of the United States. In accordance with the conclusion which I reached in that opinion, I have now the honor to advise you again upon this general issue, as well as in respect to the pending application, that any Chinese person who was in fact a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii under its constitution and laws on August 12, 1898, and who has not since that date voluntarily abandoned his citizenship or legally been deprived thereof, is a citizen of the United States.

By consequence, the applicant in the present case, if, having been naturalized as a citizen of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1890, he was as well a citizen of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898, and has not since lost the rights of citizenship then obtained, is entitled to take the oath mentioned in the navigation laws as cited, and to have his vessel admitted to registry as an American vessel.

Very respectfully,

JOHN W. GRIGGS.

The SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY.

IMPORTATION OF FOREIGN BOOKS COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED STATES.

The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and it is his duty, under sections 4956 and 4958, Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat., 1106), to refuse entry to importations of a book printed in the original French from type not set within the United States nor from plates made therefrom, where the copyright for the United States was secured by the Paris publisher and afterwards by him assigned to an American house. A dramatic composition may be a book.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
January 19, 1901.

SIR: Your letter of December 14, 1900, with its accompanying documents, advises me that you are requested by the house of Brentano's, New York, to issue the necessary instructions to prevent entry of Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon printed abroad in the original French from type not set within the limits of the United States, nor from plates made therefrom. It appears that a copyright for the United 19395-VOL 23-02-23

States has been fully secured by the Paris publisher as proprietor, and that all rights thereunder have been duly assigned by him to Brentano's; that, nevertheless, importations of a Paris edition of the book, issued by the same publisher and bearing notice of copyright in the United States, have been made: and Brentano's invoke for their relief your authority under sections 4956 and 4963, Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat., 1106), or under section 11 of the tariff act of 1897 (30 Stat., 151, 207), relating to trade-marks. Thereupon you request my opinion on the question whether these importations are prohibited under the law. You do not state that the importations are limited in the number of copies per invoice, or in purpose or intended use, or with respect to the character of the persons, individual or corporate, for whom they may be made. I remark, further, as patent on the face of the papers, that Brentano's edition also is in the French tongue and bears notice of American copyright; and that the two editions are identical in text and similar in general appearance and in cover and title page particulars. It should be observed, however, that no simulation intended to deceive. appears, nor is it suggested that the foreign publisherproprietor (the assignor, as stated, of the United States copyright) has procured or connived at the obnoxious importations.

Section 4956, Revised Statutes, as amended by the international copyright act of 1891, supra, provides that—

66* * *

during the existence of such copyright the importation into the United States of any book, etc., so copyrighted, or any edition or editions thereof, or any plates of the same not made from type set

within the limits

of the United States, shall be, and it is hereby, prohibited, except in the cases specified in paragraphs 512 to 516, inclusive, in section 2 of the" Tariff act of 1890, and except in the case of an importation subject to duty of not more than two copies of such book at any one time, "for use, and not for sale," etc.:

"Provided, nevertheless, that in the case of books in foreign languages, of which only translations in English are copyrighted, the prohibition of importation shall apply only

to the translation of the same, and the importation of the books in the original language shall be permitted."

The paragraphs cited from the tariff act of 1890 are contained in the free list of that act, and admit free of duty, with certain limitations, books, engravings, maps, etc., more than twenty years old, or imported for the use of the United States, or of any educational, literary, or religious institution, etc., or forming part of the household effects of persons from foreign countries, and (par. 513) "books and pamphlets printed exclusively in languages other than English." (26 Stat., 567, 604.)

*

*

*

Thus it appears that the main question in this case simply is whether the freedom from duty granted on an importation of books printed exclusively in languages other than English, under paragraph 513 of the tariff act of 1890, which is specified as one of the exceptions to the prohibition of importation under the copyright law of 1891, shall operate so as to defeat the protection of copyright on a book in a foreign language. The question, however, requires more accurate delimitation. The rights of translation into English in this country or elsewhere are not now involved; they are presumably in other hands. Nor does it appear that the author or proprietor has made any disposition of the rights here or abroad in other languages foreign to France. I do not intend, therefore, to suggest by my formulation that the holder of an American copyright on a work in French would be entitled to prevent the importation, say, of a Spanish or German version, with both of which nations we have reciprocal copyright relations. Such a claim, however, would call up the scope and intent of the assignment of copyright and the unqualified and exclusive right which is given to authors and their assigns by section 4952, Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of 1891, "to dramatize and translate any of their works for which copyright shall have been obtained under the laws of the United States," as well as the possible effect of section 4956 and paragraph 513 in denying or limiting copyright protection against competing importations.

The question before us, therefore, must be strictly restrained as follows: Whether, by force of the specified

exception to the prohibition of importation in section 4956, an edition of a book written in French, printed exclusively in that language, and wholly made abroad, may be imported into this country, although the same literary composition is copyrighted in the same language under the laws of the United States and is wholly printed and made into a book in this country.

It must be remarked that under the reciprocity provisions of section 13 of the copyright law of 1891 the protection of the act was extended to citizens of France by Executive proclamation of July 1, 1891 (27 Stat., 981, 982). It must also be remarked that, although L'Aiglon was copyrighted in the United States as a "dramatic composition" (no doubt because the right of representation was expressly protected under that term by section 4952 as amended), the work is none the less a "book," and is clearly covered by that word as used in section 4956 and paragraph 513. While other language of the said section and the penal provisions of the law (sec. 4963, as finally amended by act of March 3, 1897 (29 Stat., 694), by omitting or including in different provisions the words "dramatic composition" with other associated terms, indicate that the change of phraseology was intentional, and that a "dramatic composition" is not necessarily a "book" (vide as to "musical composition" Littleton v. Ditson Co., 62 Fed. Rep., 597; Ditson Co. v. Littleton, 67 id., 905), I do not understand that the point has been raised in this case, and I have no difficulty in concluding that this dramatic composition" at all events is a "book." Obviously it is such by all literary and mechanical tests, and not the less so because the record of copyright denominates it a "dramatic composition" and just as much so under the American copyright as in the foreign edition which is seeking free entry as a "book.”

Furthermore, it necessarily appears that the two copies of the American L'Aiglon required to be deposited in the Library of Congress (sec. 4956) were printed from type set within the United States, which the act requires in the case of a "book," etc., but not apparently or expressly in the case of a "dramatic or musical composition" inter alia (see Littleton v. Ditson Co., ut supra).

Brentano's publication, then, being entitled as a book

under the copyright to any protection which section 4956 may extend, we have to inquire whether the protection in a case like the present is real and effective or purely nugatory. Does the law take away with one hand what it gives with the other?

Copyright is essentially an exclusive right. It is so denominated in all the laws (act of May 31, 1790, 1 Stat., 124; act of Feb. 3, 1831, 4 Stat., 431; act of July 8, 1870, 16 Stat., 198, 212; sec. 4954, R. S.). It is, in effect, defined in the statute itself (sec. 4952) as "the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing, and vending" a book, etc., "and in the case of a dramatic composition, of publicly performing or representing it or causing it to be performed or represented by others." "Copyright, under the statute, is the exclusive right to publish a literary or artistic work." (Pierce & Bushnell Mfg. Co. v Werckmeister, 72 Fed. Rep., 54.)

I think there can be no doubt that the main purpose of the recent amendments to the copyright laws was to extend to foreign authors and artists, upon assurance of reciprocal privileges being granted to us by foreign countries, the copyright protection which had previously been restricted. to citizens and residents of the United States. The history of the legislation and of the long agitation on the subject conclusively shows this. (Littleton v. Ditson, 62 Fed. Rep., 597; Putnam on The Question of Copyright, p. 33, citing Report of Henry Clay in 1837, p. 40, p. 77; citing Report of House Committee on Patents in 1890, p. 148; quoting from speeches in the Senate debate of 1891, et passim.) A conjoint purpose was the protection of American labor, especially in the printing trade. (Putnam, ut supra, pp. 52, 78. etc.) The views of statesmen regarding a measure of legis lation may properly be considered, and while their statements are not admissible to control the meaning of words in a law, nevertheless such statements are "valuable as contemporaneous opinions of jurists and statesmen upon the legal meaning of the words themselves." (Wong Kim Ark v. United States, 169 U. S., 649, 699; and see Am. Net and Twine Co. v. Worthington, 141 U. S., 468, 473, 474.)

It is a cardinal rule in construing a law that the evil or defect to be remedied should be borne in mind, and that to