The projection room man looked at him and said, "The last one you saw was your picture."

As I say, we do agree in these cases to give the contractual right to change them, and we have no kick. Personally I hope the day is coming when we will have some control over it. But that is an entirely different thing.

The whole point about this bill is that it gives them this right to change without our contracting to do it, unless we are all lawyers, which none of us are.

This affects particularly the young writers. It is not so hard on the old "war horses" like ourselves, who have knocked around and been newspaper men, but it is hard on the poor young devils like myself when I was down in Kentucky. I would get this tiny little check which had on it the words "all rights to edit and to change." Why, I was tickled to death to sign it. I did not realize what I was doing. Those are the people that we are trying to protect.

It might be well right here to take a writer apart a little and sort of let you see him tick and see just what writers are trying to do. I will cite a few of my own experiences. I think you can put this down quite fairly as representative of practically all writers. I do not think any of us were born with silver spoons in our mouths.

I came from New York to Kentucky to try get into writing, because we all have to go there for a time, at least. I remember that after leaving newspaper work for 4 years I tramped the streets, going hungry plenty of times. I remember one particular night-this was because all authors, practically, are artists; they are interested not in making money but in producing something beautiful, something artistic, and I was interested in getting these particular river stories of mine over-I tramped the streets, and I remember this one particular night stopping in front of a restaurant window and seeing a very, very nice fancy bun in there. I had exactly 10 cents. in my pocket to last me for quite a considerable future, and I did not know whether I could go in and afford to have that bun or not. I know there is a great deal of talk about writers being these capitalistic people, and some talks on this bill have indicated, but I assure you I wish we were.

I remember that on the next day or very shortly thereafter-that is the way the "break" came in my particular case-an editor called me up. It happened to be the editor of one of the big magazines. I knew from the tone of his voice, though he was trying to be very hard-boiled about it, that he was going to buy this story. This would have been my first big sale of any sort. He wanted me to come up to the office immediately, and I did not have the subway fare to get up there. So I went to a young lady living nearby, of whom I was very fond and she happened not to have any money— she was an artist-but she had three 2-cent stamps and she gave me these three 2-cent stamps and I sold them in a little store for 5 cents, then I went up and sold this story. The young lady now happens to be my wife.

The life of a writer is not the easy thing that it is supposed to be. You have to knock around and collect material. Then you go off into the wilderness and you do not see anybody for months at a time. You have to live the life of a hermit. I know when I am working very hard that for 3 or 4 months I make no engagements

to see anybody of any kind. You cannot do it and get your work done.

Now I will tell you quite frankly a bit of personal experience: I was rather badly shot up in the war, at Soissons, with the Second Division. I was in the hospital for a year and on crutches for about 3 years afterward. It had not been particularly easy, but I was getting along fairly well. Then as I began writing "Steamboat 'Round the Bend", these war injuries came back rather heavily. I wanted to get the thing finished, and I tried living out in the country around New York and could not do it. I went out to Arizona and I lived in high altitudes and I lived in low altitudes, just going from place to place trying different climates, trying to get this book done and, quite frankly, plenty of times not caring whether I lived or died the next day. But I swore I was going to finish this book. That is the actuating spirit, I think, of all writers. They want to get their work done, and they are primarily artists.

I worked on this book for a year and a half, and I was very ill and I did not like it. I threw it away. I threw away a year and a half's work, and I am not in a position to throw away a year and a half's work, with the income that involves.

I worked on it another year, and then I liked it. And then-and this will show you what this bill would do to us-after turning this book in I had this publisher at this particular time, who was rather interested in Anthony Adverse-this was in the days of Anthony Adverse, and this was the big-book time, and all publishers were interested in big books; they were having an armament race to see who could bring out the biggest book, and you would sort of buy books by the pound-write me after he sent in the manuscript, and he said, "Oh, this is a lovely book; this is a grand book", and so forth and so on, "but I wish you would make it longer, so it would be one of these nice, nice, great big books." And if he had had the right which this bill would confer on him, I would have seen my book about twice the size it is.

Writers are not the wealthy people they are supposed to be. I used to write for the Century Magazine years ago-some of you may remember it-and I would have a poem or ballad come out in that, and it would be splashed all over and be reprinted in the Literary Digest and reprinted in English and Irish anthologies, and that sort of thing. The thing would take 3 weeks for me to do, and I would be paid for that the vast sum of $25.

I know that on this question of wealth people think that these royalties come rolling in. "Steamboat 'Round the Bend" as a picture was a tremendous success, and I know that a great many people think I am collecting a lot from that. I am not getting one cent from all of these crowds that are going to see the picture.

Just one more word and I am through:

I think most writers would rather be off in their holes and not appear here. We are primarily writers, we are not talkers, but this is such a vital thing that we have to be here and ask you to protect us. I hope you will.

Thank you.

Mr. COLDEN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask one question?

In the case of the butchering of the title of your book, "Mississippi", did not the movie play in that instance deprive you of considerable compensation by merely the change of the name?

Mr. BERMAN. They did; yes. In fact, I would like very much to see a law passed giving us the right to have much greater control over our rights. But this bill would practically increase their power

rather than decrease it.

Mr. LANHAM. Thank you very much.

Mr. DAVIS. I would like to add one point in explanation of a remark that Mr. Berman made that might be misleading. Of course, he did get paid for that picture, but he got paid a lump sum right in the start. If the picture happens to be a big success, he does not get any more on it, as he would with a play.

One of my books, about 10 years ago, was made into a picture that, I understand, brought in a profit of $300,000 to the producer. I got $5,000 and he got the other $295,000.

Our next speaker will be Mrs. Mary Heaton Vorse, well known as a reporter, magazine writer, and also a fiction writer. Mrs. Vorse's latest book is a report of some of the things she saw as a newspaperwoman and as a relief worker and Red Cross worker during the war and in the years after the war. It was a report of her observations, what she had seen as a reporter, simply. She called it "Footnotes to History." The publisher said, "That won't do; we will call it 'Footnote to Folly."" Then they proceeded to advertise it as an autobiography. That is one of the things that happens to an author.

STATEMENT OF MARY HEATON VORSE, AUTHORESS

Mrs. VORSE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Mary Heaton Vorse. I am the author of quite a number of books, and I have reported many foreign events for such magazines as Harpers and others of that class. I have been sent abroad many

times.

This book needs a little explanation.

In my final words, saying that I called this my "footnote to history", I said that, seeing we were rushing again into war, made me want to call it the Footnote to Human Folly. The publishers thought that it should be that. I did not want it to be an autobiography. I wanted it merely to be the way a reporter saw the world over a 10-year arc of time. But there is a certain amount of small running comment and a chapter that I did not want to be in it, so it is fair enough if they should call it Reminiscences. But it is really no more my biography than, say, Duranty's book, though I would not compare my book to Duranty's as an autobiography.

My book is an account of how the world looked to a working author over 10 very important years, where it was my privilege during my work in the Red Cross, with the Balkan Commission, and also briefly with Mr. Hoover in the American Relief Administration, to see what happened to the little people, what happened to children, what happened to little families when war came, and what happens afterwards. It was an account of the various things that I reported during that 10-year period of time.

I agree fully with what my colleagues have said and feel that they have covered it very well. No one can overestimate the difficulties of

the life of a writer who is a free-lance writer, who never, perhaps, makes a great success, who has children to bring up, who never knows whether that success is going to be maintained. If you are ill for a few months, if your children are ill, and you get out of the public eye something happens to you then. We have not the protection by our present laws to which we are entitled.

I will just add another little footnote to what has just been said: I had one ambition. I am a New England woman. I live on the seacoast. I have written a great deal about sea people, and I always wanted a moving picture in my own home town that our fishermen would go to and see and like.

I wrote a story and I called it "The Scar." It was based on an old legend there of a conflict between two brothers, both of them fishermen. That was published in a magazine, which called it, withcut my consent, "The Run-a-way Enchantress." It was bought for the movies while I was abroad, and it appeared-Milton Sills played in it-under the title, I think, of "The Sea Beast." I was never consulted about that, either.

When it was played in my own town I was not there. In the picture they launched the dories wrong-the Hollywood people do not know how to launch a dory-and the fishermen laughed.

This covers practically what I have to say, a great insistence on better protection for us who work very hard at our trades, and who live under very precarious situations, and upon whom you are dependent for your news, for your entertainment, and often for the forming of your own opinions and those of your children. Mr. LANHAM. Thank you very much.

Mr. DAVIS. Our next witness is Mateel Howe Farnham.

I expect Mrs. Farnham is getting rather sick of being introduced with reference to some of her relatives, but it cannot be helped. Her father is Ed Howe, the "Sage of Potato Hill", Atchison, Kans. Her brother is Gene Howe, who has busied himself, as I need not tell you, Mr. Chairman, in raising hell in Texas when the natives were not turning out a sufficient product on their own account.

However, Mrs. Farnham is not merely a daughter and a sister by any means; she is an author. Her latest book is Great Riches. She has written a number of novels and she has also written a number of magazine short stories. She will present her views for this group. Mrs. Farnham.

STATEMENT OF MATEEL HOWE FARNHAM, AUTHORESS

Mrs. FARNHAM. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I hardly know how to begin, but yesterday I was handed this little pamphlet, being the report of the Committee on Patents of the Senate, submitted by Mr. McAdoo, in which it refers to us as the "rich authors." I am afraid we are all dwelling on that because it came home to us so very hard. Some people asked me if it did not make me mad. I said, "No"; I thought it was so funny, because I am quite sure if you would take the majority of the authors, even in the Authors' League, which includes practically all the big incomes in the writing world, and put to a vote the question of offering all writers $2,500 a year, I think they would vote for it so overwhelmingly that there would simply

be no question about it. If you could guarantee all of us $2,500 a year, we would jump at it.

I do not say that there are not some authors who are making big incomes, such as Sinclair Lewis and some others, and that is true. That is the thing to which we all aspire, and that is the reason it is fun to write, partly. There is always something in the future. We might sell a movie; we might have a best seller. But most of us do not, or if we have one 1 year, we go 10 years and do not have any big successes, and just barely make a living.

Just because there is a J. Pierpont Morgan in New York and many rich New York bankers is no reason that the great mass of bankers are making a great deal of money.

This committee report says [reading]:

So profitable has it become to be a successful author that, perhaps for the first time in history, authorship has been added to the list of professions which the fortunate may pursue as possible avenues to great material riches.

It also says [reading]:

During this period a veritable revolution has occurred in the means whereby literary and artistic works are communicated to the public.

We have had one revolution in the writing world, or at least as it applies to writers of books. A few years ago women or men who were writing books and were established could make a fair and reasonable living, not much over the $2,500 but a little more. Then suddenly the lending library appeared in the land. That has made an enormous difference not only to me-I am just one of the in-betweensbut to the big authors and the little authors and all of us.

I get 15 percent on the sale of a book. That is 30 cents for a $2 book or 37.5 cents for a $2.50 book. Incidentally, the man who sells the book, the owner of the bookstore, would get something like a dollar for selling the book. He has it in his store maybe a few weeks or months or days, but he gets a dollar for selling the book. He has expenses, but so do I have expenses during the year or the 2 years that it takes me to write the book. But that is just incidental.

There are very close to 100,000 lending libraries in this country now. There were 70,000 some time ago, and they have been growing. In New York the lending library sends out a book only say 20 or 30 times, and that is 5 cents a day, or something like that. Then he sells the book at a reduction, maybe taking 50 cents off, so he does not lose much. In the small towns all over the country the lending libraries will send books out and not renew them until they are practically worn out. My publisher has a record of one library that made $20 off the lending of a book. The author of that book got 30 cents.

The lending library has come to stay. We cannot fight that any more than we can fight anything else that is new. People are lending books. They have gotten in the habit now. But it is simply fair and reasonable that we should have some share of the profit when a person can simply buy a book from the publisher and lend it out and average from $7 to $20 on a popular book. That has made an enormous difference in the sale of books. It has made a great of us stop writing books, which we would rather do, and write

many