The Nation: The Pilgrims in the Archives

Eighteen million visitors are expected in Washington during the Bicentennial year, and vast numbers of them will come to the massive National Archives Building at Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues to view America’s historic documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. TIME Correspondent Don Sider joined the already long lines of visitors and sent this report:

The pilgrims pass in slow procession through the soft peach glow of the great rotunda, moving up to the shrinelike cases that hold the documents. Honeymooners Karen and Philip pause for long moments. Bonnie, a senior on her class trip from Starbuck, Minn., traces with her fingertip the familiar signatures: G. Washington, B. Franklin. Principal Dennis Trump, shepherding 40 students from South Sioux City (Neb.) High, says with fervor, “It’s a feeling of splendor to see the things you hold dear. All the meaning and truth of the whole idea come together.”

Visiting the archives may be something of an act of national piety. It is also absolutely fascinating, especially now. Archivist of the U.S. James Rhoads has just opened an exhibit called “Milestone Documents of American History.” From every corner of his 21-story attic, Rhoads has assembled and put on view priceless originals: the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 1803; the Homestead Act of 1862, which opened the West; the Monroe Doctrine (actually two widely spaced references in President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message); the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863; patents for Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (1794) and Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (1876); the 1919 Treaty of

Versailles; the Volstead Act, which established Prohibition in 1919; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, heralding the New Deal in 1933; the Japanese surrender instrument of 1945; the Marshall Plan of 1948.

They are only the tip of the treasure trove. Behind all this, on shelf after shelf, is the record of the republic. Washington’s letters from the field are here, along with dispatches from his trusted aide Benedict Arnold and letters in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and John Hancock. “Whatever you touch is an original,” marvels Assistant Archivist Albert Meisel. “That’s the one! That’s the piece of paper he signed!”

Every U.S. treaty is here and every law, the early ones stylishly engrossed on parchment, those from this century prosaically printed on 10-in. by 15-in. paper with a red-ruled margin.

There is Richard Nixon’s letter (“Dear Mr. Secretary: I hereby resign the office of President of the United States”). There is John C. CalhounYgra-cious note from Columbia, S.C., dated 1832 (“Sir, Having concluded to accept of a seat in the Senate, to which I have been elected by the legislature of this state, I herewith resign the office of Vice President of the United States. Very respectfully, your ob svt”). Somewhat mysteriously, Spiro Agnew’s letter of resignation never reached the archives.

More than 99% of the 3 billion items in the archives are papers. Along with them are some absurd, grisly and melancholy curiosities:

>The first Medal of Honor, awarded to the Union soldier who was the first to shoot a Confederate sympathizer, who was the first to shoot a Union officer in 1861.

— Exhibits from Navy judge advocate hearings, including assorted brass knuckles and knives, a meat cleaver, a blackjack, a broken billy club, a large pair of panties trimmed in lace and a still recognizable hamburger sandwich wrapped in brown paper. The hamburger somehow figured in the attempted seduction and death of a young woman aboard the U.S.S. Dubuque in 1940.

— Evidence from the Warren Commission’s investigation of John F. Kennedy’s death, including Lee Harvey Oswald’s carbine, bullet fragments taken from the slain President’s head and the “pristine bullet” believed to have passed through the President and John Connally without losing more than a fraction of its bulk, as well as the suit Kennedy wore that day in Dallas.

> A pair of pickled fingers, believed to have belonged to two U.S. businessmen captured by Mexican bandits in 1918 and sent to the U.S. consul at Mazatlan with a ransom demand for 5,000 Mexican dollars. The dutiful consul forwarded the fingers along with his report to Washington. The ransom was paid, and though one prisoner was freed, the other was shot trying to escape.

Although some of the more recent items are still classified, just about everything else is available for viewing. All one needs is a logical reason for wanting to see something, although would-be perusers are advised to call or write the Central Reference Division first.

Just a Slur. The archives’ “search rooms” are used by up to 800 people a week. Barbara Tuchman worked there on her book about General Joseph Stilwell; former Senator Sam Ervin researched the Revolutionary War; Actor Robert Redford studied the Old West; Bruce Catton pored over Civil War records. Some of the researchers are looking up family trees. They go through ships’ manifests to check on immigrant ancestors; census records (accessible only through 1900, to protect the privacy of the living); military records going back to the Revolutionary Army. Many blacks are clients, but the search for their forebears is often hampered by the pre-emancipation custom of listing slaves only by age and sex under the households of their masters.

The student of history’s subtleties can find a million delights in the stacks. After years of reading federal documents, Staffer Mark Samuelson concludes that big, all-pervasive Government is really nothing new. Noting its role in the exploration and settling of the West, in building canals and roads and sponsoring the railroads, in raising armies, Samuelson says, “The Government has been there from the start.” He has made another discovery. Every President, he finds, suffers a steady erosion in penmanship during his term: “When he starts out, it’s very precise. I suppose he’s conscious of everything he signs. Later on you can hardly read it. It’s just a slur.”