legislative changes in salary ranges prescribed by the act of August 1, 1942.

Mr. LYNN. Yes, sir; there are no other changes.

Mr. O'NEAL. What about the turn-over in the personnel of the Botanic Gardens?

Mr. HENLOCK. We would have to withdraw the increases asked for 1944, if the decision rests on the basis of the employment conditions that have obtained so far in 1943.

Mr. O'NEAL. How much turn-over have you had there?

Mr. HENLOCK. We have averaged three vacancies.

Mr. O'NEAL. For how long a time do they extend?

Mr. HENLOCK. When I say an avearge of three vacancies, I mean that when you add up the number of positions open every month for the 6-month period involved and divide the total by the number of months, you would have the average of 3 vacancies for the first half of the fiscal year.

Mr. O'NEAL. Your lapses would amount to about the salary of three men for 1 year. Your increases, according to the justifications, amount to about $1,361; is that right?

Mr. HENLOCK. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'NEAL. The salaries of three men would be considerably more than that?

Mr. HENLOCK. Yes, sir. The minimum rate is $1,320 for the general laborers and assistant gardeners at the Gardens.

Mr. O'NEAL. That would cover about one of the lapses. In other words, it would be safe to take off a good deal of that?

Mr. HENLOCK. We have the same problem here as at the Library, in that this is an outright salary appropriation.

Mr. O'NEAL. I suppose if you had 48 people employed you would probably have continuous employment of 45. There is probably not so much absenteeism there as in some other places.

Mr. JOHNSON. Are there any deferments in this employment? Mr. HENLOCK. No, sir; there have been none asked for any of the Garden employees.

MAINTENANCE, OPERATION, REPAIRS AND IMPROVEMENTS

Mr. O'NEAL. The next item, on page 87 of the committee print, is for maintenance, operation, repairs and improvements, for which the appropriation for 1943 was $23,125. You are requesting the same amount for 1944.

Mr. LYNN. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'NEAL. How has this been running, as far as the fiscal year 1943 is concerned? You have the break-down on page 3 of the justi fications?

Mr. LYNN. Yes, sir.

TRAVEL EXPENSE

Mr. O'NEAL. You have spent nothing for travel for the first 6 months of this fiscal year, although you have an appropriation of $275. Mr. LYNN. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'NEAL. Do you need any travel at this time for botanical purposes?

Mr. LYNN. Of course, from time to time we have to send our horticulturist to different nurseries in connection with the procurement of plant material. Last year we spent $105 for this item.

TRANSPORTATION OF THINGS

Mr. O'NEAL. What about the item for transportation of things, for which you have spent nothing in the first 6 months of this fiscal year, and you are only asking for $50 for 1944?

Mr. LYNN. That is an annual item. The expenditure varies somewhat from year to year.

COMMUNICATION SERVICE

Mr. O'NEAL. For communication service the estimate for 1944 is $100, which is the same as the amount appropriated for 1943. Does that cover telephone charges?

Mr. LYNN. It provides for telephone service at the nursery, longdistance official calls, and official telegrams.

Mr. O'NEAL. You spent $33 for the first 6 months of this fiscal year?

Mr. LYNN. Yes, sir; and $75 last year, and $92 the year before.

UTILITY SERVICES

Mr. O'NEAL. For utility services (electricity) the appropriation for 1943 was $200, and you are requesting the same amount for the next fiscal year. You spent $21 for the first 6 months of 1943. Is that for lights?

Mr. HENLOCK. It covers current for lighting, and electric power for the pumps at the nursery, which circulate water in the heating system, which is not the usual gravity type.

Mr. LYNN. We furnish electricity for the garden proper from the Capitol power plant. This expenditure is at the nurseries.

Mr. O'NEAL. There is no reason why that should run to a larger amount in the spring than in the fall, is there?

Mr. HENLOCK. Yes, sir; each year it generally runs from $20 to $50 for the first half, and over $100 for the second half.

OTHER CONTRACTUAL SERVICES

Mr. O'NEAL. What can you tell us about the item for other contractual services for which the amount appropriated for 1943 was $3,600, and for which the same amount is being requested for 1944. Of that amount you have spent $967 in the first 6 months of this fiscal year.

What are these other contractual services?

Mr. LYNN. Other contractual services consist of two subitems, repairs and alterations, for which the amount is $3,500, and miscellaneous current expenses, for which the amount is $100.

Mr. O'NEAL. That looks to me like it is a high figure for the buildings you have there. Do you not think that could be trimmed, Mr. Lynn?

Mr. LYNN. No, sir; in 1941 we spent $2,085 and in 1942 we spent $3,996. In 1943 we have spent in the first 6 months $952.

Ever since the severe flood in September 1942, the Poplar Point nursery has been under water, and extensive repairs to the roadways and structures will have to be made in the spring, or at such later date as the high water may recede. In order to meet the urgent expenses necessary to be made during the second half of the fiscal year 1943, it has been necessary to forego part of the expenditures usually made during the first half of the fiscal year for repairs and improvements.

Mr. JOHNSON. Is this a general situation there?

Mr. FREDERICK. No; I may say it is not. We have had an unusual year. During the past year we transferred for the duration of the war, approximately half of our nursery property to the Navy for

war use.

Mr. LYNN. The transfer is only a temporary arrangement.

Mr. JOHNSON. If it is going to be under water, would it not be just as well to give it all to the Navy? You cannot grow plants under water, can you?

Mr. FREDERICK. Conditions are rather unusual down there

Mr. JOHNSON. What did that condition do to the plants you had growing there?

Mr. FREDERICK. We lost quite a number.

Mr. JOHNSON. Can you not get a better location?

Mr. FREDERICK. The flooding of the nursery is a condition that is not likely to occur again. It has been remedied, and I doubt whether it will occur for many years, if ever again.

SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS

Mr. O'NEAL. The next item is for supplies and materials, for which the estimate for 1944 is $8,025. Will you tell us about that, Mr. Lynn?

Mr. LYNN. This item is the same as the amount allotted for 1943. It provides all miscellaneous materials and supplies for the garden and the nursery, including coal, electric supplies, flower pots, and tubs, gas and oil for motor vehicles and tractors, hardware and tools, labels and boxes, manure and fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, and scalecides, medical and office supplies, paint, brushes, periodicals books and towels.

Mr. O'NEAL. You have spent an amount equal to the estimate in only 1 year out of the last 5. Do you not think that amount could be reduced? It is going to be very difficult to get those things.

Mr. FREDERICK. It is going to be very difficult to get some of them; but as you will note, we are spending at the rate of $7,500 per year for 1943.

EQUIPMENT INCLUDING PLANT MATERIAL

Mr. O'NEAL. The next item is for equipment, including plant material, for which the estimate for 1944 is $10,375. What can you tell us about that?

Mr. LYNN. This is the same amount that was allotted for 1943. It covers the purchase of all equipment, including plant material

for the main garden, the new conservatory and Poplar Point nursery, and there is a break-down on page 7 of the justifications.

Mr. O'NEAL. Do you think that item could be reduced, Mr. Frederick? Certainly at this time it will be difficult to carry this on as in normal times.

Mr. FREDERICK. We have spent at the rate of $9,900 for the first half of this fiscal year, due largely to the increased prices now obtaining. This estimate of $10,000 covers all items of equipment required at the garden and nursery; plant material, office equipment, tools, mowers, sprayers, hose, moss, soil, and miscellaneous equipment.

NON STRUCTURAL IMPROVEMENTS AND STRUCTURES

Mr. O'NEAL. You have an item for nonstructural improvements and structures, for which the estimate is $500 for 1944. What do you plan to build? It provides for filling, grading, fencing, construction of roadways around the hothouses and the nursery, curbing, and so forth. Will you have any of that going on this year, Mr. Frederick? Mr. FREDERICK. It will be almost impossible to get some of those items which are contemplated under the estimate.

Mr. O'NEAL. It seems to me that should take a small cut too, should it not?

Thank you very much, Mr. Lynn.

MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1943.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

STATEMENTS OF ARCHIBALD MacLEISH, THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS; DR. LUTHER H. EVANS, CHIEF ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN; HERMAN H. HENKLE, DIRECTOR, PROCESSING DEPARTMENT; VERNER W. CLAPP, DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATIVE DEPARTMENT; DAVID C. MEARNS, REFERENCE LIBRARIAN; DR. ERNEST S. GRIFFITH, DIRECTOR, LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE SERVICE; JOHN T. VANCE, LAW LIBRARIAN; DR. HAROLD SPIVACKE, CHIEF, MUSIC DIVISION; JOHN MORIARTY, CHIEF, ACCESSIONS DIVISIONS; EDGAR F. ROGERS, DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL; AND FRANCIS X. DWYER, ASSISTANT LAW LIBRARIAN

Mr. O'NEAL. We will take up this morning the items for the Library of Congress.

We have with us Mr. MacLeish, who is the head of what we consider the greatest library in the world, and several of his associates and assistants.

Mr. MacLeish, I think it might be well, inasmuch as most of the members of the subcommittee are new on this subcommittee, that you introduce the members of your staff and tell us who they are, so we may be able to identify them.

(Mr. MacLeish introduced the members of his staff as noted in the above heading.)

Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. MacLeish, have you a general statement in reference to the work of the Library and its progress, which you care to make first, before we start our examination of the individual items? Mr. MACLEISH. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would like to do that.

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS IN SUPPORT OF THE LIBRARY'S ESTIMATES FOR FISCAL YEAR 1944

I should like to make one general observation about the estimates we present here today-an observation which has, I think, a special importance this year. The budget of the Government's Library differs from most other departmental budgets in this important particularthat it represents not only the cost of rendering a service but the cost of safeguarding an investment. A government library exists to render a service-an essential service-a service without which a modern government cannot operate effectively in peace or, even more, in war. But a library is also a collection of books and other materials representing an investment of value. And the first duty of those who are charged with the responsibility of administering a library is to safeguard and protect that investment for its owners-which means, in the case of the Library of Congress, for the Members of the Congress of the United States as the representatives of the people of the United States, present and future, to whom this Library belongs.

What the investment of the people of this country in the collections of the Library of Congress amounts to in dollars, it is impossible to say, because the value of the collections of the Library is quite literally beyond computation. Single items in the Library's collections are valued on the basis of actual sales at hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Gutenberg Bible, for example, was sold at $250,000 before the Library purchased it. But other treasures in the collections are above all sales value, for they have never been sold and could never be sold. What, for example, is the value to the American people of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?

It is unnecessary to labor the point, except to say that what is true of these familiar treasures is true again and again throughout the collections. Among our early American imprints, among our maps, our music, our Chinese collections, our files of newspapers and periodicals, our Hispanic materials, our prints, our lawbooks, are volumes, pages, pamphlets, diaries, sheets of paper which exist nowhere else in the world, which cannot be purchased and which stand, therefore, above all value. Estimates have, of course, been made. Experts familiar with our holdings have valued them anywhere from $50,000,000 to $300,000,000. But we who have been through the difficult, the almost impossible, labor of selecting for special protection in time of war the most valuable parts of our holdings will perhaps be forgiven if we find these computations almost ridiculously inadequate.

We are, as a result of that work, more immediately familiar with the treasures of the collection than other librarians have been for half a century. We know what it means to be obliged to choose between the books and manuscripts and other materials of the Library of Congress. And though we have no means ourselves of putting money