The Washington herald., 1922-11-19
Fac-Simile of the Original Charter Now in the Huntington
Collection, Drawn by. the Dutch West India
Company, Conferring Possession of
Manhattan Island Upon
Its First Settlers
in 1924.
in 1924,

through the books by the suns action on
the roof; for under the roof is a sub-roof,
both of cement, a four-foot space between
the two, there being registers and venti-
lators in both so that a constant movement
of air occurs from the basement.
Every detail is, of course, fireproof, and
other arrangements make it all burglar
proof.
All of this has recently been decided to
a board of trustees for the use of the
people.
All this has been so literally endowed
that the collecting can go on forever, as
the board chooses to make additions, with
no expense to nation or State.
So it is all now and forever the prop
erty of the people, for their use and
benefit.
The library is now open to those who
have urgent need of it's resources, but it
will be some months, probably not until
late next Summer, before it will be for
mally opened.
The house and the grounds Mr.. Hunt
ington reserves as his home as a life ten
ant; when that tenancy ceases, they auto
matically become the estate of the Amer
lean people.
There is no yard stick of dollars that
will measure the worth of this gift. Money
becomes negligible as indicative of its
worth.
The actual cost of it all, library, paint
ings, antiques, botanical garden, innum-
cradle art works, is over $30,000,000; !;
but when it is understood that all the
money in the world could not duplicate
II Slondor idoo of re Ua1na iS had
In its future scope, and almost in its
present dimensions, it is like a combina-
ton of the British Museum, Kew Gar
dens or the Jardin discrimination, and
the Louvre Gallery all combined. In
many details it is more comprehensive.
Governments through centuries of ac-
cumulation have provided for their peo-
pies something like this gift, but history
records nothing comparable, as from an
individual citizen to his fellows.
From DR.. George Watson Cole, LII. D.,
in charge of the books, it is learned that
the whole collection has been achieved in
about fifteen years time, a period that
marks Mr.. Huntington's retirement from
active business in order to follow hie am
bition of making his library grow into this
unexcelled collection for the people.
He brought to the work sound Judg-
ment, and acute discrimination, which his
constant contact with those learned and
expert in photography has further devel-
oped to a most remarkable degree.
And, as DR.. Cole explained, he had op-
portunities, such as had never been afford
ed any collector in past times, and never
can be offered in times to come. For it
happened that these fifteen years just
passed contained conditions for acquisi-
tion of libraries such as never had existed
and as far as human vision goes cannot
be repeated.
For example, could anything have been
more impossible to expect than that a
Duke of Devonshire could ever be
brought to sell his library? Or that a
Duke of Westminster would part with
"The Blue Boy?
Or that the English nation would per-
init six Of the greatest Gainsboroughs,
and ''The Tragic Muse" of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, to leave the country?
It was the purchase of the library of