Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1915-05-13
THROWING AWAY A MILLION
Gigantic Sum Wasted on Gov
eminent Printing.
Costs United states More Than S5,OOO.-
900 to Hun biggest shop in the
World and print Tons Of Use
less Public Documents.

The United states runs what is said to
be the biggest printing shop in the
world. 1t costs over sj,0O,VD a year to
! operate it. It does all the printing for
Congress and the executive departments
For the past six years determined efforts
have been made to revise the public
printing laws, with view to saving at
least sS0.0D year in turning out use-
ess public documents This saving would
not touch the Congressional Record it.
self which is the daily report Of the pro-
Ceedings of Congress and which is clut-
tered up with matter which has nothing
to do with those proceedings to an OK
tent Of from - to 20 per cent II the
Record were reformed, along with the
system of grinding out public documents
on thousands of subjects the annual
saving would be easily in excess of a
, million.
/ But it seems impossible to achieve the
reform, writes Washington correspon-
dent of the Brooklyn Eagle. Once the
Senate passed the bill and 1t failed in
! the House In the last Congress the
/ House passed it, bur It died on the Sem
/ ate calendar so the waste goes on
steadily, and the next Congress will ha We
to begin all over again, if indeed, 1t
shows any real interest in the subject
| In the past 70 years the government
has spent Slt+ l52.6.G.s2 FOR printing and
this does not includ" paper money and
postage stamps. In 1876 the printing bill
| was sl,GS3,l25 90 That sum to-day would
merely cover tn" cost of printing for
Congress. In 1901 the annual printing
dollar mark running up TO 81 s),. 40.
From 1903 to 1902 it averaged well over
six million dollars a year. Then there
was shrnkage. For the current fiscal
year II will amount to i5.531.c5 For next
year Congress- has appropriated s5.Cts, 10.
/ out of the latter sum Congress has al
lottcd itself si,;SI52o.
RECORD COST OVER 'fololO.
During the year 1915 it cost Sis. Gfti - to
print the Congressional Record alone
and tn" Congressional Record is adj
/ mitted generally to he at least twice as
large as i ought to be. 1t cost $l'6,
| 3ii51 to print copies of bills and rcsou-
lions introduced in Congress scarcely
one IN a hundred Of which is passed. 1t
cost 81, l5S. $3.50 to print octave pubiica
lions which described the average pub
lie document relating to the care oc the
baby, the five civilized tribes in Okla
/ bona, the food of Woodpeckers, the
glaciers Of Prince William Sound, the
j calorimetric determination OF iron with
special reference to chemical reagents
| the melting points of some refractory OK
ides and the like. Just think OF sub
ACKNOWLEDGMENT If tho government
hasn't printed book about it, it Will
make haste to do So for 1t aims to miss
nothing.
Most OF TIN" public documents go out
| free OF charge through members of Con-
greSss. although the government is max
! ing n feeble effort 10 sell them at q nom
| inal charge. During the fiscal year II
/ sold IBIS 20 copies, but 1t printed =. s>i,
SO copies, a vast ma jority Of which We're
franked out through the mails. thereby
/ Increasing the cost of the postal service.
Aside from the waste in printing pub
! lie Documents great quantities OF which
| are stored In warehouses in WASHINGTON
! and at the end %: two years, are sold as
old paper at g cents hundred the
waste N printing the daily report Of the
proceedings Of Congress is stupendous
Primarily this is "A stenographic record
Of all debates and proceedings. with a
list Of all bills and resolutions intro
d,.a u.ht,h Il, ho,,,d n, ,h, ava ~, ,
session and indcxcd. Senator Smoot. who
Is one OF the printing experts OF Con-
gress, and has been member OF the
Joint committee on that subject for sew
/ eral years, estimates that from 40 to &c
per cent of all the stuff printed in the
| Congressional Record Is eXtraneous mat
+ ter and does not concern the proceedings
themselves.
I If 70 per cent OF the Record is extra
stuff, 'onsistin; Of reprints Of news
paper and magazine articles. speeches
! by distinguished and obscure persons
/ letters. memorials etc. the extent OF
that practice may be realized when it
is said that the bound Record for the
second session of the SlXtythird Con-
/ grcss consists OF 1870 pages. not includ-
I ing Il volumes devoted to this session.
For each page OF the Record the gov
| eminent pays SID for indcXing Ac-
cording to the highest Smopt estimate
about 1900 pages of this stupendous
! Record are concerned not at all with the
| proceedings of Congress. which might
, the deadwood was left out and IL II was
forbidden. under leave to print" to
| load up the Record with anything UNI
der the sun.
| .V-IrEED eIIAN.I," SAID SMOoT
| ,..r, ,.. ,..,.. ., +
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