Thus some of the highest prizes in the Government are won. Unscrupulous men pay wily women to touch the subtlest and surest springs of influence, and thus open a secret way to their public success. No longer the question is: Shall women participate in politics? shall they form a controlling element in the Government? But, as there are women who will and do exert this power, shall it remain abject, covert, equivocal, demoralizing, base? Or shall it be brave and pure and open as the sun? CHAPTER XIII. THE CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY. Inside the Library—The Librarian—Sketch of Mr. Spofford—How Congressional Speeches are Manufactured—“Spofford” in Congress—The Library Building—Diagram—Dimensions of the Hall—The Iron Book Cases—The Law Library—Five Miles of Book Shelves—Silent Study—“Abstracting” Books—Amusing Adventure—A Senator in a Quandary—Making Love under Difficulties—Library Regulations—Privileged Persons—Novels and their Readers—Books of Reference—Cataloguing the Library—The New Classification—Compared with the British Museum—Curious Old Newspapers—Files of Domestic and Foreign Papers—One Hundred Defunct Journals—Destruction of the Library by English Troops—An Incident of the War of 1814—Putting it to the Vote—“Carried Unanimously”—Wanton Destruction—Washington in Flames—A Fearful Tempest—The Second Conflagration—35,000 Volumes Destroyed—Treasures of Art Consumed—Congressional Grants—The New Library—Extensive Additions—The Next Appropriation—The Grand Library of the Nation. The most remarkable fact of the present connected with the Congressional Library, is its Librarian, Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford. Mr. Spofford was appointed Assistant Librarian by President Lincoln, December 31, 1864, and upon the resignation of Mr. Stephenson the same month succeeded him as Librarian. Mr. Spofford was formerly connected with the secular press of Cincinnati, Ohio, and was also engaged in the book trade in the same city. But neither fact accounts for his almost unlimited practical knowledge of books of every age and in every language. He is himself a vast library in epitome. If you wish to inform yourself upon any subject under the sun, if you have any right or privilege to inform Mr. Spofford of that fact, in five minutes you will have placed before you a list, written down rapidly from memory, of the best works extant upon the subject named, and in as few moments as it will take to find them, and draw them forth from their dusty nests, you will have them all heaped on a table before you, ready for your search and research, and all the headaches they will be sure to give you.