The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1883-04-25
ssPUB. DOCS.n


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"PUB. DOCS" @
The mail cars leaving Washington are
burdened every day with public sdocu-
ments. and every Congressman as he
leaves the city pays one last visit to the
"folding-room at the Capitol osee
how his documents are getting of. The
entire force in the folding-room sabusy
as busy can be, and quantities OF the
documents have accumulated at the
post-office owing to the inability of the
authorities to furnish mail cars inMhich
to carry them off as fast as they are
mailed. The fact is, impossible as this
may appear, the amount of this kind of
matter now furnished by order ofeCon-
gressmen for transportation through the
mails is more than q carload asday.
By . carload is meant twenty thousand
pounds. ssThere are" said Superin-
tendent Robinson, of the House folding
room, in speaking of the subject to-day,
"there are sent from our foldingfoom
to the post-office every day, now, about
two hundred sacks of these documents
books of all sorts and sizes, and upon
all subjects that the Government Printer
has been ordered to discourse upon"
"And what do these two hundred
sacks weigh apieceen II
q eAboutl one hundred and twenty-five
pounds-that makes twenty-five thou
sand pounds. Then add one-third more
for the amount sent out from the Senate
document5room, and you have about the
size Of our daily mail nowadays.
"Over thirty-three thousand pounds,
ehp" ~
; sE~aYss.a sg.THNiAI a
&c And all carried free, of coursee's
"Yes, it could not go otherwise SIt
would break up the average Congress
man to pay the postage on his d0cu-
ments- And, indeed, it seems quite
proper that these books should become
free, for they are proper educators.
They go everywhere and are read by
all classes of people They are, as 3
rule, very rdiciously distributed, each
Congressman sending his books TO peo-
pie whom they viii interest. For in.
stance, q member has seven or eight
{ hundred Agricultural Reports, or ,ags,'
rs we term them, and couple of hum
dred Consular Reports on mercantile
matters, 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 to the farmers IN his
district, the reports of the consuls 20
the merchants and manufacturers, those
upon financial topics to .fnanciers, and
so on through the list. More than that,
where o member has no constituents in
terested in any of these particular SUBJ
iects, and many who are interested in
another, he trades of his documents
that his people don't want for those of
another they do want, and so really
= -rla - - 1rarsuufhrr.
and do as much good a. could be ex-
pected from general distribution Of this
sort. /"
"What is there in this talk that men,
bers sell their documents TO second hand
dealers hereP' 81
.sNothing, think. At least I:know
of no such cases. do know, though
that they often make trades With these
men upon the principle indicated in the
trades that / mentioned q few minutes
ago, and by that means enable them
selves to furnish their constituents
large number OF books that are really
valuable to them.o 9Ehs - >
"How many volumes each do mem-
berss sgetrr ~ =
- That depends altogether on the
number ordered by the act of Congress.
Now this year each member gets somez
thing over seven hundred Agricultural
reports That is the largest number of
any one publication -=-----
"How many different publications
"Some of the members sent out this
year as many as two hundred and twen-;
ty-fve different works, not all Of them
publications of this year, however"
You keep the publications of former
years ON hand, then, do youP" 2
..Yes, some Of them. Some run as
far back as twenty years; of others we
have none more than q year or two
back. The more valuable ones, of
course, are picked up rapidly by the
members for themselves and their
friends"
q " Are many of them so valuable.
thenp', s 2tef -s 30
= Eyes; some run as high as twenty
i've dollars for set. OF course, that is
exceptional; but there are q few cases
where they run that high"
How many volumes do You think
you send out . yearPn
- think about seven hundred thou
sand. I. I have no definite record of the
number. but ! think that It must run up
3 to that mum Der. /" 6 iirrlaE S.
- -Then adding one-t third for the Sem
ate, and some more for the depart
ments, il makes q million volumes o
year, does itp'
"About that, suppose-and that,
yon know, Is exclusive of the speeches
. Of members, In pamphlet form, Of which
they send US great many to fold and
mall" !"
."How manyp''
Well, all the way from one thou
sand 10 one million apiece"
Gone millionI You don't mean to
say that any one member has sent out
million copies of his speechesf"
"Yes, and more than that. One
member of this Congress has sent out
. million and quarter of his speeches. I"
"And does the Government pay for
these million and quarter of speeches
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-
velopes. But our envelopes don't cost
much when we buy them by the mill
pn, as we do here. We get them at
kss than dollar q thousand"
- -" How. does he get the addresses of
saough people to send out these speech
"A In such large numbersP',