Joe" Cannon's private room, and preached the gospel of copyright
until the daylight faded and the rest of the Capitol grew still.
Champ Clark was the last to linger that day and they had talked far
into the dusk. Clark was powerful, and had fathered the bill. Now
he wrote to know if it was satisfactory.


To Champ Clark, in Washington:

STORMFIELD, REDDING, CONN., June 5, '09.
DEAR CHAMP CLARK--Is the new copyright law acceptable to me?
Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, and clearly defined, and
just and righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United
States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no
trouble in arriving at that decision.

The bill which was before the committee two years ago when I was down
there was the most stupefying jumble of conflicting and apparently
irreconcilable interests that was ever seen; and we all said "the case is
hopeless, absolutely hopeless--out of this chaos nothing can be built."
But we were in error; out of that chaotic mass this excellent bill has
been instructed; the warring interests have been reconciled, and the
result is as comely and substantial a legislative edifice as lifts its
domes and towers and protective lightning rods out of the statute book,
I think. When I think of that other bill, which even the Deity couldn't
understand, and of this one which even I can understand, I take off my
hat to the man or men who devised this one. Was it R. U. Johnson? Was
it the Author's League? Was it both together? I don't know, but I take
off my hat, anyway. Johnson has written a valuable article about the new
law--I enclose it.