House lawmakers choose offices, Jan. 9, 1908
By ANDREW GLASS
01/09/2018 12:01 AM EST
On this day in 1908, House lawmakers for the first time selected their office assignments in the House Office Building, then still under construction. The cornerstone had been laid by President Theodore Roosevelt in a ceremony on April 14, 1906. During his half-hour speech, Roosevelt railed against the press and what he charged was the scurrilous journalistic practice of twisting words or misrepresenting facts in indiscriminate assaults on public men.
The president also called for a large inheritance tax, one that would prevent the passing of great fortunes from one generation to the next: “Such taxation,” he said, “should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits.”
Until the building opened, members had rented nearby private quarters, borrowed available space in committee rooms in the U.S. Capitol or worked from their desks, without staff, in the House chamber.
The Beaux Arts-style building, which opened on Dec. 12, 1908, would be named in 1962 for Rep. Joseph Cannon (R-Ill.), the House speaker from 1903 to 1911. It occupies a site south of the U.S. Capitol bounded by Independence Avenue, First Street, New Jersey Avenue and C Street Southeast.
More:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/09/house-lawmakers-choose-offices-jan-9-1908-327403