER. Could you give the number of students and the States from which they come? Admiral BILLARD. You mean the present set-up? Mr. GARBER. At the present time; yes. Admiral BILLARD. You wish me to read it? Mr. GARBER. Well, just so that we may have it incorporated in the record. I would like to know. Mr. HOCH. If it is satisfactory we will just put it in the record. Mr. GARBER. All right. (The paper referred to follows:) Admiral BILLARD. That is scheduled by States as they actually exist today. Mr. HоCH. Are there any other questions? Mr. GARBER. I would like to know to what extent efforts have been made to secure the services of professional ability, architectural especially, in reference to the cost, the necessity of the amount of appropriation asked for. Have you consulted the architectural organization in the Treasury Department? Captain HAMLET. I think Admiral Billard can answer that question. Admiral BILLARD. We have ascertained informally that the Supervising Architect's office will help us out with respect to preparing plans and drawings. It might be well to explain that the Coast Guard has a very considerable number of life-saving stations along the coast, so we have our own people to design them and to make plans for repairs to them. This proposition, of course, would be a bit beyond their professional experience, and so the Supervising Architect's office, I am told, is prepared to asisst us at an appropriate time in drawings and plans and specifications. But we have not consulted them as to details as yet. Mr. HоCH. Are there any further questions? Admiral, have you anything further to present, or anybody else who should be heard. on this bill? Admiral BILLARD. No, sir. Mr. HOCH. If not, we will consider the hearing on this bill closed. Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. HOCH. The next bill is a bill introduced by Representative Carter, of California, who is here, H. R. 14452. The bill provides that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to donate, without expense to the United States, to the city of Oakland, Calif., the historic Coast Guard cutter Bear, now no longer fit for service after 54 years, and replaced by another boat. Mr. Carter, we will be glad to hear you. STATEMENT OF HON. ALBERT E. CARTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA Mr. CARTER. Mr. Chairman, before I make a statement in reference to this bill I want to say that I have been very much interested in the hearings on the bill that you have had under consideration, and have learned for the first time that they did not have permanent quarters there for these young men that are about to enter the Coast Guard Service. I supposed, Admiral Billard, that you had a place comparable to Annapolis or West Point, and I think that the importance and the dignity of the service of the Coast Guard, especially in view of the fact that our trade and commerce is going to increase as years go on, and the work of the Coast Guard is therefore going to be more important, requires that something be done, that they be given a place in keeping with the service that they are performing. Now, as to the bill H. R. 14452, which has for its object the donating by the Government of the United States Coast Guard Cutter Bear to the city of Oakland, I believe there is a report from the Treasury Department on file in reference to this bill, and I might say, further, that the Bear was built in Greenock, Scotland, in the year 1874, by the British Government; it was purchased by the United States Government in 1883 for use in the Greeley Relief Expedition. The Bear has gone to the Arctic for many years. I am informed that she has made more than 40 trips into the Arctic Ocean. She has been a wonderful old vessel. She has gone up there to the relief of many expeditions, but she has outlived her usefulness. A new ship has taken her place, the Northland, a million dollar cutter that is now out on the Pacific coast, and I believe went into the Arctic last summer for the first time. The proposition has come up as to what to do with the Bear, whether she should be sold on the block or what should be done with her, and it seems that unless she is disposed of in a manner provided for in this bill, or some other manner, she will be sold on the block for whatever they can obtain for her as junk, and be dismantled. I want to say that there is a strong sentimental feeling among the people of the Pacific coast for this vessel. She is one that has saved many lives and gone to the rescue of many a suffering person there. The city of Oakland requested me to introduce this bill, and informed me that they proposed to use the Bear in connection with the museum in the city of Oakland. Inside of the city limits of the city of Oakland is a lake consisting of about 160 acres, Lake Merritt. Some of you gentlemen have seen the lake. I know that Governor Shallenberger has, and perhaps others of you. The museum is located on one shore of this lake, and immediately across the boulevard, and a few feet offshore, they propose to anchor this vessel. This is the lake inside of the city [indicating on map]. The business center of Oakland on this map is perhaps about in there [indicating]. This book here is a block that has been acquired by the city of Oakland for the museum. There is at present one museum building on it in here, and a main building is to be built down on this lake boulevard, and they propose to anchor this Coast Guard cutter just across the boulevard here, and to establish on it a nautical and Alaskan exhibit. Mr. CROSSER. On the Bear? Mr. CARTER. On the Bear itself, yes. This is the only view I have of the city of Oakland. This area around the lake is almost all park, and the site of the museum-one arm of the lake runs here, another one runs in this direction-the site of the museum is right here [indicating]. In adition to the tremendous amount of traffic along the lake shore boulevard there in this park, the park is visited by thousands of people, particularly on Sundays, when an open air band concert is given there. Mr. SHALLENBERGER. Where do you get into the lake from the coast? Mr. CARTER. Here [indicating]. That is the only channel that leads in. This is San Francisco Bay out here. Here are the ferries running to San Francisco. The boat probably will be taken in here part way, and then there are some railroad tracks that do not open there. Now, whether they are going to open those tracks and take it through-in their communications to me they say they have figured on the cost of taking the cutter around there and taking her into the lake without the necessity of raising the track. This area here, you see, is not built up. That is municipal property. That is a municipal auditorium there. So they have figured on the proposition of getting the cutter into the lake through there. That, in brief, gentlemen, I think explains the objects of the bill and what is proposed to be done with it after it is acquired by the city of Oakland. If there are any questions that you would care to ask, I would be glad to answer them if I can. Mr. HOCH. Would you have any objection to incorporating in this bill a provision that it is to be maintained as a museum or something of that sort, to indicate in the bill what the city of Oakland is going to do with this boat? Mr. CARTER. No; I think not, Mr. Chairman. That is what they propose to do with it, and I am sure there would be no objection to that. Mr. J. J. Underwood, who represents the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and knows the history of the Bear very well, is here also. I would like Mr. Underwood to make just a very brief statement in reference to this matter. Mr. HоCH. The committee will be very glad to hear him, unless the members have some questions of Mr. Carter. Mr. CARTER. If you have any further questions that you wish to ask me, I will be very glad to answer them. Mr. GARBER. I presume it might be of some interest to some of the members to know the estimated value of the vessel. Mr. CARTER. I could not give you that. I do not know what the possible sale price might be. Mr. GARBER. The vessel is not in the service of the United States now? Mr. CARTER. No; she is tied up. Mr. HOCH. We will ask Admiral Billard to make a further statement on that. Mr. CARTER. She is tied up in Oakland at the present time. STATEMENT OF J. J. UNDERWOOD, REPRESENTING CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, SEATTLE, WASH. Mr. UNDERWOOD. I want to say, gentlemen, that the revenue cutter Bear has done much rescue work in the north, where I lived for 14 years and right in the Arctic region for five years near Point Barrow. She has done more rescue work than all the rest of the vessels in the western service put together, in my judgment. I think her first experience was with the Greeley expedition: Later I recall, in 1897, when we lost about 25 or 30 ships up there, when hundreds of whalers were stranded, the Bear went to the rescue on the Reindeer expedition. She took a prominent part in the Stefanson expedition, rescuing stranded people from Wrangell Island. She has performed innumerable services, and while the Seattle Chamber of Commerce did not act officially on this bill because they did not know of it, I can assure you gentlemen that there is not a shipping man on the Pacific coast, there is not a port commissioner on the Pacific coast, there is not a man who has lived in the far North who would not deeply regret to see this great vessel, which has such historic and sentimental value, broken up for junk, and I am sure all of those organizations and all of those people would very heartily indorse this bill to have that vessel used as a museum or something of that kind on the Pacific coast. San Francisco, I believe, or Oakland, I am not sure which, was her home port for more than 30 years and I think it quite appropriate that she should go there. If there are any questions that anyone would like to ask I will be glad to answer them. Mr. HOCH. Are there any questions by the members of the committee? Thank you very much, Mr. Underwood. Admiral Billard, we will be glad to have any statement that you care to make about the proposition of the revenue cutter Bear, the history of it briefly, and the attitude of the service toward it. STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL FREDERICK C. BILLARD, COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD Admiral BILLARD. I might make a very brief statement, Mr. Chairman. I believe that this committee is familiar with the quite remarkable history of this old ship. Confirming what Mr. Carter and Mr. Underwood have told you, the old Bear is known to every person on the Pacific coast at all interested in shipping, and undoubtedly to every native and Eskimo on the entire Alaskan coast. She has had a remarkable history. Probably no vessel that ever flew the pennant of the United States has done more humanitarian good in her long life than has this old ship. So we in the Coast Guard have very strong sentimental attachment for the vessel. It had been my thought that we might retain the old Bear with a small number of men to keep her up, and use her possibly for receiving and training men, but be that as it may, in the appropriations for the Coast Guard for 1929 the House Committee on Appropriations very carefully eliminated from each subhead of the appropriation the cost necessary for further maintenance of the Bear. The House adopted the committee's report, so I have considered that as a mandate from Congress that I must not retain the old vessel any longer. Therefore, unless she be transferred to the city of Oakland and I have felt justified in retaining her long enough to see what Congress would do I shall be compelled to dispose of her under the law. That means that I shall have to advertise her for sale. What the Government would get for her is problematic. It has been our experience that when we sell an old vessel to the highest bidder, we get very little. I should hazard the guess that we might get six or eight or ten thousand dollars for her. The old vessel then might be turned into a coal barge or what not, and we in the Coast Guard are exceedingly anxious that that fine old ship should pass the remainder of her days cared for and respected in the manner that I know the citizens of Oakland will do. That is about all I have to say. Mr. CROSSER. When did you say this ship was built and where? Admiral BILLARD. The vessel now is lying at a wharf in the city of Oakland. It is right in Oakland. Mr. HOCH. Is she in service at all? Admiral BILLARD. Not at all. She is simply being cared for, pending the disposition of Congress. In other words, if Congress does not act to transfer it to the city of Oakland, I shall feel it my duty to carry out the evident wish of Congress and sell the vessel. Mr. CROSSER. Is it a wooden vessel? Admiral BILLARD. A wooden vessel, yes. Mr. CROSSER. Would it be possible to preserve it there for an indefinite length of time? Admiral BILLARD. I think the old vessel in a lake such as has been suggested will be there for 50 years, probably. They are solid old timbers, you know, built on the same principles as the old Constitution and Constellation. She might lie there indefinitely. Mr. HOCH. We have here a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury giving something of the same history of the Bear, and indorsing the measure, which I will simply turn over to the reporter for the record. The proposition is indorsed by the Secretary. If there are no further questions or further statements, that will close the hearing on this matter. |