Mr. O'CONNELL. I have been informed, while Mr. Walker was speaking, in response to what Mr. Bowker said, that in this White-Smith suit the complainants tried in every possible way to prove the truth of the assertion which Mr. Bowker has just made, and that they utterly and totally failed to sustain that assertion that those sheets could be read, even with the use of any kind of a scale. That has just been stated to me by a gentleman who is interested. If you please, Mr. Chairman, the portion of the decision relating to that particular point has been handed to me, and here it is---- Mr. CHANEY. We have that decision. Mr. O'CONNELL. I want to call attention briefly to just this point in it: It is not designed to be read or actually used in reading music as the original staff notation is; and the claim that it may be read, which is practically disproved by the great preponderance of evidence, even if it were true, would establish merely a theory of possibility of use as distinguished from an actual use. In deciding those cases, courts and committees of Congress do not act on possibilities. Here is another method of reproduction [exhibiting disk] of the same march of Mr. Sousa's. It is for use in a music box. I do not know what the name of the music box is. The disk was only handed to me this morning. That shows another method of reproducing, and I do not suppose that even Mr. Bowker, with the aid of a scale, can read the notes on it. [Laughter.] Again, there is still another one here [exhibiting cylinder], which has been handed to me by Mr. Walker, a phonograph record, which he unfortunately says he broke, and which contains the same march by Mr. Sousa. And I do not believe that even Mr. Bowker, with the aid of any kind of a scale, can read that. Mr. BOWKER. My name has been mentioned, and may I say that the character of the phonograph record which uses the very word "graph," meaning "writing," represents the earliest form of writing, that of incised character writing. Mr. CHANEY. Of the time of Rameses. Mr. DAVIS. May I state that it remained for the inventor to first devise that scale to which that perforated music was made, and, second, to devise a machine which would interpret that music to Mr. Currier, or all of the other members of the public, as a medium by which any music could be read. That is the only practicable way of reading it, and that was left to the inventor. A mere reversal of that scale, to read backwards, would not be requisite. Mr. SOUSA. I would like to ask the gentleman a question. What value would these various records have if my march was not on them--if I had never written that march? Mr. O'CONNELL. I will say to Mr. Sousa with perfect frankness that the only object of that particular record is to produce his march. [Laughter.] Mr. SOUSA. Without my consent. Mr. O'CONNELL. I shall not try to hedge. I merely state facts.