"During the existence of this contract, after the payment of the license fee thereunder, the Æolian Company obligates itself to prosecute diligently, at its own expense and by its own counsel, in the name of the proprietors of the copyright, all infringers of the rights granted to it, the Æolian Company." In the other contract of the same date and between the same parties, a facsimile of which has been filed with your committees, it is provided-- "That no charge shall be exacted from or be due from the Æolian Company * * * until a decision of the court of last resort in a suit which is to be instituted against some manufacturer or user other than the Æolian Company of such perforated music sheets for the purpose of testing the applicability of the United States copyright laws to perforated music sheets, and not then unless such decision shall uphold the applicability of the United States copyright laws to perforated music sheets of the kinds aforesaid. And for and in consideration of the premises the Æolian Company hereby covenants and agrees to pay all proper expenses of conducting said suit," etc. Such test suit was instituted entitled The White-Smith Music Publishing Company _v._ The Apollo Company by and at the expense of the Æolian Company, the real complainant, and decided against the Æolian Company, the holding of the court of last resort, the United States circuit court of appeals for the second circuit, being that such perforated music sheets were not infringements of the copyrights of the nominal complainant. Although defeated so far, it is not reasonable to suppose that the combination of the Æolian Company and its "number of copyright owners satisfactory" to that company would rest without further effort to make effective for profit the agreement into which they had entered. The only remaining means was by new legislation, and I submit that the aim and end of the pending bill is to be a substitute for that favorable decision of a court of last resort which the Æolian Company failed after strenuous efforts to obtain. Certain provisions of the bill here and there--for example, the lengthening of the copyright term--have attracted to the support of the bill various interests who are totally indifferent one way or the other to the question of perforated music sheets or phonographic records, but I submit that these other provisions are more or less unimportant, do not improve the present law, and most of them would never have been heard of except for the desire of the special interests above referred to to obtain new legislation as to the mechanical producers of sound. In the spring of 1904 attempt was made by this same combination to obtain the legislation desired by the insertion of a specific provision in the law to substantially this effect: