The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-03-07


most American publishing has consisted
in freely repu blishing European (mostly
English) works, on the system OF
"piracy'so far as compensation TO au.
thors is concerned, The hostility Of the
two leading Protectionists, Mr.. Carey
and Mr., Carey Baird, though sincere
and most patriotic, necessarily derives
some bias from the fact that both have
been voluminous authors who scorned
to make any profit out Of their author
ship, and both have been extensive pub
fishers, chiefly of technical and indus
trial works which could only be written
in Europe, because there only had the
technical arts developed sufficiently the
materials Of which they should be COM
posed,
1t must be conceded that the Ameri-
can friends of international copyright
the Putuams, Curtis, Lowell and the
rest have only recently begun to men
ton Protection to American authors,
or the encouragement of Americans TO
become authors, among the motives to
their policy. Their tocsin has been,
Justice to foreign authors" AS gov
eminent does not exist for the purpo,e
Of securing justice to the subjects of
other governments at the cost of their
own, the line on which the battle for in
ternational copyright has been waged
has been a chivalrous but an illogical
and losing one. In any parliament or
congress in the world, or which human
nature is capable of furnishing, it would
only be necessary to suggest that a pro-
posed measure is designed to secure jus
tice to foreign producers against domes
tic consumers to have it voted down,
The effect has been that, in America,
authorship has been an unprotected in
dustry, and has been confined almost
wholly to those fields wherein Ameri.
can facts and events exclusively were
to be handled. An American author
who should attempt a book in field
equally open to the people of both con-
tinents would be met by the publishers
with the decisive query, why should |
pay royalty to you for book when |
can get so many books covering that
field simply by mourning the cost OF
printing them? Europe is full of them"
The effect of this has been to set the
current of literature running from Eu-
rope to America, and especially from
into the Northern States, and
to limit the production of American
books to books of humor and wit, which
The English cannot write for the lack Of
the humorous faculty; to law books, of
which we wholly outpubllsh the English
IN quantity; to books of local American
interest and pride, such as books relat-
ng to American history, biography pro.
lnnffnnp rraplnnu nlanfC animals NJ
md the few rare efforts of men like
Motley, Prescott, or Emerson, who were
determined to pursue the purely literacy
,areer regardless of cost or return. We
rave also produced a vast amount OF
rude, mongrel, bastard literature which
tands in like relation TO good books
hat Texas cattle do to thoroughbreds.
We have turned out great many tons
md solid miles of books written exclu-
lively for the benefit of people who will
NY them but will not read them. They
hink they will read them when they
'uy them, but in fact they will never be
cad, These are long and vast histories
# counties and towns which have no
history, or whose history, if they have
me, is not contained in the book, but in
which ones farm is mentioned; or books
which puTport TO teach the whole science
# life in one volum and therefore teach
)thing.
Hence there has risen among men of
both here and in England, a
old distrust of American books as such,
nd on the contrary corresponding
on the part of the learned |
nd the masses, in America in foreign |
ooks, very much like the preference
{ foreign woolens, foreign wines, gloves, |
r any other product of manufacture. |
We do not say this extends to all classes, |
ut to large classes.
Hence book of English writing has |
My to handle an American topic, as
rofessor Bryce and Max O'Rell have |
one, to secure a reading in America a
greater than an American
York of like merit could secure.
The penalty of all this is that when |
ne American mercantile, manufacture
lg and business public wake up to the
act that they would like to have Ameri-
an colleges teach American views Of
or of political economy,
ley find themselves addressing essent-
lily an alien audience saturated com.
letely with alien ideas. An association
of teachers of economic
,ience in our principal American col.
gees meeting in Philadelphia recently,
! the home or Henry g. Carey and Ste
hen Colwell, passed through their en-.
re session without mentioning the
anne of either of these American econ
omists, and without abiding to any
,ature or doctrine of the American
,hool of economic though except to
~ that the alleged issue between Pro-
ction and Free Trade is not an eco
mic question but is at all times a false
sue, in like sense as any pretended
sue between peace and war, as per-
lament and invariable policies would be.
he inference of course was that
rejection is the analogue of war pol
y and Free Trade of peace policy.
Mr., Carey began fifty years ago to do
ittle against the then English orthodox
.hool headed by Nautilus, Ricardo, and
i'll. President Walker in his address
i'd great stress on the revolution by
hich the spell of their authority in
)litical economy had been broken; vet
eneIal Walker saw no potency in
arey's seven books, to which to attri-
ute this great revolution, which would
'quire that Carey's name should even
: mentioned. Since it must be attri-
tied to something " English you know
2 ventured to attribute it to the theory
natural selection propounded by
harles Darwin.
The spirit of contempt toward the
oneer of American economic authors,
hich was thus officially shown by the
resident of the American Economic
comes of the same habit OF
ind as induced the Dean of Oxford to
y, when assured that the American
sople would feel general qualification
the conferment of the degree of Doc
IT Of the Civil Law, by that institution,
pom Mr.. Longfellow
"Awh-ye-es-sol l am told Mistah
ongfellah has-ah written some very-ah
verses-ah. It's very clever If
e has-ah; but Lab have nevah read
lem-ah, but am told they are very
evah-really clevah."
In short, fifty years OF the continual
preparation Of English books, without
rejection to American authors, has re-
lrded greatly the development OF an
.merican standard of taste. 1t has pre-
erved the colonial relation in our litera-
ire and our colleges which we have so
lrgely outgrown in our politics and In
ur industries. We have not solitary
pview in the whole coutry, while Eng.
ind has, including technical reviews,
pward Of eighty, of which more than
fly are engaged in fixing the standard
{ literary and political judgment, !
ither through quarterly, monthly, or