clear to you, that there is something in publication which can not be handled 3,000 miles away. It must be done here.

They said to us before, "Why, Mr. Solberg, they may bring in 10,000 copies." Sure they may do it, but who is going to pay for it? You can not ship 10,000 copies, or 1,000 copies, across the ocean without expense. After you get them here, what is to be done with them? The natural order of events is that they go to an American distributor, an American publisher, and say, "Will you take this book for me on an assignment of the copyright for the United States?"

Then, my last point. When that is done it is perfectly feasible for that contract to contain the same stipulation that Baron Tauchnitz's contract carries, namely, the agreement that copies of his edition must not come to England to compete with the more expensive English one, and the American publisher can say, "Will you also agree that you will not send your edition to compete with mine?" I can show you in my library books that carry a notice on the title page, "This book can not be taken into. America, because of contracts." That is the way to solve the prohibition of importation, in my mind.

Mr. RICH. May I ask this question? You made mention of the fact a few moments ago that you would like a 56-year term, not from the date of registration, but from the date of publication. Assume that a book was published and the Government had no record of that publication; it would be necessary to keep a record of all publications of other volumes, and it would probably lead to some litigation eventually upon the part of the heirs of the author or the authors themselves, because a publisher might go out of business and would have to prove that the book was published a certain date. Mr. SOLBERG. You are anticipating a possibility not based upon the present registration which we have.

Mr. RICH. Would this present registration which we have still continue?

Mr. SOLBERG. Well, that is for the determination of the committee. and Congress in the bill proposed. They have thought a practical solution might be to make it voluntary. It is quite clearly probable that most of the people who have been registering would continue to do so. In fact, throughout our own country, I think every author is proud to be recognized in the copyright registration, proud to have his book in the Library of Congress, and the registrations would continue. There is a compromise that might be made. It is quite possible for the United States to determine, as the chairman has indicated to be his desire upon the requirement of registration in the United States so far as citizens of the United States are concerned. Doing so would not prevent us from entering into the Copyright Union. The present system could be continued without any bar to the entry of the United States into the union if it is clearly understood that foreign authors, nationals of the countries. in the Copyright Union, are exempt.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have to continue, Mr. Solberg. We have other witnesses here. Members of the committee and ladies and gentlemen, to conclude the hearing for the Authors' League of America. I am going to call upon the gifted, talented, and hard-working secretary, Miss Sillcox.

STATEMENT OF MISS LUISE SILLCOX, SECRETARY AUTHORS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA

Miss SILLCOX. I am secretary of the Authors' League of America, secretary of the Authors' Guild of the Authors' League of America, and executive secretary of the Dramatists' Guild. I have been with the Authors' League for 18 years. My residence is 2 East Twentythird Street, New York.

The Authors' League has finished its case in the presentation of its argument and its requests to your committee in the line of what changes we would like in the present law.

The statement I would like to make is in behalf of another group. Mr. Solberg has just made the statement to you that he believed, and I know he honestly believes, that we do not need any protection or encouragement even in the present law to force or encourage the American production and printing of books in the English language; that it will come in the natural course of events without encouragement in the law.

That may be true. On the other hand, I want to state to you that, as Mr. Melcher said, for years we have been unable to make any treaty with foreign governments or to ask you to make any in order that we should get protection abroad, because of this manufacturing clause which has been spoken of this morning in our domestic law. That clause was inserted at the request of the printers of America. I feel a little hesitant, as Mr. Melcher does, to appear before you in any capacity but that of a business man, speaking on behalf of myself, but in our industry we have enough friendly relations between the authors and the printers. They were the first group to say to us, "If you don't write, we can not print "; the first group to say that the entire industry of motion pictures, newspapers, books, drama, was based upon the author; that this $2,000,000,000 industry was dependent upon the brains of 2,000 or 3,000 men and their ability.

There is a sentimental relation, there is a friendly attitude that goes deeper than any law among the printers of America and the American Federation of Labor and the Authors' League.

I feel, therefore, that I would like to ask the privilege for the Wage Earners' Protective Association of America to file a brief, and for them to speak in their own name, and not leave it to me to put their argument to you, and to say whether they do or do not wish any encouragement if they give up this absolute requirement of printing every book in the English language in America that they now have, which they voluntarily offered to us to give up. But they do ask, and have asked in previous sessions, that if they give it up, a definite encouragement be made if the book is manufactured in America.

I should like to put their own argument before you and say whether they are willing to give it up still more or whether they ask that encouragement. The brief will be filed by the Wage Earners' Protective Association.

The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, you have heard the request of Miss Sillcox, as secretary of the Authors' League of America. Is there objection to the filing of the brief?

Mr. RICH. Is that germane to our hearing?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; it is all germane. The Chair hearing no objection, the brief may be filed.

Mr. GOODWIN. Is the way still open for the United States to enter the International Copyright Union by way of the Berne convention, or has the time expired?

Miss SILLCOX. The time has expired, and we must now come in by the Rome convention.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish now to hear from the League of American Penwomen, representing the national organization, Mrs. Taylor.

STATEMENT OF MRS. VERNA P. TAYLOR, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN PENWOMEN

Mrs. TAYLOR. My name is Verna P. Taylor; I represent the American Penwomen, an organization of women writers numbering about 3,000 over the United States. We are 34 years old, and we have seen the passing of one generation of writers that we felt were not properly protected in our copyright, and we have come to ask of you a law that will give that protection.

We are in harmony with the Authors' League of America and the magazine publishers. Yesterday the attorney for the Authors' League of America stated here before you their position, and the position of the League of American Penwomen are in accord with what they suggested.

The CHAIRMAN. You fully indorse everything stated by the Authors' League of America?

Mrs. TAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. The three fundamental things, copyright in the author's name, assignment or license of any part of it, and registration?

Mrs. TAYLOR. Yes. Our writers, many of them, are short-story writers for the magazines. We, of course, would like that protection, that would enable us to sell to different people. We have more magazine writers than we have authors of books. Of course, that is natural, and we agree with the Authors' League of America.

The CHAIRMAN. I will now call upon the local representative of the organization.

STATEMENT OF MISS MARY MEEK ATKINSON, REPRESENTING THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CHAPTER, LEAGUE OF AMERICAN PENWOMEN

Miss ATKINSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I do not know what I could add for the local league, except I think I should give my experience with the difficulties of copyright. I have personally, in writing for the past 10 years, found the publishers and editors that I dealt with such gentlemen that I was inclined to believe that the present copyright law was quite good enough, because I have never had any very serious trouble with them.

A few years ago we took over what we call the service department of the National League of American Penwomen for all of the writers who get into difficulties or legal controversies, and I found when writers deal with the smaller magazines and with the smaller publishers, particularly those publishers who require some payment on

publication of the work, that the legal difficulties are very many and often very serious; so that I had to be continually going to Mr. Solberg to get clear about certain points in the copyright law, and I found that very often the penwomen in the most cases were always professional, but frequently only gave a short time to her work, and she had many legal difficulties to be ironed out; so that I think it is very necessary for the sake of the beginners, as Fannie Hurst said. yesterday, that it is necessary to make the coming law very clear, so that even an amateur would understand just exactly what rights would be required; there is no difficulty about the other law-about the present law-which is absolutely impossible to govern, and that is that, although there is supposed to be one copyright, as a matter of fact material that appears in magazines and in book form is copyrighted now sometimes two or three times.

I said that to Mr. Solberg on one occasion; he said it can not be done under the present law. I said it is done because some of my stories have been copyrighted and listed so two or three times; of course, perhaps it was not legal, but the editor thought it was so foolish that he could not copyright any magazine story that had already been copyrighted by a book publisher, that he simply paid no attention to my request, and actually it was listed for copyright two or three times; there was no intention to defraud; I had also made request to have a copyright notice given so that it was simply, as a practical matter, impossible.

These are the points I think that the district league would like to put before you.

The CHAIRMAN. Members of the committee, we have a very important witness to call; first, I want to call the attention of the members of the committee that in citing the international aspects of the Copyright Union, I had a long talk with the Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, and, in order to help this committee along, to advise us in the way that pertains to treaty obligations, and so on and so forth, he assigned to us Mr. Wallace McClure, Assistant Chief, Treaty Division, Department of State, and I have requested him to cooperate with the Authors' League of America, publishers, and others, to see in what way the law could be perfected that would take care of all objections and other things, taken them into consideration, and bring forth something that the members of this committee can unite and recommend to the Congress of the United States.

I am glad to call on Mr. Wallace McClure, representative of the Secretary of State.

STATEMENT OF WALLACE MCCLURE, ASSISTANT CHIEF, TREATY DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. McCLURE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Department of State functions in this matter in so far as it touches the international aspects of the copyright. If you want protection in other countries, you will naturally work through the Department of State to get that protection, because it is the Department of State in our system of government that deals with other countries and deals with treaty making on the part of the United States. To the Department of State this particular question comes in every practical aspect.

It comes to us as part of one of our principal functions, that of protecting American economic interests in other countries. That is one of the reasons why the department exists. Of course, it has the great all-embracing function of preserving good international relations with other countries of preserving peace; of doing the things that help nations to get along well with other nations in all of their relations. But from the point of view of the committee's present discussion, the connection of the Department of State arises from its duty of protecting American economic interests outside the United States. The department has been doing that since the time when it was itself a congressional committee, a part of the Continental Congress, back in the days of the Revolution. The first economic treaty of the United States was signed on the same day, February 6, 1778, that the treaty of alliance with France was signed, the treaty that is usually regarded as one of the essential prerequisites to success in the Revolutionary War. The economic treaty states in its preamble that it is based upon the conception of "the most perfect equality and reciprocity" in dealing with economic affairs between the United States and France, the two parties to it.

Ever since that date, in dealing with economic affairs-and, of course, in international relations commercial affairs are the principal economic affairs-that concept of perfect equality and reciprocitymay I emphasize the word "reciprocity "has been the guide of the Department of State in entering into treaties. It has been found, as a matter of practical procedure, that reciprocity is necessary; it is so necessary that it is taken for granted in negotiations. When we approach other countries, and when the representatives of other countries come to us, in the Department of State, we do not put forth a project for seeking protection for our people in other countries unless we are willing at the same time to accord reciprocity; that is, to accord to their people in our country precisely the same protection.

That has become so much the expectation in international dealings that there is no use to attempt to do otherwise when we start out to make a treaty.

Now, that brings us to the question of protection of copyright interests. Copyright interests, like other export interests, whether of agricultural producers or the producers of manufactured goods, are economic interests, and you are concerned with this question today primarily because, as Mr. Melcher pointed out, the United States has become a great export Nation in respect of literary and artistic works.

Back in the nineteenth century we were not interested in exporting artistic and literary works; we did not have many to export. Now, as has been pointed out, this country has become the leading producer. It is more interested in exporting literary and artistic work than it is in the importation of them. In other words, our economic interests, our publishers, if I understand them accurately, and certainly our motion-picture producers, are far more concerned about the market for their product in other countries than about the fear of competition from other countries. The moving picture has no competition; the publishers have some competition, but they are interested more in the export market than they are in that competition; so, we are confronted with the proposition, How can