debt of over half a
million dollars by a city of 15,000 population--being $37 per capita--is
unwise.

BENJ. HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _April 29, 1890_.

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return without my approval the bill (H.R. 848) "to authorize the
construction of an addition to the public building in Dallas, Tex."

The bill authorizes the construction of a wing or addition to the
present public building at a cost of $200,000. I find that the bill
as originally introduced by the member representing the Congressional
district in which Dallas is situated fixed $100,000 as the limit of
the proposed expenditure, and it was so reported from the Committee
on Public Buildings and Grounds after conferring with the Supervising
Architect of the Treasury. A bill of the same tenor was introduced in
the Senate by one of the Senators from that State, fixing the same
limit of expenditure.

The public building at Dallas, for which a first appropriation of
$75,000 was made in 1882, subsequently increased to $125,000, was only
completed in 1889. It is probably inadequate now to the convenient
transaction of business, chiefly in that part assigned to the
Post-Office Department. The material and architectural style of any
addition are fixed by the present building and its ground area by
the available unoccupied space, as no provision is made for buying
additional ground. The present building is 85 by 56 feet, and Mr. John
S. Witwer, the postmaster and the custodian of the building, writing
to the Supervising Architect, advises that to meet the present and
prospective needs of the Government an addition at least two-thirds as
large as the present building should be provided. It will be seen from
the following extract from a letter of the Supervising Architect to the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, dated
February 17, 1890, that a building larger than that suggested can be
erected within the limit of $100,000. He says:

From computations made in this office based upon data received it is
found that an extension or wing about 40 by 85 feet in dimensions, three
stories high, with basement, giving 3,400 square feet, in addition to
the 4,760 square feet of the first-floor area of the building, of
fireproof construction, can be erected on the present site within the
limit of cost proposed by said bill, namely, $100,000.

It may be possible that an expenditure of $325,000 for