MCGOWAN, SERVEN & MOHUN. _1419 F Street NW., Washington, D.C._ NEW YORK, _May 8, 1906_. THE CHAIRMAN AND COMMITTEE ON PATENTS, _Washington, D.C._ GENTLEMEN: At the recent hearings on the Bennet bill, the music publishers were represented, and the committee, of course, represented the interests of the people. There was, however, one party at interest in the matter who was not represented. That party is the American composer, and it is in his behalf that we ask you to please consider a few words. The effect of this amendment would be to put the American composer out of business, so far as the writing of serious or important works is concerned. It would be our saying to him: "You are good enough for writing coon songs and a few rag-time pieces, but we don't want you to attempt anything better. We don't want American composers; we prefer to use what is written in Germany, France, Italy, Russia." The amendment under consideration seeks to remove the present copyright protection from religious works; and in the hearing which your committee was kind enough to give last week, frequent mention was made of charitable work and entertainments given by churches, poor singing societies, and our poverty-stricken public schools. From certain questions asked by members of the committee it was indicated that they might favor a compromise measure in which, by exception, the renting of copyrighted musical works would be legalized in the case of entertainments given by religious bodies or not given for profit. We yield to no one in reverence toward religious matters, and trust that what we shall say will not be misconstrued, but religious bodies first of all should be and are noted for dealing justly with all men. They have taught us that "the laborer is worthy of his hire;" and next to observance of divine laws they advocate obedience and respect to human laws. It would seem, therefore, that churches do not need nor do they ask for anyone to exploit his own business under the guise of obtaining for the church the right to do what it is unlawful for others to do. In seeking to give this exemption to churches, societies, etc., a serious matter is that we entirely forget and lose sight of the musical composer or author, who, in most cases, is not a rich man. It is about the composer that we wish to say a few words. To illustrate what we should like to say, we ask you, Mr. Chairman and the committee, to picture the fact that a certain church or society has prepared to publicly perform on a certain date a work of average size, costing, say, 40 cents each copy. The average number of copies required for such performance is about 30 copies, making a total outlay of $12, of which $1.80 accrues to the composer as royalty for the performing rights.