JOURNALISTIC "PORK" IS DENOUNCED
Journalistic "Pork" Is Denounced Senator Pomerene Tells Literary Digest That Press Should Not Expect Subsidy At a Time Like the Present; New York Tribune Attacks Second Class System THE manner in...
...Every business man engaged in a legitimate enterprise is serving the public, but that is no reason why the Government should afford him free transportation...
...1 submit Chat it is not quite fair that you place between yourself and the fibre of public criticism "a hundred thousand boys and gir's throughout the country...
...Last fiscal year the government carried and distributed through the mails 10,023,200 pounds of this daily at a cost for transportation (average haul 300 miles) of $150,-348 and for handling and distributing of $400,923...
...Since the Publishers' Association's protest was directed to Representative Kitchin, among others, it might well have taken notice of an illuminating analysis of the working of the subsidy system which Mr...
...Burleson, agree upon the subject that the Government all these years has been the loser...
...It is one thing to say that all postal rates ought to be moderate, and that the government in making rates ought to realize that 'the d iff us ion of knowledge and information in newspapers and periodicals is necessary to the unity and welfare of the nation.' It is another to twist these proper enough sentiments into a justification of the government's present enormous subsidies to publications using the second-class mails, many of these publications being primarily advertising media only slightly tinctured with 'knowledge and information.' Postal rates should be 'moderate...
...Has it come to this—that our moral standards are based upon our financial interests...
...The total cost to the government of the service rendered was $551,276, for which it received only $100,232, making a clear loss to the government of $451,044 and giving a clear subsidy to the publishers of the Times of $451,044...
...You are prompted by the same motives that actuate every other publisher...
...Under the zone system the price will be 6 cents in Ohio and 5 cents in New Jersey...
...It comes with poor grace from publishers to criticise Senators and Congressmen because of mistakes they make —here in Washington—and when they make mistakes they ought to be criticised—while these same publishers insist that a bonus or a subsidy of millions be voted to them annually...
...At a time when Congress is more than doubling Federal taxation and is supposed to be stopping all unnecessary non-military expenditure, what excuse can there be for continuing this largess to the users of second-class mails...
...The publishers have been enjoying these special privileges for years and years, and now when we are in the throes of war a large number of them are conducting a campaign through the mails and the press, not only to get a continuation of second"class mailing privileges, but to urge legislation authorizing an expenditure of $3,000,000 to advertise the coming issue of bonds...
...Why can not they increase the subscription price and further increase their advertising rates, if necessary, in order to meet the actual cost of delivery...
...Publishers are the only class of people in this country that 1 know of who are receiving a bonus from the Government...
...The Brooklyn Eagle ana the New York Tribune refused to subscribe to such a move".' The following is an editorial which appeared after the meeting in the New York Tribune: The protest, unfortunately, runs to glittering generalities...
...It is a very great disappointment to me that publishers assume this attitude...
...Your splendid magazine would have a greater influence if you were courageous enough to take the stand that you want to pay for the favors you are getting from the Government and want everybody else to do likewise...
...No one whose judgment is worthy of serious consideration denies that it coats the Government less than three or four times the amount it receives- Postmasters General, from Mr...
...Course Is Indorsed Without disenssion and without a dissenting vote, delegates to the California State Federation of Labor convention adopted Friday a resolution Indorsing United States Senator La Follette, asking for him the right to express the views "of an intelligent minority" and expressing confidence in his integrity and loyalty "a3 a true American citizen...
...Under the present law this company was required to pay for this large service only $592,899, leaving the government a loss of $4,743,205 and giving the Curtis Publishing Company from the pockets of the taxpayers a subsidy of $4,743,205.' "Now, take the esse of a big city daily like the New York Times...
...The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, selecting the Curtis Company publications as representative in the magazine field and tho New York Times as representative in the newspaper field said: " 'The total cost to the government of hauling, handling and distributing for the Curtis Publishing Company through the mails these these periodicals (The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies Home Journal and The Country Gentleman) last fiscal year was $5,366,104...
...In my judgment good political morals require that publishers should pay for the service they receive from the Government, and that Congress should not be required to tax the drinkers of tea and coffee or the public generally in order to get sixty or seventy millions of dollars from them to offset the bonus paid the publishers...
...The public is not asking and will not ask, when fully informed, that the Government pay the expense of the delivery of the magazines and newspapers of the country...
...Bis-set to Mr...
...That fact alone will indicate my estimate of it If it is necessary to increase the subscription price in order to meet the additional postage, increase it...
...Why should they have it rather than anybody else...
...If the subsidy to the publishers is to be defended, why not cast aside all subterfuges and say frankly, as Arthur J. Baldwin, vice-president of the Associated Business Papers, Int., did in a brief filed with the Senate Finance Committee that a deficit second-class rate is 'one of the important raw materials' of the periodical publishing industry...
...It does not seem to us a wise policy to adopt a system which compels a citizen of Ohio or California to pay more for his reading matter than the citizen of New York...
...New York Tribune Attacks Second Class System THE manner in which tie press of tie country has fought any attempt to relieve it of the $90,000,000 subsidy Being granted each year is seeping to through the country and it will not be much to expect and that in the no distant future the second class man "parte" will at least be cat down...
...Yon are publishing it to make money...
...My judgment is that if you will put both sides of this proposition up to your readers in the columns of your magazine the vast majority of them will say that they want to pay the expense of the delivery of your paper...
...I realize very fully that this is not a very politic thing for mo to write but it is the truth, and neither you nor I should fear the truth...
...Why should they not pay the expense of the service they get from the Government as well as those who use first-class postal privileges...
...The Literary Digest is your business proposition...
...Publishers increased the price of their advertising to meet the increased cost of paper...
...Let me be perfectly frank with you...
...Kitchin made some time ago in a speech in the House...
...The following correspondence between The Literary Digest and Senator Aflee Pomerene is illuminating...
...Of course you desire to serve, and you are serving the public, but it not primarily for that purpose that you are printing the magazine...
...At the time that the second class postage question was before congress, as embodied in the revenue bill, the big New York newspaper publishers held a meeting and adopted resolutions against any change in second class mail rates...
...Think of it...
...In a time of national peril such as the present, when newspapers are more prosperous than in all their history., the contention is rightfully made that the government should not carry second class mail at a huge deficit...
...As citizens we realize the tremendous strain under which every Senator has been working in trying to equitably adjust the many sides of the war revenue measure during the recent months, and do not wish in any way to be understood as criticising any man's judgment, but we respectfully urge you to carefully consider the zone system, for we fee) sure it has in "ft the seed which may easily develop a sectional spirit and at a time whan unity of purpose and action are essential to our country's safety...
...Associated Press dispatch...
...The tallowing reply was sent to The Literary Digest by Senator Pomerene: Your telegram criticising try vote in favor of the zone system as involved in the McKcllar amendment received...
...The letter from the literary Digest to Senator Pomerene follows: When you voted in favor of zone system you were probably unaware of the injustice ft would mean to a hundred thousand boys and giris through out the country who are studying current events and history in Literary Digest...
...I have been a subscriber to and a reader of tho Litterary Digest for more than twenty years...
...There is no defense in good morals that you can make of the present situation...
...but 'moderate' describes -very i...perfectly tho undercharges on second class mail transportation, which result in a deficit to the government of from $80,000,000 to $90,000,000 annually...
...Allow me to say to you in all candor that it has been a very great disappointment to me to know that the leaders of educational thought in this country are constantly serving in the capacity of a lobby here in Washington, or through the mails, in order to intimidate Congressmen and Senators so that they may get a continuance of the financial favors which they have been enjoying at the hands of the Government for so many years...
...To 17D high schools in Ohio we are sending thousands of copies weekly of the Literary Digest at half price, exactly the same price as pupils in New Jersey pay...
...A moderate postage rate does not mean a deficit rate...
...Students of the subject may vary in their estimate as to whether magazines and newspapers arc costing the Post Office Department forty or fifty millions of dollars or seventy or eighty motions of dollars mare than it receives from these...
Vol. 9 • September 1917 • No. 10
