Identifier: picturesquewas00moor (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Washington: pen and pencil sketches of its scenery, history, traditions, public and social life, with graphic descriptions of the Capitol and Congress, the White House, and the government departments ..
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: Moore, Joseph West
Subjects: Washington (D.C.)
Publisher: Providence : J.A. & R.A. Reid
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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hen will have in-serted in the official publication his so-called speech. This savesall the trouble of delivering it before an ungracious house, and themembers constituents, afar off, will not be aware of the fact that the* eloquent words were never uttered in the legislative hall. Members frequently withhold their speeches from publication inthe Record for a number of days in order to obtain the place ofhonor, the conspicuous first page. Each member of Congress isentitled to twenty-four copies of the Record daily, and can purchaseas many more as he desires. After Congress has finished its annualsession the publication is usually continued for a month to workoff all the speeches, previously crowded out, that members had re-ceived permission to print. The yearly cost of the Record is about$200,000. In the basement of the House extension are many committee-rooms, the House post-office, the restaurants, and the document andfolding rooms. About thirty rooms are used for the enormous busi-
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PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 135 ness connected with public documents. The government issues yearlynearly three hundred different books — reports of departments andspecial reports on home and foreign matters, mostly bulky volumes,and many of them illustrated in the finest and costliest manner — be-sides a large number of pamphlets. The Government Printing Officeis constantly engaged in many of its departments in printing and bind-ing these publications. A large force is employed in the documentand folding rooms in wrapping and addressing the books and pam-phlets, and nearly every day in the year one hundred large mail-sacksof public documents are sent out over the country. It is estimatedthat the printed matter annually distributed will fill two hundred andfifty mail-cars, and will weigh six millions of pounds. More than amillion bound volumes are distributed, and an immense number ofpamphlets. Each congressman is entitled to a certain number ofcopies of all the works, and he furnishes the l

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