POSTAL REVENUES FROM ADVERTISING.
Now, the Postmaster General’s whole talk--his whole word-splutter--was,
it seems, to create an impression that the government was losing millions
annually _because of the large amount of advertising matter distributed
by magazines and other periodicals_.
On the other hand, the publishers in their “Exhibit F,” and elsewhere,
try to show, and in the writer’s opinion _do_ show quite conclusively
and dependably, that the excess of expenditure over receipts in the
Postoffice Department would be _two to four times greater than it now
is were it not for the first, third and fourth class revenues resulting
directly from those advertising pages in our periodical literature_.
Before giving these publishers a chance to tell the truth, as presented
in their “Exhibit F,” I desire to make a few remarks about the point
under consideration--the profits to the _government from periodical
advertising_.
The publishers present the evidence of their counting-rooms--the _inside_
testimony. I desire to present some outside testimony.
I may present it in an awkward, raw way, but I have a conceit that the
“jury” will give it consideration.
Three months ago, there was a “party at our house.” No, it was not
a bridge party. Mrs. M. On The L. has, in my visual range, I can
here assure you, many commendable virtues--meritorious qualities and
qualifications. Likewise, she has some faults. The latter I cannot, if
the dove of peace is to continue perching on our domicile lodge pole,
mention here. I may, however, say with entire safety, that “bridge” and
alleged similar feminine amusements are not among them.
The party to which I advert was a “tea.” The guests were six,--Mrs. M.
On The L. serving. The guests not only had “the run” of the house, but
they _took possession of it_. I stuck to my “den” until it was invaded
and then--well, then, my dear trousered reader, I did precisely what you
would have done. I backed off--I surrendered.
“What was the result?”
In this particular case, the chief feature of the result was that
these seven women, _in less than ten minutes_, had appropriated every
copy of all the latest, and some a month or more old, of the magazines
and weeklies about my work-shop. They also annexed me. I “just had
to go downstairs and have a cup of tea with them.” Although I am not
entrancingly fond of tea, I did exactly what you would have done. I went.
Necessarily, I had to be good. I was good. I said--as near as I knew
how--the things that were proper to say and as near the proper time as I
could. That is, I said little and listened much.
It is of what I heard--and afterward learned--I wish here to speak.
I wish to speak of it because it fits like a glove to the point the
publishers make in their “Exhibit F,” which is to follow.
While the hostess was preparing and spreading luncheon--a necessary
concomitant of all “teas,” other than mentioned in novels--the six guests
scanned the magazines and talked magazines. From their conversation it
appeared that five of the six took, either by subscription or news-stand
purchase, one or two monthly magazines “regularly.” Whether the ladies
_read_ them or not was not made clear to me. One of them did make mention
of two “splendid stories”--“The Ne’er do Well,” by Rex Beach, and, at the
time of the “tea,” appearing, in serial, in one of the monthlies. The
other was a short story entitled “The Quitters,” which, the lady stated,
had appeared in one of the magazines some time previous.
Now, so far as I can recall, the reference made by this one of the six
ladies was the only mention made of the “literary” features of the
magazines they had read or to such features of those they were examining.
There was considerable talk and attention given to the body illustrations.
In calling such stories as the lady mentioned “literary” I presume
apologies are due the Penrose-Overstreet Commission. While both the
stories are “brand-new,” are well written, each teaching a lesson--have,
in short, all the essential elements of “currency and periodicity”--yet
that commission, in the anxious interest it displayed to secure “a
general exclusion act” against fiction in periodicals, would, possibly,
see nothing of literary merit in either of the stories the lady mentioned.
I shall, however, offer no apologies to the commission for classing the
two stories as literature and of exemplary currency. On a previous page I
have given my reasons for differing from the commission on its strictures
on current fiction as run in our standard monthlies and weeklies. The
lady’s expressed opinion of the two stories is another reason for
differing from that expressed by the commission. In my judgment, the lady
who spoke has a broader, juster and far more comprehending knowledge of
literature--of its merits and demerits, whether fiction, historical,
biographical or classic--than has any member of that commission.
But to return to our tea party. Those six ladies scanned and thumbed
through my magazines. As said, there was comparatively little talk or
comment about the body-matter of the periodicals. But those women--all
married, five of them mothers, two of them (three, counting the hostess),
grandmothers--gave fully _three-fourths of their time to the advertising
pages_.
But that is not all. Their scanning of the advertising pages of those
periodicals developed some business action. The business talk started
when one lady called attention to the “ad” of a military school in a town
in Wisconsin, “where Thomas attends,” Thomas being her son. It developed
that the lady seated next to her had a son Charles whom it was desired
to start in some preparatory school in the fall. Another matron had a
daughter she desired to have take a course at some school for girls. Both
of the ladies with candidates for preparatory courses, however, were of
the opinion that all the “good schools” appeared to be in the East and
each would prefer to send her son or daughter to some school nearer home.
To this opinion the mother of the boy attending the Wisconsin school
earnestly protested.
“We have just as good preparatory schools, colleges and universities
in the West as they have in the East,” she declared. “My boy is doing
splendidly at the----, Wisconsin. He has been there two terms now. If
you don’t want to send Charles to a military school, there are a score
or more of excellent schools for either boys or girls in the West and
South--some of them right near us, too. Just look here!”----
And then began a scurrying through the school “ad” pages of three or four
of the magazines for the names and locations of preparatory schools. The
advertisements of a number were found.
“Take the names and addresses and write all of them for their catalogues
or prospectuses or pamphlets, giving the courses of study that pupils
may take, the advantages they offer and other information. That’s what I
did before deciding where to send Thomas. I wrote twenty-two different
military schools in the country and got a prompt reply from each of them.
In fact some of them wrote me _four or five times_, besides sending their
little printed books which gave their courses of study and set forth the
special advantages their students enjoyed.”
Of course, it was Thomas’ mother who spoke. Her suggestion, however,
gripped the rails at once. The two matrons with children to place in
preparatory schools asked for pencil and paper. I relieved them of the
immediate labor of writing out their lists, by gallantly inviting them
to take home with them such of the magazines as they thought would serve
their purpose, and, as they were near neighbors, they could scan them at
their leisure and address directly from the advertisements. I lost three
of my favorite magazines on my tender.
“This has no bearing on the point!” Eh? Well, let us see about that.
Of course, I do not know what the mothers of that son and daughter who
were to be started in preparatory school work did. It is safe to presume
however, that they adopted the plan suggested by Thomas’ mother. We
know what she did. At any rate we have her own statement of the course
she pursued, and there can be advanced no valid reason for doubting her
word. Besides, as she is our “next-door” neighbor, I have made, within
the month, special inquiry of her as to what she did. I found that she
had kept the catalogues of the schools to which she had written and had
carefully “filed” in a _twined package_, as a careful housekeeper usually
files things, every letter she had received from the schools.
More than that: She wrote nine of the schools a second letter and three
of them, she wrote _four times_. To the Wisconsin school to which she
finally intrusted the training and instruction of her son she wrote _six
times_.
Now let us see what revenue the federal postal fund _actually_ received
from this one mother in her efforts to place her boy in a good, safe
school.
First the mother herself wrote forty-five letters. On these the
Postoffice Department collected 90 cents.
Second, her “twine file” shows that, all told, she had received from
the twenty-two schools written to, a total of 163 letters. On these the
government collected $3.26.
Third, the catalogues sent her were of various sizes. Their carriage
charge, at third-class rates, I think would range from two to six cents
or more. Putting the average at only three cents, which in my judgment is
low, the government collected for their carriage 66 cents.
Fourth, thirteen of the schools, either not knowing her boy had been
matriculated or thinking she might have other boys “comin’ on” to
preparatory school age, sent her their catalogues for the following
year--another 39 cents.
Add those four items and you will readily ascertain that the government
received $5.21 in revenue from the efforts of Thomas’ mother to select
a school for him--a school that would give him military training and
discipline, as well as academic instruction in selected studies.
_Her course of action was prompted entirely by the school advertisements
she saw in two magazines._
How many other mothers and fathers were influenced to similar action by
the three or four school “ad” pages in those two magazines I do not know.
There must, however, have been many, I take it, otherwise the schools and
preparatory colleges would not persist in advertising so extensively,
year after year, during the summer months, in our high-class monthly and
weekly periodicals.
The two magazines from which Thomas’ mother got her school address
weighed a little under a pound each. If they reached her by mail, the
government got only about two cents for their carriage and delivery,
which was ample pay--$20.00 a ton--for the service. But supposing Mr.
Hitchcock’s wild figures were correct--that it cost the government 18
cents to deliver those two magazines to that mother--a rate of $180.00
per ton. Of course, no man could so suppose unless he stood on his head
in one corner of a room and figured results as the square of the distance
at which things appeared to him, or chanced to be one of those “blessed”
mortals prenatally endowed with what may be called mental strabismus.
But for the sake of the argument, let us suppose that it did cost the
government 18 cents to deliver those two magazines to Thomas’ mother; let
us admit that that falsehood is fact, that that foolishness is sense.
Then what?
A magazine weighing one pound and printed on the grade of paper used by
our high-class periodicals will count 250 or more pages. Four pages of
school “ads,” therefore, would count for about _one-fourth of one ounce_.
Even at Mr. Hitchcock’s absurd figure of nine cents a pound, the cost
to the government of carrying those four pages of school advertisements
in each of two monthly magazines to the mother of Thomas _was less than
four-fifths of one cent_.
Do you grasp the point?
Remember, Mr. Hitchcock has separated himself from much talk to show to
a doubting public that it is _the advertising pages of periodicals which
over-burden the postal service and are responsible, largely, for the
alleged “deficit.”_
I say “alleged” deficit. I say so, because it is not, and never was, a
deficit _de facto_. I shall later give my reasons for so saying--shall
show that this much talked of deficit in the Postoffice Department’s
revenues is _quasi_ only--a mere matter of accounting, and bad accounting
at that.
But here we are considering the cost to the government of carrying and
delivering _advertising pages_ to the reading public of this Nation.
Especially are we considering the transaction between the government and
the mother of Thomas--a transaction induced and promoted by eight pages
of advertising--four pages in each of two magazines.
As just stated, it cost the government _less than four-fifths of one
cent_, even if we rate the carriage and delivery cost at Postmaster
General Hitchcock’s absurd figure of nine cents a pound, to deliver those
eight pages of school advertisement to Thomas’ mother. Even the delivery
of the _complete_ magazines which printed those advertising pages would,
at Mr. Hitchcock’s own figures, cost the government only about 18 cents.
Let’s admit it all--the worst of it, and the worst possible construction
that the worst will stand. Then how does the government stand in relation
to the resultant transaction--_the transaction induced by those eight
pages of advertising_?
It cost the government 18 cents, according to Mr. Hitchcock’s method of
hurdle estimating, to deliver those two magazines to Thomas’ mother.
Well, let it go at that. The government is out, then, 16 cents, the
publisher having paid in 2 cents at the present pound rate for mail
carriage and delivery.
On the other hand, those two magazines each carried four pages of school
“ads.” Those “ads” start Thomas’ mother into a canvass of the schools by
correspondence. The result of that canvass, as previously shown, turned
into the government’s treasury _a gross revenue of_ $5.21 for postage
stamps to cover the first and third-class business resulting.
The government, then, is $5.05 ahead so far as _gross_ receipts and
_gross_ revenues are concerned, and it is ahead that sum, in the specific
transaction under consideration, _solely and only because of those eight
pages of school advertisements printed in the two magazines_.
Is that not a fair--a just--statement?
As Mr. Hitchcock states that there is a large profit to the government
for the stamps sold and as that $5.21 was _all for stamps_, then those
eight pages of advertisements and Thomas’ mother must have turned into
the postal fund a handsome _net_ profit on the service rendered by the
Postoffice Department.
Now, I desire to return to our “tea.” Two other “business” actions
developed which serve to prove the statement made on a previous page,
namely: _It is the advertising pages of our periodicals which yield the
largest revenue to the government for the postal service it renders._
The first of the two postal revenue-producers came up as we sat at
luncheon. Each of the ladies had a magazine or weekly in hand. There was
as much talking as eating in progress, or more. I presume that is the
proper procedure or practice at “tea” luncheons. I am not a competent
authority on “tea” proprieties.
One of the ladies “had the floor,” so to speak, and expatiated eloquently
and at length on the merits of an electrically heated flat-iron or
sad-iron, an advertisement of which she had found in the magazine
she was scanning--a cloth smoother she had had in use for some three
months. Three of the other matrons were wired--that is, their homes
were electrically lighted. The others were getting their domiciliary
illumination from what is vulgarly designated as the “Chicago Gas Trust,”
at 85 cents per.
“Results?” Three of the assembled party desired to write for “full
particulars” about that flat-iron at once.
My boss furnished paper, envelopes, pens and ink. My assigned duty
in this business transaction was both simple and secondary. The boss
_ordered_ me to go over to the drug store, buy the stamps and mail those
three letters.
I did so.
The government got six cents postal revenue from _me_ on that sad-iron
“ad.” What further revenue was gleaned from the correspondence between
the three ladies and the flat-iron manufacturer I know not.
It took me a long time to reach that drug-store--a short block away--buy
the stamps, “lick ’em,” stick them on the envelopes and drop those three
letters into the mail-box just outside the druggist’s door. At any rate,
the ladies so informed me when I got back. They did it politely, kindly,
but very _plainly_. Not wishing to scarify their feelings by admitting
that I had purposely loitered because of an inherent or pre-natal dislike
of teas, I did what I thought was the proper thing to do under the stress
of impinging circumstances--I lied like a gentleman. I told the ladies
that the druggist happened to be out of two-cent stamps and had sent out
for them--sent to another drug store for them.
“How unfortunate!” exclaimed one of the party. “We want a lot more
stamps. We have each written for a sample of these new biscuits. We have
to enclose ten cents in stamps and the letters will have to be stamped.
That’s eighty-four cents in stamps and we want to get the letters into
the mail tonight.”
Then I was shown the advertisement of the desired “biscuits.” In the
good old summer time of our earthly residence, “when life and love
were young,” we called such mercantile pastry “crackers.” Mother baked
all the biscuits we then ate, or somebody else’s mother baked them. Of
course, sometimes Mary, Susie, Annie, Jane or another of the dear girls
learned the trick and could “bake as good as mother.” Then she baked the
biscuits. And they _were_ biscuits. Now, every _cracker_ is a biscuit,
and every biscuit one gets smells and tastes of the bakeshop where it was
foundried.
But that is entirely aside from our subject. The “ad”--a full page--set
forth the super-excellence of some recently invented or devised
cracker--“biscuit,” if you prefer so to call it. It was an attractively
designed and well-written “ad.” The advertiser offered to send a
regular-size package of the “biscuits” to anyone on receipt of ten cents
in stamps--“enough to cover the postage”--and the name of the grocer
with whom the sender of the stamps traded. That, in brief, was the “ad”
offer, and each of the ladies wanted those biscuits--my boss as anxious
to sample them as any of the others. On a corner of the luncheon table in
symmetrical, pyramidal array, was 84 cents in miscellaneous change.
Before it came my turn to speak, Mrs. M. On The L. gave me a scrutinizing
look--a censorious look--a look that said, “I know where you have been,”
and took the floor. She did not rise in taking it either.
“Oh, he can get the stamps. Take that change and these letters. You can
go to some other drug store and get the stamps. Put ten cents in stamps
in each envelope and then seal and mail the letters.”
That’s the speech the boss made.
I should be ashamed to admit it, but I am not. There are limits to the
endurance of even such a temperate-zone nature as that of the writer. The
boss’ speech reached the limit. My patriotism was set all awry. Even my
earnest desire to reduce the “deficit” in the postal service was, for the
moment, forgotten--was submerged.
I took the 84 cents those friendly ladies had pooled on “biscuits” and
the seven unsealed letters, assuring them I would certainly find the
stamps. I then went up to my den, unlocked a drawer of my desk, found
the stamps, made the enclosures, stamped and sealed the envelopes, and
then came down and passed out on my assigned errand. I got back just as
the “party” was donning its hat to depart for its several homes, assured
it that its orders had been carried out, and, by direction of the boss,
escorted home one of its members who had some distance to walk.
Now, I think I did my whole duty to that tea-party, and _more_ than my
duty to reduce the postal “deficit.”
I trust the “dear reader” will not have concluded or even thought that
I am trying to be funny or humorous, nor even ludicrous. I have been
writing of _actual_ occurrences, and writing the _facts_, too, of those
occurrences, as nearly as I can recall them after an interval of _less
than three months_. I introduce the _de facto_ happenings at our “tea
party” here because they _apply_--because they illustrate, they evidence,
they _prove_ that the advertising pages of our periodicals _are the pages
which produce a large part, if indeed, not the larger part of our postal
service revenues_.
But we must look after our “biscuits” a little further.
The seven women at that tea party spent 84 cents for stamps to get
a sample of those crackers. Fourteen cents of these stamps went to
cancellation on the letters they mailed. The other 70 cents went to
cancellation on the cracker packages which the cracker inventor sent
them--cancelled at the fourth-class rate--_cancelled at the postal
carriage rate of sixteen cents a pound_.
Is that all? No it is not all. It is only the first link in a _postal
revenue_ producing chain.
The manufacturer of that cracker or biscuit, as you may choose to call
it, wrote each of those seven ladies a neat letter of thanks, and neatly
giving a further boost to the biscuit. I know this because I have seen
the seven letters--all “stock form” letters.
That contributed 14 cents more in postage stamps for cancellation.
Three of the ladies heard from that cracker baker _four times_. Their
grocers probably had not put the cracker in stock. My boss got a second
letter from the baker.
That contributed 20 cents more in postage stamps for cancellation.
The advertiser sent by mail to each of the seven grocers the ladies had
named a sample package of the “biscuits” and a letter naming the local
grocery jobber or jobbers through whom stock could be had, the jobber’s
price of it, etc.
That contributed 84 cents more in postage stamps for cancellation.
Nor is that all. My boss’ grocer got three letters from that cracker
baker and a visit from a salesman of a local jobber before he “stocked.”
If the grocers named by the other six ladies were similarly honored then
the builder of those biscuits must have written the seven grocers whom
the tea party ladies had named fourteen letters in addition to the first
one.
That contributed 28 cents more in postage stamps for cancellation.
Now let us figure up--or down--how one tea party of seven (I was the
working or “worked” member, so am not to be counted in), and a one page
“ad” stands in account with the postal revenues.
The magazine carrying the cracker “ad” weighs about a pound. The single
“ad” page cannot possibly weigh more than _three-fiftieths of one ounce_.
To carry and deliver that one “ad” page the cost to the government, then,
even at Mr. Hitchcock’s extension-ladder rate of 9 cents a pound, would
be about _one-thirtieth of one cent_.
But as we did in the case of the school advertisements previously
mentioned, let’s give our Postmaster General the whole “hullin’ uv
beans.” Let us credit the government with Mr. Hitchcock’s alleged cost of
carrying that magazine to that tea party--nine cents.
Per contra, the government must give that “ad” page credit for producing
stamp cancellations to the amount of $2.30.
Figure it out yourself and see if that is not the _actual_ showing of the
ledger on this account of the Postoffice Department with that one “ad”
page and those seven tea party women.
That, I believe, is fair and sufficient evidence from the outside--from
the field--in support of the facts which the publishers present in their
“Exhibit F,” and which I shall here reprint:
The astonishing record contained in (Exhibit E), of the
absolutely unvarying coincidence of decreases in postoffice
deficits with increases in second-class mail is square up against
the Postmaster General’s statements that the department loses
8.23 cents on every pound of second-class mail and loses over
$60,000,000 a year as a whole, on second-class mail.
What is the explanation? How can the phenomenon of constantly
decreasing deficits, coincident with increasing second-class
mail, be reconciled? To be sure, the Postmaster General has been
trying for two years to make out a case against the magazines,
and nothing is better understood than that, _under orders_, he is
using all the figures and the infinite opportunities of such a
complex mass of figures as those of the postoffice, to make the
case for the magazines as bad as possible. Of course, it does not
cost the department 9.23 cents a pound for second-class matter;
but also, of course, in all probability, the cost must be more
than one-ninth Postmaster General Hitchcock’s figures. Then why
is it that _the more second-class matter there is mailed the more
money the Postoffice Department has_?
The answer is that the advertising in the periodicals, the
very advertising the Administration is trying to drive out
of existence, _is far and away the most important creator of
profitable first-class postage that exists_. That, furthermore,
the varied and constant efforts of publishers to extend the
circulation of their periodicals by sending out tens of millions
of circulars, _each making for a 2-cent reply_, and the great and
complex business that has been built up around _the originating
and handling of advertising_ have made this national market
for reputable wares--a market where the purchasing is done by
mail with 2-cent stamps--the stamps that pay the Postoffice
Department’s bills and give it $23,000,000 a year to spend over
and above receipts from rural free delivery, in advancing that
splendid service for the country dweller.
There were published in 1909 in fifty American magazines
12,859,138 lines of advertising, for over 5,000 advertisers, who
used over 25,000 different advertisements, and it is obviously
impossible physically to tabulate complete results. But let us
nail down certain specific examples of advertisements inserted
in magazines, _and follow the record right through_, of the work
they did for the postoffice, the expense they put the postoffice
to, and the profit they brought it.
These score or more of specific instances tell the whole story.
Read, especially, the first instance--the complete bookkeeping
transaction of one magazine advertisement in account with the
United States postoffice:
A MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT IN ACCOUNT WITH THE UNITED STATES POST
OFFICE.
In the Saturday Evening Post of November 26, 1910, was published
a 224-line advertisement of the Review of Reviews.
Three thousand seven hundred replies were received, 1,776 of them
inclosing each 10 cents in first-class postage.
The paper on which this advertisement was printed weighed
0.132815 ounce. The half of it printed with the advertisement
weighed 0.06640625 ounce.
One million seventy thousand copies of the Saturday Evening
Post were sent through the United States mails, so that the
postoffice transported 4,440.9 pounds of this advertisement. At
9.23 cents per pound--the pound cost of transporting and handling
second-class matter given by the Postoffice Department--the total
cost of giving the postoffice services to this advertisement
was $409.90; postage paid at 1 cent a pound, $44.41; loss to
postoffice, $365.49.
THE POSTOFFICE’S GROSS AND NET GAIN FROM FIRST-CLASS POSTAGE CREATED.
3,700 inquiries were received by the Review of Reviews.
3,700 2-cent stamps for inquiries $74.00
3,700 acknowledgments under 2-cent stamp 74.00
Six follow-ups to 3,700 inquiries under 2-cent stamps 444.00
1,776 inquiries sent 10 cents in stamps 177.60
740 sales are made, each involving 12 bills and 12
remittances, under 2-cent stamp 355.00
The 3,700 names of inquiries will be circulated at least
three times a year for five years, under 2-cent stamps
(a practical certainty of twice as many circularizations) 1,110.00
---------
Total gross direct sales of 2-cent
stamps from advertisement $2,234.60
Profit of 40 per cent, according to profit percentage
of Postmaster General on first-class postage $893.84
Direct loss in transporting and handling advertisement,
cost figured at 9.23 cents a pound, income at 1 cent 365.49
-------
Ultimate minimum net gain to postoffice
in having carried this advertisement $528.35
MORE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF PROFITABLE POSTAGE ORIGINATED BY
MAGAZINE ADVERTISING.
Names of concerns are withheld here. The original documents on
which these statements rest are in the possession of the postal
committee of the Periodical Publishers’ Association, 156 Fifth
Avenue, New York City. These are only a few samples of hundreds
that have come, and are printed to suggest the details of the
methods by which national magazine advertising far more than
pays its way when sent out through America at 1 cent a pound
second-class postal rate.
“MR. E. W. HAZEN, _Advertising Director_.
“DEAR MR. HAZEN: During the year 1910 we paid the Postoffice
Department for carrying our first, third and fourth class mail
matter the sum of $496,749.88. We shipped during the year 1910,
1,717,514 packages. Of these 809,781 were sent by mail and
907,733 by express. All of these would have been sent by parcels
post if the postal rates and regulations permitted. We paid the
express companies for the transportation of the packages referred
to above $347,392.30.”
The above statement covers only mail matter sent out of this
house. The figures given are accurate. Any statement of the
number of pieces of mail matter which we receive would be
approximate, but we can safely state that it was in excess of
4,500,000 pieces of first-class mail matter. This estimate is
entirely conservative.
Here is another postal bill of one of the many great “mail order”
magazine advertisers--a company which sells excellent clothing to
women who can not come to the great cities and their department
stores. The president of the company writes:
“As we are a mail-order concern, our business is derived
entirely, either directly or indirectly, from our magazine
advertising. During the year 1909 we paid the Postoffice
Department for carrying our first, third and fourth class mail
matter the sum of $433,242.”
What an advertisement in one issue of one magazine did for
another women’s “wearing apparel” house is recorded in their
books as follows:
The postage required to answer the 15,000 replies from the
one-column insertion in the magazine, also to send the
merchandise required by 2,000 of the inquirers, also to “follow
up” other inquirers, etc., amounted to $5,460.
The government charge for carrying this advertisement through the
second-class mails was $38.83.
That $5,460, by the way, did not include the several hundred
dollars spent on postage by the inquirers themselves.
The president of a concern which publishes encyclopedias, natural
histories, classics, etc., investigated the relations with the
postoffice of a recent page of his advertising inserted in a
single magazine, and the correspondence which resulted.
The stamps and money orders bought by the inquirers and by the
publishing company, as the result of the 4,000 answers to this
one advertisement, amounted to $884.
The publishers paid the postoffice to carry that page, at
second-class rate, $12.
Thus, even if it had not already been disproved that the
second-class rate is insufficient, it would still have been
mightily unfortunate for the department’s business if that page
advertisement had not appeared. A good business man would be
willing to lose several times $12 in order to do $884 worth of
business as profitable to himself as first-class mail is to the
government.
Scores of apparently small advertisers are found in any issue
of any popular magazine. They are just as good customers to the
postoffice, in proportion, as the big concerns using columns or
pages.
ONE INCH--$5,492 STAMPS A YEAR.
A modest 1-inch magazine advertisement is printed by a company,
which reports that its yearly postage account from that cause is
$5,132. Adding the approximate postage on the 1,500 letters a
month sent to the company, the yearly total of postage created by
this inconspicuous concern through the magazine is found to be
$5,492.
ONE-HALF INCH--$590 A MONTH.
A half-inch magazine space is used each month by a certain
electric manufacturing company in the Middle West, but its
postage records show stamp purchases for a single month
(November, 1909), resulting from that half-inch advertisement of
$590.
Two quarter-column announcements of a dress fabric,
appealing to women, in a single magazine, brought 7,000
replies, involving postage stamps worth $230.00
Pretty good business getters for the department? These
“ads” cost the publishers to mail, at second-class rates 19.40
Even better, in proportion, was a one-fifth-column appeal
to mothers in one issue of the same magazine. It produced
postage to the amount of 240.00
To carry the little advertisement at second-class rates
the government charged 7.76
A single-column magazine “ad” of a Chicago clothing firm,
with a number of retail stores over the country, brought
4,000 inquiries which, with the following up, etc.,
caused postage of 380.00
That column cost the publisher to mail, at second-class
rates 38.67
The Woman’s Home Companion sent a letter to the advertisers
in its November issue, asking for a memorandum of the
letter postage on the inquiries from their November
advertising and the answers to these inquiries.
Seventy-five advertisers reported, with definite
figures, an aggregate letter-postage expenditure of $3,385.90
The Woman’s Home Companion paid the government just $583
for carrying that portion of the magazine on which these 75
advertisements were printed.
Any advertising man can point to hundreds of “mail-order firms”
like the above. These firms can trace directly to their magazine
advertising, every year, purchases of millions of dollars’ worth
of the stamps that make big profits for the postoffice.
It is even more surprising to learn the enormous postage
bills caused by an entirely different class of magazine
advertisers--the “general publicity,” or “national”
advertisers--who wish the reader to ask for their fine soaps, or
mattresses, or silks, or stationery at his local store. These
firms do not depend on direct replies, yet they receive so many
that thousands of dollars are spent for stamps per year in scores
of cases--even per month in many.
EVEN THE “GENERAL” OR “PUBLICITY” MAGAZINE ADVERTISING CREATES
ENORMOUS STAMP SALES.
A moderate-priced shoe is sold through a number of retail stores
in different cities. The manufacturers advertise in magazines
for national “publicity,” to bring buyers into these stores.
Incidentally they mention their department to fill orders by
mail. Thus an enormous correspondence has been built up, of which
the average annual increase alone during the last three years
has involved 264,000 first-class letters--a minimum postage of
$5,280. This is simply one yearly addition to the company’s
already first-class business, of which it writes that “all
but a nominal percentage” has been “induced by our magazine
advertisements.”
More than $15,000 was spent for postage by a mattress
manufacturer last year, “following up” inquiries received from
his magazine advertising, though it is designed to create a
demand for the mattress at local furniture stores.
This $15,000 is over and above his steady correspondence with
dealers, etc., which was built up in the first place by magazine
advertising.
One of the many recent “contests” conducted by magazine
advertisers was that of a stationery company. Theirs is also
“publicity,” not mail-order advertising. It is designed to create
a demand for their paper over the stationery store counters.
But their “contest” awhile ago, announced exclusively in the
magazines, brought 59,000 replies, which, with follow-up, etc.,
averaged 12 cents first-class postage--a total of $7,080 in one
month.
Here is still another “publicity” experience. In the course of
familiarizing women with a new trade-mark for silk by means of
magazine advertising, the manufacturers incurred postage bills,
during the first 11 months of 1909, amounting to $7,979.75. About
$2,000 more ought to be added to represent the stamps purchased
by the prospective silk-dress wearers themselves.
Another “contest,” held by a national advertiser, brought
12,089 replies from a single insertion in one magazine, to
handle which postage stamps had to be bought for more than $600.00
The publishers paid to have that page carried through the
mails, at second-class rates 97.66
A half page in one issue of another magazine brought 4,000
letters from inquirers, which, with “follow-up,” etc.,
meant stamp purchases 200.00
The carriage of that half page at second-class rates was 25.62
Magazine advertisements of a popular cold cream brought 170,000
letters to the manufacturers last year, though the controlling
purpose of the campaign was to get the public to ask for that
kind of cold cream at the drug stores.
Not including postal orders, special-delivery stamps, etc., the
stamp revenue to the government from these letters was $8,500.
And, of course, that does not include the profuse correspondence
between the manufacturers, the jobbers, the drug stores all over
the country, and so on.
For another toilet preparation a single advertisement in a
leading weekly magazine brought more than 13,000 replies.
The stamps involved here add up to $990.00
The publishers paid the postoffice to carry this
advertisement, at the second-class rate 48.83
A household remedy, seen in most drug stores, was
mentioned to the extent of one-quarter page in a single
issue of one magazine. The requests for samples numbered
1,685. The postage involved was 202.20
Another “drug store” preparation frequently brings the
manufacturer 2,000 to 6,000 letters each month from their
magazine advertising of it, though that is, of course, for
“publicity,” first of all. A single insertion last fall brought
12,000 inquiries, which created, first and last, the purchase of
$750 in stamps.
A system of physical culture for women put quarter pages in
several magazines during the month of November, from which 3,905
letters were received. In this case, the total postage, including
follow-up and correspondence back and forth, was $1,104.09 for
that month of November alone.
Narrow limits would be expected in the demand for expensive
silverage. Yet a silversmith’s two advertisements in the November
and December magazines brought 45,000 requests for catalogues.
These had already involved by January 13, with the following up,
etc., a postage bill of $5,510.
Another big postage bill was also incurred, incidentally, by a
company which uses magazine advertising to bring buyers into drug
stores, etc., asking for certain shaving soaps and the like.
Still their postage bill during 1909, as a result of inquiries
from their advertising, was $3,656.08. This does not include the
stamps bought by the inquirers--probably $1,000 more.
A similar soap was described in a page advertisement which,
printed in one magazine one time, brought more than 30,000
letters. First-class postage on them and the answers to
them aggregated more than $900.00
The charge for carrying that page, at the second-class
rate, was about 120.00
THE LARGE STAMP PURCHASES OF ENTIRE BUSINESSES DEPEND ON MAGAZINE
ADVERTISING.
All the above examples are of postage sales caused by magazine
advertising directly, in point of time. Just as directly caused
are the sales for correspondence between manufacturer, jobber,
retailer, agent, etc., in the many businesses that have been
built up by magazine advertising.
A camera company writes: “There is a magnificent revenue to the
government through our correspondence with these dealers, through
their correspondence with their customers, and through their
sending our printed matter, furnished by us, at a postage cost of
$100, and such dealer could not afford to go to this expense were
it not for the fact that this local advertising which he does is
backed up by our general magazine publicity.”
This one result of magazine work is figured by the company at
tens of thousands of dollars every year in postage.
The postage-stamp revenue created by magazine advertising keeps
on for months, and years even, between the advertiser and the
consumer, in cases like correspondence schools, for instance.
One prominent company writes that it not only spends $429 per
month in postage, answering inquiries which themselves account
for about $100 more, but that it enrolls per month more than
2,200 new scholars--and every scholar, by the time he has
received all his numerous “lessons,” etc., costs the school about
$3.50 more in postage. Thus each month creates about $7,700 more
in postage bills for this school, not counting nearly as much
again which the scholars must spend.
“Our advertising,” writes a leading investment banker, “by reason
of names being placed on our mailing list for circulation, etc.,
costs us several thousand dollars a year for postage, which would
not be the case if we were not doing and had done advertising.”
In fact, there would be little left of the department’s
profitable postage stamp sales were the big magazine houses
crippled. The publishers are the largest buyers of lists of names
used for circulation. To circularize these lists many millions of
2-cent stamps are bought every year.
“Our entire mail order book business,” writes a Western firm,
“has been built up through magazine advertising. Last year our
postal bill amounted to $12,298.57. This was used on circular
matter and letters. If the circulation of the magazines should be
reduced, and it is our opinion that it would be if the postage
rate should be increased, our postage bill would be reduced
proportionately.”
There is much more to be said in support of my contention that the
advertising pages of our periodicals are their _revenue-producing pages_,
but it cannot now here be said, as I must pass to another division of our
general subject.
We have devoted most of our previous space to Mr. Hitchcock’s “rider,”
to the influences and _influencers_ that originated it and tried to
push it--by methods adroit and scrupulously unscrupulous--into federal
enactment--into operative law. At this point of our presentation of
the general subject of Postal Riders and Raiders, it was my original
intention to take up generally the _raider_ features or elements as
planned for discussion in this volume. I intended to start just here to
discuss the Postoffice Department “deficit,” of which Mr. Hitchcock has
had so much to say--and of which he made voluminous and eloquent use
during his efforts to bring his “rider” a safe winner under the wire. I
intended, as just said, to begin to write about the postal “deficit” just
here--a deficit _which never had real existence_, since the days of the
“pony post” and “mail coach,” save in quasi form--in methods covering
political lootage and looters.
Well, I have changed my original plan a little. I’ll run a few lines
through that “deficit”--twaddle-talk, a little further on. Here I will
merely repeat what I have already said, in substance at least.
There never has been a postal deficit since the period I have indicated,
save deficits created by official crooks and crookedness, by “interests”
which _hired_ the official crooks and bought the crookedness, and by
department accounting methods which would put Standard Oil or a Western
cow ranch on the financial blink inside of thirty-six months, or even in
twelve.
We will discuss this artistic “deficit” later. Here I now desire to
advert to, and animadvert on, another point which has been brought
forcibly to my attention recently--weeks, some two months, after I
climbed up here to take a look over the general situation, and then
chanced, through the aid of a Congressman friend, to get my distance
glasses focused on this postoffice foolery.
Foolery, I have written. I was wrong. There was no foolery about it. It
was a _calculated, a studied, a cold-blooded partisan stab at one of the
greatest and most helpful--most up-building--industries in this country_.
But we will let that point and the “deficit” rest for the present. It
appears that one of Mr. Hitchcock’s much-worked arguments to harvest or
glean votes for his rider amendment was that the amendment would “affect
only a few magazine publishers,” or that “only a few magazine publishers,
at most, would be affected by the amendment and that they had _enriched_
themselves by the special privilege granted by the second-class mail rate
statute of 1885,” etc., etc.
Various newspapers quoted Mr. Hitchcock variously on the same point or
to the same end, and two Congressmen acquaintances reported that he had
personally talked to them along the same lines.
Only a “_few magazine publishers_” would be affected by legislation of
the character recommended in the rider amendment? That is the point I
desire here and now to consider. I hope the reader will go carefully and
thoughtfully through the consideration with me.
First it may be said, and safely admitted, that no such legislation as
that recommended in the “rider” previously discussed, would be sustained
_by any court in this country_, unless its wording was so modified as
to make its requirements and restrictions apply _to all periodicals_,
or at least to all monthly and weekly periodicals. Even then, it is
doubtful if any court could be found to sustain such a piece of class or
special legislation unless its terms were broadened to cover newspapers,
so numerously and so aggressively are the latter trenching upon what
is generally recognized as the weekly and monthly periodical field of
effort, influence and usefulness.
I think that any informed, fair-minded reader will agree that that
statement is a fair statement of governing facts, unless we question
the honesty of our courts in the discharge of their judicial duties or
question the juridic honesty of some member or members of the ruling
court.
That may read like a blunt or offensive way of putting it. But we are not
writing of a Palm Beach twilight party nor of a Newport frolic. We are
writing of and _to_ a serious subject--a subject which vitally touches
and trenches into the vital interests of ninety millions of people--the
ninety millions who are the blood and bone and sinew of this nation of
ours. It is a subject of such grave import as to make it necessary that
we call a spade a spade, a thief a thief, a scoundrel a scoundrel, and
judicial weakness, judicial _treachery_.
That is why I put, plain and strong, the point that _no court_ could be
found in this country to sustain legislation of the character covered in
Mr. Hitchcock’s “rider” amendment to the 1911 postoffice appropriation
bill, and that every informed, fair-minded man must concur in the
statements that I have made in the three or four preceding paragraphs.
That “rider” amendment would “affect only a few magazine publishers,”
says Mr. Hitchcock, or as he is reported to have said.
Now, let us look over the field a little. Let us make an honest,
intelligent effort--an effort not warped by political hopes and
aspirations nor by _personal prejudices and interests_--to see who or
whom would be affected by such special or class legislation.
First, the reader must get a mental hip-lock or strangle-hold on the
fact that the second-class mail _business_ of this country--the output
of periodical publishers--in marketed values, is somewhere around _one
billion dollars a year_.
As has previously been stated, and I believe well sustained by the
facts, no business, however well established, can stand an increase of
300 per cent in the haulage and delivery cost of its output without
sustaining great financial loss. The fair-minded reader will, I believe,
agree that the publishers in presenting their case to Mr. Hitchcock, to
the Penrose-Overstreet and other commissions, proved the truth of that
statement quite conclusively.
Well, if that be true, legislation of the sort proposed in the Hitchcock
“rider” must necessarily, after adjudication, put all the lesser weeklies
and monthlies (those not financially strong) out of business. Likewise
hundreds of the smaller newspapers must discontinue issue. Of course,
Mr. Hitchcock prattled about the newspapers not being affected by his
proposed amendment. But, as previously stated, no court of justice in
this country would sustain such a biased, prejudiced piece of class
legislation as that proposed in the “rider.”