Evening star., 1937-02-21
By Louis Seldine.

ade since the last issue of the
Biographical Directory of the
L American Congress, compiled by
Ansel Void, clerk of the Joint Com
mittee on Printing and as Congress
declared earlier that the imposing
volume should be brought up to date
every 10 years. Mr.. Void is sharpen
ing his pencils in anticipation of
again taking up task that consumed
four years in the compilation Of the
first issue. with mailing of $4,000 let
ters to all parts of the world, and
represented for him period OF such
laborious endeavors that the work,
when published, was monument to
the classic and tedious art of taking
pains.
True, in subsequent volumes, the
task will not be so tremendous as it
was when the clerk of the committee
first undertook to compile complete
and accurate Who's Who" OF every
man or woman who has sat in the
House or Senate since the Continental
Congress, which convened in Phil
adelphia on September 5, 1774, to
the Sixty-ninth Congress, which ad-
journed at Washington March 8,
1927. But it is a task, none the less,
at the prospect of which the hardest
might well quail. for it will be up
to Mr. Wold to add to the volume
that was issued 10 years ago the
names and biographies of all mem
bers who have sat in Congress since
that time, as we'll as cabinet men,
bers. and other pertinent facts in
connection with the personnel OF the
legislative branch Of the Govern
ment.
While the appropriation for contin-
uation of the work to cover the period
from where the other left of, 1927,
to the present, has not yet been made,
the Joint Committee on Printing was
formally authorized, under current
resolutions in both Houses. to take
charge of the first compilation and
also to authorize subsequent volumes
every 10 years, in order to maintain
a complete biographical record OF
Congress and perpetuate the prodigi-
Gus labor that went into compilation
of the first issue. Thus the ofhce OF
the clerk of the Joint Committee Is
getting ready for the go signal
with respect to the second compilation.
WHEN the first volume appeared
w from the Government Printing
Office presses in 1929 it was acclaimed
near and far as 'one OF the finest
volumes of biography ever published
in this or any other country. II
was called a monumental historical
| volume of inestimable value" and 1t
was praised editorially as work
whose distinction sis found in the ex-
ouisite sense of correct detail which
has governed the editor in an effort
to make his work unimpeachable.
1.-THE novelty of the volume" stated
another review, sis in the research
and scholarship that have been put
into it. They are worthy greater
| recompense than mere editorial ap-
preciation."
As a matter of fact, Ansel Wold's
Biographical Directory of the Amer
ican Congress created a stir that has
not subsidized to the present day, as
no doubt the volume, covering the
decade from 1927 to 1887, will like
wise do.
In the first place, when Wold set to
work to carry out congressional Or
ders, he had nothing on which 10
base his contemplated book. He Ia
bored six months with such material as
was already available in published
form before he realized that many OF
the statements presented as facts had
no basis in truth. ASsiduous check-
ing and rechecking convinced him
that many such items had been per-
petuated in their original state OF
error because historians and oiog-
raphers had not taken the pains to
verify their predecessors. So after SIX
months of labor along false leads Void
discarded everything and started
from scratch"
For four years he gathered informa-
| ton about every individual whose nl-
ography was to appear in his book
writing $4,000 letters in an effort 10
track down birth dates. dates OF death
or other pertinent data from distant
relatives or friends of the legislators.
In the words of Void:
I'VE have worked night and day
tracing every possible angle OF in
formation, following threads and clues
and lines of possible research, that
have stretched in many cases through
many States, to get data about in
dividuals, information concerning
whom seemed baff1ing, to state it con-
servatively. Our researches, the thou
sands Of letters we have sent out tc
friends, relatives. descendants, town