EDITORIALS
our first birthday WITH this number La Follette's enters upon its second year. Volume One is now a closed book. Before laying it aside, however, and opening up Volume Two, we want to spend a few...
...With it we shall grow in influence and power...
...And there are other proofs...
...To this community of interest, then, this kinship that has cemented us together into one big family, we largely attribute the remarkable growth of La Follette's...
...Worst of all they have a way of gaining the public confidence...
...But can it be "pulled off...
...Meanwhile many publishers would be obliged to charge the public more for their periodicals and magazines and many other publishers would be subjected to losses and some would doubtless be forced to discontinue publication...
...The articles they have contributed to the pages of La Follette's during the year have been among the best ever written about the problems of Democracy and the new awakening of the social conscience...
...Before laying it aside, however, and opening up Volume Two, we want to spend a few moments with our readers, over matters of mutual concern...
...It is of supreme importance that you be prepared for it and take part in it...
...Now the public has little use for the independent express company arrangement...
...Obviously, they should be punished...
...The letters you have written us during the year, bearing messages of encouragement and good will, have told us that...
...Life in the West is growing more and more complex...
...Isn't that enough to inspire optimism...
...Machines may be set in operation so complex as to bewilder the voter...
...There will be much to do...
...Western Democracy BY FRANK STRONG Chancellor of the University of Kansas...
...The Adams Express Company with a total investment of about $6,000,000, has, in recent years, in addition to high regular dividends, distributed additional, accumulated profits in special dividends, amounting to $36,000,000 and last year received from its accumulated profits not yet distributed an income of over $1,000,000...
...The Wells Fargo Express Company in the fiscal year 1909 earned net, after the payment of ail-expenses and taxes, over 86 per cent, of the total value of all its property, and equipment used in its business, and received in addition $1,400,000 income from investments of the accumulated profits...
...Perhaps Tammany fared even worse in the recent elections than the returns seemed to indicate...
...However, a parcels post is not recommended by the present Postmaster General...
...A new Congress will be elected during the year...
...The Ides of March...
...We have put forth the best there is in us to give our readers a clear idea of the forces at work in the nation, through a weekly magazine that could not be swerved from the plain path of duty...
...III...
...X. The Progressive Platform...
...Is there not some more subtle, less obvious and equally effective method of subduing and intimidating the free and outspoken magazine press of the country...
...HA New York despatch says Tammany is alarmed at the appointment of Frank Moss, "a recognized reformer, graft foe, investigator and vice crusader," to the position of first assistant district attorney...
...When it is necessary to strike blows in defense of our ideals, we shall hit as hard as we can...
...The public wants a parcels post conducted by the government for the transportation of smaller parcels and the railroads should furnish adequate fast freight service for the transportation of such large parcels .and shipments as require expedition...
...But in the end that which is for the good of all will prevail...
...In the twelve months that have passed since the first number appeared, our list of bona fide, paid-up subscriptions has grown to 31,000...
...The amazing growth of wealth in the West, due to the prosperity of the agricultural classes, seems liable to work a change in the aspect of our student lfe, unless we can maintain the ideals even though we cannot maintain the conditions of former days...
...And scattered throughout every state in the union...
...The present Postmaster General calls attention to the postal deficit and recommends an increase of the postage rates on periodicals and magazines to meet the deficit...
...Results were surprising...
...La Follette and Roosevelt, the First Insurgents...
...The American Express Company has been paying dividends of 6 to 12 per cent, for years, on a capitalization half water...
...The New Year brings with it new tasks and new responsibilities...
...There was not a single advertisement in the first number...
...And so we might go on giving the statistics of the extravagant profits of the express carriers...
...These aspirations have been strongly reflected in western colleges and universities, and it is probably safe to say that their atmosphere has been more strongly democratic than that of the older and larger institutions of the East...
...V. The Interests Rally to the Defense of Cannon...
...But with congressional bosses who would frank back and forth during the mail-weighing period tons of useless public documents for the mere purpose of stuffing the mails and increasing the railroad rake-off, this suggestion never got far...
...With it we shall render still greater service as the people's spokesman, for with a mighty army of earnest, intelligent readers behind us we can compel attention when we speak...
...We shall go on getting out the best and most attractive paper that our means will permit, stimulated by the knowledge that there are thousands and ever-increasing thousands of independent, thinking citizens who are with us heart and soul...
...But the System is against this "radical" and "socialistic" undertaking and the System Congress has thus far strangled postal savings bank legislation...
...It is on your side of this great struggle for Democracy, and it will take a place out on the firing line of every engagement where the main issue is at stake...
...It has also been recommended by at least one Postmaster General that the government build and own the railway mail cars instead of paying the railroad more than their total cost annually for the rent of the cars...
...In spite of economic and social changes, it has continued to cling to the democratic ideal...
...The pertinence of these facts in connection with the postal deficit is this: These earnings represent what the public is paying private interests for the transportation of express—freight, parcels, and also mailable matter, and money, transported by the express companies partly in competition with the postal department and probably in contravention of the postal laws of the United States...
...But we have ever in mind the one big, joyous fact that at heart the people of this country are sound...
...Its scope is indicated by the following chapter headings: I. Brief Introduction...
...VII...
...The Progressives and the Aldrich-Payne Tariff...
...now we have from two to four pages every week...
...We shall meet with many difficulties...
...In this country the people's fight against Aldrichism and Cannonism in national politics, and corruption and misrepresentation in local politics—against what Judge Lindsey calls "The Beast"—is assuming new proportions...
...No magazine or newspaper that sets out to speak fearlessly and truthfully about the wrongs committed in the name of Big Business and Big Politics finds the way smooth and the profits certain...
...Big events crowded one another close and hard upon the arena of public affairs...
...It presented its share holders with a special Christmas dividend of 300 per cent, or $24,000,000...
...We have endeavored to throw upon the big events of the day the clear light of Truth that our readers may have the most accurate information obtainable about the things in which they, as sovereign citizens, have a vital interest...
...1. The Roll of Honor...
...The Progressive Movement...
...In England, for instance, the fight led by Lloyd-George to transfer part of the heavy load of taxation from the bread of the poor to the colossal land and liquor monopolies of the lords and to abolish poverty by taxing land into use, seems destined to bring about a revolution in English institutions...
...Which of these men represents your attitude...
...So that another special distribution dividend of 100 per cent, is about due to the Adams share holders...
...The ad was not keyed, but you certainly have a loyal readership, for the correspondents do not fail to mention, 'I saw it in La Follette's.' " * * This interest, this loyalty that you have manifested is the best assurance we have of success...
...A Timely Comparison WHEN YOU have finished reading The Roll Call in this issue, we suggest that you turn back to the issue of La Follette's for December 18 and read once more Mr...
...And the outlook is that 1910 will be written big on the pages of history...
...A parcels post, established on an honest basis, would give the public better service at lower rates, and yield a revenue that would wipe out the postal deficit...
...The generous help you have given by going among your friends and telling them about the magazine has shown the depth and sincerity of your interest...
...Without it our existence would be brief indeed...
...That Postal Deficit THE FAILURE of the postal revenues to meet the postal expenditures is a subject of perennial discussion...
...The postal deficit, like the poor, we have always with us...
...Surely this is cause for rejoicing...
...It is exceedingly bold...
...In that fact lies the hope of Democracy...
...La Follette's wa8 founded with very limited financial backing in the belief that the people would lend their support to a publication they knew was unsubsidized...
...We want this to be a magazine of good cheer...
...It has been suggested that the extravagant pay of the railways for carrying the mails be reduced...
...Those who are becoming newly and rapidly rich are finding it difficult to maintain their equipoise...
...2. The Roll of Dishonor...
...It was Postmaster General Wanamaker who said that there were only four reasons why the people could not have a parcels post...
...William Kittle, who will be remembered by readers of La Follette's for his fearless series of articles on "The Making of Public Opinion," has written for that magazine an article entitled "The Progressive Movement...
...It is one of the best articles on the rise and spread of this movement we have seen...
...It therefore is the duty of the western college or university to aid strongly in maintaining the old simplicity of life and the ideals which lead the university community to judge a man for what he really is in his conduct and life.—The American Educational Review...
...The Issue—Aldrichism and Cannonism...
...THE WEST has for many years been the seat of purest democracy in the United States...
...With it we shall become 'a more effective champion of the Cause in which we are enlisted—your Cause...
...President Taft and the Progressives...
...When the issue is drawn in your district, when it becomes your duty to enter the contest over the election of a congressman, we shall draw upon every resource at our command to supply you with the ammunition that will help you to win...
...Think of what that means...
...Political leaders may go wrong...
...But this recommendation never received consideration by Congress...
...Then there is the postal savings banks proposition, to which the Republican party is committed...
...Thus encouraged, we look forward to 1910 with confidence...
...The scheme certainly would prove comprehensive in its effects...
...Democracy is stirring the world as never before...
...Recent disclosures of express company earnings add new and important arguments for a parcels post...
...Read This IP YOU would like to read an able and intensely interesting story about the great movement now under way to restore representative government and destroy the combination between Big Business and Big Polities, get a copy of The Twentieth Century Magazine for January...
...Some of the smaller companies earned last year 200 to 300 per cent, net on their investment...
...We have had the assistance of many brilliant and famous writers...
...A family of readers 150,000 strong...
...The advertising —the bread-winner of every magazine family—has increased, too...
...and last year received an income of $1,178,000 from investments of its additional, accumulated profits...
...2. How Big Business Controls the House...
...We know you want it to succeed...
...La Follette's will help you in this fight...
...VIII...
...that the express companies would benefit because of the large increase which it would produce in their business and profits, that the railroads under their contracts with the express companies would share in that benefit and in addition be relieved from the transportation of a large amount of mail matter for carrying which, under their long-time contracts with the post office and under the system of a mail weighings only once in four years, they wou'd also continue for some time to be paid by the government...
...The exposure of railroad abuses, of corporation thievery, agitation against political corruption and misrepresentative government, the publishing of campaign contributions and manipulations, exposure of the plundering of the public domain and squandering of natural resources, holding up to the people the outrages of the tariff jobbery—of these offenses and others like them, the magazines of the country have been guilty...
...to become a greater power in the struggle for equality of opportunity and decency and honesty in government...
...Various plans and departures have been suggested to wipe It out...
...The fight will come close to you...
...1. How Big Business Controls the Senate...
...He knows, or he ought to know, that if such an increase were made the express companies would make arrangements to transport and deliver large, bulky magazines and periodicals at a rate enough lower to get that business, and that they would get it away from the post office...
...The operation of a postal savings system would increase postal receipts without a corresponding increase in expenses and thus tend to reduce the deficit...
...These four reasons were the four big express companies...
...The Progressives in Congress...
...Best of all, new subscribers and new advertisers are coming to us in greater numbers right now than at any time in the past...
...We have been guided in our dealing with men and measures, with organized movements for political and social betterment, with efforts to shake cities and states and the nation free from the grasp of the Interests, solely by our understanding of what would best conserve the public interest...
...1909 was a memorable year...
...The path we have chosen is not strewn with roses...
...For our own part, we have tried to keep the faith...
...But some better scheme should be found than that which has been suggested by the present Postmaster General...
...We have in mind a letter from one of our advertisers— a letter, we believe, that will give you as much pleasure as it has given us, for he was referring to you when he said: "I want to say to you that I gave you the advertising originally as a matter of compliment to your magazine...
...Garfield's article, "Your Property and Mine at Stake...
...The present Postmaster General is astute and able and he knows, or he ought to know, that the increase of postage rates on magazines, which he recommends, would not reduce the deficit but would increase it...
...He knows, or he ought to know that this would result in the loss of a large revenue to the post office without a corresponding reduction in expenses, that only the express companies and the railroads would benefit from the change...
...We know you are interested in La Follette's...
...One year's experience has strengthened us in this belief...
...Congressman Mondell's attitude toward conserving and developing our natural resources is not the attitude of former Secretary of the Interior Garfield...
Vol. 2 • January 1910 • No. 1
