[Senate Hearing 110-334]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-334
THE FOUNDING FATHERS' PAPERS: ENSURING PUBLIC ACCESS TO OUR NATIONAL
TREASURES
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 7, 2008
__________
Serial No. J-110-72
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
41-482 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2008
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Stephanie A. Middleton, Republican Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Maryland....................................................... 21
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 2
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont. 1
prepared statement........................................... 121
Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania, prepared statement............................... 142
WITNESSES
Katz, Stanley N., Chairman, Papers of the Founding Fathers,
Professor, Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University,
Princeton, New Jersey.......................................... 12
Ketcham, Ralph, Professor of History Emeritus, Maxwell School of
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York........................ 14
Marcum, Deanna B., Associate Librarian of Library Services,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C........................... 8
McCullough, David G., Presidential Historian and Author, Camden,
Maine.......................................................... 4
Rimel, Rebecca W., President and Chief Executive Officer, The Pew
Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.................. 10
Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, Washington,
D.C............................................................ 6
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Stanley N. Katz to questions submitted by Senator
Specter........................................................ 28
Responses of Deanna B. Marcum to questions submitted by Senator
Specter........................................................ 37
Responses of Allen Weinstein to questions submitted by Senator
Specter........................................................ 41
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Doyle-Wilch, Barbara, Dean of Library and Information Services,
Middlebury College, President, Vermont Library Association,
Middlebury, Vermont, letter.................................... 43
Graffagnino, J. Kevin, Executive Director, Vermont Historical
Society, Montpelier, Vermont, letter........................... 44
Jordan, Daniel P., President, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.,
Charlottesville, Virginia, letter and statement................ 46
Katz, Stanley N., Chairman, Papers of the Founding Fathers,
Professor, Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University,
Princeton, New Jersey, statement............................... 49
Ketcham, Ralph, Professor of History Emeritus, Maxwell School of
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, statement............. 116
Marcum, Deanna B., Associate Librarian of Library Services,
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., statement............... 123
McCullough, David G., Presidential Historian and Author, Camden,
Maine, statement............................................... 125
Moe, Richard, President, National Trust for Historic
Preservation, Washington, D.C., letter......................... 128
Morgan, Edmund S., Sterling Professor of History emeritus, Yale
University, letter............................................. 130
Philadelphia Inquirer, Edward Colimore, article.................. 132
Rimel, Rebecca W., President and Chief Executive Officer, The Pew
Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, statement....... 136
Roll Call, February 6, 2008, article............................. 140
Washington Post, December 15, 2007, article...................... 144
Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, Washington,
D.C., statement................................................ 147
Wilentz, Sean, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American
Revolutionary Era and Professor of History, Princeton
University, Princeton, New Jersey, letter...................... 154
Wood, Gordon S., Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor
of History, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, letter. 157
THE FOUNDING FATHERS' PAPERS: ENSURING PUBLIC ACCESS TO OUR NATIONAL
TREASURES
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2008
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC
The Committee met, Pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J.
Leahy, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Kennedy, Cardin, and Whitehouse.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF VERMONT
Chairman Leahy. You know, every so often you get to--around
here we have committee meetings on horrible crimes, we have
committee meetings on wars, we have committee meetings on
contentious issues.
David, we have a place for you right there in the front.
Then every so often, we actually have something that's
fascinating.
Senator Kennedy. And important.
Chairman Leahy. And important. It is an important hearing,
as Senator Kennedy says, on improving public access to the
papers of our Nation's Founding Fathers.
Last this month we will celebrate the 276th birthday of our
first President, George Washington. Very few of us were here in
the Senate at that time.
[Laughter.]
There is much to be learned from our Founders and our
shared national history. We will work with the Reporter to
clear up that little bit of the transcript.
[Laughter.]
But my father was a printer in Vermont, a self-taught
historian. I was steeped from childhood in a deep appreciation
in the First Amendment and the power of the written word, and
the value and the vitality of our Nation's rich history to us,
and to each future generation of Americans. So, today it is
especially good that we have this distinguished panel of
historians, scholars, and government officials.
The works of our Founding Fathers are a part of the
identity and heritage of every single American. We should do
everything possible to make these papers available, accessible,
and affordable to the American people, especially at a time
when many of us are concerned that not enough Americans know
enough about the history of our country, all of it, the good,
the bad, everything else.
More than a half century ago, we undertook the important
task of making the correspondence and diaries and other
writings of the six Founding Fathers--George Washington, James
Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and
Alexander Hamilton--available to the American people. But a lot
of this remains largely incomplete and inaccessible to most
Americans today. They commonly referred to ``letter press''
projects operated at major universities and other institutions
around the country.
Although the first volumes of the papers were published in
the 1950's, only the papers of Alexander Hamilton have been
completed. According to the National Historic Publication and
Records Commission NHPRC, the papers of Thomas Jefferson will
not be completed until 2025, the Washington papers in 2023, the
papers of Franklin and Madison in 2030, and the Adams papers in
2050. That is 100 years after the projects began.
We spent nearly $30 million in taxpayer dollars in Federal
taxpayer projects, and it is estimated another $60 million in
combined public and private money going in here. One volume of
the Hamilton papers costs $180. The price for the complete 26-
volume set of the papers is around $2,600. So I think only a
few libraries had one volume of the papers, and only 6 percent
had more than one volume.
So I'm trying to find out how best to get this out to
everybody. I'm a long-time advocate for Internet use. I think
the Web can help a great deal, but we've got to have better
online access. I know a lot of Americans have gained insights
and developed important connections to our national heritage by
simply viewing the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution and Bill of Rights on display at the National
Archives. I remember, as a teenager, going there with my
parents and how thrilled I was.
So with these distinguished historians I am almost afraid
to say this next line, so I will say this was written by my
staff, who give me too much credit. But if Jefferson, Adams,
Hamilton, and Franklin could get into this discussion, I almost
imagine them saying, what are we waiting for? When he was asked
recently about the troubling lack of access to the Founding
Fathers' papers, the Presidential historian and author David
McCullough, who is here, said that ``These volumes of the
Founders are more of a monument than anything built in stone. I
don't want people to wait for another 50 years.'' Mr.
McCullough, I agree with your sense of urgency.
So we will hear from this distinguished panel and see where
we might go.
[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Kennedy, did you want to--
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Kennedy. Well, just very briefly. I want to thank
you. I thank Senator Leahy for holding this hearing and join
him saying that it's a matter of enormous importance and
consequence, and in welcoming a very distinguished panel this
morning.
I think all of us understand that the preservation and
publication of the papers of our Founders is a matter of
enormous importance to historians and the general public alike.
These documents offer unique witness to our history and a
unique window through which to examine how our country came to
be what it is today. As many have remarked, these documents are
``American scripture.''
I want to say that it is a privilege to have Dave
McCullough with us today, one of the Nation's most respected
historians, whose works have been some of our most widely read
books. He has brought to light many of the extraordinary
leaders and historic events in our national heritage, and I
thank him for sharing his talents with all of us.
It is a privilege to welcome Stanley Katz, a distinguished
leader in the academic community. He has been a source of wise
counsel to many of us over the years. He is chairman of the
Papers of the Founding Fathers, and has a major role in guiding
and fostering the scholarship on this subject.
I also welcome Allen Weinstein, who is doing such an
impressive job at the National Archives in overseeing the
release of Presidential papers, the administration of the
Presidential library, and many other important tasks.
I particularly appreciate all he has done to keep a copy of
the Magna Carta on display at the Archives. When it came up for
sale not long ago, David Rubenstein purchased it and made a
donation of the only copy of this historic document here in the
United States, and all of us are grateful to Dr. Weinstein and
Mr. Rubenstein for ensuring that to future generations will be
able to view the historic document.
The Founding Fathers Project, established half a century
ago, continues to be an important national mission. When
completed, it will be an extraordinary resource for research
for all of us who cherish our national history. As Mr.
McCullough has said, the final product will be ``a monument
that will last longer than any of the monuments that we now
have.''
These documents are national treasures. Recently, my wife
Vicki and I participated in an event sponsored by the Adams
Papers. Governor Deval Patrick, his wife Diane, and former
Governor Dukakis joined us in Faneuil Hall, one of the
monuments of our early democracy, to read the letters of John
and Abigail Adams. The event absolutely packed Faneuil Hall,
the interest of the citizens in this small little item of
American history was just overwhelming.
It was a special night, and I'm grateful that the Adams
Papers sponsored such an occasion to share the words, the
affection, and the vision of this remarkable couple who made
such a contribution to the creation of America. It's an example
of the type of outreach that the Founding Fathers Project can
make possible in the years ahead.
So, I look forward to hearing from our distinguished
witnesses to learn more about the project. By all accounts, the
scholarship produced by the project has been extraordinary.
Nonetheless, there are concerns about the pace of the
publications and about making sure they reach the widest
possible audience. We in Congress need to do all we can to
help. We know future generations of Americans will be immensely
grateful for our effort. So, thank you all for coming.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you, Senator Kennedy.
I'm always nervous when I start one of these things, having
Senator Kennedy, who was chairman of this committee long before
I was and is far more experienced here. But I'm not going to do
my usual thing. We usually swear witnesses in. This is not
necessary, and by consent we'll waive that for this panel, of
course.
Our first witness will be Dave McCullough, a well-respected
Presidential historian and author, recipient of numerous
awards, including twice winning the Pulitzer Price, twice
winning the National Book Award, and the Presidential Medal of
Freedom.
In 1989, Mr. McCullough, I remember very well when you were
one of the few private citizens to address a joint meeting of
Congress. You graduated from Yale University with honors in
English literature. On a personal note, he was one of the
people we all relied on, those of us who were here at the time
of the Panama Canal debate.
I was saying to several out back that in that debate,
before we had TV in the Senate, virtually every desk had a copy
of your book, those who were opposed to the treaty and those
who were for it, because it was the one thing we could go to
that everybody agreed on the facts that were there. We would
then interpret those facts as we wanted, of course.
So, Mr. McCullough, it's all yours.
STATEMENT OF DAVID G. MCCULLOUGH, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN AND
AUTHOR, CAMDEN, MAINE
Mr. McCullough. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you very much
for the chance, the privilege, to speak before this committee
in support of the Founding Fathers Project. What has been
achieved thus far with a publication of the papers of the
Founders is all of an exceedingly high order. I want to attest
to that emphatically as one of the many--the countless
numbers--of historians, biographers, scholars, and students who
have drawn again and again on the great wealth of material to
be found in these incomparable volumes.
Their value is unassailable, immeasurable. They are
superbly edited. They are thorough. They are accurate. The
footnotes alone are pure gold; many are masterpieces of close
scholarship.
Over the past 20 years and more, I have worked with,
depended in particular, on the volumes of Washington, Adams and
Jefferson papers. I could not have written my last two books,
John Adams and 1776 without them. I know how essential the
papers are to our understanding of those great Americans and of
their time.
Just this past week for my current project, I wanted to
find out what all was contained in the 80-some crates that
Thomas Jefferson shipped back home to Virginia in the course of
his 5 years of diplomatic service in France, all the books,
art, and artifacts, the scientific instruments and the like.
The range and variety of inventory would, of course, reflect
much about the mind of the man.
So I turned to the Jefferson papers hoping there might be
something, and sure enough, there it was, volume 18, the whole
sum total in a footnote that runs nearly six pages in small
type. I know what work had to have gone into that footnote, the
care and the attention to detail. There have been times when I
spent a whole day on one paragraph just trying to get it right,
to be clear and accurate, so I know.
The men and women who have devoted themselves to the
publication of the papers are not skilled editors only, they
are dedicated scholars. Their standards are the very highest.
Their knowledge of their subject often surpasses that of
anyone. I have worked with them. I know them. I count them as
friends. Several in particular have guided and helped me in
ways for which I am everlastingly grateful.
They are the best in the business and the high quality of
the work they do need not, must not, be jeopardized or vitiated
in order to speed up the rate of production. There really
should be no argument about that. As you know, publication of
the papers began with volume one of the Jefferson papers in
1950 when Harry Truman was President.
With this in mind, and given the opportunities we have, I
would like to offer an analogy from that distant time of the
cold war. The Russians had sealed off Berlin and the urgent
question was what to do about it. A massive airlift was
proposed, but it was calculated that given the number of planes
available and the volume of cargo each plane could carry and
the number of landings that could be made per day given the
number of airfields available, supplying the daily needs of
food and fuel for a city of 2.5 million people would be
impossible, so somebody suggested building another airfield.
We need to build another airfield. We need to double the
investment in the project. Double each staff, and thereby pick
up the pace with no change in quality. We know it will work and
we know it will work effectively because it is already working
with the post-Presidential papers of Jefferson's being edited
at Montecello, and the Adams papers being edited at the
Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.
And what worthy work it is. Imagine, of all Jefferson's
post-Presidential papers, thus far less than a third have ever
appeared in print. Think of the discoveries, the insights still
to come. The value of the Founding Fathers' papers goes far
beyond their scholarly importance, immense as that is.
As Daniel Jordan of Montecello has said, ``The papers are
American scripture. They are our political faith. The free and
open exchange of ideas, often brilliant expressions of some of
the most fertile minds, the greatest statesmen and patriots in
our entire history. No one body of private and public
correspondence, official papers, and pronouncements tell us
more about that founding time or more about who we are and what
we hold dear. The papers of the Founding Fathers are an
ultimate national treasure and their importance to the American
people, especially in such times as these, could not be
greater.''
Mr. Chairman, you can tell a lot about a society by how it
spends its money. Here is our chance, and it is long overdue,
to show what we care about, what we value, and what we are
willing and proud to pay for. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCullough appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. You may hear that last line
quoted again when I am wearing my other hat as a member of the
Appropriations Committee. I happen to agree very much with you.
Dr. Allen Weinstein is confirmed as the ninth Archivist.
For those with a little bit of history, the Archivist actually
has to be confirmed like a Supreme Court Justice. Some would
say sometimes the Archivist is every bit as important, if not
more so. He was confirmed as the ninth Archivist of the United
States in February of 2005.
Prior to his time at the National Archives and Records
Administration, he was a professor of history and held
positions in Boston University, my alma mater, Georgetown
University, and Smith College. He is the author of numerous
essays and books. He is past winner of the prestigious United
Nations Peace Medal for efforts to promote peace, dialogue, and
free elections in critical parts of the world.
Doctor, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF ALLEN WEINSTEIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE UNITED STATES,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Weinstein. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
Senator Kennedy, members of the committee, I want to thank you
for having invited me to testify on this important issue, one
which has been of keen interest to me throughout my almost half
century as an historian, and most intensely during the past 3
years as Archivist of the United States.
I must interject also, it is an enormous privilege for me
to sit in this panel with so many of my colleagues, people I
have worked with in other ways, and especially with the
extraordinary David McCullough. Thank you for all your work,
David.
Let me begin with a few facts. Unlike the practice of
preserving and making available to the public the papers of
each President of the United States beginning with Franklin
Roosevelt, there was no policy in place in the 18th century to
archive the papers of the Founders of the Nation. If collected
at all, documents were either scattered in diverse
repositories, public and private, or held within Federal
institutions, often very informally.
Responding to many of the same concerns that led to the
creation of the National Archives in the 1930s, historians and
scholars had long urged the creation of a Federal entity to
collect historical materials related to the three branches of
national government and to publish specifically the important
papers of our Presidents in order to make them more widely
available to all citizens.
In 1934, a Federal entity, the National Historical
Publications Commission, NHPC, was created within the National
Archives to address this mission. Although not initially funded
as a grant-making agency, the Commission called for publication
of comprehensive documentary editions of the papers of the key
Founders, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin
Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and James Madison, as
well as a documentary history of the ratification of the
Constitution.
Encouraged by historians, work began on a comprehensive
edition of the papers of Thomas Jefferson. Its first volume was
completed in 1950 and presented to President Truman, who,
impressed by the project's scope, became a strong supporter of
the NHPC's work on the Founders. Subsequently, in 1964, the
Commission began awarding grants for these projects.
The documentary editions collect, transcribe, and annotate
the materials written and received by these key American
statesmen. In the early years, much time and effort was spent
locating and assembling thousands of documents and deciphering
18th century handwriting. The National Historical Publications
& Records Commission, NHPRC, a name change in 1974, has funded
this process for the past 44 years. It has provided over $18
million in awards to six Founding Fathers documentary editing
projects, resulting in the publication of 216 volumes to date.
The volumes have been praised for their careful work,
scholarship, and detailed annotation.
At the same time, however, many Americans have been
frustrated by the slow pace of production and would like to
have earlier access to these papers in their entirety. For
example, the Adams Papers project, begun in 1954, does not
anticipate completion until 2049. This important work must be
completed at an accelerated pace and we must find ways to
partner with others outside the Federal Government in new and
creative ways to reach this goal and to achieve the most cost-
effective solutions.
With the advent of the Internet, online versions of the
documentary editions are both possible and desirable, Mr.
Chairman. Without sacrificing work on the scholarly editions,
the National Archives' NHPRC hopes to develop a plan to produce
online editions of all major published and unpublished
collections of the Founders' papers at the earliest possible
moment.
Achievement of this goal will require cooperation among all
of the scholars and university presses involved, as well as
steady support from the Congress on a time table geared to
early completion of the online editions.
Some projects have already begun to work toward this goal.
For example, the project to publish the papers of Benjamin
Franklin has made available online the complete collection of
its printed volumes, as well as unpublished transcripts of
Franklin's papers. The online materials are freely available to
the public.
To achieve the timely online editions of the papers of the
Founders, NHPRC would need to negotiate an agreement with the
project sponsors to release and post online unannotated
transcripts of the raw materials for future printed volumes.
The presses and projects have a longstanding financial interest
in these collections, as well as a commitment to ensure
thorough scholarship. At the same time, scholarly presses have
at the core of their mission open access to knowledge.
Critical and crucial to open access is that a clear and
effective plan be created for speeding projects along. Our goal
should be to achieve a balanced approach which ensures that the
public has the earliest possible access to online editions of
the collected papers of the Founders, and at the same time that
scholars commit to complete their work in a timely fashion.
I will be responding within the next month or so, Mr.
Chairman, to the language in the recently passed appropriations
bill directing me, ``as chairman of the NHPRC to develop and
submit a comprehensive plan for online electronic publication
of the papers of the Founding Fathers within a reasonable
timeframe.''
Only the closest cooperation among the main actors in this
process, the National Archives' NHPRC, the documentary editors,
and our congressional supporters, only that kind of cooperation
will produce the desired outcome: timely and cost-effective
online editions of the Founders' writings and the finest
scholarly editions possible in our lifetime.
This hearing, Mr. Chairman, is an important step toward
fulfilling these goals and we thank you for holding it.
This concludes my brief prepared statement. I'm happy to
try and answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weinstein appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much.
When we talk about the need for cooperation--we'll go back
to this after--I don't think any of us underestimate the
importance of that. I'm well aware in some of these papers
you're dealing with second, third, or fourth copies. If you're
going to put these papers out there, you have the most accurate
version possible.
Dr. Deanna Marcum became the Associate Librarian for
Library Services in August of 2003. Am I correct on that?
Ms. Marcum. Yes.
Chairman Leahy. She is responsible for integrating the
emerging digital resources into the traditional library
efforts, to build a digital library for the 21st century. From
1995 to 2003, Dr. Marcum served as the president of the Council
on Library Resources, and obviously one who is concerned with
what is happening here.
Dr. Marcum, please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF DEANNA B. MARCUM, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN OF LIBRARY
SERVICES, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Marcum. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, as the
Associate Librarian of the Library of Congress, I serve as the
Library's representative on the National Historical
Publications & Records Commission at the National Archives.
I am very pleased to see that the Judiciary Committee has
taken an interest in making the papers of the Founding Fathers
more accessible to the American people.
Libraries across the country, and the Library of Congress
in particular, are devoted to making information resources
available and useful to their fellow citizens. Federal tax
dollars have been used for more than 50 years to fund the
scholarly editions of the Founding Fathers' papers. It seems
appropriate that the results of the scholars' work be made more
accessible to the American people as soon as possible. The
system now in place is slow, laborious, and expensive, and
unfortunately the results have not been widely accessible.
The Library of Congress has been a pioneer in providing
digital access to historical resources. In the early 1990s,
even before the Internet was in widespread use, the Library of
Congress established the American Memory Project, making our
unique primary documents illuminating American history much
more widely available to people everywhere.
We converted historical documents to digital form and
produced CD-ROMs for distribution in schools. The Internet has
allowed us to make these materials much more widely available,
not just to America, but to the world. Our acclaimed Web site,
originally intended to provide resources for the K-12
community, has proved to be enormously useful to the
educational and academic communities and to the general public.
In 2007, the Library's Web site of more than 10 million
digital items recorded over 5 billion individual transactions,
a clear indication of our effectiveness and commitment to
access.
Chairman Leahy. Let me make sure I have that right. Five
billion?
Ms. Marcum. Billion.
The Library of Congress serves as the custodial home of the
Presidential papers, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge,
with the notable exception of the Adams papers. Prior to the
creation of the National Archives in 1934, the library was the
historical repository for such materials. To make the documents
of the Founding Fathers more widely available, the Library of
Congress has digitized and made accessible on our Web site all
of the Presidential papers of Washington, Jefferson, and
Madison as part of our American Memory Project.
In 2004, the Library of Congress and the National Endowment
for the Humanities began a collaborative project to digitize
and make accessible millions of historical newspaper pages. The
NEH is making grants to States to support the selection and
digitization of their newspapers of highest interest to the
public. The Library of Congress has established the technical
specifications for digitizing the papers and has developed a
user interface that is both reliable and easy to use.
The Library has provided staff expertise and content to the
project, as well as the storage and delivery mechanisms that
ensure access. NEH has covered partial administrative costs to
support the library's development of the system.
With adequate funding, digital versions of the Founding
Fathers' papers might be treated in a similar way. Working with
our colleague institutions, the Library of Congress could
combine digital versions of the papers in a single Web site
that would provide a convenient, easy-to-use, impartial, and
free venue. Our track record in this area is unparalleled.
The Library of Congress's interest is in making America's
history available to Americans. Our mission is to make
resources available and useful to the Congress and the American
people. The raw materials of our history should be instantly
and freely accessible for all. The Library of Congress would be
honored to play a role, assuming a combination of appropriated
and private funding in providing that access.
Thank you for inviting me to testify. I shall be happy to
answer questions. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Well, thank you very much, Doctor.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Marcum appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Our next witness would be Rebecca Rimel.
She is president and chief executive officer of the Pew
Charitable Trusts. She led Pew in promoting nonpartisan policy
solutions for pressing and emerging problems affecting the
American public, and there is hardly a Senator on either side
of the aisle that has not referred to Pew at one time or
another in debates.
Prior to joining Pew, Ms. Rimel served as the Assistant
Professor of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University
of Virginia, making her the first nurse to hold a faculty
position at the University of Virginia Hospital. Having been
married to a registered nurse for 45 years, I'm always glad to
see something like that.
Ms. Rimel. You're fortunate.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. I am.
Ms. Rimel received her bachelor's degree from the
University of Virginia in nursing, and a master's degree from
James Madison University.
Please go ahead.
STATEMENT OF REBECCA W. RIMEL, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Rimel. Thank you, sir. I am honored and appreciative
for this opportunity.
Thomas Jefferson reminded us, ``It is the duty of every
good citizen to use all of the opportunities that occur to him
for preserving documents relating to the history of this
country.'' That's why I'm so honored to join this distinguished
panel today, why I'm appreciative of the Committee's interest
in this critical work, and why I'm so grateful to the number of
private donors, including my own board, that have invested over
$7.5 million beginning in the early 1970s, to complete the
scholarly work required to share our Founders' documents with
the world.
Others can talk more knowingly about the importance of the
Founders' words, but I would offer just two additional points
that show their relevance and impact. The Congressional Record
indicates that the words ``Founding Fathers'' have been used
more than 2,400 times on the floor of the House and the Senate
during the last six Congresses. This is 240 years after the
last of these great Americans passed away.
Since 1984, more than 30 heads of state, including many
from emerging democracies, have visited Montecello, Thomas
Jefferson's home, to learn more about this leading architect of
democracy. During their visits, they shared the importance of
the Founders' ideas and ideals in their fight for freedom.
Eight years ago, my board approved an additional $10
million challenge grant. When coupled with other private and
public support, it would have greatly expedited the completion
of the letter press editions of these papers and made them
electronically accessible to all.
The impetus for this was the slow progress after 50 years
of significant public and private support. It also was because
of the high costs, which you referred to in your opening
remarks, to libraries and the cost per volume.
The lack of a clear understanding of the use of the public
and private dollars is because, to my knowledge, there has
never been a full accounting of the Founding Fathers Project.
There has been a lack of performance metrics.
On a more positive note, my board and I share a strong
commitment to share with every American what is rightfully
theirs: the words of the Founding Fathers. We and our other
private sector donor partners required centralized
coordination, cooperation, oversight, and greater
accountability, and transparency and productivity as the terms
of our grant. I am disappointed to report that our goal was not
realized.
The failure to fully share our Founders' papers, I believe,
is truly a national embarrassment. If you come to share these
sentiments, I respectfully recommend three objectives for a
congressional oversight plan. First, Congress should draft a
plan for completion of these papers and conduct regular
oversight until it is finished. The Senate Appropriations
Committee has directed the Archivist to submit a plan by the
end of March to make these materials available online, and I
trust that these recommendations will be carefully considered.
Second, we should expeditiously complete the letter press
editions. The original goal of Congress more than 50 years ago
is still valid today. The scholarly work is important.
Sufficient funding, coupled with more accountability and
efficiency, will be necessary to complete these projects in a
timely manner.
Finally, the published volumes should be digitized, along
with the original unannotated documents, and they should be
placed on a single, easily accessible Web site such as that of
the Library of Congress. Access should be free, available to
anyone, anywhere who can access the Internet.
Mr. Adams instructed us to never think of limitations on
what we might do. Let's not limit our aspirations in achieving
such a noble goal, and let's please ensure that it does not
take us over 100 years to make the words of our Founders
accessible to all.
I thank you for the courtesy of your time.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much. I wanted you here
because I knew the amount of effort and money the foundation
has put into this project, and I thank you for that.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rimel appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Dr. Stanley Katz is currently Professor at
the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and serves
as the Commissioner of the National Historical Publications &
Records Commission. He is a member of the American
Philosophical Society. He is author and editor of numerous
books and articles. He served as president to the Organization
of American Historians and the American Society for Legal
History. He received his bachelor's degree, master's degree,
and Ph.D. in English history and literature from Harvard
University.
Dr. Katz, please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF STANLEY N. KATZ, CHAIRMAN, PAPERS OF THE FOUNDING
FATHERS, PROFESSOR, WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Mr. Katz. Thank you very much, Senator Leahy and the rest
of the Committee.
I want to make just a couple of very brief points in this
opening statement. There's an awful lot for us to talk to. I'm
here as the chair of a tiny 501(c)(3) called Papers of the
Founding Fathers, Inc., which was created in 1981 to assist the
then-five projects in raising private funds to support the work
that they were doing, mainly to relieve the editors of those
projects of the burden of trying to raise funds while they were
editing the papers.
I want to make the point that that is all we do. We have no
management responsibilities, we have no authority over the
projects themselves. We do, however, try to keep in touch with
all of them, and each one of the projects has a trustee on the
board of FFP, Inc.
The question that has been bruited in the press and by
Rebecca Rimel and others is a very important one, and that is
the rate of productivity of these projects. They have taken a
very long time. They continue to take a very long time. We have
addressed the schedule in the testimony we submitted and we can
come back to that later.
The basic point to be made here, I think, the one that
David McCullough made very nicely, is that these are rather
extraordinary works of scholarship. This is a craft skill, this
is not an industrial skill. It can't be scaled up in the way
that industrial skills can. We can't, to use David's
expression, build a second airport. That's not going to work
for these projects.
We have been proceeding with all deliberate speed, and we
will do our best to make it speedier, but still deliberate. I
do want to point out that there have been increases, really
important increases, in the rates of productivity over the last
five to 7 years. I think we have now reached what I think is a
sustainable rate of about a volume a year from the several
projects, and I believe that ought to be our objective.
Third, I want to point out that while the Federal
Government has obviously been hugely important to us, and we
can discuss this in detail later, the projects were originally
started on private funding. Pew was among the first, and
certainly the most generous, of the private funders. But in
more recent years we've been supported first by NHPRC, and then
since 1994, by NEH as well. So there is roughly an equal split,
slightly more on the private side, between public and private
funders. This is a partnership we would very much like to
retain and to expand.
Finally, we agree that digital access and online versions
are absolutely essential. This is an objective that we have
been working for for a very long time now. We contracted with
the Packard Humanities Institute in 1988 to begin the
digitization of the unpublished papers, and we continue to do
that. The edition that David referred to of the Franklin papers
that is now available freely online was done--not only funded,
but done--by the Packard Humanities Institute. They continue to
support us for this work and we want to continue it.
Second, all of the published volumes, letter press
editions, are being digitized by the University of Virginia
press. Their electronic imprint is called Rotunda. Those will
all be available very shortly.
Third, we were approached by NEH in 2006. We have included
the proposal we made to NEH to prepare an online version of the
unpublished, unedited papers in our testimony. We think that is
absolutely essential and we'd very much like to undertake it.
But I want to point out that this is not like digitizing
newspapers. You cannot run them through a machine to do them.
We have to keyboard them. We have to have expert historians
verify the text. It will take a bit of time, although not as
long as the published editions. That is my suggestion for where
we ought to be headed for fuller, freer public access. Thank
you.
Chairman Leahy. Am I correct, Dr. Katz, that on the
digitizing, I understand the comparison of newspapers, but also
the ability to do that is improving all the time, is it not?
Mr. Katz. Well, we don't scan. So in other words, it is
improving, indeed. The rate of error is much less than it used
to be. But all of our material, or almost all of our material,
is holograph material, it's handwritten material. It simply
needs an expert eye to go over it. The machine can't read it
satisfactorily. So, we don't believe it is possible to do that,
and I don't think any comparable project uses that kind of
technology.
I have, by the way, brought along the most recent volume,
or volumes, from each project. If somebody wants to carry them
up there, I think they are very important for anybody thinking
about this to look at them.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Katz appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. When we break, I want to come down and take
a look at a couple of those. Thank you.
Mr. Katz. All right.
Chairman Leahy. And Dr. Ketcham is a Professor Emeritus of
History at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, getting
closer to my part of the country. Incidentally, I do not know
when you came down, Dr. Ketcham, but you had a lot of snow
there yesterday.
Mr. Ketcham. Not like Virginia.
Chairman Leahy. Dr. Ketcham currently serves on the Board
of Directors of the Montpelier Foundation, which is down here
in Virginia. He is working to preserve the lasting legacy of
James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution and the
architect of the Bill of Rights, and President of the United
States.
He worked as the editor of the papers of Benjamin Franklin
at Yale in 1965, and is the associate editor of the papers of
James Madison at the University of Chicago in 2006. He received
his bachelor's at Allegheny College, and master's degree at
Colgate University, a Ph.D. in American Studies from Syracuse.
Dr. Ketcham, you have had a lifetime of editing these kinds
of things. Please go ahead, sir.
STATEMENT OF RALPH KETCHAM, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY EMERITUS,
MAXWELL SCHOOL OF SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
Mr. Ketcham. Thank you, Senator. I'm pleased to acknowledge
your work on these projects, as well as Senator Kennedy's, and
the other members of this committee.
The Founding Fathers Project has become the most lasting
and significant effort to preserve the national heritage of the
ideas and institutions upon which our political system rests.
From the beginning with Franklin Roosevelt opening the
Jefferson Memorial and Dr. Boyd finding at that time the energy
to start the project on Jefferson, and going on ever since, the
main thing about these projects is they have developed methods
and benchmarks of fairness and accuracy for documentary
publication that were so path-breaking, that all previous such
publications were rendered inadequate and incomplete, and all
subsequent publications have had to try to keep up with these
standards. As the volumes have come out--over 200 by now--the
projects themselves have become legendary and serve a scholarly
and a public purpose.
A review in the William & Mary Quarterly, recently referred
to these publications as ``immense and invaluable enterprises
that have already transformed the means and soundness of
writing the history of the American founding.'' It's this
system which all agree, I think, must be sustained if the
remarkable and unique mission of the projects is to be
fulfilled, as every President since Harry Truman and Dwight
Eisenhower had emphasized.
The question of the long time the projects have taken is
problematic. What I'd like to address about this question is
the nature of the papers themselves, which raise important
questions about how the whole business can be handled.
Actually, there are so many papers in the files, partly
because the Founders lived such a long time. It's not
surprising that Alexander Hamilton's papers are the only ones
that have been completed. The chief editor of the Hamilton
papers, Cy Surrett, emphasized long ago that he thought he
might dedicate his volumes to Aaron Burr, who made completion
of this task possible.
[Laughter.]
But the rest of them all lived a long time and all kept
scribbling.
But the projects themselves own no original documents. All
their documents are in existence somewhere else. All the
documents, as Stanley has emphasized, were handwritten
documents, archived or held elsewhere. Or there are various
kinds of other later copies, transcripts from unauthenticated
sources, auction catalogues, and so on.
All of these miscellaneous beginnings have to be typed up
and word processed, and really can only be fully understood by
carefully trained historians. These transcripts need to be
proofread, and are proofread over and over again. The notes
from various sources that are put into the editorial apparatus
from time to time need to be carefully looked over.
So when one asks, what do the files consist of, they
consist of very uneven materials. There are transcripts made
sometimes by not very skilled typists or word processors, notes
added to the files from time to time, alternate copies of
different documents. It's very undigested and the files fill
shelves and shelves. So the question is, if we're going to
reproduce this, electronically, what do we reproduce and with
what sense of authenticity can it be brought forth?
So I would suggest that the main thing we need to avoid is
the interruption of the work of the ongoing editorial projects
because the essential need of all concerned is to have these
volumes before the public--not just the documents, but the way
they're presented and the notes on them and so on are
themselves a kind of historical record that David McCullough
has mentioned.
I think the way to speed up the whole process of getting
these documents before the public is mainly, as David
McCullough has also suggested, to increase the staff and
funding of the projects. Also go ahead, as Stanley has
suggested, on breaking the projects up so that different parts
of them can be edited simultaneously, as the Jefferson project
has recently done, as the Madison project has already been
doing. I think this is most important for the ongoing work of
the projects. So, I would urge the committee to mainly
emphasize the continuation of that work, and then go ahead as
much as possible with the digitalized electronic versions, too.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ketcham appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Leahy. Thank you very much, Dr. Ketcham.
Let me ask a couple of questions, and certainly colleagues
can feel free to jump in here anywhere. Mr. McCullough, you and
I discussed some of these things and where the records are.
We've talked about these matters off and on for over 30 years.
This is 200 years after these papers are written, 50 years
after the effort to publish them began. I realize nobody can
speak and say exactly what the Founders might have thought, but
from all of your studies, what do you think the Founders would
have thought about the lack of access of these papers, or would
they have wanted these papers to be generally accessible to
people?
Mr. McCullough. Well, one thing they all had in common, it
seems to me, is a bedrock faith in education. Jefferson
famously said, ``Any nation that expects to be ignorant and
free expects what never was and never can be.'' John Adams was
the author of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, the oldest written constitution still in
existence, still in use in the world today, in which there is a
paragraph about the importance of education.
Education depends on teachers. I feel very strongly that we
are falling very far behind standards as to how we're educating
our young people in American history. We are raising youngsters
today, and I see them on the best college and university
campuses in the country who are, by and large, historically
illiterate and it's not their faults, it's our fault.
If the teachers, just the teachers, were to have access to
this material, ready access to the material in either some form
of printed reproduction, by Internet, or however it will be,
online, that would be a giant step forward.
There is no reason in the world, except money, cost--let's
say investment, because that is what it would be--that this
can't be done, if only for the purposes of educating our
children and grandchildren.
Chairman Leahy. I was thinking the other day of when the
President's--and I don't mean this as a partisan thing at all.
But the President's spokesperson was asked by somebody about
the Cuban missile crisis. She said, I'm not sure what that is,
but I assumed it involved missiles in Cuba.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McCullough. Well, Senator, that's not an isolated
situation.
Chairman Leahy. No. I was a law student at Georgetown at
the time. I remember, we all sat here wondering whether the
world was going to end. When you did your Pulitzer Price work
on President John Adams, you were actually able to review the
Adams papers which are in Senator Kennedy's home State at the
Massachusetts Historical Society. What was your experience like
in seeking access to those papers?
Mr. McCullough. Well, there was no problem about access.
What was astonishing to me was the volume of material that was
not in print in any form, the letters between John and Abigail
Adams, for example, which number in excess of 1,000, just those
two writing to each other, neither of whom was capable of
writing a boring letter or a short one.
[Laughter.]
It was exciting to be holding those letters in one's own
hands. It's a kind of tactile connection with that vanished
time that can't be duplicated. But at the same time, I
wondered, why are two thirds--at that point--of those letters
never been in print in any form?
Chairman Leahy. Dr. Weinstein, were you trying to
interject? I am thinking, when I read articles about those
letters I almost feel like I'm sitting in the room with two
remarkable people contemporaneously, talking about the greatest
events of our history.
Mr. McCullough. I just want to make one quick point,
further point. All these people lived in the 18th century or
the early 19th century. There was no photography, no motion
pictures, no voice recordings. One would think it would be very
difficult to reach them, to find them as human beings, and it
would be except for what they wrote.
That's where we have them, on paper, in their own words,
written by their own hands, in their own time. Very often those
letters reveal not just the history of our country, but what
kind of human beings they were and their character, and what
they didn't know, what they were fearful of, what they were
angry about. It's in that realm of the papers, I think, that
one finds what is purely magic and they come to life. The only
way we are going to reinstate a knowledge of history among our
children and grandchildren is if that story comes to life.
Chairman Leahy. My time has expired, but Dr. Weinstein had
something he wanted to add to that.
Mr. Weinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First, if
I may, I'd like to welcome my old friend from the Archives,
Senator Cardin, here. Everything that Mr. McCullough has said
is absolutely correct about the appalling lack of knowledge of
history. But there is another countervailing force that has to
be taken into account. There is a huge hunger for an
understanding of history out there in the American public. I
think we see this in so many different ways.
At the Archives, we have had a remarkable spike in our
attendance. We had over a million visitors to the Archives
building alone, to our new exhibits there. Where they used to
come for 5 minutes to view the Declaration, the Constitution,
and the Bill of Rights, they now stay for an hour or more as
families, as youngsters, as classes. We have an educational
program going. The Library of Congress has had some of the same
experiences, as does every other cultural institution in
Washington. At a time when art museums were supposed to be
fading and passing from the scene, we did a show once with six
museum directors. There is so much new museum work going on.
So, I'm not quite as pessimistic, David, I think, about
this as you if we approach this effectively. I think the
completion, the timely completion of an online edition to these
papers of the Founders is a very important step in this
direction now. I'm about a year or two into the frustrations of
running the National Archives--and it's been mostly excitement,
not frustrations--I decided that I would like to request from
the Congress that they consider changing the inscription on the
front of the building that says ``The past is prologue'' to one
that reads ``Show me the money''.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Leahy. Some of us serve on both this committee and
the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Weinstein. A final point, if I may, very briefly. With
all due respect to my colleagues, we have 10 billion documents
thus far. I've counted them all, and they're all there. But
they're all scattered around.
Chairman Leahy. You don't count them every day.
Mr. Weinstein. Yes, indeed. But they're among the 40 or so
facilities of the National Archives. I don't think there's an
argument at this table. I see consensus at this table.
Different people are functioning on different aspects of this.
All right. Perhaps one can't build another terminal or another
airport, but one can build another terminal onto the existing
airport. There are various metaphors that can be applied here.
But it seems to me that it was Bill Buckley who once said he'd
rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston
telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard College.
Well, I'm not going to take a position on that issue
because we just hosted at the Archives the new president of
Harvard, and she's wonderful. But I will say, I would venture
if I took the six people at this table and the three Senators
here and we sat in a room for a day or two, we could resolve
all of this and then proceed on our way and get the job done
and get it done in a timely way. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. Let us hope we do.
Senator Kennedy?
Senator Kennedy. Well, thank you. Thank you all very much.
Thank you for your recommendations. Hopefully the panelists
will give us, in addition to your testimony, your best judgment
about how we might proceed. Let me ask, Dr. Weinstein. Do we
have all of the documents now? Do we know where they are? Are
there still some that are missing? What can you tell us?
Mr. Weinstein. The usual caution of an historian: there's
always something missing. There's always something turning up.
Just when you think--for example, one example. At the Archives,
one of our young archivists was flipping through an old book of
Civil War records, very well-known. All of a sudden, what turns
up on the text between two pages of the book but a letter by
Abraham Lincoln, which had been known before but no one had
ever seen the actual letter, in which he urges swift action
after Gettysburg to move on Lee's army and cut it down and end
the war there. A very important letter for the history of the
period. No one knew where it was, and suddenly it's there.
There will always be something coming up, but I think we have
enough to work on. I don't know whether my colleagues--
Senator Kennedy. Dr. Katz?
Mr. Katz. One of the problems that we have, is that none of
the projects, with the exception of the Adams papers, (owned by
the Massachusetts Historical Society) owns any of the original
documents, so from the start it's been a project of traveling
around and collecting them. Many of them are in the National
Archives, but many are not. The Jefferson papers come from 100
different depositories around the world, for instance. We know
that for some of the projects there are systematic portions of
the National Archives and other places that still need to be
combed for letters, so there is still some collecting to be
done.
Senator Kennedy. David?
Mr. McCullough. The papers that are the Massachusetts
Historical Society, largely Adams papers, as large as that
collection is, does not constitute everything because many
letters are still held in private hands, private collections,
and they come on the market every now and then. There's always
the question, is this one that should be bought or does a copy
of it suffice? So I think it's safe to say that the others are
more knowledgeable about this than I am, but there is a copy of
every known paper in the Massachusetts Historical Society
collection. But it's astonishing how many papers do come to
light year after year. Sometimes they're very important papers.
Senator Kennedy. Well, I imagine, and I think from your
books, David, there's a good deal that are missing, as from
ships that were sunk.
Mr. McCullough. Oh, absolutely.
Senator Kennedy. Other letters that are missing.
Mr. McCullough. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. As well as important documents that are
abroad. I think one of the stories you mentioned is Adams going
to Liden, where he stayed for a period of time. Evidently,
during the Revolutionary War there were French officers who
drew pictures that described the battle at Yorktown that went
to the French archives. Then at the time of the American
Revolution, they moved those out and they had them up in
Holland. There are archives up there that are directly related
to some of the things that were going on.
I don't know whether we ought to take a look at some of
these documents that are in other parts of the world. But I am
interested in that. I saw these drawings and pictures that were
absolutely extraordinary when I was over there.
But second, in the project, do you look at the letters of
family members? Obviously the Adams's, yes. But, I mean, other
members of their family, their close friends, their close
advisors. Are all of those considered when you're looking at
these Founding Fathers? How extensively? How far out do you go?
Do you just say, well, look, for Adams, these individuals were
the closest advisors to him, or for Washington when he was up
at Longfellow House during the course of the American
Revolution, these people were the closest to him and therefore
we've got to get their papers too. What can you tell me about
the outreach?
Mr. Weinstein. Very important. I think that David, Stanley,
and Professor Ketcham might, as practitioners working on these,
have papers, collections themselves, more up-to-date
information. I would say that when you get away from the
collections of the Founders and you deal with all of the other
collections that are being addressed by NHPRC with small
grants, but very important grants, you find much keener
interest--particularly as you approach the present, the 19th,
20th century, a much keener interest in collateral collections.
For example, they've just published the first volume of the
Eleanor Roosevelt papers, and they're absolutely fascinating.
They have a great many of her friends and closest associates
that are covered in them. But on the papers of the Founders, I
think I'd rather defer to my colleagues.
Mr. Katz. Thank you. Let me just comment very quickly on
that. It's a key question, Senator Kennedy. When the modern
editing began with Julian Boyd at Princeton, that was his great
innovation, was to see that we had to use more than the
immediate body of material created by the President himself, so
he began collecting cognate documents.
One of the most difficult and skilled tasks of the editors
is to figure out by those standards what is relevant, so that
obviously not all of the material from family members is
relevant, so principles have been established. But it requires
an incredible amount of time to make those kinds of judgments,
but that is the principle of the modern editions.
Mr. McCullough. I'd like to just, if I may, I'm a user, I'm
a customer. I go to these volumes as someone who needs them,
and I can't speak necessarily for how they are done or what the
ground rules are. But an enormous part of the value of the
papers is that they do include someone who is writing to that
President or that person before or after they were President
that you may never have heard of, but it's an interesting
letter and an important letter, and the response may be very
interesting or important.
They identify who that person is, because very often it's
someone who've never heard of or seems to be obscure. You can't
look him or her up in any way. That's their huge value.
Now, with the Adams's papers, the personal papers are being
published at the same time in a separate set of volumes, so
that there are two projects going forth, as well as the John
Quincy Adams papers, which is something else.
To give you an idea of how great is the volume of that
collection, they are on microfilm. This is for the whole family
down through Charles Francis Adams, Henry Adams, and so forth.
If that microfilm were stretched out, it would be more than
five miles long. That's how much material there is. That
quantity has to always be taken into consideration when
appraising the size, scope, timetable of the project.
Senator Kennedy. Just very quickly, a question, then a very
quick comment.
Can you tell us, Dr. Katz, are there some interesting
things that have developed in this project that perhaps we
might not have been aware of previously? What can you tell us?
Maybe Dave McCullough as well as the other historian? I mean,
what can you tell us about whether there are some hidden
treasures in these documents?
Mr. Ketcham. May I answer, Senator?
Senator Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Ketcham. I think this emphasizes the very miscellaneous
nature of the documents in these projects and the different
degree to which, already, they are available either on
microfilm or electronically. I was just using, recently, the
Library of Congress American Memory reproduction of the papers
of James Madison, and it is a wonderful resource. Also, the
University of Virginia internet publication of the printed
volumes is helpful and important.
There's a lot there, but it's very miscellaneous. It has
always been seen that way, ever since Dr. Boyd established the
very broad notion of what Jefferson's papers were, letters to
him, even some letters about him, responses. All of these get
put in miscellaneously over the years as editors come across
them, as other scholars let the editors know about papers and
so on.
So the stuff that's in the files is very miscellaneous. I
think there are some, often, wonderful nuggets. Ellen Cohen is
here, the editor of the Franklin papers. I guess you recently
found on the back of some document information about when
Franklin first arrived in Philadelphia, or something like that,
which wouldn't have been understood unless a very skilled
editor was looking at the document, looked at the back of it.
I think actually it's these nuggets and these insights
which come from a deep understanding of the documents which are
really most important. I think we ought not to hold up the
publication like these volumes. I think if that could be
sustained, and maybe even speeded up along with electronic
publication. It would not distract the work and the money going
into these volumes in order to do an online version. They have
to go on together.
Senator Kennedy. Just a final comment on what Dave
McCullough talked about, about the teachers, about learning,
and about history. We are trying to do our best to get the
Princeton standardized test to put history back on, civics back
on. If we can do that, then the schools will once again start
teaching about this.
It's something that I know you're all very passionate
about. For someone who serves on the Education Committee, I can
see that we really have fallen so far behind. What Allen has
said about the thirst of the American people for all of this
information is true, and the link is somewhere here in getting
the legislation and funding on it. We will certainly do what we
can.
Thank you again.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
Senator Cardin is here and has taken a strong interest in
this subject, both as a member of the other body and now here.
Thank you for joining us.
STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF MARYLAND
Senator Cardin. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
really want to thank you for holding this hearing. It's a real
pleasure to listen to these experts. I'm somewhat humbled when
I try to figure out what question to ask, but let me, first,
thank you for all of your work and give you a couple of
personal stories.
The day before I was sworn in to the Senate, I decided to
do something that Senator Kennedy has done with his family.
Senator Kennedy takes his family to historically important
sites on a regular basis, so I decided to copy that idea and
took my family to the National Archives the day before I got
sworn in. We spent a very enjoyable time there, and Dr.
Weinstein was very generous with making it available.
But the story is, I have two 12-year-old nephews who were
there, and to this day they talk about that experience. They do
not talk about what happened the following day when I got sworn
in, but they do talk about that experience with the National
Archives.
[Laughter.]
And they challenge themselves on history and have gotten
very interested in the history of our Nation, which I think
underscores the importance that if information is more
available, if our educators are more informed, that there is a
desire out there to learn more about the history of our Nation,
understanding its importance for our future.
The second story is that this past weekend, Friday, the
Democratic members of the Senate met in Mt. Vernon and it was a
very important, I think, meeting for us. We had experts who
shared their views on many subjects. But to me, the highlight
was really lunch, where we had an expert talk about Washington.
I learned a lot more. It helped me to understand that the
Hamilton-Jefferson debates are relevant to us today on the
issue that's on the floor today, the FISA legislation and the
power of the President. So we learn a lot and it is very
important to us, and I thank you for trying to make this more
available.
The third story I want to tell, which leads to my question,
is that when I was in the State legislature I was Speaker of
our House, and I decided to take on a project, which was the
publication of the Carroll papers. The Carroll papers are very
important to the history of Maryland, thousands of letters that
were written that were not available. I supported that project
for, I guess, around a decade in order to get it done. It took
a long time. Once I left the legislature and became a
Congressman, the interest was no longer there and the funding.
I tried to keep it going. I did for a while. But it was
difficult, without being there, to keep it going.
So I guess my question to you is, this project which I
believe is so important to our country but does not have the
continuing interest often by the government itself, when so
many other areas are garnering attention. We don't have as many
hearings. We don't have hearings on this subject as we do on
national security, homeland security, and all the other issues
that we have to deal with.
What can we do as a Congress to try to provide the staying
power so that our Nation continues this project? Because it's
going to take a long time. We'll never complete it, but it's
going to take a long time. What can we do to try to
institutionalize the work that you are doing so that it is
available to our country and to future generations?
Mr. Weinstein. The four most dangerous words in the English
language in this town, Senator: I will be brief. Let me try to
be brief. You are asking the question, the medium is the
message. You are here. You're not at some other hearing. You're
spending this time, as Senator Kennedy is, concerning yourself
with how one can project this issue in an effective way.
You mentioned the tour you took with your family. I wish I
could have 20 members every day and spend a couple of hours and
talk about the issues of running an archive, running the
National Archives, because that's where you get engaged and
they get engaged in this process. Some people have had the
blessings of family interest, like Senator Kennedy. Some have
had the blessings of a lifetime's worth of interest, like the
Chairman, and many who are not here.
But, for example, Senator Carper, one of your colleagues,
took all the new members of the Senate on an evening in which
they just toured, had some dinner, we talked about some of the
issues, what was there, what wasn't there. And not just the
Archives. Go to the Library of Congress. Go to Mt. Vernon. Go
to anyplace where one can engage, and not just in the 17th and
18th centuries. We are seriously considering putting some
things in that will clarify or get to many of the 19th or 20th
century issues. These are the kinds of things, the constant
attention. And it doesn't have to be anything dramatic. It can
be an hour in the morning, a reception, a dinner.
It also, frankly, has this kind of engagement in the
history of our community and this institution, the institution
of the Congress, that has enormous side effects, side benefits
in terms of restoring the dialog between Senators, members of
the House, the other body, and the American public. It is
amazing how many people, how many parents come up to me in the
Archives and want to talk about their appreciation for the
ability to go into this. So it's not a mystery, it's not brain
surgery. It's just constant attention.
Mr. Katz. Senator Cardin, can I be pointed in my response?
There are two agencies that support the historical editing
effort. They've been wonderful, both of them. The first, was
NHPRC, which is part of NARA, the National Archives, and the
other is the National Endowment for the Humanities, and they've
both been supporting this effort for a long time, NHPRC since
its beginning and NEH since 1993. But those of us in the
community are constantly struggling to support Allen and Bruce
Cole, and it's not easy.
This year, again, the White House has zeroed NHPRC out of
the budget, so we'll be back to those of you on the
Appropriations Committee to suggest that you reinsert it in the
budget. NEH also always needs more for this portion of its
budget. But, of course, the Founding Fathers competes with
other interests that both agencies have, and we do understand
that, but the steady flow of money for this has been a
struggle.
Let me say, for the community on the whole, we've been very
pleased with what we've gotten. The Congress has been actually
quite good to us.
Senator Cardin. Let me just make a comment. I get a lot of
requests in my office for people to visit the White House, and
I can understand the importance of visiting the White House. We
cannot accommodate all those requests, so I freely suggest to
visit the National Archives and Library of Congress, and many
of my constituents have taken me up on that and none have ever
regretted those visits.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McCullough. May I just answer your question? I would
suggest that you and some of your colleagues make a trip to
Charlottesville and go and see what is being done with the
Jefferson post-Presidential papers at Montecello, and how they
have increased the volume-per-year production without any
jeopardizing of the quality of the project, and how that system
may be the solution to the problem. I would urge you to talk to
Dan Jordan and others who are working there. It's been done.
It's been proven to work. It's a superb, hopeful sign that we
ought to know more about.
And may I also suggest that you, if not in any formal,
official way, but in your own response to this subject and to
the solution to the problem of time, get to know more about
what Rebecca Rimel has done, what the Pew Foundation has done,
not just with the millions of dollars they've contributed, but
with the ideas, the commitment, and the faith. Those of us who
care about this care about this because I think we care about
our country. That's certainly true of Rebecca and those that
she works with at the Pew Foundation.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
I introduced some of you to Colleen Mason, who has been
doing archival work in my office. The more I listen to this,
the more I think of things we could do. Going down to see the
Jefferson papers, that is something that is relatively easy for
us to get a group together and go down.
Dr. Marcum, I tell Vermonters, I do similar things to what
Senator Cardin does. Of course, he lives right next door. That
means, what is the population of Maryland?
Senator Cardin. Over 5 million. Maybe 6 million.
Chairman Leahy. They're available to drive down here at any
time and expect to see them, and except to do these things.
Vermont has only 660,000 people. What I enjoy, is when we have
a President Inaugural, somebody in my office told me they'd
been receiving these requests from all those who graduated from
high school with me for tickets, and we were up to about 250. I
said, there were 29 people in my high school class.
[Laughter.]
But I'm delighted by their interest. I suggest they go over
to the Library of Congress and see the plaque where Justin
Morrill is memorialized from Vermont, and gave the money to
help build the building. He was the third-longest serving
Senator in Vermont's history. So, I do that. But there are so
many of these places you don't think of.
This is my last question. I'm going to be writing to each
of you. I have other questions. But suppose you're in a small
rural State like mine. I mean, there is an advantage for
Senator Cardin's constituents. They can just drive down. But
suppose you're in a small rural State like mine. Suppose you're
a high school teacher in a class of 29. I don't know if we have
any high school classes that size. But you want to gain access
to the Washington papers to prepare a history lesson. The
executive director of the Vermont Historical Society told me
the full sets of the volumes are available at most of the
larger academic libraries, but not all Americans can easily
travel to use the books. I will put that letter in the record.
But what do you do in a case like this? And to add to it, a
number of our smaller schools in a rural area like that are
doing more, using telecommunications, a teacher in one
classroom and probably three schools. How do they do this and
bring it alive? Nobody is going to learn history if you just
simply say, memorize these 28 dates. Who is going to do that?
But if you could bring it alive and say, look, this is what
they wrote, how do you do it?
Mr. Katz. Can I respond? And I think Ralph wants to
respond, too.
Chairman Leahy. Sure.
Mr. Katz. This is key. In the work that I do in training of
history teachers and working with history teachers--Ralph does
the same sort of thing, the great emphasis over the last 30
years has been teaching American history from documents. That
is what we are training school teachers to do now. It's been, I
think, extremely effective to be able to train teachers
properly and continue that teaching. NEH has been very good at
assisting us in that.
Getting access to the documents normally, frankly, comes
through printed books of documents because that turns out to be
cheaper and easier to use. You can put it in the kids' hands.
Because not all schools have the kind of online access,
particularly for teaching in class, or have computer projectors
that a teacher would need in order to display an online
document.
So while I dream of a time when the schools will be doing
that and where the teachers will be sophisticated enough to use
those documents in a proper way, for the moment we are
preparing both online, but I think more importantly in print
form, those kinds of materials, and increasingly that's what's
being done in Vermont and elsewhere.
Mr. Ketcham. I'd answer that in a couple of ways. One, I
think the sort of documents that a teacher could use right
away, the important ones, those are already out there. I don't
think there's much hidden or unavailable in that way.
I think, also, the other way that teachers need to come to
a sound understanding of the founding that they can pass on to
their students is through works like David McCullough's. What
does David need to write his books? Well, he needs the kind of
access that he's found in the printed volumes already and the
kind of subtle understandings and insights that come from a
carefully edited document. He's mentioned ways in which that
works. So I think it would really be a shame to slow up the
production of the works that are needed by people like David
McCullough, whose books are going to be read by the teachers
who teach the young. It's that process which I think needs to
be very carefully guarded.
Chairman Leahy. Dr. Marcum?
Ms. Marcum. I did some searching on World Cat--it's kind of
a union catalogue of what libraries hold--on the Alexander
Hamilton papers since they've been published. Looking at
Vermont, there are three institutions that have the papers of
Alexander Hamilton in Vermont: the University of Vermont,
Norwich University, and Middlebury College. There are probably
other libraries that have these volumes that haven't
contributed their bibliographic records to World Cat, but in
general the academic libraries have these volumes, public
libraries don't. They're too expensive for public libraries.
I think it's important to work with teachers, as Stan has
described. Electronic resources are particularly important
because that's where school children go to find information.
They look, first, on Google, frankly. I think we have to be
concerned about making those materials available where school
children search for information. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. I think I have hit a point here. Go ahead,
Ms. Rimel.
Ms. Rimel. Mine maybe is slightly different, but a response
to a couple of your other questions. If there's interest in
retaining the private sector's support for these projects, it
is going to require greater oversight, greater transparency and
accountability, and greater productivity, because representing
the private donors here, we have a fiduciary responsibility in
the investment of these.
Chairman Leahy. But who does that? Who does that kind of
oversight and transparency? What's the best way to do that?
Ms. Rimel. I think what we're asking for is more for these
papers as investors in the project.
Chairman Leahy. No. But, I mean, who's going to make sure--
maybe I misunderstood what you said. You said it needs more
oversight, more transparency. Is there an ultimate oversight
person or function? Who does that?
Ms. Rimel. I think that's what we're asking Congress to do.
Chairman Leahy. OK.
Ms. Rimel. After 50 years, we feel that that's needed, and
I think that kind of assurance is going to be needed by the
private sector to continue our investment in these projects
going forward.
Chairman Leahy. Good point.
Doctor?
Mr. Weinstein. Senator, we have many different kinds of
students who need to be educated, ranging from those in the
primary grades, secondary grades, high schools, colleges and
universities. At the National Archives, we try to address this
problem. It's now part of our commitment, it's part of our
strategic plan--it wasn't 3 years ago but it is now--and we do
it in a variety of ways, which involve extensive use of
educational resources, whatever is available, in the four
Washington, DC facilities, the 14 Regional Archives, the 13
Presidential Libraries, the 17 Federal Record Centers, and you
can get an awful lot done when you are in 20 States, and if
you're not in the State, you have access to it next door.
If you take your section of the country, as far as I know
there's no archival facility in Vermont. They may not have told
me about it yet. But in any event, we are in Massachusetts at
the Kennedy Library, we are in the Berkshires, western
Massachusetts, very convenient to where you are as a Regional
Archive. We are at the Roosevelt Library just across in New
York City.
There are ways of doing this without straining one's self
if one wants to do it. It's just a question of getting in
there, rolling up one's sleeves, and using the resources of the
colleges, universities, and the rest that exist everywhere. We
are a country which is absorbed with education and I'm not sure
we use it effectively in terms of history and the civic
mission. But that's the challenge, and what we're talking about
today is one part of that.
Chairman Leahy. When you mentioned Norwich University, that
is the oldest private military university in the country. I was
born in Montpelier. It's about 12 miles away, the other
Montpelier. But 12 miles away from there. It's been a very
interesting place. They have given honorary degrees to Thomas
Edison. I was there once with Ambassador Vernon Walters, Dick
Walters, when he received an honorary degree. He's a man who
spoke about 13 languages fluently. He was our Ambassador to the
United Nations. He's been deputy head of the CIA. He's a three-
star general. Never got a college degree.
Mr. Weinstein. That's right.
Chairman Leahy. He got a lot of honorary degrees.
Mr. Weinstein. I knew Dick Walters.
Chairman Leahy. And a great raconteur.
Mr. Weinstein. Indeed. Those of us who taught at Smith
College for 16 years know Vermont very well, and enjoyed it.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you.
I think Mr. McCullough told me once of beginning research
there, beginning to work on one of his books in Vermont, if I'm
correct.
Mr. McCullough. I did. I used the collection that's at
Middlebury College down in the basement, which is provided for
attorneys in every State. They had all the original reports of
the various expeditions set out to determine which would be the
best route for a Panama Canal.
Chairman Leahy. Panama Canal. And I've told that story
many, many a time.
Mr. McCullough. And it's like going into a coal mine,
because everything was very dirty so I wore my working clothes.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to just make something clear
that, from what Professor Katz said, may not be clear. When I
suggest building another airport, what I mean is that we double
the number of able, trained, good scholars and editors who are
working on the project, and that there is no need to slow up
any production in order to do these other things if you have
the people necessary to just do more.
There are too few people, the funding is too little, and
it's not necessary to wait as long as it has taken if you
increase the number of people involved. That does not mean you
increase the number of people with less than adequate people.
You increase the number of people with the best there is. We
can do it. It's just a question of, are we willing to spend the
money, make the investment, make the commitment? And we know
from the example of what's going on at Montecello and at the
Massachusetts Historical Society that it can be done. It works.
Chairman Leahy. Thank you. I will leave the record open for
anybody who wants to add to it. You'll get copies of the
transcript. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this. I've
sat through thousands of hearings on every subject imaginable,
some fascinating, some where I'm sending quiet signals to my
staff to keep sending more coffee because I don't want to doze
off up here. This one was fascinating. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Weinstein. Senator, I think I speak for all of my
colleagues at this table to thank you and your two colleagues,
your two Senator colleagues, for having taken this time. I
don't know of many hearings that I've attended and which I have
testified at, at which the members of the Senate stayed from
start to finish. So, I we are very grateful. Thank you.
Chairman Leahy. And our caucus where the Senate historian
comes in, everybody says that is the most enjoyable part of our
caucus. We fight after that, but everybody shuts up and listens
to that part. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m. the Committee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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