An interesting quotation story (quotation-ring)

["Eyler Coates, Sr." <eyler.coates@worldnet.att.net>]

When I was attending Library School at LSU back in 1968, I had a professor
-- a rather elderly gentleman -- who had worked at the Library of Congress
for some thirty years or so and had been head of the Public Reference
Section.  He told the class the following story:
Back when Franklin Roosevelt was president, Mr. Roosevelt was going to give
a speech, and there was a quotation from Abraham Lincoln he wanted to use,
but he wanted to verify the source and make sure he had the wording exactly
correct.  So he requested the staff at the Library of Congress to research
it, and provide the exact source and wording.  Needless to say, whenever the
president makes a request of a governmental agency, they drop everything and
go all out trying to fulfill it.  Well, a number of the reference staff
looked and looked through everything they could put their hands on, but
couldn't locate the quotation.  Late into the evening, they were working in
a part of the library that had rare books, and was separated from the rest
of the stacks in a  caged area with a metal door.  They were in this caged
area, looking and looking, without success.  Finally, they decided to quit
for the time being, and come back to it later.  As they were leaving the
caged area, they slammed the metal door.  And when they did that, a book
fell off the shelf inside the cage.  They went back in, and when they picked
up the book, they discovered it had fallen open to the very quotation they
had been looking for!  The professor who told us this story was a very
distinguished former member of the Library of Congress staff, and he assured
us that it was a true story.  Knowing him, and who he was, I feel compelled
to believe him.
Eyler Coates  
===========================================================
                            Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government
                           http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/
                                    Thomas Jefferson and His Writings   
                          http://homepages.infoseek.com/~eylercoates/
===========================================================