Archaic Archives

While such relics as pieces of wall from old Harvard buildings are safely sealed in the University's orderly archives, things are different a few miles down the river. The Massachusetts State Archives' collection rests now in boxes and on the floor of a leaky, unventilated, rodent-haunted room up in the attic of the State House. The rat-food includes the original 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter, many letters and documents relating to the Constitutional Convention, and thousands of other items.

Thinking that the state's documents might better feed scholars, many people have spoken their minds to the legislature's Committee on State Administration. Plans for a new archives building to be located by the west wing of the State House are now on file. But they have been on file for four years.

A newly proposed bill has aroused much interest in the project. If the state wants to preserve its documents much longer, it must soon give them better quarters. It is also clear that the legislature will not be eager to appropriate the money--just under $1,000,000--necessary for new quarters. Since the supporters of the new bill are probably correct in stating that "no place in America has more precious documents and is doing as little to preserve them as Massachusetts," the legislature should appropriate the necessary money.