Dodd, Mead & Company telegrams regarding the Vestal copyright bill consists of two original telegrams exchanged by Dodd Mead and Senator Charles W. Waterman, Chairman of the Senate Patents Committee in January 1931, regarding the Vestal copyright bill. The Vestal copyright bill, which granted automatic copyrights to authors for 50 years after their death without requirement of notice for registration, was termed "a most un-American proposal" by Senator Clarence Dill of Washington. The bill, which passed the house at the time, also provided for entrance of the United States to the convention of Berne for protection of literary and artistic works.