Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-03-08

L lQ.
That cannot be done.
| It wish to repeat what I said before that
1 the great benefit OF q library Is the books
that go into the family 1 spent several
years In my youth as a teacher. I know
/ the benefit that families derive who are
In the habit of having books for their chill
dren to read in the evening. There are
thousands Of families in this District who
are too poor to buy books and who would
gladly avail themselves of the privileges
| Of circulating library.
| Il want to say to the senator from Texas
| that whatever complaints there may have
been about public taxation, 1 have yet to
| hear the first individual who has ever
| complained about the expenditure for that
| or any other library. II we can spend
millions and millions upon battle ships and
| Qualifications and armies. we can afford
| TO spend something for the education of
the people of this District. The govern
| ment pays one-half of the expenses of
! this District, because the government has
| more property in the District than any
| Individuals. and it is property that escapes
| taxation. This is great federal city. 1t
| rever was intended that it should be treat
| ed like other cities. 1t was never intended
| that the people here should bear the ex-
pense of maintaining these great, wide
| streets and reservations and parks. No
! city in the country ever expected to be
| treated as this city has been treated and
1 as this city ought to be treated.
This Is the city where the people of the
| United States are to come to see their gov
ernment in force and in operation. They
come here at this season of the year and
later in droves. you may say. The city of
washington is a national Institution and
national interest, and the people of the
United States have nowhere that l am
I aware ever complained of extravaganza on
| the part of Congress with relation to it. /
have never heard any paper or any indi-
vidual complain that we had spent too
much money upon this city. When citizens
| come here from the north. from the south.
| from the east and the west alike
| they take pride in this city. If they
Thought we were spending more money IN
tbs city than we ought to spend, we would
| near from them We spend it upon streets
and parks and public buildings, and the
amount that we are asked to spend now
upon circulating library is not worth
talking about. The amount is small and
| 1nconsiderabe and it Is no burden. The
one half of it will be no burden upon the
| people of the District and the other half
will be no burden upon the people of the
United States"
Library for Everyday Use.
Mr. Hale favored the maintenance of a
free public library here. He said
THE great, stately and beautiful struc-
ture that we have built for Congress sional
! Library and the valuable and expensive
books that in Tim, will fill it will be
creation that everybody will be proud Of
Il Will be one of the very best collections
that the world ever has known or now
knows of. But all its features are rather
of the grand and stately order instead of
being of everyday use for the people 1t is
a great, magnificent enterprise that we
went into, and have followed up and has
come to its contamination. l do not think
dollar has baen expended unwisely in it.
think 1t is one of the things that the citi-
zen OF this country and the SOjourner here,
the traveller from afar, ought to find in
Washington, a great, splendid, fully COM
pleted and equipped library, and that we
should appropriate every year for it's main
tenance as such.
But it does not reach and was never in
tended to reach the everyday want and de-
sire of the laborer, the mechanic the
clerk. 1t may be. the tradesman, everybody
mere IN washington who, as we. know, in
these days desires to read. I suppose that
out of a population of 100000 in the Dis
tr1ct, certainly not more than 10 per cent
Will ever receive actual benefit from that
library in the way of a reading of books.
AS has been said, no book is taken out by
the people. 1t is not circulating in any
form 1t stands there for them to visit to
sit in the chairs and at the desks and read,
but the freside is never touched by the
great Congressional Library There Is no
OTTER city. venture to say, in America of
its size that has not from one to a dozen
circulating libraries that flow with their
benefcient influences to every fireside We
have nothing of the kind here"
Mr. Bacon-"Will the senator from Maine
permit suggestion? I wish to suggest, as
he is passing from that branch of the sub
| ject, that from the nature of the Congress
sional Library it is impossible that it
SHOULD ever become circulating library"
Mr.: Hale,"Absolutely SO. That feature
can never be brought into it. 1 think we
have all had about the same experience
with regard to the smaller. cheaper, more
generally extended circulating libraries. In
going about in my own state, in the larger
villages and towns, l have been interested
to 20 into thu circulating libraries and to
see the kind of books that read by the
people. 1t is educating all the time To
G rd i'm nlCt
complishes more than public schools The
books that are read are not cheap books;
they are not trashy books: they are not
wild books; but the best of the great En-
glish authors in every domain of literature
are read by hundreds and thousands all of
the time. They ara not expensive books.
AS the senator from Nevada has said, they
can be bought at cheap rates. They are in
good type; they are Of good, fair binding;
good. fair letterpresS; and it is not simply
fiction. travel, adventure that is read, but
poetry, history, the arts, philosophy. essays
and all the things that go to make up the
higher field in English literature are read,
! and read extensively. you may say, by
there was that want here in Washington"
Why the Government Should Con-
tribute.
'The senator from Maine,' said Mr..
Hoar. referring to Mr.. Hale has said so
| much Of what had in mind to say when
the senator from Texas sat down that do
not know that ought to detain the Senate
In the first place, as has been said and,
l believe, agreed on both sides, the Ma
tional Library is not intended to perform
the function Of circulating library, and it
ought not to be so intended. We ought to
have In this country and at the capital a
library where the collections on every sub
Ject or human study shall be as complete
| as possible, so that scholars and investi-
gators from all parts of the country can
come here and find In the building to which
| they resort every authority and every ma
tertal for their work. The students of his
tory, the writer's of history, the students
! OF science, the men who contribute to the
progress of science by invention and by re-
fection of their own, want to find every
thing here which the genius of mankind
has written down and which the past has
accumulated.
THE senator says that the people of the
District ought to pay for this circulating
library for which this appropriation is
moved. do not think So The permanent
| residents of this District are a compare
| lively small proportion of the people here
This District was intended by the trainers
of the Constitution a place to be occu-
| pied, controlled and managed mainly with