Re: An interesting quotation story (quotation-ring)

[Sam Hobbs <samhobbs@mindspring.com>]

I have certainly heard of far stranger things than that. It would really cap
the story off if we knew what the quotation was.
Sam
----- Original Message -----
From: Eyler Coates, Sr. <eyler.coates@worldnet.att.net>
To: <quotation-ring-l@gunnar.cc>
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 1999 4:58 PM
Subject: An interesting quotation story (quotation-ring)
>
> 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 assur
ed
> 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/
> ===========================================================
>
>
>