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AUTHORIZING SECRETARY OF WAR TO SELL TO THE GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION A TRACT OF LAND COMPRISING PART OF HOLABIRD QUARTERMASTER DEPOT, BALTIMORE, MD.

MAY 11, 1937.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. COSTELLO, from the Committee on Military Affairs, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 1586]

The Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1586) to authorize the Secretary of War to sell to the General Motors Corporation a tract of land comprising part of Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Md., having considered the same, report favorably thereon with a recommendation that it do pass amended as follows:

On page 1, delete all of lines 8, 9, and 10, and insert in lieu thereof the following:

comprising that part of the Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Maryland, lying south of the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company and west of the Broening Highway, which tract is no longer.

As amended, this bill is recommended favorably by the War Department. The measure authorizes the Secretary of War to sell to the General Motors Corporation upon such terms and conditions as he deems advisable, and for not less than the appraised value thereof, an unused tract of land containing approximately 2.734 acres, comprising part of the Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Md. The War Department in its report points out that the tract of land to be disposed of to the General Motors Corporation is separated from the main reservation by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad right-of-way and the Broening Highway and lies within an area now occupied by the plant of the Chevrolet Motor Co. The Department further states that the development of this tract by the General Motors Corporation would be the most satisfactory use to which the land could be put from the Department's point of view, because of the fact that the Chevrolet plant in such close proximity to the Holabird Depot constitutes a military asset.

Letter from the War Department under date of March 24, 1937, on S. 1586 follows:

MARCH 24, 1937.

Hon. MORRIS SHEPPARD,

Chairman, Committee on Military Affairs,

United States Senate.

DEAR SENATOR SHEPPARD: Careful consideration has been given to the bill S. 1586, Seventy-fifth Congress, entitled "A bill to authorize the Secretary of War to sell to the General Motors Corporation a tract of land comprising part of the Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Maryland," which was transmitted to the War Department under date of February 18, 1937, with a request for information and the views of the Department relative thereto.

There is no existing law which authorizes the disposal of the land referred to in said bill.

The legal effect of the bill would authorize the Secretary of War to sell to the General Motors Corporation upon such terms and conditions as he deems advisable, and for not less than the appraised value thereof, an unused tract of land containing approximately 2.734 acres, comprising part of the Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Md. The tract of land under consideration is separated from the main reservation by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad right-of-way and the Broening Highway and lies within an area now occupied by the plant of the Chevrolet Motor Co. The development of this tract by the General Motors Corporation would be the most satisfactory use to which the land could be put from the War Department's point of view, because of the fact that the Chevrolet plant in such close proximity to the Holabird Depot constitutes a military asset. The sale of the property would increase Government receipts to the extent of the appraised value of the land.

In order that the description of the tract of land in question will be more definite than described in the present bill, it is recommended that lines 8, 9, and 10 of the present bill be deleted and the following substituted therefor:

"Comprising that part of the Holabird Quartermaster Depot, Baltimore, Maryland, lying south of the right-of-way of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company and west of the Broening Highway, which tract is no longer

* * * "1

For the reasons above stated, the War Department recommends that the bill, S. 1586, Seventy-fifth Congress, with the suggested change, be enacted into law. The proposed legislation has been submitted to the Bureau of the Budget which advised that there would be no objection to the submission of this report to Congress.

Sincerely yours,

MALIN CRAIG, Acting Secretary of War.

O

75TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1st Session

AMENDING STAMP PROVISIONS OF BOTTLING IN BOND ACT

MAY 11, 1937.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. DOUGHTON, from the Committee on Ways and Means, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. R. 6737]

The Committee on Ways and Means, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 6737) to amend the stamp provisions of the Bottling in Bond Act, having had the same under consideration, report favorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass.

Beginning at about the end of the present calendar year we may look forward to a constant and very large increase in the quantity of distilled spirits which will be bottled in bond under the provisions of the so-called Bottling in Bond Act, approved March 3, 1897, as amended.

To be eligible for bottling in bond, spirits must be of domestic production, straight, that is to say, unmixed or unblended, of precisely 100° proof, and at least 4 years old. Since the repeal of the prohibition amendment in December 1933, there have been only limited quantities of liquor which met these requirements, and these have been used chiefly in the manufacture of blends. But little has been bottled in bond. Virtually all distilleries, however, have been accumulating stocks since the beginning or resumption of their operations at the time of repeal, and about December 1937 or January 1938, will be in a position to begin bottling spirits in bond on a large scale. As time goes on, it is expected that bottling in bond will become the rule rather than the exception, and that ultimately as much as 50,000,000 gallons of spirits will be bottled annually under the provisions of law here referred to.

The statutes require, at the present time, that an internal-revenue stamp must be affixed to each bottle of distilled spirits by the distiller, rectifier, or bottler. Such stamps are popularly referred to as strip stamps. They are manufactured by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and they are issued to the users by officers of the Internal

H. Repts., 75-1, vol. 2-20

Revenue Service, under regulations and safeguards which are calculated to insure that they will not fall into unauthorized hands and that, when applied to bottled spirits, they may be relied upon both by the public and by officers of internal revenue as positive evidence that the Federal revenue laws have been fully complied with by the bottler. The policy involved is salutary and of the greatest importance in the protection of the revenue.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue is now required, under the provisions of the present statutes, to follow two entirely different systems in regulating the distribution and application of strip stamps to be affixed to bottled spirits, one system applying to spirits bottled in bond and the other to spirits not bottled in bond.

The system applicable to spirits not bottled in bond is provided pursuant to the Liquor Taxing Act of 1934. The now familiar red strip stamps are supplied to distillers, rectifiers, and bottlers under the provisions of this act. Such stamps are manufactured in sheets by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, serially numbered, and supplied in quantity in various denominations from one-tenth pint to 1 gallon to all Collectors of Internal Revenue, who keep them in stock awaiting orders from the distillers, rectifiers, and other bottlers. Upon the receipt of any such order, with remittance, the stamps are registered by the collector in the name of the purchasing bottler and sent by registered mail to the Government officer in charge of the bottling plant. This officer keeps them in his official safe and issues. them to the bottler to meet his daily requirements. This system is simple and inexpensive to the Government and convenient for the bottler, and it provides every necessary safeguard against the fraudulent use of the stamps.

Due to specific requirements of the Bottling in Bond Act referred to above, the stamps to be affixed to the immediate containers of spirits bottled in bond are manufactured and issued as coupons of case stamps which are also required by law. Under the law the bottler has his option to package the product in cases containing not less than 2 nor more than 5 gallons and in bottles containing 1 gallon, one-half gallon, 1 quart, four-fifths quart, 1 pint, four-fifths pint, one-half pint, one-eighth pint, one-tenth pint, or one-sixteenth pint. Each case must contain six bottles or some multiple of this number. Although other combinations are permitted under the law, the following bottled in bond stamps are those now carried in stock by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing:

Bottled in bond stamp sizes carried in stock (in blank) by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing

[blocks in formation]

To be affixed to each case of bottled-in-bond spirits, the Bureau provides a stamp 31⁄2 by 7% inches in size, with bottle coupons (or strip stamps) attached ranging in number, at the present time, from 12 to 240, according to the number of bottles in the case. The case stamp

shows the State and collection district in which the spirits were produced and the quantity of spirits and the number of bottles in the case. The law requires that there shall be plainly burned on the side of each case the proof of the spirits; the registered distillery number; the State and collection district in which the distillery is located; the distiller's name; the year and distilling season, as spring or fall; and the year and season of bottling; and the law goes on to require that this same wording shall also be placed upon the coupon or strip stamp which must be affixed to each bottle.

In view of these complicated requirements of the present law, it is not practicable to place general stocks of bottled-in-bond stamps in the hands of the various collectors of internal revenue, as is done in the case of red-strip stamps. These general stocks are maintained in blank by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and when any collector receives from any distiller orders for particular quantities of particular stamps, he must forward the order through the office of the Commissioner to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Upon receipt of such an order, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing withdraws from its general stocks the specified quantity of blank case stamps with coupons of the specified denomination or denominations; specially overprints them with the distillery number, the State, the collection district, the distiller's name, the year and season of distillation, and the year and season of bottling; binds them in books of convenient size, with stubs which show substantially the same particulars as appear on the coupons; and in this form sends them to the proper collector for delivery to the distiller.

The complexity of the system of providing stamps for bottled-inbond spirits, by comparison with the relatively simple sytem which applies to stamps for other spirits, will be perceived at once from this description. It results from two requirements of the Bottling in Bond Act; first, the requirement for a case stamp, and, second, the requirement that numerous markings which serve to identify a particlar lot of spirits must be placed on the coupon, or stamp, which is affixed to each bottle. This makes it impossible to manufacture the bottled-in-bond stamps by quantity-production methods, or, in other words, it necessitates a separate manufacturing job to produce the stamps required for each separate lot of spirits which any distiller may propose to bottle in bond.

As has been said, the time will soon come when very large quantities of distilled spirits will be bottled in bond, and when this time arrives it will become a matter of extreme difficulty to supply the stamps. which will be required, if the present law is not changed so as to permit a substantial simplification of methods of manufacture and distribution, including particularly the elimination of all special overprinting operations at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The system which has now been followed for more than 3 years in the issuance and use of strip stamps for distilled spirits not bottled in bond has proved satisfactory in every respect. Under this system, since the stamps are numbered and registered, they are adequate for the identification of the spirits to which they are affixed without overprinting. They are proof against counterfeiting. They serve every useful purpose.

Your committee recommends therefore that section 1 of the Bottling in Bond Act of 1897 be amended so as to permit the stamping of bottled-in-bond spirits under the same conditions as those

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