But being driven to it and being faced out this way as I am today, two or three thousand to one, there seems to be nothing for it but to face the music and to look you in the eye a minute and say once for all, "I DO mean you, I mean each of you and all of you," and I accuse you of not taking immediate, powerful and conclusive steps to convince donors of libraries and the public of the rights of librarians, of your right to perform your duties under decent, spiritual conditions as members of a high and spirited calling, as professional men and women, as artists and as fellow human beings and not as overworked, under-assisted, weary servants of books.
The charges against the library donors and managers that I brought out in my new book "Crowds," more particularly the chapters, "Mr. Carnegie speaks up," and "Mr. Carnegie tries to make people read," are charges that are going to be answered most successfully by people who admit that they are largely true and who will then proceed tomorrow, before everybody, to turn them into lies. The sooner the librarians and trustees and public men of this country proceed to make what I am saying today about public libraries hopelessly ridiculous and out-of-date, the sooner I will be happy.
If I were to move into a strange community and wanted to be a valuable citizen in it, the first thing I would do would be to go to the public library and ask the librarians and their assistants this question, "Who are the interesting boys in this town?"
If the librarians could tell me I would linger around, and in one way or another, get acquainted with those boys, follow them up and see what I could do to connect them with the men with the books, and ideas and ambitions and opportunities that belong to them.
If the librarians could not give me a list of such boys I would ask them why.
If they told me that they had not time to attend to such things I would ask the trustees why.
If the trustees had not selected librarians naturally interested in boys and books and had not provided such librarians with the necessary assistants so they would have time and spirit to do such things I would turn to the people and I would challenge the people to elect trustees for their library who knew what a library was for.
I sometimes think of the librarian in a town as the Mayor Of What People Think, and if he does not have time to read books and to love ideas and inventions in himself and in other people and does not take time to like boys and get the ideas and boys together, he cannot be in a town where he lives, a good Mayor Of What People Think.
We shall never have great libraries in the United States until the typical librarian exalts his calling and takes his place in our modern life seriously—as the ruler of our civilization, the creator of the environment of a nation and as the dictator of the motives and ideals of cities, the discoverer of great men and the champion of the souls of the people.
I candidly ask you all: What is there that can be done in America in the way of letting librarians keep on being folks?