but the members of these professions depend mainly upon foreign books. It is necessary that we should have accomplished architects for the erection of our public and private edifices, and skilful engineers for conducting our works of internal improvement; but these men must get their knowledge mainly from foreign books. If they are restricted to American books, they will be continually led into errors, which would injure us in our reputation, and diminish the value of our investments. . . If we prohibit or render dearer the books which these men need, we do an incalculable injury to the whole community. If to gain a revenue of $30,000, we deprive a Fulton of the very book that would suggest to him the new application of some scientific principle, destined to change the whole face of society and increase incalculably our wealth, is it a wise policy which we pursue?"

was

In the same year that Jewett printed his little pamphlet, 1846, the duty on all imported books was fixed by law at ten per cent ad valorem. Previous to that time the duties ranged from four to five cents a volume, or from ten to thirty cents a pound, depending on language, date of publication, whether bound or unbound, etc. The first duty on books was levied by the tariff act of 1824. The act of 1842 increased the duties slightly, while that of 1846 simplified matters very much by levying a flat duty of ten per cent ad valorem, as stated above. This amended in 1857 to allow institutions of learning to import books free of duty. With this exception the law of 1846, providing a duty of ten per cent ad valorem, remained in force until 1862 when the duty was increased to twenty per cent. In 1864 it was further increased to twenty-five per cent, where it remained, as far as books in the English language were concerned, till the act of 1913. It is important to note that the duty was first doubled and then further increased during our Civil War. It was essentially a war tax, and doubtless justified by the

circumstances. But it has taken fifty years to lower the duty from the war-tax level. And this was accomplished only last year, when the duty was reduced to fifteen per cent ad valorem-still fifty per cent higher than before the war. Here, as elsewhere, vested interests have played their familiar role of postponing justice. We should be thankful that the last Congress made a substantial reduction in book duties, but we shall not rank with the more enlightened nations of the world till such duties are entirely abolished.

The McKinley tariff act of 1890 placed books in foreign languages on the free list. This provision was retained in the Wilson act of 1894, in the Dingley act of 1897, and in the Payne-Aldrich act of 1909. It was also retained in the Underwood act of 1913, as it left the House of Representatives. But in the Senate an attempt was made to impose a duty on books in foreign languages when they were less than twenty years old and in bindings less than twenty years old. The principal libraries in this country sent protests to the Senate committee; and these, with other protests, and, by no means least in its influence, the mere expression by the President of the United States of his surprise at such an attempt, were sufficient to defeat it. So the act of 1913 retains books in foreign languages on the free list.

The privilege of free importation of such books by libraries was not withdrawn by the proposed Senate amendment; but its adoption would have seriously hampered us in the acquisition of books in foreign languages. It would have put a stop to our receiving such books on approval from the American importer, and required us to make our selections for purchase almost entirely from catalogs and publishers' lists. The revenue derived from it would have been negligible. It would have protected no infant, and, as some one has said, no senile industry; for such books are not, never have been, and never will be reprinted here. The amendment had its origin in a coterie of

bookbinders whose motives were wholly selfish, and it met the defeat it deserved. Since 1890, therefore, the only duty on books imported into the United States has been imposed on books in the English language which have been printed less than twenty years; and even these may come in free of duty to public libraries and educational institutions, provided not more than two copies are imported in one invoice. Until last year the duty on English books was twenty-five per cent. It is now fifteen per cent ad valorem. In whose interest, or upon what grounds of public policy is this tax levied? For the six years from 1907 to 1912, inclusive, the average annual value of dutiable book importations was about two and three-quarters millions of dollars, and the average annual gross income for the government less than $700,000. After deducting the cost of collecting this income, it will be seen that the net revenue derived from it is inconsiderable. Evidently it is not a tariff for revenue.

If it is a protective tariff, who is protected, and why? We get all the light we need on this question from the hearings before the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives last year. For instance, the American Bible manufacturers contended that, if the duty on Bibles printed and bound by the underpaid labor of England was reduced, the Bible-making industry in this country would be entirely destroyed. Has some of the pauper humor of Europe been smuggled into this country? The price of Bibles to a hundred million people is to be maintained in the interest of a few hundred people engaged in their manufacture! What is best for the hundred million does not count. The case is typical in its absurdity. We put a tax on the enlightenment of all the people, to serve the selfish interests of a few.

The American author and the American publisher are sufficiently protected by our copyright laws, and need no protective tariff on books. If the materials used in

the manufacture of books were put on the free list, as I think they should be, the manufacturer would need no tariff on books to protect his business. It is the book manufacturers, with the printers and binders, who seem to be most interested in the retention of this tariff barrier. At the hearings before the Ways and Means Committee the manufacturer exhibits an almost self-effacing carelessness of his own interests; but his concern for his employees, whose welfare he notoriously has so much at heart, is most impressive. He will usually be found standing behind the organizations of printers and bookbinders, prodding them on. Now labor organizations are a necessary economic factor under present social conditions. But when in the interest of their members they demand that a tax be levied on the means of enlightenment of a whole people, they are not promoting an economic policy, but a debilitating disease.

Many years ago Robert G. Ingersoll said he believed in the protection of home industries; but when the infant grew to be six feet tall, wore number twelve boots, and threatened to kick your head off if you stopped rocking the cradle, he thought the coddling should cease. Among a proud people it is not an inspiring sight to see an industry begging for, or insisting upon, an advantage in the race with its foreign competitors. Does our national resourcefulness fail in the case of the manufacturers, printers and binders of books? If so, may not this condition be partly due to excessive coddling? The over-coddled child seldom develops into a resourceful man. Is there any reason to expect it to be otherwise with an industry? The American painter scorns the protection given him by the government against the work of his foreign competitor, and time and again has petitioned Congress to put works of art on the free list. No American writer of standing, as far as I know, has ever sought protection against his foreign competitor. If those engaged in the mechanical processes of

book making are less proud and resourceful, it is a humiliating fact which calls for explanation.

The protected book industry in this country is now a wizened infant ninety years old. It has not thriven on the tariff pap. According to a writer in The Unpopular Review, who seems to be well informed on the subject, the number of books published annually in the United States is only about six per cent of the total annual production of the world. In proportion to population, Switzerland publishes annually ten times as many books as we; the Scandinavian countries, Denmark, Sweden and Norway together, six times as many; Germany, France, the British Empire, Holland, Italy, Austria and Japan, each from three and one-half to five times as many. Even Roumania, in proportion to population, publishes over three times as many books as the United States, while Russia publishes over one and one-half times as many. The figures for Spain and Portugal are given together, and our book production is slightly below theirs. "Beneath these,” says the writer referred to, "there is no lower depth.”

For the last five or six years the total annual value of the books imported into the United States, both dutiable and undutiable, was about $6,000,000, or six cents per capita. While we tail the procession in book production in our own country, we import from the other countries of the world only a paltry six cents' worth for each of us. In the face of these facts we cannot claim high rank as readers of books. Our ambassador to the Court of St. James, himself a publisher, is reported to have said not long ago that American men spend less for books than for neckties, and American women less than for the buttons on their dresses. The tariff has signally failed to promote the publishing, the manufacture, or the sale of books. During the last thirty or forty years the number of book-stores in the United States has notoriously declined. Now it is conceded that a good book-store, well

stocked and well managed, is of great educational value to any community. We, as librarians, are sorry to see them disappear, because good booksellers are our ablest coadjutors. In the interest of general intelligence we want to see more private buying and more and better household libraries. It is of vital importance to all our citizens that the book business should thrive here. But it was not the discounts to libraries that drove the bookseller out of business; nor has the tariff on foreign books done anything to save him. What, then, is the cause of his rapid extinction?

The writer whom I cited a moment ago, gives what seems an adequate explanation. While we publish only six per cent of the annual production of books, we publish sixty per cent of the world's periodical literature. Book-stores are disappearing; but we have nearly a hundred thousand news-stands. In short, cheap newspapers and cheap magazines are taking the place of books in this country, chiefly, our Unpopular Reviewer thinks, because the government carries newspapers and periodicals in the mails at one cent a pound, whereas the cost of such carriage is about eight times that. In other words, the government practically gives a tremendous subvention to secondclass mail which is paid by the first-class mail. When you post a letter, nearly half of what you pay goes to defray the cost of carrying newspapers and magazines. Why books were not included in the subvention is not explained. If it is justified in the case of newspapers and magazines, on the ground that in a democracy the government should thus encourage the diffusion of ideas among the people, why are books considered less important for this purpose? It certainly seems that our postal laws have discriminated against books. The present administration has improved the situation, as far as the nearer zones are concerned, by the inclusion of books in the parcel post. But for the more distant zones the rate is higher than

before. Whenever the postal rate on books is higher than the cost of handling, the government is levying an unnecessary tax on ideas.

On broad grounds of public policy there should be the freest possible flow of ideas, not only among our own people, but between nations. The most civilized peoples of the world are growing closer together, because they are beginning to understand each other better. If it is necessary to have any tariff barriers at all between them, it is certainly unwise to have barriers against ideas as printed in books. A tax on knowledge and education is especially unwise in a republic, the very existence of which depends on the intelligence of its citizens. Our tariff on English books bears heaviest on those who are least able to pay it-our scholars, our teachers, our scientific investigators. Elsewhere the most enlightened governments do everything in their power to encourage such men as national assets. Here our policy actually discourages them. An enlightened policy would put books in a class by themselves and on a plane above the ordinary commodities of the world. Instead of being taxed they should be privileged, not for the encouragement of an industry but for the education of the people.

While it has taken fifty years even to reduce the tariff on English books, there is great encouragement in the fact that a beginning has been made. The late Prof. Sumner said: "If asked why they act in a certain way in certain cases, primitive people always answer that it is because they and their ancestors always have done so. A sanction also arises from ghost fear. The ghosts of ancestors would be angry if the living should change the ancient folkways." In tariff matters we seem to be a primitive people; any suggestion of change is met with an instant prediction of dire consequences. The political mind is panicky at the prospect of change. Of a politician who was always pessimistic about any alteration in

governmental policy, it was said that if he had been present at the creation he would have thrown up his hands in holy horror and exclaimed, "Chaos will be destroyed!" We have long been familiar with the political stump speaker who loves to expatiate upon the calamities which would follow any reduction in the tariff. Yet we have survived a large number of such reductions. When the next book schedule is under consideration, we commend to our tariff and postal rate makers the motto of this Association, "The best reading, for the largest number, at the Ieast cost."

President ANDERSON: We have asked the Committee on library administration to make its report at this session, because we understand it has to deal largely with the exhibit of library labor-saving devices now at the public library of the District of Columbia, and to which early attention should be called. I will therefore call on Dr. BOSTWICK, the chairman of that committee, for the report.

COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY ADMIN

ISTRATION

Mechanical devices are coming to play an increasing part in the administration of all institutions, and the library has been no exception to this rule. Many labor-savers have been devised especially for library use. Some of these have been placed on the market in commercial form and are more or less familiar to all; others, perhaps equally useful are practically unknown beyond the libraries where they originated. Others still, devised without any thought of their possible use in libraries, have been adapted to such use, and there are doubtless many machines invented to fill a general business need that we shall gladly adopt when the special insight of some library worker is able to point out the way to us.

It has seemed to your committee that an assemblage of such of these devices as

it might be able to get together, would be of especial interest to the members of this Association.

Our recommendation that such an exhibit should be held at this conference was approved by the Executive Board shortly after the mid-winter meeting in Chicago. A few days later work was begun on preliminary arrangements. In December, 1913, the trustees of the District of Columbia public library had authorized the librarian to offer for the exhibit the use of the lecture hall on the second floor of the main building. It very soon became apparent that the lecture hall, which measures 50'x60', would not afford sufficient space for a suitable exhibition and ultimately about two-thirds of the second floor was given up to the committee's use. Excluding aisle space, the total amount of space available for exhibition purposes was about 3,800 square feet.

The purpose and the nature of the exhibit, as well as the limitations of space, necessitated a very careful selection of exhibitors. Work was begun and has been carried on with four general purposes in mind: 1. To include only devices which are capable of satisfactory service in library work. 2. To include as many different kinds of labor-savers, adapted to library use, as possible. 3. To include as many as possible of the best representatives of each kind in order that librarians attending the exhibit may not only see one good machine or device of a certain kind, but may compare two or more of the best. 4. To include some of the less expensive representatives of various kinds of devices as well as the higher-priced, in order that the librarians of small and poorly supported libraries may find much in the exhibit that will be serviceable to them. The scope of the exhibit has been extended somewhat beyond the field of labor-saving devices as this term is properly understood, for it seemed desirable to show as comprehensive a display as pos

sible of general library furniture and equipment. Filing and indexing devices, stacks and shelving, charging desks and catalog cases, and as many as possible of the numerous small appliances and supplies needed in connection with the library routine have, therefore, been included. A great many small office and desk appliances which it seemed desirable to display could not be obtained under the same arrangements which were made with most of the exhibitors, because the devices were so small and inexpensive that it would not pay the manufacturer to send representatives to take charge of their display. Manufacturers of such devices have, therefore, been invited to send whatever they have for exhibition in care of the secretary of the exhibit, to be displayed and demonstrated at a very low cost under his direction. The responses to this invitation have been satisfactory and it is believed that the display of small and inexpensive devices will be interesting and profitable.

One of the earliest points to be decided was the question of how to meet expenses without receiving any profit, as the Executive Board had approved the suggestion of holding the exhibit on the understanding that the Association should not incur any expense and on the other hand that the exhibit should not be considered as a source of profit. Charges to exhibitors were, therefore, fixed at the lowest possible figure which would enable us to clear expenses without possibility of loss through unforeseen expenses at the last moment. After carefully estimating the expenses which would be incurred in connection with the exhibit, the charge for floor space was fixed at 13 cents per square foot. The charge for the demonstration of small devices sent in care of the committee was fixed at from one to five dollars according to the number of devices sent, the space they would occupy, and the care they would require. These prices prove to have been well suited to the purpose,