(Wednesday evening, June 26, 1912, Russell Theatre)
The association convened in a preliminary session on Wednesday
evening, June 26, with Dr. James W. Robertson, C. M. G., chairman of
the Canadian royal commission on industrial training and technical
education, presiding as acting chairman of the Ottawa local committee.
Hon. George H. Perley, acting prime minister of Canada, was introduced
and welcomed the association to Canada on behalf of the Dominion
government. The speaker called attention to the hundred years of
peace between the two countries and the plans being formulated for
celebrating it, and said that international conferences such as this
were the best guarantees of peace; that the more we know of each other
the less liable we were to get into trouble.
In Canada schools and libraries are growing apace, particularly in
the new regions of the far west, very much the same as in the United
States. Exchange of ideas as in this convention is the very best kind
of reciprocity and will help both nations in their aims and aspirations
for the good of civilization.
Comptroller E. H. Hinchey, the acting mayor of Ottawa, spoke the city's
welcome, calling attention to Ottawa as a convention city and its
growing claims for being considered the Washington of the North.
The association was graciously welcomed in behalf of the Women's
Canadian Club of Ottawa by the president, Mrs. Adam Shortt, who also
voiced the welcome from the Women's National Council of Canada. She
said the preachers, the teachers, the writers and the librarians are
four great standing armies, standing to protect us and to dispel the
hydra-headed enemy Ignorance, but that she thought of librarians as
captains of individual garrisons scattered here and there through
towns and cities, who are sending out emissaries among the people and
moulding and forming the mental and moral fibre of each community.
The CHAIRMAN: The Women's Canadian historical society was most kind
in pressing forward its desire to have this convention held here. The
president, however, desires not to speak to-night.
I have now the pleasure of asking Hon. John G. Foster, United States
Consul-General, to speak, as one of ourselves. He is a good citizen,
and though of you, with us--we count him almost one of ourselves.
Mr. Foster said he could have assured that portion of the delegates who
were his fellow countrymen and countrywomen that they would feel very
much at home in this country, whose people, institutions and traditions
are so similar to those of the United States.
The CHAIRMAN: Many other representative bodies joined in the effort
to secure this meeting for Ottawa and are represented on the platform
to-night, but the only other speaker who I shall ask to voice for
them or for himself welcoming sentiments is the Hon. Martin Burrell,
Minister of agriculture, and, if I may say in parenthesis, also
Minister of copyrights, since that comes within his department.
Minister Burrell spoke enthusiastically of the value of books and the
habit of good reading and the greater ease with which books could now
be secured than formerly. Continuing he said:
"I have heard it said by some skeptical gentlemen that it is true
that a librarian never reads a book; in fact, that he cannot be a
perfect librarian and read, because he is immediately lost. I do not
like to hold that view. I rather hold to the view that the ordinary
librarian, perhaps I should say the model librarian, should be a guide,
philosopher and friend, and I do not doubt that many of you are very
real guides, philosophers and friends to those who are seeking for
perhaps they know not what and whom you can direct in right channels
with incalculable good to their after life. It is absolutely true that
in our modern life we need that guidance. I do not know that I could
put it better than in the words of another great book lover, and good
library lover too, our friend Robert Louis Stevenson of imperishable
memory, who said once there was a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people
in the world who if they were not engaged in a conventional occupation
were in a state of coma; that the few hours they did not dedicate to
a furious toiling in the gold mill were an absolute blank. It is your
high privilege to supply that blank; it is your priceless privilege to
fill the hours of life which have to be a blank because we cannot train
ourselves for them in this more material age,--to fill them up with a
companionship and with an influence of the great thoughts of the great
writers of all ages."
Concluding, he expressed his pleasure at the prospect of entertaining
the delegates at the Experimental Farm on the following Saturday.
The CHAIRMAN: The real president of the Canadian Club found it
impossible to be in Ottawa to-night, and I am the poor substitute for
Dr. Otto J. Klotz, who has been a great pillar of strength in Ottawa to
those who love books and use books. He deputed me to say that he was
exceedingly sorry he could not meet so many old friends of his as would
surely be in attendance, and still more sorry because he was deprived
of the joy of thus paying a little more back to those who love books
and use books for all that books and learning have done for him. He is
one of our good men. I am sorry he is not here.
We are delighted to have a woman as your president; and in calling on
Mrs. Elmendorf to respond may I say--this comes to me after meeting
her yesterday and today--that she is altogether a woman of whom it may
be said in relation to her office as president of the American Library
Association, "thy gentleness has helped to make it great."
The PRESIDENT: Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the
American Library Association,--I am sure that I but express what you
are all feeling in saying that this royal welcome to the Dominion of
Canada makes us not only happy but very much honored. Some members of
the association are already at home in their own capital, being keepers
of "kings' treasuries" of Canada itself. Others of us are librarians
from hither and yon in the country beyond the border, but we have all
come with "joy and goodly gree" to sit in council in the very capital
of the lovely land which is so loyally and affectionately
"Daughter in her Mother's house."
A small party of us came across the border, as William Morris's heroes
are wont to move, "by night and cloud," and when we reached the
boundary line a sudden inspiration took us and we stooped down and
silently, gently gathered that boundary line in our hands and brought
its firm lengths with us. I hold what might represent its shining links
here in my hands. Therefore, while we visit here with you, in the very
capital of the Dominion, while we hold that boundary line thus in our
possession, from Boston Harbor down the coast through New York and
Charleston to Key West, along the Gulf to New Orleans, across the great
West to Pasadena, up the Pacific coast line to Seattle, from East to
West, from North to South, there is no let or hindrance to the lines
of influence which go forth. Those lines of influence run free without
chance for knot or tangle or any such thing.
I hope you will not need to try whether "the King's writ runs" but I
am sure that you will find that Shakespeare reigns in our realm, that
Tennyson and Bobby Burns touch our hearts in song, and he who writes
the songs of a people need not care who writes their laws.
Just one small story and then I shall have finished, for thanks must
needs be brief if they come from the heart, and there is one to come
after who will say to you with grace and directness and clear precision
much that I might envy but never approach.
My tall brother happened by good fortune to be in London Town the night
that the great city went nearly wild in her glad rejoicing at the
relief of Ladysmith. It was a sight to see and join in, and he and his
wife went on such progress through the streets as a cab could make for
them. In his hand, at the full length of his long arm, he waved from
the front of the cab a Union Jack and a Stars and Stripes to indicate
his sympathy and good feeling. All went well until in one of the many
enforced pauses a rough chap jumped for his hand crying, "Aw, sir! One
flag'll do!"
We are very happy to be here and are just a little happier to see by
these beautiful draped banners that you have not felt that One flag
need to do!
The CHAIRMAN: Those of us who have gone to Washington have sometimes
thought we should revise our boyhood's interpretation of the New
Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation. Nothing I had ever imagined from
St. John's description was quite a match for the glory and magnificence
of the beautiful Library of Congress. I have found it delightful to
think of a nation of great wealth providing such a fitting home for its
literary treasures. Books are the friends and ministers of the mind and
the soul of the people. The Washington building is the expression in
materials of their aspirations for what is best and most beautiful. It
is a wonderful building, leaving impressions of wonder on the casual
visitor, and still more on those who linger in its chaste corridors
and see something of the working of the library itself. I think of the
sweet and stately beauty of the place, I think of the institution and
its services, and I think also of the man who is more than a match for
the magnificence of the home of those books. We will now hear from the
man, Dr. HERBERT PUTNAM.