The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1849-11-23

of a new (and, for aught they know, as good, OF
better) book, he is saluted by "Halloa, Colonel,
how do we flourish How does literature go, this
morning? Glad TO you lookin' so well, General.
How do the sisters thrive =! Has Mr.. Sob an
idea ofcuting into our Macaulay? We've laid aside
$25, 900 to break him down, and we'll do it, and
the American retires half saturated with the tobac-
co JUICE of the pirates. What if this house could
not reprint Lamartine's work without paying the
author, and, fOrsooth, the translator, too! Would
the American author be driven with contempt from
the doors of men who would go on their knees to
beg his books, if they could not steal works with
out paying for them, or even reading them Who
is the American author who has not been compelled
to submit to more than one scene of humiliation
of this kind, before he could get even his MSS
exaninedf Give us the name of the man
Is tbs the way to have national literature! Is
this the way to deyelope the national genius of
our authors! Is this the way to make up Libraries
for our towns, and villages, and school Districts
where our young men receive their first impress
sions of men and government Will you, citi-
zens of America, educate your sons in the school
of European politics, rather than Undue them with
the thoughts, and feelings, and principles of such
men as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Frank
lml And yet you are compelled to do 1t, by the
American publisher, because he will print only
foreign books, these being the only books he can
print without paying for them. In this manner
our rising generation is educated in foreign ideas,
and we have not national character or national
literature. We are not inclined to favor party
spirit or sectananism, IN any form or shape. We
have never done it. But we are inclined to Ame
l. 4 1-l.. I.,f,x
and we know, that with Washington and his great
colleagues in the field and the Senate, arose a
new set of principles, which ought, long ago, to
have impressed themselves on the hearts of our
people that while we should have been deve-
opng the national genius of the nation, we have
been slavishy copying the literature of old Eu-
rope-and this means It's political, social, and iu-
telectual principles We have not followed the
councils of our fathers. We have lost the severe
honesty, the stem integrity of the men of the re-
voluton. Our children are reading the vile
trash of Paul de Kock, George Sands, and Eugene
Sue, instead OF the pure and exalted works OF
American writers, who were born in houses which
have been ridded with the bullets of hired Hessian
soldiers. The patriotic and self denying spirit of
l776 is giving place to French sentimentaties, and
the very ground in this city which Washington once
stood on, is no longer sacred
Aud why is this Z Will any American publisher
step forward and say, it is because we have no men
Of genius in this country, who can write good
books for the education of the nation -! They
dare not say it. They know it is not so. But
they know that in no country can authors work
without pay, any better than other men. They
can cram and gut our book market with filthy,
obscene, "yellow cover literature" or If they wish
to set up very high standard for them, they can
give us 200 600 copies of the last novel of James or
Bulwer, and advertise and puff the work in five
thousand newspapers, and the whole country is
deluged with the book; and in railway cars, and
on steamboats,, and in drawing rooms, this over
pulled novel becomes the topic OF conversation,
and the foreign author becomes the lion in Ame-
RIGA, and Europeans laugh at us for the folly.
Nobody disputes what the paid pufs Of the news
papers say-and the book is In everybody's hand,
and the poison (may be) is distilled around every
freside in America and the American author is
iostled aside and crowded of the stage. Repulsed
by piratng publishers, unnouced by the press,
and consequently unknown to the people, he finds
himself starving, and he goes TO selling pork and
flour, TO get his bread Such is brief and hasty
sketch of some Of the evils Of the present system
but their name is legion, and nothing can pat an
end TO them and rescue the nation, but an Inter
national Copyright Law