Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-29

The follo,oing extracts from an article on
the Government Printing Office by Henry
Crttchfeld West in the BOokmdn for Dccem-
Dor thro,o a brilliant light upon the todStctu,
use Of print paper by the Government at a
time tChen the newspapers haze. been
arbitrarily restricted In the amount Of space
tohich they mag give to mc0s because Of the
paper shortage:
TODAY the Government Printing Office
L including a new building that cost $2,5OO,-
OOO---has a. floor space of thirteen acres, with
nearly $50 presses, 246 type-setting machines
by far the largest battery of composing ma
chimes in the world; a complete bindery
equipment and an electrotype foundry capa-
BILE of turning out 1000 electrotypes each
day. There are nearly 100000 plates stored
in one vault. The matchmaking room
where the type set on the machines is recast
into ingots. handles approximately twelve
tons of metal daily. Within the building
printing ink and carbon-paper are manufac-
tured and sixteen elevators. a refrigeratins
plant and an emergency hospital are IN
stalled. In the latter institution nearly 1000
cases were treated last year Altogether, the
modest plant of fifty years ago now repre-
sents an investment of considerably more
than $4,000, 900.
To thoroughly appreciate the extent to
which Uncle Sam occupies the publication
field one must think in terms of millions
not merely millions of dollars but millions
of books and pamphlets. 1t Is almost a strain
upon the Imagination to realize the existence
of a plant which can turn out nearly 3,OOO.>
900 books a year. but. after all, even the
gigantic totals just quoted do not adequately
picture the extent of Federal printing. The
Government Printing Office, merely AS a rou-
tine procedure, prints and delivers 100000
postal cards each day and hundreds OF NIL
lions of postal money-order blanks each year,
the latter on presses which print. perforate,
collate and number in one operation. with
it's virtually unlimited capacity the Office can
receive. set in type, proof-read' stereotype
print bind and deliver book of more than
1000 pages within twenty-fopr hours.
There are two methods of getting the
printed material into the hands of the people
free distribution and sale. The former IN
cludes nearly 80 per cent of the output In
the first place each Senator and representa-
tive as well as each department or bureau,
is entitled to a certain quota of all govern
mental publications. Each Is allowed to re-
ceive without cost. for instance l25OO copies
of Farmers Bulletin, or total requiSition Of
nearly 7 900 900 for this purpose alone.
The acceptance of the congressional quota
is not compulsory. If, therefore, the BOOKS are
not used they remain to the credit of the
Senator or Representative for certain periou
and are then thrown back upon the Public
Printer who eventually sells them for waste
paper at cent a pound unfortunately.
this Is the fate of literally thousands of
Tha last report of the Public Printer, dated
December g. 1917 contains this paragraph:
BY authority of the Joint committee on
Ptlting, 5S5, ,O59 obsolete publications were
condemned and sold. In further effort to
reduce this useless surplus, an inventory
covering Sl233 old or duplicate publca-j
tions was prepared in January. 1917 and
the usual course was followed In notifying
members of Congress to select what they
wanted from this list. but not more than
one-third of the members took advantage
of this privilege; such copies as were Sc
lected are being forwarded and those that
remain will be condemned and sold as
waste paper.
One reason for this deplorable situation,
which is shown by this record to have existed
with incalculable loss for more than twenty
years is that a substantial proportion of the
matter which is published has no popular ap-
peal being purely technical In It's nature :;
and another reason is that the law arbitrarily
fixes the minimum number of copies to he
printed of each publication, this figure being
quite generous.
With the view of realizing some return
uDon the time and labor invested In tho
books which the Government produces, and
in the hope that perhaps some of the other
wise discarded volumes might be halted on
| their way to the paper-mill. Congress estab-
| lished the Office OF the Superintendent or Doc
uments, whero leftover and other publications
| could be deposited and, II possible. sold. II
| offered most generous terms TO the Wopid-be
| purchaser asking merely enough y actually
| pay for the coef ~ printins and b'ndlnk
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