The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-19

to any other institution or person, but
being poor they are willing to take what
the government thinks it can give, which
is always much less than the same manu-
scripts would bring at private SALE
Can you give me any idea OF the
prices of manuscripts"
There is no such thing as a market
price" said Mr.. Hunt "The price de-
pends upon the temper of the buyer
There may be four or five rich men IN
the market buying certain kinds OF
autographs and If you should have an
autograph document that is along the
line they want it is worth as much as
they are willing to give for 1t. If only
one of them wants 1t it is not worth
much. If they al want it the price is
fabulous. The library does not pay a
high price and it could not do so under
any circumstances If it did, a person
having family letters that were really
worth little might get an idea that
they were of fabulous value"
What is the highest price paid for
an American manuscript
81 do not know. Havemeyer paid
$1400 for the draft of Washington's
farewell address. At the same sale a
manuscript of Washington sold for
$500, and a letter of his sold for $50
You can get no idea of prices by the
publications concerning the sales. The
newspapers mention only the highest
prices paid, and nothing is said of the
letters which go for little. At the same
sale where the Washington address
brought s1400 a letter of Henry Clay
may have sold for $3.50
i would say, also" Mr.. Hunt con-
tinued, that the library does not buy
autographs. II does not care for sig
natures pure and simple, nor does It
want single letters without they are Of
historical value. We buy only collec-
tions. 1t would be rather absurd for
us to pay for a single letter of Wash
ington. when our collection of Wash
ington already numbers over 100000
And then" Mr.. Hunt continued.
take the extravagant ideas some peo-
pie have concerning such papers Not
long ago IL man offered us a set of rev
olutionary roll books He considered
them very valuable and he asked $4,000
for the dozen In his collection. | cal
culated the value of the number of such
books we had on hand. and at the price
he asked our collection would have
been worth $4,000 for those books
alone"
Then your collection is historical
rather than autographed"
Yes, the autographic interest of the
papers is the least important. This col
lection might be called the raw ma
terial OF American history, and as to
Just show how valuable 1t is / can give
you no adequate conception. / would
say there is not a single important per-
lod of American history that has been
truly written. and that there Is not
a single incident OF Importance or
which the manuscripts here in the
library do not disturb the accepted
version of 1t. Even such a story as
that of the making of the Declaration
OF Independence is wrong. The library
has information in these manuscripts
as to who actually wrote 1t and as to
the circumstances under which it was
sent out The story is different from
any published and it is yet to be told
Another thing is the framing of the
Constitution of the United States We
have manuscripts in the Madison pap
ers and In other records which throw
new light upon that subject About
two years ago a monumental work en-
titled 'The Records Of the Constitution
al Convention" was printed in three
large volumes by Congress, and il wa s
supposed to contain all the new matter
Within a week after that publication
was issued the library received by way
of Philadelphia, four or five other very
valuable records relating to the fran
ing OF the Constitution This makes
the congressional work incomplete and
so ] might say we have no history as
yet. George Washington has written
more than any other man in our his
tory, and yet not one-tenth of his pap
ers have ever been printed.
Have you any documents relating
to our colonial days2"
I'VE have the papers OF the revolu
tion and those of the Continental Con-
tinentar Congress. The latter began witt
the First Congress in IVA, and they ex-
tend 70 March 2, 1889. when the Con-
ares died. After that we have the Con-
gress as under the Constitution of the
United States. None of those papers
have ever been printed. Indeed. 1t il
out of the question for any man 10
write about matters relating to Amer
tcan history without coming here The