Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-01-01
PLAIN TALK FROM MARK.
What Twain Honestly Thinks About
Authors Readings.

what Twain Honestly Thinks About
Authors Readings.
From the New York Sun.
There were readings by American au-
thors' on.M onday night at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music under the direction
of the American Copyright League.
President Seth Low, LID. of Column
bia College was chairman, he argued
in faver Of an international copyright
law. Edward l.. Byhner, Robert Grant,
w. Hamilton Gibson, f. Hopkinson
Smith, and Theodore Roosevelt followed
each other in readings. This letter
from Mark Twain was read:
II have always worked for copy
right in all the different ways that it's
trends suggested ever since 1872, seven
teen or eighteen Years, and | am cor
daily willing to continue to work Tor it
all the rest of my lite in all those ways
but one-but | want TO draw the line
there-tbe platform.
Eve can point to an aggregate of
about thelve authors readings now,
since the first attempt. but We can't
point to single one of them and shy it
was nationally conducted. Conducting
show is trade. To do it we'll it must
be done by master. not novices or APP
prentices. There is no master with
grit enough for the place. You can't
find him yet. Consider what is required
of him. He must say to the small fry:
You are allowed ten minutes of plat
form time; if you overpass it two min
utes [ shall bring down the gavel and
shut you off, To the very greatest poet
he must say: For your own sake you
are allowed but fifteen minutes; you
must test your piece at home, and time
it by friends watch, and allow for the
difference between platform time and
parlor time, which is three minutes. If
it overpasses twelve minutes at home
you must cut it down to twelve. IT you
try to ring in an extra piece you'll hear
the gavel.' He must say to the
audiences: The performance will
close at ten o'clock whether the pro-
gramme is finished or not, and then
keep his word. He must find obscure
ties who are willing to take the tail
pieces on the plain condition that they
NAV possibly never be called up, or
notorieties who will promise that they
will not answer to their names after ten
o'clock, and will honorablv keep that
promise.
There is no such man alive, unless it
might be Gen. Sherman, author of the
brisk and delightful personal memoirs.
And even then you would have to ap-
point me to police him and whisper
from tine to time, Genera your times
up for possibly you have noticed it, in
no instance in history has the chairman
OF an authors reading failed to add
an hour to the already intolerably long
bill.
''No; an authors reading, conducted
insthe customary way. turns what ought
to be the pleasantest of all entertain
ments into an experience to be forever
remembered with bitterness by the
audience. Remember Washington.
There are now living but four persons
who paid to get into that house; it is al
SO fact, howsoever privately it has
been kept, that twenty-five died on the
premises and eighty.one on their way
home. I am miserable when think of
my share in that wanton, that unpro-
voked massacre.
Tell me any other way that can
help the cause and | will do my level
best"