it is now responsible.

The staff must now service materials from work areas 5 times as large as those of 10 years ago. It has approximately 10 floors of law book decks to control now-more than double the number of what it used to have. It is not possible to keep the shelves in this largely increased space in order without the help of new deck attendants. Personnel of this type is also needed to help label and mark the books, to read and shift shelves. There is a vast mass of unbound materials on the law decks, notably war crimes trials materials and the records and briefs in cases in the Federal courts, which must be organized and brought under control. Additional deck attendants are necessary to remedy this situation.

It is really tragic that the greatest repository of English and American law and of the law of Europe, South America, and Asia should be handicapped in this way and unable to keep its priceless collection of materials in such order and system as to make them readily available and usable by the American bar and by the United States Government, merely for the lack of the necessary manpower and womanpower to keep the materials currently organized.

Such housekeeping is the indispensable function of any good library. The facilities committee of the American Bar Association strongly urges that your subcommittee act favorably on the modest requests of the Library of Congress for appropriations for this vital purpose.

Finally, the facilities committee wishes to record its thanks to your subcommittee for the endorsement you gave last year, and I believe in previous years, to our recommendation for the establishment of a Far Eastern Law Section in the Law Library. A good beginning has already been made in this field. The Far Eastern Law Section has been established and a very important collection of books and materials has been assembled. This section will justify itself abundantly if properly implemented with funds. Its establishment has spread the reference work of the Law Library to one of the most vital parts of the world today.

However, I must record, with disappointment, that while your subcommittee, in its report on the supplementary appropriation bill submitted to the Congress on August 24, 1950, approved our recommendation for the establishment of the Far Eastern Law Section, you did not, in your view of the need for greater economy on a national scale, approve the appropriation of an additional funds for that purpose. I understand that again last year your subcommittee definitely approved the establishment of the Far Eastern Section but that Congress so far has made no appropriation and no additional funds have yet been appropriated to implement that recommended purpose.

It seems to us, however, to be false economy for Congress to fail to appropriate reasonable sums for the personnel and I may say that this is rather low-paid personnel to which I am referring necessary to continue the work of this important Far Eastern Section.

Also, I must record that our committee of the American Bar Association has so far been unsuccessful in its efforts to persuade Congress to appropriate adequate funds to add two more members to the staff of the Center of Latin American Studies of the Law Library. We earnestly hope that your subcommittee will seriously reconsider all these matters at this time.

Mr. HORAN. Thank you, Mr. Alderman.

Mr. Bow. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, just 1 or 2 questions of Mr. Alderman, and make some observations?

Mr. HORAN. Surely.

Mr. Bow. I was very much interested in the Far Eastern Law Library.

I might say to you, sir, that I have been a member of the American Bar Association for many years, and practiced law for some 25 years before coming to Congress, and have been on the executive committee of the Ohio Bar Association and vice president of the Ohio Bar Association, and I recognize the need for this Far East Law Library.

On page 180 of the hearings of last year are my questions on the matter, and this committee did direct the Library of Congress to establish and carry out the Far East Law Library under the appropriations of last year.

I would like to quote from the report of the committee of last year to this effect:

There is no doubt that the proper knowledge of the laws of these countries has become increasingly important during the last few years, both to Government and private business. The committee will expect that this law section will be established within funds allowed.

Mr. ALDERMAN. That is right.

Mr. Bow. But, it has not been done. It was the direction of this committee that it be done.

Since it has not been done, it is not the fault of this committee or of the Congress, and I might say to you, sir, that if the Library of Congress would confine itself to some of the work that the Library of Congress should be doing, rather than putting out limericks, witchcraft as to how to cure warts, by getting the sod of Nebraska and rubbing it on, and a few other matters of that kind, then I think these other proper and important functions of a Congressional Library would be followed out.

I wanted to point out to you, sir, that we are familiar with this. I do not believe these people are so underpaid, and it is the desire of this committee, at least, this member of this committee, that we have a good law library, and that we carry out proper functions of a Congressional Library, but I wanted to point out that we did discuss last year that this Far Eastern Law Library be carried out since we recognized its responsibility.

Mr. HORAN. Mr. Alderman, you are a very responsible citizen, and your taxes help pay for this Congressional Library, and you have a right to your opinions concerning it; but we have some problems up here, as you know.

About 2 months ago, or so, the Chamber of the House of Representatives was fired upon by Puerto Ricans, as you recall.

Mr. ALDERMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORAN. That put a focus on the nature and extent of our protective facilities up here. Now, we are about to consider the appropriations for the Library of Congress. Do you realize that they have more policemen over there in the Library of Congress than we have to protect the Capitol and the Capitol Grounds?

Mr. ALDERMAN. I did not know that, sir.

Mr. HORAN. Well, they have 1 captain and 3 senior lieutenants, 6 lieutenants, 10 sergeants, and 60 officers.

Mr. ALDERMAN. I noticed that when I came out of the Library one policeman at the door stopped me and searched me to see that I had not stolen a book.

Mr. HORAN. They have 80 on the force, in all, all appointed by the Librarian.

We do not begrudge the police protection, but we have the duty of going over the way all funds for the Library are handled, and naturally we have to correlate this.

We are very hopeful that the appointment of Mr. Mumford will help on this.

Also there are other activities of the Library which do not appear to be as essential as those which you are interested in today. I refer to the collecting and printing of information on warts and limericks. Witchcraft and folklore is an interesting phase of, I suppose, what we might call the American civilization. But I wonder if it is a proper function of the Library of Congress.

Mr. ALDERMAN. Well, Mr. Chairman, I take it that both of these statements by the chairman and by Mr. Bow were statements in the guise, perhaps, of questions put to me, and if I may try to answer them

Mr. HORAN. We assume that you are entirely sincere in coming before this subcommittee. And we want you to know we are entirely sincere, and that we want the Library of Congress to be working on things which are essential for the operation not only of Congress, but those who through the privilege granted by the Congress are enabled to use the Library.

Mr. ALDERMAN. Well, I am rather sympathetic, Mr. Chairman, to the views that both you and Mr. Bow have stated, and you will observe that I made no statement with reference to appropriations generally for the Library of Congress.

My only function and concern is with the Law Library which is a part of it.

Of course, I am interested in the entire Library of Congress. However, Mr. Bow, I understood, just as you said, that your committee did specifically recommend the establishment of a Far Eastern Section of the Law Library, but I think it is still true, as I understand it, and as stated in my statement, that no specific funds were appropriated for that purpose.

The suggestion was that the Library transfer some funds from some other department to take care of the establishment of the Far Eastern Section of the Law Library.

Mr. Bow. What we recommended, sir, was that within the appropriation which we made for the Library of Congress last year, and for the Law Library, that within that appropriation the three people whom you said were necessary would be hired.

Mr. ALDERMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. Bow. That was in the record.

Mr. ALDERMAN. That means cutting down on the manpower of some other part of the Law Library, which would leave you short there. Mr. Bow. Or of the Library of Congress?

Mr. ALDERMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. Bow. That is where we felt it could be done.

Mr. ALDERMAN. We have reference to these conditions that are depicted in these photographs here.

Mr. Bow. That is a matter of housekeeping there. We felt that there were other things that could be eliminated, but which, perhaps, were not eliminated, where this personnel could be picked up and used there, and I think that will be at least, this member of this committee's opinion this year-that there are still many things that can be eliminated to put emphasis on the things that we are now talking about.

Mr. ALDERMAN. I realize your committee has a much broader problem than the one to which I was trying to address myself. I am perfectly sympathetic with your attitude. I have observed, with some pleasure, that the new Librarian of Congress, if confirmed, appears to be a man with real library experience and, incidentally, he seems to be an alumnus of my college, of which I am a member of the board of trustees, and I hope very much that he will prove to be an excellent administrator.

Mr. Bow. Perhaps you noticed also that he comes from the State of Ohio?

Mr. ALDERMAN. Yes; sir; but he was educated in North Carolina. and that makes a good combination.

Mr. Bow. That is all I have, Mr Chairman

Mr. HORAN. Are there any further questions?

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be well for the distinguished visitor here, Mr. Alderman, to sit in when we go into the details of this budget on the Library of Congress.

Frankly, I have never seen a budget accompanied with such a small amount of information. I think it will have to be developed, and I think it would be well for him to get that information which is not now available in the justifications, and take it back to the bar association.

Mr. ALDERMAN. I would be glad to remain.

Mr. THOMAS. Personally, I would like to see how this money is spent.

For instance, you have the provision for the expenditure of money for American lawbooks in foreign countries, and the scattering out of personnel, and this is a recurrent item year by year-$90,000 to $95,000 is a lot of money, particularly in view of the fact that every agency of any magnitude in the Government maintains its own legal library. That runs into thousands upon thousands of dollars.

I would like to know how many callers personally use the Law Library, and how many letters they get on a monthly basis.

I can imagine that in my section of the country few people even know it exists, much less ever requesting any information, and my best judgment is that the lawyers of the District of Columbia are about 95 percent of the users of the Law Library of the Library of Congress. So, when we go into that, those are some of the items which I would like to bring out so that the witness can take that information back to the American Bar Association.

Mr. ALDERMAN. I might mention one personal experience of mine, which might be of interest. Of course, I am a railroad lawyer, but I sometimes get mixed up in other aspects of the law, and on one occasion I had to go down to help try a will case in the State of Louisiana, and I had to learn a great deal about French law, because they go back to the Code of Napoleon, and follow the French jurisprudence. I could not find anything in the Library of the Supreme Court, and I

had to spend 2 weeks over in the French Section of the Law Library of the Library of Congress, obtaining that information, because that is the only place you can get that kind of information on a foreign body of law.

We frequently make use of the Law Library of Congress. It may be of particular convenience for me, because we happen to be located in Washington, D. C., and the only large industry which is located here is the one which I represent.

Mr. HORAN. Thank you, Mr. Alderman.

Mr. ALDERMAN. Thank you, sir.

Mr. HORAN. We will now proceed with the regular presentation of the estimates for the Library of Congress.

Mr. CLAPP. Let me raise a couple of points which were brought up during the past 5 minutes of conversation.

One, about the Chinese or the Oriental Law Section, sir. You did in the report last year tell us to establish this section. We have done so, sir, although you did not provide us any new money with which to do it. We have had to extract it out of the old money. I might remind you, also, sir, that you cut us some last year, that is to say for the present year, and we have gone down 14 positions overall in the Library, but we have nevertheless extracted a position which we have assigned to oriental law.

One reason why we have not assigned the three positions is because we did not have any fresh money for it. We had to squeeze the money from some place else, or by firing someone. In this case, we did not have to fire anyone because we had a vacancy in the librarianship, so, we were able to take that money and use it for the person in oriental law.

He is assigned as of now, looking over what we have in oriental law, and we are now awaiting a reply from him to find out what the next step will be.

This man is equipped in Chinese and Japanese law, and the question is, shall the next man be one equipped in Indonesian and Indochinese and Indian law, or shall he be an American? So, we are waiting for the next step.

With respect to the warts and limericks, I would like to say, sir, that I too, consider engaging in the study of warts and limericks an unsuitable operation for the Library of Congress in the face of other requirements that devolve upon us, but this is not an activity of the Library of Congress, per se.

What happened was that our folksong or folklore archivist went on a program for the National Broadcasting Co.-I think it was NBC and this wart-limerick material came in as a result of his broadcast. It was not an official activity of the Library of Congress. Mr. Bow. It was printed by the Library of Congress and funds. were used to make other prints available, were they not? Mr. CLAPP. Yes, sir.

Mr. Bow. And that is costly?