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About the Author
Stan Katz teaches public and international affairs and directs the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. He is a past president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society for Legal History. He comments frequently on policy issues relating to higher education, particularly liberal education, and on the humanities and social sciences, philanthropy, scholarly relations with Cuba, and the interplay of civil society, constitutionalism, and democracy. And on his beloved Cubs.
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More Words of the Founding Fathers
So you were wondering what happened at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the papers of the Founding Fathers? The hearing was chaired by Senator Leahy, and attended by two other Democrats, Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Benjamin Cardin (D-MD). Besides me, the witnesses were the historian David McCullough; Deanna Marcum, the associate librarian of the Library of Congress; the Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein; ; the president of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Rebecca Rimel; and the Syracuse University historian, Ralph Ketcham. We were each given all of four minutes to speak — and unlike university panels, each of us spoke for four minutes or less!
I have no idea why Senator Leahy scheduled a Judiciary Committee hearing on access to the papers of the Founding Fathers. It may simply be that he cares so deeply about the Founders and about the role of American history in sustaining our democracy. The statement he released this morning quoted David McCullough as saying that “These papers are American scripture,” and then going on himself to say “This is open government. We have a new opportunity to write a new chapter in the history of the Founding Fathers’ papers, and working together, we can ensure that these important monuments to our nation’s heritage are open to all Americans.” Fair enough, surely.
But I suspect that I would not have been in Washington yesterday if Ms. Rimel had not been orchestrating a public campaign for speedier completion of the letterpress editions and for free online access to digital editions of the papers. So far as I can tell the Trusts have generated articles critical of FFP productivity in both the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer. And as I said in my first post on the matter, the Pew lobbyist has gotten the Appropriations Committee to require NHPRC to report back on the progress of the editions.
So far as I can tell, Ms. Rimel’s interest is both that of a generous funder of the editions, and that of a Charlottesville native committed to understanding the Founding Era. Fair enough. But her testimony sounded (to one who teaches and writes about philanthropic foundations) like an insistence that the Founding Fathers grants ought to follow the pattern of the new venture philanthropy that she and Pew support — grantees must be precise in their goals, partner with their funders, specify measurable short to mid-term goals (and forfeit funding if they do not achieve them). This, as I wrote a year ago in this newspaper, is not fair enough. It is a model of philanthropy that works for some philanthropic projects, but not for all, and I think it will not work for necessarily long-term scholarly research projects.
But I have no objection whatsoever to public inspection and discussion of what these distinguished editorial projects are doing — and accomplishing. I felt yesterday and I feel now that a little sunshine is a very good thing for scholars who have nothing to hide and everything to gain from greater public awareness. So thank you, Ms. Rimel. And yes, Senator Leahy, we could use more federal funding. Thank you, sir, for your interest!
Posted at 05:07:33 PM on February 8, 2008 | All postings by Stan KatzCommenting is closed for this article.
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