At the close of these remarks the president of the conference thanked the delegate from the United States, and assured him that the “accession of the United States would be received at any time with joy by all the contracting states, and he but reflected the sincere wish of all present in hoping that within a measurable time the United States will request that a place be made for them in the Union.” It is time that the position of the United States on this important subject should be set free from the thraldom of that short-sighted selfishness which has hitherto fettered and degraded it. The Congress of the United States should seek suggestion from those sentiments of elevated justice and public honesty which are the sources of judicial counsel, and should act in that spirit of permanent and comprehensive wisdom, justice, and right which alone gives assurances of deep and expanding benefits, as well to nations as to individuals. In the absence of international copyright, just and fair compensation for native literary and artistic property is out of the question. American authors ask no protection, they demand no aids, no bounties; they simply ask not to be subjected to this discrimination against domestic talent that puts them at a cruel disadvantage with foreign competitors, the fatal usage of whose cheap reprints, “without authorial expenses,” has become an inveterate and crushing system. They ask only the privilege of meeting these competitors on equal terms in a fair contest. Literary property is the only kind of personal property not protected by the law when the owner is not a citizen of the United States. To the foreign owners of patents and trade-marks, which are so analogous to copyright, protection ample and easily enforced is accorded. It is half a century since Prussia first set the example of granting international copyright. In 1837 a law was passed that every country might secure copyright for its authors in Prussia upon granting reciprocity. This was followed by England in the succeeding year. France set the example, during the Empire, of forbidding the piracy of books and works of art of foreigners, before obtaining reciprocity. Property in ideas, dating back in England to the Statutes of Anne, was recognized in the Constitution of the United States, and is now conceded in every civilized country by legislative enactment. The same legal protection in the matter of ideas which is given to the natives of the state, is now accorded to the foreigner and outsider by all nations of high civilization except the United States. The right to profit by the product of the brain should secure for the author “that justice which is not a matter of climates and degrees.” The principle of copyright being admitted, it cannot logically be confined to state lines or national boundaries. Grant that it is difficult to give literary rights the well-defined nature and tangible form of what is