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Representative CURRIER. You prefer the present term, do you, to the term we are proposing to give you in the bill? Because we can settle that in a minute, if you say that is a backward step.

Mr. JOHNSON. I say it is a backward step. It is not a forward step, when you give us life and thirty years.

Representative CURRIER. And at the same time insure the copyrighting of the mature work of authors.

Mr. JOHNSON. Of course anyone

Representative CURRIER. I want your position. You say that is a backward step. If that is your position, it will take the committee but a very few minutes to retrace the ground you say they have taken.

Mr. JOHNSON. That is the responsibility of the committee, not my responsibility.

The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. May I ask Mr. Johnson a question? The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. Mr. Johnson, have you ever figured whether on the whole the authors would benefit by the term proposed, as against a flat forty-two years?

Mr. JOHNSON. No, sir.

The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. Have you ever figured it out with reference to any given number of cases?

Mr. JOHNSON. No, sir.

The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. If that were the alternative, do you mean to say to the committee you would prefer the forty-two years rather than the author's life and thirty years?

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not say that, but that is not inconsistent with saying that in taking the splendid forward step you also take a backward step.

The LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS. You mean to say it is not a complete forward step?

Mr. JOHNSON. It is not a complete forward step.

Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. It is a net gain.

Mr. JOHNSON. It is a small net gain; but what I am pleading for is that this committee shall not go on record as denying anybody part of a copyright which has already been given them. Is not that a plain proposition?

The CHAIRMAN. Do I understand you now to say that your views are the views generally of the authors of this country?

Mr. JOHNSON. What views do you mean?

The CHAIRMAN. Are your views the general views of the authors of this country?

So.

Mr. JOHNSON. In regard to these questions I am presenting, I think

The CHAIRMAN. I mean as to the duration of copyright.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think so.

The CHAIRMAN. And you would prefer the present law as it stands to-day?

Mr. JOHNSON. I have not said so. No; I would not prefer it. I say there is a small net gain.

Representative CURRIER. Then do not say it is a backward step. Do not charge the committee with taking a backward step if you say there is a plain gain in it. We do not want it to appear in this record that we have taken a backward step.

The CHAIRMAN. In order that this matter may not be misunderstood at all, I wish to say that if the authors do not want it and it is not an advantage to them in any way, shape, or form, I will assure you, Mr. Johnson, I do not want it, and I will be satisfied with the law as it stands to-day. Personally, if I were going to express my own opinion, without taking the authors into consideration, I would say I would leave the law just as it is to-day.

Representative CURRIER. So far as the term is concerned.
The CHAIRMAN. So far as the term is concerned.

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not think it is a question of doing anything for me or for the authors.

Representative CURRIER. It is a question of your charging the committee with taking a backward step.

Mr. JOHNSON. I am not individually, or even collectively, charging the members with it.

Representative CURRIER. You are charging them with it as the representative of the Copyright League.

Mr. JOHNSON. I say I think no backward step should be taken in this matter, and it seems to me that is a backward step.

Representative CURRIER. We can very easily eliminate your objection to it.

Representative LEGARE. Do you represent the Copyright League officially?

Mr. JOHNSON. I do, officially; yes, sir.

Representative LEGARE. Have they passed any resolutions?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir; and they have been sent to you as a Member of the House.

Representative LEGARE. Have you a copy of the resolutions?
Mr. JOHNSON. I have them at home.

The CHAIRMAN. It was an officia! act of their organization, because I received a copy which Mr. Johnson was kind enough to send to me. Mr. JOHNSON. Our resolutions in regard to this matter have been sent to every Member of Congress.

The third point I make is with regard to the Monroe Smith amendment. Monroe Smith is a member of our council and drafted an amendment for the extension of the copyright.

Representative CURRIER. Does Mr. Clemens regard that as a backward step? He comes down here and begs strongly for the term we have in the bill.

Mr. JOHNSON. I know nothing about Mr. Clemens.

Representative CURRIER. Does Edward Everett Hale consider this a backward step?

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not think it has been considered by either one of those gentlemen.

Representative CURRIER. Mr. Clemens is a member of your executive council?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; and he has been away for a long time.

Representative CURRIER. He has not expressed any approval of this suggestion you make, has he?

Mr. JOHNSON. I do not think it is necessary that he should express any approval of it. It is an evident matter that if the last twelve years of a man's life work, including his most mature work, may be excluded from copyright, it is, on that side, less than what he is getting now. I do not think there is not an advantage on the other side. I have always spoken in commendation of the committee for that.

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The CHAIRMAN. That would be virtually about one chance in a thousand, would it not?

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the last twelve years of a man's work is likely to be mature work. Suppose he dies at 50. That leaves his work from 38 to 40. I will undertake to prepare a statement of the authors who died, and what works they have done in the last twelve years of their lives.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed with your other point as quickly as possible.

Mr. JOHNSON. The other one is simply to say that we favor what is called the Monroe Smith amendment, which was presented at the last hearing, and which is a matter that would seem to lie between the authors and the publishers, namely, that in any renewals of copyright to living persons where contracts are still in existence, that where there is copyright, a royalty, it may be made on the application of the author alone, but where there has been a downright payment, in that case the publisher must join with the author in order to get renewal. That is the only other point I wish to make. I thank you, gentle

men.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES L. FEENEY, REPRESENTING THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF BOOKBINDERS.

Mr. FEENEY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am here representing the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. I am also president of the Local Bookbinders' Union and chairman of the legislative committee of the Central Labor Union of this city.

I want to say, at the outset, that my remarks will be very brief. I am here simply to indorse the manufacturing clause in the copyright bill and to thank the gentlemen of the committee, on behalf of my organization, for inserting that clause.

Our bookbinders throughout the United States have suffered for years on account of the loose way in which the copyright laws have been executed, especially in regard to the matter that the chairman has just spoken of, where the plates were made and the type set up in this country, the plates shipped into Japan, the books bound by cheap Japanese labor, and sent to this country, and the children of American workmen were compelled to use those books in our schools, while American bookbinders walked the streets looking for work. That has been the position. That has been the evidence given here, and I claim that that law can not be too strict to protect our workmen. Regarding the remarks of Mr. Putnam this morning, I was not here at the time they were made. I understand he wants a change made in that law permitting him to send books to Europe to be bound. I understand he refers to what we call art bookbinding. A few years ago I spent few months in London and a few months in Paris, visiting the different binderies in both those cities. I want to say they do very fine work over there, but they pay their workmen practically nothing. From 15 to 30 shillings a week is the wages paid. Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. Not for artistic binding?

Mr. FEENEY. For artistic binding, 32 shillings a week is the minimum scale in London. I visited the Woman's Guild at Hampstead. Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. What is the maximum scale?

Mr. FEENEY. The maximum scale goes a little further. It may go as high as 40 shillings.

Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. We sometimes pay as much as $50 for a single book, for art work.

Mr. FEENEY. They sometimes pay as high as $100. I saw a set for J. Pierpont Morgan in the Woman's Guild in London. Those little girls were getting from 10 to 15 shillings a week for high-class work that over here the American workman would get from $20 to $30 per week for. We have art bookbinders in New York City and in Chicago, and we bind our work just as good as was ever bound up in London or Paris. It is simply a matter of dollars. Those art books are merely gathered up by connoisseurs. It is a fad among the rich men of New York and other cities to gather those handsome bound books; but I want to tell Mr. Putnam that it is not necessary to send to England to have books bound there in the art style. They can bind them here in the cheap cloth binders and send them over. I admit there are very few editions bound up. They are mostly what we call sets. They generally take a set of Dickens or any other great author, tear off the cloth covers, and bind them up in this fancy leather with what we call fine tool work. Our American workmen can not compete in wages, but they can compete in skill. There is no work in the binding line, and I will take the liberty of saying for the printers there is no work in the printing line, done on the other side that we can not do here, even to foreign languages. Representative CURRIER. Mr. Feeney, let me ask you a question: If some gentleman desires to have books bound in Paris or in London, he can send them over there in cheap binding and have that removed, can he not, without any difficulty?

Mr. FEENEY. I will state that they can bind even in paper. There are three classes of binding-leather binding, cloth binding, and paper binding. We consider a book bound when it is sewed and any kind of binding put on it, whether cloth, paper, or leather.. A large number of books are sold in the stores with common binding, cloth binding, and they can send them over. If they want to send a set over there, that does not interfere with the copyright at all. They can send the sheets over. They can get them put up in cheap covers at very little expense and send them to the other side.

Representative CURRIER. Is there any trouble in sending them over with the leaves uncut?

Mr. FEENEY. Would not that invalidate the copyright there? Representative CURRIER. But I mean you can leave them uncut just as well.

Mr. FEENEY. Just the same as having them cut. One reason they are sent abroad, to the other side, is that they can get them bound up by very cheap labor, in the city of London, although they have not very good conditions there. They do not have beef two or three times a day. I believe they have tea there about 3 o'clock in the afternoon in a bindery that I was in. But I was really surprised at the wages. We could not live in this country on the wages. In fact, our living expenses, as you all know, are rather high in the big cities. Our average wage in the cities run from $18 to $21 a week, and that is not too much for an American workman to receive, especially for skilled work.

I want to claim, in closing, that my organization is heartily in favor of the manufacture clause, and we want it as it stands to-day without amendment. I read it over carefully. I can not see how we can amend it in any way, and we want the protection we should have had years ago.

Representative Law. Do you approve of the amendment suggested by the representative of the Music Engravers' Union?

Mr. FEENEY. What is that amendment?

Representative Law. In reference to music engraving in this coun

try.

Mr. FEENEY. I am here simply as the representative of the bookbinders, and I do not want to speak for any other craft but my own. Representative Law. You do not oppose it?

Mr. FEENEY. No; I do not oppose it. As members of organized labor, we stand together, and anything that pleases the engravers pleases me.

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE W. OGILVIE, OF CHICAGO, ILL.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. George W. Ogilvie, of Chicago, is here. He is compelled to leave to-morrow for Chicago and would like to be heard to-night.

Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, whom Mr. Ogilvie represents; what organization?

The CHAIRMAN. We will have him state what organization he represents. Will you kindly state whom you represent, Mr. Ogilvie? Mr. OGILVIE. George W. Ogilvie, publisher, Chicago.

Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. It is not an organization, then, Mr. Ogilvie?

Mr. OGILVIE. I am not a member of your organization, Mr. Put

nam.

Mr. GEORGE H. PUTNAM. I am asking for the name of your organization.

Mr. OGILVIE. I am not a member of an organization. I represent myself, and incidentally I would like to represent an author or two who do not appear to be represented here.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, you mean a class of authors?

Mr. OGILVIE. A class of authors.

First, in reference to the notice required by the proposed bill being only on copies published and offered for sale in the United States by the authority of the copyright proprietor.

The CHAIRMAN. What page is that?

Mr. OGILVIE. I was depending upon the same thing Mr. Putnam was depending upon this morning, the Publishers' Weekly. Since then I find the Publishers' Weekly is not altogether reliable in that respect, and I would like to ask the gentlemen who advocate the including of that particular provision how it is possible for any man on earth to tell whether a book that is offered for sale in the United States is offered for sale by the authority of the copyright proprietor. It is utterly impossible, and a notice only on such copies will leave open the question as to whether a book is copyrighted

or not.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ogilvie, the bill requires that notice shall be affixed to each copy.

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