El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-10-19

, of such material than any other SINH
lar collection in the world
Thousands Of Unpublished Letters.
There are thousands of unpublished
letters of American statesmen and
politicians including the complete pa
! Ders of Alexander Hamilton, Duff
Green, Salmon p. Chase and Edwin
NJ Stanton The papers of John Sher-
man are here and those of Gideon
/ Wells as Well as those of Gen. Sher-
man and Gen. Mcclellan There &c
also naval papers, papers relluHS to
our commercial history and upward q
100000 fOlios of transcripts of dOcu-
ments relating to American colonial
history. There is scientific cOrrespOn-
dence and literary correspondence, the
latter including letters of two BroWn-
lass Marion Crawford. Mark Iva D..
The greatest part Of the material is
new, and as l shall show, further on
( in my talk with Gaillard Hunt, who
is i'm charge OF this collection. much
of il viii throw a new light upon
history, and the most OF IL has never
/ been published.
The manuscript division of the Ma
tionaI library is in the northwest
! pavilion on the second floor Of The
building. 1t consists of a circular
reading room about 100 feet IN diameter,
! book stacks running off IRON II con-
tanning the hundreds of great volumes
bound in red morocco, III wnIch these
priceless letters and papers are 50
! carefully pasted. The reausnS rom IS
3
J lar mahogany desk III the cener about
/ which those who handl- the manu-
sciptS must sit. The arrangements IS
J such that the readers are never out OF
sight of the chief of the division OF
his assiStnt. The room is flooded vii h
light. and all handling of the papers
/ is done under the Argus ewes CT Inc
: attendants Even the DTiVSte office
of Mr. Gaillard Hunt * surrounded by
glass. and he has tEe whole of the
workings constantly before him
ArOnud the reading cOOm are cases
Wl'Cl ocLtain a card IIdeN ca talo2Le-
This index is a general one The ma
terial is so vast that il would be i'm
possible to index IL in detail and II IS
only by coming here IL prison that the
historical student or writer can get the
material for his work
All Are Accessible.
Nevertheless. these hundreds Of thou
sands of letters and papers have been
made wonderfully accessible, and they
are being so cared for that from now on
they will be practically indestructible.
Come with me into the book stacks
where the manuscc-2=s are Kept We
are in a great room 100 feet or more
long, filled with steel cases, DThiCn run
back on each side from central aisle
The cases are in stacks three stories
high. The whole is a skeleton of steel
The rooms are fireproH4, ard the manu-
scripts are stored away III great Yo-
lumes as big as the biggest family
Bible, each having its own place in
this steel construction. There are thou
sands of theSee volumes, each contain
ing hundreds of pages holding d letter
or paper, many of which are worth
their weight in gold. The papers are
classified according to the president
or period to which they relate. Many
of them are in collections, such as the
Madison documents and the John Sher-
man papers, but all are chrOnOlOgically
arranged, and every letter and paper
has been so prepared and pasted that
it can be easily got at to be photo
graphed or copied
At present a force of three men and
three women are engaged in mount
ing the documents The papers as
bought by the library are often in
deplorabIe condition. but they are taken
and treated so chat they will last for
ever. Each manuscript has its own
treatment according to its needs. the
work being an Improvement on that
originated by father Ehrly of the vau-
can library, who until the work be
gan here was the past master in the
art of preserving and renOvatInS old
manuscripts. One method used to keep
the tattered and torn and crumbinG
worm eaten papers together is by
smoothing them out and covering them
with a fine silk Eauze known as crepe
line. This stuff is so delicate that 1t
san hardly be detected when 1t covers