Show l HE IS THE GREATEST I Uncle Sam is the Champion II Book Publisher I 1 IT IS A GREAT COLLECTION 1 An Entertaining and Instructive Letter on the Public Documents Turned out by the Government r WASHINGTON Nov 24 The greatest publisher in the world is Uncle Sam Xo ether publishing house turns out so vast a quantity so great a variety of books and pamphlets as does he from his big publishing t publish-ing house in this city He pays more money to authors too for what is congress con-gress but a house full of writers for the people what arc the executive officers and their tens of thousands of assistants butt but-t > c S 1kI ALL SOKT8 AND CONDITIONS OF BOOKS i I copy producers I dont know and I dont believe any one knows how many separate publications Uncle Sam gets out in a year but it must be an enormous number embracing em-bracing everything in the book and pamphlet pam-phlet line you can think of from little half page pension bills to huge tomes of thousands thou-sands of pages each full of maps and charts Let us try to gain an idea of the magnitude magni-tude of Uncle Sams operations in the publishing pub-lishing line by looking over his output for a single year Of course we shall be able to mention only some of the more important impor-tant books just to show how the pages pileup pile-up and the fat volumes accumulate by the hundreds of thousands Abridgment of message and documents 970 pages 35000 copies cost 19000 Report of the commission commis-sion of education 36000 copies cost 27000 Report of chief of engineers 3500 copies cost 20000 This looks > like a very expen she book for Uncle Sam to print and giveaway give-away at S7 a copy but it must be remembered remem-bered that it consists of four volumes or nearly 3000 pages It is one of the largest books which the government issues every year and one of the most important showing show-ing the progress of the engineering work of The government in all the rivers and harbors har-bors nf the countrv Thousands fn citizens throughout the union have been favored with copies of the I I annual report of the secretary of the I treasury a book of more than a thousand I pages Receivers often use these volumes with reckless indifference unmindful of the fact that every book cost Uncle Sam 215 Another big work which comes out every year is the Commercial Relations Rela-tions of the United States usually in two volumes of a thousand pages each Only 5COO copies are printed but they cost nearly near-ly S3 apiece The most expensive book per copy of the regular publications is the Biennial Register or Blue Book which contains a list of all the employes of the government their salaries whence appointed ap-pointed where employed etc It is in two volumes each almost as large as Web sters unabridged and though only 3290 copies are printed the cost is 25300 or SS for each set of two volumes It costs more than 820000 to set the type alone The annual an-nual report of the Smithsonian Institution usually costs 615000 for 16000 copies and it is one of the few books of which Uncle Sam does not print nearly enough These are a few of the regular publications publica-tions After Gen Greely returned from his ill fated north pole expedition he wrote a report for the government to print Be also wrote a book for a private publishing publish-ing house The latter came out about a year before the official publication but when this did come out it was a very fine affair It was in two volumes and the 5000 copies of each printed cost Uncle Sam just 20000 Uncle Sam has spent a small fortune on books descriptive and illustrative illus-trative of Alaska One came out a few days ago 0000 copies cost 0000 Every time a senator or representative dies his colleagues make speeches about him and to print and bind these speeches in beautiful beauti-ful little books puts Uncle Sam to uu expense ex-pense of about 4000 Railway switchmen have whole libraries of them in tbsir shanties and thus revel instories of pathos and eloquence and get a little sentiment in their lives otherwise so commonplace A book much prized by farmers and stock raisers i < 5 the report of the bureau of animal industry It usually has about 500 pages cont1ins 2000 worth of engraving engrav-ing and the 40000 copies printed cost nearly near-ly 20000 It must Jo admitted that in the vay of giving information on special subjects sub-jects to the people free of cost to them Uncle Sam is doing a great work He is printing the Rebellion records of which ill i F L n J 1 THE SWITCHMANS LIBRARY fifty volumes have already been issued and still the work goes on at a cost of a fortune every year He is publishing a medical and surgical history of the war which will probably run to five or six volUmes vol-umes each volume costing about 25000 or 250 a copy Greater than any of these in real value is a work now being published pub-lished an indexed catalogue of the books periodicals reports and manuscripts in the library of the surgeon generals office This noble work which is attracting attention at-tention from the medical fraternity of all rations will appear in about fifteen royal octavo volumes costing the government about 5 a cop Ten volumes are already al-ready out Columns could be filled with descriptions of other great educational workswhich have come from Uncle Sams prolific presses Uncle Sam pays out a great deal of money in the course of ayear for engravings engrav-ings with which tp embellish his various BubJications Nothing shows to bett r ado f kT o t rt wintage his liberality a publisher than the manner in which he spends money for illustrations in the books which he gives away If the reader of this letter happens to have at hand a copy of the agricultural report for 1887 he will find in it ten colored illustrations Doubtless he will be surprised sur-prised on learning that these ten pictures cost the government 4808 Fourhundred and eighty dollars apiece seems pretty expensive ex-pensive for pictures of new beets and recently re-cently discovered breeds of chinch bugs but it must be remembered that only a I small part of this sum was expended for of the be I engraving proper most expense ing incurred for the 400000 pages of each illustration prepared for insertion in the report in the binding room The engravings in the agricultural report re-port of 18SS cost 12000 more than one third of this sum being paid for five pictures pict-ures in the report of microscopist The I farmer ought to appreciate what Uncle I Sam is doing for him in the way of pictures pict-ures even if he doesnt Encravincs for I the report of the bureau of animal industry indus-try cost 1500 for the consular report on cattle and dairy farming 363 illustrations G2oO entomological report 1500 and even the one picture of thebird in the little book on The English Sparrow in North America cost 150 A striking example I I of the manner in which Uncle Sam goes in I for pictures whenever he finds something to pictonalize is found in the engravings for Professor Marshs port on sourapoda t in the 1 geological survey There were 19 illustrations and they cost 5047 though I it is probable there is not njorc than one i man in ten thousand throughout this broad land who knows what souropoda is or are or have been I confess that I dont I All told the cost of engraving is about 100000 a year i The biggest thing Uncle Sam does in the I publishing line is the agricultural report This he is never done with He no sooner I gets the report for one year half printed than the next years edition must be started I start-ed Thq result is that the great publishing publish-ing house constantly overrun with pgri cultural reports From one years end to another the presses are monotonously persistently per-sistently flapping down the broad sheets j winch are bound up into the books the farmers like so well Four hun dred thousand copies Think what that means It is seven hundred and fifty tons of libraries for farmers It is along freight train50 cars full of black muslin Tound books Pile all these volumes together in a solid mass and they will equal the cubic contents of a largefouivstorybrick dwelling dwell-ing house Place them side by side on book shelves Pond you will need shelving eighteen and a half miles long to hold them all Think of the interest and pride in their work the farmers and the farmers boys t9 I I j A FEW AGRICULTURAL REPORTS of these United States have had inculcated incul-cated in them by perusal of these miles and miles of agricultural treatises year after year When the country lad sits down by the fire after a day of toil in the cornfield or potato patch and reads a handsomely illustrated book about farming farm-ing full of new ideas experiments suggestions sug-gestions prepared by men whose names stud high in popular esteem and published pub-lished by his government he gathers appreciation ap-preciation of the importance and dignity of his calling gains self respect self confidence con-fidence and content Agriculture does not seem quite so bumble quite so lowly as it did when he was out in the field picking potatoes out of the mud with cold cticky fingers I know because I have been there and hence I walk into the great government govern-ment printing office and lift my hat to the huge piles of agricultural reports which I see there I do the same thing in the three or four rented storerooms where tons and tons of these books are piled up awaiting shipment ship-ment I even applaud the congressmen who vote an appropriation of 200000 a year for printing these reports Of course their idea is to have as many books as they can get hold of without cost to themselves to use in currying favor with their agricultural agri-cultural constituents but at the same time they are helping educate the masses The are doing something good for the millions of people who plant and sow and reap Of course congress is Uncle Sams most prolific author The Congressional Record which fills eight or ten huge volumes a year and costs 4000 a week is hut a small part of the printing done for the senate To print the senate and house journals involves in-volves an expense of 15000 a year The journal of the present notice filled more han 4000 pages during ifs first session Publication of new laws in pamphlet form costs nearly 20000 a year while printing of the statutes at large as enacted by each congress makes from 7000 to 10000 more The reports of the house committees at the recent session amountcd to 8000 pages and cost 20000 though only onethird of the usual number of copies was printed The reports of senate committee were nearly as great in bulk A remarkable example of the reckless manner in which congress calls upon its publisher is found in the act passed March 2 18S7 This directed the public printer to publish ho testimony taken in seventeen contested election cases in the house In four months the big publishing pub-lishing house turned out 15586 pages of such testimony in printed form ata cost to the government of about 50000 It is estimated that about one dozen persons besides printers and proof readers have read those books The sum total of Uncle Sams publishing publish-ing operations in a year It is not easy to say with accuracy A fair estimate however how-ever is that he turns out every working day the equivalent of a book of 1500 pages Atany rate he prints more than a million copies a week of his various publications nnc spends three millions a year in doing it RORVRT GRAVES |