2,200 members of the tribe, and in addition to the homesteads of 160 acres each member has about 500 acres more of surplus lands. The committee concurs with the Senate committee in the belief that it would be to the interest of these Indians to sell these surplus lands in order that their reservation may be developed and the Indians surrounded by white neighbors to teach them by example the ways of civilized life. The bill provides that these lands may be sold by the Secretary of the Interior upon application of any member, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary may prescribe. The bill gives the Secretary discretion to sell part or all of the surplus land of any member where, in his judgment, he thinks it for the best interest of such member to make such sale.

Under the Osage allotment act above referred to, the oil, gas, and other minerals were reserved to the tribe for the period of twentyfive years, and this bill provides that the sales shall be subject to these reserved rights of the tribe. The Assistant Secretary of the Interior and other officials of the Interior Department, having during the past year visited the Osage Reservation, reached the conclusion that these individual Indians have too much land, and strongly favor giving the Secretary the authority and discretion, upon application, to sell part or all of their surplus lands.

The Osage Reservation is now Osage County, in the State of Oklahoma, and contains about 1,500,000 acres, none of which, outside of four town sites, is now taxable. It is believed that these surplus lands can be sold to the advantage of the Indians and result in settling this county with white people and make a large portion of these lands taxable, thus helping to bear the expenses and burdens of county and state government.

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60TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. ( REPORT 2d Session. No. 2218.

SALE OF CERTAIN PUBLIC LANDS IN CALIFORNIA.

FEBRUARY 15, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. SMITH, of California, from the Committee on the Public Lands, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 28190.]

The Committee on the Public Lands, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 28190) to provide for the sale of isolated tracts of public land in Imperial County, Cal., have had the same under consideration, and report the same back with the recommendation that it pass.

The necessity for this legislation is well pointed out by the honorable Secretary of the Interior in the letter hereto appended.

The amount of land lying between adjacent claims or farms ranges from a fraction of an acre to as much as 13 and a fraction acres, comparatively few being of the maximum amount. Generally speaking, there are from 6 to 8 acres in these odd lots, and they should from every consideration become a part of the adjacent farm.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

Washington, February 16, 1909.

DEAR SIR: There has been a necessary resurvey of the lands in the Imperial Valley, southern California, in order to adjust the desert-land claims in that region. This survey has resulted in leaving several strips of public lands, between claims, so narrow as to preclude the probability of their being entered under existing laws, and some of them, owing to confusion and uncertainty as to the lines of the former erroneous survey, containing valuable improvements of abutting owners. This situation will bring about great hardship and loss to various desert-land claimants unless Congress will authorize a means of selling this land at adequate prices to the adjoining entrymen. Unless it is too late, I urge that you attempt to obtain the passage of the inclosed bill, either as an item of the sundry civil appropriation bill or separately. Yours, very truly,

Hon. F. W. MONDELL,

Chairman Committee on the Public Lands,

JAMES RUDOLPH GARFIELD,

Secretary.

House of Representatives.

H R-60-2-Vol 1-61

CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. {

TO AMEND AND CONSOLIDATE THE ACTS RESPECTING COPYRIGHT.

FEBRUARY 22, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. CURRIER, from the Committee on Patents, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 28192.]

The Committee on Patents, to whom was referred House bill 28192, respectfully report that they have had the same under consideration and recommend that it do pass.

For years men familiar with the copyright laws of this country have urged the necessity of a complete revision. In a notable address on "Our archaic copyright laws," delivered before the Maine State Bar Association by Hon. Samuel J. Elder, a distinguished member of the Boston bar, he said:

The whole system, in the light of an interpretation by the courts, calls for a revision. The courts are more and more called upon to consider these questions. And besides this, the reproduction of various things which are the subject of copyright has enormously increased. The wealth and business of the country and the methods and means of duplication have increased immeasurably. The law requires adaptation to these modern conditions. It is no longer possible to summarize it in a few sections covering everything copyrightable. It should be revised so that protection to the honest literary worker, artist, or designer shall be simple and certain.

The pressing need of a revision of the copyright laws was urged by the President in his message to Congress in December, 1905. He said:

Our copyright laws urgently need revision. They are imperfect in definition, confused and inconsistent in expression; they omit provision for many articles which, under modern reproductive processes, are entitled to protection; they impose hardships upon the copyright proprietor which are not essential to the fair protection of the public; they are difficult for the courts to interpret and impossible for the Copyright Office to administer with satisfaction to the public. Attempts to improve them by amendment have been frequent, no less than 12 acts for the purpose having been passed since the Revised Statutes. To perfect them by further amendment seems impracticable. A complete revision of them is essential. Such a revision, to meet modern conditions, has been found necessary in Germany, Austria, Sweden,

and other foreign countries, and bills embodying it are pending in England and the Australian colonies. It has been urged here, and proposals for a commission to undertake it have, from time to time, been pressed upon the Congress.

The inconveniences of the present conditions being so great, an attempt to frame appropriate legislation has been made by the Copyright Office, which has called conferences of the various interests especially and practically concerned with the operation of the copyright laws. It has secured from them suggestions as to the changes necessary; it has added from its own experience and investigation, and it has drafted a bill which embodies such of these changes and additions as, after full discussion and expert criticism, appeared to be sound and safe. In form this bill would replace the existing insufficient and inconsistent laws by one general copyright statute. It will be presented to the Congress at the coming session. It deserves prompt consideration.

Mr. Thorvald Solberg, register of copyrights, in the introduction to his book on Copyright in Congress, gives reasons for a revision of the copyright laws, as follows:

It is doubtful if the enactment of further merely partial or temporizing legislation will afford satisfactory remedies for the insufficiencies and inconsistencies of the present laws. The subject should be dealt with as a whole, and the insufficient and antiquated laws now in force be replaced by one consistent, liberal, and adequate statute.

The laws as they stand fail to give the protection required, are difficult of interpretation, application, and administration, leading to misapprehension and misunderstanding, and in some directions are open to abuses.

The laws respecting copyrights must now be gathered from a large number of acts. Fourteen acts relating to copyrights have been passed since the Revised Statutes of 1873.

The first copyright statute ever passed in this country was passed by the legislature of Connecticut in 1783 at the solicitation of Noah Webster, who desired copyright protection for his spelling book. It is said that Mr. Webster then traveled from State to State and induced 12 of the 13 States-all except Delaware-to enact similar statutes. When the convention met and framed the Constitution of the United States copyright laws existed in 12 of the 13 States, but the requirements for the registration of copyrights differed greatly, making it burdensome to an author seeking to protect his work. The need of a law which would be effective in all the States was so apparent that a provision was incorporated in the Constitution, as follows:

*

Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. (Constitution, Art. I, par. 8.)

Congress and the courts have always given a liberal construction to the word "writings." Mr. Justice Miller, in delivering an opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Burrow-Giles Lithograph Company v. Sarony (111 U. S.), says:

The first Congress of the United States, sitting immediately after the formation of the Constitution, enacted that the "author or authors of any map, chart, book, or books, being a citizen or resident of the United States, shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, and vending the same for the period of fourteen years from the recording of the title thereof in the clerk's office, as afterwards directed." (1 Stat. L., 124, 1.)

This statute not only makes maps and charts subjects of copyright, but mentions them before books in the order of designation. The second section of an act to amend this act, approved April 29, 1802 (2 Stat. L., 171), enacts that from the 1st day of January thereafter, he who shall invent and design, engrave, etch, or work, or from his own works shall cause to be designed and engraved, etched, or worked, any historical or other print or prints shall have the same exclusive right for the term of fourteen years from recording the title thereof as prescribed by law.