• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

July 8, 1968 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS Yuhas, Joseph R., 3176080. MEDICAL SERVICE CORPS White, Lawrence L., Jr., 3173608. Zalocusky, Michael N., 3173733. Blansett, Randy S., 3176667. Wylie, John V., 3159736. Zartman, James L., 3176829. Ciminelli, Lawrence, 3173427. BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES CORPS Zeck, Francis H., Jr., 3175632. Emigh, John L., 3172786. Zisch, Waldemar C., 3153189. Meives, Lawrence T., 3173758. Jacob, Kendall M., 3176112. Zimmerman, Laurence J., Jr., 3173234. Miller, Roger T., 3159164. Nelson, Dean D., 3183746. Zwolinski, Paul J ., 3175973. Pitts, David R., 3170618. Taucher, Donald F., 3167649. E.XTENSIO,NS OF REMARKS OUR DEBT TO GUTENBERG the principle upon which all of modern in­ Christians came for the first time into direct dustry rests: mass production through the contact with their own religious beginnings. assembly of interchangeable parts designed From that shock of recognition many turned HON. ROBERT C. BYRD and made for precision fit. Gutenberg's mov­ in revulsion from what Christianity had been able type, with each letter independent of made into by its feudal lords spiritual and OF WEST VIRGINIA and interchangeable with the others, pointed temporal. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES the Western economy toward Eli Whitney's It is always easy to overestimate the civiliz­ interchangeable rifle parts and toward the ing effects of any historical development. Monday, July 8, 1968 assembly lines of Detroit. The savage always remains beneath the city Mr. BYRD of West Virginia. Mr. Pres­ Gutenberg also invented a proper printing clothes and the courtly manners. It is also ink and a printing press quite different from true that--as implied in some of the exam­ ident, a most interesting editorial con­ the various presses then available in Europe, ples of world-shaking books noted earlier­ cerning the debt our age owes to Johann those used for wine, cheese and book-bind­ printing itself may be used for savage as well Gutenberg, the inventor of movable ing. Other presses had a single, up-and-down as civilizing purposes. Nevertheless, in sev­ type, was published in the Washington action. Gutenberg's, in order to make printing eral important senses, the perfection of Sunday Star of July 7, 1968. I ask unani­ feasible, had a double action: up-and-down printing and its subsequent incorporation mous consent that the editorial be printed for the pressure and in-and-out for the feed­ into the social structure provided the final in the RECORD. ing of paper, the two actions completely co­ and perhaps the greatest step in the taming ordinated. Again, this earliest of modern of European man. The Europeans, in con­ There being no objection, the editorial machines has cast a long shadow into the in­ trast to the Romans before them and the was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, dustrial age. Americans after them, began life as savages as follows: Almost in passing, the perfection of the and retained many savage characteristics for OUR AGE OWES A DEBT ~0 JOHANN GUTENBERG printed book also gave great impetus to the centuries. Printing opened to Europeans gen­ erally the life of the mind and made avail­ Printing in various parts of the earth is development of the printing image as a work of art. Gutenberg's Bible was "illuminated" able generally that criticism of the social older than the written records that would order without which all progress is impos­ tell us accurately how old it is. The Baby­ by hand in the manner of the manuscript Bibles it was replacing. The idea there was sible. lonians and Sumerians printed on clay with For the highest concerns of the human cylinder seals. The Egyptians printed de­ strictly commercial. The printer and his financial backers kept their secret carefully mind, for the poetry of the human spirit, signs on cotton and so did the Peruvians for the instant knowledge of affairs near and from before the coming of the Incas. The and aimed to sell their Bible as the genuine, handcopied article. Almost at once, however, far, for trade, for politics, for science and Chinese not only printed on paper as well industry, we are all in the debt of Johann as on fabric, but they printed words as well printed books became adorned with wood­ cuts and engravings, followed soon by etch­ Gutenberg. as designs, the earliest of their printing dat­ Eric Gill, who, among other things, was ing from the 8th century B.C. and consisting ings. In every case the new method was developed for economic reasons of cheap­ one of the finest printers of this century, of Buddhist charms said to have had a press displayed an epigraph for his trade which run of 1,000,000. ness and speed, motives which later pro­ duced the lithograph and the slik-screen ended with complete justification of the The Chinese, however, were prevented by line: their alphabet--or by the lack of one--and print. Yet in every case the new substitute revealed distinctive characteristics of its own "Friend, you stand on sacred ground: This by their love for beautiful calligraphy from is a Printing omce." developing printing into the engine of prog­ that have caused them all to remain as avail­ ress and peril it has been in the West. able alternatives to the artist-printmaker. In the West it all began in the German Artists today make woodcuts and engravings city of Mainz, which has just opened a year­ exactly as they were made in Gutenberg's THE PIPELINE IN U.S. FOREIGN AID long celebration in honor of its most famous time. son, Johann Gutenberg, who died there 500 In the sadly familiar pattern of so many years ago, in February, 1468. Mainz does well revolutionary inventions, Gutenberg's press HON. JAMES G. FULTON to honor its son and the rest of us do well and the superb quality of his printing availed to recollect the monumental contribution of him little beyond the joy of successful dis­ OF PENNSYLVANIA the printer of Mainz to all of subsequent covery. He ran out of money. His backers IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES history. Subsequent history, indeed, is im­ moved in, took over the work and made a possible to conceive without Gutenberg's fortune out of Gutenberg's genius. The Monday, July 8, 1968 invention of printing. Beginning with the master printer himself, in his late sixties, en­ Mr. FULTON of Pennsylvania. Mr. great Gutenberg Bible itself and running on tered the court of the archbishop of Mainz, Speaker, I submit the excellent corre­ through the works of Galilee, the French with a fixed allowance of grain and wine and Encyclopedia, the American Constitution, a suit of livery once a year. He died in that spondence of two highly competent col­ the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, service, aged 70. Once again the first great leagues and friends, the gentleman from all of that subsequent history has been and printer adumbrated the future of many, Pennsylvania, Congressman THOMAS is st111 being shaped by the written word in many publishing ventures; namely, financial MoRGAN, chairman of the House Foreign ways that were simply impossible in all the trouble. Affairs Committee, and the gentleman ages of man's existence before the mid-15th Though he died, in effect, on welfare, albeit from Florida, Congressman PAUL G. century. The "Gutenberg Galaxy" is the the higher welfare, Johann Gutenberg's im­ RoGERS of the Interstate and Foreign universe we live in. mortality was established even before he When Gutenberg, at about the age of 40, died. Printers sprang into business elsewhere Commerce Committee, and Merchant set out to print a Bible, there was available in Germany, in the Lowlands, in Italy and, Marine and Fisheries Committee: to him one of the four essential elements with William Caxton, in England. In Italy JuLY 3, 1968. needed. That was paper, which had at last · the rediscovery of classical antiquity may DEAR COLLEAGUE: May I take the liberty become as economically possible in Europe very well have been the occasion bf the of urging your most careful reading and as papyrus had been in ancient Egypt. It Renaissance. But in the North of Europe a consideration of the attached copy of my was up to the self-apprenticed printer to Renaissance as profound in its analysis of reply to the circular letter from our esteemed invent the rest, and he did. contemporary society and as far-reaching colleague, Congressman Paul G. Rogers, of His best known contribution, of course, in its· effects upon that society came out of July 1, in which he calls for a one-year was movable type. Just before Gutenberg Gutenberg's presses. moratorium on the foreign aid program. there had been "block books," much like the Less than half a century after his death Because his well-intended suggestion is Chinese examples. One page was printed from the Protestant Reformation was in full cry based on fundamental assumptions which one block of wood, in which the text was all over Europe, a movement which counts are not founded on facts, and would have carved backwards, as in a mirror image. as one of its prime sources the simple fact repercussions endangering our foreign policy MoTable type changed the nature of printing that the Bible had become everywhere avail­ and national security, I am impelled to take completely. It was the first embodiment of able. Thanks to Gutenberg, thousands of this means to provide the correct facts to 20216 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS July 8, 1968 my colleagues in the House in advance of A complete halt in economic and humani­ would, as Secretary of State Rusk has pointed the foreign aid bill debate next week.

Load more

  42

Copy Link