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you gentlemen, but we do want you to leave these hearings feeling that this committee has given you a fair opportunity to present your case, and I do think that giving you five hours was quite generous on our part.

Senator SMOOT. Mr. Chairman, let me suggest that there have been a great many interruptions. Mr. Johnson took quite a time in making a speech in this five hours. Why not let Mr. Cromelin go on, say for ten minutes more, and then let Mr. O'Connell go on until twenty minutes past ten and he will have his thirty minutes? I am perfectly willing, as far as I am concerned, to sit here until that time.

Mr. CURRIER. I will do that. Let him have ten minutes and then give Mr. O'Connell thirty minutes.

The CHAIRMAN. Will that be satisfactory to you?

Mr. CROMELIN. I will do the best I can, Senator; thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

Mr. CROMELIN. Now, gentlemen, reference has been made to the situation in Germany, and I would like to read an extract from a letter sent to me by Mr. Alphonse Melzer, formerly manager of the Phonola Company, Leipziger-Strasse, Berlin, the Phonola Company being a competitor of the Eolian Company. This is a letter dated Berlin, Germany, October 30, 1906:

PAUL H. CROMELIN, Esq.:

The pianola people took advantage of being the first in the market, securing in most instances monopoly contracts with music publishers all over Europe. Thus other manufacturers of piano players must buy the perforated rolls from the Æolian or, in Germany, "Choralian" Company, or pay them a high percentage bonus for their graciously condescending to sell license stamps to other makers. If they choose they need not sell either music rolls or stamps to other makers. Thus the matter stands which you wanted to know.

I merely mention this as bearing upon the general subject. The German law of 1901 was passed one year after a decision had been rendered in the supreme court of Germany declaring that a record of a modern sheet of music was a violation of copyright. It took Germany less than one year to swing around and pass a new musical copyright law making all mechanical musical instruments free. But there was a peculiar wording to that law; there was an addition made; nobody understood what it meant. The wording was as mysterious and as difficult to understand as many of the paragraphs in the bill under consideration.

The sale of disks, plates, cylinders, strips, and other parts of instruments which serve mechanically to reproduce musical compositions is permitted; but the law prohibits the use of perforated music sheets in instruments "by means of which the composition can be reproduced in the manner of a personal performance in respect to the dynamics, duration of tone, and in respect to the tempo."

I was manager for my company at the time, and I thought, of course, that was an attack on talking machines. We got all the business interests together and went to members of the Reichstag to know what that meant. It is customary over there for the minister of justice to expound the law before the third reading, if there are any questions requiring explanation; and he made a statement in the Reichstag to the effect that that was not intended to cover the talking machines, but that was intended for those piano playing rolls where by any possibility there could be what might be considered a personal interpretation of the work of the composer. We were satisfied if it did not

affect talking machines. We did not understand at the time what was up. But after the bill became a law we discovered that the Eolian Company, which was well established in Germany at that time under the name of the Corolian Company, had contracts (as has been stated by the manager here) with practically all the music publishers; and during that time and since that time they have had the whole industry in their hands, and nobody else can make perforated rolls without coming to them and paying them their tribute.

The French law contains an express provision that perforated music sheets shall not be deemed infringements of copyrighted musical compositions.

Mr. WEBB. What evidence have you that the Eolian Company is the same as the Corolian Company?

Mr. CROMELIN. Only the statement of the manager of the competing company. It frequently happens that the name of the company is different in other countries. Our company is the Columbia Phonograph Company M. B. H. in Germany. Under the German law we had to organize separately.

Now, reference has been made to the Eolian contract; and when Mr. Cameron was here last summer he suggested that a similar scheme was perhaps on foot, and especially in view of the fact that a representative of the Victor Talking Machine Company stood here and declared that he was in favor of the bill. It seemed to be rather an extraordinary situation, and Mr. Cameron suggested that a similar scheme was perhaps being hatched; Mr. Pettit arose and stated that that was absolutely false in so far as it related to the Victor Talking Machine Company. Now, gentlemen, I submit to you that such contracts as those are not usually shouted from the house tops, and it is extremely difficult to get any proof on the subject. We never would have known anything about these Eolian contracts had it not been for the White-Smith case. They had to be introduced in evidence there. Permit me to hand in this affidavit.

STATE OF NEW YORK,

City and county of New York, ss:

Paul H. Cromelin, being first duly sworn, deposes and says:

I am one of the vice-presidents of the Columbia Phonograph Company (General) and a director of the American Graphophone Company, and appeared before the joint committee of Congress on behalf of these companies on Saturday, June 9, 1906, in opposition to the proposed new copyright bill. After the hearing I had luncheon in the café in Willard's Hotel in company with Mr. C. S. Burton, of Chicago, Mr. Howlett Davis, a brother of Mr. Davis, Mr. Shelton T. Cameron, and Mr. Hedgeland, of Chicago, an inventor of music perforated rolls. As I was taking luncheon, Mr. Burkan, attorney for the music publishers, who also appeared before the committee, came over to my table and stated that Mr. Victor Herbert would like to meet me, whereupon I proceeded to the table where Mr. Herbert, Mr. Servan, counsel for the music publishers, a Mr. Hughes, Mr. J. Witmark, Mr. Leo Feist, and Mr. Burkan were sitting. Mr. Herbert said that he was much interested in the demonstration of the telegraphone records which I had made before the committee and asked me to explain the instrument, as he had never heard of it.

After I had explained the operation of the telegraphone, I entered into a discussion of the merits of the proposed copyright bill with these gentlemen. In the course of this conversation we spoke of the Eolian contracts and the monopoly which would result if the bill became a law, and I said that Thomae, of the Victor Company, would not deny that he had been around endeavoring to close contracts with the publishers during the time the bill was being whipped into shape at the so-called copyright conferences which he attended. Mr. Burkan interrupted me to say that "there was nothing exclusive in the Victor contract; that he (Burkan) had drawn the contract for Mr. Thomae, of the Victor Company, and that he would show it to me if I would

give him my word of honor as a man that I would not use it against him or the Victor Company at the hearing before the committee." In making this statement he made a motion as though to get some papers out of his inside pocket, but I immediately stopped him and said to him that he had better not show me the papers and that I would not give him my word of honor not to use the same against the Victor Company, as I proposed to make use of all of these facts before the committee.

Sworn to before me this 20th day of June, 1906. [SEAL.]

PAUL H. CROMELIN.

ELISHA CAMP,

Notary Public, New York County.

Mr. Thomae was a representative of the Victor Company at the conferences, and has since been drowned, last summer.

Mark you, Mr. Pettit had stood up here. I do not say he made a false statement-perhaps he did not know-but he stood up here and said it was absolutely false in so far as the Victor Company was concerned.

I know nothing about the contracts, gentlemen, except that the counsel for the Music Publishers' Association made this statement in the presence of five gentlemen (and I swore to it because I thought it was important. I went out and made an affidavit to it) confirming the claim that there was a contract in existence, and Mr. Pettit stated here that in so far as the Victor Talking Machine Company was concerned no such contract existed.

Mr. BURKAN. You had better get―

Mr. CROMELIN. Excuse me just a minute.

Mr. BURKAN. You asked me

Mr. CROMELIN. I will not permit an interruption. Now, just sit down, Mr. Burkan. I will answer you a little later.

Now, gentlemen, I would like to submit, in closing, this: It makes absolutely no difference whether any contracts are in existence or not. It is not necessary for a man to contract with himself. You can not forget that James F. Bowers, president of the Music Publishers' Association, is the same James F. Bowers who is a member of Lyon & Healy, distributors for the Pianola and for the Victor Company. You can not forget that Mr. George W. Furniss, the secretary of the Musical Publishers' Association, is the same George W. Furniss of the Oliver Ditson Company, eastern distributors in Boston, for the Victor Company. You can not disassociate Mr. James F. Bailey, of Washington, D. C., the secretary of this association, from Mr. James F. Bailey of John F. Ellis & Co., of Washington, distributors of the mechanical instruments themselves. You can not forget for a moment that Thomas Godwin & Bro., of Texas, in all the big cities of Texas, members of the Music Publishers' Association, are the same Thomas Godwin & Bro. who are the distributors for the Victor Company in the State of Texas. You can not forget that Sherman Clay & Co., of San Francisco, Cal., members of the Music Publishers' Association, are the same Sherman Clay & Co. who are the western distributors for these companies. And I say to you in all earnestness that it is not necessary for a man to contract with himself. What is going to happen to the other fellows in the event you make this bill a law? If these men, as they claim they do, control nearly all of the big music publishers in the country but two, is it not the most natural thing that they will reserve to themselves and give to themselves the exclusive right to use these copyrighted selections upon those instruments which they themselves control?

It is not important at all whether certain contracts are in existence. If this bill becomes a law, the fact is, gentlemen, that the monopoly will be completed, and it will be completed within a very short time after the law has gone on the statute books.

I will not take any more of your time.

Mr. CURRIER. Just one question: If there should be a royalty of 2 cents, would your company be forced to advance the price?

Mr. CROMELIN. Absolutely, sir. Do you want to know why, Mr. Currier?

Mr. CURRIER. Yes.

Mr. CROMELIN. I will tell you why. It is purely a business proposition. In the first place, if there was a royalty of 2 cents, the public would pay the royalty. You all know that. The company would never pay it. The public have paid the royalty in France, and they did not pay merely the royalty, they paid more than the royalty. We have 150 retail stores. We have to arrange royalties on the sale of certain of our records with singers. David Bispham, for instance, comes to us and sings, and we give him, say, $1,000, and we say, "We will give you 10 per cent royalty in addition on the sale of the records." Now, it will cost another 2 cents to book and keep the accounts of this royalty in 150 stores, where you are putting out thousands of records and have to separate and keep account of each one sold. The public will have to pay for the booking. The company is not going to do it. When you get down to the actual carrying out of the law, the public will have to pay every time.

'All of the features of this bill are of vital interest to us. This custom-house question, which was brought up by Mr. Montgomery, is of greatest importance to us.

I will not bother you any more, except to bring to your attention section b of paragraph 8. Section b of paragraph 8 gives to the foreign composer substantially the same protection that it gives to the American composer, provided the country in which said foreign composer resides gives to citizens of the United States substantially the same protection it gives to its own citizens, or substantially the protection given under this bill.

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, there is no country in the world that gives substantially the same protection that is given under the bill; and what will the result be? In the event that you pass this bill, you are going to tax the American people for the benefit of a lot of foreign composers and music publishing houses abroad, many of whom are behind this bill, and are waiting to see what action you are going to take. You will ask me how, in what way. Why, in this way: We are in business in Berlin, Germany. We are manufacturers. Under the laws of Germany, say, we will take a record of a piece by Paul Linke a waltz song from Frau Luna. Germany permits me, by express statute, to make it, and I sell it all over the Empire. Í send it to England, and sell it all over England and all over the rest of the world. But when I knock at the doors of the United States I am stopped at the custom-house. If you make this bill a law, what is going to happen? Paul Linke, when he takes out his German copyright, will also take out an American copyright.

The American statute, which it is proposed that you shall pass, gives to Paul Linke, in addition to the right to print the staff notation, also a new right of property in the mechanical reproducers; and the official

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of the custom-house, looking over his list, says: "No; you can not bring that in here without first getting the consent of the foreign copy right proprietor." We get the consent of the foreign copyright proprietor, and how? He will say, "Yes, I will let you play it in the United States if you will pay me a royalty of 10 per cent or 20 per cent." If you admit the right to tax, you admit the right to confiscate. If you admit the right of that foreign composer to make the people of the United States pay 5 per cent more, you admit his right to tax them 50 per cent or as Frau Wagner did; she tried to keep the people of this country from hearing "Parsifal." Mr. Conried took the bull by the horns two years ago, and he put on "Parsifal." Prior to that, only a few rich people could go over to Beyruth, in Germany, every summer and hearParsifal." Now you are going to extend this public performance feature to its broadest limit. You can not possibly pass this bill in its present state without taxing every American boy and every American girl who wants to hear the best in music, not for the protection of the American composer, but in order that some foreign publishing house that has the copyright may exact tribute from the people of the United States.

I do not believe that is the purpose of you gentlemen to do it. I trust that you will not.

Is my time up?

The CHAIRMAN. You have now spoken an hour and fifteen minutes, Mr. Cromelin.

Mr. CROMELIN. I thank you very much, gentlemen, for the attention you have given me.

Mr. SOUSA. Just half a minute. I do not understand what Mr. Cromelin meant by advance scores of mine.

A MEMBER. Well, you have taken issue with him on that.

Mr. BURKAN. Mr. Chairman, will we not have an opportunity to reply to some of these charges? I have been charged here with having contracts in my pockets under which I was given a monopoly. It seems to me that this record is full of charges like that, and that I ought to have a chance to reply to some of them.

Senator SMOOT. You say it is not so; do you?

Mr. BURKAN. I say it is absolutely untrue; and moreover, if I had had a contract of that kind, he would want to see it. He would not tell me not to show it to him; he would have been mighty anxious to have me show it to him.

Mr. CROMELIN. I have sworn to that affidavit, gentlemen.

HERALD SQUARE HOTEL,
New York City, December 6, 1906.

Mr. PAUL H. CROMELIN,
President American Musical Copyright League,
Care of the Columbia Phonograph Company,
1212 F street NW., Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: As a member of the American Musical Copyright League I desire to protest through you most vigorously at the coming copyright conference against any law which may be proposed specifying that the composer will have the right to charge a royalty on compositions when mechanically reproduced, even though such a law would provide that all firms in respect to the royalty should be placed on the same basis. Our reasons for protesting are based on the fact that we have been granted numerous patents under the existing patent laws. Unquestionably the value of these patents would be adversely affected in the event of rights now belonging to us are made subservient to the rights of the composer.

I think, should such a clause be proposed, you should ask the committee how about rebates and in what manner do they propose to regulate the composer so

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