Mr. MEYER. Yes; and it would depend upon a book like that [indicating] say it is 2 pounds, the rate we want would be 5 cents. The rates that are established are given in that table, and they will run as high as 26 cents in remote zones. There is a saving of 20 cents on one volume, and that means that if that reduction is made that where they now buy one they could then buy more.

Senator MCMASTER. You stated that you bought your books in quantity, and consequently they come by freight, I take it. Mr. MEYER. That is in the case of fiction only.

Senator MCMASTER. And the larger part of the books in public libraries are fiction.

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Senator MCMASTER. Books of fiction come by freight, so that under this bill you would not lose or make anything, that is, as to fiction?

Mr. MEYER. No; but that is

Senator MCMASTER (interposing). In other words, when we limit you down to actual facts, the proposed reduced rates would apply principally to scientific books that are purchased in small quantities?

Mr. MEYER. We want to increase the purchase of those, and want the advantage of every penny you can give us.

Senator MCMASTER. If we pin you down to the facts it is only a small percentage of the books contained in the public libraries that would be affected by these proposed rates?

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Senator McMASTER. That is all I wanted to know.

Mr. MEYER. But I should like for the committee to understand that we think that is a significant amount, and I think the example that I mentioned there, in the case of a saving of 20 cents on a single volume, shows how much it might amount to.

Senator BROOKHART. Are the most of these books sold to libraries plus transportation costs?

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Senator MCKELLAR. Do you buy them in that way?

Mr. MEYER. Oh, well, in the Congressional Library, we get copyright copies and only have to buy extra copies.

Senator MCKELLAR. And when you buy is the postage added to the price of the books?

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Do libraries get a discount?

Mr. MEYER. I believe libraries get a 10 per cent discount, do they not?

Mr. HILTMAN. Yes.

Senator MCKELLAR. I was wondering about a book that cost you $2, and say you get it for $1.80, and it costs you 5 cents more to send it by parcel post as it would be sent now, do you mean to say that they would charge you $1.85 for it?

Mr. MEYER. No, sir; they would charge $1.80.

Senator MCKELLAR. In other words, there the postage is included in the price?

Mr. MEYER. Oh, no; do not misunderstand me, the price is $1.80 and the additional charge is for transportation, whatever that may be. So that the library or the individual customer pays the transportation charges. Now, as to the individual book buyer and reader,

libraries are interested in them more than ever before. The whole adult education movement, which is represented very widely all over the United States, is not confined to library work, but is very largely occupied with bringing individual books to individual readers all over the country. These individual readers pay this charge, whatever it may be, and the more remotely they are located from the centers of distribution, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the more they have to pay. That seems to us, seems to all libraries, an unfair handicap on the individual who lives at a distance from the centers of publication.

Senator MCKELLAR. NOW, Mr. Meyer, if this is a lower rate than it would cost the Government to handle the business, then you would have the Government lose that amount?

Mr. MEYER. Personally, and I think I can speak for a large section of the libraries, I would answer yes to that.

Senatro McKELLAR. If that is the case it would benefit the book readers or the book buyers, and carrying it further and speaking in behalf of those for whom you speak, if we should carry that reduction further, would it not be better that we recommend that the Government distribute these books free of any charge at all?

Mr. MEYER. Well, I think that would be bad policy, because I think if you make a little charge for a service it is more significant, it is more highly valued than if you do it free. You do that to a certain extent, as in the case of books for the blind, they are sent all over the country.

Senator MCKELLAR. But that is on a very different principle.

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir, and the reason for that, of course, is obvious, being a reason I think which does not obtain in the case of the ordinary citizen and in the case of the ordinary book.

Senator BROOKHART. If we would print these scientific books down at the Government Printing Office and send them out at cost it would reduce it greatly to the reader.

Mr. MEYER. You are doing that a great deal now, as to these scientific books that are being produced in the Agricultural Department and in other departments. Those go out to the country at cost of printing. But the ordinary publisher can not do that.

Senator BROOKHART. Is not that the best distribution of scientific knowledge, what we are doing now in the Government Printing Office?

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir; but the ordinary writer of scientific books can not get his material published in the Government Printing Office, and he has to look to the ordinary channels of distribution. And if you know, the Government does not allow a bookseller any profit on the distribution of Government publications, so that books published by the Government can not be sold by the retail bookseller, except at a loss of all the work and time and cost of transportation that he puts into it. Well, of course they mail them from the Government Printing Office under frank, but there is some additional cost to the individual who handles the books for the buyer. It is only the Government that can stand that loss. That is what the Government contributes to education and the scientific advancement of the country, in that they publish such books at a very low rate. Senator BROOKHART. Would it not be well for us to develop that sort of distribution more than we are doing it now?

Mr. MEYER. I think decidedly it would, but inasmuch as we are not using that method universally we are asking for a reduction to the individual bookbuyer and to the libraries.

Senator COPELAND. Has it occurred to you gentlemen of the committee how the American is discriminated against in that a two-pound book may be sent to China or Japan at a cost of 16 cents, while if it is sent to Iowa it cost 19 cents, if sent to the Dakotas it costs 23 cents, or if sent to the eighth zone, it costs 26 cents.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, those figures are not the result of legislation. Those are the results of a postal convention.

Senator COPELAND. Yes, but nevertheless that is a fact.

Senator BROOKHART. We have some book printers out in Iowa that do not pay anything. They print them right there. I do not think that it is fair for New York to have all of the book printers.

Senator MCMASTER. I think that water transportation has a good deal to do with that, and when you help us to get inland water transportation it will help us.

Senator COPELAND. And I am going to help you get that. And I want you to help me get this, so that we may work together. I have not hesitated, you know, in voting with you on that proposition. Senator MCMASTER. That is absolutely correct.

Senator COPELAND. Therefore, I hope you will consider this matter here. Take the case of Woodrow Wilson's Life and Letters, two volumes, and they are sent out at the rate of 112 cents a pound as published in the press, and when we go to buy it in book form it costs the person who may wish to read it in that form 11 cents to 62 cents postage. The same way with the Coolidge books, Foundations of the Republic, and The Price of Freedom. You would have to pay postal charges on these of from 10 to 50 cents; whereas you can send out the same weight of periodical reading matter to any part of the country for 6 cents.

Mr. MEYER. In order to illustrate the interest that the individual book buyer all over the country has in this matter, I should like for you gentlemen of the committee to look at some of these books which I will now distribute. These are published by the American Library Association, and they are prepared at the request of the association by the most eminent scientists, historians, and literary men that we can get to do the work. We are now publishing very large editions of them. They go to libraries where they are used as a basis of study by the readers. They go to the individual book buyers all over the country in increasing numbers, and especially to the more remote sections. I will not say anything about the rural communities, but I agree with both Senator McMaster and Senator Brookhart that the illiteracy of those two States is less than other States. And I believe that Iowa stands at the head.

Senator BROOKHART. Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa and Minnesota, there is not much difference. There is no substantial difference there. But I believe that Iowa did stand at the head.

Mr. MEYER. But the more remote regions of the West are making abundant use of these little books. You will notice one difference from the ordinary book list, that the whole volume is not made of a list of books. As Doctor Johnson once stated: "If you want to lay out a list of books for yourself to read the chances are you will lay yourself out." These are confined to half a dozen titles, and as they

are outstanding books on those subjects, then there is some matter to direct the reader's attention to the points to be brought out in these books. It is not a very overwhelming thing for the ordinary citizen to map out a subject of that kind and read six books. But if his income is limited he finds the burden of the postal rate as it now stands pretty heavy, especially if he is away out in the West.

Senator MCMASTER. What would be the postage on this little book?

Mr. MEYER. That I do not know. It probably would not be over 6 or 7 cents. I believe I have had some come under 8 cents. Now, with the new rate that would go for 3 cents. Under the new rate it would result in a greater initial circulation of these books.

Senator COPELAND. This would be a feeding of the appetite.
Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Senator COPELAND. And would create a desire for more substantial books.

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir. And mostly they come into the hands of men of more limited income, and there the saving of 5 cents counts. And there is another aspect which it seems to me ought to appeal to legislators, and that is that there is no question about it that our increased skill in adapting mechanical applicanes to the ordinary affairs of life is going to increase our leisure. How are you going to use that increased leisure? Is it to be invaluable historical and scientific study, or to be spent in the movies or listenting to jazz and other things of that sort? I do not know of anything at present before the country that offers such a good outlet, or would make such a good use of this increased leisure that is bound to come. Senator Brookhart spoke of the farmer being seriously handicapped now, and there is no doubt about it, because our investigations in the Library of Congress indicate that to be the case.

Senator COPELAND. Why not put into the hearings the figures that 44 per cent of the total population of the United States, or 50,000,000 persons, are without access to public libraries?

Mr. MEYER. Yes; and it is to those individuals that this little pamphlet that the Library Association is putting out makes its appeal. Our plea is now to reduce the rate so that the people in remote districts can get books at the very lowest cost. If a man in a remote district with no library facilities has $6 to devote to buying books, and he has to spend $1.20 of it for postage, why in that case of course he is going to buy one or two less books.

Senator BROOKHART. Is the delivery of books through rural parcel post restricted now by the high rates, do you think?

Mr. MEYER. We think it is; yes, sir. It is a deterrent always when you put a slight tax on a thing. That is what this rate amounts to.

The CHAIRMAN. Aren't you taken care of by paragraph (d) of this bill, providing for a rate of 3 cents for the first pound and 2 cents for each additional pound for books sent by libraries or organizations or associations not organized for profit?

Mr. MEYER. Yes; but these 44 per cent that I speak of do not have access to libraries.

The CHAIRMAN. But they will get books through the mails under this provision, will they not?

Mr. MEYER. No; because libraries are not near enough to them to do that.

Senator MCMASTER. Well, then, that corrects your first statement to the effect that even scientific books have a special rate to your libraries, so that your libraries will not benefit especially by this

measure.

Mr. MEYER. I did not quite get your point, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. No; this is from libraries.

Senator MCMASTER. Why could not that be amended to read to and from?

The CHAIRMAN. It is not from the publisher to the library, but from the library to the user and from the user back to the library again.

Mr. MEYER. And, as I understand it, that only operates through the first three zones, which leaves out the very individuals that we want to reach, at remote points.

The CHAIRMAN. Are they not now reached through your circulating libraries?

Mr. MEYER. No, sir; because that is usually a local affair, supported by local taxation. A library in Iowa, for instance, does not distribute books to people in Kansas or in Nebraska. It must limit its operations to its own State.

Senator COPELAND. And they are limited because there are only 3,000 public libraries in the country.

Mr. MEYER. Yes; but that statement I made needs this amendment, that the library at the University of Kansas would lend books to the library of the University of Nebraska, and that loaning of books is going on in that way all over the country, and it would not affect that, but that is limited. But as soon as there is a demand made for an ordinary book for the ordinary reader it is refused. The Library of Congress is engaged in loaning books, but we do not loan the ordinary book; it is the rare book that is used by the scholarly person that we send through the mails and by frank.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you anything further to say?

Mr. MEYER. There is one point. I stated that our interest was threefold, and the last one is, the interest we have in the welfare of the publishers. The more books the publishers publish, and I hope the more money they make, the better will be the output, they will produce a better grade of book, and they will publish more scientific books than now because they can afford then to do it. And if the reduction in postage results in an increased sale of books by publishers, their profits will be greater and their ability to do this very good work will be increased.

Senator BROOKHART. I think that is all right except that part as to increasing profits. I do not think there is anything in that; that is the great effort of our times, excess profits.

Senator COPELAND. Is it true that only about 7 per cent of the titles and only about 15 per cent of the total volume of books published in the United States comprises current fiction?

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir.

Senator COPELAND. And 85 per cent of the books published are of a more serious nature.

Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir. That statement as it stands is a little misleading in this way: If you were to put all the fiction in one side of