tion given to such of the participants in the week's work as had at that time reached the city. The reception began with the usual introductions and handshakings, and ended with a few speeches of welcome by representatives of the World's Congress Auxiliary, followed by responses from some of the more distinguished guests. Under the latter category come the remarks made by Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, Mr. George W. Cable, Mr. Walter Besant, and Dr. Max Richter. In the course of Mr. Warner's remarks, a tribute was paid to the beauties of the World's Fair, and the speaker concluded with these words:
"I fear all the time that the Fair will disappear, and, as I say, I grudge every moment spent away from it, for it will go, like everything else that we have created by hand. And when it has gone these poor scribblers who have not money enough to create it and many of them not imagination enough to put it into poetry or into romance even—because I don't know anybody, except St. John in the Apocalypse, who has hit it off at all so far—these poor scribblers will have to take up the task of perpetuating this creation of beauty and of splendor, and the next generation that wanders about Lake Michigan looking at the ruins of Chicago—the distant generation, of course—will have to depend upon some wandering bard—who even then won't be half paid, I dare say—for the remembrance, for the description of the great achievement of this city of Chicago in 1893."
Mr. Gilder, in a few well-chosen words, contrasted the literary art with the arts of form and color, pointing out that the very subtlety of the former makes its discussion difficult. Hence the speaker concluded that a Congress of Authors must of necessity for the most part deal with the physical side of literature, with "the relation of that art to its presentation through books to the public." Probably the most noteworthy incident of all this speech-making was to be found in the applause that interrupted Mr. Gilder when he said: "I, for one, would not have the countenance to stand up before a World's Congress of Authors if within a short time we, as a nation, had not wiped out the unbearable disgrace of international piracy."
The sentiment thus expressed by Mr. Gilder had many an echo in the subsequent proceedings of the Congress of Authors. The Tuesday session of this Congress was devoted to the general subject of Copyright, and it was peculiarly fitting that Mr. George E. Adams should serve as the presiding officer. The enactment of the Copyright Law of 1891 was, as our readers will remember, largely due to the efforts of Mr. Adams, then a member of the House of Representatives. Major Kirkland, who introduced Mr. Adams to the audience, gracefully alluded to this fact, as did also Mr. Gilder, when his turn came to share in the general discussion. That the services of Mr. Adams had been appreciated, and were still remembered by those present, appeared in the applause that followed every allusion made to them. The discussion was opened by the presiding officer himself, who read an admirable paper upon our copyright legislation, past and future. He took an eminently sane and practical view of the question, making clear the fundamental distinction between a copyright and a patent (a distinction too often neglected), but still averring that our future legislation is sure to be based upon the broad considerations of public policy rather than upon purely theoretical grounds. "The question of the so-called moral right of an author in his book is not likely to arise in any future movement in this country for the enlargement of authors' rights by Congress. Such legislation will be supported on the ground of public policy rather than on the ground of just protection of property." Dr. S. S. Sprigge, late Secretary of the London Society of Authors, followed Mr. Adams with a brief paper on "The International Copyright Union," sent to the Congress by Sir Henry Bergne, the British Commissioner at the Berne Conference of 1886. Dr. Sprigge also read a paper of his own upon the present complicated condition of copyright legislation, English and international. The remainder of the session was given up to an informal discussion, among the participants being Mr. Gilder, Mr. George W. Cable, Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, Professor T. R. Lounsbury of Yale, President C. K. Adams of the University of Wisconsin, and General A. C. McClurg. There was general agreement among the speakers in deprecating the necessity of the "manufacturing clause" of the Act of 1891, but there was an equally general agreement in the admission that the law, with all its defects, is vastly better than no law at all. Even Professor Lounsbury, who proclaimed himself one of the irreconcilables, admitted the justice of this view. The injury done to writers by the condition of simultaneous publication also came up for discussion, as well as the inadequacy of the term at present provided. "Nearly all our great American authors have outlived their copyrights, which is a ridiculous perversion of justice," said Mr. Gilder; and Mr. Warner, echoing the
