News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-02-19
A MAMMOTH PRINTERY.
THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
AT WASHINGTON,
The Largest Establishment of Its Kind In
The WorId-How 1.-THE Congressional
Recard'' is Prepared, Printed and Dis
trfbuted.


| emit. It is an immense prison-hke build
ing. covering about an acre of ground.
and looking more like great factory
! than a government establishment. Its
material is brick, its color dirty white,
and its form that of hollow square. Ii
has many windows and humorous en-
trance doors. At each of the latter
stands a guard with a silver badge on
| his breast, and over the chief entrance
door is little, stony-eyed marble bust
of Ben Franklin, which looks stunted
under the four stories of dreary white
which rise above it. In this building
nearly the whole of the printing for the
Government is done. 1t is said to be
the largest printing establishment in the
world, and it turns out some of the
worlds finest work. It employs within
its walls more than two thousand men
all the year round, and it makes the
blank-books used in al the Government
offices in the United States, not only in
Washington, but in the custom and post
offices from the Atlantic to The Pacific.
It's daily payroll averages $1,000, and
its total expenditures during the past
year aggregated nearly three millions.
The Congressional Record is in itself a
big job, and its printing during the last
session of Congress cost in round num-
bers S194, coo. This is Sc, 900 more than
The Record has cost at any session since
it has gone by the name of COngrC sSiOnaI
Record, which first occurred in 1873,
and it is on the average over $50, 000
more than its ordinary cost.
Congress seems to grow more and
OrNpa xvnvI co xvn n
debates and speeches of the last session
fill seven large volumes twice as big as
the largest family Bibles, and containing
more than seven thousand pages, each
filled with two columns of type the size
of that Of the ordinary newspaper.
This Congressional Record is supposed
to contain every word uttered on the
floors of Congress. 1t does contain much
more. Many men never deliver their
speeches at all. They merely say ''Mr.
Speaker !" and then ask leave to print.
This Congress generally gives, and this
talk which has never been uttered in
Congress appears in The Record, and
the Congressman sends his great speech
broadcast over his district.
The Record appears every morning,
and that of to-day always contains the
full proceedings of the House and Sen
ate of yesterday. These are taken down
in shorthand, and it costs about $25, 900
year for each house to pay its phonog-
raphers. The shorthand men take turns
at taking notes, and when they have
written their work out into long hand it
comes down to the Government printing
Office in long foolscap sheets with every
second line written upon, so that there
is ample room for interlineation. Some
of the speeches which the Congressman
write out themselves are sent to the
printers in their own handwriting, and
the most of this is rather illegible, and
some of it very poorly spelled. / saw
the two piles of copy from which yester-
days Record was set up, and that be-
longing to the Congressman themselves
would have frightened Horace Greeley's
ghost.
The Record eats up greater amount
of manuscript, L suppose, than any
other newspaper published in the Uni
ted States, and, as we have the largest
new, papers, consequently in the world.
Each of its pages containing about the
same amount OF reading matter as four
pages of an octave novel, and many
nights ever one hundred pages have to
be gotten out. This would be equal to
a closely printed book of over four hun
dred pages, and it will often contain as
many as a million ems. Sometimes
there are one hundred pages of non
pareil to be set up, and it should be re-
membered that this, like the ordinary
daily paper, has to be done at night, and
be ready for the press early in the morn
ing.
1t takes eight proof-readers to look
over the proof Of The Record. Each
piece is read twice, and is also sent to
the Congressman who has made the
speech for correction. 1t Is again read
before it goes into the bound volume,
and the best men of the kind in the
country are employed on this work. 1t
about eighty printers to put
The Record in type, and all night long
they are busy at their cases under the
electric light. The room where the
type is set is large enough for market
garden. It is made up of three long
halls, separated from one another by
pillars and brick arches. The central
hall contains marble tables where the
forms are made up, and in the others
eAO bhO ~ pc StboSoy LII NOuu1C
rows from one end of the hall to the
other, and over each case bright, soft
electric light with china shade over it.
These men are paid IN proportion to the
amount of work they do, and the rate
by law is so cents per thou
sand ems.
The Record must go to press at 90
minutes to 5, in order to be ready for
the 6 o'clock mails, and when it is I'M
usually large this necessity makes the
Government printing office the busiest
place in Washington in the early morn
ing.
Each Congressman gets twenty. one
copies of The Record, and he may have
these from day to day, or take them in
the bound volumes, as he prefers. The
Congressman give their extra copies to
libraries and friends, and not few of
them find their way into secondhand
book stores of Washington, where they
can be bought of almost any dates at
rom 30 cents to 81 per volume.
But the printing of The Record is by
40 means the largest part of the work of
his mammoth printing Office. Its
10, 000, 900 worth includes all Of the
publications, and this sum
seems large, indeed, when it is remem-
oered that in 1874, just ninety years
lgo, the Government printing, ''to-
yether with the firewood and stationery"
If Congress, cost only $4,000. In 1903
he Presidents message was the first
document printed, and in 1919, when
Monroe was President, each house
elected its own printer for the session.
After this, Congressional printers be-
,ame the most money making men in
Gales and Seaton each
made fortunes, and Blair and Rives fol-
owed them, entertaining handsomely at
he capital and owning property. The
printing of the twenty seventh Congress
cost 5000 900, and shortly after this the
contract system was adopted. In 1852
he office of Superintendent of Pub
ic Printing was created, and in 1876 it
became an executive instead of q Con-
,ressional Office.
It is impossible to conceive the
mount of work this department does
low. 1t employs four hundred more
lands at present than it did in 1880. and
Turing that year it printed II, 600, 900 |
copies of pamphlets and documents,
Al 900 blank books, and made 1871.
100, 900 of blanks and envelopes. One
If its finest works in the past was its
Pacific railway reports, which cost the
Government over $500, 900, and it is now
,etting out the rebellion record, which |
5 to comprise SO volumes of 500 pages
Zach.