DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997             TAG: 9704160007

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   57 lines

DEFUNDING THE PAST BUDGET CUTS IMPERIL PROJECTS THAT PRESERVE OUT AMERICAN HERITAGE.

The United States is famous as a throwaway culture, but you'd think even Washington would agree that some things - the papers of the founding fathers, for instance - ought to be preserved forever. Yet shrinking budgets and devolutionist dogma threaten dozens of projects to preserve the nation's heritage.

At issue is funding for an obscure independent agency - The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) - an offshoot of the national archives. It was established to publish comprehensive editions of primary sources of national importance. Later, cataloging and preserving records and archives was added. At present, about 80 projects are receiving a total of about $5 million a year.

These include the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, the Adams clan, Jefferson Davis, Henry Thoreau, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King Jr. and on and on.

It is astonishing that many of these papers haven't been printed in uniform editions since the 19th century. And those were incomplete, bowdlerized, truncated and inadequate. These are the founding documents of the founding fathers, the intellectual autobiography of the nation. Though few Americans may consult them in libraries, their publication has a trickle-down effect as professors, teachers, historians and textbooks writers gain access to the more complete historical record and pass it on to students.

The Madison papers are being published by a project housed at the University of Virginia. It is overseen by a professor of history and carried out by a staff of five. So far 23 volumes of a projected 50 have been published. If funding survives, the project could be completed by 2020.

This is a noble undertaking; to compile, edit and preserve for posterity the record of our country's greatest men in their own words. The money involved is trivial by federal standards. About half of the Madison project's budget comes from the NHPRC, another large fraction from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a small remainder from private contributors.

But funding is being squeezed. The NEH is on some political hit lists. President Clinton's latest budget would slash NHPRC by 20 percent. In keeping with the Republican penchant for devolving power to the states, there's a move afoot to shift NHPRC money to archival functions at the state level. But the funding was created for papers of national importance. This move could put the maunderings of some minor figure from South Dakota on a par with the complete correspondence of the Father of the Constitution.

Cuts already threaten or have terminated some projects. The publication of The Papers of Robert Morris - the financier of the American Revolution - has been halted with one volume left to finish.

It is a peculiar sort of conservatism that refuses to conserve our intellectual heritage. Virginians who care about the history of their country - and if they don't, who will? - ought to tell their representatives to keep funding intact. And those who have been prospered under democratic capitalism could repay a debt by contributing generously to the project to preserve the legacy of James Madison.

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