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Leonard's Library of Congress Adventure

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What I want to know is why he was donating the manuscripts to the government and not to a private institute: i think Miss Rand would have much prefered that, rather than having her works in the hands of the Moochers and Looters. Does anyone know what the deal is? Once i read that i lost a lot of respect for him. I mean he was gripping about the government totalitarianism with one hand and feeding them with the other. It doesn't make sense to me.

That he is old and thought he was dying isn't a valid excuse to me either. Its like saying "I was drunk."

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From the December 1965 Objectivist Newsletter.

In October, 1964, Ayn Rand received a letter from L. Quincy Mumford, Librarian

of Congress, which reads, in part, as follows:

"Among the most widely discussed philosophies of our time is that associated

with your writings. In your fiction and essays you have made the Objectivist

philosophy an issue affecting many levels of public discourse. When the history

of our times is written, your work will have a prominent place."

"In order to insure that your work will be the subject of informed study, I invite

you to place your manuscripts and personal papers in the Library of Congress.

Here they will join a distinguished manuscript collection which includes the

papers of most of the Presidents, statesmen, jurists, artists, writers, scientists,

and philanthropists. In fact, all phases of our national past are documented

through materials in the Library's Manuscript Division."

Miss Rand replied that she would be honored to accept the invitation.

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Its a government owned library.

That should be the end of the story.

Also there is this:

From piekoff.com

"Some time in the 1960s, I believe, the Library of Congress invited Ayn Rand to will the manuscripts of her novels to them. She replied that she was happy to do so. Subsequently, they sent her a form to fill out, in order to make her intention legally binding upon her death. She refused to fill it out, then or later, expressing various doubts about the Library which she had since come to entertain."

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Rand and Peikoff's plan is simple, to spread Objectivism for their sake. If the library of congress is the best place to keep such articles so they can be seen by many then thats what they will use. Obviously Peikoff's views on the matter have changed since his donation he says now that he will not donate their in the future, but at one time he thought it would be helpful to him. Plus ARI has their own library now, and with the wide spread use of the internet the libarary is nearly useless to him.

I see nothing wrong with using a government entity in this case. The benefits out weigh the cost. The library sould not be their, but it is. If you don't use it, assuming it is the best, you are only short changing yourself. Public schools should not exist, but they do, are you not going to send your kids to school? I dont know about you but I dont want to pay for school twice, once in taxes, once to a private school. (note: if I have the extra cash I would, they are better).

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The donation was not for the library, it was for him. It directly benifted him and his lifes work, the spread of objectivism. Yes, he did make a mistake and he is pissed aobout it, that much is obvious. I'm not too sure I buy the whole he was on his death bed mistake thing. I'm sure he has a legal heir lined up for when he does die. That being said if the donation was made on what he thought to be his death bed, I find it more probable that he had already made the decission to donate said articles to the library and decided that he better do so before he dies.

It was a misstake but it was not because he was going against everything he lives by. As I said before, today, thanks to the internet and ARIs library, there are better places to dispaly such work. If I planed to donated something of the same nature the first place I would look would be to a private orginization, but if there were non, as there were not, I would have no problem giving them to a government on that did what I wanted them to do with them. The government did not, they came and stole the rest, and that is why peikoff is pissed.

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I looked it up, and it turns out that I was wrong... Peikoff had recovered from his immiedate heart problems when he made the decision. However, it was still a poor decision. He had already established ARI at the time and could have used it for the storage of the manuscript. And besides, even if it is not his primary purpose, the donation is supportive of the government organization.

Would it not be wrong for me to donate books to the schools, even if I find myself in the unfortanate position of having to use them?

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Suppose I am guaranteed by a public school teacher that if I donate Ayn Rand books to his school they will be used for years to come in its English classes. Such a donation would help the school, but it would also promote my goals. This is not an example of one sanctioning his own destroyers, since the purpose of my donation is to put an end to the school. (There would be a difference between donating cash and donating Ayn Rand texts.)

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True, daniel... however, your donation to the public schools would be immoral if you could get a private school to agree to the same deal.

Also consider that the primary issue here is the preservation of the manuscript. Having people read off the manuscript is of no value to Peikoff or to Objectivisim, seeing as people can get the book everywhere from their local book stores and librarys. However keeping the manuscript protected from, for instance, fire could prove to be very valueable 100 years down the road.

Peikoff could have easily protected the manuscript using methods ranging from a small firesafe or safe-deposit box at a bank in Zurich... and left them under the protection of ARI upon his death. Surely they are more trustworthy to protect it than the government.

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however, your donation to the public schools would be immoral if you could get a private school to agree to the same deal. 
If indeed it were the same deal.

Also consider that the primary issue here is the preservation of the manuscript.

It was my understanding that this was not the primary issue. Consider the letter Ayn Rand received from the Library:

"In order to insure that your work will be the subject of informed study, I invite you to place your manuscripts and personal papers in the Library of Congress."

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Also consider that the primary issue here is the preservation of the manuscript.  Having people read off the manuscript is of no value to Peikoff or to Objectivisim, seeing as people can get the book everywhere from their local book stores and librarys.

My understanding is that the manuscript contains Ayn Rand’s edits, notes, and comments – plenty of original material for scholars to examine. I certainly would like to see it one day – and probably will, in digital format.

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Good points, I revoke my statement about the purpose of the donation.

Which leads me to say: So long as Peikoff gave proper consideration to creating a means by which to keep the manuscript on public display (i.e. considered creating the ARI's present facilitys), and found that that was unreasonable (most likely for financial reasons), than he was completely morally justified in making the donation. Even if he should have been more carefull about specifying exactly what he was donating.

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