Viewing page 210 of 488

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[preprinted]]
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION   653
[[preprinted]]

the regular annual estimates for the Government branches of the Institution, but should be transferred to the estimates submitted by the Treasury Department for Permanent Appropriations, as had been done prior to 1924; and, further, that the Secretary be instructed to request the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to make this change in the next Annual Budget to be submitted to the Congress.

GOVERNMENT AUDIT OF SMITHSONIAN FUND ACCOUNTS.

The Secretary said that at the hearing on December 18, Judge Wood had asked why the expenditures from the Smithsonian trust funds should not be audited by the Comptroller General.  The Secretary replied that he would look the matter up, which he did, and the following letter was written to Judge Wood and included in the report of the hearing:

December 30, 1924.

Dear Sir:

An examination of the history of the origin, collection and disposition of moneys belonging to the Smithsonian Institution during the period from October 23, 1826, when provision was first made for that Institution in the last Will and Testament of James Smithson, up to the present time, also all laws affecting the Institution; the reports of debates in Congress relating to said laws and to proposed legislation that failed of enactment; certain annual reports made to Congress by the Institution's Board of Regents; fails to disclose anything to justify a conclusion that the Accounting Officers of the Government have authority to require an accounting by the Institution to the United States for the receipt or expenditure of moneys coming into the Institution from bequests, by gifts, or as semi-annual interest provided for by acts of August 10, 1846, and February 8, 1867.

A part of the Million dollars deposited in the Treasury and something over Two Hundred Thousand dollars held by the Institution in securities, comprise trust funds given or bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution to carry out the specific wishes of the donors.  These were attracted to the Institution by reason of the character of its organization and methods for its administration prescribed by the Act of Incorporation and which would doubtless not have been entrusted to the Institution had any change been made in the Act of Organization that would limit in any manner the independence of the Board of Regents in carrying out the trust of Smithson, and of the donors of other specific funds.

From the official utterances of many of the foremost legislators, members of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Cabinet Officers, during the period from 1835 to 1899, we find that they did not regard the funds, of the nature described above, as even [[underlined]] quasi [[/underlined]] public moneys, and some of these men had much to do with the scrupulous care with which the method of accounting for its funds was provided for in the Organic Act founding the Institution and which method stands to this day as it was first provided.
[[initialed]] CDW [[/initialed]]