The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-30

From the Louisville Courier-Journal.
 N OWADAYS there is a sound busi- "1 ness reason, as well as one of sentiment, for caring not who makes the nations laws and being con- tent to write the songs. The New York World calls attention to the fact that Charles K Harris netted s9O,0Oo from After the Ball.' a song that had its day 10 or 12 years ago, and has been virtually forgotten. It will be recalled that Cy Warman made a fortune from Sweet Marie and became. upon the strength of that achievement a man of letters, now little known and best remembered by the song he composed when he presided at the throttle of a locomotive. My Old Kentucky Home" written by stephen Collins Foster, when song writing had not become a paying trade, produced a pitt tance, although it is sung around the world today, and rated as classic among the folk songs of the south. Will s. Hays of Louisville, whose 'Mollie Darling" was as widely popular as Mir. Harris masterpiece, and more enduring ly so, sold the words and the music for s25 and devoted the proceeds to charity.
 The Nashville Banner, commenting upon the worlds observations upon the emoluments of song writing, says that a fortune was made from David Ha- rum" / now almost as completely a dead letter as the popular songs of the time at which it was written, and that Nathaniel Hawthorne's earnings from all of his writings were less than the royalties from this one "best seller"
 Continuing, the Banner says:
 Had Foster lived and written his songs at this day he probably would have reaped a much greater profit, because of the multiplied facilities for advertisement If Dr. Samuel Johnson were now living he could doubtless get much more for the manuscript of 'Rasselas' than would pay the funeral expenses of his mother and the tragedy of the marvellous boy, Chatterton, would be improbable.
 "rhe cheap and garish, as rule, have more immediate success now, both in music and in literature, than productions of solid worth, but there is no reason for true merit to be discouraged in this day and generation. There are liberal re- wards for both good. books and good songs"
 The trade of writing, as well as the profession of letters, is much more nigh ly paid in the twentieth century than ever before in the history of the world, and the rewards for both mediocrity and genius promise to be larger in the future than they are in the present. AS the captains of industry have brought to a highly specialized condition the market for brains that spell achievement in the various fields of industrial enterprise. the publishers have specialized the market for brains that produce anything that the overwhelming public will read. Here is A market for blank verse poetry, and there a place where limericks are bought at so much a line; here house that deals in the output of the novelist, and there a hole-in-the- wall where the dra- natist may submit his wares to pur- chasers who may make him famous in a night and rich in twelvemonth, and who are sufficiently hard driven by com petition to keep keen eye peeled for | whatever bids fair to touch the popular l taste. The commercialization of writing 1 may cause lovers of literature to lament, but it has opened most fruitful field of