Mr. Oscar Hammerstein, 2d, one of the authors of Show Boat.
Otto Harbach, co-author of Rose Marie.

Moss Hart, author of Jubilee.

Howard Lindsay, co-author of Anything Goes.

George Middleton, myself, having written Polly With a Past and Adam and Eva.

Kenyon Nicholson, who wrote The Barker.

Clifford Odets, author of Paradise Lost. He is one of the new playwrights.

Eugene O'Neill is one of our most honored members. I need not tell you that Eugene O'Neill, with the exception of Bernard Shaw, is one of the most widely recognized playwrights in the world today. Elmer Rice, author of Street Scene, among many others. Arthur Richman, who wrote The Awful Truth.

Richard Rodgers, who wrote Jumbo.

Edwin Milton Royle, who wrote The Squaw Man.
Morrie Ryskind, who wrote Of Thee I Sing as a co-author.

Austin Strong, who wrote Three Wise Fools and Seventh Heaven.
A. E. Thomas, who wrote The Rainbow.

Kenneth Webb, who wrote The Echo.

And Rita Weiman, who wrote Acquittal.

Now, I want to point out to you that these dramatists come from all over this country, and there is not a single one of these men or women who is in favor of this bill.

We have 400 regular dramatists, that is, 400 dramatists who have had their plays produced on Broadway. They become regular dramatists at that point. That is the distinction which we make. I want also to point out to you this fact: I have indicated a few of the very successful playwrights. Some of them have made a great deal of money. Many others in the list represent past successes and perhaps have not been so successful since.

We have in addition to that 1,800-think of it, 1,800-associate members. Those 1,800 members represent, all of them, hungry, aspiring playwrights, some of whom have sold plays to Broadway, or who are hoping to write plays for Broadway. And that membership goes into every State in the Union.

These people are united in an organization of the Dramatists' Guild, because they feel that we will protect their interests, because they feel we will work for the best conditions to protect their rights. Beauty is a curious, priceless thing, which ought not be hurt by commercialism, so that it cannot have a right to grow to full flower.

I want to say here that we are not, in any sense of the word, a tight organization, keeping people out. We permit everybody to become a member of this organization.

The regular members are the only ones who vote, but the others come in. The minute their play is sold, and they subscribe to this basic agreement which we have drawn up, then that group instantly has the protection of our contract. May I just state emphatically again that we have queried, we have questioned, we have done all the necessary investigation, and this entire organization begs this committee to consider carefully this Duffy bill and not report it out

favorably, because we feel that it is an intrusion upon what we consider to be our rights.

Now, I may say one thing here, which I think is of importance, and that is this: We are a very catholic, open organization. We have also admitted to membership every important British playright, such as Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward, and so forth, and are glad to do it. We have opened our doors to every playwright of the world. We are not a national organization, and we are open, and we want all who write what is beautiful in the art of the theater to have a chance to come here and have their property proteced.

Now, gentlemen, with these conditions and this necessity for organizing, we come to you today, and I want to point out that we represent something entirely different, perhaps, than has appeared before your committee heretofore. I may say that you have noticed from this list which I have read certain members who are members of A. S. C. A. P. We, as an organization, have no affiliation with A. S. C. A. P. Our organization contains certain members of A. S. C. A. P. who write musical comedies, and where the question of a musical comedy comes in, then we cooperate.

I am merely saying this not by way of any criticism but to show that this is an entirely separate group, which comes here and pleads with you as strongly as they can against this bill. But we protest for different reasons.

My conferees will touch on some of the aspects of it, but I only wish to touch on one.

Senator Duffy, I understand, stated that authors were in favor of this bill. I want to state that no dramatist is in favor of this bill. And bear in mind, gentlemen, that we represent practically all the dramatists in this country in our organization. I am calling attention to that and emphasizing that because I am sure it is a new thought to you: the strength of this organization is such that we come here masked today under the protection of the Author's League to make this statement.

There are a number of angles which can be touched on with reference specifically to copyright, and I hope you will pardon the elaborateness with which I have discussed this other matter; but I wanted to give you an impact of our group organization.

We are not nationalistic. We have opened the doors and we welcome all the authors of the world to come here and produce their plays for your edification and for the development of beauty. And what do we find? We find a bill which says that foreign authors shall have automatic copyright, and the American author has got to go through formalities of registration. Why that discrimination? What is the reason for that?

We are puzzled by some of the things in this bill. There are phrases here that none of us can understand. Every bill contains things that one is suspicious of. We are making no charge. I am speaking out of ignorance, but it is a very curious fact that the things that the authors do not want, somebody else can profit by.

There are things in this bill which we feel, if we do not fulfill formalities, somebody else will make money out of it. Now, if we do not fulfill the technicalities in the registration, who will get the use of our material? Is it fair that on some technical slip of that kind the foreign author, whom we welcome in our midst, should

have the protection of this copyright law, and yet the American author shall not have it?

Now, I want to leave that thought with you as my time is up and others will treat other parts of the bill.

May I, in conclusion, say that I am reminded very much of a story about people that I know you all know. You know that Senator Jim Reed, of Missouri, and William Allen White were great personal friends. Mr. White, of course, was very much in favor of prohibition, and he was a very good moral man. Jim Reed, I suppose, was also a good moral man, but as far as the public statements were concerned, he was against prohibition and a great many things that Mr. White did not approve of. It happened that Jim Reed was having a meeting once in a town, and William Allen White was stopping off for a hearing, some lecture, I believe. He slipped into Jim Reed's meeting, and the Senator saw him, and rose saying:

I see that we have in our midst a very famous Sunday-school teacher, teetotaler, and fine moral force, and I would like to ask William Allen White to please lead us in prayer.

Mr. White, who sat way back, leaned forward and in a hoarse, stage whisper said:

Please excuse me; I do not want God to know I am here.

I want you gentlemen to know that we are here, and that we come protesting against this Duffy bill, with all the united strength of the American Dramatists' Guild.

Thank you very much.

Mr. LANHAM. Thank you very much. Mr. Osborne, whom shall we hear next?

Mr. OSBORNE. I want to introduce Mr. John Howard Lawson, who is one of our most active playwrights, author of a half a dozen Broadway plays, particularly professional and success stories. He is a member of the Dramatists' Guild and also of the Authors' League.

Mr. LANHAM. We would be very glad to hear from him.

STATEMENT OF JOHN HOWARD LAWSON, PLAYWRIGHT

Mr. LAWSON. I am here today representing the dramatists of America, organized in the Dramatists' Guild. I have also had a rather broad experience in other fields of writing, which I think, perhaps, is worthy of some note, because it may entitle me to speak with a little more experience in regard to the various stages of this proposed Duffy bill, as it affects authors.

I have been active in all three fields of writing which are associated in the Authors' League of America. When the Screen Writers' Guild, the organization of screen writers in Hollywood, was organized in 1933, I was one of the most active in that reorganization and was the president of the Screen Writers' Guild. I am now a member of the Council of the Authors' League of America, and am a former honorary vice president of the Authors' League of America, and I have also been active in the field of publication, and have just had a book published by Putnam; so that I can approach the thing from various angles.

I want to talk about this bill in regard to certain specific ways in which it is our belief as dramatists, and the belief of authors generally, that it injures basic and recognized rights of these writers.

The difficulties to which I wish to call attention come under two heads. In the first place, what we believe to be the invasion of the right of contract, and, in the second place, the series of inconsistencies, of contradictions, which we find in this bill, which make it fail to live up to any rational organic theory of copyright legislation.

In the first place, as to the question of legislating with respect to the actual contract which is entered into between the man who creates and leases his material and the manager or producer who buys that lease. The authors generally have fought an uphill fight for the past 20 years to preserve certain rights, to achieve more satisfactory contracts in their leasing of their material. We have felt that this is a fight which must be carried on by the authors themselves. We have never come here to request that certain things be written into contracts. We have realized that we, as authors, must protect our own interests, and that we could not depend upon the Government to protect us in the actual contract which we enter into for the leasing of our material.

As a result of this long struggle, the dramatists have achieved many satisfactory elements of a contract with the theatrical producers. In the magazine and book field, the situation is less satisfactory. In the motion-picture field, the situation is still extremely unsatisfactory, and the arrangements are still extremely unfair to authors.

We now find that in this present Duffy bill there is a serious threat that this long struggle, which has been carried on by authors for the preservation of their rights as creative workers, will be lost; that the achievements which have been so painfully arrived at are threatened.

All this is certainly wiped aside by a bill which does actually specify certain things which are to be written into our contracts. We had never expected anything like this, and we should like to ask very seriously if there is any policy which makes it proper that this course should be taken, because, if there is such a policy, we have many provisions ourselves of a contractual nature that we should like to present, and we feel unquestionably that the interests of the creator of the material should be more urgently protected than the interests of those who are the exploiters of the material.

We feel that we are correct on this, and that it is a basic principle of copyright legislation, that it should protect, and is designed to protect, the man who creates the material.

The first point to which I refer is on page 26 of the Duffy bill, where we find that the protection of the author against deformation or mutilation of his material is seriously interfered with. In paragraph (b), line 7, page 26, the first part of this paragraph is the wording dealing with the Berne Convention and is entirely satisfactory. When we come to line 13, however, we find that provisions are introduced which contradict the general right of the author to protect himself against deformation or mutilation of his material. In the first place the full freedom of contract, to invalidate, to give any expressed waiver or release is pointed out. But after pointing out that the author may make a contract which gives him this pro

tection, it says also that if he does not make a contract at all, he has no protection. In other words, he is caught coming and going on this elementary principle of the right to protect himself against material being garbled, against it being completely distorted by the man who buys, who leases, and who produces that material.

I want to point out that that is a very important, a very essential thing, and that it goes right down to bed rock in regard to the problems of the author.

The author has attained protection against mutilation of his material in the theater; he has attained it, to a certain extent, in the magazine and book field, but there has been a tendency in the last few years, and a very dangerous tendency, to slide back in the magazine field, to give the editors of the magazine a little more leeway in changing the intent or actual wording of the author's

material.

Now on the motion picture, we have a condition where the author has no right, except in very exceptional cases, to protect himself against mutilation or deformation. I want to say from experience in the motion-picture field, that this is one of the basic difficulties right now today, both with the esthetic and the moral standards which prevail in the motion picture.

In this field we are dealing, to a certain extent, with rights that come outside the specific provisions of this contract, but we are also dealing with the seller of the right to produce the material in motion-picture form.

We have in the motion picture and I believe it is one of the reasons for the low standards of value that often prevail in the motion picture-we have in the motion-picture industry a situation where we find that the writer has none of the protection, none of the dignity, as yet, that he has attained in the other fields. One finds cases in Hollywood, for instance, of very well-known writers, writers of standing, writers among those whose names have already been mentioned by Mr. Middleton, who are treated practically as office boys in the Hollywood studios, whose creative energy is not allowed free play, whose technical abilities, which have been tremendously demonstrated in the field of the theater, or the field of books, and who were brought there for the specific reason to give certain definite benefits, certain definite creative values, are deprived of the right to give those values.

I know of two men, for example, both of whose names were mentioned as members of the council of the Authors' League, men whose names are widely known to all of us, who wrote competitively the same story for a well-known motion-picture company, and the executive in charge of that production never read either of the scenarios created by these well-known men. The decision was left entirely in the hands of the lady who was receiving a salary of $25 a week who was a friend of the producer and who was given the sole right to decide which of these two creative works should be used for an expensive production. That is a picture which we all know, and which has been running very recently here.

Now that is an absurd condition. It is a condition which is historically due to the development of the fast and somewhat disorganized condition in the motion-picture industry.