the commission has had a great deal to do with matters of title relating to the proposed connection between Rock Creek and Potomac Parks, and to the improvement of the Anacostia, by giving advice on the title to the lands affected and preventing, I think, legislation and action which would have been costly to the United States. Mr. ASHBROOK. You say that you have prevented this legislation and that you have accomplished these things; in what way? Mr. GAUSS. By suggesting to the committees of Congress, and suggesting to departmental officials who had no knowledge of the status of the titles, certain modifications in proposed legislation which would enable the property of the United States to be protected. For example, I mentioned the navy-yard switch matter. A proposition was made to the Navy authorities to pay the larger part of $160,000 for certain land, and it was suggested to the Navy Department that the investigations of the commission showed that that land was probably land belonging to the United States and that the private parties probably did not have any interest in it. As a result the Navy Department declined to treat with them, leaving the question of title to be settled by litigation. Mr. ASHBROOK. Before the Government would acquire the title to that or any other land, it would have the title investigated? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir; but certain questions of title, I may say, have been passed over here for a great many years without final investigation. The question of the title to the water front has been a matter of contest ever since the establishment of the city. The theory which gives the private parties ownership has been accepted by the title companies, and the titles to the land for the navy-yard switch probably would have passed but for this investigation. Mr. SUMNERS. Is this an investigation of the law or the chain of title which you make? Mr. GAUSS. An investigation of the title, the entire underlying title to the land, involving some very interesting questions, which you will understand a little better as I go along. Mr. SUMNERS. All right. Mr. AUSTIN. The original act creating this commission carried an appropriation of $5,000? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. AUSTIN. Was that enlarged? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir; there were two subsequent appropriations of $10,000 each. Mr. AUSTIN. Making $25,000? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. AUSTIN. How near are you to the completion of this work? Mr. GAUSS. The close of the work is dependent on the state of the appropriation. About eight months' work more, which will exhaust the present appropriation, will finish the investigation of the alley titles. This will substantially complete as far as collection of data goes what the United States ought to know with reference to its property in the District, but it will not be possible to arrange the data within that time so as to comply with the requirements of law. Mr. AUSTIN. Will it take two years longer? Mr. GAUSS. No; eight months. Mr. AUSTIN. And how much additional? Mr. GAUSS. The collection of the data can be done within the present appropriation, of which there is about $2,400 remaining. Mr. AUSTIN. That is the balance which you have? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. AUSTIN. How much land did you acquire down at the navy vard? Of course, we can not Mr. GAUSS. We have suits in progress now. say that the title to the land has been cleared. The CHAIRMAN. You said to Mr. Austin that $2,400 was the balance? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I find in the report made last session, I think the 3d or 4th of March, that the balance was $4.990.55? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. There has been six months of my salary since that time. Mr. AUSTIN. What is your salary? Mr. GAUSS. $3.500. Mr. AUSTIN. What other help is there? Mr. GAUSS. None. Mr. AUSTIN. No other expenses? Mr. GAUSS. No other running expenses except my salary. I have a stenographer who is paid from the other appropriation, "Protecting the title of the United States." Mr. AUSTIN. What other appropriation? Mr. GAUSS. The appropriation carried in the act of April 27, 1912, which appropriated $25.000 for the use of the Attorney General in carrying on suits which he was to bring under that act as a result of the investigations of the commission. Mr. BURNETT. What committee reported that appropriation? We did not report it from this committee. Mr. GAUSS. I believe that came from the District of Columbia Committee. Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Gauss, you did not finish your statement in reference to how much land was involved in this litigation at the navy vard. This Mr. GAUSS. I will call your attention to the last report, Senate Document No. 1137, of the third session of the Sixty-second Congress, on page 4. Perhaps it will be clearer if I spread out this map. red line here [indicating on map] is roughly the added land on he water front on the Anacostia River, east of the navy yard. Mr. AUSTIN. That is the Bieber property, which we had before the committee? Mr. GAUSS. The Bieber property is up here to the northeast [indicating]. Mr. AUSTIN. That is not involved in this litigation? Mr. GAUSS. Let us see. No; the property that Mr. Bieber took title to was up here [indicating], and he relinquished title to the property here indicating]. Mr. AUSTIN. Is that the only property involved in the litigation? the Bieber land. Mr. AUSTIN. The Anacostia proposition is the only one? Mr. GAUSS. No; we have several suits on Rock Creek, over here [indicating]. There are now pending, I think, eight suits, with others to be brought. Mr. AUSTIN. Do you give your undivided time to this work? Mr. AUSTIN. Do you have your office in the Department of Justice? Mr. GAUSS. No, sir; in the Bond Building, at Fourteenth and New York Avenue. Mr. AUSTIN. Who pays the rent? Mr. GAUSS. The Department of Justice. Mr. AUSTIN. Do they have other offices there? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. AUSTIN. How many abstract companies are there in the city of Washington? Mr. GAUSS. Half a dozen. Mr. AUSTIN. Did you get your information from the courthouse records or from the abstract companies? Mr. GAUSS. From the courthouse records and elsewhere. The abstract companies have not the information which I have. Mr. BURNETT. Have they not abstracts? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir; subsequently to the base of title, but it is the basic title that I have been working on. Mr. AUSTIN. What is the difference? Mr. GAUSS. It goes further back. It is an analysis of the base of title in the city of Washington from an examination of the original records. Mr. AUSTIN. Was it necessary for the Government to go that far back under the existing law? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir; absolutely. The law of the District of Columbia at the present time is that you must go back to the Crown or to the State of Maryland for your base of title. Mr. BURNETT. Is not that true as to the abstract companies? How can they furnish a good title without going back that far? Mr. GAUSS. Simply because they have taken the face of the commissioners' records and taken a chance. Mr. BELL. Are there no title insurance companies here? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. BELL. Do they not insure the titles? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. BELL. Is not that title accepted by the business men? Mr. GAUSS. It has been accepted. Mr. BELL. Are they sufficiently well financed to stand back of their titles? Mr. GAUSS. I presume so. Mr. BELL. Why is not that title good? Mr. GAUSS. Because it contains an element of chance. Mr. BURNETT. Do you mean that you can do it better than they can? Mr. GAUSS. I have examined the original records more exhaustively than they have. Mr. BURNETT. Do not they go back as far as they can? Mr. GAUSS. They have taken a chance. For instance, in the case of part of the Willard Hotel property, where the legal title is outstanding in the United States, the Willard Hotel people have just applied to the Secretary of War for a deed to complete their title, when, of course, they have had insurance certificates. Their title is incomplete and the title to part of the Metropolitan Club property is incomplete. The same was formerly true of some property owned by St. John's Church. Mr. BURNETT. So far as getting an abstract, they can get the same abstract that you can? Mr. GAUSS. That is not the point. The point is to determine what is the property of the United States. Mr. SUMNERS. These people who have taken a chance-what is the law as to limitation? Mr. GAUSS. Twenty years, I suppose, but that does not run against the United States. Mr. SUMNERS. You say that the companies do not go back to the sovereignty of the soil? Mr. GAUSS. No; they do not go back to the Crown; they only go back to the original commissioners. Mr. SUMNERS. What do you mean by the original commission? Mr. GAUSS. When the establishment of a Federal City was authorized here. This may be old to some of you. Mr. SUMNERS. Not to me. Mr. GAUSS. President Washington made an agreement with the proprietors of the land, 19 in number, that those proprietors should convey their land to trustees, the conditions of the trust being these: That out of the land so conveyed the United States should have the streets in fee simple and should have, by the payment of £25 an acre, such reservations as the President might select. Of the residue of the land, one-half was to be conveyed to the public, to be sold to build the Capitol and the White House, and the other half was to be reconveyed to the original proprietors. Now, in order to lay out the city, to protect the public interest, and to build the Capitol and White House, the President appointed three commissioners, who were, under the Maryland law, to supervise this equal division of the lot property, the trustees merely having, you might say, a fiduciary character; they had no active part. The commissioners were to carry out the executory part of the trust under the terms of the law assigning certain squares or lots to the original proprietors and certain squares or lots to the public. It has always been the practice here a somewhat careless practice, because it does not give a complete title under the existing law-to say in the case of a certain square that was assigned by the commissioners to the original proprietors that a base of title was made by the original commissioners when in executing the trust they transferred the land back to the original proprietor. The courts say that you must go back of that transaction for your basic title, that you can not take that transfer, that it was a mesne transaction, and it is held that you must go back to the Crown and find out whether the proprietor had title in the first place, whether he gave a good title, and whether the title conveyed by the trustees was good. Mr. SUMNERS. If that be true, the Government of the United States procuring its title through that conveyance, what benefit is there in going back to the Crown? Mr. GAUSS. Because then I am able to determine and check up each piece of land, how it came and how it went. Here was this entire piece of land included within the boundaries of the city. The United States got certain rights which were definite. That is to say, it got streets, it got certain reservations, then it got certain definite things, which 5 5 were the lots. Then, there was the residue of the land as it now exists. The city of the Washington as it is to-day was not partitioned so as to make a clear title from the original proprietors through the trustees and commissioners to the United States or back to the original proprietors as to all its area. There is additional land that was not dealt with in that way, such as the land along the water front; a million dollars' worth of land that was formerly in the bed of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and Rock Creek has been artificially created. In order to exactly determine the limits of this land, it has been necessary to reconstruct the entire transaction. Mr. LOGUE. Has it not been accepted as a good conveyance, the arrangement by which the 19 conveyed to the trustees? Mr. GAUSS. It has been accepted, but the conclusions which have followed this acceptance have been denied by the courts. Mr. LOGUE. Taking that as the objective, the same as we would take the grant of Penn in Pennsylvania, then are there two sets of claimants? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir; there are conflicting claimants. Mr. SUMNERS. Are those conflicts between other people and the people who conveyed to the United States? Mr. GAUSS. Those are the conflicts arising out of disputed boundaries of the original grants. Mr. SUMNERS. Is there anybody contesting the claim of the people who conveyed to the United States? Mr. GAUSS. There are claims that no conveyance was made in egard to some of the land. Mr. LOGUE. An adverse claim ? Mr. GAUSS. Here, for instance, is the Widow Wheeler property Mr. LOGUE. What is the assertion there? The conveyance of the 19 men? Mr. GAUSS. That the land was never conveyed. Mr. BURNETT. Is that land now claimed by the Government! We are not interested in all this where the conflicts are between the claims of individuals. Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. On the Anacostia River all this front is claimed by virtue of this adverse claim against the Government. This is outside of the original city of Washington. It is added land. There is some land, however, that was within the original city of Washington Mr. BURNETT. Is that in litigation now? Mr. GAUSS. Yes, sir. Mr. BURNETT. How long has it been in litigation? Mr. GAUSS. The first suit was filed in October or November--I think it was the 1st of November-of last year, and there were eight or nine suits altogether filed up to the 1st of March. Mr. BURNETT. Have not some of these suits been pending for two or three years? Mr. GAUSS. No, sir; the legislation under which we are proceeding has only been passed a year. It was passed in April, 1912. We did bring one suit prior to that, but did not press it until we could get more favorable conditions. Mr. BURNETT. You have been operating now for some two or three years, have you not? |