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 Burl Franklin: Kesearrh and Sourre Work Series #102

SOCIOLOGY FOR THE SOUTH,

OR THE

FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY.

BY GEORGE EITZHUGH.
H r J.iiH
 SOCIOLOGY FOR THE SOUTH,

OR THE

FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY.

BY GEORGE EITZHUGH.

THE THING THAT HAS BEEN, IT IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE ; AND THAT
WHICH IS DONE IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE DONE; AND THEBE IS NO NEW '
THING UNDER THE SUN.—Ecc. 1: 9.

Burt Franklin: Reaearrh and Source Work Serie* #102

BURT FRANKLIN
NEW YORK
V\W' I . P\ ^ V
Published by BURT FRANKLIN
235 East 44th Street
New York, N.Y. 10017

Printed in U S A.
 TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH.

We dedicate this littie work to you, because it is a

zealous and honest effort to promote your peculiar inte¬
rests. Society has been so quiet and contented in the
South—it has suffered so little from crime or extreme
poverty, that its attention has not been awakened to
the revolutionary tumults, uproar, mendicity and crime
of free society. Few are aware of the blessings they
enjoy, or of the evils from which they are exempt.
From some peculiarity of taste, we have for many
years been watching closely the perturbed workings of
free society. Its crimes, its revolutions, its sufferings
and its beggary, have led us to investigate its past
history, as well as to speculate on its future destiny.
This pamphlet has been hastily written, but is the
result of long observation, some research and much
reflection. Should it contain suggestions that will enlist
abler pens to show that free society is a failure and
its philosophy false, our highest ambition will be grat
ified. Believing our positions on these subjects to be
true, we feel sanguine they are destined to final vin¬
dication and triumph. We should have written a larger
work, had not our inexperience in authorship warned
IV DEDICATION.

US that we had better await the reception of this. We

may again appear in the character of writer before the
public; but we shall not intrude, and would prefer that
others should finish the work which we have begun.
Treating subjects novel and difiicult of comprehension,
we have designedly indulged in iteration; for we pre¬
ferred offending the ear and the taste of the reader,
to confounding or confusing him by insufficient elabo¬
ration. In truth, fine finish and rotundity are not
easily attained in what is merely argumentative and
controversial.
On all subjects of social science. Southern men, from
their position, possess peculiar advantages when they
undertake discussion. History, past and cotempora-
neous, informs them of all the phenomena of other
forms of society, and they see every day around them
the peculiarities and characteristics of slave society, of
which little is to be learned from books. The ancients
took it for granted that slavery was right, and never
attempted to justify it. The moderns assume that it
is wrong, and forthwith proceed to denounce it. The
South can lose nothing, and may gain, by the discussion.
She has, up to this time, been condemned without a
hearing.
With respect, your fellow-citizen,

CtEO. fitziiugh.
 PREFACE.

We hesitated some time in selecting the title of our

work. We did not like to employ the newly-coined
word Sociology. We could; however, find none other
in the whole range of the English language, that would
even faintly convey the idea which we wished to express.
We looked to the history of the term. We found that
within the last half century, disease, long lurking in
the system of free society, had broken out into a hun¬
dred open manifestations. Thousands of authors and
schemers, such as Owen, Louis Blanc and Fourier, had
arisen, proposing each a different mode of treatment for

the disease which all confessed to exist. Society had

never been in such a state before. New exigencies in
its situation had given rise to new ideas, and to a new
philosophy. This new philosophy must have a name,
and as none could be found ready-made to suit the
occasion, the term Sociology was compounded, of hybrid
birth, half Greek and half Latin, as the technical appel¬
lative of the new-born science. In Europe, the term
is familiar as household words.’’ It grates harshly,
as yet, on Southern ears, because to us it is new and
superfluous—the disease of which it treats being un-
VI PREFACE.

known amongst us. But as our book is intended to

prove that we are indebted to domestic slavery for

our happy exemption from the social afflictions that
have originated this philosophy, it became necessary
and appropriate that we should employ this new word
in our title. The fact that, before the institution of
Free Society, there was no such term, and that it is
not in use in slave countries, now, shows pretty clearly

that Slave Society, ancient and modern, has ever been

in so happy a condition, so exempt from ailments, that
no doctors have arisen to treat it of its complaints, or
to propose remedies for their cure. The term, there¬
fore, is not only appropriate to the subject and the
occasion, but pregnantly suggestive of facts and argu¬
ments that sustain our theory.
 CHAPTER I.

FREE TRADE.

Political economy is the science of free society.

Its theory and its history alike establish this po¬
sition. Its fundamental maxims, Laissez-faire and
‘‘"Pas trop gouvernerf are at war with all kinds
of slavery, for they in fact assert that individuals
and peoples prosper most when governed least.
It is not, therefore, wonderful that such a science
should not have been believed or inculcated whilst
slavery was universal. Roman and Greek mas¬
ters, feudal lords and Catholic priests, if con¬
scientious, must have deemed such maxims false
and heritical, or if unconscientious, would find in
their self-interest sufficient reasons to prevent
their propagation. Accordingly we find no such
maxims current, no such science existing, until
slavery and serfdom were extinct and Catholic¬
ism maimed and crippled, in the countries that
gave them birth. Men belonging to the higher
classes of society, and who neither feel nor appre¬
hend the ills of penury or privation, are very apt
to think little of those ills, and less of the class
who suffer them. Especially is this the case with
unobservant, abstract thinkers and closet scholars,
8 FREE TRADE.

who deal with little of the w’orld and see less of

it. Such men judge of mankind, their progress
and their happiness, by the few specimens sub¬
jected to the narrow range of their experience
and observation. After the abolition of feudalism
and Catholicism, an immense amount of unfettered
talent, genius, industry and capital, was brought
into the field of free competition. The immediate
result w’as, that all those who possessed either of
those advantages prospered as they had never
prospered before, and rose in social position and
intelligence. At the same time, and from the
same causes, the aggregate wealth of society, and
probably its aggregate intelligence, were rapidly
increased. Such was no doubt part of the effects
of unfettering the limbs, the minds and consciences
of men. It was the only part of those effects that
scholars and philosophers saw or heeded. Here
was something new under the sun, which refuted
and rebuked the wisdom of Solomon. Up to this
time, one-half of mankind had been little better
than chattels belongino; to the other half. A cen-
tral power, with branches radiating throughout
the civilized world, had trammeled men’s con¬
sciences, dictated their religious faith, and pre¬
scribed the forms and modes of worship. All this
was done away with, and the new world just
started into existence was certainly making rapid
progress, and seemed to the ordinary observer
 FREE TRADE. 9

to be very happy. About such a world, nothing

was to be found in books. Its social, its indus¬
trial and its moral phenomena, seemed to be as
beautiful as they were novel. They needed, how¬
ever, description, classification and arrangement.
Men’s social relations and moral duties were
quite different under a system of universal lib¬
erty and equality of rights, from what they had
been in a state of subordination and dependence
on the one side, and of power, authority and
protection on the other. The reciprocal duties
and obligations of master and slave, of lord and
vassal, of priest and layman, to each other, w^ere
altogether unlike those that should be practiced
between the free and equal citizens of regene¬
rated society. Men needed a moral guide, a new
philosophy of ethics ; for neither the sages of the
Gentiles, nor the Apostles of Christianity, had
foreseen or provided for the great light which
was noAY to burst upon the world. Moses, and
Solomon, and Paul, w^ere silent as Socrates, Plato
and Aristotle, as to this social Millenium, and the
moral duties and obligations it would bring in its
train.
Until now, industry had been controlled and
directed by a few minds. Monopoly in its every
form had been rife. Men were suddenly called
on to walk alone, to act and work for themselves
without guide, advice or control from superior
10 FREE TRADE.

authority. In the past, nothing like it had oc¬

curred ; hence no assistance could be derived from
books. The prophets themselves had overlooked
or omitted to tell of the advent of this golden
era, and were no better guides than the historians
and philosophers. A philosophy that should guide
and direct industry w^as equally needed with a
philosophy of morals. The occasion found and
made the man. For writing a one-sided philos¬
ophy, no man was better fitted than Adam Smith.
He possessed extraordinary powers of abstraction,
analysis and generalization. He was absent, se¬
cluded and unobservant. He saw only that pros¬
perous and progressive portion of society whom
liberty or free competition benefitted, and mistook
its effects on them for its effects on the world.
He had probably never heard the old English
adage, “Every man for himself, and Devil take
the hindmost.” This saying comprehends the
whole philosophy, moral and economical, of the
“ Wealth of Nations.” But he and the political
economists who have succeeded him, seem never
to hav'e dreamed that there would have been any
“ hindmost.” There can never be a wise moral
philosopher, or a sound philosophy, till some one
arises who sees and comprehends all. the “things
in heaven and earth.” Philosophers are the most
abstracted, secluded, and least observant of men.
Their premises are always false, because they see
 FREE TRADE. 11

but few facts ; and hence their conclusions must

also be false. Plato and Aristotle have to-day
as many believers as Smith, Paley or Locke, and
between their times a hundred systems have arisen,
flourished for a time, and been rejected. There
is not a true moral philosophy, and from the na¬
ture of things there never can be. Such a phi¬
losophy has to discover first causes and ultimate
effects, to grasp infinitude, to deal with eternity
at both ends. Human presumption will often at¬
tempt this, but human intellect can never achieve
it. We shall build up no system, attempt to
account for nothing, but simply point out what
is natural and universal, and humbly try to jus¬
tify the ways of God to man.
Adam Smith’s philosophy is simple and com¬
prehensive, (teres et rotundus.) Its leading and
almost its only doctrine is, that individual well¬
being and social and national wealth and pros¬
perity will be best promoted by each man’s eagerly
pursuing his own selfish welfare unfettered and
unrestricted by legal regulations, or governmental
prohibitions, farther than such regulations may be
necessary to prevent positive crime. That some
qualifications of this doctrine wull not be found
in his book, we shall not deny; but this is his
system. It is obvious enough that such a gov¬
ernmental policy as this doctrine would result in,
would stimulate energy, excite invention and in-
12 FREE TRADE.

dustrj, and bring into livelier action, genius, skill

and talent. It had done so before Smith •wrote,
and it was no doubt the observation of those
effects that suggested the theory. His friends
and acquaintances were of that class, who, in the
war of the wits to which free competition invited,
were sure to come off victors. His country, too,
England and Scotland, in the arts of trade and
in manufacturing skill, was an over-match for
the rest of the world. International free trade
would benefit his country as much as social free
trade would benefit his friends. This was his
world, and had it been the only world his phi¬
losophy would have been true. But there was
another and much larger world, whose misfor¬
tunes, under his system, were to make the for¬
tunes of his friends and his country. A part of
that wmrld, far more numerous than his friends
and acquaintance was at his door, they were the
Unemployed poor, the weak in mind or body,
the simple and unsuspicious, the prodigal, the dis¬
sipated, the improvident and the vicious. Lais¬
sez-faire and trop gouverner suited not them;
one portion of them needed support and protec¬
tion ; the other, much and rigorous government.
Still they were fine subjects oat of which the
astute and designing, the provident and avari¬
cious, the cunning, the prudent and the indus¬
trious might make fortunes in the field of free
 FREE TRADE. 13

competition. Another portion of the world which

Smith overlooked, were the countries with which
England traded, covering a space many hundred
times larger than England herself. She was daily
growing richer, more powerful and intellectual,
by her trade, and the countries with which she
traded poorer, weaker, and more ignorant. Since
the vast extension of trade, consequent on the
discoveries of Columbus and Vasco de Gama, the
civilized countries of Europe which carried on
this trade had greatly prospered, but the savages
and barbarians with whom they traded had be¬
come more savage and barbarous or been exter¬
minated. Trade is a war of the wits, in which
the strono-er
o
witted are as sure to succeed as the
stronger armed in a war with swords. Strength
of wit has this great advantage over strength of
arm, that it never tires, for it gathers new
strength by appropriating to itself the spoils of
the vanquished. And thus, whether between na¬
tions or individuals, the war of free trade is con¬
stantly widening the relative abilities of the weak
and the strong. It has been justly observed that
under this system the rich are continually grow
ing richer and the poor poorer. The remark Is
true as well between nations as between individ¬
uals. Free trade, when the American gives a
bottle of whiskey to the Indian for valuable furs,
or the Englishman exchanges with the African
 14 FREE TRADE.

blue-beads for diamonds, gold and slaves, is a

fair specimen of all free trade when unequals
meet. Free trade between England and Ireland
furnishes the latter an excellent market for her
beef and potatoes, in exchange for English man¬
ufactures. The labor employed in manufacturing
pays much better than that engaged in rearing
beeves and potatoes. On the average, one hour
of English labor pays for two of Irish. Again,
manufacturing requires and encourages skill and
intelligence; grazing and farming require none.
But far the worst evils of this free trade remain
to be told. Irish pursuits depressing education
and refinement, England becomes a market for
the wealth, the intellect, the talent, energy and
enterprise of Ireland. All men possessing any of
these advantages or qualities retreat to England
to spend their incomes, to enter the church, the
navy, or the army, to distinguish themselves as
authors, to engage in mechanic or manufacturing
pursuits. Thus is Ireland robbed of her very
life’s blood, and thus do our Northern States rob
the Southern.
Under the system of free trade a fertile soil,
wfith good rivers and roads as outlets, becomes
the greatest evil with which a country can bo
afflicted. The richness of soil invites to agricul-
culture, and the roads and rivers carry off the
crops, to be exchanged for the manufactures of
 FREE TRADE. 15

poorer regions, where are situated the centres of

trade, of capital and manufactures. In a few
centuries or less time the consumption abroad of
the crops impoverishes the soil where they are
made. No cities or manufactories arise in the
country with this fertile soil, because there is no
occasion. No pursuits are carried on requiring
intelligence or skill; the population is of neces¬
sity sparse, ignorant and illiterate; universal ab¬
senteeism prevails; the rich go off for pleasure
and education, the enterprising poor for employ¬
ment. An intelligent friend suggests that, left
to nature, the evil will cure itself. So it may
when the country is ruined, if the people, like
those of Georgia, are of high character, and her
take themselves to other pursuits than mere agri¬
culture, and totally repudiate free trade doctrines.
Our friends' objection only proves the truth of
our theory. We are very sure that the wit of
man can devise no means so effectual to impov¬
erish a country as exclusive agriculture. The
ravages of war, pestilence and famine are soon
effaced; centuries are required to restore an ex¬
hausted soil. The more rapidly money is made
in such n country, enjoying free trade, the faster
it is, impoverished, for the draft on the soil is
greater, and those who make good crops spend
them abroad; those who make small ones, at
home. In the absence of free trade, this rich
16 FREE TRADE.

region must manufacture for itself, build cities,

erect schools and colleges, and carry on all the
pursuits and provide for all the common wants
of civilized man. Thus the money made at home
would be spent and invested at home; the crops
would be consumed at home, and each town and
village would furnish manure to fertilize the soil
around it. We believe it is a common theory
that, without this domestic consumption, no soil
can be kept permanently rich. A dense popu¬
lation would arise, because it would be required ;
the rich would have no further occasion to leave
home for pleasure, nor the poor for employment.
The valley of the Great Salt Lake is cut off
by mountains from the rest of the world, except
for travel. Suppose it to continue so cut off, and
to be settled by a virtuous, enlightened people.
Every trade, every art, every science, must be
taught and practiced within a small compass and
by a small population, in order to gratify their
wants and their tastes. The highest, most dif¬
fused and intense civilization, with great accumu¬
lation of wealth, would be the necessary result.
But let a river like the Mississippi pass through
it. Let its inhabitants become merely agricultural,
and exchange their products for the manufac¬
tures of Europe and the fruits of xVsia, and would
not that civilization soon disappear, and with it
 FREE TRADE. IT

tlie 'wealth and capital of the country ? Mere

agriculture requires no skill or education, few
and cheap houses, and no permanent outlay of
capital in the construction of the thousand edi¬
fices needed in a manufacturing country. Be¬
sides, the consumption of the crops abroad would
be cheating their lands of that manure which na¬
ture intended for them. Soon the rich and en¬
lightened, who owned property there, would, like
Irish landlords, live and spend their incomes
elsewhere.
The profits of exclusive agriculture are not more
than one-third of those realized from commerce
and manufactures. The ordinary and average
wages of laborers employed in manufactures and
mechanic trades are about double those of agri¬
cultural laborers ; but, moreo er, women and chil¬
dren get good wages in manufacturing countries,
whose labor is lost in agricultural ones. But
this consideration, great as it is, shrinks to in¬
significance compared with the intellectual supe¬
riority of all other pursuits over agriculture.
The centralizino; effects of free trade alone
would be sufficient to condemn it. The decline
of civilization under the Roman Empire was
owing solely to centralization. If political sci¬
ence has at all advanced since the earliest an¬
nals of history, that advance is the discovery
that each small section knows best its own inter-
18 FREE TRADE.

ests, and should be endowed with the most of

the functions of government. The ancients, in
the days of Herodotus, when the country around
the Levant and the Islands in the Mediterranean
were cut up into hundreds of little highly en¬
lightened independent States, seem* to have under¬
stood the evils of centralization quite as well as
the moderns. At least , their practice was wiser
than ours, whatever may have been their theory.
Political independence is not worth a fig without
commercial independence. The tribute which the
centres of trade, of capital, and of mechanical
and artistic skill, such as England and the North
exact from the nations they trade with, is more
onerous and more destructive of civilization than
that exacted from conquered provinces. Its ef¬
fects everywhere ai^e too obvious to need the
citation of proofs and instances. Social central¬
ization arises from the laissez-faire system just
as national centralization. A few’ individuals pos¬
sessed of capital and cunning acquire a pow’er to
employ the laboring class on such terms as they
please, and they seldom fail to use that pow’er.
Hence, the numbers and destitution of the poor
in free society are daily increaoing, the numbers
of the middle or independent class diminishing,
and the few rich men growing hourly richer.
Free trade occasions a vast and useless, pro¬
bably a very noxious w’aste of capital and labor,
 FREE TRADE. 19

in exchanging the productions of different and

distant climes and regions. Furs and oils are
not needed at the South, and the fruits of the
tropics are tasteless and insipid at the North.
Providence has wonderfully adapted the produc¬
tions of each section to the wants of man and
other animals inhabiting those sections. It is
probable, if the subject were scientifically inves¬
tigated, it would be found that the productions
of one clime when used in another are injurious
and deleterious. The intercourse of travel and
the interchange of ideas it occasions advances
civilization. The intercourse of trade, by accus¬
toming barbarous, savage and agricultural coun¬
tries to depend daily more and more on the cen¬
tres of trade and manufactures for their supplies
of every thing requiring skill or science for its
production, rapidly depresses civilization. On the
whole subject of civilization there is a prevalent
error. Man’s necessities civilize him, or rather
the labor, invention and ingenuity needed to sup¬
ply them. Relieve him of the necessity to exert
those qualities by supplying through trade or
other means his wants, and he at once begins
to sink into barbarism. Wars are fine civilizers,
for all men dread violent death; hence, among
barbarians, the implements of warfare are far su¬
perior to any other of their manufactures, but
they lead the way to other improvements. The
20 FREE TRADE.

old adage, that necessity is the motlier of in¬

vention,” contains our theory ; for invention alone
begets civilization. Civilization is no foreign hot¬
bed exotic brought from distant climes but a
hardy plant of indigenous birth and growth.
There never was vet found
%j
a nation of white
savages; their wants and their wits combine to
elevate them above the savage state. Nature,
that imposed more wants on them, has kindly
endowed them with superior intelligence to sup¬
ply those wmnts.
Political economy is quite as objectionable,
viewed as a rule of morals, as when viewed as a
system of economy. Its authors never seem to
be aware that they are writing an ethical as well
as an economical code; yet it is probable that
no writings, since the promulgation of the Chris¬
tian dispensation, have exercised so controlling
an influence on human conduct as the writings
of these authors. The morality which they teach
is one of simple and unadulterated selfishness.
The public good, the welfare of society, the pros¬
perity of one’s neighbors, is, according to them,
best pivmvy .ed by each man’s looking solely to the
advancement of his own pecuniary interests.
They maintain that national wealth, happiness
and prosperity being but the aggregate of indi¬
vidual wealth, happiness and prosperity, if each
man pursues exclusively his own selfish good, he
 FREE TRADE. 21

is doing the most he can to promote the gen¬

eral good. They seem to forget that men eager
in the pursuit of wealth are never satisfied with
the fair earnings of their own bodily labor, but
find their wits and cunning employed in over¬
reaching others much more profitable than their
hands. Laissez-faire^ free competition begets a
war of the wits, which these economists encour-
age, quite as destructive to the weak, simple and
guileless, as the war of the sword.
In a book on society, evincing much power
and originality of thought, by Stephen Pearl
Andrews, this subject is well handled. We an¬
nex a short extract: It follows, from what
has been said, that the value principle is the
commercial embodiment of the essential element
of conquest and war—war transferred from the
battle-field to the counter—none the less opposed,
however, to the spirit of Christian morality, or
the sentiment of human brotherhood. In bodily
conflict, the physically strong conquer and sub¬
ject the physically weak. In the conflict of trade,
the intellectually astute and powerful conquer
and subject those who are intellectually feeble,
or whose intellectual development is not of the
precise kind to fit them for the conflict of wits
in the matter of trade. With the progress of
civilization and development, we have ceased to
think that superior strength gives the right of
22 FREE TRADE.

conquest and subjugation. We have graduated

in idea out of the period of physical dominion.
We remain, however, as yet, in the period of
intellectual conquest or plunder. It has not been
questioned hitherto, as a general proposition, that
the man who has superior intellectual endow¬
ments to others, has a right resulting therefrom
to profit thereby at the cost of others. In the
extreme applications of the admission only is the
conclusion denied. (That is, as he had before
said, ‘You must not be too bad.’ ‘Don’t gouge
too deep.’) In the whole field of what are de¬
nominated the legitimate operations of trade,
there is no other law recognized than the rela¬
tive ‘ smartness ’ or shrewdness of the parties,
modified at most by the sentimental precept sta¬
ted above.”
It begets another war in the bosom of society
still more terrible than this. It arrays capital
against labor. Every man is taught by political
economy that it is meritorious to make the best
bargains one can. In all old countries, labor is
superabundant, employers less numerous than la-
borersT' yet all the laborers must live by the
wages they receive from the capitalists. The
capitalist cheapens their wages; they compete
with and underbid each other, for employed they
must be on any terms. This war of the rich
with the poor and the poor with one another, is
 FREE TRADE. 23

the morality which political economy inculcates.

It is the only morality, save the Bible, recog¬
nized or acknowledged in free society, and is far
more efficacious in directing worldly men’s con¬
duct than the Bible, for that teaches self-denial,
not self-indulgence and aggrandizement. This
process of underbidding each other by the poor,
which universal liberty necessarily brings about,
has well been compared by the author of Alton
Locke to the prisoners in the Black Hole of
Calcutta strangling one another. A beautiful
system of ethics this, that places all mankind
in antagonistic positions, and puts all society at
war. What can such a war result in but the op¬
pression and ultimate extermination of the weak?
In such society the astute capitalist, who is very
skilful and cunning, gets the advantage of every
one with whom he competes or deals; the sen¬
sible man with moderate means gets the advan¬
tage of most with whom he has business, but
the mass of the simple and poor are outwitted
and cheated by everybody.
Woman fares worst when thrown into this war-
fare of competition. The delicacy of her sex
and her nature prevents her exercising those
coarse arts which men do in the vulgar and pro¬
miscuous jostle of life, and she is reduced to the
necessity of getting less than half price for her
work. To the eternal disgrace of human nature.
24 FREE TRADE.

the men who employ her value themselves on the

Adam Smith principle for their virtuous and sen¬
sible conduct. “ Labor is worth what it will
bring; they have given the poor woman more
than any one else would, or she would not have
taken the work.” Yet she and her children are
starving, and the employer is growing rich by
giving her half what her work is worth. Thus
does free competition, the creature of free so¬
ciety, throw the whole burden of the social fabric
on the poor, the "weak and ignorant. They pro¬
duce every thing and enjoy nothing. They are
“the muzzled ox that treadeth out the straw.”
In free society none but the selfish virtues are
in repute, because none other help a man in the
race of competition. In such society virtue loses
all her loveliness, because of her selfish aims.
Good men and bad men have the same end in view:
self-promotion, self-elevation. The good man is
prudent, cautious, and cunning of fence; he knows
well, the arts (the virtues, if you please) which
enable him to advance his fortunes at the ex¬
pense of those with whom he deals; he does not
“cut too deep”; he does not cheat and swindle,
he only makes good bargains and excellent profits.
He gets more subjects by this course; everybody
comes to him to be bled. He bides his time ;
takes advantage of the follies, the improvidence
and vices of others, and makes his fortune out
 FREE TRADE. 25

of tlie follies and weaknesses of Iiis fellow-men.

The bad man is rash, hasty, unskilful and im¬
politic. He is equally selfish, but not half so
prudent and cunning. Selfishness is almost the
only motive of human conduct in free society,
where every man is taught tnat it is his first
duty to change and better his pecuniary situation.
The first principles of the science of political
economy inculcate separate, individual action, and
are calculated to prevent that association of labor
without which nothing great can be achieved; for
man isolated and individualized is the most help¬
less of animals. We think this error of the econ¬
omists proceeded from their adopting Locke’s
theory of the social contract. We believe no her¬
esy in moral science has been more pregnant of
mischief than this theory of Locke. It lies at
the bottom of all moral speculations, and if false,
must infect with falsehood all theories built on it.
Some animals are by nature gregarious and asso¬
ciative. Of this class are men, ants and bees.
An isolated man is almost as helpless and ridic¬
ulous as a bee setting up for himself. Man is
born a member of society, and does not form
society. Nature, as in the cases of bees and ants,
has it ready formed for him. He and society
are congenital. Society is the being—he one of
the members of that being. He has no rights
whatever, as opposed to the interests of society;
B
26 FPtEE TRADE.

and tliat society may very properly make any

use of liim that will redound to the public good.
Whatever rights he has are subordinate to the
good of the whole; and he has never ceded rights
to it, for he was born its slave, and had no rights
to cede.
Government is the creature of society, and may
be said to derive its powers from the consent of
the governed; but society does not owe its sove¬
reign power to the separate consent, volition or
agreement of its members. Like the hive, it is
as much the work of nature as the individuals
who compose it. Consequences, the very opposite
of the doctrine of free trade, result from this doc¬
trine of ours. It makes each society a band of
brothers, working for the common good, instead
of a bag of cats biting and worrying each other.
The competitive system is a system of antagonism
and war; ours of peace and fraternity. The first
is the system of free society; the other that of
slave society. The Greek, the Homan, Judaistic,
Egyptian, and all aneient polities, v^'ere founded
on our theory. The loftiest patrician in those
days, valued himself not on selfish, cold individ¬
uality, but on being the most devoted servant of
society and his country. In ancient times, the
individual was eonsidered nothing, the State every
thing. And yet, under this system, the noblest
individuality Avas evolved that the Avorld has ever
 FREE TRADE. 27

seen. The prevalence of the doctrines of polit¬

ical economy has injured Southern character,
for in the South those doctrines most prevail.
Wealthy men, who are patterns of virtue in the
discharge of their domestic duties, value them¬
selves on never intermeddling in public matters.
They forget that property is a mere creature of
law and society, and are willing to make no re¬
turn for that property to the public, which by
its laws gave it to them, and which guard and
protect them in its possession.
All great enterprises owe their success to asso¬
ciation of capital and labor. The North is in¬
debted for its great wealth and prosperity to the
readiness with which it forms associations for all
industrial and commercial purposes. The success
of Southern farming is a strikino; instance of the
value of the association of capital and laborers,
and ought to suggest to the South the necessity
of it for other purposes.
The dissociation of labor and disintegration of
society, which liberty and free competition occa¬
sion, is especially injurious to the poorer cli^ss ;
for besides the labor necessary to support the
family, the poor man is burdened with the care
of finding a home, and procuring employment,
and attending to all domestic wants and concerns.
Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares alto¬
gether, and slavery is a form, and the very best
28 FREE TRADE.

form, of socialism. In fact, the ordinary wages

of common labor are insufficient to keep up sep¬
arate domestic establishments for each of the poor,
and association or starvation is in many cases
inevitable. In free society, as well in Europe
as in America, this is the accepted theory, and
various schemes have been resorted to, all without
success, to cure the evil. The association of labor
properly carried out under a common head or
ruler, would render labor more efficient, relieve
the laborer of many of the cares of household
affairs, and protect and support him in sickness
and old -age, besides preventing the too great
reduction of wages by redundancy of labor and
free competition. Slavery attains all these results.
IVhat else Avill ?
We find in the days of Sir INIatthew Hale, a
very singular pamphlet attributed to him. It was
an attempt to prove that two healthy laborers,
marrying and having in the usual time four chil¬
dren, could not at ordinary labor, and with ordi¬
nary wages, support their family. The nursing,
washing, cooking and making clothes, would fully
occupy the wife. The husband, with the chances
of sickness and uncertainty of cmplo^’ment, would
liave to support four. Such is the usual and
normal condition of free laborers. With six chil¬
dren, the oldest say twelve years of age, tlieir
condition would be worse. Or should the husband
 FREE TRADE. 29

(lie, the family that remained would be still worse

olf. There are large numbers of aged and infirm
male and female laborers; so that as a class, it
is obvious, we think, that under ordinary circum¬
stances, in old countries, they are incapable of
procuring a decent and comfortable support. The
wages of the poor diminish as their wants and
families increase, for the care and labor of at¬
tending to the family leaves them fewer hours for
profitable work. With negro slaves, their Avages
invariably increase Avith their wants. The master
increases the proA'ision for the family as the family
increases in number and helplessness. It is a
beautiful example of communism, Avhere each one
receives not according to his labor, but according
to his Avants.
A maxim Avell calculated not only to retard the
progress of civilization, but to occasion its retro¬
gression, has grown out of the science of political
economy. “The Avorld is too much governed,” has
become C|uite an axiom Avith many politicians.
Now the need of laAv and government is just in
proportion to man’s Avealth and enlightenment.
Barbarians and savages need and Avill submit to
but few and simple laAvs, and little of government.
The love of personal liberty and freedom from all
restraint, are distinguishing
y O O
traits of Avild men and
Avild beasts. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors loved
personal liberty because they Avere barbarians, but
so FREE TRADE.

they did not love it half so inucli as North Amer¬

ican Indians or Bengal tigers, because they "were
not half so savage. As civilization advances, lib¬
erty recedes: and it is fortunate for man that
he loses his love of liberty just as fast as he be¬
comes more moral and intellectual. The wealthy,
virtuous and religious citizens of large tovms enjoy
less of liberty than any other persons whatever,
and yet they are the most useful and rationally
happy of all mankind. The best governed coun¬
tries, and those vdiich have prospered most, have
always been distinguished for the number and
stringency of their laws. Good men obey supe¬
rior authority, the laws of God, of moralit}’, and
of their country ; bad men love liberty and vio¬
late them. It would he difficult very often for
the most ingenious casuist to distinguish between
sin and liberty: for virtue consists in the per¬
formance of duty, and the obedience to that law
or power that imposes duty, whilst sin is but the
violation of duty and disobedience to such law
and power. It is remarkable, in this connec¬
tion, that sin began by the desire for libert}' and
the attempt to attain it in the person of Satan
and his fallen angels. The world Avants good go¬
vernment and a plenty of it—not liberty. It is
deceptive in us to boast cf our Democracy, to
assert the ca})acity of the })cople for self-govern¬
ment, and then refuse to them its exercise. In
 FREE TRADE. 31

New England, and in all our large cities, where

the people govern most, thej are governed best.
If government be not too much centralized, there
is little danger of too much government. The
danger and evil with us is of too little. Carlyle
says of our institutions, that they are “anarchy
plus a street constable.” We ought not to be
bandaged up too closely in our infancy, it might
prevent growth and development; but the time
is coming when we shall need more of govern¬
ment, if we would secure the permanency of our
institutions.
All men concur in the opinion that some gov¬
ernment is necessary. Even the political econo¬
mist wmuld punish murder, theft, robbery, gross
swindling, &c.; but they encourage men to com¬
pete with and slowly undermine and destroy one
another by means quite as effective as those they
forbid. We have heard a distinguished member
of this school object to negro slavery, because
the protection it afforded to an inferior race
would perpetuate that race, which, if left free to
compete with the whites, must be starved out in
a few generations. Members of Congress, of the
Young American party, boast that the Anglo-
Saxon race is manifestly destined to eat out all
other races, as the wire-grass destroys and takes
the place of other grasses. Nay, they allege this
competitive process is going on throughout all
32 FREE TRADE.

nature; the weak are everywhere devouring the

strong; the hardier plants and animals destroy¬
ing the wmaker, and the superior races of man
exterminating the inferior. They would chal¬
lenge our admiration for this war of nature, by
which +hey say Providence is perfecting its own
W'ork—getting rid of what is weak and indiffer¬
ent, and preserving only what is strong and
hardy. We see the war, hut not the improve¬
ment. This competitive, destructive system has
been going on from the earliest records of his¬
tory ; and yet the plants, the animals, and the
nen of to-day are not superior to those of four
thousand years ago. To restrict this destructive,
competitive propensity, man was endowed with
3ason, and enabled to pass laws to protect the
weak against the strong. To encourage it, is to
encourage the strong to oppress the weak, and
to violate the primary object of all government.
It is strange it should have entered the head of
any philosopher to set the weak, who are the
majority of mankind, to competing, contending
and fighting with the strong, in order to improve
their condition.
Hobbes maintains that “ a state of nature is a
state of war.” This is untrue of a state of na¬
ture, because men are naturally associative; but
it is true of a civilized state of universal libertv,
and free competition, such as Hobbes saw around
 FREE TRADE. 33

him, and which no doubt suggested his theory.

The wants of man and his history alike prove
that slavery has always been part of his social
organization. A less degree of subjection is in¬
adequate for the government and protection of
great numbers of human beings.
An intelligent English writer, describing society
as he saw it, uses this language :
“ There is no disguising from the cool eye of
philosophy, that all living creatures exist in a
state of natural warfare ; and that man (in hos¬
tility with all) is at enmity also with his own
species ; man is the natural enemy of man ; and
society, unable to change his nature, succeeds but
in establishing a hollow truce by which fraud is
substituted for violence.”
Such is free society, fairly portrayed; such are
the infidel doctrines of political economy, when
candidly avoAved. Slavery and Christianity bring
about a lasting peace, not ‘^a hollow truce.” But
Ave mount a step higher. We deny that there
is a society in free countries. They who act
each for himself, AAdio are hostile, antagonistic
and competitive, are not social and do not con¬
stitute a society. We use the term free society,
for Avant of a better; but, like the term free
government, it is an absurdity: those Avho are
governed are not free—those Avdio are free are
not social.
 CHAPTER II.

FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY AND RISE OF SOCIALISM.

The phenomena presented bj the vassals and

villiens of Europe after their liberation, were the
opposite of those exhibited by the wealthy and
powerful classes. Pauperism and beggary, we are
informed by English historians, were unknown till
the villiens began to escape from their masters,
and attempted to practise a predatory and no¬
madic liberty. A liberty, we should infer from
the descriptions we can get of it, very much like
that of 'domestic animals that have gone wild—
the difference in favor of the animals being that
nature had made provision for them, but had made
none for the villiens. The new freemen were
bands of thieves and beggars, infesting the country
and disturbing its peace. Their physical condi¬
tion was worse than when under the rule of the
Barons, their masters, and their moral condition
worse also, for liberty had made them from ne¬
cessity thieves and murderers. It was necessary
to retain them in slavery, not only to support and
sustain them and to prevent general mendicity,
but equally necessary in order to govern them
and prevent crime. The advocates of universal
 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY, &C. 35

liberty concede that the laboring class enjoy

more material comfort, are better fed, clothed
and housed, as slaves, than as freemen. The sta¬
tistics of crime demonstrate that the moral su¬
periority of the slave over the free laborer is
still greater than his superiority in animal ’well-
being. There never can be among slaves a class
so degraded as is found about the "wharves and
suburbs of cities. The master requires and en¬
forces ordinary morality and industry. We very
much fear, if it 'were possible to indite a faith¬
ful comparison of the conduct and comfort of our
free negroes "with that of the runaway Anglo-
Saxon serfs, that it would be found that the ne¬
groes have fared better and committed much less
crime than the whites. But those days, the 14th
and 15th centuries, were the halcyon days of
vagabond liberty. The few that had escaped from
bondage found a wide field and plenty of sub¬
jects for the practice of theft and mendicity.
There was no law and no police adequate to
restrain them, for until then their masters had
kept them in order better than laws ever can.
But those glorious old times have long since
passed. A bloody code, a standing army and
efficient police keep them quiet enough now.
Their numbers have multiplied a hundred fold,
but their poverty has increased faster than their
numbers. Instead of stealing and begging, and
36 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

living idlyi in the open air, they work fourteen

hours a day, cooped up in close rooms, with foul
air, foul water, and insuificient and filthy food,
and often sleep at night crowded in cellars or
in garrets, without regard to sex.
In proceeding to prove that this is a correct
account of the effects in England of liberating the
laboring class, we are at much difficulty how to se¬
lect from the mass of testimony that at every turn
presents itself to us. We are not aware that any
one disputes the fact that crime and pauperism
throughout Western Europe increased imri passu
with liberty, equality and free competition. We
know of but a single respectable authority that
disputes the fact that this increase is directly at¬
tributable to free competition or libertjn Even the
Edinburgh Review, hitherto the great champion
of political economy and free competition, has
been silent on the subject for several years. With
strange inconsistency, the very men who assert
that universal liberty has, and must ever, from
the nature of things, increase crime, mendicity
and pauperism among the laboring class, main¬
tain that slavery degrades this very class whom
it preserves from poverty and crime. The ele¬
vation of the scaffold is the only moral or physi¬
cal elevation that they can point to which dis¬
tinguishes the condition of the free laborer from
his servile ancestor. The peasantry of England,
 AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 37

in the days of Cressey, Agincourt and Shrews-

Dury, "when feudalism prevailed, were generally
brave, virtuous, and in the enjoyment of a high
degree of physical comfort—at least, that com¬
fort differed very little from that of their lords
and masters. This same peasantry, when Charles
Edward with three thousand Highlanders invaded
England, had become freemen and cowards. Starv¬
ing Frenchmen will at least fight, but starving
Chartists only bluster. How slavery could de¬
grade men lower than universal liberty has done
it is hard to conceive; how it did and would
again preserve them from such degradation, is well
explained by those who are loudest in its abuse.
A consciousness of security, a full comprehen¬
sion of his position, and a confidence in that po¬
sition, and the absence of all corroding cares and
anxieties, makes the slave easy and self-assured
in his address, cheerful, happy and contented,
free from jealousy, malignity, and envy, and at
peace with all around him. Ilis attachment to
his master begets the sentiment of loyalty, than
which none more purifies and elevates human na¬
ture. This theory of the moral influences of
slavery is suggested and in part borrowed from
Alexandre Dumas’ ‘‘French Milliner.” He, de¬
scended from a negro slave, and we may pre¬
sume prejudiced against slavery, speaks in glow¬
ing terms of its happy influence on the lives and
38 FAILURE OF FRv

manners of the Russian serfs. He draws a con

trast between their cheerfulness and the wretch¬
edness of the French laboring class, and attri¬
butes solely to the feeling of security which
slavery induces, their enviable cheerfulness.
The free laborer rarely has a house and home
of his own; he is insecure of employment; sick-
hess may overtake him at any time and deprive
him of the means of support; old age is certain
to overtake him, if he lives, and generally finds
him wdthout the means of subsistence ; his family
is probably increasing in numbers, and is help¬
less and burdensome to him. In all this there
is little to incite to virtue, much to tempt to
crime, nothing to afford happiness, but quite
enough to inflict misery. Man must be more
than human, to acquire a pure and a high mo¬
rality under such circumstances.
In free society the sentiments, principles, feel¬
ings and affections of high and low. rich and
poor, are equally blunted and debased by the
continual war of competition. It begets rival¬
ries, jealousies and hatreds on all hands. The
poor can neither love nor respect the rich, who,
instead of aiding and protecting them, are en¬
deavoring to cheapen their labor and take aw’ay
their means of subsistence. The rich can hardly
respect themselves, when they reflect that wealth
is the result of avarice, caution, circumspection
 AND KISE OF SOCIALISM. 39

evnd hard dealing. , These are the virtues which

free society iu Us regular operation brings forth.
Its moral inhijence is therefore no better on the
rich than on the poor. The number of laborers
being excessive in all old countries, they are con¬
tinually struggling with, scandalizing and under¬
bidding each other, to get places and employ¬
ment. Every circumstance in the poor man’s sit¬
uation in free society is one of harassing care,
of grievous temptation, and of excitement to an¬
ger, envy, jealousy and malignity. That so many
of the poor should nevertheless be good and pure,
kind, happy and high-minded, is proof enough
that the poor class is not the worst class in so¬
ciety. But the rich have their temptations, too.
Capital gives them the power to oppress; selfish¬
ness offers the inducement, and political economy,
the moral guide of the day, would justify the
oppression. Yet there are thousands of noble
and generous and disinterested men in free so-^
ciety, who employ their wealth to relieve, and not
to oppress the poor. Still these are exceptions
to the general rule. The effect of such society
is to encourage the oppression of the poor.
The ink was hardly dry with which Adam Smith
wrote his Wealth of Nations, lauding the benign
influences of free society, ere the hunger and
want and nakedness of that society engendered a
revolutionary explosion that shook the world to
40 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

its centre. The starving arfisans and luborerf,

and fish-women and needle-women of Paris, \vere
the authors of the first French revolution, and
that revolution was everywhere welcomed, and
spread from nation to nation like fire in the
prairies. The French armies met with but a for¬
mal opposition, until they readied Kussia. There,
men had homes and houses and a country to fight
for. The serfs of Russia, the undisciplined Cos¬
sacks, fought for lares and penates, their homes,
their country, and their God, and annihilated an
army more numerous than that of Xerxes, and
braver and better appointed than the tenth legion
of Caesar. What should Western European poor
men fight for ? All the world was the same to
them. They had been set free to starve, with¬
out a place to rest their dying heads or to inter
their dead bodies. Any change they thought
would be for the better and hailed Buonaparte
as a deliverer. But the nature of the evil was
not understood; there were some remnants of feu¬
dalism, some vigor in the Catholic church ; these
Buonaparte swept away, and left the poor with¬
out a stay or a hope. Buonaparte is conquered
and banished, universal peace restored; commerce,
mechanic arts, manufactures and agriculture re¬
vive and flourish ; invention is stimulated, indus¬
try urged on to its utmost exertion. Never
seemed the world so prosperous, so happy, so
 AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 41

progressive. But only seemed! Those awful sta¬

tistics unfold the sad tale that misery and crime
and poverty are on the increase still. The pris¬
ons are filled, the poor houses and the penal
colonies supplied too fast, and the gallows ever
pendant with its subject. In 1830, Paris starves
again, builds barricades, continues hungry, and
hesitates what next to do. Finally sets up a
new king, no better than the one she has ex¬
pelled. Revolution follows revolution with elec¬
tric speed throughout great part of Western Eu¬
rope. Kings are deposed, governments changed;
soon new kings put in their places, and things
subside—not quietly—into the status quo ante
helium. All this, while millions of the poor are
fleeing from Europe as men fly from an infected
plague spot, to seek their fortunes in other climes
and regions. Another eighteen years of hunger,
of crime, of riots, strikes, and trades unions,
passes over free society. In 1848 the drama of
1830 is almost literally re-enacted. Again Paris
starves, builds barricades, and expels her king.
Again Western Europe follows her example. By
this time, however, men had discovered that po¬
litical changes would not cure the diseases of
society. The poor must have bread; government
must furnish it. Liberty without bread was not
worth fighting for. A Republic is set up in
Paris that promises employment and good wages
42 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

to every body. The experiment is tried and fails

in a week. No employment, except transplant¬
ing trees and levelling mounds, could be found,
and the treasury breaks. After struggling and
blundering and staggering on through various
changes, Louis Napoleon is made Emperor. He
is a socialist, and socialism is the new fashion¬
able name of slavery. He understands the dis¬
ease of society, and has nerve enough for any
surgical operation that may be required to cure
it. His first step in socialism was to take the
money of the rich to buy wheat for all. ’ The
measure was well-timed, necessary and just. He
is now building houses on the social plan for
working men, and his Queen is providing nurse¬
ries and nurses for the children of the working
women, just as we Southerners do for our negro
women and children. It is a great economy.
Fourier suggested it long after Southerners had
practiced it. During these times there was a
little episode in Ireland—Ireland, the freest coun¬
try in the world, where law is violated every
day, mocked at and derided, whence the rich
and the noble have emigrated, where all are poor,
all equal, and all idle. A few thousands only
had usually starved annually; but the potatoe
crop failed; they had no feudal lords to buy
other food for them, and three hundred thou¬
sand starved in a single season. No slave or
 AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 43

serf ever did starve, unless he were a runaway.

Irishmen, although they love liberty to distrac¬
tion, have lost their taste for starving. They are
coming en masse to America, and in a few years,
at the present rate of emigration, will leave the
island without inhabitants. The great and in¬
creasing emigration from free society in Europe
can only be accounted for on the ground that
they believe their social system so rotten that
no mere political change can help them—for a
political revolution can be had on twenty-four
hours’ notice.
The- Chartists and Radicals of England would
in some way subvert and re-construct society.
They complain of free competition as a crying
evil, and may be classed with the Socialists. The
high conservative party called Young England
vainly endeavors, by preaching fine sentiments, to
produce that good feeling between the rich and
the poor, the w'eak and the powerful, which slavery
alone can bring about. Liberty places those classes
in positions of antagonism and war. Slavery iden¬
tifies the interests of rich and poor, master and
slave, and begets domestic affection on the on5
side, and loyalty and respect on the other. Young
England sees clearly enough the character of the
disease, but is not bold enough to propose an
adequate remedy. The poor themselves are all
practical Socialists, and in some degree pro-slavery
44 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

men. They unite in strikes and trades unions,

and thus exchange a part of their liberties in
order to secure high and uniform wages. The
exchange is a prudent and sensible one; but they
who have bartered off liberty, are fast verging
towards slavery. Slavery to an association is not
always better than slavery to a single master.
The professed object is to avoid ruinous under¬
bidding and competition with one another; but
this competition can never cease whilst liberty
lasts. Those who wish to be free must take lib¬
erty with this inseparable burden. Odd-Fellows’
societies, temperance societies, and all other soci-
ties that provide for sick and unfortunate mem¬
bers, are instances of Socialism. The muse in
England for many years has been busy in com¬
posing dissonant laborer songs, bewailing the hard¬
ships, penury and sufferings of the poor, and in¬
dignantly rebuking the cruelty and injustice of
their hard-hearted and close-fisted employers.
Dickens and Bulwer denounce the frame-work of
society quite as loudly as Carlyle and Newman;
the two latter of whom propose slavery as a remedy
for existing evils. A large portion of the clergy
arc professed Socialists, and there is scarcely a
literary man in England who is not ready to pro¬
pose radical and organic changes in her social
svstem. Germanv is full of Communists; social
discontent is universal, and her people arc leaving
 AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 45

en masse for America—hopeless of any ameliora¬

tion at home for the future. Strange to tell, in
the free States of America too, Socialism and
every other heresy that can be invoked tc make
war on existing institutions, prevail to an alarming
extent. Even according to our own theory of
the necessity of slavery, we should not suppose
that .that necessity would he so soon felt in a
new and sparsely-settled country, where the supply
of labor does not exceed the demand. But it ‘is
probable the constant arrival of emigrants makes
the situation of the laborer at the North as pre¬
carious as in Europe, and produces a desire for
some change that shall secure him employment
and support at all times. Slavery alone can effect
that change ; and towards slavery the North and
all Western Europe are unconsciously marching.
The master evil they all complain of is free
competition—which is another name for liberty.
Let them remove that evil, and they will find
themselves slaves, with all the advantages and
disadvantages of slavery. They will have attained
association of labor, for slavery produces asso¬
ciation of labor, and is one of the ends all Com¬
munists and Socialists desire. A well-conducted
farm in the South is a model of associated labor
that Fourier might envy. One old woman nurses
all, the children whilst the mothers are at work ;
another waits on the sick, in a house set aside
4G FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

for them. Another waslies and cooks, and a

fourth makes and mends the clothing. It is a
great economy of labor, and is a good idea of
the Socialists. Slavery protects the infants, the
aged and the sick; nay, takes far better care of
them than of the healthy, the middle-aged and the
strong. They are part of the family, and self-
interest and domestic aftection combine to shelter,
shield and foster them. A man loves not only
hes horses and his cattle, which are useful to him,
but he loves his dog, Avhich is of no use. He
loves them because they are his. IVhat a wise
and beneficent provision of Heaven, that makes
the selfishness of man’s nature a protecting mgis
to shield and defend wife and children, slaves and
even dumb animals. The Socialists propose to
reach this result too, but they never can if they
refuse to march in the only road Providence has
pointed out. Who will check, govern and control
their superintending authority ? Who prevent his
abuse of power ? AVho can make him kind, tender
and affectionate, to the poor, aged, lielpless, sick
and unfortunate ? Qiii custodiat custodes ? Na¬
ture establishes the only safe and reliable checks
*

and balances in government. Alton Locke de-

scribes an English farm, where the cattle, the
horses and the sheep are fat, plentifully fed and
Avarmly housed ; the game in the preserves and
the fish in the poml carefully provided for ; and
 AND RISE or SOCIALISM. 47

two freezing, shivering, starving, half-clad boys,

who have to work on the Sabbath, are the slaves
to tliesc animals, and are vainly endeavoring to
prepare their food. Now it must have occurred
to the author that if the boys had belonged to the
owner of the farm, they too would have been
well-treated, happy and contented. This farm is
but a miniature of all England ; every animal is
well-treated and provided for, except the laboring
man. He is the slave of the brutes, the slave
of society, produces everything and enjoys no¬
thing. Make him the slave of one man, instead
of the slave of society, and he Avould be far better
olf. None but lawyers and historians arc aware
how much of truth, justice and good sense, there
is in the notions of the Communists, as to the
community of property. Laying no stress on the
too abstract proposition that Providence gave the
world not to one man, or set of men, but to all
mankind, it is a fact that all governments, in
civilized countries, recognize the obligation to
support the poor, and thus, in some degree, make
all property a common possession. The poor laws
and poor houses of England are founded on com¬
munistic principles. Each parish is compelled to
support its own poor. In Ireland, this obligation
weighs so heavily as in many instances to make
farms valueless; the poor rates exceeding the
rents. But it is domestic slavery alone that can
48 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY

establisli a safe, efficient and humane community

of property. It did so in ancient times, it did
so in feudal times, and does so now, in Eastern
Europe, Asia and America. Slaves never die of
hunger; seldom suffer want. Hence Chinese sell
themselves when they can do no better. A South¬
ern farm is a sort of joint stock concern, or social
phalastery, in which the master furnishes the cap¬
ital and skill, and the slaves the labor, and divide
the profits, not according to each one’s in-put,
but according to each one’s wants and necessities.
Socialism proposes to do away with free com¬
petition ; to afford protection and support at all
times to the laboring class ; to bring about, at
least, a qualified community of property, and to
associate labor. All these purposes, slavery fully
and perfectly attains.
To prove the evil effects, moral, social and eco¬
nomic, of the emancipation of feudal slaves or
villiens, and how those evil effects gave birth to
Socialism, we quote first from the Pictorial His¬
tory of England :
To the period (15th century,) immediately
preceding the present, belongs the origin of Eng¬
lish pauperism, as well as of the legislation on the
subject of the poor. So long as the system of
villiena2;e was maintained in its inte^ritv, there
could be no paupers in the land; that is to say,
no persons left destitute of the means of subsist-
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 Washington, D.C., June 9, 1906.

Mr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress.

Dear Sir: I wish to file with the committee at this time objections to
sections 13, 18, 32, 33, and 34 of the copyright bill. I will indicate
briefly the grounds of my objection and will make further argument on
them at some future time if the committee should desire.

Yours, respectfully,

Charles W. Ames.

Section 13, page 9.—I have always objected to the proposed affidavits
of domestic manufacture. I believe there is no real need for it and that
it imposes an unnecessary burden on the copyright proprietor and the
copyright office. It has been demanded only by the Typographical
Union, which claims to have private reasons for believing that the
requirement of domestic manufacture is being frequently violated by
publishers. The records of the copyright office do not show such
violations, nor have I ever heard of any being shown in the courts. The
publishers generally throughout the country regard this requirement as
an imposition and an outrage—that on the suspicion of the
Typographical Union they should be required to swear that they were
not violating the law whenever they take out copyright. The publishers
would have questioned the propriety of this measure when it was
pending before the last Congress if opportunity had been offered, and
strenuous opposition would have been made to the passage of the bill.

At the first conference last year, the representatives of the Association

of Publishers, in a spirit of conciliation, agreed with the representatives
of the Typographical Union that they would not oppose the
requirement of an affidavit. As a member of that Association of
Publishers. I shall not now oppose the affidavit section as a whole,
which requires me to swear five hundred times a year that I have done
something, failure to do which would have invalidated many thousands
of dollars' worth of copyright property.

But I do object earnestly and emphatically to the final paragraph of

section 13 (lines 21-25, p. 9), requiring the statement in the affidavit
of the particular establishment in which the work has been done. This
fact is wholly irrelevant to the purpose of the affidavit and has no
bearing on the requirements of the copyright law. It is purely a private
business matter. In case the affidavit is challenged (as it would be in
only an infinitesimal proportion of registrations) and proof of domestic
manufacture is required in any action, of course the establishment
would be readily shown. Copyright proprietors should not be required
to disclose it otherwise, satisfying the curiosity of business rivals and
others.

It seems also an unnecessary insult to the publishers to provide special

penalties for false affidavits. Will not the ordinary penalties for the
crime of perjury be sufficient to cover all cases where publishers, in
addition to jeopardizing their property rights by violating the provision
for domestic manufacture, swear falsely in the premises?

I believe that Mr. Sullivan, in behalf of the Typographical Union, stated

at the last conference that the union was not disposed to insist on the
specification of the establishment in the affidavit if it should appear
that this fact was unnecessary and irrelevant to the purpose of the
affidavit. I hope that the union will make no opposition to the
elimination of this provision, which is obnoxious to the publishers. By
so doing they will at least minimize the opposition of the publishers to
the affidavit provision as a whole. There are very many publishers
throughout the country who are not members of the association
referred to, and will not be governed by the agreement made at the
conference.

The date of publication, if given in the affidavit, might serve for

convenience as furnishing an essential fact to be a part of the record
covered by the Librarian's certificate.

Section 18, page 14.—This section relates to the term of copyright. In

fixing the term I think due consideration has never been given to the
fact that a vast majority of copyrights become commercially worthless
after a very few years. Thus the records of the copyright office show
that last year but 2.7 per cent of the copyrights completing their
original term of twenty-eight years were thought by the authors of
sufficient value to renew them for the additional fourteen years under
the comparatively simple provisions of the present law.

It is safe to say that not more than 5 per cent of all the copyrights
have any commercial value after twenty-eight years. It would seem
feasible to provide for the extension of the property rights in these
valuable literary or artistic properties without conferring undeserved or
undesired extensions of term in hundreds of thousands of copyrights
of no pecuniary value to the owners. On the other hand, there is some
intrinsic value to the public in a portion of the copyrighted material
after it has lost all pecuniary value to the author or his assignee.

I believe that the great majority of copyrights should fall into the public
domain at a definite and easily ascertainable time. I hold, therefore,
that the ordinary copyright term should be no longer than the twenty-
eight years as fixed at present. But the few valuable copyrights could
be secured for a much longer term by a simple and easy arrangement
for renewal, as by requiring merely the filing of a notice of the desire
to extend and allowing the author or his heirs to file such notice; or, in
case there has been an outright assignment, permitting the author and
assignee or licensee under royalty to join as provided in section 32 of
the present draft.

Some provision should also be made for the renewal of valuable

proprietary copyrights of the sort enumerated in subsection (b) of
section 18.

Sections 32-33, pages 26-27.—My most serious and strenuous

objections are to this section 32, regarding actions arising under the
copyright law, and especially the second paragraph, providing that
actions may be brought and jurisdiction secured in any district of the
United States where violation of any provision of this act has occurred.
This means that any copyright proprietor or any publisher may be
brought into any district in the United States or every district
simultaneously in the case of many articles sold generally throughout
the country. And it therefore concerns very nearly every person
interested in the copyright law.

Every copyright proprietor may be defendant in a suit as well as

complainant. Suits may be brought in good faith or for malicious
reasons; for the real protection of property or for harassing business
rivals. They may be well founded or groundless, honest or frivolous.
Now, speaking as the proprietor of a large number of copyrights and a
great deal of valuable copyright property which I am anxious to protect
against infringement, I would much prefer to forego the advantages
offered to complainants under this section rather than run the risk of
the infinite vexation which might be caused my company as defendant
in malicious and frivolous suits brought in foreign jurisdictions chiefly
for purposes of blackmail.
I see no good reason why copyright proprietors should have facilities
for the use of the Federal courts not accorded to any other class of
suitors. It is true that certain classes of copyright property may require
special provisions for their protection, but it should be noted that
section 966 of the Revised Statutes is by this bill retained (see sec.
64), and would therefore still protect dramatists and musical people in
the peculiar rights which they now have under the present law.

The penal provisions of this bill are severe and even harsh, including
misdemeanor clauses with fines and forfeitures and even
imprisonment. On the other hand, the law is full of novel provisions. It
will be, at best, years before these can be judicially construed so that
they may be generally understood. Meanwhile, everyone concerned
will find many doubtful points and open questions on which legal
advice will vary, and can in no case be conclusive. To subject authors
and publishers to the danger of being peremptorily summoned to
defend an action in a distant district for some supposed violation of
some provision, "any provision of this act," however insignificant, with
the issuance of ex parte injunctions operative throughout the whole
country, with possible "impounding" of important and valuable
publications for an indefinite period of time (during the pendency of
the suit, see sec. 23, p. 18), a publisher in New York might sue his
neighbor across the street in any distant district, possibly Alaska or the
Philippine Islands; a rich and powerful house might crush a feeble
competitor by forcing him to defend suits brought simultaneously in a
hundred jurisdictions. These possibilities may well terrorize all persons
interested in copyrightable property of any description.

Finally, I say from long experience that it is a mistaken kindness to

make copyright litigation easy. The protection of the copyright law is
chiefly moral. Remedies for actual wrongs committed are in most cases
illusory. A copyright suit should never be brought except for the most
serious reasons and to protect large business interests.

I believe, therefore, that section 32 should be eliminated altogether

from this bill, unless it is thought necessary to retain the first
paragraph; and I suppose section 33 would go with it. If this were
done, perhaps section 4966 of the Revised Statutes should be
incorporated in the new law at this point and reenacted for the sake of
completeness, if the committee thinks that it should be retained.
Section 34, page 28.—The limitation of actions in the present law
applies only to actions for penalties and forfeitures. I do not think it
should be applied, as in this section 34, to all actions; if it should be so
applied the term should be at least six years (which is the rule with
patents, I understand). The statutes should show clearly that the time
runs from the date of the discovery of infringement by the
complainant. In these days of an ever-increasing multitude of
publications, the copyright proprietor should not be required to
examine everything which is issued to see whether his works have
possibly been pirated; nor should he be debarred from seeking a
remedy if knowledge of piracy should come to him long after the
offense has been committed. Unfairness is not always shown on the
face of an infringing work, and direct evidence is often required to
prove this even to the injured proprietor.

[Memorandum by Charles W. Ames.]

June 9, 1906.

As a constant attendant at the last two conferences, I venture to offer

a few words in explanation of two sections of this bill, which, I think,
have been misunderstood by some of the gentlemen who have
appeared before the committee.

Section 3 has been supposed to have some particular reference to and

bearing on now existing copyrights taken under the present law. On
the contrary, I understand this section to be general and permanent in
its character, the purpose of the last three lines being to specifically
protect all copyrighted matter for its proper term and no longer, when
reproduced in whole or in part, under license or otherwise, in
connection with a later copyrighted work. This section is very
important as definitely clearing up for the future a question which has
been frequently raised in connection with the present law.

Section 19, on the other hand, relates merely to now existing

copyrights. It has the laudable purpose of extending the benefits of
the new law to authors of valuable literary and artistic works
copyrighted under the present law. The provisions at the end of the
section are designed to secure such new privileges to the authors
without interfering with the vested rights and investments of their
publishers. After such authors have enjoyed the full forty-two years of
monopoly granted them under existing law, they may secure such
additional term as is to be accorded to authors under the new law; but
if under the contracts which they have already made they have
conferred rights upon their publishers as assignees or licensees, then
they must have the publishers join with them in their request for the
extension.

It is questionable whether, in the absence of such provision, the new

privileges could be lawfully conferred upon authors who have assigned
their rights without impairment of existing contracts. For example,
when an author has sold his copyright altogether, the publisher has
combined with the literary property investment in plates, stock, and
good will, which should not be taken from him at the expiration of the
copyright term. In such cases, he could, under the provisions of the
present section, secure an extension of exclusive rights only with the
help of the author with proper compensation, and the author could
secure extension only by fair consideration of the publisher's rights. If
they fail to agree, they are left just where they expected to be when
they made their contract under the terms of the present law.

As to the licensee for publication under royalty, I see no objection to

the addition of such a provision as was proposed by Mr. Ogilvie, to
protect the author against unfair treatment in respect to future
royalties.

Washington, D.C., June 8, 1906.

The Chairman of the Joint Committee on Patents of the Senate and House of
Representatives.

Sir: At the meeting of the Joint committee held to-day, counsel

representing one of the talking machine companies made a statement
to the effect that Hon. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, in the
preparation of the copyright bill had called into conference only such
interests as he wanted, and with whom he was in league, and
intimated that the Librarian has acted in an unfair manner.

When recess was taken and the gentleman was leaving the building, I
called him aside and emphatically took exception to the remarks
referred to. As one attending but not participating in the last two
conferences held, I think it no more than fair and just and my duty to
express to the joint committee the fact that Mr. Putnam's course
 throughout the conferences was fair, just, and equitable to all interests
represented, and that every interest concerned was invited to present
its views.

The interests were varied and frequently antagonistic, and Mr. Putnam
was decided in his expressions that every representative should be
heard to the fullest and freest extent, and that after the wishes of
those interested was ascertained he was confident an equitable bill
would be the outcome; that while it might not be satisfactory in every
respect to each, yet he felt positive that with the assistance of the
Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, and the cooperation
and counsel of the American Bar Association, and the Bar Association
of the City of New York, no interest or line of industry, whether
represented or not, would be unjustly or unfairly treated. His attitude
in all of the conferences was in the highest degree dignified and
impartial.

To my positive knowledge the trade journals, as well as the

newspapers, contained full information concerning the copyright
conferences and the proposed copyright bill as long ago as February,
1906; yet the gentleman referred to claims that the conferences were
star chamber proceedings for the benefit of selected private interests.
No interested concern could have failed to become acquainted with the
fact that the conferences were being held, and no one seeking
admission was denied opportunity to present his views.

This statement is made solely for the reason that the unjust, unfair,
and undeserved criticism of Mr. Putnam, known to me to be absolutely
true, has stirred my deepest indignation, and I present this protest to
the committee and ask that the reflections upon Mr. Putnam be
stricken from the record.

Sincerely, yours,

Leo Feist.

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. HEDGELAND, ESQ.

The Chairman. Whom do you represent?

Mr. Hedgeland. I represent the Kimball Company.

I wish to state, gentlemen, that three or four days ago I first learned
of the introduction of this measure. I have heard what the advocates
of this bill have said with reference to there being one side to this
question. There are really four sides to this question—the public, the
composer, the manufacturers of the automatic musical instruments,
and the inventors that have made that industry possible.

The bill as drawn practically gives the monopoly of all this capital
that has been invested, the genius that has been displayed and
made this field possible to the composer, to the publisher and
composer, in its entirety. Now, the brains and effort that have made
this market open to the publisher should be recognized in this bill.
The bill should not be a retroactive one, to punish the inventor and
the capitalist for what they have done in the past to provide a field
for the composer.

Mr. Currier. It will not be retroactive.

Mr. Hedgeland. It must be equitable; and as to any rights that are

conveyed in that bill to the publisher or the composer, it must put
these industries on an equal footing. Otherwise it is creating one of
the worst features of trusts that one can conceive of.

In a recent suit it has been claimed that these instruments

discourage education in music. Such is not the case. In a recent test
case it was proven and never contradicted that learning, both vocal
and instrumental, has increased year after year, and that the sale of
these staff notation copies has been increased rather than
diminished by the automatic musical instruments. Now, those things
all being taken into consideration, I think this industry deserves very
careful equitable consideration on your part.

I have had no time to prepare the different phases of this matter,

and would like, if the committee will give me permission, to file a
short brief from the manufacturers' and inventors' standpoint.

The Chairman. You may have that privilege.

Mr. Hedgeland. With that, gentlemen, I will not take any more of your
time.

To the joint committee of the Senate and House:

In obedience to the privilege extended me on my short address June 9

by your honorable committee I now file the following brief:

There are, without question, four vital interests involved in the

copyright legislation now before your committee, as applying to
mechanical reproductions of musical compositions, as set forth
specifically in section 1, paragraph (g), and section 38; this bill, H.R.
19853, also bristles in many sections with conditions that might easily
be construed as applying to mechanical industry, and calls for careful
analytical legal investigation.

The interests of equity involved are: The inventor; the composer; the
manufacturer of automatic instruments and their controllers; the
public. I shall take up the equities in the order named.

The inventor.—Being an inventor, and the majority of my inventions

being on automatic musical instruments and devices for making the
controllers (which patents largely outnumber any contributed by any
other individual to this art), I am well fitted to state the part these
devices have taken in the advancement of music. Automatic musical
instruments date back six decades or over. The barrel organ, with its
cylinder and pins, was used to accompany divine worship in English
churches before pianos adorned the homes of the congregation, and
they have been constantly manufactured up to the present time, and
are known now as orchestrions. Twenty-three years ago, at the
inventions exhibition held in London, England, automatic reed organs
(Æolians) were exhibited by the Mechanical Organette Company, of
New York, and, mechanically, I had charge of the instruments on
exhibition. There were also exhibited piano players of French and
German manufacture and the Miranda pianista, an English pneumatic
player. Both Æolians and piano players have constantly been
manufactured up to the present time, inventive genius constantly
laboring for perfection in operation, ease of operation, and reduction of
cost to place them in reach of the masses. It is a fact beyond dispute
that barrel organs are as old as or older than pianos or reed organs.

I have labored twenty-three years in this industry and contributed

between thirty and forty patents to the automatic-instrument industry,
and have invented and patented machines that would record on
controllers for automatic musical instruments the conceptions of
pianists and authors, when played on an instrument by them, and I
have yet to acquire a competency for my labors. The inventor's labors
are always discounted by the following conditions:

First. Capital and machinery to market and manufacture the invention.

Second. State of the prior art as brought out in the Patent Office
search.

Third. The liability of infringement and the slow and tedious and
expensive process of stopping it, taking testimony from Maine to
California, etc. I have a case of flagrant infringement which was
prosecuted four years ago and has not yet been adjudged by the
circuit court—as is usual in such cases, temporary injunction being
denied, which the composer or author could and does readily obtain.

The composer.—The composer or author of musical compositions

rarely, if ever, follows composing or copyrighting alone as the means of
making a livelihood. In all my experience I can not recall a single
instance where this has been the case. With practically no exceptions,
the composers of musical compositions are engaged in various other
walks of life, and this line of work is more or less incidental to the
occupations they follow. As an illustration I will name a few of them:
Band masters, professional pianists, organists, choir leaders, teachers
of music, piano salesmen, music salesmen, and many other callings.
The amount of time or application spent in framing musical
compositions is oftentimes but a few hours and in the majority of
cases in otherwise idle hours. For instance, the testimony of George
Schleiffarth, given under oath, which appears later in this brief. He
states: "I have composed 1,500 pieces in thirty-seven years and have
netted only $5,000 for these thirty-odd years." This is an average
earning of $3.33 for each piece he copyrighted, or a yearly income
during these thirty-seven years of $135 per year from his copyrights. It
is patent to anyone that he did not procure his livelihood by this
means. This is not an exceptional case, but rather a fair average of
them.
I do not believe a single case can be produced where a musical
composer has earned a livelihood by his compositions alone. This is a
very different case with the author of a book with whom the composer
shares like privileges under the copyright act. In the majority of cases
the author follows writing as his only means of livelihood. This class of
work occupies a great deal of time, expense, travel, and study of the
subjects forming the foundation of his work. The composers rarely
treat their compositions as a serious business proposition, but rather
as a side issue of net gain on what they realize from them. The
publishers of the country are banded and organized together for
mutual protection and enrichment to profit by this condition at the
expense of the composer, the policy to fight royalties in favor of
outright purchases for nominal amounts being general.

The manufacturer of automatic musical instruments and their

controllers.—The equitable interest of the automatic instrument
manufacturer consists really of two classes, namely, their rights as
legitimate manufacturers to a self-made industry; and the part they
have taken in the musical education of mankind, and the right they
have to continue uninterrupted in an industry and art in which they
have been so potent a factor, without molestation.

First. All manufacturers of automatic musical instruments or their

controllers have vast interests involved. Capital and time have been
heavily spent in creating an honest, legitimate and, beyond question,
legal business. They have acquired patent rights, built at large expense
special machinery to make a more perfect and less costly product. In
short, have exercised and exhibited the same ambition and enterprise
that is put into any business where price and merit is the determining
factor of success.

Second. The manufacturer of self-playing instruments has done much

to extend and create cultivated musical taste in the community.

This has at no time been at the expense of the composer, but, to the
contrary, has increased not only the sale of sheet music but has not
diminished the study of music, as the following witnesses testified
under oath in the recent copyright case: White Smith Music Publishing
Company v. Apollo Company, which testimony was never rebutted or
disputed as to fact.

Mr. George Schleiffarth, witness called on behalf of defendant, being

duly sworn, testified as follows:
"I have been writing music for thirty-seven years. I have written about
fifteen hundred copyrighted compositions, several comic operas, and
innumerable musical sketches of all sorts. I have also published some
music personally and have now compositions with nearly all the
leading publishers in the United States. My best-known compositions
are 'Doris,' 'Ambolena Snow,' 'Douglas Club Two-step,' 'Who Will Buy
My Roses Red?' and the comic opera 'Rosita,' which has been playing
for about twelve years, * * * and as the composer is anxious to be
known, I have often asked my publishers to allow the reproduction of
my compositions on graphophones and self-playing devices.

"Q. 5. Is it your actual observation that the demand for the sheet
music is created and stimulated so that the sale thereof is increased by
having the musical compositions played by the piano players and other
self-playing instruments, and that the cutting of the perforated rolls for
a given musical composition and the selling of such rolls with and for
the piano players does increase the demand for the sheet music?—A.
As I am not in the sheet business on such a scale that I could judge to
what extent it has increased, I still claim, from knowing the amount of
music sold in the United States to-day, especially in the popular
composition line, it is stimulated by all self-playing devices. For
example, I would sit at a piano player and play a catchy melody; six or
eight people standing around me will immediately ask—or some of
them will—'What is this tune you are playing?' and I know from
personal knowledge that many copies, especially of my own
compositions, which are cut for self-players, have been bought in
sheet-music form on account of my playing them on the machine.

"Redirect:

"Q. 22. I inferred from your statements in that regard that you
received usually what you regard as very small compensation or price
for a great many of your compositions thus sold. Will you give some
instances of this sort, illustrating the disparity between the price you
received and the popularity, in sales, of the pieces respectively?—A. My
first great success, 'Careless Elegance," which I published on royalty
twenty-eight years ago, and which is still selling to-day, netted me $11.
My great song, 'Who Will Buy My Roses Red?' which sold 100,000
copies, netted me $83. My great composition, 'The World's Exposition
March,' $5. 'The Cadet Two-step' (50,000 copies sold), $4. And so I
may go on ad infinitum. Out of 1,500 compositions I have probably
earned $5,000."
"Peter C. Lutkin, witness called on behalf of the defendant, being duly
sworn, testified as follows:

"Q. 4. Have you in mind the rate of growth in respect to pupils in

attendance in the school of music for which you are dean, for five or
six years back; and if so, will you kindly give us the facts in general?—
A. I have the statistics for the past five years. The attendance in the
school of music for the year 1898-99 was 248; for the next year, 297;
the next, 348; for the next, 366; for the present year, 460. The figures
for the present year are an underestimate rather than an overestimate,
as the year is not yet closed; actual number is 453 to date, but will
probably run to 475.

"No cross examination."

"Julius W. Peters, a witness called on behalf of the defendant company,

being sworn, deposes and testifies as follows:

"Direct examination by Mr. Burton:

"Q. 1. Please state your name, age, residence, and occupation.—A.

Julius W. Peters; age, 45; residence, 4465 Oakenwald avenue, Chicago,
Ill.; bookkeeper for Chicago Musical College.

"Q. 2. In your capacity of such bookkeeper, have you been intrusted

with the keeping of the attendance of that institution?—A. I have.

"Q. 3. Will you please state what those records show as to the rate of
growth of the attendance of pupils at that institution during recent
years, giving, if you can do so, the rate from year to year, down to the
current year?—A. I have taken this report from the year 1896-97, and
our years run from September to September, The increase from 1896-
97 to 1897-98 over the preceding year was 9.6 per cent, in the
following year 10 per cent, in the next year 10 per cent, in the next
23¾ per cent, and in the next year 12.9 per cent.

"Q. 4. Can you give, from the indications so far in this year, the
approximate rate of increase?—A. I should say it would be at least as
much as last year, which was approximately 13 per cent.
"Q. 5. What is the total increase in attendance from the first year of
which you have stated the figures, to the present time?—A. 75.3 per
cent; that is, up to September, 1902.

"No cross-examination."

"Mr. William McKinley, a witness called on behalf of defendant, being

duly sworn, deposes and testifies as follows:

"Direct examination by Mr. Burton:

"Q. 1. Please state your name, age, residence, and occupation.—A.

William McKinley; 41; 3306 Indiana avenue, Chicago, Ill.; music
publisher.

"Q. 6. During the period, say, for the past three years, during which
the manufacture and sale of these automatic players has been most
rapidly increasing, what has been the fact with regard to the sales of
sheet music, as to growth or diminution?—A. My business has greatly
increased.

"Q. 7. If you have made any examination with regard to the

compositions which have been cut in perforated rolls and used in
automatic players by the different companies making such players, as
to the sales which have been made of these pieces in sheet-music
form during the period, say of the last three or four years, or since the
time when they were cut in perforated rolls, will you state how the
sales of such pieces have run? Have they increased or decreased
during those years?—A. My business has very greatly increased in
certain pieces that I know are issued in the form of a perforated roll.

"Q. 8. Have you in mind—if so, you may state as near as you recall—
the rate of increase of any number of those which you have looked up
and remember, giving their titles, if you recall them; and, if not, in
general?—A. The sales of some of the pieces have doubled within the
last two years—double what they were for the four years previous. I
have traced up about 20 pieces of that sort to get these figures from
which I stated the comparison above. I know when I desire to get new
music for my family I call on the operator or performer of some of the
stores that handle the music rolls. They often give me a list of the
pieces. I usually purchase that. I have a list in my pocket of perhaps at
least 20 pieces that I have been recommended to purchase. They have
been recommended to me by one of the young men who has charge
of that department—music rolls—in one of the stores; pieces I had
never heard before.

"Q. 9. I understand you mean by your last statement that the pieces
that you are recommended to purchase are so recommended by
persons who have opportunity to hear them played by means of the
perforated rolls?—A. Yes, sir.

"No cross-examination."

"Walter Lutz, witness, called on behalf of defendant, being duly sworn,

deposes and testifies as follows:

"Direct examination by Mr. Burton:

"Q. 1. Please state your name, age, residence, and occupation.—A.

Walter Lutz; 29 years; 902 North Halstead street, Chicago, Ill.;
salesman with H. B. McCoy in the music business, Chicago.

"Q. 2. How long have you been employed as music salesman?—A.

Sixteen years.

"Q. 3. From your experience as a salesman of sheet music, have you

had any opportunity or occasion to judge what effect, if any, the
introduction and increasing use of the piano players and other
automatic instruments of this class has upon the demand for and sale
of the sheet music of the same compositions?—A. Yes; I have had
people come in the store and ask for music which they had heard from
the various players.

"No cross-examination."

I wish to call the committee's attention to the fact that the above
testimony was taken to prove the opinions expressed by two witnesses
for the plaintiffs were in error when they stated as their opinion that
the mechanical player was detrimental to the sale of sheet music. Note
the lawyers for the White Smith Music Publishing Company did not
dispute the facts by not cross-examining these witnesses. The plaintiff
is a big music publishing house and influential members of the Music
Publishers' Association, with all the evidence and aid their association
could lend, could not and did not attack these undisputable facts. It is
a coincident worthy of your close attention that W. M. Bacon, a partner
in the plaintiff's firm in this case and also of the copyright committee
of the Music Publishers' Association, who was leader of the prosecuting
forces and signally failed to prove that this industry did other than to
improve the sale of music, now comes to your committee with a
copyright measure framed by his associate on the copyright committee
of his association.

Mr. G. W. Furniss, who is chairman, presented it and had it drafted in

at the first conference, at which they both were present, and they
were at every other conference to guard their conspiracy; conspiracy I
say, because Mr. Bacon's firm has a contract (and his lawyers had to so
stipulate), identical to the contract filed with your committee, between
a publisher and the Æolian Company. Read the contract; they have
conspired against the composer and against the public for an undue
personal gain, grafted what they wanted in their copyright measure,
and now come to you gentlemen with it under the guise that the
composer is being robbed of his dues by automatic devices. I submit it
is a prima facie case of the principals to this contract not only planning
to sweat the composer, but to hold up the public. It is a conspiracy in
which the copyright office has aided them, possibly innocently, and
they have asked your assistance, the public funds paying the
expenses, the same public they want to get under their grasp. I can
prove every word of this at any time. Is it not time Uncle Sam should
arouse?

The public.—The public side of this question is an important one. They

have purchased in good faith instruments and self-playing devices and
invested their money on the reasonable assurance of being able to
continue undisturbed in these rights, and, by their patronage, have
helped develop one of the foremost industries of this country and must
be permitted to continue to buy controllers from the different
manufacturers of their instruments. The public's spending power in this
industry, being the foundation of this great and prosperous industry
and the foundation on which compensation is now sought by copyright
legislation for the composer, it is obvious that it must not be impaired
at this late date by any measure calculated to give either the composer
or his publishers legislation that will place either of them in a position
to dominate this extensive industry and interests, and the public.
 PERTINENT POINTS OF FACT.

This bill, H.R. 19853, as presented, is an iniquitous measure, framed

not by the "poor composer" nor by the public interested, but by
banded, bonded interests, which have conspired together for special
privileges and greed and have had the audacity to submit it to
Congress for its seal of approval. There is no secret now about this.
The Librarian's records show, as also his admissions, that the interests
I have enumerated in this brief were never notified of intended
proceedings and never invited, although these uninvited interests are
the very ones bartered in in the bill. The conferees at the conference
consisted of the Book Publishers' Association, the Music Publishers'
Association, etc. The two mentioned could hardly represent the
authors and composers. Have they any credentials to this effect? The
facts are, they represent copyrights they own and for which they seek
further favorable concessions, out of which the exploited beneficiaries,
the composers, would get nothing.

It had been maintained that mechanical players tend to discourage

learning and reduce the sale of copyright music, but all the evidence
taken on this subject proves the contrary is the case, and it was never
questioned, even by counsel representing the publishers, who now
seek special privileges. The publishers can not prove that they have
paid an average of 1 per cent on copyright music they have published,
nor the composers that they have earned an average of 1 per cent on
their copyrights, in an industrial field of their own, yet they ask
legislation giving them a dominating interest in an industry that other
brains and money have created. Any amendment to this measure
placing all interests on an equitable footing will be fought by its
advocates, showing their corrupt intentions. This industry has been
hampered for past years by threats of the mentioned combinations,
and Congress in any new bill should clearly define whether this
mechanical matter is or is not included in the amendment. To end this
matter once and for all, I am in favor of giving the composers (not the
proprietor or owner of a copyright) the specific right to copyright his
composition as applied to mechanical reproductions, and to collect
reasonable royalties from manufacturers who may wish to use it,
leaving it to a court of equity to determine what a reasonable equity
would be, if such a measure is considered advisable. I should urge
that, as this provision will apply solely to mechanical reproductions and
receive its benefits therefrom, the term of this copyright should, in all
equity, take the life of a patent with which it associates.
 The following parallel ethical equities with the case of the composer
might well be considered by the committee:

The architect, the man of brains, who conceives a wonderful

conception of a piece of architecture or arrangement of a building, how
can he prevent anyone else from duplicating this result or building it,
which is the creation of his conception and work? A man discovers a
treatment for some disease; others use it and apply it. A surgeon
discovers a new form of operation; the others use it. A business man,
by dint of his brain, figures out a great system for running his
business, which makes it immensely profitable; his fellow-beings adopt
it and don't pay him a cent. There are hundreds of parallel cases.
Gentlemen, if it had not been for this gigantic conspiracy you would
not have heard of the composer's woes.

This amendment has been fathered throughout by publishers,

associations, and rings. They have exploited the composers' interests
when they do not represent them, but, instead, their own selfish
interests, which have been safeguarded in advance by contract.

Any legislation in favor of the oppressed composer should be so

worded and framed as to not place him any further under the power of
these combinations.

I shall be pleased, at any time, to prove to your honorable committee

any statements made in this brief.

F. W. Hedgeland,
Representing Inventors,
Manufacturers, Composers, and the
Public, 1535 West Monroe street,
Chicago, Ill.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES S. BURTON, ESQ., OF CHICAGO, ILL.

The Chairman. Whom do you represent?

Mr. Burton. I speak for the manufacturers of the perforated rolls and
automatic instruments.
The Chairman. How much time do you wish?

Mr. Burton. I do not know how much time the committee has at its
disposal nor what has transpired. It may appear that some of the
points on which I wish to speak have already been handled, and if I
am informed of that as I touch them I will not take up further time
with them. As I say, I speak for the manufacturers of perforated rolls
and automatic instruments.

The Chairman. We have had several speakers on that subject.

Mr. Burton. I understand that some points have been presented.

The Chairman. Perhaps it would answer your purpose to be permitted

to see what they have said and supply in writing any additions you
may desire to make.

Mr. Burton. I should be very glad to do so. I have been obliged to

come here on the shortest possible notice. I left my desk with my
mail half opened and jumped for a train upon a telegraphic request
to be here, and have only had that much time to determine just the
form in which I would like to present what I have to say. But I could
give you in ten minutes, probably, the results which, it seems to me,
the bill should accomplish, and if I touch on points that have already
been discussed it will not be necessary to speak further on them.

The Chairman. You may have ten minutes.

Mr. Burton. But I would like to take advantage of the permission to

file a full brief, giving my suggestions in detail as to the changes
which, it seems to me, ought to be made in the bill.

Mr. Chaney. Of course we want that, Mr. Burton. We think that will be
more valuable to the committee than a speech.

Mr. Burton. That is what I wanted to present, and if I had had time I
should have been glad to have brought it in that form here.
I want to say first that it seems to me that while the bill follows the
previous statutes in general in respect to copyrights, in the point I
am going to speak of it ought to be amended. The practice in
respect of patents is that the inventor shall verify his inventorship;
he shall make oath that he believes himself to be the inventor, and
any rights that pass to an assignee of the inventor must pass by an
instrument which can be placed of record, signed by the inventor.
But on the contrary, in the case of copyrights, in order to obtain a
copyright the person claiming as the proprietor has merely to come
in and make the claim as proprietor. He does not even have to verify
that; and thereupon this bill expressly provides that he has a prima
facie title to the copyright thus obtained.

It seems to me that that opens the door, as it always has—there is

nothing new in this bill in that respect—to a large amount of fraud
upon the author or whoever is the one in whom the right originates.
I think, therefore, that when the bill is made up it should require the
author to verify his authorship. The bill should provide that the
application for registration should be accompanied by an affidavit of
authorship, and if application is made on behalf of an assignee as
proprietor there should be an instrument conveying the right from
the person who originates it, namely, the author, accompanying the
petition. It seems to me that no hardship can arise from requiring
this of an author and the assignee of an author, as it is required of
an inventor and the assignee of an inventor.

The bill provides that there shall be a very careful prima facie case
made by affidavit as to the printing and preparation of the
mechanical material for publication in order to come within the
statute. All that must be verified, but the fundamental authorship
requisite goes upon a mere assertion, without even the verification
of an oath of the party claiming. A change should be made in that
respect.
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