Mark Twain A Biography Part 188

CONSTANTINOPLE, February.

DR. MARK TWAIN, Was.h.i.+ngton.

Great Scott, no! By the beard of the Prophet, no! How can you ask such a thing of me? I am a man of family. I cannot take chances, like other people. I cannot let a literature come in here which teaches that a man's wife is as good as the man himself. Such a doctrine cannot do any particular harm, of course, where the man has only one wife, for then it is a dead-level between them, and there is no humiliating inequality, and no resulting disorder; but you take an extremely married person, like me, and go to teaching that his wife is 964 times as good as he is, and what's h.e.l.l to that harem, dear friend? I never saw such a fool as you. Do not mind that expression; I already regret it, and would replace it with a softer one if I could do it without debauching the truth. I beseech you, do not pa.s.s that bill. Roberts College is quite all the American product we can stand just now. On top of that, do you want to send us a flood of freedom-shrieking literature which we can't edit the poison out of, but must let it go among our people just as it is? My friend, we should be a republic inside of ten years.

ABDUL II.

III. MARK TWAIN'S LAST SUGGESTION ON COPYRIGHT.

A MEMORIAL RESPECTFULLY TENDERED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

(Prepared early in 1909 at the suggestion of Mr. Champ Clack but not offered. A bill adding fourteen years to the copyright period was pa.s.sed about this time.)

The Policy of Congress:--Nineteen or twenty years ago James Russell Lowell, George Haven Putnam, and the under signed appeared before the Senate Committee on Patents in the interest of Copyright. Up to that time, as explained by Senator Platt, of Connecticut, the policy of Congress had been to limit the life of a copyright by a term of years, with one definite end in view, and only one--to wit, that after an author had been permitted to enjoy for a reasonable length of time the income from literary property created by his hand and brain the property should then be transferred "to the public" as a free gift. That is still the policy of Congress to-day.

The Purpose in View:--The purpose in view was clear: to so reduce the price of the book as to bring it within the reach of all purses, and spread it among the millions who had not been able to buy it while it was still under the protection of copyright.

The Purpose Defeated:--This purpose has always been defeated. That is to say, that while the death of a copyright has sometimes reduced the price of a book by a half for a while, and in some cases by even more, it has never reduced it vastly, nor accomplished any reduction that was permanent and secure.

The Reason:--The reason is simple: Congress has never made a reduction compulsory. Congress was convinced that the removal of the author's royalty and the book's consequent (or at least probable) dispersal among several competing publishers would make the book cheap by force of the compet.i.tion. It was an error. It has not turned out so. The reason is, a publisher cannot find profit in an exceedingly cheap edition if he must divide the market with compet.i.tors.

Proposed Remedy:--The natural remedy would seem to be, amended law requiring the issue of cheap editions.

Copyright Extension:--I think the remedy could be accomplished in the following way, without injury to author or publisher, and with extreme advantage to the public: by an amendment to the existing law providing as follows--to wit: that at any time between the beginning of a book's forty-first year and the ending of its forty-second the owner of the copyright may extend its life thirty years by issuing and placing on sale an edition of the book at one-tenth the price of the cheapest edition hitherto issued at any time during the ten immediately preceding years. This extension to lapse and become null and void if at any time during the thirty years he shall fail during the s.p.a.ce of three consecutive months to furnish the ten per cent. book upon demand of any person or persons desiring to buy it.

The Result:--The result would be that no American cla.s.sic enjoying the thirty-year extension would ever be out of the reach of any American purse, let its uncompulsory price be what it might. He would get a two-dollar book for 20 cents, and he could get none but copyright-expired cla.s.sics at any such rate.

The Final Result:--At the end of the thirty-year extension the copyright would again die, and the price would again advance. This by a natural law, the excessively cheap edition no longer carrying with it an advantage to any publisher.

Reconstruction of The Present Law Not Necessary:--A clause of the suggested amendment could read about as follows, and would obviate the necessity of taking the present law to pieces and building it over again:

All books and all articles enjoying forty-two years copyright-life under the present law shall be admitted to the privilege of the thirty-year extension upon complying with the condition requiring the producing and placing upon permanent sale of one grade or form of said book or article at a price of 90 per cent. below the cheapest rate at which said book or article had been placed upon the market at any time during the immediately preceding ten years.

REMARKS

If the suggested amendment shall meet with the favor of the present Congress and become law--and I hope it will--I shall have personal experience of its effects very soon. Next year, in fact, in the person of my first book, 'The Innocents Abroad'. For its forty-two-year copyright-life will then cease and its thirty-year extension begin--and with the latter the permanent low-rate edition. At present the highest price of the book is eight dollars, and its lowest price three dollars per copy. Thus the permanent low rate will be thirty cents per copy.

A sweeping reduction like this is what Congress from the beginning has desired to achieve, but has not been able to accomplish because no inducement was offered to publishers to run the risk.

Respectfully submitted,

S. L. CLEMENS.

(A full and interesting elucidation of Mark Twain's views on Copyright may be found in an article ent.i.tled "Concerning Copyright," published in the North American Review for January, 1905.)

APPENDIX O

(See Chapter cxiv)

Address of Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) from a report of the dinner given by the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly in honor of the Seventieth Anniversary of the Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick, Boston, December 17, 1877, as published in the Boston Evening Transcript, December 18, 1877.

MR. CHAIRMAN, This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk, therefore I will drop lightly into history myself. Standing here on the sh.o.r.e of the Atlantic, and contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly California-ward. I started an inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my 'nom de guerre'. I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was snowing at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted, opened the door to me. When he heard my 'nom de guerre' he looked more dejected than before. He let me in-pretty reluctantly, I thought--and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and hot whisky, I took a pipe.

This sorrowful man had not said three words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of one who is secretly suffering, "You're the fourth--I'm going to move." "The fourth what?" said I. "The fourth littery man that has been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going to move." "You don't tell me!" said I; "who were the others?" "Mr.

Longfellow. Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the lot!"

You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot whiskies did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said he:

"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in, of course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough lot, but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot. Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr. Holmes was as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundered, and had double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow was built like a prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down in his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr. Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the b.u.t.tonhole and says he:

"'Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings,

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!"'

"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want to.'

Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a stranger that way. However, I started to get out my bacon and beans when Mr. Emerson came and looked on awhile, and then he takes me aside by the b.u.t.tonhole and says:

"'Give me agates for my meat; Give me cantharids to eat; From air and ocean bring me foods, From all zones and alt.i.tudes.'

"Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.' You see, it sort of riled me--I warn't used to the ways of Jittery swells.

But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr. Longfellow and b.u.t.tonholes me and interrupts me. Says he:

"'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!

You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--'

"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and let me get this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then he fires up all of a sudden and yells:

"'Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!

For I would drink to other days.'

"By George, I was getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes and says I, 'Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the court knows herself you'll take whisky straight or you'll go dry.' Them's the very words I said to him. Now I don't want to sa.s.s such famous Littery people, but you see they kind of forced me. There ain't nothing onreasonable 'bout me. I don't mind a pa.s.sel of guests a-treadin' on my tail three or four times, but when it comes to standing on it it's different, 'and if the court knows herself,' I says, 'you'll take whisky straight or you'll go dry.' Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike att.i.tudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on trust. I began to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked at his hand, shook his head, says:

"'I am the doubter and the doubt--'

and calmly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new lay-out.

Says he:

"'They reckon ill who leave me out; They know not well the subtle ways I keep.

I pa.s.s and deal again!'

Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! Oh, he was a cool one!

Well, in about a minute things were running pretty tight, but all of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had already corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he kind of lifts a little in his chair and says,

"'I tire of globes and aces!

Too long the game is played!'

and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie and says,