We would have no misunderstanding as to what this bill is. It is a bill resulting from the conference, but it is not a conference bill; for the conference did not draw it, nor did it by explicit vote or otherwise determine its precise provisions. It is rather a copyright office bill. The office submits it as embodying what, with the best counsel available, including the conferences, it deems worthy of your consideration, in accordance with your previously expressed desire. In calling the conferences and in submitting the draft it has proceeded upon your suggestion. Apart from the chapter relating to its own administration, it has no direct interest in the bill, except its general interest to secure a general amelioration of the law. It does not offer the bill to you as the unanimous decision of a council of experts, for it contains certain provisions as to which expert opinion as well as substantial interest was divided. It does not offer to you the bill as one that has passed the test of public discussion, for it has only now come before the public. It knows already of objection to certain of its provisions--objection which will be entitled to be heard by your committee; and it is informed by one critic that his objections are sufficient to cover fully one-half of the provisions of the bill. The bill comes before you with precisely that presumption to which its history entitles it--no less, but no more. The conference had certain aids prepared in advance by the copyright office, which were embraced in these particular publications, setting forth the present law in this country and all previous enactments in this country--a bibliography, indeed, of all bills introduced into Congress, all amendments of the copyright laws, and the laws in foreign countries so far as they could be epitomized. The conferences occupied eleven days in all, of twenty-two sessions--two sessions a day. Their labors are evidenced by these four volumes, which are the stenographer's record of the proceedings. The sincerity of their endeavor to secure a result that should be scientific yet conservative, is, perhaps, evidenced by the brevity of the bill. The memorandum of last November contains some 16,000 words; that of March contains some 11,000 words; the bill contains slightly over 8,000 words. I believe that the present group of statutes embodying the existing law will contain somewhat over 4,000 words; and they are alleged to be imperfect and neither systematic nor organic.