Mark Twain Speaking

60. Remarks on Copyright

206 MARK TWAIN SPEAKING the year 1348 / This date for the invention of printing is an error. Mark Twain had evidently not done his homework. The Gutenberg Bible (1456) is generally acknowledged to have been the first book printed with movable types. I control one of the hundred and one devices, etc. / An allusion to a mechanical typesetter invented by James W. Paige. Mark Twain, putting a great deal of money into this machine, figured on hypothetical profits of millions. But the typesetter was too sensitive to perform consistently, and his dreams of wealth ended in bankruptcy in 1894.· 60 · The struggle of writers and publishers to secure adequate copyright legislation was as dogged as the long battle offeminists for women's rights. When the Authors Copyright League and the Publishers Copyright League joinedforces to exert pressure on Congress, Mark Twain, together with members of both Leagues, appeared before a senate committee in 1886. His remarks were rather inconclusive, perhaps because he was unsure ofhis role or because he did not entirelyfavor the bill under consideration, drafted by Senator Hawley. At any rate, the Hawley bill became the eleventh copyright measure inforty years that failed to reach the floor, all being killed in committee. An acceptable bill was finally passed, however, in the last hour ofthe last day ofthe Fifty-jirst Congress, March 1891. Remarks on Copyright Before the Committee on Patents, United States Senate, Washington, D.C., January 28-29,1886 January 28 [Robert U. Johnson, secretary of the Authors Copyright League, called upon Mark Twain for a statement.] Oh, Mr. Chairman, they call upon me! But it really seems to me that this matter has arrived at that point which I thought I foresaw MARK TWAIN SPEAKING 207 yesterday when I said to these gentlemen, "You are bringing me to Washington without previous instructions. You have not educated me to my part, and I shall not know how to play it. I shall be apt, when the time comes, to play it after the simple honest fashion which was the method of my forefathers, and it may damage this bill, and that I do not want to do." I seem to come here in the interest of the Copyright League, and the Copyright League's interest, as you have heard, is centered upon the first bill mentioned here, called the Hawley bill, and I do not wish to make any speech at all or any remarks, lest I wander from thejust path marked out for me by these gentlemen. No doubt it is ajust path, but if I am here as a special pleader, I am a special pleader with a weak spot in this cause, and I will not commit myself or this committee further by any remarks. Ifany gentleman desires to ask me questions, then I do not care whom I commit; I shall come as near telling the truth as the moment's inspiration shall enable me. [The chairman asked Mark Twain for his opinions on international copyright, regardless of the League.] I comprehend your position, and you will comprehend mine also. I am in the position of one who would violate a hospitality, rather, if I should speak my mind. I did speak my mind yesterday to the most intelligent member of this committee of the League, besides myself, and it fired him, it grieved him, and I almost promised that I would not divulge what my right feeling was; but I did not promise that I would not take the contrary course. January 29 [George Walton Green, secretary of the executive committee of the Publishers Copyright League, said: "Now I am going to ask Mr. Clemens to reconsider his decision, ifhe made a decision, and to speak right out like a little man."] Well, then, I consider, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen ofthe committee , that absolves me from all obligation to be dishonest, or furtive, or clandestine, or whatsoever term you may choose to apply to the attitude I have held here before-rather an attitude of silence, in order that I should not commit or in any way jeopard the interests of this bill which the secretary has spoken of, the Hawley bill. As I have understood them in the railway train, or as well as I could understand them-and you yourselves have seen that there is some difficulty in that-they have still been clear upon one point, and that is that they would take a stand upon the Hawley bill...