ARCHIVIST OF THE HALL OF RECORDS 9

President of the Peabody Institute:

DR. RICHARD FRANKO GOLDMAN .................. Baltimore

Marvin Mandel was elected in January 1969, by joint vote of
the Legislature to finish the term of Spiro T. Agnew who resigned to
become Vice President of the United States.

As of this date, Samuel Hopkins, having been elected as President
of the Maryland Historical Society in February 1970, is a new member
of the commission. Colonel Baxter died in January.

Dr. Goldman was elected by the Board of Trustees of the Peabody
Institute in the summer of 1969, to fill the place of John M. Nelson
III, who resigned.

There was no meeting of the Hall of Records Commission in fiscal
year 1969, but the Archivist appealed to individual members from
time to time for their advice and assistance. This was especially true
during the 1970 session of the Legislature when we were finally
placed in the General Services Department.

The plan to put us in General Services was broached to me early
in the summer of 1969. I fought as hard as I knew how, first against
being put with any other agencies and that having failed, then against
being put in General Services. It seemed to me to be duplicating the
National government's plan without any study of how that arrange-
ment had fared. The Society of American Archivists and the American
Historical Association feel that the National Archives has done poorly
under General Services. I sent the Governor a copy of the report of
the joint ad hoc committee of these two organizations, plus some
additional argument, but without success. At the Senate Finance Com-
mittee hearing on this bill, I appeared and objected on the grounds
that the committee had never visited the Hall of Records and had very
little idea what we did, but that was an effort to gain time, and it
did not succeed as the bill has now passed both houses and there is
little doubt that the Governor will sign it into law. I am enclosing a
chart of General Services, to give you some idea of how motley it is.