The Red Cloud chief., 1883-05-25
"PUB. DOCS"

"PUB. DOCS"
The mail ears leaving Washington are
burdened every day with public docu-
ments. and every Congressman rs he
leaves the city pays n last visit TO the
.'folding-room at the Capitol Ia see
how his documents are getting of. The
entire force in the folding-room IL busy
as busy can be. and quantities ri the
documents have accumulated at the
po~st-oiiicc owing Ia the inability Of the
authorities tofurnish mail ears in which
Ia carry them of n fast "a they are
mailed. The fact j., impossible ~ this
ma appear the amount of this kind Of
matter now furnished by order Of Con
gressmen for transportation through the
mails Is more than "a carload q day.
by a carload is meant twenty thousand
pounds. There are said Superin-
fcndcnt Robinson. Of the House folding
room, in speaking Of the subject to-day,
there are sent from our folding-room
10 the post-office every day. nov about
iwo hundred sacks of these documents
books Of all sorts and sizes, and upon
all subjects that the Government Printer
has beel ordered Ia discourse upon"
And what do these two hundred
sacks weigh apiece"
.About one hundred and twenty-five
pounds-that makes twenty-five thou
sand pounds. Then add onc-third more
for the amount sent out from the Senate
document-room. and YOU have about the
size Of our daily mail nowadays"
Over thiriy-three thousand pounds.
ch?"
Yes"
And all carried free, Of course?"
Yes. it could not go otherwise. II
would break up the average Congress
man 10 pay the postage on his docu-
ments And. indeed, il seems quite
proper that these books should become
free, for they are proper educators.
They go everywhere and are read bv
all classes Of people. They are. as a
rule. very i~udiciously distributed. each
Congressman sending his books to peo-
pie whom they will interest. For in
stance. n member has seven or eight
hundred Agricultural Reports. or .ag's,'
a. we term them. and a couple of hun
drcd Consular Reports on mercantile
matters. IA hundred Engineers Reports.
couple of hundred on engineering. As
many reports of the Railroad Com
missioner, some more about patents.
and SO on; of course he sends the agri-
cultural reports Ia the farmers in his
district, the reports Of the consuls TO
the merchants and manufacturers. those
upon financial topics to financiers, and
so on through the list. More than that,
where a member has no constituents in
tercstcd i'm any of these particular SUBJ
jecis. and MANY who are Interested in
another, he Trades off his documents
that his people don't want for those of
another they do want, and so really
they are made 10 60 as far as possible,
and 10 as much good rs could be cx-
pccted from general distribution of this
sort"
What is there i'm this talk that men,
bers sell their documents To secondhand
dealers herc?"
Nothing. I think. At least l know
of no such eases. | do know, though,
that they often make trades with these
men upon the principle indicated in the
trades that | mentioned a few minutes
ago, and 10y that means enable them
selves To furnish their constituents n
large number of books that are really
valuable Ia them"
"How many volumes each do men,
bers getg'
THAT depends altogether on the
number ordered by the act of Congress.
Now this year each member gets some
thing over seven hundred agricultural
reports. That is the largest number of
any N publication"
"How many different publications
are there"
Some of the members sent ont this
!ear as many as two hundred and twen-
ty-hve different works, not all of them
publications of this year. however,"
"iou keep the publications of former
years on hand, then. do you?"
Yes: some of them. Some run AS
lar back as twenty years; of others we
have none more than a year or two
back. The more valuable ones. of
course. are picked up rapidly by the
members for themselves and their
friends"
Are many of them SO valuable, |
then?"
Yes; some run as high rs twenty
I'VE dollars for a set. of course, that's
eNceptional: but there are a few cases
where they run that high"
How many volumes do YOU think
You send out q year:?"
Il think about seven hundred thou
sand. have no definite record of the
number. but | think that il must run up
10 that nun ber."
Then adding one-third for the SEN
ate. and some more for the depart.
ments. ii makes a million volumes a
year. does it?"
About that. l suppose-and that.
You know. is exclusive of the speeches
of members. in pamphlet form. OF which
they send us great many to fold and
mall
How many:s"
We'll. all the way from one thou
sand TO one million apiece"
"One million! You don't mean 10 !
say that any one member has sent out
a million copies of his ~speechesgr
Yes. and more than that. One |
member Of this Congress has sent out
a million and a quarter OF his speeches"
And does the Government paw for
"AAU tnaAtSA Va SpVVSue> \
for political ~purposes:?"
"Oh. dear. no. The gentleman has
paid nearly fifteen thousand dollars
more than his entire salary in both ses-
sions of Congress-for speeches alone.
The Government furnishes the enyel- |
opes. folds them. and sends them
through the mail. We have sent of
more than five million speeches in en-
But our envelopes don't cost
much when we buy them by the mill
ion, rs we do here. We get them at
less than a dollar q thousand"
How does he get the addresses of
enough people to send out these speech
in such large numbers?"
We'll, he furnishes each member as
many as he chooses to send, and keeps
Tour or five clerks busy sending them
out besides
The number of pounds of this mat
transported through the mails free
II charge must be something enor-
nlous:?"
Ives it is, 1t would be impossible