S. J. Res. 17. Sirty-fifth Congress of the lnited States of America; At the Second Session, Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the third day of December, JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following amendment to the Constitution be, and hereby is, proposed to the States, to become valid as a part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of the several States as provided by the Constitution: ARTICLE. "SECTION 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. "Sec. 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation "SEC. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress, `` Champelim Speaker of the House of Representaties, has. R. March Vice President of the United States and JOINT RESOLUTION PROPOSING THE EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION This joint resolution proposed an amendment that, upon ratification, became the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution in 1919. The amendment was subsequently repealed by the twenty-first amendment in 1933. proximate those of The National Archives. The Business Show in New York was attended, and several factories and manufacturing plants in Rochester, Cleveland, and Youngstown were visited. OFFICE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE SECRETARY (From the report of the Administrative Secretary, Mr. PAGE) The Office of the Administrative Secretary continued to handle all general correspondence concerning The National Archives, the National Archives Building, accessions, surveys, and similar matters; to gather and compile data for the use of the Archivist in preparing his annual report; to formulate the annual budget; to attend hearings before committees of Congress when matters of interest to The National Archives are under consideration; and to distribute the publications of The National Archives. A number of conferences were held by the Administrative Secretary during the fiscal year with representatives of departments and agencies concerning surveys and transfers of records, disposal of useless papers, use of the auditorium, and numerous other matters of a general nature. PUBLIC RELATIONS It is the policy of The National Archives to issue no prepared statements for publication, but available information is furnished when desired to representatives of newspapers and other publications as a basis for the preparation of their own articles. During the fiscal year 1937, many representatives of the press and other publications were conducted through the building and supplied with information concerning The National Archives by the Assistant Administrative Secretary. Arrangements were completed on April 14 for Paramount Pictures to make a news reel of the National Archives Building, its equipment, and the methods utilized in the preservation and administration of records. The news reel was subsequently made, but it had not been released at the end of the fiscal year. The Exhibition Hall was closed to the public while the mural paintings were being installed, but the Hall was formally turned over to the Archivist and reopened to the public on November 12, 1936. Data furnished by the artist, Barry Faulkner, and sets of photographs of the murals were furnished to members of the press and to the Secretary of the Fine Arts Commission on that occasion. The work of lining the exhibit cases was completed on June 4, and the Assistant Administrative Secretary immediately assembled material to place on exhibit, including amendments to the Constitution of the United States, a number of pages from the Senate files pertaining to the First Congress, and the logbooks of the United States ships Constitution and Constellation. A total of 26,460 persons visited the building during the year. On June 9, 1937, the Administrative Secretary delivered an address on "The National Archives" before the Aberdeen, N. C., Kiwanis Club at a meeting held at Pinehurst, N. C. ATTESTATION OF COPIES OF OFFICIAL RECORDS During the fiscal year 1937, the procedure for furnishing authenticated copies of documents in the custody of the Archivist was changed. All requests for authenticated copies of records are now filed with the Division of Reference, in which Division certification forms are prepared. The copy to be authenticated is then checked by this Office with the original records, as is the certification form, and the ribbon and wafer are attached and the seal affixed thereto. A charge of 25 cents is made for each authenticated copy except those prepared for official Government use, for which no charge is made. During the fiscal year 1937, this Office issued 367 certifications of records. USELESS PAPERS Numerous conferences were held by the Administrative Secretary with officials of The National Archives regarding measures necessary to clarify and simplify the procedure for the disposition of executive papers having no permanent value or historical interest. In response to a request from Representative Charles J. Colden, chairman of the House Committee on the Disposition of Executive Papers, a conference was held with him relative to the draft of a bill "To provide for the disposition of certain records of the United States Government", which he later introduced as H. R. 7504. The bill was referred to the Committee on the Disposition of Executive Papers and hearings on it were announced for July 1 and 2. The Administrative Secretary and the Assistant Director of Archival Service were designated to represent the Archivist at these hearings. OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS (From the report of the Director, Mr. Buck) Six publications of The National Archives were prepared or edited in this Office and were released during the fiscal year-the Second Annual Report of the Archivist, two bulletins, and three circulars. Bulletin No. 1, which consists of an article entitled "The National Archives of the United States", is a 13-page pamphlet containing a brief account of the history, organization, and functions of the establishment. Bulletin No. 2, a 10-page pamphlet, contains two articles, "The Conference of Archivists at Chattanooga, December 28, 1935" and "Problems of American Archivists", by Theodore C. Blegen. Two of the three circulars issued are popular and pictorial in nature and are intended for general distribution to visitors to the building and to others casually interested in The National Archives. Circular No. 1, entitled The National Archives of the United States, contains, in addition to textual matter, 29 illustrations of the building and of the progressive steps in the accessioning of records; and Circular No. 3, entitled The Murals in The National Archives, consists of reproductions of photographs of the murals in the Exhibition Hall, together with a key to the personages depicted and other pertinent information about the paintings and the artist, Barry Faulkner. Circular No. 2 consists of the Rules and Regulations for the Use of Records. GUIDE TO THE FEDERAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES In January work was begun on a project for the compilation of a "Guide to the Federal Archives of the United States", which will describe the scope, character, quantity, subject matter, origin, history, arrangement, location, availability, and value for research or official use of all records of the Government, whether within the District of Columbia or elsewhere in the United States, and will include information concerning extant indexes, inventories, and other aids to their use. Plans for the guide were drawn up by the Director and were the result of much study and repeated conferences with other members of the staff of The National Archives. The compilation of portions of the guide dealing with the 10 executive departments and the judiciary was assigned to various deputy examiners and former deputy examiners, who are to perform this task under the supervision of the Director. To make available to the compilers of the guide needed information concerning the history, organization, functions, and records of the agencies of the Government, it was obviously essential to assemble, organize, and coordinate bibliographical and other pertinent data existing in The National Archives and elsewhere. Suggestions for accomplishing this end were drafted by the Director and were given to the Division of Research, which at once embarked upon the first phase of the project by selecting printed Library of Congress cards for appropriate works. These cards, combined with a tentative bibliography already compiled by the Director, will form the basis for an annotated bibliography of all available material. Executive orders relating to the activities and functions of Government agencies have been selected by the Division of Research and, with the cooperation of the Director, are being classified according to the agency concerned. With a view to providing more detailed information regarding portions of the material in the files of four executive departments and the Senate, arrangements have been made for the Division of Photographic Reproduction and Research to microfilm a calendar of this material at the University of Illinois. Compiled over a period of 20 years by Dr. Newton D. Mereness for a group of State historical agencies, the calendar lists on cards some 280,000 documents relating to the region embraced in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. The microfilm reproduction of the calendar will be in the custody of the Division of Reference. Since the compilation of the proposed guide will extend over several years, it was decided in May to concentrate at first on the part dealing with the records in the custody of The National Archives at the close of the fiscal year 1937, with a view to the prompt publication of this part and its distribution to scholars and others who might be interested in knowing of the availability of the material described. Considerable progress on this section of the project had been made at the close of the year. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL WORK AND BOOK SELECTION The Director continued his compilation of a bibliography of all printed material believed to be of value in connection with the activities of The National Archives and for that purpose checked other bibliographies such as the set of Griffin's Writings in American History and Bemis and Griffin's Guide to the Diplomatic History of the United States. The listing of Government publications of interest to The National Archives, an undertaking begun in the preceding fiscal year by the assistant to the Director, was carried forward as time permitted by checking through the shelf list of all Government documents in the library of the Superintendent of Documents. Because of the slowness of the process, however, a preliminary selection was made by examining the current price lists of Government publications issued by the Superintendent of Documents, and a checked set of these price lists was turned over to the Chief of the Division of the Library. NATIONAL HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS COMMISSION No meeting of the Commission was held during the fiscal year, and as yet no action has been taken on the Commission's report transmitted to Congress on March 17, 1936, recommending the compilation, editing, and publication of documentary material relating to the ratification of the Constitution and the first ten amendments thereto. The pressure of other work has prevented much progress in the efforts of this Office to bring up to date the 1908 survey of the historical publications of the Government, as requested by the Commission. Some additions have been made to the bibliography of |