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Union Calendar No. 193. 
 
 61st Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. J Report 
 
 2d Session. \ \ No. 1000. 
 
 COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 April IS, 1910. — Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
 the Union and ordered to be printed. 
 
 U-S- 
 Mr. McCall, from the Committee on the Library, submitted the 
 
 following 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 [To accompany H. R. 15428.] 
 
 The Committee on the Librar}-, to whom was referred the bill i\l. R. 
 15428) to establish a commission on national historical publications, 
 submit the following- report: 
 
 Amend the bill by striking out all after the enacting clause and sub- 
 .stituting therefor the following: 
 
 That a permanent commission on national historical publications is hereby created, 
 to be composed of nine per.-i(ms of the liighest standing for scholarship and judgment 
 in the field of United States history, who shall be appointed by the President and 
 shall serve for a period of four years each, and until their successors are appointed 
 and qnaliiied. The President shall have power to fill all vacancies. 
 
 That before the preparation of any historical publication shall be begun by any 
 department, or by any bureau in any department, or by any committee of the Senate 
 or House of Representatives, the head of such department shall, and the chairman 
 of such committee of the Senate or House of Representatives may, require the opin- 
 ion in writing of the said commission on national historical publications as to the 
 advisability, scope, plan, and method of preparation of such publication. 
 
 That the said commission shall annually in the month of November report to the 
 President, for transmission to Congress, its proceedings during the 'year preceding, 
 ami such recommendations as it may deem advisable concerning national historical 
 publications. 
 
 That when the recommendation of the said commission, advising the preparation, 
 or publication, of any volume, or series of volumes of historical material, shall have 
 been followed by an appropriation to pay the expenses thereof, the v^'ork shall be 
 done under the direction and control of the said commission. 
 
 That said commission shall have a secretary, who shall be appointed by the com- 
 mission, and who shall be paid at the rate of $2,000 a year, and such other assistance 
 as the President may authorize, au<l the members of the commission shall each be 
 paid actual expenses in going to and returning from Washington to attend the meet- 
 mgs of said commission and while attending the same. 
 
 That to meet the ex{)en8es made necessary by this act the expenditure of not 
 exceeding $10,000 a year is hereby authorized. 
 
 Amend the title to read: "A bill establishing a commission on 
 national historical publications."' 
 
2 COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 As above amended, the committee recommend that the bill do pass. 
 
 The purposes of the bill are so well and so correctl^y stated by one 
 of its supporters who appeared before the committee that the com- 
 mittee substantially adopts his statement. 
 
 The bill is designed to introduce a greater measure of economy and 
 efficiency in an important branch of the Government's publications. 
 It is assumed that we shall publish in the future, as we have published 
 in the past, in each decade a considerable number of volumes of docu- 
 mentary historical materials. All governments that care for public 
 enlightenment and seek to promote intelligent patriotism do this. The 
 Government of the United States has, first and last, published manj^ 
 such volumes. But it has never had a general, broadly conceived, 
 systematic plan, and it has never had any regular, organized means of 
 bringing expert historical opinion to bear on the question what enter- 
 prises ought to be undertaken and how each should be accomplished. 
 The result is that the whole mass has been miscellaneous and casual. 
 The Goverment has issued many valuable and well-executed historical 
 publications, but be( ause of the casual and haphazard process through 
 which publications have bepn resolved upon and the want of close con- 
 trol over their execution, it has issued some that had no substantial 
 historical importance and some that were quite badly done. 
 
 This unsystematic and unscientific procedure has caused great waste 
 of money, most of which could well be prevented. In the last twenty 
 years the Government has expended nearly $3,000,000 in historical 
 publications — two millions on the Ofiicial Records of the War, a mil- 
 lion on other works — an average of $150,000 a year. With a good 
 system and expert guidance, more good could have been obtained 
 from half the money. The Government of Belgium, a country having 
 not one-tenth the population and resources of the United States, has 
 in the eighty years of its existence published almost exactly the same 
 number of historical volumes as the United States Government has 
 issued in the same period, and has probably never in any one year 
 appropriated $10,000 to the purpose. 
 
 Nearly all of our Government's great historical enterprises have 
 now been brought to a close. At least there is no great work now 
 pending, and we have a free hand for the introduction of a better sys- 
 tem. The main evils — of doing the wrong things, of doing things by 
 means of persons not properly qualified, of doing them wastefully and 
 extravagantly — are to be guarded against, first, by insuring that exec- 
 utive departments and committees of Congress shall not be at the 
 mercy of interested persons, half-instructed persons, who push a par- 
 ticular project till it is resolved upon, though it has little or no rela- 
 tion to the needs of historical students or the education of the public. 
 Secondly, they are to be guarded against by insuring that the tasks 
 which wise policy dictates as part of a well considered, rational, and 
 comprehensive plan shall be intrusted to persons of approved scholar- 
 ship in order that the workmanship may be a credit to the country, 
 and the results such that the statesman, the student, and the citizen can 
 rely upon them. Thirdly, they are to be guarded against by insuring 
 that persons permanently interested in having these things rightly 
 done, and having no other interest in the matter, shall keep a steady 
 hand on the execution and see that all possible means are taken to 
 secure to the Government and the people their full money's worth for 
 whatever sums the Congress appropriates to this important branch of 
 public education. 
 
 APn . , 1910 
 
COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 3 
 
 The common experience of civilized governments has perfectly well 
 proved that all this is best done by intrusting the general supervision 
 of a government's historical publications to a small and relatively per- 
 manent commission of experts, men whose lives are occupied, in 
 universities or elsewhere, with historical pursuits, and to whom it is 
 a vital matter that these tasks should be wisely chosen and rightly 
 performed. Such persons will always feel a strong professional 
 interest in such supervision. If their number is large enough to 
 make them representative of the various sections and historical inter- 
 ests of the country (nine seems wise in the case of the United States) 
 (hey will act in a broad and comprehensive spirit, with an eye to the 
 needs of the whole land and to the entire future. 
 
 Great Britain began with such a commission in 1800; France, at the 
 instance of Guizot, in ISSi; Belgium in the same year. Commissions 
 of precisely this form exist to-da}' in Austria, in Hungary, in Italy, in 
 Russia, in the Netherlands, in nearly all the German States, in Canada, 
 and in Japan. The French and the Dutch furnish espe<aally good 
 models to follow. Tliese commissions survey the different periods 
 and aspects of the national history, study the gaps in the record and 
 the best means of tilling them by documentary historical publications, 
 plan these publications, select the most qualified scholars to edit each 
 and supervise their execution. The result has been, in each country, 
 the production at low cost of admirable series of volumes which meet 
 real needs and maintain a level of qualit}' much above that which char- 
 acterizes the average historical publication of the American Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It is also worthy of remark that among our state governments 
 those (about ten in number) which have for some years had similar 
 permanent advisory or supervisory bodies in charge of their histori- 
 cal interests, have on the whole been distinguished above all the rest 
 for the excellence of theii" historical volumes. The last thirty yeais 
 have witnessed the development in the United States of a remarkable 
 body of historical scholars. Your committee deem it no more than 
 sound policy and wise economy to establish some regular means by 
 which the National Government, too, may avail itself of their knowl- 
 edge and experience in matters in which their advice would be of 
 value. 
 
 An instance of the value which may attach to the work of such a 
 commission may be seen in the work of a temporary committee on the 
 documentary historical publications of the United States Government 
 which, at the instance of President Roosevelt, the Committee on 
 Department Methods summoned to advise it as an assistant committee. 
 The report of that assistant committee, presented in November, 1908, 
 was printed b}^ the Committee on Department Methods, and was also 
 transmitted to the Congress by the President on February 11, 1909 
 (60th Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. No. 714). Prepared by a committee of 
 the best historical scholars in America, it presents an invaluable survey 
 of our historv with respect to its documentation, discussing most 
 instructively what has been done, what still remains to be accomplished, 
 what methods have been followed in the historical work of other 
 countries, and what methods should be followed by our Government 
 in order to obtain the best results. The present bill is in general line 
 with the recommendations of that committee. 
 
4 COMMISSION ON NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 It will be seen that the bill in the form in which it is repoited b}' 
 your committee provides for an advisory commission of experts, and 
 for the taking- of their advice by such governmental authorities as 
 have ordinarily hitherto had charge of the inception and preparation 
 of historical publications. It imposes no restrictions on the subsequent 
 action of departments, bureaus, or committees of the Houses of Con- 
 gress. But it is believed that all such autliorities will value the advice 
 of such a commission, properly constituted, and will be disposed to 
 give that advice its due weight in conjunction with departmental or 
 legislative considerations. Recognizing, however, that the best result, 
 the gradual creation of a body of historical materials of which such a 
 countr}' can be proud, can never be achieved unless the commission 
 has the power to plan as well as to advise, the bill invests the commis- 
 sion with authority to initiate recommendations, and provides a means 
 whereby those recommendations may annually be laid before Congress 
 for such action as it may see tit to take. 
 
 It is to be hoped that, if the proposals of the commission are as wise 
 as should be expected from a body so constituted, the gradual execu- 
 tion of what it recommends may from time to time be authorized by 
 Congress; but the bill makes no provision for any expenditures 
 beyond those for the salary of a secretary ($2,000), for other assist- 
 ance authorized by the President, and for the traveling expenses of 
 the members of the commission attending its meetings. These three 
 classes of expenditure the bill limits to a total sum not exceeding 
 $10,000 a year. In other words, the bill simply provides for the 
 mechanism of an expert commission and leaves to Congress the duty 
 of passing upon the publication of any given work which may be 
 recommended in the future. 
 
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