Mainly about Ourselves

...Privately, however, the case has been very different indeed...

...but as it is a story the end of which, whether happy or disastrous, really depends as much upon them as upon us, it may be just as well to give at least a synopsis of the narrative, so far as it has run its course, before we continue (if indeed we are to be permitted to continue) with the new chapters...

...At the end of the three years, our circulation had grown from something like fifteen hundred to fifteen thousand...

...We are relating this incident because it has occurred at a time when we feel it to be necessary to take our readers into our confidence on this very subject of our financial situation...

...Judging by our growth during five years, which has been steady and nationwide, and by the further fact that our readers consistently renew their subscriptions, there are good reasons to believe that The Commonwal can eventually be made self-supporting-provided, however, that we are aided by our present subscribers...

...If The Commonweal were able to dispense with salaries and payments for manuscripts, it would be self-supporting...

...We cannot, however, secure such a large number of new readers without a considerable expenditure of capital for various plans of promotion, such as advertising, the building up of the mailing list and other methods of proved effectiveness which require time, trained skill and capital...

...Most Catholic periodicals of a literary kind are conducted by the clergy, who require no salary, or nothing but a minimum financial remuneration...

...principally because in the most vital matter, namely, the attainment of literary success and far-reaching and powerful national influence on public opinion, The Commonweal had more than fulfilled the expectations of its founders and friends...

...The matter of the success of these efforts, however, is quite another story...

...Ten thousand more subscribers would make The Commonweal self-supporting...

...Nevertheless, there is a false modesty and a false humility as well as the authentic virtues themselves, and now when we are so frankly inviting our readers to obtain new readers for us, it would be foolish for us to refrain from reminding our friends of the fact that the testimony to the value of our work is not our own, but comes from those who have voluntarily testified, and in no uncertain terms...

...At the very outset of our work, one of its founders, Mr...

...Our readers should remember that The Commonweal is unlike other Catholic publications in that it has to expend a large part of its budget-almost halfon editorial and business salaries and the purchase of manuscripts from professional writers...

...When we explained that we had no funds available for such a purpose, the applicant retorted, "But I understood that The Commonweal is abundantly endowed !" Promptly, emphatically, and most truthfully we answered that it was not...

...But when brought together and united as in part they already have been by The Commonweal-and as their numbers grow, as they will grow if The Commonweal is permitted to carry on its work-this element will prove to be one of the most important factors tending toward that true welfare of the nation which is desired and sought after by all men and women of good-will, no matter what their religious affiliations may be...

...We kept our own problems and difficulties out of our pages...

...If this is not done, there can be no such lay journal published, and the Catholic lay influence, in literature and journalism, must continue to be exercised only indirectly, haphazardly and ineffectively...

...In addition to the capital urgently needed for the promotion of our circulation, we need funds to systematize and to develop one of the most important parts of our editorial work, a part which rarely becomes publicly apparent, but which is of vital value...

...Without an efficient research and information department our perilously small editorial staff is badly handicapped in attempting to carry on this work in addition to its ordinary duties...

...Nevertheless, those interested in the enterprise determined to carry on with it...

...At no time, however, has The Commonweal been in possession of an endowment fund, or of sufficient capital to insure its publication for more than a few months ahead...

...They can only become aware of our existence slowly and gradually...

...We are planning to hold a certain number of meetings in various places throughout the country, in order to raise some funds...

...Humility and modesty are virtues which, when they are claimed by those who admit their value, at once seem to lose some of their true character...

...We are also asking all our friends and readers who feel able to aid, to form committees in their own communities either to raise an outright contribution to the capital fund which we require, or to make an organized drive for new subscribers...

...This is the task of answering promptly and correctly the numerous inquiries concerning the Catholic Church which come to us from individuals, newspapers, book-publishers, non-Catholic clergymen and non-Catholic societies of many kinds, together with constant requests for active cooperation in educational and sociological movements in which Catholic participation is desirable...

...We have consistently devoted our space to our task of reviewing as best we could the exciting and interesting times in which we live...

...For more than two years the annual deficit has been met by the contributions of those who were its pledged patrons during the first three years, together with a few others whose interest was aroused...

...Such readers do not exist in masses, in any particular part of the country...

...They are distributed throughout all parts of the nation...

...Our appeal has been consistently to the educated and therefore truly influential minority of our Catholic population, and to educated and influential non-Catholics who are interested in what Catholics have to say concerning matters of general concern...

...It is a story that it seems imperative that we should share with our readers in general...

...Thomas F. Woodlock, said that it was not and never could be a business, in the commercial sense of that term, and that the only fitting description of our enterprise was to call it an adventure...

...Such a circulation, of course, did not suffice to make us self-supporting...

...It is the reason why we formed The Commonweal Subscribers' Committee, and promoted its work in our advertising pages...

...We are asking all who read this and who believe that The Commonweal is valuable enough and important enough to justify such an appeal, to communicate with this office immediately...

...The extent to which members of our staff have traveled hither and yon interviewing individuals and addressing groups to solicit funds to keep our work afloat, almost rivals the labors of the liberty bond salesmen during the war...

...At present our circulation is eighteen thousand paid-for copies...

...During our first three years the hazards of the adventure were greatly lessened by the fact that the publication of The Commonweal for that period was guaranteed by a small group of patrons...

...Anyhow, whatever the outcome is to be, we think the story is an interesting one...

...Since our first number, when we quite frankly talked about our business affairs-in addition to our editorial hopes and plans-we have had very little to say about our office problems...

...The constant stream of begging letters which has been going out from this office during the last two years probably challenges comparison, so far as their number and urgency are concerned, with the correspondence files of any begging agency in the land...

...Investigation on our own part disclosed the fact that not only this individual, but others as well, held the belief that the work of publishing The Commonweal is supported by a permanent endowment...

...It is a story already too familiar to a considerable number of our friends...

...He was right then, and he is still right...

...A lay journal, however, in order to be really useful, must be in a position to command the best available literary talent and services, which must come for the most part from lay workers, who possess family and personal responsibilities, and who, therefore, must be paid as adequately as possible...