Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1910-07-14
[uNIrrp pnrss LrAsrp w1nn.l

Laws to be passed at the next ses-
sion of Congress providing for a
more rational production and distri-
button of public documents will save
millions of dollars to the govern
ment. The Printing Investigation
Commission, of which Senator Smoot
is chairman, has discovered that the
antique laws now in force have
caused a waste of tons of expensive
printed matter every year.
The statute provides that each
Senator and Representative shall
have certain number of copies of
each document printed, with the re-
suit that members have placed to !
their credit great mass of printed
matter for which they have no earth
1y use. In the vaults under the !
House end of the Capitol the COM
mission found 100000 documents |
which members had failed to dis
tribute. Instead of thus indis-
-criminately allotting to members it
is proposed that each member be |
given credit at the government
printing office, which he may use to
get such publications as are desired |
by his constituents. Thus member |
from an agricultural district could !
reXpend his entire credit for agricul- |
tural Yearbooks, while under the
present quota system he gets no
more of these publications than does
the New York City member. The
average cost of documents distribut-
ed by Senators during the last five
years has been about $4,000 a year.
In studying the question whether
the government is now printing too
large editions of it's publications, the
Commission found that, the depart
ments and Independent offices of the
government returned to the Superin-
tendent of Documents in the five
years, 1905!09, inclusive, total of
'2,620,596 documents which they
now have on hand vast accumula-
tions of other publications that soon
er or later will have to be sent TO
the superintendent of Documents
and thence to the waste paper pile. |
The Joint Committee on Printing
was called upon this year to author
ize the sale of waste paper of more
than 100000 useless or obsolete
documents that had been unloaded
on the Superintendent of Documents
by other branches of the govern
ment.
Another cause of the excess in gov
ernment publications is in their dup
1icate distribution of libraries by the
Superintendent of Documents, the
departments and by members of
Congress. The commission has made
a compilation of the reports of the
Superintendent of Documents show
ing that in the last IS years he has
distributed a total of 7,906,892 gov
ernment publications to libraries
throughout the country, of which
5.592,9O9 went to designated de-
pository libraries, 1,636,091 toI
miscellaneous libraries and 677,S12
to geological depository Libraries.
In the same fifteen years, the
Superintendent of Documents has had
returned from these libraries a total
of 1,579,164 documents or an aver
age of more than 100000 a year.
This return OF documents discarded
by the libraries is rapidly increasing
as the reports show that in the last
three years the superintendent of
Documents has received 754,S67
documents on which the government
has had to pay double postage in ad-
dition to the enormous expense or
printing and then dispose of them as
waste paper
The Commission ascertained that
the department has nine separate
engraving and lithographing plants
in operation, not including the Bur-
eau of Engraving and Printing Of
the Treasury Department. These
nine plants were operated at a cost
of $34S.271 last year. In addition
to this the total awards to outside
. establishments for engraving and
lithogrephing for the government
amounted to sS17,664 making
total of $6s5,9S expended by the
government for engraving and litho-
graphing last year, not including the
work of the Bureau of Engraving
and Printing which Is confined to
printing currency, bank notes
stamps and the like The commits
sion is now investigating the adyis-
ability Of having more of the engray-
ing and lithographing for the gov
ernment done in its own plants
some OF which are equipped to per-
form additional work.
-O-----------
Chou,rarfafnse Efomaeb and Liver