10. Joint committees shall make final report upon all matters previously referred to them, on or before the second Wednesday in March; but, except as provided in Rule No. 30, the time within which they are required to report upon such matters may be extended, by concurrent vote, until a day not later than the second Wednesday in April. When the time within which such joint committees are required to report has expired, all matters upon which no report has then been made shall, within three legislative days thereafter, be reported by the chairman of the committee on the part of the branch in which they were respectively introduced, with a recommendation of reference to the next annual session under this rule. This rule shall not be rescinded, amended or suspended, except by a concurrent vote of four-fifths of the members of each branch present and voting thereon..

12. Resolutions intended for adoption by both branches of the General Court, and petitions, memorials, bills and resolves introduced on leave, and all other subjects of legislation, except reports required or authorized to be made to the Legislature, deposited with the Clerk of either branch subsequently to five o'clock in the afternoon on the second Saturday of the annual sessions, shall, when presented, be referred to the next annual session; but this rule shall not apply to petitions in aid of, and remonstrances against, legislation already introduced and pending; nor shall it apply to a petition offered in place of a former one having in view the same object, upon which, before reference to a committee, leave to withdraw was given because the same was not in proper form, provided that such subsequent petition is deposited with the Clerk of either branch within one week from the day on which leave to withdraw was given; nor shall it apply to a bill or resolve introduced on leave or to a resolution presented subsequently to five o'clock in the afternoon on the second Saturday of the annual session, when such bill, resolve or resolution is based upon the report of a joint committee which has been made in compliance with instructions to report facts or to investigate, provided the said bill, resolve or resolution is introduced within one week after the committee's report is submitted. This rule shall not be rescinded, amended or suspended, except by a concurrent vote of four-fifths of the members of each branch present and voting thereon: provided, however, that, except by unanimous consent, it shall not be suspended with reference to

a petition for legislation when such petition is not accompanied by a bill or a resolve embodying the legislation requested.

30. All motions or orders extending the time within which joint committees are required to report shall be referred without debate to the committees on Rules of the two branches, acting concurrently, who shall report recommending what action should be taken thereon. No such extension beyond the second Wednesday in April shall be granted, against the recommendation of the committees on Rules of the two branches, acting concurrently, except by a four-fifths vote of the members of each branch present and voting thereon. This rule shall not be rescinded, amended or suspended, except by a concurrent vote of four-fifths of the members of each branch present and voting thereon. . . .

46. Charles McCarthy on Legislative Reference Libraries

Dr. Charles McCarthy was a pioneer in the legislative reference field. For many years the English government had employed experts to aid Parliament in the technical phases of legislation, but not until New York established the Legislative Reference Section of the State Library in 1890, was the legislature of any American state provided with a similar service. A few years later the Wisconsin legislature established its Legislative Reference Library, and Dr. McCarthy was chosen the first director.

Agencies of this nature may render the legislator two distinct types of service. "On the one hand they may furnish him with information bearing on the substantive matter of the legislation which he has in mind. This is the function of legislative reference libraries, so-called. On the other hand, they may provide the legislator with expert assistance in drafting the text of the proposed legislation. It need hardly be pointed out that the best results are to be obtained when both these services are furnished to the legislator. Nevertheless, not a few of our states have made provision for one of the two without the other."'1

Of the early legislative librarians, Dr. McCarthy was by far the most successful. For many years his work was G. A. Weber, Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods of Administration in the United States (New York, 1919), 311.

considered a model, and thirty other states followed, in whole or in part, the Wisconsin experiment. In the following article Dr. McCarthy describes the methods which he used in the conduct of his library and in his relations with the legislature.

SOURCE-Papers and Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the American Library Association, Portland, Oregon, 1905, 242-246.

In 1901 the historical society, whose historical library had rendered great aid to the legislature, was removed from the capital, and the legislature provided for a small reference library to take its place. The author of this article was engaged to take charge of that library. It became apparent at once that the demands of this library were of a peculiar nature, which could not be readily met by the ordinary library methods or by the ordinary library material.

A plan was devised which has been since carried out as far as the resources given by the legislature would permit. We found that there was no co-operation between the different states of this Union in the matter of getting the history of legislation. We found that there was a constant demand for a history of what had occurred in Europe or in any state of the Union, upon a certain subject of interest to the people of this state. We tried to supply this demand by getting such indexes of up-to-date legislation as were published, by getting the bills from other states as well as the documents explanatory of legislative movements in other states, and arranging these under the subjects so they would be immediately at the service of all who desired to see them. We soon found that even this material did not solve the problem. We found it necessary to clip newspapers from all over the country and to put the clippings in book form, to carefully index them and put them also with the subjects. We went over our own bills and carefully indexed them back for four sessions and by noting the subjects which were contained in those bills we anticipated the problems with which the legislature had to grapple. . . .

Our short experience has taught us many things. We have been convinced because of the success of our work and our methods that there is a great opportunity to better legislation through work of this kind. We are convinced that the best way to better legislation is to help directly the man who makes the laws. We bring home to him and near to him everything which will help

him to grasp and understand the great economic problems of the day in their fullest significance and the legislative remedies which can be applied and the legislative limitations which exist. We must take the theory of the professors and simplify it so that the ordinary layman can grasp it immediately and with the greatest ease. The ordinary legislator has no time to read. His work is new to him, he is beset with routine work, he has to have conferences with his friends upon political matters, he is beset by office-seekers and lobbyists and he has no time to study. If he does not study or get his studying done for him he will fall an easy prey to those who are looking out to better their own selfish ends. Therefore we must shorten and digest and make clear all information that we put within his reach. This is a tremendous task, but not an impossible one. We must first of all get near to the legislator, even as the lobbyist does. I do not mean that we must use the evil methods of the lobbyist, but we must win his confidence and his friendship and understand him and his prejudices. We study him just as the lobbyist does. Above all, we must not be arrogant, presumptive, opinionated or dogmatic. We are dealing with men who are as a rule keen and bright, who as a rule have made a success of business life. We must always remember that we are but clerks and servants who are helping these men to gather data upon things upon which we have worked as they have worked at their business. We must keep our private opinions to ourselves and let the evidence speak for itself. We are not doing this work to convert, but to help and to clear up. . . .

In answer to constant inquiries I have compiled some essentials for work in helping the cause of good legislation, similar to the work done by our department here.

1. The first essential is a selected library convenient to the legislative halls. This library should consist of well chosen and selected material. A large library is apt to fail because of its too general nature and because it is liable to become cumbersome. This library should be a depository for documents of all descriptions relating to any phase of legislation. . . . Books are generally behind the times, and newspaper clippings from all over the country and magazine articles, court briefs and letters must supplement this library and compose to a large extent its material.

2. A trained librarian and indexer is absolutely essential. The material is largely scrappy and hard to classify. We need

a person with a liberal education, who is original, not stiff, who can meet an emergency of all cases and who is tactful as well.

3. The material is arranged so that it is compact and accessible. Do not be afraid to tear up books, documents, pamphlets, clippings, letters, manuscripts or other material. Minutely index this material. Put it under the subjects. Legislators have no time to read large books. We have no time to hunt up many references in different parts of a library. They should be together as far as possible upon every subject of legislative importance.

4. Complete index of all bills which have not become laws in the past should be kept. This saves the drawing of new bills and makes the experience of the past cumulative.

5. Records of vetoes, special messages, political platforms, political literature, and other handy matter should be carefully noted and arranged. Our legislator often wants to get a bill through and we must remember that he often relies as much upon political or unscientific arguments as we do upon scientific work. He should be able to get hold of his political arguments if he wants to, and the political literature from all parties upon all questions should be kept near at hand.

6. Digests of laws on every subject before the legislature should be made and many copies kept. Leading cases on all these laws and opinions of public men and experts upon the working of these laws or upon the defects, technical or otherwise, should be carefully indexed and as far as possible published in pamphlet form, with short bibliographies of the subjects most before the people.

7. The department must be entirely non-political and nonpartisan or else it will be worse than useless. .

8. The head of the department should be trained in economics, political science, and social science in general, and should have also a good knowledge of constitutional law. He should, above all, have tact and knowledge of human nature.

9. There should be a trained draftsman connected with the department a man who is a good lawyer and something more than a lawyer, a man who has studied legislative forms, who can draw a bill, revise a statute, and amend a bill when called upon to do so. Such a man working right with this department and the critical data which it contains will be absolutely essential.

10. Methods.-(a) Go right to the legislator, make yourself acquainted with him, study him, find anything he wants for