Should this bill be passed the result would be a very serious setback to the interests of all authors, whether of music or other works, since it would recognize the right of a certain class to use an author's work without compensation. And we felt following that, that there are others who would want to use our rights who would come in and ask that our rights be taken away from us. [Continuing reading:] It has been argued that the cost of radio broadcasting makes it impossible to pay royalties on broadcasted works. We hold that this argument is entirely invalid since we believe that no one can maintain that the radio companies are broadcasting with no view to profit. It is quite true that they may not receive direct compensation for the broadcasting of their programs, but the business of selling radio supplies, which is entirely dependent upon broadcasting, is immensely profitable. Furthermore, it has been argued that broadcasting should be free of royalty to authors for reasons of public interest, and because broadcasting is a public service, which benefits deaf, bed-ridden, and isolated people. Surely there is no argument in this, since if it were admitted the same could be said of books or other forms of copyrighted material. And anyway, why should you take away something that belongs to me and that is used to buy shoes for my children and give it somebody else's deaf grandfather. My rights are my rights, and should not be taken away from me. I think this whole bill is a step backward. The whole world is attempting to protect the author and writer, and his rights should not be taken away from him. [Continuing reading:] It has also been suggested that broadcasting is a great benefit to the author, owing to the advertising resulting therefrom. These gentlemen, I think, have taken care of that very well. [Continuing reading:] This argument also is fallaceous since although the advertising value undoubtedly exists the same argument has been advanced and met in the case of magazines, plays, and other forms of literary, dramatic, and artistic productions. No artist or author would permit, for example, the Saturday Evening Post to use a picture or story free of charge simply because it would be a good advertisement. The author lives by the presentation of his work to the public and can not afford for business reasons to permit its use free of royalty or other charge. I am a young author. Any of you men who have never written, if you write anything, you start in and have a story published, and get $25. But you send one story to the Saturday Evening Post and get it published, and they send you a check for $250 for it. As soon as that is done your value goes up and you can get $300 to $350 for each and every story. We live by advertising. The fact that radio helps to popularize a song has nothing to do with it. In the same way anybody that publishes anything, they could claim they should have it free. I do not see anything in that argument. It sounds like bunk. [Continuing reading:] Therefore, the Authors' League of America (Inc.) wishes to register its unqualified opposition to the bill, since we must at all times work to prevent inroad upon the rights which have been granted to us under the Constitution. We feel that the Dill bill is a particularly dangerous attempt of this sort, and we can not urge its rejection too strongly upon this committee. I thank you, gentlemen, for your attention Mr. BUTLER. Yes, sir. Senator DILL. You do not understand that this bill in any way affects authors, except that you fear that once we limited control on musical compositions, you feel we might some day limit it on books, and that sort of thing? Mr. BUTLER. Personally, I have no reason for believing that if such a change is made in this matter it could not be used to take away our motion-picture rights. Senator DILL. This bill does not. I understood you to say you felt it was a precendent in the other matter? Mr. BUTLER. I think if this bill was passed there would be some. motion-picture people down here next week asking for the same thing. We feel it is a useless thing. It is not going to do the right sort of people any good. It is going to change the whole copyright situation and do some harm. I think if you pass this bill, another bill would be passed to take care of the other matters. Senator BRANDEGEE. You think this is an infringement on the right of copyright? Mr. BUTLER. Absolutely. The writer ought to have every right. You spoke of the right in a book or a song or a story. There are 20 rights. When my book is copyrighted, I have all those rights. I have the book right; I have the first serial right; I have the second serial right; I have the right to the newspaper publication; I have the third serial right, which is the sending out of the story to newspapers in plate form; I have the motion-picture right; I have the first English right, the second English right, and so on. When this book is copyrighted, I have all those rights. Anybody that wants those can get them from me. They are for sale. I sell them again and again. If these people want these things, why do they not make a contract? Why do they want to take it away? Senator DILL. They do not. I came in with this bill myself, without knowing there was a society of authors. Mr. BUTLER. You came in with this bill? Senator DILL. Yes; I conceived the bill without knowing there was a society of song writers or authors. Mr. BUTLER. I did not know you were a song writer, Senator. Senator DILL. I am not. But I conceived this bill. Mr. BUTLER. Will you introduce another bill asking that the copyright on textbooks for schools be abrogated, because it is a good thing to have textbooks in schools? You need not answer that, Senator. Senator DILL. Yes; I will answer it, because I want to show the difference. There is an important difference. If after you sell the textbook to the school Mr. BUTLER (interposing). We sell to the publisher. Senator DILL. Yes, and if, after you have been paid you attempted to charge another fee because it was sold to somebody else, I would introduce a bill to stop that extra fee. Mr. BUTLER. I advise you to do that. That is what these people are doing. I claim when I write a book I have a right to charge a fee for the privilege of reading that into the radio. And if I ever hear of them reading one of my books into the radio, I will go after them. Senator DILL. They do not read much. Mr. BUTLER. The authors' league position is that we do object to that. We do not see why any of our rights should be taken away from us. I think that is all, unless somebody else wants to ask me a question. The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much for your statement, Mr. Butler. Whom will you have next, Mr. Hein? Mr. HEIN. Mr. John Philip Sousa. TESTIMONY OF JOHN PHILIP SOUSA, NEW YORK CITY The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Sousa. Mr. SOUSA. Do you swear me in first? The CHAIRMAN. You may be sworn. (Thereupon the witness was duly sworn by the chairman.) Mr. Sousa. Mr. Senator, a great many years ago Fletcher of Saltoun said he did not care who made the laws of a nation, or he knew a man who said that, providing he could write its songs. I am afraid he would change that if he were here to-day, because the law seems to be greater than the songs. I have a very few words I shall attempt to say to you, Mr. Chairman. If I am to write something, I must be interested in it. My interest here is this, that they want to take my right away from me and give it to this corporation, absolutely taking my interest away from me so that I have nothing to say about it. I do not think that is good sense. I can not for the life of me understand it. There are some things I remember. I remember when I was a boy here, that a song gave one of the few bright moments, or the expression of a song in the House of Representatives, when Ben Butler said to another Member, when he was haranguing him in some way, "Shoo fly, don't bother me." That is one of the very funniest of the funny things that have happened in this funny House of Representatives. And if the man who wrote Shoo Fly had not written it, you would not have had any fun in the House of Representatives. Why should not that man be paid for the fun he gave the world? If you are going to take what I have written and give it to the Radio Corporation, why not give it to everybody else and put me on a pension? The CHAIRMAN. Which do you prefer? Mr. SOUSA. Well, it would depend on the amount of the pension. There is one thing I would like to know. Perhaps Senator Dill would tell me. Is the Radio Corporation a stock company? Senator DILL. I know nothing about it. Mr. SOUSA. It must be. Senator DILL. I suppose so. It is an immense corporation. Mr. SOUSA. And they must hold out inducements to people to buy their stock. And they must make money, and I want some of it. Senator DILL. I think they are making plenty of profit. Mr. SOUSA. Yes; and I want some of it. Senator DILL. The trouble, Mr. Sousa, if I may suggest, the trouble in getting some of their profit is, that you tear down some of the smaller radio stations who are not making a profit in such amount that they can afford to put through their fine programs. Mr. SOUSA. But, Senator, the man that makes the music gives nothing for shoes. I want something for my music. In 1902 when we had this miserable fight for 2 cents on phonograph records I was here, and we won. I simply want something from these people for my productions. Senator DILL. How much do you think, if this broadcasting right is given, it will take away from your income? Mr. SOUSA. That I do not know; but I do know that the mechanical instruments have taken away from the sheet music from the day they came into existence. I say this in confidence-I do not want it mentioned here at all-this is absolutely secret, gentlemen: At the time before mechanical devices came into being I was getting $60,000 a year royalty. I have not received $60,000 since, plus the money I get from the phonograph people, and it is simply a question of why should I give something for nothing. They will not give me anything. If I went to the radio people and asked them to give me a thousand dollar radio set every day, they wouldn't do it. Do you think they would? Senator DILL. I wouldn't think so. Mr. SOUSA. Well, I want their money. The CHAIRMAN. Whom will you have next, Mr. Hein? Mr. HEIN. Mr. Augustus Thomas. STATEMENT OF MR. AUGUSTUS THOMAS, PLAYWRIGHT, NEW YORK CITY The CHAIRMAN. Give your name and address, please? Mr. THOMAS. Augustus Thomas, New York; business, playwright. I am not a member of this association, Mr. Chairman, but I am a man who has written songs and who has not yet promised not to write any more. I write plays under the same restrictions. I have in my hand a letter which is pertinent, although it refers to a play, and not to a song, and I want to read it, with your permission, after I take up, if you will allow me, a remark of Mr. John Philip Sousa's. It is very important in this celebrated case that the record should be clear. The man to whom Butler was speaking when he said, "Shoo, fly, don't bother me," was "Sunset" Cox, of New York, who had just berated him about his thickened hide and abused him, and I was a page boy on the floor, and I heard him say it. Ollie James, your late colleague, at a banquet, just after Mr. Wilson was elected to the Presidency, and before he was inaugurated, was twitted by another speaker, referring to the horde of hungry office seekers, and Mr. James responded that the Democratic Party had been out of power so long that most of its members had become self-supporting. [Laughter.] I do not know what is the prescribed length of absence, but I am sure that you men who were here in 1920 must have been impressed with the increasing horde of men who thought that the Government could help them in their business. There is a proposal here that would help a very wealthy corpo ration. A letter came to the American Play Co., who were agents of mine. from California, and it was transmitted to Mr. Erlanger's office to me, which reads: You will please take notice of the fact that "Come out of the kitchen "- Mr. will not be produced again in that city, because of radio broadcasting. George Eby, writes us that he was a little in doubt anyway as to continuing, and that the radio has settled the matter for him. As we are receiving a great many of these cancellations, I suppose you would like to know when it concerns a play of yours. 101501-24 -12 This was written under a misapprehension that it was my play. "Come out of the kitchen" was written by Al Thomas, a younger and abler playwright. A book copyrighted by Fred Landis, a brother of the judge, was recently broadcast and cancellations followed from stock houses that intended to put on the production. In the rendition of the play, the author has a choice, and in this manner the rendition is not what the author would choose. The author must have that choice, I presume. The abler gentlemen have presented that matter. And I have never heard an abler presentation of a matter before a committee, and I have been to a great many committee hearings. I have been coming here since 1891 on this copyright matter. This subject divides itself into two heads, which must be a relief to you men. First, into the subject of power and right; and that of policy. On the question of power we come into the fields of intellectual or spiritual. It is difficult to separate the two, and the men who made our Constitution did not attempt it. In the enabling clause that we are having in mind here to-day, where power was given to promote the progress of science, etc., by securing for a limited time to authors and inventors the exclusive right of their respective works and inventions, the authors and inventors were associated. It is so very patent an invention is made to say what it means. It is not so evident when the work of the intellect or spirit is in issue. Now, the wisdom of that power given to Congress is not to be questioned in either of these fields. Twice the right of patent saved this Nation; many times more than that. Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine, was a poor farmer boy and miller of Massachusetts, and he had a patent on the fact that he discovered that the eye of the needle should be put in the point of it, and he operated his patent some 25 years before the Civil War broke out, and then he joined a Massachusetts regiment as a private. He was then a very wealthy man from the use of his machine. And it is quite incidental, but when the Government was unable to pay the salaries of the men in the regiment, Elias Howe paid the money to the men in the regiment and saved the day; but it is also true that the North fought the war in clothes made on that sewing machine. In 1906 it was estimated that of all the inventions of the world, two-fifths of them were by American inventors, who had been protected under this benign law. And during the Great War, the World War, if the American inventions had been taken from that front at any time, all the way from Calais to Constantinople, it would have sounded like a peace congress. There was not one effective weapon in the war that was not in the American Patent Office. The submarine, the screw propeller, the breech-loading gun, the torpedo, the airplane were all American. And everything on the land, the caterpillar tank, the repeating gun, the barbed wire, the telephone, and the telegraph, everything was American. There were modifications and amplifications from other camps, but we furnished it all, and could have stopped it at any time. Now, the association between these patents and the songs is not so manifest. It is difficult to make that association. God Almighty is in the advertising business. And if somebody says the green fire is running itself out in the grass and the buds and leaves, and up to |