[Enclosure in No. 129.]
Dr. Johnston to Mr.
Evarts.
Sir: In reply to your excellency’s letter of
June 10, addressed to the American minister at Paris, and that of Mr.
Baird, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, of June 3,
accompanying, both relating to the proposed official organization of a
system of international exchanges of works of science, I have the honor,
at the request of Mr. Hitt, chargé d’affaires, to again address you on
the subject, and to lay before you some other considerations in regard
to this scheme.
All the governments which are represented by diplomatic agents at Paris,
with the exception of England and Germany, which still hold out in order
to first see the working of the scheme, have given in their adhesion and
agreed to the creation within the bureau of their respective foreign
secretaries of an agency, with a special employé charged with the duty
of international exchanges of works of science.
It is hoped that an arrangement may be made in regard to the
transportation of these exchanges which will reduce the expenses to a
mere trifle.
Will the Smithsonian Institution, which is already organized for this
kind of work, and which has been making exchanges with a certain number
of foreign governments for a good many years, assume to do this work in
the more enlarged and more official scale which is now proposed, and
enter, as the occasion presents, into direct communication with the
different foreign bureaus; or will it demand to do this work through the
foreign legations of the United States; or, finally, will it prefer, if
the State Department will do this work, to abandon it to the State
Department entirely?
The foreign bureaus would much prefer, for the sake of simplicity and
uniformity in the service, that the work should be done in the United
States exactly as it is done here; that is to say, by a special bureau
established within the State Department. The American legation at Paris
would also prefer that the exchange should be made by direct
communication through the bureau rather than through its agency, and it
is probable that the other European legations where exchanges are to be
made would also prefer the direct communications.
Nevertheless, as regards the Smithsonian Institution, the relations of
this institution to the government of its superior facilities for this
kind of work are so well known, that in the various meetings of the
congress no objection was ever raised to its assimilation with the
proposed official bureau of the different governments.
As I have already had the honor of informing your excellency, the last
meeting of the congress was composed exclusively, with the exception of
myself, of official personages, some thirty in number, mostly members of
the diplomatic corps.; and I desired to know of your excellency whether
it would not be more appropriate for one of the members of the American
legation to assume hereafter the duty of representing the United States
in this congress. In view of the fact, however, that there may not be
more than one or two more meetings of the congress, I have been
requested by the legation to continue to fill the duty of delegate to
the end.
I have, &c.,
