New Jersey, West Virginia, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia, and their total area is approximately 155,970 square miles, or 50 per cent of the square mileage of United States of 3,026,789. Now, in this area there is a population of 29,411,737, or 23 per cent of the total population of United States of 118,628,000; so that in a territory comprising 5 per cent of the area and 23 per cent of the population, 70 per cent of all general books published are absorbed. It would be interesting to show the percentage of literacy in book knowledge in this area as compared with the balance of the country, if the figures were available.

Senator BROOKHART. About this illiteracy business. While in some sections it is high in the rural districts, yet I think Iowa has about the lowest percentage of any State in the country.

Senator MCMASTER. And we were second in the percentage as to rural population.

Mr. HILTMAN. All right, there are exceptions.

Senator MCMASTER. So I take exception to that proposition. Senator SCHALL. Minnesota has less than 1 per cent of illiteracy. Senator BROOKHART. And it is not lacking in literacy because it is out in the country.

Senator MCMASTER. I think if you will come back to New York you will find more illiteracy right there in the city.

Mr. HILTMAN. I agree with you. I have stated that there are large groups of foreign people in the large cities, and still there is considerable illiteracy in the country districts.

Senator MCKELLAR. Yes; more in some of the rural districts than in others.

Mr. HILTMAN. Yes, sir. That book publishers are centered in this section is of importance in considering the book purchases in it, because if the publishers were centered in Chicago, for example, there is little doubt but that the percentage would be changed materially. All this leads to the conclusion that high postage rates on books prevent their being freely distributed throughout the country. Please bear in mind that with 52,000 post offices and 27,000 railroad stations there are but 500 bookstores carrying regular lines of books and only 2,500 where books may be purchased. So the mail is the logical and practically the only means of book distribution. The relatively few bookstores are in the larger centers, cities of 50,000 population or over, many having large groups of foreign born. Still the proportion of illiterates 21 years old and over is greater in the rural districts, being 9.5 per cent as compared with 5.5 per cent in urban districts supplied with bookstores and libraries. That is comething to consider.

Senator MCMASTER. Take Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, all agricultural States, and with less illiteracy than practically in any other States in the Union.

Senator BROOKHART. And all a rural population.

Mr. HILTMAN. Well, the figures are open to comparison by the 1920 census.

Senator BROOKHART. The trouble is that you average in there the southern negro population where the greatest percentage of illiteracy is and call that rural, but that does not represent the average rural United States.

Mr. HILTMAN. Well, but you take the foreign population in the large centers and that to a considerable extent offsets the colored population in the South.

Senator BROOKHART. But we are not letting in a lot of foreign illiterates now.

Mr. HILTMAN. No; but you will find that that is all detailed in the United States census for 1920. And as I read it I confess that it astounded me, because I felt the reverse was true.

Senator MCMASTER. I do not know about Iowa, or anywhere else, but in South Dakota every person having reached the age of 18 years must be able to read the Constitution of the United States in English, and must pass that examination. They are forced to be able to do it under the law. They can not go past the age of 18 without being able to read the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. HILTMAN. And what do you do if they are not able to do it? Senator MCMASTER. They are obliged to attend night school. Under the law they are obliged to do it. They are compelled to do it or are denied the right of citizenship.

Mr. HILTMAN. That is right, and right there you are building book readers and yet you are not giving them an opportunity to get books when they want them.

Senator MCMASTER. But I am refuting your statement as to illiteracy, by showing that in the agricultural sections, at least in South Dakota, the law compels them to do that. I do not think you have a law like that in the State of New York, have you?

Mr. HILTMAN. No, sir; we have not. But, as I have said, you Western States are building book readers and yet not giving them an opportunity to get books when they want them. That is the contention I am making.

Books are permanent instruction for the people. Periodicals have but fugitive value in this respect and many of them specialize in fiction which, as you have been told, is but 7 per cent of the book titles published. There is a growing demand for serious books of permanent, educational value that should be fostered by the Government. Book knowledge provides the fdunamental basis upon which governments are founded and there should be no barrier raised to prevent the free acquisition by the people of the knowledge upon which the future of the Government depends.

Senator MCKELLAR. What I am complaining about is that you are charging too much for books.

Mr. HILTMAN. I should be very glad if you would come some time. to my office and look over our books and see where we can cut down any.

The CHAIRMAN. Take your Appleton books, and what percentage of your total number of volumes goes by freight?

Mr. HILTMAN. By freight?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. HILTMAN. I should say 60 per cent.

The CHAIRMAN. And how much by express?

Mr. HILTMAN. I should say at least 25 per cent or 30 per cent go. by express.

The CHAIRMAN. And you choose that mode of transportation because the rate is lower.

Mr. HILTMAN. Yes, sir. We have a flat rate by express.

The CHAIRMAN. I am informed that the rate that the Copeland bill sets on books to the last four zones is less than the carload freight rate to those zones.

Mr. HILTMAN. That is not correct. My recollection is that the freight rate from New York to the Pacific coast by water is 75 cents per hundred pounds or $1 per hundred pounds and the rail competition is over $2, so that this would be more than dollar per hundred pounds greater than the freight rate by water. That is my recollection of the rates in carload lots.

Senator MCKELLAR. Where would you expect the Government to come in?

Mr. LUCAS. It is $2.28 from New York to the Pacific seaboard. Mr. HILTMAN. Well, in the same way that publishers make their profits. We do some business at a loss, and the Government should do some business at a loss or at least at no profit to themselves. could carry books to the coast if your chose

You

Senator MCKELLAR (interposing). You would not want the Government to carry your books at a loss, would you?

Mr. HILTMAN. I should not say so; no; and yet

Senator MCKELLAR (interposing). It is not necessary for the Government to give you that bounty or subsidy, if you please. You are á practical business man, and do you think it fair and just to the taxpayers of this country for the Government to carry your books at a rate that would mean practically a subsidy to you?

Mr. HILTMAN. No, sir; and we are not asking for it.
Senator McKELLAR. That is what this bill asks.

Mr. HILTMAN. It is not a subsidy to us at all. If it is a subsidy at all it is to the public. We do not pay the transportation charges. Senator MCKELLAR. Then why bother about it?

Mr. HILTMAN. Because of public interest. Don't you believe in a wider dissemination of knowledge to the rural districts?

Senator MCKELLAR. Yes; but if I thought it was going to the people I would have a different opinion about it, but I think if we should revise this rate the subsidy would go to you.

Mr. HILTMAN. It would not go to us, I can assure you. It would go to the public directly in giving them books at a lower cost than they can get them now.

Senator MCKELLAR. Why don't you ask us to take it off entirely? Mr. HILTMAN. Why don't you do the same thing with other things that you are carrying at less than cost? At the same time as the volume of business grows the cost of production decreases and automatically the cost of books would decrease.

Senator MCKELLAR. With the high prices for books, and so long as you have combinations, and so long as you are sending out lobbyists to the legislatures, I am frank to tell you that your plea does not find any response from me.

Mr. HILTMAN. Of course I have said all I can to you about there not being combinations or lobbyists.

Senator COPELAND. This comes out of the people. The people pay this cost, and there is no question about it. There is nothing more important that I can see than the cheap dissemination of good literature. It is a pathetic thing to me

Senator MCKELLAR (interposing). The gentleman has just testified that prices are as high as during the war.

Senator COPELAND. You mean as to the books themselves. That is not the question we are discussing.

Senator MCKELLAR. It is a question that the people are interested in, the prices at which they can get the books. You can not disseminate knowledge unless the people can get cheap books.

Senator COPELAND. If this statement contained in this brief is a true statement, that 70 per cent of the books published in this country other than schoolbooks are absorbed within the environs of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City, it is a pathetic situation and should be remedied.

Senator MCMASTER. More particularly on account of its results it is pathetic.

Senator COPELAND. I think it is true and I am with you on that. Perhaps we do not read the right kind of books; that may be true, but when these books are published and sent out, if in a magazine they are sent very cheaply, because they come under a different schedule, but when put in book form they are confined to one section of the country, they are not spread out.

I understand that just before I came in something was said about literacy. Well, of course literacy is greater in Massachusetts than in any other State of the Union, and less in Kansas than in any other State in the Union.

Senator BROOKHART. Not greater than in Iowa.

Senator COPELAND. So it is not a question of locality, this matter of literacy. I think it is an unfair thing to put upon the people because they happen to be way off from the centers of publication, this added cost for dissemination of these books. And when you find that you can actually send by express, if this statement on page 7 of the brief can be relied upon, at very much less than by parcel post, why is it? Why is the charge very much less by express than the charge by mail for the dissemination of these books? I think it is time for us to revise our schedule and make it possible to send these books cheaply. I know that I felt it when I was buying books in my profession, because I paid the extra cost.

Senator MCKELLAR. If there were a proposal here to reduce the price of books in event we gave this bounty in the way of a reduction of postage rates, there would be something in it. But these gentlemen are going to charge, and they show by their action that they are charging more for books now than ever.

Senator COPELAND. It is not fair to term this a bounty. You would not want to say that of the whole postal business, would you? Senator MCKELLAR. Oh, well, we will not call it a bounty but something else. But, anyhow, if the people were going to get their books cheaper you would have a proposition that we could consider. But I have heard no suggestion of the people getting their books cheaper, and they are paying more for them right now, as I stated before you came in, and I am utterly astonished at the prices that one has to pay for books when you go into a bookstore. It can only be accounted for in my judgment by the fact that there must be a gentlemen's agreement or a combination or a trust among the various book concerns to sell their books at an increased price.

Senator COPELAND. Well, of course, that is a different question, and if it exists it can be dealt with by another department of the Government.

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Mr. HILTMAN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will now hear Mr. Meyer, representing the American Library Association.

STATEMENT OF HERMAN H. B. MEYER, OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, DIRECTOR OF THE LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE

Mr. MEYER. I am here representing the American Library Association. That is a learned and professional association and has no business interest whatsoever in this question. Our interest is in seeing that books reach readers at the very lowest prices possible. If the cost of transportation, which is borne by the reader or the library or the school, is great it means that their purchasing power is so much less and the burden is on the people, on the library, and on the school.

Our interest in this matter is really threefold: First, the interest of the libraries themselves. There is hardly a library in the country that is not operating on an insufficient budget, and every cent that they can save is so much to their advantage.

Of course most public libraries still buy more fiction in proportion to other books, but other books representing the more learned output of the country, are now handicapped because of the initial cost, because it is great, and to that is added the cost of transportation. The ordinary library gets books in quantity from the publishers, by express or freight, but the higher class of books mostly come by mail.

Senator MCMASTER. May I ask a question right there?
Mr. MEYER. Certainly.

Senator MCMASTER. Take the average book weighing about twice this volume of the House committee hearings

Senator MCKELLAR (interposing). That is, take the book there before you.

Senator MCMASTER. Yes; a pamphlet of that size coming from New York to the mid-west, supposing that the cost was a dollar to the publisher, how much would that decrease the cost of that book to the library, if you had these rates in effect?

Mr. MEYER. By whatever the rate is decreased.

Senator McMASTER. How much would that be?

Mr. MEYER. A few cents.

Senator MCMASTER. How many cents?

Mr. MEYER. I do not know, but it would be a few cents.
Senator MCMASTER. Do you know exactly how much?

Mr. MEYER. No, but that is a matter easy of determination, because it would be reached by a comparison of the old rate with the one that we want reported. As I understand it is about 21⁄2 to 9 cents.

Senator MCMASTER. You are arguing simply from the standpoint that you think if there is a reduction here there will be a reduction in the cost of books. That is to say, you do not know whether it will be 3 cents on this book or 5 cents or how much it is?

Senator COPELAND. But he knows it will certainly be something. Mr. HILTMAN. It depends on the zone, of course.