Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-08-08

Aug. 6-One leg
acy which the American Navy blue
jackets have inherited from the war
is the> well stocked ships library,
Before the war the various battle
ships carried collections of greasy,
d~og-eared and ancient tones which
went by the name of ships libraries.
But the work of the American Lii
brary Association in the Navy dur
ing the war, aided by the Ameri-
can public's donations of cash and
books, gave a e indication of
what these floating libraries might
be. Today no matter how drasti-
cally congress may economic III
appropriations of money to buy guns
and plate. it is giving with
fair liberality for the maintenance
of the libraries AS the appropria-
tion of $4,000 for books this year
bears witness.
Excepting the patients in the MIL
itary and Naval hospitals. who man
age to read about one library book
a week apiece, there was never a
more appreciative group of read
ers than these enlisted men in the
United States navy. Whether the
ships are in port or out cutting the
Dlu6 Wdl6T. TIE CIldllCeS are tlidt
when Jack Is off duty he is curled
up in some quiet corner of the ship
reading a book. The experience OF
the past four years shows that h
average sailor draws from the ship
library and reads eighteen books a
year-a book and a half a month.
According to the records, the av-
erage city dweller in the United
C@,to. vatrNvi1ac hiS nrth1io libra rv
to the extent Of less than four books
a year..
Like everything else in the Navy,
the supply of books to the ships and
the shore stations is completely and
| thoroughly organized. The Bureau
of Navigation has charge of main
tanning the libraries. There is a
chief librarian in Washington. and
he is assisted by a more or less
informal board of officers who serve
voluntarily as readers of rev books.
Guided by their judgment. the chief
librarian keeps adding titles to the
stock lists. once a year issuing a new
catalogue from which the ships Ii
brarians order their books. Stocks of
all books so catalogued are kept on
hand in a depot in New York from
WHICH tne SHIPS 4 SoPPfSNt
battleship is allowed 1,100 volumes
in its, library, a cruiser of the Sec
ond class may have 725. smaller
ships SIS, a destroyer $50 and
unclassifed vessels according to the
number of men on oard.
Equally important witn the pur-
chase of new books is the wedding
out of the old and the unread; for.
after all, the test of a book In the
p~resent-day ships library is wheth-
err the men read it. The chief libra
rian and BIS assistants are men OF
excellent literary taste, but they do
not attempt to foist upon the sailors
their own judgment OF what is good.
Privately. they may recoii from
Harold Bell Wright and Ethel M.
Dell, but they do not write their
novels down upon any index eX-
p~urgitorious. In the list of nearly
1900 novels listed in the current
NAVY catalogue there are five titles
credited to Harold Bell Wright and
four TO Ethel M. Dell. Gene STRAIT
ton Porter also has five.
Sex Stories Taboo
One a wear each ships librarian
,s permitted to survey" one-third
/ or the DOCKS III HIS I" tS
Mace them with new, If necessary
By this means dead books, as the
unreal ones are called. are weeded
out. Therefore the general pook
| catalogue accurately reflects the
reading taste of the me naboard our
ships of var
Bearing in mind that the nearly
1900 titles in the fiction list or the
1922 catalogue represent what the
men like to read and not what then
superior officers think they ought 70
read. some interesting sidelights or
the characters of the enlisted men
may be noted. In the first place,
There is almost an eiture absence
of the so-cailed sex stories In the u
braries. 1t is not that such stories
have been censored out The cniei
librarian has tried them n tne
men do not read them, hat Is all
Love stories are easily h most
numerous class of fiction works In
publishers lists; but love tories,
with 1913 titles comes second as a
class In the affections G the blue
jackets. The boys on the rolling
ships with blue water to the horizon
and the splashing of wave sound
ing in their ears love to read about