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LOS ANGELES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

May 26, 1953.

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR REPRESENTATIVE REED: Announcement has just been received of the advance of the date for hearings by your committee on the customs simplification bill of 1953. We hasten to submit the views of this chamber relative to the proposed legislation covered by H. R. 5106.

H. R. 5106 has the support of our chamber. We favor enactment of this legislation by the Congress, for it conforms with our adopted policy for the revision and simplification of customs regulations by modernizing procedures and practices. If adopted, this legislation will provide an up-to-date and efficient basis for the regulation of imports. We believe that the present mechanics of handling imports into our country through existing regulations of the United States Customs are antiquated, obsolete and unessential. It is the opinion of our chamber that unnecessary obstacles and restrictions are being placed in the way of our citizens or business enterprises who may wish, or are required, to import. We feel that it is timely to modernize, simplify and standardize antiquated customs regulations contained in the Tariff Act of 1930, and related laws.

We believe that if the provisions of H. R. 5106 are adopted, such legislation, in an important degree, will serve to eliminate existing customs redtape and other vexatious procedures, that seemingly now only serve to aggravate importers and delay imports, rather than to provide any useful or protective purpose.

It is sincerely hoped that your committee will report out favorable legislation, as provided by H. R. 5106, providing for the simplification and modernization of the customs administrative procedures of the United States tariff laws.

Sincerely,

ROY M. HAGEN, President.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., June 11, 1953.

Chairman, Ways and Means Committee,

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

HONORABLE SIR: The trustees of the Cranbrook Academy of Art are interested in the liberalizing of customs regulations in order to facilitate the showing of foreign art works in our museum and urge consideration by your committee of the recommendations prepared by the American Association of Museums.

As the academy draws advanced students from all parts of the free world, we feel it important that art from the countries from which our foreign students come should be shown along with art works created by Americans. We also feel public understanding benefits by as broad a presentation as possible.

Under conditions of limited finances and mounting costs such matters as customs regulations are extremely important to private institutions and our doing the kind of job which should be done for students of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and the people of this area, living in both Canada and the United States. We will appreciate your consideration of the aforementioned recommendations. Sincerely,

HENRY S. BOOTH, Chairman.

THE UNIVERSITY MUSEUM,
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
Philadelphia, Pa., June 10, 1953.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

Ways and Means Committee,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN REED: It is my understanding that there may be included in the customs simplification bill of 1953 (H. R. 5106) a section dealing with customs regulations which affects importation of works of art and other exhibition material to be shown in public on tax supported institutions. You have, I believe, proposals made by the American Association of Museums. As one who must contend with the difficulties of clearing such objects through customs for use in public museums, I would strongly urge that you accept the proposals of the

Association of Museums as part of the bill. Certainly this is only one of many modifications of the bill which you will be asked to consider but it seems to be one that no one can object to since it would make more easily available to the citizens of the United States, objects of art being transported from abroad.

Very sincerely yours,

FROELICH RAINEY, Director.

THE LIBRARY,

Representative DANIEL A. REED,

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,
Baltimore, Md., June 12, 1953.

Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee,
House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. REED: Permit me to express my wishes that your committee, currently considering H. R. 5106, act favorably on section 17 (e).

The section would authorize the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe rules and regulations for the declaration and entry of all materials that can be imported free of duty under paragraph 1631 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This paragraph permits educational institutions and public libraries to import duty free books and related material for their own use.

The amending section would simplify customs procedure for institutions covered by paragraph 1631. Such simplification has been sought by the Association of Research Libraries for several years.

The favorable report of your committee on this matter will do much to facilitate the acquisition of needed material from abroad by the libraries of the country. Very truly yours,

WARREN J. HAAS, Acquisitions Head.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK,

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

THE LIBRARIES,

New York, N. Y., June 8, 1953.

Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee,
House of Representatives, Washington 25, D. C.

MY DEAR MR. REED: I am writing in support of H. R. 5106 which I understand is now being considered by the House Ways and Means Committee. The interest of the Columbia University Libraries is related specifically to section 17 (e) which would simplify the importation of foreign publications for research use. The basis for supporting this legislation is as follows:

1. Certain customs declarations and other complicated paper work required of the importing library would be eliminated.

2. Corresponding costs on the part of the United States Government for handling these forms would be eliminated.

3. Certain costs to the importing library by reason of the services of customs brokers would be saved.

4. There would be no reduction in income for the United States Government since the materials involved eventually come through duty-free anyway. Favorable action on this legislation would accordingly be a service not only to research libraries but to the Government itself.

Sincerely yours,

RICHARD H. LOGSDON,

Associate Director.

THE ISAAC DELGADO MUSEUM OF ART,
New Orleans, La., June 15, 1953.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,
House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN REED: I am writing to you in your capacity as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, asking that you give serious and favorable consideration to the recommendations made by the American Association of Museums on Customs. I understand that these recommendations have been forwarded to you with the request that they be incorporated in the customs

simplification bill of 1953 (H. R. 5106), which is now under consideration by the House committee.

This is not a routine letter, I can assure you. The Delgado Museum has invariably been hamstrung every time it has had occasion to import works of art or arrange exhibitions of artistic and educational material from abroad. This unwitting sabotage has occurred through no lack of cooperation on the part of customs officials, but rather from the garbled wording and ambiguity of the Tariff Act of 1930. As a matter of fact, there is pending right now a suit by the Delgado Museum versus the United States Government to recover $1,350 duty we were obliged to pay on the importation of a bronze sculpture some 3 years ago, which should have been entered duty-free according to the obvious intent of paragraph 1807, Tariff Act, 1930. Although the money involved is very important to us in light of our inadequate budget, we have spent more time, effort, and money than our possible recovery is worth, simply to set a precedent in this matter, which is so important to us and to other museums.

For instance, when you study these recommendations of the museum committee, you will note that lithographs not over 20 years old are denied free entry because they are not listed specifically by that name in that paragraph. I mention this among other inconsistencies because I recently had a most ludicrous experience with this provision which I think will point up the reasons for revision: In passing upon a dozen or so lithographs which the museum was importing from Sweden, the customs examiners in New Orleans could find no reference to lithographs specifically under works of art, but after lengthy study we found lithographs mentioned in another paragraph which obviously referred to processed building material.

This provided for a certain duty on a per ton basis. So, we weighed the dozen sheets of paper which contained our lithographs, soberly divided this into 2,000 pounds, and I solemnly wrote out a check for 1 cent duty.

I think you will agree that it is unnecessary for me to go further in pleading that you and the other gentlemen of the Ways and Means Committee give most favorable consideration to the proposals for liberalizing tariff laws for works of art, as presented to your committee by the American Association of Museums Committee on Customs.

Very sincerely,

ALONZO LANSFORD, Director.

[Telegram]

NEW YORK, N. Y., May 27, 1953.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.:

The international trade section of the New York Board of Trade favors H. R. 5106, customs simplification bill, as a fair bill acceptable to the membership of the international trade section and recommends favorable action by your committee and final enactment into law.

The section particularly emphasizes the advantages of this bill in that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York will continue to indicate the values of foreign moneys for ascertainment of rates of exchange to be used in computing the valuations in dollars for imported merchandise.

FRED J. EMMERICH, Chairman, International Trade Section, New York Board of Trade.

[Telegram]

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

NEW ORLEANS, LA., May 29, 1953.

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means,
House Office Building, Washington, D. C.:

At a meeting of the board of directors of the Export Managers' Club of New Orleans held on Thursday, May 28, it was decided by a unanimous vote to go on record in favor of the customs simplification bill, H. R. 5106, by Representative Hon. Thomas A. Jenkins.

EXPORT MANAGERS' CLUB OF NEW ORLEANS,
DAVID A. KATTAN, President.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY,

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

Ways and Means Committee,

THE LIBRARY,

Princeton, N. J., June 9, 1953.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

DEAR MR. REED: I am writing you concerning H. R. 5106, which was recently introduced by Congressman Jenkins of Ohio, and which is known as the Customs Simplification Act of 1953.

Section 17 (d) is of special interest to me for the reason that it recommends that the value of shipments allowed to come in under informal entry be raised from $100 to $250.

Last year, when a similar effort was under way, it was urged that books in shipments for libraries come in up to $500. Actually when the bill was reported by the House Ways and Means Committee the ceiling had been taken off for libraries. That was most gratifying, but unfortunately the bill was pigeonholed in the Senate committee and died at the end of the 82d Congress without Senate committee action. Section 17 (e) is also of special interest.

It is most helpful to libraries, if we cannot have provision without a ceiling, to raise the figure as high as possible, for this one thing saves libraries a great deal of money. The lower the limit the more shipments have to be handled at ports of entry by customs house brokers, and their charges, whether they are great or small, just make the cost of the importations that much greater. It can happen that the cost of an English book can be increased by 10 to 20 percent when the brokerage charge is added to the cost of the book itself. When that is duplicated throughout a period of time, and involving libraries throughout the country, it is obvious that the costs of these clearances add a large sum of money to the outlays of the libraries. I must repeat, therefore, that the higher the limitation for entry without formality the better off libraries will be.

Sincerely yours,

LAWRENCE HEYL,
Associate Librarian.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

CENTRAL MANUFACTURING Co.,
Los Angeles 21, Calif., June 1, 1953.

Chairman, Committee on Ways and Means

House Office Building, Washington 25, D. C.

MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN: We note that there is before the House, an administrative measure, H. R. 5106, known as the Jenkins bill. We are heartily in favor of any measure that will implement trade between nations.

The writer is of firm belief that trade between nations might eliminate some of the caustic conditions that is a forerunner of any totalitarian system such as communism and its ilk.

With that in mind, we urge you and the members of your committee, as well as Congress as a whole, to pass the new Customs Simplification Act of 1953, as a step in the right direction.

We will be very happy to be placed on your list to receive information pertaining to the progress of this bill and any other data which your committee and Congress has to further world trade.

Yours very truly,

GILBERT ROSENTHAL, Vice President.

Hon. DANIEL A. REED,

United States Congress,

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE
PORT OF NEW ORLEANS,
New Orleans, La., June 12, 1953.

Chairman, Ways and Means Committee,

Washington, D. C.

MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN REED: We note with interest the pending H. R. 5106, customs-simplification bill of 1953.

We strongly endorse this bill and trust that you will press its enactment into law.

With our respects and best wishes,

Sincerely,

E. H. LOCKENBERG,

General Manager.

(Whereupon, at 11:30 a. m., the committee was recessed subject to the call of the Chair.)

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