no resulting disorder; but you take an extremely married person, like me, and go to teaching that his wife is 964 times as good as he is, and what’s hell to that harem, dear friend?  I never saw such a fool as you.  Do not mind that expression; I already regret it, and would replace it with a softer one if I could do it without debauching the truth.  I beseech you, do not pass that bill.  Roberts College is quite all the American product we can stand just now.  On top of that, do you want to send us a flood of freedom-shrieking literature which we can’t edit the poison out of, but must let it go among our people just as it is?  My friend, we should be a republic inside of ten years.

AbdulII. 
III
mark Twain’s last suggestion on copyright

A memorial respectfully tendered to the members of the Senate and the
house of representatives

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

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

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

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

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

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