Mr. CLARKE. This area right in here [indicating on map]. They have about a square mile of property.

Mr. GARBER. How large an institution is that?

Mr. CLARKE. They have pretty close to 800 students now. It has grown very rapidly in the last-well, it is about 7 years old. They could double their number of students provided they had additional funds for building, and so forth. That is the only thing that hinders

them.

Mr. Hocн. Is it contemplated that this site is to be given by contribution of citizens, or is this partly municipal?

Mr. CLARKE. We believe that the city of New London will give this itself. We have a group of 20 citizens who have signed my promise to Admiral Billard that if the city will not go through with the full amount we will. There will be no cost to the Government. It will be a title in fee simple, no restrictions.

Mr. GARBER. When will the title permit of a transfer to the Government?

Mr. CLARKE. I should think in, say, less than three months.

Mr. SHALLENBERGER. And work upon the property could begin as soon as that is done?

Mr. CLARKE. Surely. The only possible, we will say, restriction, I think, that might be eliminated, will be that if the Government should ever give up the area it would revert to the city, because under the city law, naturally when they are buying an area and giving it away, they can buy that for park purposes and then allow its use, with the provision that it should revert if that use was abandoned. But I have talked to a number in the council and the director of law, and he seems to think that that would not be absolutely

necessary.

Mr. GARBER. I think that reservation would not be acceptable to the Government.

Mr. CLARKE. Well, I am quite sure the title can be made in fee simple. Eight years ago the city gave, roughly, $100,000 in actual cash to start the college.

Mr. HоCH. Are there any other questions? If not, thank you very much, Mr. Clarke.

Now, Representative Freeman is here. I believe New London is in your district, Mr. Freeman.

STATEMENT OF HON. R. P. FREEMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Mr. FREEMAN. New London is my home, the town of my birth, and of course I have a personal interest in this matter.

As you know, of course, the Coast Guard Academy has been established in New London some 30 years at Fort Trumbull. In that time it has grown very greatly in importance. The accommodations there are becoming more and more inadequate and insufficient and the contemplated site on the river is one of the best adapted sites in the country for the Coast Guard Academy. The site half a mile above it was chosen by the Connecticut College for Women's Society for their college 10 years ago. That has increased greatly in number and importance.

The contemplated site for the Coast Guard Academy is only about a mile from the business portion of the town, and yet it is away from it. They could have a school there away from the town and yet within easy distance of the business portion of the town. Admiral Billard, of course, has told you that the present accommodations at Fort Trumbull are insufficient and inadequate. That is about all I have to say. I trust that this matter will receive your favorable consideration.

Mr. HоCH. Are there any questions? Thank you very much, Mr. Freeman.

Captain Hamlet, superintendent of the academy, is here. We would be glad to have a statement from you, Captain.

STATEMENT OF CAPT. H. G. HAMLET, UNITED STATES COAST GUARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF THE COAST GUARD ACADEMY, NEW LONDON, CONN.

Captain HAMLET. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, there is nothing that I can add to what Senator Bingham and Admiral Billard and Representative Freeman have said as regards the physical condition of the academy. I think I perhaps could best answer questions that the committee might want to ask about the academy or the curriculum.

I might tell you that the school was established by the act of July 31, 1876, which was a question by one of the members of the committee that was not answered accurately. And the Coast Guard Academy took up its present quarters at Fort Trumbull in New London in 1910, moving from South Baltimore, where it had been for a number of years.

I might add that we have not always had shore establishments. We tried the experiment of keeping cadets at sea and living on ships, but it has been demonstrated that the better policy is to have a shore establishment for their collegiate education and a practice ship for their practical instruction at sea.

The buildings that we are using now, by stretching the accommodations and using a classroom, we have made to accommodate about 111 cadets, and those accommodations are very much cramped. We now have 107. So that if we were to increase, we would have to further encroach on the classroom space, and that is totally, entirely inadequate.

The studying that is done by cadets has to be done in their own rooms. There is no other place to study, and that is not conducive to good results, because the young man who has to concentrate in rooms in which he lives, and without access to a fine library and without the proper surroundings or the inspiration which he would get from proper surroundings, can not, in my opinion, study properly or to the best advantage.

This new academy which is proposed here is vitally important to the Coast Guard, because the efficiency of the Coast Guard springs, in my opinion, from the caliber and quality of its commissioned officers. Spartan simplicity is doubtless a very good thing, but we find as the years go on that we need a little more inspiring environment to make the proper caliber of men. The plan which the admiral has

explained to you here, I think, will conduce to giving us that caliber of officers which we so vitally need.

Mr. Hocн. The Secretary refers to the fact that these buildings are fire traps. What have you to say about that?

Captain HAMLET. In my opinion, sir, the Secretary has expressed it exactly. They are constructed of wood. The barracks building, in which the cadets live, has a central stairway which is a flue, a perfect flue, of large dimensions, which can not be protected against fire. The material of which they are constructed is of the most inflammable kind. They have stood so long that they are thoroughly dry and tinder like. The electrical wiring in them, while we are constantly inspecting it and going over it, might be defective in some particular place that we are not able to discern. Those things happen frequently in buildings that are built under higher specifications than those were.

There is an air space above the living quarters of the cadets which is accessible only by a ladder, and on a recent occasion when we had a very small—and I am happy to say not disastrous-fire in the living quarters of the cadets, it was a perfect example of what would happen in a large conflagration. The first thing that could be seen was the smoke coming out of the lattice work ventilating arrangement at the ends of the buildings in the space over the cadets living quarters, which showed that it was a perfect flue; that the draft was just as one would find in a chimney. We use every human endeavor within the limits of our personnel in our ability to look ahead to guard against things of that kind. But I think what the Secretary means, and what I am perfectly willing to subscribe to, is that if it does happen, then they are fire traps. There are no fire escapes other than the ordinary rope which you find in antiquated buildings, for the cadets to make their exit in case of fire.

Mr. HOCH. Are there any questions by the members of the committee?

Mr. GARBER. What are the required qualifications of the instructors at this institution?

Captain HAMLET. All of the instructors except the one civilian. instructor are commissioned officers of the Coast Guard. There are no particular qualifications, sir. Every officer who graduates from the Coast Guard Academy is, in a broad sense, competent to go back to the academy as an instructor. Of course, there will enter into the selection of an officer for the academy that inevitable question of adaptability, personality, and I am sure those things are considered by the commandant when he picks or selects officers to be instructors at the Coast Guard Academy, but he is limited to the corps of commissioned officers of the Coast Guard, with the exception of this one civilian instructor. That civilian instructor, by the way, is a very eminent mathematician. He has been with us for a number of years. Mr. GARBER. What is the number of your instructors?

Captain HAMLET. We have at present 10 commissioned officers and one civilian instructor actually engaged in the instruction of cadets, except that I, who am one of the 10, do not actually instruct but supervise.

Admiral BILLARD. You appreciate, Mr. Garber, that these officers do not stay permanently at the academy; that they rotate. It is a tempo

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. HOCH. 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. HOCH. 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. Hocн. 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