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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION   1603

the residuary estate and to give a niece of the deceased, Miss Elizabeth E. Medinger, an apartment rent-free for life. This apartment house is not to be sold during Miss Medinger’s life but may be sold when it becomes the outright property of the Smithsonian. Miss Medinger is also to receive from the net income of the estate the sum of $8,000 a year for life. All other net income, after deducting certain expenses, is to be paid to the Smithsonian Institution. At the death of the niece, Miss Medinger, all remaining assets of the estate are to be transferred to the Smithsonian Institution to be used by the Smithsonian Institution for the general purpose of providing for a continuation of the deceased’s effort to promote science by making more available published records of original scientific research. The Trustee is directed not to sell the apartment house.

The Smithsonian has been informed of the conditions of this bequest by the Union Trust Company, but no distribution of funds from the bequest has yet been received by the Smithsonian Institution.

Mrs. Seidell had an estate of her own. The Smithsonian Institution is not mentioned in Mrs. Seidell’s Will. Mrs. Seidell died more than four months before Dr. Seidell. According to District of Columbia law one half of Mrs. Seidell’s estate, therefore, became the property of Dr. Atherton Seidell, and since Dr. Seidell bequeathed all the residue and remainder of his estate not otherwise specified to the Union Trust Company as mentioned above and directed that it ultimately come to the Smithsonian, the interpretation has been advanced that this one half of Mrs. Seidell’s estate is legally the property of the Smithsonian Institution. Certain considerations, however, have led to the conclusion that this may not have been the intention of either Dr. Seidell or Mrs. Seidell. Because of the complexity of this question the matter was referred to counsel, and I now read a letter, written on May 7, 1963, by Mr. Arthur B. Hanson acting as counsel for the Smithsonian Institution:

“Under date of April 10 you forwarded to me certain papers concerning the Seidell Estate which were supplemented under date of May 1, 1963. Stated simply, the problem presented to me was as to whether or not the Smithsonian Institution has either a right or duty to execute a waiver in favor of the Estate of Mrs. Martha A. Seidell for that portion of her estate which under the operation of the laws of the District of Columbia would become a portion of the residual estate of her husband, Dr. Atherton Seidell.

“As you know, under Dr. Seidell’s will the Smithsonian is entitled and has agreed to accept a bequest which has the effect of giving the Institution certain income from an apartment property after income has been realized in a fixed amount to Dr. Seidell’s surviving niece, Miss Elizabeth Medinger who had lived with the Seidells for many years prior to their deaths, and upon Miss Medinger’s death the corpus of the property, consisting of an apartment house at 2301 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., would be distributed to the Smithsonian Institution.

“Subsequent to the date upon which you requested this office’s advice as to whether or not the Smithsonian Institution should