INCREASE OF THE LIBRARY (AGAIN).

Mr. BINGHAM. Sunday opening the same, and increase of the library, of course, is the same. That is needed-$100,000?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAWNEY. Let me ask you: Up until 1908 you got along with $90,000 there for four years. Are your increases larger now than they were then? Is the necessity for increase now greater than it was then?

Mr. PUTNAM. We are able to widen by $10,000 the area of our purchases. The less money we have to spend, the more opportunities we have to forego. This is as big as a lump of chalk, so to speak. It is expensive to wait for certain things because books are increasing in price.

Mr. TAWNEY. What are the books you buy chiefly—American publications or foreign publications?

Mr. PUTNAM. Chiefly foreign. The only reason we have to buy American publications is that they are not copyrighted here if current, or if not current they did not come to the library, or if they came here they fell out because the library was not then properly digested.

Mr. TAWNEY. Have you a man abroad who looks after these investigations?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have not anyone permanently abroad, but a man goes abroad every year or so. One should go abroad every year. Mr. TAWNEY. Is his salary paid out of the appropriation?

Mr. PUTNAM. No, sir.

Mr. TAWNEY. Just his expenses?

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes.

Mr. BURLESON. Who is it?

Mr. PUTNAM. Doctor Spofford went over twice. I have been over twice; Mr. Griffin went this year. Mr. Phillips went once, for maps principally. The expense is generally between $500 and $700 for traveling expenses debitable to these trips abroad. They are absent generally from six weeks to two months.

Mr. BINGHAM. Since 1901 you have always estimated $100,000, and yet you have grown from $50,000 in 1901 clear up to $100,000. Your estimates have been consistent for $100,000.

Mr. PUTNAM. We need it. And as it is, I am obliged to forego opportunities which other libraries take advantage of.

There is one thing, Mr. Chairman, if you will permit me to remark. This is the only field in which the Government is expending anything practically for the encouragement of literature or of the fine arts or of music.

Mr. TAWNEY. What do you call these appropriations that are made for libraries in the various departments?

Mr. PUTNAM. They are very small amounts, a few thousand dollars. We consider ourselves part of a national system. Here is France spending $3,000,000 a year for fine arts, spending several hundred thousand dollars a year in maintaining a conservatory of music, and an opera, and theaters. Every little country abroad is spending money for such purposes. This Government is not. This Government is spending only for literature, and included in that is the recorded literature of the fine arts and music. Foreign governments are even publishing music themselves.

INDEXES, DIGESTS, AND COMPILATIONS OF LAW.

Mr. TAWNEY. There is a material increase in the estimate for indexes, digests, and compilations of law on pages 76 and 57.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes; two positions, at $3,000 and $2,400. That work was imposed upon us, and it was provided that it should be administered under the law library, and they have accomplished this much of it [submitting index of the Statutes at Large from 1873 to date]. We know now just what we have to do, and just what the defects are in our organization for doing it. We got in a number of well-educated, clever people under Doctor Scott and Mr. Beaman to do this particular piece of work. Those people we have not been able to hold because the salaries were not sufficient. They have had a college education and a legal education, and the only way we could have held them was--against the practice, of course-to assure them of an advance. The law librarian can not permanently take the headship of this work. We can not spare him from the administration of the law library. We have got to have a man who represents in expert knowledge as much as he to take direct charge.

Mr. BURLESON. If he is not going to have anything to do with it, why pay him that $500?

Mr. TAWNEY. Who are you referring to now?

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Beaman. I should pay him that to organize the force and plan the work, and as he has been in charge of it heretofore, he must necessarily give a great deal of attention to it in the coming year. That volume covers the Statutes at Large from 1873 down to date. The Statutes at Large from the beginning will take several years; we can not estimate precisely how long.

Mr. BURLESON. There ought to be less of work involved in indexing the Statutes from the beginning of the Government down to 1873 than from 1873 since.

Mr. PUTNAM. In one sense it would be so, but from their estimate of the difficulty of the task they seem to think it will take from two to four years more.

Mr. BURLESON. Will you consult with the man in charge and have him make an estimate of the length of time it will take, and address a communication to you, to be transmitted to us in order that it may go into the record here and be printed, so that we can have it ten years from now to look back upon and say, "We tried to have you fix the estimate, and you did fix it, and here it is five years over?" [Laughter.]

Mr. TAWNEY. How do you distribute this work?

Mr. PUTNAM. We have no control over this. It was published under the same conditions as the Statutes at Large themselves, and under the same methods of distribution. We have ourselves had to buy 40 copies for our own use and pay for them out of our appropriation for books.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,

OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN, Washington, December 2, 1908.

SIR: For reasons suggested at the hearing yesterday, I believe the following would be a useful provision of law:

"[Subject to the approval of the Committees on the Library] the Librarian of Congress may from time to time transfer to other governmental libraries within the District of Columbia, including the public library, material in the

possession of the Library of Congress in his judgment no longer necessary to its uses, but in the judgment of the custodians of such other collections likely to be useful to them."

The Revised Statutes (ch. 6, sec. 86) contain the following provision:

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Duplicate, injured, or wasted books. The Joint Committee upon the Library may, at any time, exchange or otherwise dispose of duplicate, injured, or wasted books of the library, or documents, or any other matter in the library not deemed proper to it, as they deem best. Act June 26, 1848, ch. 73, sec 1, 9 Stat., 240."

Under existing law, therefore, the committees would seem to have power to authorize such transfers as the above, and it may seem desirable that they should consider and pass upon the general policy of them as applied to particular species of material. The provision suggested contains a clause which would insure the submission to them of the policy proposed.

As, however, the intervention of the committees would be likely to become perfunctory, and as the discretion involved is of much less moment than others committed directly to the librarian, I have bracketed this clause. Librarians are ever tenacious of the collections of which they have charge, and it is not to be supposed that any Librarian of Congress will willingly part with material in the library unless absolutely sure that it is superfluous there.

The material transferred to the department and bureau libraries would be either (1) odd volumes needed to complete their incomplete sets or (2) other material (as medical books to the library of the Surgeon-General's Office) suited to their special fields, but not to the more general one of the Library of Congress.

The material transferred to the public library would be almost entirely duplicates in general literature.

The general policy of such transfers has been recognized by Congress in the act of February 25, 1903, of which I append a copy. Under this no less than 108,000 volumes and many manuscripts have already been transferred from the department and bureau libraries to the Library of Congress.

Very respectfully,

HERBERT PUTNAM,
Librarian of Congress.

The CHAIRMAN SUBCOMMITTTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE, ETC., BILL.

[Inclosure.]

LEGISLATIVE APPROPRIATION ACT, FEBRUARY 25, 1903.

The head of any executive department or bureau or commission of the Government is hereby authorized from time to time to turn over to the Librarian of Congress, for the use of the Library of Congress, any books, maps, or other material in the library of the department, bureau, or commission no longer needed for its use, and in the judgment of the Librarian of Congress appropriate to the uses of the Library of Congress.

Any books of a miscellaneous character no longer required for the use of such department, bureau, or commission, and not deemed an advisable addition to the Library of Congress, shall, if appropriate to the uses of the Free Public Library of the District of Columbia, be turned over to that library for general use as a part thereof.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,

OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN, Washington, December 3, 1908.

SIR: The law librarian estimates that the minimum time required for preparing for publication the remaining portion of the index to the Statutes at Large (of which the volume thus far published covers only the general laws since 1873) will be as follows:

(a) With the present force, five years from July next.

(b) With the two additional assistants requested in our estimates for the coming year, three years from July 1 next.

He notes that while volume 1 was prepared in less than two years with a force of about six persons, this was accomplished only working by day, by even

ing, and on Sundays, and practically without vacation, a practice neither healthy nor that can continue.

He notes also that the work to be done includes not merely 15,000 pages prior to 1873, but 18,000 pages subsequent to 1873, but not covered by the volume issued because not embracing general laws.

Further, I should add this: That during the first period high-grade assistance was secured at low salaries, in the expectation (though without assurance) of later advance in pay. But the inability to advance the salaries to the point to which the positions would be attractive has lost to us all except two of the persons originally employed, and reduced by so much the net efficiency.

My recommendation of a $3,000 salary at the head of this work was with the ultimate purpose of relieving entirely the law librarian of the conduct of it. My recommendation that he should continue to receive for the coming year $500 in addition to his regular salary for supervision of it had in view the clear necessity that during the first year he should give it much time (including much outside library hours) for such supervision, as he has been in direct charge of the work from the first.

In candor, however, I must not omit to add that his salary as law librarian alone should be $3,000, and that I shall in due course recommend that the position carry this. I can not for less secure or retain a man with suitable general education, with legal training, with administrative ability, and competent for efficient relations with the collections, and with the bench, the bar, Congress, and the investigator, all of whom are to be served. The man competent in all these respects can, as a rule, do much better in the practice of law.

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As to the indexing work proper I should also note that the provision creating this section of our roll, and under which it exists, prescribes for its work not merely the preparation of the index to the Statutes at Large but of such other law indexes, digests, and compilations of law as may be required by Congress for official use."

I have assumed that this provision had in view a permanent indexing corps. The service is one outside the regular scope of the library, and merely as Librarian of Congress I do not feel called upon to argue for it, but the utility of such a permanent corps of experts and the economy must be obvious.

Very respectfully,

HERBERT PUTNAM,
Librarian of Congress.

The CHAIRMAN SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE LEGISLATIVE, ETC., BILL.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS BUILDING.

CUSTODY, CARE, AND MAINTENANCE OF.

STATEMENT OF MR. BERNARD R. GREEN, SUPERINTENDENT.

Mr. BINGHAM. You are requesting an increase of 2 laborers— from 14 to 16 laborers?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir. I have asked for them two or three times. It is a slight addition but a matter of great importance.

Mr. GILLETT. Every year when I come up against this estimate for taking care of that one building, it seems to me as if the man running that establishment had no idea of economy or efficiency. It does seem outrageous.

Mr. GREEN. That is not one building.

Mr. GILLET. What is it?

Mr. GREEN. It is a multiple.

Mr. GILLETT. What other buildings?

Mr. GREEN. It is a big building.

Mr. GILLETT. Yes, sir; but $79,000 is a large sum of money for taking care of it.

Mr. GREEN. And maintaining it. It is not simply for taking care of the building and keeping it in repair, but furnishing the coal for

heat, and everything of that sort. More than half the money that is appropriated for what you call "fuel, lights, and repairs," etc., goes into coal.

Mr. GILLETT. I think that is not included in this clause. The $79,000 on page 57 is just for labor, so far as I can see.

Mr. GREEN. It is for care and maintenance.

Mr. GILLETT. You get $32,000 more for fuel and lights?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir. What other building have you in the Government, anyway, as large as the Congressional Library that costs as little?

Mr. GILLETT. I think they are all horribly extravagant.

Mr. BINGHAM. You think that you would be in distress should we not give you the two additional laborers?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

CHARWOMEN.

I also ask for five more charwomen. They are the scrubbers.
Mr. BURLESON. Has your floor space increased?

Mr. GREEN. No; but the amount of dirt which collects has increased.

Mr. GILLETT. Why?

Mr. GREEN. Because more is going on; there is more traveling. Mr. GILLETT. It is just as easy to wash a floor with a little more dirt on it; the same number of charwomen can do it?

Mr. GREEN. But they can not do it as well. It is not so much the floor space as the amount of dirt you have to scrub. If it is a very dirty floor you have to scrub it twice, and if not, you can get along with one scrubbing.

Mr. BINGHAM. Do you keep the whole account of your appropriation?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. BINGHAM. To whom do you render that account?

Mr. GREEN. It is reported in my annual report to Congress.

Mr. BINGHAM. What do you do with your account when it is completed in your office?

Mr. GREEN. It goes to the Treasury Department direct.

Mr. BINGHAM. It does not go to the Librarian of Congress?

Mr. GREEN. No, sir.

Mr. BINGHAM. He does not touch it in any respect?

Mr. GREEN. No. I disburse his money, too. Of course the accounts are approved by him, such expenses as he incurs.

Mr. TAWNEY. Do you know when this central heating plant is to be completed?

Mr. GREEN. No, sir; I know nothing about it, as I have nothing to do with it.

Mr. TAWNEY. When that heating plant is put into operation the appropriation of $32,500 for light, etc., will be omitted?

Mr. GREEN. There will be a chance of a reduction. We will not have any coal bill then.

Mr. TAWNEY. As I understand, inside of a year that plant will be in operation?

Mr. GREEN. I do not know as to that.