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is the one that you placed about thirtieth on the priority list, somewhere along in there?

Dr. EVANS. I am perfectly willing to admit, gentlemen, that in this past year, in our own thinking, Korea was not at the top of our list of requests and this particular position was not in our request at all. We did not understand the situation. We were at fault, if you wish to say anybody who was caught short in this situation is at fault. I think that is the best way I could explain it, sir.

Mr. McGRATH. I again call your attention to this press release, and this is a direct quotation. I am referring to Wednesday's paper. It says:

"Despite the fact I pointed out Congress would be caught short."

Now, Doctor, with your background, I know that you have a desire to be fair. You, as a matter of fact, did not think that this Korean situation was so important when you appeared before us a few months ago and failed to ask for a Korean specialist, did you?

Dr. EVANS. That is right, sir.

Mr. McGRATH. So then, is it not a fact that you were the one that was caught short, rather than the Congress?

Dr. EVANS. On that particular position in that particular year, yes. Mr. McGRATH. Well, that is the year that is most imminent; that is the year we are talking about.

Dr. EVANS. I was not talking just in terms of that year when I was up there. I was talking in general terms about the fact that the Library of Congress was not doing in general and in the recent past that which it should have been doing.

Mr. McGRATH. I take it, Doctor, that you feel and understand, as everyone else, that the Korean situation is a very important one at the present time. That is so, is it not?

Dr. EVANS. That is right, sir.

Mr. McGRATH. But a few months ago, in the month of March when you testified here, it did not have that importance in your opinion then, did it?

Dr. EVANS. I did not think it was as urgent as the other things that I did request; that is right, sir.

Mr. McGRATH. In view of the publicity that has followed here, do you think that you have been reported accurately by the newspapers?

Dr. EVANS. In the first two paragraphs it is fairly accurate. The last paragraph is a distortion, a misunderstanding of what I said. I did not say that I had appealed to the President, because my estimates do not have to have the approval of the President. I merely said the President had submitted some special requests regarding atomic energy, which was the newspaper headline. I had not seen the document. I was asking the Congress to consider a request from me at the same time. I was taking advantage of the situation to ask for it.

Mr. McGRATH. Now you say that the first two paragraphs are fairly accurate. I read to you now the second paragraph:

Dr. Luther H. Evans said last night Congress had turned him down for the last 4 years on requests for an expert on the far-eastern country, "despite the fact I pointed out Congress would be caught short."

Keeping that paragraph in mind, I ask you: The last time that you testified here before this committee, did you tell Congress it would be caught short if you did not get a Korean specialist?

Dr. EVANS. No, sir.

Mr. MCGRATH. Did you ask for a Korean specialist?

Dr. EVANS. No, sir.

Mr. McGRATH. Now do you still say that you were reported accurately in the second paragraph?

Dr. EVANS. The statement I made there that is in quotation marks was intended to refer to the presentation I made in the 1947 estimates. That is the inaccuracy, of tagging this as being applicable just to the past year.

Mr. McGRATH. Doctor, may I submit to you, for whose legal training I have great respect, that you were not very fair to Congress when you refer to 1947 and when you omitted to tell your audience that you had failed to make a request in 1950, were you?

Dr. EVANS. I was not deliberately unfair because I was under the impression that I had asked for it, when the fact is that what I had asked for was merely a P-3 cataloger. That was my mistake and I apologize to the committee for that.

Mr. McGRATH. Of course, you recognize, in using the expression "deliberately unfair," that a person can be unfair even though it is not deliberate.

Dr. EVANS. This was an unfair statement.

Mr. CANFIELD. Mr. Chairman, Dr. Evans has apologized, and he has made it clear that his remarks at Cooperstown, N. Y., on July 11 were made due to a faulty recollection of his testimony this year before this subcommittee. I think he has made a very frank and fair statement, a statement which completely negates this Associated Press dispatch; and I speak as an old newspaperman who has covered many a speech.

Mr. McGRATH. Doctor, I presume you delivered that address from a prepared statement?

Dr. EVANS. No; this was an extemporaneous speech. And my intention, sir, was not to give a speech on the inadequacy of Congress, but to give a speech on the ideals and the achievements and the shortcomings of the Library of Congress. And I said much more that was critical of myself and my colleagues for not having planned some of our work adequately than I did of things that were critical of the Congress.

Mr. McGRATH. Have you anything, Mr. Scrivner?

INCREASED APPROPRIATIONS FOR LIBRARY IN PAST 2 YEARS

Mr. SCRIVNER. Yes.

I am sure that Dr. Evans realizes that the members of this committee take the burden of their responsibility and the duties of their office most seriously.

Dr. EVANS. I agree to that, sir. I think that this committee has been very friendly to the Library of Congress. I have said that repeatedly. It has greatly increased in the past 2 years the resources that are at the disposition of the Library.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Then, of course, having that knowledge of our sincere purpose, I think you can well appreciate the feeling that the

members of this subcommittee must have had when we picked up the paper and read this story which has been interpreted by most Members of Congress with whom I have talked as a very drastic charge of incompetency on our part.

Dr. EVANS. I am sorry for that, sir, because a general drastic charge would be very unfair.

Mr. SCRIVNER. In view of that fact, after you read the article in the papers, did you make any public statement that would tend to remove that stigma upon Congress?

Dr. EVANS. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. SCRIVNER. The statement you have just made before this committee is your first statement to that effect?

Dr. EVANS. That is right, sir. I saw it after I got home last night, and I heard early this morning that we would probably come over here, and I spent my time working on the presentation.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Dr. Evans, I can only speak for myself, but I think that I know the members of the committee well enough to know that their opinion is pretty much the same as mine, that in view of all the circumstances, and recognizing the need, as you surely must recognize it, for economy in every possible branch of the Government, we have tried to be eminently fair to the Library of Congress in the funds that we have allocated to it. Of course, when you are asking for appropriations you make your statement, you know better than we, or in your position you should know better than we, what things are of more vital importance and have greater priority than others. That was one of the reasons we have asked you each time in the last 2 years to set down the order of priority of these requests that you have made.

I have my own personal recollection as to this one item relating to Korea. It was merely incorporated in your general statement and, if my recollection is correct, you did not read in detail your general statement but merely inserted it in the hearings. Is that correct? Dr. EVANS. That is right.

Mr. SCRIVNER. If I recall correctly, the request you did make was for a cataloger, and that request was buried down in the middle of some paragraph and no particular stress was laid upon it. In the question period that followed your statement which you inserted in the hearing, there were many questions asked and many answers given, and at no time in that period of questioning did you ever mention the Korean employee; is that correct?

Dr. EVANS. I think so, sir.

Mr. SCRIVNER. This situation, as you can well recognize, disturbs me a great deal. It will probably be better if I do not proceed with it further.

REQUEST FOR FUNDS FOR ACQUISITION OF MATERIALS

I think in all fairness, and I think from what little has been said here today on this $100,000 item, I certainly do not have any detailed information upon which to base any sound judgment as to its need. I do not know what you are going to do with the $100,000. Can you tell us what you are going to spend the $100,000 for, so that we can have some information upon which to base an opinion?

Dr. EVANS. I think, sir, we would take this want list and try to get a good many of these items, particularly the recent ones.

A

rough estimate was made that it would cost perhaps $50,000 to get them all. I think probably we would spend perhaps $15,000 or $20,000. That is a rough estimate. I think I could give you a list after a week of work on materials from the Philippines and some from Indochina and certain other of the territories which we have in mind here.

There is a big Formosan collection that has been offered to us recently, and we have not been able to purchase it. I have forgotten the amount of money involved, but it would be several thousand. We thought perhaps we ought to get material on Formosa at this time because Formosa is still open to us, and that is where some of the material is.

All these areas would have a good deal of material that I think we could still get, either by getting copies of the material itself, or by making microfilms.

The $100,000 is really a very rough estimate. I feel fairly safe in making it because I have this [indicating] sample of actual issues of publications that we know exist and we know we do not have.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Even that statement is general. I am constrained to feel somewhat better since you have mentioned Formosa and its importance because a lot of people have not seemed to think that it is so important. To my mind, it is one of the No. 1 spots in the world and has been for a long time. I can very well understand why if you do not have information on Formosa it should be obtained, and that without any great amount of delay. What is that item going to run? Mr. ADKINSON. I do not remember the figures.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Would it be proper for me to have the chairman request that Dr. Evans prepare for us a tentative list of things that he wants to get, and their probable cost? It would be the only way to form any judgment on this.

Dr. EVANS. I would be glad to do that. I call attention to one point, and that is, we would have to get some of the experts in before we could make some of the lists. However, I think that I can give you a general kind of statement that might be useful to the committee. Mr. McGRATH. Just for the committee; not for the record. Mr. SCRIVNER. Not for publication.

Dr. EVANS. I will be glad to do that.

FURTHER REFERENCE TO COOPERSTOWN SPEECH

May I make a general statement of what was in the background. of my mind when I made that speech the other day?

The Library is not able to predict with accuracy what are going to be the hot spots in the next year or so, so what we have gone on has been a different kind of order of priority, and that has been the large areas where we feel that we are inadequate and taking into account the general parts of those areas, that is, in terms of a long-run acquisition program. I am not trying particularly to excuse my own failure to include the Korean experts in a high priority position this past year, but I am saying when we laid down our program in our 1947 budget estimates, which I have before me here, we were thinking of those areas in which we were weak and we believed in long-range terms the areas would have importance. There we did include Korea. We did

not include Korea last year because we did not foresee this situation. We were, as I said earlier, caught short as badly as anyone else on that.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Even so, I was not on the committee in 1947, so I have no idea of what was presented. I do not think any of the rest of us were members.

Dr. EVANS. Here is a brief paragraph on Korea (indicating passage in the Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress for 1946, p. 368.) Mr. SCRIVNER. Even so, the funds that we were talking about last year when you were here are 1951 funds, anyway, theoretically available July 1.

Dr. EVANS. That is right, sir.

Mr. SCRIVNER. Well, I can have some hindsight, also. Using that hindsight, even if you had included a Korean expert, you would not have had him in the Library in time to help much in the present situation, would you?

Dr. EVANS. That is right.

Mr. SCRIVNER. You would not have had any funds to hire him before the 1st of July even if the appropriations had been made available.

Dr. EVANS. That is right.

Mr. SCRIVNER. So it is just another one of those things.

KOREAN EXPERT RECENTLY EMPLOYED

Dr. EVANS. We have actually hired a Korean expert on a parttime basis out of gift funds to help us as much as he can in the present emergency. He is appearing tomorrow. We hired him on gift funds. Mr. SCRIVNER. You are anticipating a question that I am leading up to. If this seemed of such high priority, with the power you have, the power to transfer some of your funds from one less important activity to another, you could have made such a transfer, is that not so? Dr. EVANS. Yes; we could have done that in March if we had foreseen the situation; that is right.

Mr. SCRIVNER. You could have done it 2 weeks ago, or last week, or yesterday?

Dr. EVANS. We did actually start hunting for this man immediately the Korean situation broke out. It took us 3 days to find him, and he had to have a few days before he could come to work.

Mr. CANFIELD. I want to say, in fairness to Dr. Evans, that I have never known him, before this occurrence, to indulge in remarks critical of Congress, and I think he is very forthright in his apologies today.

Dr. EVANS. May I add one more thing. If I had known anybody was going to report that, I would not have been as, shall I say, careless in my statement. I would have been very meticulous in what I said and would have made sure it would not have been subject to this kind of presentation.

Mr. McGRATH. We thank you very much for your appearance.

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