Mr. CHANEY. Do you think you should do that without compensating him for the genius he displayed? Mr. O'CONNELL. Very early in my remarks I disavowed any such intention. I did say that we were in the position--the independent manufacturers that I represent--where we could be forced to the wall because of these contracts, and that the resulting benefits to Mr. Sousa and Mr. Herbert, if Congress had power to and did pass such an act, would be vastly offset by the great detriment to our manufacturing interests and to the public. While I am on that point I would ask leave to digress and to submit also a copy of a letter from the Æolian Company to the Chicago Music Company, dated the 5th of May, 1902, and offer it in evidence here. (The letter referred to is as follows:) THE ÆOLIAN COMPANY, _New York, May 5, 1902_. The CHICAGO MUSIC COMPANY, _Music Publishers, Chicago, Ill_. DEAR SIRS: Pursuant to the provision of the agreement granting us the exclusive right under your United States copyrights for all perforated music sheets intended for use in controlling automatic musical instruments and machines for playing musical instruments, we hereby notify you that a number of copyright owners satisfactory to us have made with us agreements similar to our agreement with you. From this date, therefore, our agreement goes into effect. Looking forward to profitable and pleasant business relations, we remain, Yours, truly, THE ÆOLIAN COMPANY, E. R. PERKINS, _General Manager_. I now ask you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, to turn to section 15 of the bill, found at page 11 of the House bill, which would seem to me to be rather ambiguous. It provides that the owner of the copyright may commence proceedings and so forth within thirty days, but that he has a whole year within which to complete his copyright. Now, that means that he does not have to put his mark on it, I suppose, and perhaps an independent manufacturer may go ahead for a year, or, rather, for three hundred and sixty-four days, believing that he has the right to do so, and then, on the three hundred and sixty-fifth day the owner of the copyright completes his record, and he is promptly sued for all that he has done for the past year. True, the act says that in such case no action shall be brought for infringement of the copyright until the requirements have been fully complied with; but that merely says that he can not commence the action until he has complied with the act. It does not say that after he has finally complied he can not recover for the infringement during the full year within which he practically permitted his copyright to lapse. Mr. PUTNAM. Do you understand that he is not obliged to give notice during the intervening period? Mr. O'CONNELL. I am speaking of the one-year provision.