Please note that the following is a digitized version of White House History, Issue #40, originally released in print form in 2016. Single copies of this issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
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Overview of construction site for the George W Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University, September 15, 2011. While the Roosevelt Library was built at a cost of $376,000, the George W Bush Library cost $250 million.
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tecture or exhibit content defining a presidential lega cy as preserved in these institutions. By centralizing the records and building presidential museums in sep arate locations, the museums no longer have the authority associated with presidential records to bol ster the institution as being dedicated to the truth of what happened during an administration. If a cen tralized museum of the presidency was built by the federal government, a president and his supporters would no longer entirely control the exhibit contents and thus not be able to define the essential elements or inconsequential events and polices associated with their administration. Presidential libraries may cease to exist in cur rent form one day due to the ever rising costs of con struction and maintenance. However, with Congress the only entity able to limit the scale and scope of these buildings and many members of Congress thinking of themselves as ultimately becoming presi14
WHITE HOUSE HISTORY (Number 40)
dent, we can suspect that the curbing of the expan sion of new presidential libraries may not come soon. Whatever form these institutions take in the future, their seminal impact on history-a complete collection of presidential documents,-was summa rized by Waldo Leland, the first chair of the FDR Library Executive Committee: Many will use these documents. Some will seek only to support one or the other side of contro versies, to attack or to defend, to magnify or to belittle, and such users will be too often content to lift passages from their context and to distort their meaning. But the use of these collections to add valid and enduring knowledge will be the work of those who, competent in the patient and careful methods of research, have one purpose only-to know the truth. 50