s, which if successful will
entitle this body to the gratitude and respect of the country. I refer to
the speedy revision of our confused and wholly inadequate American
copyright laws, and later on to a readjustment of our international
relations.

In the first place let me bring to your attention what is, to the vast
body of authors, a subject of vital interest, which it is not too much to
say has never received that treatment from authors themselves which its
importance demands. I refer to the property of authors in their
productions. In this brief space and time I cannot enter fully upon this
great subject, but must be content to offer certain suggestions for your
consideration.

The property of an author in the product of his mental labor ought to be
as absolute and unlimited as his property in the product of his physical
labor. It seems to me idle to say that the two kinds of labor products
are so dissimilar that the ownership cannot be protected by like laws. In
this age of enlightenment such a proposition is absurd. The history of
copyright law seems to show that the treatment of property in brain
product has been based on this erroneous idea. To steal the paper on
which an author has put his brain work into visible, tangible form is in
all lands a crime, larceny, but to steal the brain work is not a crime.
The utmost extent to which our enlightened American legislators, at
almost the end of the nineteenth century, have gone in protecting
products of the brain has been to give the author power to sue in civil
courts, at large expense, the offender who has taken and sold his
property.

And what gross absurdity is the copyright law which limits even this poor
defense of author's property to a brief term of years, after the
expiration of which he or his children and heirs have no defense, no
recognized property whatever in his products.

And for some inexplicable reason this term of years in which he may be
said to own his property is divided into two terms, so that at the end of
the first he is compelled to re-assert his ownership by renewing his
copyright, or he must lose all ownership at the end of the short term.

It is manifest to all honest minds that if an author is entitled to own
his work for a term of years, it is equally the duty of his government to
make that ownership perpetual. He can own and protect and leave to his
children and his children's children by will the manuscript paper on
which he ha