The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-18
Property in Brains. Boston Globe,

Boston Globe.
 Property in brains is very enjoya- ble thing for ones own personal use or for social exchange with congenial friends. But when it materializes in the form of literary production for purposes of profit it becomes the most slippery and uncertain commodity in the market.
 Herbert Spencer struggled with the most headaching thought for twenty years before his books commanded a sale. Then, when his health was par tially broken down, he looked across the water to see the American market flooded with cheap reprints of his works, which were enriching "literary pirates," but which yielded him not a penny. Hawthorne, in his diary, speaks of publisher in England who congratulated him heartily upon his literary success. "And well he might 5 he adds, "for he was getting rich on pirated editions of my books"
 Even copyrighted articles in our American magazines are reprinted in the most respectable English maga- zines as original articles. The last Popular Scaence Monthly cites ten of it's best scientific articles that have been thus pirated by one English pub- lication alone within year, without ever dreaming of giving credit for them.
 The indignation which is more and more inflaming popular authors on both sides of the water is very natural. We scrupulously protect pig iron and wool, but have little care for home in- dustry in literature. The attempt to enthuse members of congress on the subject has thus far resulted in little more than the unearthing of monu- mental ignorance and indifference on the whole subject. The average mem- Der of congress is we'll armed and equipped on all that pertains to local protection in his district, but on a subject involving the moral and intel lectual growth of society at large he confesses ignorance, and apparently cannot be "stimulated."
 Nearly all the leading publishers are in favor of an international copyright. The same is true of the largest pub fishers of cheap reprints of foreign books, for it would enable them to go into open market for the purchase of transatlantic rights, and thus crowd out small competitors. There is really nothing in the way of securing to lit- erary workers on both sides of the water fair share of the fruits of their labor save the indifference of the ordi- nary legislator to things bordering upon abstract justice, and having little apparent relation to the material ma chinery of commerce.
 Meanwhile, the country is flooded with foreign Ideas, foreign notions and foreign morals. We are apt to associ- ate the Anglomaniac with the snob or dude, but forget the English tenden- cies in thought and feeling which are being inculcated into the whole mass of our society through the millions of cheap reprints of books, such as Rider Haggard's novels, which are being de- voured on every hand. Curious it is, yet no less true, that Americans are educating the sentiment of the Eng fish common people, while English men are shaping the thought and bias of our population. Can we afford to swap with England on this line?
 It is interesting to note that the in- genuity of man cannot devise any scheme for successfully imposing a duty upon imported literature. There is no collectors net so fine that ideas will not slip through it. The only resort is to international treaty. Yet since the international honoring of privileges secured by the citizens of a given country brings no pecuniary profits to the government, as such, it becomes dead issue to practical leg islators, and it will probably be sev- eral years before the copyright move- ment lately organized in several Amer ican cities will result in this form of protection to home industry.