Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-17
PUTNAM TO GET
ROOSEVELT MEDAL
Librarian of Congress Among
Three for Distinguished
Service Honor.

Herbert Putnam, librarian of Con-
greSS, is one of a trio Of noted Ameri-
cans who will receive the 1929 RooSe-
welt gold medal for distinguished Serv-
ice," the Roosevelt Memorial Association
announced yesterday in New York City.
Mr.. Putnam will share in the annual
award with Owen D. Young, chairman
of the Paris debt conference, and Owen
Wister, novelist, who wrote The Vir-
ginian."
The head Of the Library of Congress
was chosen for his achievements in ad-
ministration of a public Office, Mr..
Young for his work in international
affairs and Mr.. Wister for his contri-
buttons to American literature. The
medals are awarded each year to three
men who have distinguished themselves
in three of IL fields of endeavor. Among
previous recipients are the late Gen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes. Gen. Pershing,
President Hoover, Charles Evans Hughes,
Charles w. Eliot, Clifford Pinchot and
Col. Lindbergh.
Librarian 80 Years.
In a statement issued by the associa-
ton it was pointed out that Mr.. Put
| nam has for 80 years served the Ma
| ton as librarian of Congress"
During that period the statement
says, The has developed the library from
an inadequately organized collection OF
! little more than local importance into
an institution national in its scope anc
international in its renown, whose con-
tents place it beside the largest libraries
of the world
Mr.. Young, it Is stated, "has PLAYED
the leading part in the solution of tn,
most grave and delicate economic prob.
lem which has followed the World War
the problem of reparations. AS mem.
Der OF the first commission of expert.
appointed the reparations commission
under the treaty of Versailles, known
as the Dawes commission, Mr.. Youne
was largely instrumental in devising the
Dawes plan, which Mr.. Charles Evans
Hughes described as the best security
since the armistice for the peace of tn,
world
Central Conference Figure.
"In the conference of the committee
OF reparations experts. which lasted over
three months, Mr.. Young was the CEN
trail figure, trusted alike by both sides
as leader on whose fairness they could
rely. His sagacity, his vast knowledge
his fecundity of ideas, his apparently
limitleSs resourcefulness and his simple
| and straightforward diplomacy again
| and again saved the conference from
disaster and dissolution
Mr. Wister receives the medal as ga
historian who has recorded for all
time the character and atmosphere OF
the Wild West during the last quarter
of the nineteenth century," and who
caught for posterity the passing figure
of the cowboy as Bret Harte caught that
Of the forty-niner."
What no traditional historian could
ever do" the association states. "Mr
Wister has accomplished through his
tales of COW hands and soldiers and
border rufians and high-spirited wom-
en-. They live in his books and the
age of which they were the expression
lives with them and win continue to
live"
The Roosevelt medal is inches In
diameter Of solid gold. 1t bears on one
side the head of Theodore Roosevelt and
on the other a flaming sword with the
inscription: "If I must choose between
Righteousness and peace I choose right
eousneSS."
The medals will be presented at a
banquet at the Roosevelt birthplace. 28
East Twentieth street, New York, Octo-
Der 81. the seventy-f1rst anniversary Of
Roosevelt's birth.