(Witnesses: Post, Zappone, Moore.) 502 sets were bound in sheep, making a total expenditure for depository libraries of $282,952.30. In a good grade of cloth these same books could have been supplied at a saving of two-thirds of the expense, or $188,634.86. I believe this is a conservative estimate of the saving. Of course these figures do not include the cost of composition, as the estimates are figured in printing from stereotype plates. The CHAIRMAN. About what would be the extra cost per copy of such a document as House Document No. 448 of the Fifty-ninth Congress, first session? That would include, of course, the presswork and the material, mainly, because, of course, the same composition does for the whole work. Mr. Posт. Yes. I am guessing now, of course. The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. I Mr. PosT. I should say 20 cents a copy. Perhaps that is too high. I may be thinking of the selling price rather than the cost price. do not handle anything but the selling price--not the cost price. The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you look that up for us and advise us. Mr. POST. Yes; we can give you that exactly. The CHAIRMAN. And put it on the basis of the page. Mr. PosT. I find 32 cents a fair estimate for each copy on a basis of 1,000 copies. Mr. SAMUEL. And then just give the committee the difference in cost between the volume known as the "Expenditures of the Department of Agriculture for the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1906,” and House Document No. 448, Fifty-ninth Congress, first session. Mr. ZAPPONE. The estimated price of the volume that you are now discussing was $2,500 rather high, to my mind. I think the actual cost will be very much less. The CHAIRMAN. Well, Mr. Post will give us that. Mr. ZAPPONE. And the cost of the other is just about twice that sum, or $5,000. Mr. FLOOD. That was in accordance with the figures you had— $4.700? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; somewhere in that neighborhood; yes. Mr. MOORE. That is the cost of the printing, not of the compiling, is it? Mr. POST. Not the compiling. The estimated cost of the Expenditures of the Department of Agriculture for 1906." on the basis of 500 copies, would be about $2.260; that of House Document 448, Fifty-ninth Congress, first session, on the same basis would be about twice that figure. The CHAIRMAN. Has the fact that there have been on hand here for a number of years about 3,300,000 of public documents, being stored by the Government at its expense, been called to the attention of any of the committees, or any of the Departments? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. When, and to whose attention? Mr. POST. The Committee on Printing have known of it for several years. Nothing could be done to dispose of it until it could be segregated and classified in some way, and that is now being done. The CHAIRMAN. When did they begin to segregate and classify? Mr. PosT. Just about a year ago. (Witness: Post.) The CHAIRMAN. And how long before that had the attention of any of the committees been called to that condition of congestion-if I may put it that way-of useless material? Mr. POST. I could not say, as I have been in office only since February 8th of last year. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, I see. Mr. PosT. And it was at that time that the committee's attention was called to it. This, of course, represents only the accumulation of documents at the superintendent of documents' office. It has nothing to do with the vast accumulation in the folding rooms. The CHAIRMAN. Will you furnish us with an estimate of what it is costing the Government for rental to store these useless 3,300,000 copies that are under the charge of the printing department? Mr. PosT. Yes, sir. On the basis of $5,000 paid for rental of the L street warehouse, I should think the space we occupy would be worth at least $10,000 a year for storage purposes. The CHAIRMAN. As I understand the fact, the Government is now losing the use of practically $30,000, the material value for old paper of this accumulation, and in addition to that is losing the rental of the property where it is stored? That represents the actual loss to the Government for continuing this accumulation? Mr. Posт. Yes, sir. Mr. SAMUEL. That room could be utilized for other purposes, could it not? Mr. PosT. Yes; it is in the old Government Printing Office building. The CHAIRMAN. Well, property is valuable here, and it could be rented for all kinds of things. Mr. FLOOD. I understood Mr. Grayson to say that the surplus left over at the House document room and the Senate document room was sold for waste paper, and I understood you to say that it was sent back to the Printing Office. Mr. POST. Well, yes; that is true. It is the folding room surplus that we get. The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any idea how much surplus there is now in the folding room, which will be in addition to the sum you have given us as now being stored by the Printing Office? Mr. POST. I think the report of the Congressional Printing Investigation Commission gives the figures. I could not give them offhand. They made an estimate in tons. They could not count the books, but they estimated it in tons. At the time I took some men and went over there and measured for them the piles of books and gave an estimate of the number of tons of stuff on hand, and I think that is printed in their report. Mr. SAMUEL. Do you get the accumulations from the folding room? Mr. PosT. Yes, sir. Mr. SAMUEL. Do you get the Yearbooks? Mr. POST. That is something that we never get. We never get anything that is of any value. The accumulation of horse books and Yearbooks in the folding rooms could be sold to great advantage if we could get hold of them. The CHAIRMAN. The bulletins of the Department of Agriculture (Witness: Post.) are not House documents, and therefore do not get into the hands of the folding room? Mr. POST. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And that is how you happen to have a good many of those on hand, and for those you have quite an extensive sale? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And as a rule you do not get anything from the folding rooms, as surplus from them, that is of much market value or for which you have any call of any consequence? Mr. POST. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Everything that appears to be practicable and useful they practically distribute to the limit of the allotment made to them? Mr. Posт. Yes, sir. COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE January 17, 1907. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m. Present: Representatives Littlefield (chairman) and Samuel. Present also: Representative Lovering, of Massachusetts; A. Zappone, esq., chief of the division of accounts and disbursements, Agricultural Department; Victor H. Olmsted, esq., Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, Agricultural Department; and William L. Post, esq., superintendent of documents, Government Printing Office. FURTHER STATEMENT OF WILLIAM L. POST, ESQ., SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS, GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Post, you stated to us the other day, as I remember, that there was an accumulation of something like 4,000,000 volumes of public documents in the Printing Department. I have here the report of your office for 1906, which states, on page 1, " Publications on hand July 1, 1905, 1,051,107." Without understanding the situation, that would seem to be inconsistent with the statement which you made. Will you be kind enough to explain what the fact is? Mr. POST. There were on hand at the time, July 1, 1905, a great many documents which were not counted in as stock-" dead stock," we call it. The CHAIRMAN. Did your aggregate of 4,000,000 include this. 1,051,107, or are those additional thereto? Mr. PosT. It included that; and the 700,000 which I spoke of as salable stock was also included. The CHAIRMAN. So this report proceeds on the basis that you haveat least 3,000,000 volumes that are not taken account of in any way in making your report, but are simply treated as so much dead lumber? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And of this 1,051,107, approximately, you estimate that only 700,000 of that is what you would call real live matter? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. (Witness: Post.) The CHAIRMAN. And in making an estimate of that as real live matter, are you conservative? Mr. PoST. I think so. The CHAIRMAN. So that the real fact is, although it does not appear by this report, that there is an aggregate of about 3,300,000 volumes on hand of substantially dead matter, in your judgment? Mr. PosT. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Without this explanation, of course, the report would appear to be a little inconsistent. Mr. POST. The great accumulations are contained in mail sacks, and stored in various rooms, in such a condition that you could only guess at the quantity. It would be impossible to count it. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; you have to estimate it. Mr. POST. And perhaps when the stock is all counted it will fall short of 4,000,000 books. I am only guessing at that. The CHAIRMAN. Precisely. Your estimate of the approximate value of the 4,000,000 volumes for waste paper was $30,000? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I notice that the accumulation increased during the year something like 250,000 volumes. That is, you had on hand on July 1, 1905, 1,051,107, and you had on hand June 30, 1906, 1,301,690, which is an increase of about 250,000 volumes. Has this accumulation of matter been increasing at that rate, or is this increase during the year 1906 unusual and abnormal? Mr. POST. There has been a greater increase during this past year. Our statistics to date (statistics similar to those in that annual report, as made by the last monthly report to the Public Printer) show something over 2,050,000 books on hand and counted; but these were received not only from the Departments and depositories, but represent some of this dead stock which we had not counted before. The CHAIRMAN. You say that the accumulations have increased during the year 1906? Mr. PosT. Greatly. The CHAIRMAN. What is the occasion of that increase? Mr. POST. The people in charge of the Senate folding room, for instance, have only recently awakened to the fact that they could get rid of their surplus, and they have been turning it over to the superintendent of documents. The CHAIRMAN. But they are simply clearing that out so as to get more storeroom? Mr. POST. Clearing it out; yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. They want storeroom for lumber, and they are turning the documents over to you? Mr. POST. Yes; they are giving us what they do not want. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; what they have not been able to use, and what they have not been able to get out. Is it not a fact that both the printing department and the other Departments have been making very vigorous efforts within the last year or two to get these documents out and into distribution? Mr. PosT. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. And they have found it impossible to do so? Mr. Posт. Yes, sir. The fact is, the libraries are desirous of re (Witness: Post.) turning a great quantity of public documents rather than receiving them. The CHAIRMAN. You mean these libraries throughout the country? Mr. Post. I mean all of the libraries. The CHAIRMAN. Could you give us a list of the publications these libraries want to return and do not want to receive, made up, so far as you can, from information your department has received? Mr. POST. Yes, sir; I think we could. The majority of stock which they wish to return consists of Congressional documents, small Congressional documents which they accumulate through the kindness of Congressmen and their Senators. The CHAIRMAN. Those that are of no general value? The CHAIRMAN. And those are mainly bound in law sheep? Mr. POST. They are unbound, as a usual thing. The CHAIRMAN. Will you furnish for us a list of the documents that the libraries are endeavoring to return and trying to prevent the receipt of? Mr. PosT. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. It has appeared before the committee that the folding room of the House had an accumulation of something like a million and a quarter volumes of Government publications. Have you any idea what the accumulation is on the Senate side? Mr. Post. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Except that they have been pushing the lumber off onto you for the last year, at what rate? How many sacks full a day, at a time? Mr. POST. Oh, I could not say, but a great many; as many as we could take. The CHAIRMAN. As many sacks full as you could take? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. How long has that process of transportation been going on between the folding room of the Senate and the superintendent of documents' office? About a year? Mr. POST. No: I should think about three or four months. The CHAIRMAN. Has it been going right along pretty continuously during that time? Mr. POST. As continuously as the weather and our facilities for receiving it would permit. The CHAIRMAN. That is, just as fast as the weather and your facilities allowed, they have been carting this lumber from the folding room of the Senate over into the Government Printing Office? Mr. POST. Yes, sir; cords of it; all wrapped for mailing. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; and about how many volumes have they thus succeeded in crowding off onto your office? Mr. POST. Oh, I could not tell you. The CHAIRMAN. Well, you have about 2,000,000 on hand now, you sav? Mr. POST. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. That is 700,000 more than you had on hand June 30, 1906; so that they have probably transferred Mr. POST. Well, I can give you the exact figures on that. |