I went to Washington, a fortnight ago, at the suggestion of the Committee of the Copyright League, to help nurse the amended bill through its initial examination by the Patent Committees of the House and the Senate. Mr. Paine made the trip with meⒺexplanatory note. We had the League Committee for company on board the train—a committee composed of two publishers, a poet, and Robert Underwood Johnson. The publishers were William Appleton and George Haven Putnam, fine men, both, and choice examples of their calling. The poet was Mr. Bowker. No, I am in error; it was two publishers and two poets, for Underwood Johnson is himself a poet, though that is not his regular line; neither is it Bowker’s; both of these singers earn their bread by surer handicrafts. They live upon salaries—Johnson as one of the editors of the Century Magazine Ⓐtextual note, Bowker as something connected with a railroadⒺexplanatory note. Both of these poets have published modest volumes of verse, and possess copies; both are hard workers for an enlarged literary copyrightⒶtextual note, and have [begin page 318] given their steady and earnest labors to this cause in the Copyright League for years without salary, and without having any pecuniary interest in the proposed lengthened term of literary copyrightⒶtextual note.

I believe that if we could go back over the past two centuries since England waylaid the author, in Queen Anne’s time, and robbed him of his poor little rights, we should find that from that day to this the long struggle to regain those rights for the author has been conducted,Ⓐtextual note almost exclusively,Ⓐtextual note not by the authors who would be benefited by the restoration, but by minor poets whose poems were perishable and evanescent; poets who had little or no use for a copyright of any kind, let alone an extended one. These benefactors, so far as my knowledge and experience go, never get any real help from the small handful of authors who could be pecuniarily benefited by a liberal life-term for books.

When I went to Washington sixteen years ago, to help just such a committee as this one in the nursing of an international copyrightⒶtextual note bill through the House of Representatives, James Russell Lowell, I think, was the only author who appeared there whose books promised to outlive the forty-two-year limit—except myself. At the hearing before the Patent Committee of the Senate, Mr. Lowell appeared just onceⒺexplanatory note, for fifteen minutes. He made a strong and striking speech, then disappeared, and was seen no more. Howells didn’t come; Edward Everett HaleⒺexplanatory note didn’t come; Thomas Bailey Aldrich didn’t come; as I have already said, none of the ten or twentyⒶtextual note authors personally and really interested in getting justice for American and foreign authors came forward to assist, except Lowell and myself.Ⓐtextual note Underwood Johnson was of the League Committee in that old day. The international bill was passed, and became lawⒺexplanatory note. This victory was attributed to JohnsonⒶtextual note, and the grateful French Government decorated him with the Legion of Honor for itⒺexplanatory note, and he still wears in his buttonhole thatⒶtextual note red threadⒶtextual note which distinguishes the member of the Legion of Honor from that remnant of the human race who have failed to get it. It makes me jealous; it makes me spiteful toward Underwood Johnson; it embitters me against the French; for Underwood Johnson didn’t win that victory, I did it myself. When a legislative body is not acquainted with the interests and rights and wrongs of authorship, these things must be explained to the members before they can be expected to understand the situation; explaining by documents is not worth while; no member can find time to read them; explaining by speechesⒶtextual note before a hard-worked committee is not worth while, for the committeeⒶtextual note cannot in turnⒶtextual note convey the acquired information to the rest of the House otherwise than by speeches, and speeches are not effective when they concern a matter in which the House feels no interest.

Copyright is a thing which all legislative bodies are ignorant of and unfamiliar with, and there is only one way to get a copyrightⒶtextual note measure through Congress—that is by canvassing the Congress individual by individual, and enlightening each in his turn. I did that sixteen years ago. I did not go to the homes, hotels, and boarding-houses of the members, for that would have taken three months. Sunset Cox smuggled me in on the floor of the HouseⒺexplanatory note, where of course I had no right to be and would have been turned out if the sergeant-at-arms had chosen to seeⒶtextual note me; but neither the sergeant nor the Speaker paid any attention to me, and so I got into no trouble. Sunset Cox supplied me [begin page 319] withⒶtextual note Democrats,Ⓐtextual note two and three and four at a time; Mr. John D. Long supplied me withⒶtextual note RepublicansⒺexplanatory note, and in three or fourⒶtextual note hours I had had personal contact and conversationⒶtextual note with almost every member of the House. As argument I used only two or three essential points. It was not difficult to make them clear and comprehensible, and I made them so. The commonest remark that fell upon my ear, all through thoseⒶtextual note hours, was—

“I have had no time to examine this matter, Mr. Clemens, and I did not understand it before, but I will vote for the bill now.”

The bill went through, and a grateful France decorated Underwood Johnson, the poet. However I suppose I ought to be fair, and for this once I will be. It was because of the existence and industries of Underwood Johnson that an international copyright bill was devised and brought before Congress. But for Underwood Johnson, there would have been no bill; but for the bill I should not have been there—and so,Ⓐtextual note a fair and righteous distribution of the honors requires that Underwood Johnson get half the credit and I the other half. If he will give me half of his red thread I will withdraw from him all bitterness, all animosity, all spitefulness, all envy.

This new bill proposes to change the present legal life of a book (which is forty-two years) to the author’s life and fifty years after. Underwood is working as hard for it as ever. He and Bowker appeared before the double committee on the first day’s hearing and made speeches; Howells was there also, not to speak, but in order that the ten or twentyⒶtextual note American authors actually interested in extension of copyrightⒶtextual note might have a representation in the flesh. I did not attend that first sitting, but I attended next day’s sitting, at five in the afternoon, and spokeⒺexplanatory note. The place was crowded, and the two committees had been patiently listening to reasonings and wranglings all day long, and they had listened to the like the whole of the previous day. When Congressmen perform their whole duty in this devoted way the spectacle furnishes the outsider a new light on the legislator’s life, and with it a very sincere admiration for men who can labor like that in causes which cannot interest them, and must, of necessity, bore them.

I did not go to Washington to make a speech. The speech was merely an incident, an accident, and not a part of the committee’s previously arranged programⒶtextual note. My business in Washington, and my desire, was to put in force a private project of my own—a repetition of my industries of sixteen years before: I wanted to talk to the members of the House, man to man. Mr. Speaker CannonⒺexplanatory note would not overstrain his powers by smuggling me into the House, but he said he would make a fair compromise in the interests of my mission; he would give me his private room in the Capitol, and also his colored messenger to run errands for me. This was very convenient. It was really better than exploiting my canvass on the floor of the House. The colored servant was Neal. I had known him sixteen years before, when I was lobbying for the international bill. Neal has served a procession of SpeakersⒶtextual note of the House which stretches back without a break for forty yearsⒺexplanatory note. He knows every member as well as he knows the members of his own family. Before I had talked with any more than twenty members I perceived that they felt no hostility toward the extension of literary copyrightⒶtextual note—that is to say, book copyrightⒶtextual note—but were not at all pleased with the bill’s attempt to intrude mechanical musical devices, and other [begin page 320] things whose interests belong in the Patent Office and had no proper connection with copyrightⒶtextual note. As soon as I felt convinced that this was really and truly the attitude of the House toward the bill I ceased from urging the whole bill and thenceforth urged only the literary end of it. I talked with a hundred and eighty members of Congress that day, and satisfied myself that if the musical feature of the bill could be eliminated the bill would pass. Afterward I talked with the chairmen of the Senate and House Committees that had the bill in chargeⒺexplanatory note, and found that they were tired of the music, and were already considering a project to report the bill with the musical foolishness left out. I ceased from my labors then, leaving twoⒶtextual note hundred and sixⒶtextual note members uncanvassed, the temper of the hundred and eighty already canvassed convincing me that the temper of the House was friendly enough toward literary copyrightⒶtextual note and could be depended upon to remain so without any further persuasions of mine.Ⓐtextual note