College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 

Wills of the Justices 

The Wills of the justices; a Collection of 
the Wills and T estaments of Tw enty-
Three Justices of the United States Su-
preme Court. Ed. by John C. Hogan. Los 
Angeles: Ray Fielding Productions, 1956. 
Distributed by Oceana Publications, New 
York. $20 . (Microfilm.) 

This collection, which I am informed is 
the first installment of what is to be a com-
plete publication of the wills (or of infor-
mation concerning interstate administration 
of the estates) of all justices of the Supreme 
Court of the United States about whom such 
information is obtainable, is extremely in-
teresting. I do not know how gTeat will be 
its practical value. However, I should think 
that, at leas t when it is completed, the col-
lection could be a mine of information to 
biographers, historians , and commentators 
on the social scene in past years . In the pres-
ent selection, attention has been focused on 
the Chief Justices, ending with William 
Howard Taft, on the members of the court 
participating in the Dred Scott decision, and 
on a group of other Associate Justices-
David J. Brewer, John M. Harlan (the first) , 
Horace H. Lurton , Stanley Matthews, Joseph 
McKenna, John McKinley, Samuel F. Miller, 
William Strong, and William B. Woods. 

The first two wills, those of John Jay and 
Oliver Ellsworth, offer an interesting con-
trast. Jay's is verbose and detailed, with an 
elaborate introduction giving thanks to the 
Deity for numerous specific benefits to John 
Jay as well as for His general care of man-
kind. Ellsworth, to the contrary, put his 
entire will on a single pithy page, with no 
exordium whatever. These two types of 
draftsmanship we still have with us. The 
other wills afford examples of various styles 
of composition, as well as of variant states 
of fortune, and concern or unconcern with 
affairs of business and of domestic property. 

After reading this microfilmed collection, 
I infer that the function of microfilming is 
the reproduction of material which, for one 
reason or another, cannot be published 

.JULY 1957 

profitably in conventional form. However, 
at the end of the reading process, my eyes 
were much more tired than would have been 
the case after reading ordinary material in 
good light for a like period. Certainly, de-
spite the amount of space which could be 
saved, I shall not advocate putting all our 
libraries into microfilm. Where the material 
consisted of photostatic reproduction of 
handwritten documents, particularly if the 
writing was either obscure or unique, it was 
almost impossible to decipher. This must 
be considered a defect of the microfilm de-
vice at prese nt, though obviously one would 
be foolish to predict that it never will be 
overcome . However, even though the re-
production were perfect, I believe that there 
would be less strain in reading a convention-
ally manufactured book. Nevertheless, as to 
rare and otherwise unobtainable matter, let 
u s, by all means, have it on microfilm.-
Maurice H. Merrill) University of Oklahoma. 

Filing Rules 

And Practice 

F iling Rules for the Dictionary Catalogs of 
the Library of Congress. By Processing De-
partment, U. S. Library of Congress. 
Washington, 1956. 274p. $2.25. (Available 
from the U. S. Superintendent of Docu-
ments.) 

In a foreword, John Cronin, Director of 
the Processing Department, explains that 
this printed and bound book of rules origi-
nated in a loose-leaf edition for the Library 
staff, begun by James K. Boyland, revised 
by several committees .. and compiled into a 
comprehensive code by the late Linn R. 
Blanchard. Others at the Library of Con-
gress have assisted in gathering examples, 
editing the final copy, and preparing the 
index. The work truly exemplifies corpo-
rate authorship, and if anyone deserves the 
major credit, it is Charles A. Cutter, the 
fourth edition of whose classed rules (1904) 

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