Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—By the existing law, public libraries and literary societies receive books, maps, charts, and engravings free of duty. It is now proposed to change the law, so that public libraries and literary societies shall no longer receive books, maps, charts, and engravings free of duty. It is a little curious that the present moment is seized for this important change, which I must call retrogressive in character. It seems like going back to the Dark Ages. We made no such change during the war. We went through all its terrible trials and the consequent taxation without any such attempt. Now that peace has come, and we are considering how to mitigate taxation, it is proposed to add this new tax.
Mr. Hendricks. Will the Senator allow me to ask whether he regards this bill as a mitigation of the taxes upon goods brought from foreign countries?
Mr. Sumner. I am not discussing the bill as a general measure.
Mr. Hendricks. I thought the Senator spoke of the present effort to mitigate taxation.
Mr. Sumner. I believe I am not wrong, when I say there is everywhere a disposition to reduce taxation, whether on foreign or domestic articles. Such is the desire of the country and the irresistible tendency of things. But what must be the astonishment, when it appears, that, instead of reducing a tax on knowledge, you augment it!
I insist, that, in imposing this duty, you not only change the existing law, but you depart from the standing policy of republican institutions. Everywhere we have education at the public expense. The first form is in the public school, open to all. But the public library is the complement or supplement of the public school. As well impose a tax on the public school as on the public library.
I doubt if the Senate is fully aware of the number of public libraries springing into existence. This is a characteristic of our times. Nor is it peculiar to our country. Down to a recent day, public libraries were chiefly collegiate. In Europe they were collegiate or conventual. There were no libraries of the people. But such libraries are now appearing in England and in France. Every considerable place or centre has its library for the benefit of the neighborhood. But this movement, like every liberal tendency, is more marked in the United States. Here public libraries are coming into being without number. The Public Library of Boston and the Astor Library of New York are magnificent examples, which smaller towns are emulating. In my own State there are public libraries in Lowell, Newburyport, New Bedford, Worcester, Springfield,—indeed, I might almost say in every considerable town. But Massachusetts is not alone. Public libraries are springing up in all the Northern States. They are now extending like a belt of light across the country. They are a new Zodiac, in which knowledge travels with the sun from east to west. Of course these are all for the public good. They are public schools, where every book is a schoolmaster. To tax such institutions now, for the first time, is a new form of that old enemy, a “tax on knowledge.” Such is my sense of their supreme value that I would offer them bounties rather than taxes.
In continuation of this same hospitality to knowledge, I wish to go still further, and relieve imported books of all taxes, so far as not inconsistent with interests already embarked in the book business. For instance, let all books, maps, charts, and engravings printed before 1840 take their place on the free list. Publications before that time cannot come in competition with any interests here. The revenue they afford will be unimportant. The tax you impose adds to the burdens of scholars and professional men who need them. And yet every one of these books, when once imported, is a positive advantage to the country, by which knowledge is extended and the public taste improved. I would not claim too much for these instructive strangers belonging to another generation. I think I do not err in asking for them a generous welcome. But, above all, do not tax them.