January 29 Friday – As Fatout points out, Sam was somewhat ambivalent about the Hawley Bill but when pressed on the matter before the Senate Committee on Patents on the second day of testimony, he said:

I do consider that those persons who are called “pirates,” and for whom General Hawley has said a kind word, which seemed to me entirely proper, were made pirates by the collusion of the United States Government, which made them pirates and thieves. I do not wish to cast any reflection upon the members of this committee, because you gentlemen were not here at the time that was done. You probably would never have done it. But Congress, if anybody, is to blame for their action. It is not dishonesty. They have that right, and they have been working under that right a long time, publishing what is called “pirated books.” They have invested their money in that way, and they did it in the confidence that they would be supported and no injustice done them.

Sam then shifted to what he did want — that is, a bill that would not injure anyone connected with book production but one that would protect authors.

…I echo what General Hawley said. I cannot see any objection to the insertion of a clause which shall require that the books of a foreign author when copyrighted here shall be printed on this soil [MT Speaking 208].

Note: Carter [382] points out that Sam had become “especially interested” in the problems of the American Labor movement while writing A Connecticut Yankee, and that in 1886 he wrote an article about the Knights of Labor which was never published. In this article, Sam identified “a foreman of a printing office,” one James Welsh, President of Philadelphia’s Typographical Union, No. 2. Welsh pushed for a copyright bill which would require all foreign books to be printed in the U.S. “Welsh did not make the speech attributed to him in the article, but he did claim the support of the ‘4,000,000 to 5,000,000’ members of the Knights of Labor and ‘the sympathies of the industries of the entire world.’ Actually the Knights had only about 725,000 members, but since the union was at the peak of its power in 1886 it is not surprising that Twain accepted the somewhat grandiloquent claims of Mr. Welsh.” (See Mar. 22 entry, where Sam read the article to the Monday Evening Club.) The Washington Post ran a page 1 article, “International Copyrights,” quoting and summarizing Sam’s testimony.

William C. Prime wrote to Sam from New York, thanking him for his “telegram rec’d at 7.30 this evening.” Prime wrote he’d call on Sam at the Hotel Normandie at 10:15 the next morning. This suggests Sam returned from Washington on Jan. 29 and spent the night at the Normandie [MTP].