Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-08-10
WHAT SAILORS READ By Frederic j. Haskin

| WY ASHINGTON, D. c., Aug 5.-One
wv legacy which the American navy
bluejackets have inherited from
the war is the well-stocked ships library.
BEFORE the war the various battleships
carried collections Of greasy, dog-eared and
| ancient tones which went by the name of
ships libraries. But the work of the
american Library association in the navy
during the war, aided by the American
public'S donations of cash and books, gave
new indication Of what these floating
libraries might be- Today no matter how
drastically congress may economic in APP
preparations of money to buy guns and
armor plate, it is giving with fair liberality
for the maintenance of the libraries, as the
appropriation of $4,000 for books this
year bears Witness.
Excepting the patients IN the military
and navy hospitals, who manage to read
about one library book a week apiece,
there was never a more appreciative group
of readers than these enlisted men in the
United States navy. Whether the ships
are in port or out cutting the blue water,
the chances are that when Jack is off
duty he is curled up in some quiet corner
of the ship reading a book. The ex-
perience of the past four years shows
that the average sailor draws from the
ship library and reads Is books year
book and half month. According
to the records, the average city dweller in
the United States patronizes his public
library to the extent Of less than four
books year.
Like everything else In the navy, the
| supply Of books to the ships and the shore
stations is completely and thoroughly or
| ganized The bureau Of navigation has
charge Of maintaining the libraries. There
| is chief librarian in Washington, and he
| is assisted by more or less informal
board of officers who serve voluntarily as
readers of new books. Guided by their
| judgment, the chief librarian keeps add
| ing titles to the stock lists, once a year
| issuing a new catalogue from which the
ships librarians order their books. Stocks
| of all books so catalogued are kept on
hand in depot in New York from which
the ships are supplied battleship is al
| lowed LOO volumes in its library, a
| cruiser of the second class may have 725,
a destroyer $50, and unclassified vessels
according to the number Of men on
board.
| Equally important with the purchase Of
new books is the wedding out of the old
and the unread; for, after all, the test Of
book in the present-day ships library Is
whether the men read it, The chief IL
brarian and his assistants are men of ex-
cellent literary taste, but they do not at
tempt to foist upon the sailors their own
judgment of what is good. Privately, they
may recoil from Harold Bell Wright and
Ethel M. Dell, but they do not write their
novels down upon any index expurgitorious
In the list of nearly 1900 novels listed in
the current navy catalogue, there five
titles credited to Harold Bell Wright and
four to Ethel M. Dell. Gene Stratton
Porter also has five.
Sex Stories Taboo
Once a year each ships librarian is per-
mitted to Survey one-third Of the books in
his charge and replace them with new, If
necessary. BY this means dead books,
as the unread ones are called, are weeded
out. Therefore. the general book cata-
logue accurately reflects the reading taste
of the men aboard our ships of war.
Bearing in mind that the nearly 1900
titles in the fiction list of the 1922 cata-
Iogue represent what the men like to read
and not what their superior officers think
they ought to read. some interesting side
lights on the characters Of the enlisted
men may be noted. In the first place,
there is almost an entire absence Of the
so-called sex stories in the libraries. It is
not that such stories have been censored
out. The chief librarian has tried them
and the men do not read them, that is
all. Love stories are easily the most
numerous class of fiction works in pub
fishers lists; but love stories, with 1881