through all of the way, he may eat comfortably in his old age. That is just the plain truth about the matter. And, yet, I would say that I have published not less than a thousand titles. Do you see how good your chance is over a long period of years? I am still hoping that I may land one some day that in my sixties will be paying me $250 or $300 a year in royalties for a work that lasted.

That is our contrast with the businessman who establishes his business. After a while it gets a certain momentum and it will carry on, unless his fool son comes in and wrecks it for him. It will sort of carry on. It has a good will, it has a good net income, and some customers will come in after he is no longer a very aggressive salesman. It will go along.

But ours is the wildest gamble in the world. Very few of us wind up making quite a lot of money, and I mean by that writing a book that goes into the magazine, then is a success as a book, then sells its motion-picture rights, then sells its second serial rights, and then sells abroad. That happens, but that is like lightning striking. It happens very, very seldom, even to the best of them. You say, "He did it this year." Let us see if he does it again in his lifetime. It is not a very likely thing.

I wanted to testify also on the point of the present value of our foreign rights. We have thought a great deal in the past about that. You have seen us here before asking for a copyright bill, and exercised about our foreign rights. They become less and less valuable, as the others have told you.

This is my own experience:

I am published in Japanese, German, French, Spanish, and Italian. I have had correspondence with the people about this at various times. And with my right hand up, so help me God, the only foreign money I ever had was $100 out of London one time for the reprint of an article in a magazine over there after it had appeared in The American Magazine in this country. That is the only foreign money I have ever seen.

To the best of my knowledge what happens is that we negotiate up to the time when it is time for them to send me the money, and they just do not; that is all. I do not know what happens after

that.

Now, that they have depreciated their money and blocked their marks and blocked their lire and things of that sort, it is not very important.

We are intensely interested now in certain internal phases of this copyright bill, and I personally have fastened my attention on those paragraphs and sentences which would protect the innocent infringer. I want to warn you-some of you are lawyers; I had the misfortune to study law as a boy, and I cannot help looking at that-that we must know that if you throw enough safeguards around the defendant the district attorney cannot convict a cold-blooded assassin. All you have to do is throw enough safeguards around the presumption of innocence. Just do that well enough, and so help me, you could not convict an assassin; with all of us here as witnesses, he would get loose.

You have done that in this copyright bill as it stands today. The burden of proof upon the plaintiff and the plaintiff would probably be the author-and the presumption of innocence on the part of

the infringer are all he needs. In short, you do not have a copyright bill, just on that one account. It is not there. It is the opposite of a copyright bill.

I take it that as lawmakers you know that when a law goes awry it always shoots out the wrong end. It blows the head off the fellow that pulls the trigger. It is an invariable rule of legislation that if it does not work it works backwards. If you limit the interest rate on money in your State and you get it all wrong, the interest rate will rise, because you have added a risk there to the hazard.

In this case you call it a copyright bill. I use the word "you" very inaccurately, and I know it and apologize for it. The bill comes out of the Senate. But we will say the Congress in a general way has drawn a copyright bill that is the opposite of a copyright bill, for the precise and exact reason that all you have to do is to give an adequate presumption of innocence to an infringer and you are through; it is all out; you just destroy what we now have.

As it stands, although we have been down here over and over again to ask for a copyright bill-it seems to me my first trip down here was in 1931-this is the first time we have been opposing the bill. There are phases of this bill, as we freely stated, that we like very much. But taking it as a whole, that one item in it is so destructive that we would rather have the piece of legislation that we now have and we would rather surrender our hope of going into the Berne Convention, at least temporarily, because of its decreased value at the present time. We would rather get along without that and just hang on to what we have than break our necks on the certainty that we see of disaster in this, and for the reason that Mr. Davis stated. You could document it all day and you would not have said anything more than he said. There is no presumption of innocence. There does not deserve to be. A man who is infringing a copyright knows he is infringing a copyright.

There is a further provision in it that when he has infringed the copyright you cannot stop him if he is in the middle of publication. That is the same thing as saying that you cannot arrest a burglar on the way out with the goods, you have to sue him in the civil courts to recover your property, and probably give bond while you sue. It is an absurdity, it is an outrage, it is ridiculous, it is a destruction of copyright rights. We just simply cannot tolerate it. That is why we are here in spite of the many phases of that bill that we like.

The whole thing comes from a wrong approach to this problem. There is an assumption that this is a vastly complicated thing in which we must look after the rights of the radio people, the printers, the magazine publishers, the music publishers, and this, that, and the other thing. But the only point there is to the whole thing, the only authority you have to draw a copyright law is conferred on you by the Constitution for a specific purpose, which is to protect the works of art and science. That is all. And when you have protected the author, you are through, that is all there is to it. Why otherwise would it exist there?

The history of nations is that when you do not make those protections, something very destructive ensues. I am watching the present situation in Europe with considerable interest as to what the effect will be, for example, on the German language and on the

world-wide German influence of the horrible things they are doing to writers in the German language at the present time-and I do not refer alone to the Jews; I refer to anybody who is against that centralized government there.

The same thing is happening in Italy, the striking down of the writer.

Do you know what happens there? Eventually you destroy the international influence of your "kultur", as the Germans say. The French did that largely by abuse of their authors. There was a golden period in French literature in which it just seemed that everything that was literature was in French. France abused those writers horribly, largely by lack of copyrights and by crooked scoundrels or publishers. They robbed them and flailed them into the very ground. There has been very little greatness in French literature for quite awhile. There is always bound to be some flair in a people as cultured as the French are, but they have destroyed it.

There was a period when our grandparents, if they made any pretention to culture, if they were going to know something about literature, had to know French. It is not so long ago that if you were going to know something about France you had to know German. And if you go back far enough, a little bit further back, if you were going to know literature you would have to study Italian. You had better study Italian, if you would pretend to know it.

Do you know what is happening? They are destroying it. It is not going to remain important very long to know the German language. I do not think it is important to know French now. Certainly they are wrecking the Italian language. That is about gone. And what has happened in the meantime? These countries of freedom, England and the United States, have given us the impetus. As history counts time, it is only day before yesterday when English was a struggling, miserable, inaccurate little language, with scarcely a grammar, spoken by about 6 to 10 million people, depending on which year you want to pick out.

Do you know that English is now the foremost language of the earth? More people speak English. The South American who wants to be educated, who really wants to go somewhere he has a noble language in Spanish; I am bilingual in Spanish, and I love the language; but where is he going to get if he goes to Spain, a moth-eaten little miserable rag of a country?-studies English. He studies English for literature; he studies English for science.

We who write that rise with no excess of modesty to say that is part of our work. When the American salesman goes to South America or to China or where he may today, one of the reasons that he can sell his goods or his ideas or present the cause of the United States if necessary in his own language is that we have written English. That is, we have written something worth reading in the English language. That is part of the greatness of England, and has been for quite awhile, the glory of English literature. Our own has been rising for quite awhile.

One of the reasons that it has been rising is because of our enormous domestic market. We have here, of course, and have had for a long time, 100,000,000 people. Throttle us as they would, kick us around, and this, that, and the other thing, we still have this very considerable market, about 100,000,000 people.

There has been a rise of culture in the United States through the influence of the public schools, the wider extension of college education. We are in that period where American literature, you can safely say, for 50 years has been rising in importance. I think I would like to include in that scientific literature, too. I would like to take in the whole field there.

I address this argument to you because you are statesmen, because you are concerned with this thing from a broad national and international point of view. I do not like to come before a committee of Congress and say, "Oh, sirs, I petition you. I have had bad luck", or "I was cheated" or something. I am not sure that concerns you very greatly. I want to talk to you as the lawmakers of a great country, and tell you that there is a national concern in this matter of protecting the work of your writers. Protecting it how? Just with a copyright. Just sort of label it, "He did it; it is his." That is all. "This fellow wrote that, and so help me God, it is his." Now, do not steal it, that is all we are asking.

The importance of it is tremendous.

The same thing that applies here applies to your patents. I was looking that up some time ago, the very word "patent." Why "patent"? Because the man who invents something comes in and makes it patent, that is, he tells you what he has there, he describes it, he blueprints it. If it is a chemical formula he gives you the formula. You let him have it for a certain length of time, and afterwards it goes into the public domain.

That is what we do. We want our property for a certain length of time in the gambling hope that we may not starve to death in the gutters in our old age. Then when we are through with it, when our brief little life is over, it is yours forever and forever and forever. in the public domain. But do not starve us too early.

I thank you.

Mr. LANHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Crowell.

The remainder of the time will be devoted to questions by the committee.

We thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for the very interesting and informative talks that you have given.

I should like to ask this question. I do not know whether anyone present could answer it. Perhaps Mr. Osborne, who has been before our committee in years gone by with reference to this feature of the copyright law, could answer it.

I think it would be interesting and helpful to the committee to have concrete suggestions in the way of language as to those parts of the bill you have discussed that are objectionable, and also concrete suggestions as to what provisions in a copyright bill would protect authors in their rights, in other words, by way of amendment in the manner of deletion, or by way of amendment in the manner of additions, either now or by submission of a brief to that effect with the arguments supporting the contention.

I think it would be helpful to the committee if we could have those concrete suggestions as to what from the standpoint of the authors in your judgment should be taken out of this bill and what from the standpoint of the authors should be included in this bill by way of very definite suggested amendments.

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM HAMILTON OSBORNE, COUNSEL FOR THE AUTHORS' LEAGUE OF AMERICA AND ITS ALLIED GUILDS

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, to some slight extent that can be done. Our difficulty is that we have from the start opposed the Duffy bill in toto. I am not going to address myself now to the Duffy bill, but simply to say to you that overnight I shall be here tomorrowovernight we can have a conference with our people and see what suggestions can be made.

Mr. LANHAM. May I say this, Mr. Osborne: The reason I am making that request—and, personally, I should like to make it of each organization that appears here is that when these hearings are concluded it will be necessary for the committee in executive session to go about the matter of seeking to draft legislation in accordance with its views from the hearings. If we have these definite and concrete suggestions, they would be very helpful, I think, in our deliberations. Mr. OSBORNE. All right, we will do our best to furnish them tomorrow. Thank you.

Mr. LANHAM. Members of the committee are now at leisure to question any of the witnesses who have appeared.

Mr. Colden, have you some questions to ask?

Mr. COLDEN. Nothing further, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. McClellan, have you any questions?
Mr. MCCLELLAN. No; not at this time.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Deen?

Mr. DEEN. After the other members are through, if there is still time.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Dunn, do you have some questions to ask?

Mr. DUNN. Yes; I want to say that from what I have heard since this meeting started it is my opinion it is necessary for this committee to give these composers, authors, and publishers all the protection we can. That is all I have to say.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Church?

Mr. CHURCH. No questions.

Mr. LANHAM. Mr. Daly?

Mr. DALY. There is just one thing I would like to know, and that is: Is it the opinion of the Authors' League that it would not be wise to go into the Bern Convention at all under any circumstances at this time?

MR. CREEL. Yes, sir.

Mr. DALY. You are opposed to going into it at the present time? Mr. CREEL. At the present time.

Mr. DALY. As I understand the reasons, or a portion of them, heretofore nations who have been in it—and I think they numbered from 46 or 48-have done nothing to protect the rights of others that were in. For instance, when the German nation under Hitler destroyed books and works of art, things that never can be replaced, the nations that were party to the convention never raised their voices in protest, and there is not one protest from any of the fortyodd nations. Am I correct?

Mr. CREEL. Not one.