Edward Livingston Youmans

“ Harrison and Mr. Spencer, devotes a leading editorial to the discussion of American piracy on the basis of the fresh and striking illustration of it here afforded. Speaking of the effect of the "tolerably rigid copyright law" of England, the "Times" says: "But so far as America is concerned it is different. To the English author that country seems to answer very much to Hobbes's idea of a state of nature. Foreign authors are fair prey; for them there is or need be no selling or buying of copyrights, and a good book is to be dealt with as a part of the common elements of nature. ”

“ There are many in this country who realize the vice of this policy quite as vividly as the foreign victims of it, and who are laboring hard to put an end to it. But, without offering a word of apology for it, there is still something to be said in behalf of those who are compelled to act under a bad state of things which they reprobate, but are for the time powerless to remedy. It is certainly unjust to involve these in the indiscriminate condemnation of the vicious system. It is a good deal easier to denounce it at a distance than to fight it on the spot. ”

“ Now, let us see what it was that Spencer did. After finishing the controversy in the "Nineteenth Century," Mr. Harrison transferred it to the "Pall Mall Gazette," in which he printed an additional article, addressed to a new audience, and filled with very objectionable misstatements. It would not do, in editing the volume which was intended to be a full presentation of the discussion, to leave this article out. But to print it without corrections would be unjust to Spencer, and to the readers of the book, who wanted and were entitled to the completest statement of the case. ”

“ Harrison has been outraged. He had his articles brought out in good shape for such of his friends as desired to possess them in a separate form. He has been "plundered" by being protected against plunder on the part of those who might have issued a trivial and fugitive edition of his controversy, and allowed him nothing for it. He has been "pirated" by having voluntarily secured for him the substantial benefits of an international copyright law.
But Mr. Harrison's articles were used without his consent, and that is what the charge of "piracy" here amounts to. ”

“ Conscious that I had conducted a philosophical debate with an old friend with all the deference and admiration that I really feel for his genius, it did pain me to find myself treated as the proverbial dog whom any stick is good enough to beat. ”

“ Mr. Harrison says it is a case of "piracy"; but, so far as this involves the taking of his property without compensation, there was no thought of it. In his opening letter he virtually accused Mr. Spencer of collusion in the piracy of his articles, from a sordid intention. Judged by this extraordinary letter, Mr. Harrison's religion of humanity consists chiefly in imputing vile motives to his fellow-men. He said, "May I ask if it is proposed to hand you the profits of a book of which I am (in part) the author, or are these to be retained by your American publishers and friend?" ”

“ There are, of course, American publishers, and plenty of them, who are thoroughly unscrupulous; but there are others, and they are not a few, who do the best they can under the present demoralizing system to compensate foreign authors for their work. They pay them by voluntary arrangement, not the rates that they are accustomed to at home, and not always perhaps as much as they might, but often, as I happen to know, to their own loss, when books are reprinted by others and the market supplied by degraded editions on which the author receives nothing. ”

“ Its policy is an outrage upon a class of men who are public benefactors, a disgrace to the country, and a scandal to civilization. Grover Cleveland's republic does not recognize that Frederic Harrison and Herbert Spencer have any right of property in the products of their brainwork. Their productions when brought to the United States belong neither to them nor to anybody else. They are not protected by law, and may be appropriated by anybody without violation of law. ”

“ Ruskin for the use of one of his articles (to be paid for, of course) , were deterred from doing so because that author "absolutely declined to come into any relation with an American publisher." Mr. Harrison is understood to be a particular and punctilious man, and that he can, upon occasion, pretermit the requirements of amiable civility, and take to "plain words," is amply attested by his letter of May 29th to Herbert Spencer.
But, in the matter of "piracy," it is Mr. Spencer who comes in for Harrison's hottest indignation. ”

“ The names of the eminent contestants, and the interest felt by a large number of people in the subject, were evinced by a strong demand for the publication. The discussion in its separate form was called for by the friends of Mr. Harrison and by the friends of Mr. Spencer, and by others who were friends of neither. It was open to anybody to print it, and there was every probability that it would be picked up and issued in a cheap, catchpenny edition, which is now so common with publications of every kind. ”

“ That the Government does not protect him, and that if protected at all it must be done by himself, is the first and vital fact that has to be taken into account when any publisher makes the venture of reissuing a foreign book in this country. ”

“ But the indiscriminate charges of the London "Times" are not true; all American publishers are not freebooters and pirates. Although it is not possible for them to treat foreign authors with full justice in the absence of international copyright, yet it is false that these authors are preyed upon in the unqualified way asserted by the "Times." ”

“ Spencer, and to the public. And that Mr. Harrison would have withheld his consent is far from improbable. That the book was wanted here by many readers was nothing to him, as is shown by the fact that, when a word would have saved it from destruction, he declined to utter it. Something is of course due to courtesy, but I was not at all certain that courtesy would be met in the same spirit. The feeling of high-toned British authors toward American "pirates" is not usually vented in gracious expression. American experience with such authors is apt to engender diffidence in approaching them. ”

“ In the next place he has this advantage of you. Your main work bearing upon the issue is to be sought elsewhere, while Harrison had accumulated all the materials of his assault and gives his whole case, so that the popular effect could not fail to be much in his favor. To the narrower circle of readers who can really appreciate the discussion, the republication would undoubtedly be an excellent thing, and I suppose after all it is only these that we should much care for. On the whole it may be politic to reprint. ”

“ Mr. Spencer, as will be seen, prints two paragraphs from a private letter of mine giving reasons which induced him to favor the American reprint, and Mr. Harrison characterizes them as chiefly "inventions." I had said, "Harrison is coming over to lecture in this country," and Mr. Harrison says he never thought of it. I wrote carelessly; but my meaning was, that he is expected to come, and in this there was no "invention." It had been talked about, and there was nothing unlikely in it. The coming of eminent Englishmen to this country to lecture is certainly no unusual thing. Mr. ”

“ I will add but two comments. Mr. Harrison had this letter before him when ho wrote his statement. Does the reader find that his statement produced an impression anything like that which my letter produces? The other comment is this. Asking whether I have any share in the profits, Mr. Harrison not only by this, but by his title, "A New Form of Literary Piracy," tacitly suggests that I have. Merely stating that the affair is purely the affair of the Messrs. ”

“ Mr. Spencer had, in reality, very little to do with the edition. For the Introduction, the bad taste with which the notes were embellished, and the newspaper quotation describing the doings in a branch of the positivist church in London which Mr. ”