The author stands almost alone with no union among his craft. The refiners of sugar and coal oil, the makers of matches, lead-pencils, screws,—in short, almost all other interests,—have some sort of combination. The brewers stand by each other in fixing the price of beer, and if a saloon keeper fails to pay one brewer, the others will not furnish him with the product of their vats.
There is plenty of freemasonry among publishers. Their contracts read very much alike. They resort to the same subterfuges to get the lion's share of the profits. They care nothing for the logic of the situation. What did a grasping palm ever care for logic which told against itself? An American author has just shown by indisputable figures that many of our publishers treat the writers of books as badly as the worst Hebrew sweating shops do their employees. An author in one instance worked for years upon a book which had every prospect of not being ephemeral. He signed a contract with a firm of publishers to receive a ten-percent. royalty only after the first thousand copies were sold. The work had much free advertising and sold well, as many booksellers testified. More than two years have elapsed since it appeared, and though clerks in book stores still say it sells well, the author has never received a cent for those weary years of labor. He knows there is an Indian lurking somewhere in the forest, but one author is not powerful enough to enter and dislodge the enemy.
It may do us good to know that the English Society of Authors protects writers from dishonest publishers; but why should not our authors form a union of their own and enjoy the same advantages? It has been shown that our literary men have been repeatedly imposed upon; that the publisher in many cases takes all the profits; that his accounts are not open to the verifiable inspection of authors; and that this is one of the few exceptions of the kind in all business, that one of two interested partners is alone allowed to audit the accounts.
Mr. Besant has shown that in England the perfectly honest publisher is a rare exception. Are Englishmen less honest than Americans? Or is it true that human nature is very much alike everywhere and easily warped to look at things only in the line of its own advantage, wherever that can be done without coming to the knowledge of the world?
There will, of course, be strong opposition on the part of publishers to the formation of any protective authors' association, which would insist that the writer know the exact facts in those cases in which he is to be a partner in the share of the profits from his own work. If only a few authors joined the movement, publishers would undoubtedly combine to boycott them; but here, as in England, safety will be found in numbers. There is not a railroad in the United States that dares select any special engineer and treat him unjustly. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is too strong to admit that for one week.
Some hysterical publisher may exclaim, "If you think we are rascals, you had better not deal with us." Ask him what he would think of the president and the cashier of a national bank if they said to the examiner, "You have come here to insult us by implying that we would steal the depositors' money. We resent such treatment; we are honest."
"Why, then, do you object to a careful inspection of your methods?" asks the examiner.
"Because it throws suspicion on us," is the reply.
"Are you aware that officials with reputations quite as good as yours are now embezzlers in foreign lands? I want to remove from you the temptation of making money in that way, so that nothing may rest heavily on your consciences in the great hereafter."
"Nevertheless, we object to an examination."