[Illustration: Women's Suffrage.]
=Woman's Journal and Suffrage News=
A weekly paper devoted to the interests of woman, to her educational,
industrial, legal and political equality, and especially to her right
of suffrage.
Founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell
_Editor-in-Chief_
Alice Stone Blackwell
_Contributing Editors_
Mary Johnston Stephen S. Wise
Josephine P. Peabody Zona Gale
Florence Kelley Witter Bynner
Ben B. Lindsey Caroline Bartlett Crane
Ellis Meredith Mabel Craft Deering
Eliza Calvert Hall Reginald Wright Kauffman
_Artists_
Mayme B. Harwood Fredrikke Palmer
Mrs. Oakes Ames
_Deputy Treasurer _Assistant Editor_
Howard L. Blackwell Henry Bailey Stevens
_Circulation Manager_ _Advertising Manager_
Marie Spink Joe B. Hosmer
_Finance_ _Managing Editor_
Mildred Hadden Agnes E. Ryan
=THE TORCH BEARER=
A Look Forward and Back at the
Woman's Journal, the Organ of
the Woman's Movement
By Agnes E. Ryan
=Contents=
The Torch Bearer
In the Balance
Taken Into Our Confidence
Some Changes
It Speaks for Itself (Editorial Department)
Suffrage Volunteer News Service
The Connecting Link (Circulation Department)
What Papers Live By (Advertising Department)
Prints and Reprints (Literature Department)
The Graveyard (Research and Information Departments)
Holding the Reins (Administration Department)
Capturing the Imagination (Press and Publicity Dept.)
A Word in Time (Field Workers' Department)
The Hope Chest (Finance Department)
Early Stockholders
Present Stockholders
The Journal Goes to 39 Foreign Countries
The Corporation
=List of Illustrations=
Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell
Alice Stone Blackwell
Charts:
Increase in Cost of Publishing
Increase in Circulation
Propaganda Work
The Woman's Journal Staff:
Circulation Department
The General Staff
The Directors:
Alice Stone Blackwell, Emma L. Blackwell, Maud
Wood Park, Grace A. Johnson, Agnes E. Ryan
The Woman's Journal artists:
Fredrikke S. Palmer
Mrs. Oakes Ames
The Woman's Journal Printers:
E.L. Grimes, M.J. Grimes, William Grimes
Mary A. Livermore
William Lloyd Garrison
Wendell Phillips
Julia Ward Howe
Armenia White
Margaret Foley
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Mrs. David Hunt
The Anti and the Snowball
Justice, simple justice is
what the world needs.
--Lucy Stone
[Illustration: Lucy Stone.]
[Illustration: Henry B Blackwell.]
=Founders of the Woman's Journal=
=The Torch Bearer=
So wonderful are the days in which we are living and so rapidly is
the canvas being crowded with the record of achievement in the woman's
movement that it is time for readers of the Woman's Journal and for
all suffragists to know somewhat intimately and as never before what
goes on in the four little rooms in Boston where the organ of the
suffrage movement is prepared for its readers each week.
Before telling what has been done and what is planned and hoped, it
will perhaps be well to give a little picture of the paper which to
many has been the "Suffrage Bible" since it was started over forty-six
years ago by Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell and the little band of
woman's rights pioneers who saw, almost at the dawn of the movement,
the need of an organ.
Before the charter for the Woman's Journal was granted in 1870,
$10,000 had to be paid into its treasury. This was at a time when
there were few millionaires in the world, and $10,000 then must have
looked like as many millions today.
How ardent, then, must have been the few, how eloquent the
presentation, to have raised $10,000 with which to start a paper for
the sole purpose of advocating equal rights for women! But they were
ardent and eloquent, and from the road to martyrdom they have come to
us through history as great men and women of their time. The pages of
the Woman's Journal are brilliant with their sayings, and the reports
of the early stockholders' meetings echo the voices of that pioneer
band led by Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and
Julia Ward Howe.
Never for a single week since 1870 have the women of the country been
without a mouthpiece to voice their needs and wrongs. This has
been due chiefly to the fact that the Stone-Blackwell family has
continuously given not only of its services in editing and managing
the paper, but also has made generous contributions for years to
enable the paper to continue.
So much in brief for the forty years from 1870 to 1910. From July 1,
1910, to September 30, 1912, the financial support of the paper was
assumed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After
that it fell to the manager of the paper either to get contributions
to meet the deficit each year or to borrow. On October 1, 1912, Miss
Blackwell contributed $2,000; on January 31, 1914, she again gave the
paper $2,000.
With the exception of these $4,000, I have raised or borrowed each
year the necessary money, over and above receipts, to keep the paper
going. With the beginning of 1915 Miss Blackwell began to feel that
she could not continue indefinitely to make up a deficit, and she
began seriously to consider cutting the size of the paper to four
pages or making it a monthly.
The 1915 campaigns particularly needed all the aid that the Journal
could give, and feeling keenly that the proposed changes would greatly
reduce its power of usefulness, the following points were made by Mr.
Stevens and myself in further consideration of the matter with Miss
Blackwell and a few warm friends of the Journal:
With the single exception of the _Irish Citizen_, the Woman's Journal
is the only suffrage paper in existence which has no organization back
of it. _Jus Suffragii_ has the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
_The Woman Voter_ has the New York Woman Suffrage Party. _Votes for
Women_ in England has the United Suffragists. _The Suffragette_ had
the Woman's Social and Political Union of England. _The Suffragist_
has the Congressional Union. _The Headquarters News Letter_ has the
National Suffrage Association.
Now, while the Journal has had no organization with large membership
and resources to make it a power, it has shown great vitality as
witnessed by the fact that it is the oldest surviving suffrage
periodical in the world. Furthermore, it has shown such remarkable
growth during the past few years, with no capital put up to promote
it and build it up as other businesses are built up, that it seemed
apparent that all it needed to make it strong and self-supporting was
a reasonable amount of capital, a reasonable amount of time and the
wholehearted co-operation of suffragists in general which has been
growing in an encouraging degree. It seemed a time for faith and not
for fear.
It was accordingly decided to retain the eight-page size, to continue
the paper as a weekly and to borrow the money necessary to meet the
deficit, believing that the great body of readers of the Journal
would approve and sustain this decision when it was brought to their
knowledge. They would feel that a backward step should be impossible.
At the present time and covering the indebtedness of the Journal from
October, 1912, to January, 1916, the figures are as follows:
Borrowed in 1915....................... $10,500
Owed E.L. Grimes Company for printing,
paper stock, mailing, approximately .. 9,000
________
$19,500
The assets of the Journal at the time of the last stockholders'
meeting (January 28) included the following:
Subscriptions in arrears .................$4,968
Sales accounts ........................... 45
Advertising accounts ..................... 460
Legacy of Miss Caroline F. Hollis......... 3,000
Legacy of Mrs. Mary E.C. Orne............. 4,000
Legacy of Mrs. Hollingsworth ............. 1,000
______
$13,473
The amount to be raised, therefore, to meet the indebtedness of the
three years and three months from October 1, 1912, to January 1, 1916,
is $6,027.
From these figures it will be seen that we have to count upon
collecting nearly $5,000 in subscriptions in arrears, upon legacies to
be paid within the year, to meet the expenses of furnishing a paper to
the cause, and that even then we must have over $5,000 additional to
be out of debt for 1915.
[Illustration:
Alice Stone Blackwell
Editor of the Woman's Journal]
While the Journal has always had a few gifts each year and an
occasional legacy, both gifts and legacies have, in their very
nature, been uncertain quantities and not to be relied upon. It has,
therefore, followed that from 1870 to 1910, as well as in the
period above referred to (1912 to 1915), for forty-three years,
the Stone-Blackwell family has borne the brunt of the burden of the
support of the paper on which the whole suffrage movement has depended
so completely for nearly half a century. As Mrs. Chapman Catt says,
"The Woman's Journal has always been the organ of the suffrage
movement, and no suffragist, private or official, can be well informed
unless she is a constant reader of it. It is impossible to imagine
the suffrage movement without the Woman's Journal." That is the way
suffragists feel about the paper from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
abroad,--and yet there is no organized, systematic effort made for its
support and maintenance.
There is, moreover, no suffragist but will say at once that this
paper, which is for the advancement of all women, should be supported
by all suffragists in an organized way rather than by a few--out of
their own pockets. I am working to bring this to pass. I believe one
of the results that will follow the heavy expenditures made by the
Journal in 1915 will be organized support of the paper.
Since the Woman's Journal is the organ of the movement, since it gives
the news of the movement, voices the wrongs of women, and furnishes
data as well as inspiration with which to work, it is important that
it reach the largest number of women possible each week with its
message, and so far as is possible for a paper, convert them into
efficient, consecrated workers, possessed with the ideal of equality
and justice for women. It is, therefore, obvious that, however good
the editorial output, it counts for comparatively little if it goes to
only a small number of people.
From 1870 to 1907, there is no record of the number of subscribers to
the paper, for the price of the paper was changed from $3 to $2.50 to
$1.50. The price is now $1 per year. The last change was made in 1910
because it was becoming clear that a lower price would mean a larger
circulation, while a higher price made it prohibitive to many.
Furthermore, the lower price was in harmony with the growing tendency
to remove the membership fee in suffrage organizations because it had
proved a handicap in having a large backing of women for the cause.
So many women of humble means, or no independent means, wanted to take
the paper and could not!
Bearing in mind, then, that the aim of the Journal, both from a
propaganda and business viewpoint, is to reach large numbers, that is,
to have a large circulation, I have had two charts drawn which will
show that, although the cost of publishing is heavy, the cost
of production is not advancing as rapidly as is the increase in
circulation. In other words, the circulation of the paper has
multiplied over eleven times in the last eight years, while the cost
of publishing for the same period has multiplied less than eight
times. The following charts show this graphically.
Compare the two long vertical lines. The longer one shows the increase
in the number of readers. The shorter one shows the increase in the
cost of publishing the paper.
[Illustration:
Increase in Circulation
Increase in Cost of Publishing]
As a propaganda paper, the Woman's Journal has, of course, always sent
out many papers per year purely for educational purposes. Hundreds of
papers have gone each year since 1870 through 1915 to campaign
states, to legislators, to libraries, to newspapers, to ministers and
teachers, in the attempt to make converts, and every suffragist having
any perspective of the movement knows that such propaganda work by the
Woman's Journal is to a great extent what has advanced the movement to
its present status. In other words, the Journal has from year to year
carried the torch on,--but it has always been at the sacrifice of a
large sum to be raised, over and above the receipts, either from the
Stone-Blackwell family or from a few friends of the movement.
The year 1915, with the advance of the movement in general, and in
the four big campaign states in particular, has been exceptional as a
propaganda year for the Journal. When a call came for Journals or for
information which the Journal workers could give, whether from New
York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, the call has been
answered promptly; we have not said,--when the amendments were to be
voted on at a definite time,--"You must wait until we have raised the
money to pay for what you ask." We are proceeding in the same way with
the campaign states of 1916. What else can we do when the need is so
great?
The following illustration shows the extent of our propaganda work,
measured in papers, for 1915. It does not show what has been done in
the way of furnishing information and argument, refutation and data,
material and articles for the press or for special articles, debates,
and speeches.
This chart shows the free propaganda use of the Journal as compared
with the paid circulation. The black lines show the paid circulation
of the Journal per month, that is, the number of papers paid for by
the subscriber or by the single copy. The gray extension of the lines
shows the number of papers furnished by the Journal, for which the
recipient did not pay. The reader can here see at a glance what a
large part of our work does not bring any financial returns.
[Illustration: The Journal as Propaganda]
If a diagram could be shown of the number of letters we have answered
during the year, the amount of time it has taken, and the number of
writers who do not even send a postage stamp to carry information
back to them, and the consequent deficit the paper incurs in this
way alone, the result would shock the average suffragist into a new
attitude toward the paper, which she has called upon as freely and
thoughtlessly as a girl in her teens calls upon the time and resources
of the mother who has always stood near and ready to meet her every
need "without money and without price."
At this point, I want again to call attention to the fact that the
Woman's Journal is, with one exception, the only suffrage paper in
existence which does not have some organization back of it which helps
to meet its financial responsibilities. Although it has always been
the organ of the movement, it has stood alone for the most part,
depending on the devotion of a few to make up any sum that might be
needed to meet the lack of organized suffragists to support it as part
of their suffrage work.
It is, of course, easy to see how this has come about. In the
beginning the number of suffragists was so small that there was little
organization. The movement was carried on by a few and a few supported
the paper. Times have changed, however, and all of the other branches
of suffrage work are being carried on by organizations with the body
of believers meeting the expense of running the work.
There has, however, always been this difference between the expense
of maintaining the Journal and supporting the work of the suffrage
organization: The Journal has been published every week for over
forty-six years; it has never missed an issue, and its expenses have
gone on. In other words, it has always been in campaign, while for
the most part during those forty-six years the organizations have
had comparatively little expense, they have not usually maintained a
headquarters, have had few or no meetings, and have had few and short
campaigns. Now, because the Journal has survived the times of
no organizations, the times of few and weak organizations, it is
thoughtlessly expected to go on as it has since 1870, paying its bills
as best it might. In the meantime, its work has increased so that
it is large enough to be unwieldy without being self-supporting.
(Self-support cannot come until its paid circulation is about 50,000.)
We are, therefore, face to face with the fact that, while all
suffragists are agreed as to the merits of the paper and the need it
fills, very few have considered its problems, few have helped to carry
its burdens, and no organization today makes itself responsible for
any of the paper's expenses.
With the advancing movement's heavy demands on the paper, however, the
time for a change has come. The paper's support in the future ought
to be borne by the body of organized suffragists rather than by the
devotion and sacrifice of the few. Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell
died in harness. Alice Stone Blackwell, their daughter, is no longer
young, and ought not to suffer from overwork and worry in connection
with the struggle to keep the paper going.
So much for the past. What shall be the story of the future? The paper
has been almost inevitably in debt. Its present bills and loans must
be met. It will doubtless be possible to raise money to meet them
from individuals as in the past, although that is an uphill and rather
thankless task. But it does seem as if those who labor early and late
in the office, often single-handed, ought not to have to go out to
raise money to meet a deficit they were obliged to incur purely in
order to serve the woman's movement.
What is the solution? I want to propose a definite, practical,
constructive solution,--one that will not only lift the paper to
self-support almost at once, but will strengthen the whole movement
in the very things that Mrs. Chapman Catt and all others know is most
needed,--education and organization of women. What I want to propose
is that as suffragists we show what our present power is; that we show
the strength of our present organization; that as leaders and workers,
organizers and speakers, we get behind our paper and push it with all
our might; that, so far as is humanly possible, we enroll as regular
readers every member of our respective organizations; that we give our
paper a backing as much to be reckoned with as the so-called women's
publications that are so conspicuous on the news-stands. It can be
done. We have the power.
Doing it is bound to mean more education and more organization. For
the Journal fills its readers with zeal for the cause; it makes
them want to work for it; and it makes them well informed, efficient
workers. By taking this one step we have the power to put the entire
movement on a new footing!
But how is the paper to be put into the hands of all suffragists? They
are many and to send them a well-edited, well-printed paper will be
expensive. How are bills and loans already incurred to be met? By
gifts and legacies from individuals as in the past--in the uphill,
undignified way? Or by getting all readers of the Journal, all
believers in it as an educator, to join themselves into a mighty army
to enroll as subscribers for the Journal every possible member of a
suffrage organization?
Until the second way shall be in operation long enough--say, two
years--to have a chance to work out successfully, there is absolutely
no question but that the needs of the situation must be met in
the first way. But must it be done by begging--in humiliation
undeserved--or will those who are able consider it a privilege, an
opportunity, to take the burden from the backs that are bent and sore
from carrying it?
* * * * *
In the Balance
If this were the crucial moment in a campaign and you
saw that votes for a suffrage amendment were in the
balance, you would give of the best that you have,
with all the fervency of your heart. But campaigns are
not won in a day. They are won only by constant and
untiring advance work. The Woman's Journal does a
big share of this advance work. The Journal is always
in campaign. The Journal needs your help now and it
needs it given as freely as if a critical Election Day were
only six weeks off. The campaigns of this year and the
next few years are in the balance now. A privilege,
an opportunity for furthering a great world movement,
waits on those who are able.
* * * * *
=Taken Into Our Confidence=
In the following pages our readers and the great body of suffragists
are taken quite generally into our confidence. If they see any
skeletons in the closets, we shall ask them to remember that we did
not want the skeletons there.
All persons who have ever tried to raise money for a worthy cause, all
suffragists who have given balls and bazaars, all who have labored
to make an audience pledge its last dollar for suffrage, all who have
ever tried to run an impecunious newspaper, all who have ever tried
to finance any kind of a movement for the betterment of mankind, will
know that the figures given here are written in blood and should be
read only by those of an understanding and sympathetic heart.
1908--1915
Cost Circulation
1909.................. $5,303 2,328
1910.................. 10,020 3,989
1911.................. 18,510 15,275
1912.................. 24,499 19,309
1913.................. 24,588 20,309
1914.................. 27,509 21,303
1915.................. 38,137 27,634
[Illustration: THE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT Left to Right-First row
Haxel McCormik, Franklin Grammar School Marie Spink, Western Reverse
University, Ethel Costello, Cambridge Commercial College, Second row:
Helen Hegarthy, Charlestown High, Eleanor Falvey, South Boston High,
Edith Mosher, Comer's Commercial College, Agnes McCarthy, South Boston
High, Mary Collins, St. Joseph's Academy Third row: Isabel McCormick,
Boston University; Donna Cox, Belmont High, Ethel Johnson, Fisher
Business College, Lucia Gilbert, Berlin High.]
[Illustration: THE GENERAL STAFF
Left to Right--First row Vina Smith, Wellesley College, Agnes E. Ryan,
Boston University, Elizabeth Costello, Comer's Commercial College,
Howard L. Blackwell, Harvard University. Second row Carlisle Morris,
Harvard University, Mildred Hadden, Western Reserve University, Henry
Bailey Stevens, Dartmouth College, Ethel Power. Third row Joe B.
Hosmer, University of Missouri, Mary Gallagher, Bryant and Stratton
Commercial School, Thomas Kennedy, Mary Healey, Fisher Business
College, Thomas McGrath, Lawrence Grammar School.]
=Some Changes=
To the friends of the Woman's Journal who used to visit its office
on Beacon Street, and remember the tiny room with its staff of two or
three workers, the pictures of the office staff on the accompanying
pages will come as a surprise. This is the 1916 staff, however, and
the movement has grown most encouragingly in every branch since the
quiet days on Beacon Street.
Every phase of the Journal work, from handling a subscription list of
about 30,000 to answering a thousand and one questions of debaters,
press chairmen and speakers, has grown to such proportions that it
has been necessary to divide the work into ten variously developed
departments, which will be described in the following pages.
=It Speaks for Itself=
The Editorial Department in the main speaks for itself and does not
need a special report. It has its seamy side, however, and little as
people want to believe it, it is not merely the literary branch of the
work. On the contrary, the editorial work of the Woman's Journal is,
figuratively speaking, divided into sevenths. It is one part literary
or journalistic, two parts business, and four parts propaganda.
There is, of course, a great deal of pleasure in editorial work for
the mere fun of it, for the variety and fascination it affords, for
the mere delight in expressing thought in writing and in choosing
pictures to carry the weekly message. But when a publication has to
be put to press on the same day every week, when one feels almost
instinctively that each issue must be better than the one before, and
when each week of the world every worker in the department carries a
double or triple load, some of the pleasure of writing and editing and
planning is worn away.
The material for the contents of the paper is gathered each week
from a variety of sources: From letters, personal interviews, press
chairmen of league and associations in the different states,
from bulletins, newspapers, periodicals, reports of meetings and
conventions, and from clipping bureaus. All material has, of course,
to be sorted and worked over for the various departments. It divides
chiefly into matter for editorials, for propaganda articles, for the
news columns, and for the activities reported under the headings of
the various states.
The editorial page of the Journal carries about 2,200 words each week.
This page goes to about 30,000 homes, libraries and clubs, and is read
by approximately 100,000 persons. Issued fifty-two times a year,
it means that Miss Blackwell makes about five million two hundred
thousand "drives" per year with her editorials alone to educate the
public on equal suffrage.
The news of the whole movement gleaned from the various sources
including some two hundred papers and periodicals each week, must be
so combined and boiled down as to occupy the smallest space; and it
must be interpreted, investigated and its relation to the general
current of events brought out so that the propaganda value of the
week's news is unmistakable.
Besides the editorials and the regular news of the movement, we use
occasional contributed articles, poems and stories. During 1915 for
the first time investigations of various sorts and analyses of news,
reports and various kinds of data were made to furnish a telling and
convincing array of facts, figures, data and information particularly
fitted for suffrage workers. Such material has been found especially
valuable for use with those who were wavering as to the merits of the
cause.
Many people would find it hard to believe, but it is true nevertheless
that a paper needs to consider itself something of a business matter.
This is particularly true of propaganda papers in spite of all that
has been said to the contrary. In the case of the Journal, we need
to plan to produce an article that cannot be excelled; we need to
manufacture a product so useful, so valuable, so indispensable, that
there must be a market for it.
It must be so run that the largest possible number of people will
be satisfied with its policy, and this is no easy matter if one has
convictions and wants to run the paper according to high ideals and
with certain principles dominant. Many people want personal notices
and trivial articles in the paper; some wish long manuscripts
published; others think their league meetings should be more fully
reported. The paper must, therefore, be so edited and the letters of
the department must be so written as to make every one feel that
the Journal is fair to all and that whatever it does is done with no
personal animosities, with no biases, and purely for the welfare of
the cause and in accordance with the best ideals we have been able to
work out. One of our tasks is to make all realize that in editing the
organ of the movement a great responsibility must be met and that mean
or small things cannot influence us.
All daily papers, all periodicals and magazines that live and become
powerful relate their editorial policy very closely to their business
plans. And whether the end and aim of a publication is to make money
or to make converts to some cause or idea, the editorial policy cannot
be planned independent of the circulation of the paper without running
the risk of defeating its purpose.
[Illustration: THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Left to Right--Lower row Emma L.
Blackwell, Alice Stone Blackwell, Grace A. Johnson
Upper row Maud Wood Park, Agnes E. Ryan]
In this connection a suffragist can scarcely help coveting for her
paper the circulation which the various women's magazines of fashion
have attained. The thought leads almost inevitably to the question,
How did they get their large circulation?
Now whenever there is large use made of any article under the sun, the
reasons for its extensive use simmer down to three; First, the article
must be something that practically everybody needs; Second, the
marketers of the article must spend a lot of money in advertising
the article and making the public think it wants it; or, Third, the
article must carry with it some great interest and attraction that
makes people want it.
The first kind of article is usually one of the necessities of life.
The second is in a greater or less degree usually one of the comforts
of life. The third kind is neither a matter of physical necessity
nor of physical comfort; it is usually something that feeds the mind,
diverts the mind, or kindles the emotions. Obviously the manufacturer
of the third kind of article must mind his P's and Q's or he will not
sell his product at all.
Newspapers, periodicals, and magazines, of course, come under the
third class. Now while a good daily paper and a good weekly review
of events have become almost necessities for the mass of mankind, a
propaganda paper is neither a necessity nor a physical comfort, and
for its circulation it must depend to a great extent for financial
support on making itself so interesting and attractive that a larger
number of people than the already converted, the reformers, will want
it.
How then shall a propaganda paper make itself so interesting and
attractive that those outside its fold will want it and want it badly
enough to pay for it and read it--when there are so many attractive
and interesting publications to read in busy days?
The problem solves itself if the paper records news of vitality,
of heroism, of martyrdom, of stinging injustice in connection with
everyday life,--if the doings within the movement are vital and
challenging and kindle the imagination.
[Illustration: Mrs. Fredrikke S. Palmer, Staff Artist]
One of the biggest "strikes"
in the recent history of the
Woman's Journal has been the
addition of Mrs. Palmer to the
staff. Her drawings, contributed
gratis, have attracted
country-wide attention, because
of their artistic quality. Mrs.
Palmer studied art in Christiania,
Norway, and is the wife
of Prof. A.H. Palmer, of Yale
University.
[Illustration: Mrs. Oakes Ames, Staff Artist]
One of Mrs. Ames's cartoons
brought down the disapprobation
of Ex-President Taft but
the approbation of a great many
suffragists. Mrs. Ames is treasurer
of the Massachusetts
Woman Suffrage Association
and wife of the director of the
Botanic Garden of Harvard University.
But women's lives are full of just such vitally interesting matters.
There are such glaring cases of inequality before the law, such abuses
and atrocities in women's working world today, such humiliation and
insinuation in the personal life of womankind, simply because of sex,
that, were the half of it told, the suffrage movement would take on
such proportions as even the leaders do not dream of.
Because an experience is common in the life of womankind, because an
abuse is as old as the hills, it is no less vital, no less thrilling,
no less in need of righting. And because some men are opposed,
secretly or openly, to its righting is no reason why we should be
silent. Before the women of this country are fully enfranchised, a
hard fight, an almost life and death struggle for liberty, must be
fought, and it will be a shorter fight the hotter it is. And the heat
of the battle and the shortness of the struggle will depend almost
entirely on our courage in presenting vividly and with power woman's
case to women themselves.
=Members of the Firm of E.L. Grimes Co.=
Printers of The Woman's Journal
[Illustration: M.J. Grimes]
[Illustration: E.L. Grimes]
[Illustration: W.P. Grimes]
=Our Volunteer Suffrage News Service=
Instead of a staff of paid correspondents and a special news service,
the Woman's Journal has a large unnumbered staff of volunteers and
its news service which extends all over the civilized world also is
voluntary.
The editorial output is, therefore, greatly enhanced each week by the
careful vigilance of its many volunteer workers. In this service all
readers are invited to join by mailing to the Journal clippings, news,
articles, items, poems, pictures, jokes, examples of discriminations
against women, examples of women's achievements, and ideas of all
kinds.
=The Connecting Link=
When I think of the Circulation Department of the Woman's Journal,
I feel as I think Angela Morgan must have felt when she wrote the
following lines for the beginning of her great poem, "Today:"
"To be alive in such an age!
With every year a lightning page
Turned in the world's great wonder book
Whereon the leaning nations look....
When miracles are everywhere
And every inch of common air
Throbs a tremendous prophecy
Of greater marvels yet to be.
O thrilling age!"
The Woman's Journal is the connecting link between the individual
suffragist and the movement itself, and a certain thrill and delight
and marvel get hold of me when I realize how wonderful each year is
and how full of prophecy and promise and marvel is the cause for which
we all work.
Because the Circulation Department of the Woman's Journal is the
tangible bond which holds us all together and makes one big family
of all who work for the movement and all who are in any way connected
with the paper, I am going to try to take the readers of these
pages into the Journal offices and let them see the processes of the
department.
While Miss Blackwell, Mr. Stevens, Miss Smith, Mr. Morris and myself
are spending part of our time in preparing reading matter and pictures
for the paper, and while we are working at the printing office of the
Grimes Brothers on Wednesdays, Miss Spink, Miss Ethel Costello and
their assistants, Miss Mosher, Miss Isabel McCormick, Miss Falvey,
Miss Hegarty, Miss McCarthy, Miss Collins, Miss Cox, Miss Johnson,
Miss Gilbert, and Miss Hazel McCormick are diligently at work in the
Circulation Department.
What do they all do? the subscriber may ask. In the first place, the
Journal goes to forty-eight states, besides Alaska and the District of
Columbia, and to thirty-nine foreign countries. On a page by itself,
in the back of this little book, will be shown the list of foreign
countries.
When a subscription is received at the office, the letter carrying it
has to be opened and the money entered by Miss Elizabeth Costello in
the ledger--and it takes just as long to enter 25 cents or a dollar
as to enter $1,000, and it must be done just as accurately. If
the subscription is sent in for one's self, no acknowledgment is
necessary, for the next issue of the paper is sufficient to tell the
subscriber that her money and order have been received. If, however,
as so often happens, one person sends a subscription for another,
two additional processes must be carried out: We must acknowledge the
order and money to the person who sends it, and we must tell the other
person (if the subscription is a gift) that the paper is being sent to
her with the compliments of her friend, or by an anonymous person,
as the case may be: but at any rate, that the subscription is for a
certain time and that she will not be billed for it. This takes
two letters and two stamps. When a subscription is sent in by some
suffragist who is acting as agent in forwarding subscriptions for
other people, we acknowledge the order only to the sender,
thinking that receipt of the paper by the subscriber is sufficient
acknowledgment. In this connection, one of our worst problems is to
learn from those who mail us subscription orders whether they are
simply forwarding for other people or are sending the paper at their
expense in the hope of making a convert or of introducing it
to someone, with the hope that she will want to continue the
subscription. The trouble comes in the question of knowing whom to
ask to renew. Sometimes the sender means to renew for the person, and
sometimes she means to have us ask the person to renew for herself.
We have no means of knowing unless the sender tells us. We have found
that whichever way we do, some of our friends do not like it. We
have, therefore, adopted the system of asking the person who has
been receiving the paper to renew for herself unless we have
been definitely instructed not to do this. Some people tell us to
discontinue the subscription when the time has expired. We do not
think this a fair thing to ask, for the obvious reason that everyone
ought to have a chance to renew for herself in case the giver does not
want to renew for her.
The third step in receiving a subscription is to write the name in the
proper place on the subscription lists that go to the mailing
company every Tuesday night. The states in these lists are arranged
alphabetically, the towns and cities are arranged alphabetically and
the names of subscribers are arranged in the same way. In addition to
this the books have to be arranged in districts that correspond to the
mail routing of the United States post office. This is an arbitrary
dividing, and it increases the work of finding the proper place for
entering a subscription. In this a post office chart has to be used
constantly.
After an entry has been made in the mailing books, the subscription
order, before it is filed, goes to the subscription cards. There the
clerks must see whether the name is already on the books, or, if not,
if it has ever been on our books (In the latter case we revise the
former card instead of making a new one). The subscription cards look
like the one reproduced below.
[Illustration: Subscription Card]
Some letters that bring subscription orders contain many other items
that must be attended to before the order or letter is filed. For
instance, a letter may contain a new subscription, a renewal, a
remittance or a request to send a bill, an order for sample copies,
for papers to sell at a meeting, for literature, a request for
information and an item or poem or article for the columns of the
paper. Each matter mentioned in the letter must, of course, be
attended to before the letter can go to the files. To avoid having a
letter filed before all of its orders or requests have been attended
to, we stamp each piece of mail with a little rubber stamp that looks
like the following:
A.S.B.....Bill
A.E.R.....Fin.
H.B.S.....Advt.
Date Received
Ackg......Sub.
Papers....Lit.
Circ......Amt. & page.
Every piece of first-class mail that reaches the office is stamped
with these abbreviations and is at once checked for the different
stages through which it must go before it is filed. The clerk filing
must see that every check on the stamp has a sign after the check to
show that the particular matter indicated has been attended to.
Of course, another part of the subscription work is in making changes
of address, changing dates of expiration and removing names of
those who do not want to continue to receive the paper, such as
the anti-suffragists, who do not want to be converted, to whom some
relative or friend or acquaintance has been sending the paper out of
her own pocket.
Then there is the work involved in getting subscribers to renew. When
the subscription list contained only twenty-four hundred names and
when there were few letters to write, it was possible to know the
names and perhaps something of the history of every subscriber,
especially since only a few were put on the books in a week. But with
a circulation of nearly thirty thousand it is obviously impossible for
any one person to give the whole list personal attention.
The result is that the business policy of the paper has had to be
changed a number of times to meet the changing needs. In the earlier
days of the paper it was thought that subscribers would watch the
expiration date on the wrapper of their paper and would send in the
renewal price without any kind of reminder. In those days Miss Wilde
and her assistant would go over the books twice a year and send a
reminder to all who had not renewed. As the list grew larger, this
plan seemed unsatisfactory to both the subscriber and the paper. Since
people were at liberty to start a subscription at any time in the
year, it was plain that a year's subscription would run out at the
same time the following year, and since this was going on twelve
months in the year, we began sending out bills each month to those
subscribers whose subscriptions were about to expire. That system was
in operation from 1910 through 1915.
During 1915, it was made possible for us to have enough helpers in the
office to make a study of the Circulation Department with a view
to seeing where improvements could be made, what leakages could be
stopped, and what kind of circulation work was paying. The result was
that we decided that along with our efforts to get new subscriptions
we must carry on a new kind of work to keep those already obtained
on our books. We found that it was not sufficient simply to send the
paper to a person for a certain time and then ask her to renew. We
found that we needed to study the source of the subscription, the
motive for subscribing, and how best to appeal to the subscriber
to renew. We found that since we had been keeping the record (1910
through 1915), about 26,000 persons have been on our books and for
some reason or other are no longer there. A careful study and a long
one showed that those whose papers had been discontinued in that
period fell into the following classifications:
1. Those who had died.
2. Unconverted antis.
3. Those who had not paid
after we had sent three
bills.
4. Those who had moved without
giving us their change
of address.
5. Those whom the post office
reported as "not found."
6. Those who asked to be
discontinued without giving
a reason.
7. Those who said they could
not afford it.
8. Those who said they were
too busy to read it.
9. Those who said they were
converted and did not
need it.
10. Those who disapproved of our policy in some way.
The number of new subscriptions and the number of papers discontinued
for 1915, by the month, is shown below so that readers may understand
how serious is this problem and so that they may understand why every
subscriber and every suffragist ought to help keep the numbers in
these ten classes as small as is possible, if they care to have a part
in making the paper self-supporting.
1915
New Subscriptions Discontinuances
January 1,297 407
February 2,088 346
March 1,048 714
April 532 225
May 1,259 301
June 972 492
July 1,513 253
August 2,265 188
September 1,135 168
October 657 312
November 326 140
December 563 263
In this connection it ought to be said here that all subscriptions
divide into two classes: Those that are expected to make converts
and may or may not be expected to renew, and second, those who are
suffragists and may logically be expected to renew. When an order for
a subscription is given, it, therefore, ought to make clear whether it
is for a suffragist or for some one who it is hoped will be converted
by reading the paper. If the name is that of a suffragist, it is
legitimate and entirely fair that we should offer the paper for her at
$1.00 a year and should expect her to renew, and it may be considered
our fault if she does not. If, on the other hand, the paper is being
sent merely as a piece of propaganda literature to a person who
knows nothing of the cause, to one who is undecided, or to an avowed
anti-suffragist, it ought to be paid for as literature and that name
ought not to be counted as legitimate circulation.
How many of the total number of discontinuances come from the use of
the paper as propaganda literature, and how many come from the rank
and file of suffragists whom we ought to be expected to hold as
regular readers, cannot be known. Detailed records showing this are
being kept for 1916, and we expect to be in a better position to solve
some of the circulation difficulties in the future than ever in the
past,--chiefly because we never dared to spend the money to have the
records and study and analyses made.
It ought to be said in this connection that we have, since the first
of the year, revised our whole system of billing and are sending a
different kind of reminder to renew to those who have been receiving
a trial subscription, a complimentary subscription from a friend, a
first year subscription for which they have themselves paid, from
the one we send to those who have been taking the paper for a year
or more. With the latter, for the most part, we simply have to remind
them that their subscription has run out. In the billing department,
therefore, we have six different kinds of reminders or requests to
renew.
So much for that part of the work of the Circulation Department that
has to do with entering, recording, billing, analyzing and studying.
We turn now to what may be called plans and advance work for making
more subscriptions come in, that is, for increasing the circulation of
the paper.
We have on cards the names of nearly 35,000 members of suffrage
leagues who are not subscribers for the Woman's Journal. This large
list is, roughly, only about 30 per cent of the dues-paying membership
of the suffrage leagues of the country. An effort is being made to get
the total dues-paying and non-dues-paying membership of the leagues
and organizations in order that we may send each member who is not a
subscriber a sample copy of the organ of the movement and ask her to
subscribe.
Besides the league lists, we have the names of over 1300 prominent men
and women who believe in equal suffrage but are not subscribers. In
addition we have other lists totaling about 32,000 suffragists whose
names are not on our books.
This makes over 68,000 suffragists who, so far as we know, have never
seen a copy of the organ of the movement, and have never been asked
to subscribe. Each week scores and sometimes hundreds of such
suffragists, who are not subscribers, write letters to our office,
to the offices of the National Suffrage Association and to other
headquarters and offices, asking for information which the Woman's
Journal publishes from week to week. Think of the waste! They have the
faith but not the knowledge to make converts, to answer objections,
to write "copy" for the newspapers, to make addresses, to take part in
debates, to write articles for the magazines, and to do the thousand
and one things that suffragists must do if the present generation of
women is not to go down to the grave unenfranchised as their mothers
and grandmothers did.
Think of it! Nearly 70,000 known suffragists who do not subscribe. In
the interest of efficiency they ought all to be constant readers of
the paper. But how are they to be reached? There are two ways: First,
by the officers of the organization to which they belong; and second,
by means of letters, sample copies, and follow up letters until the
last one of them has enrolled as a regular reader.
But advance work requires funds. No matter how necessary to the cause
of equal suffrage it may be to enroll those 68,000 suffragists as
readers, the United States Post Office will not sell us stamps for
writing to them unless we can make cash payments. Funds for other
parts of the work of increasing the circulation are equally necessary,
and the work halts for lack of that which reformers always lack.
The Woman's Journal can make suffrage speeches every week in the
remote parts as well as in the crowded cities, and it can do this more
cheaply than can any other agent of equal quality. But if the paper
is to do its part in the general suffrage work, it must be through the
body of organized suffragists, and not single-handed. The movement is
growing too fast for the management, unaided by organization, to make
the obvious and necessary expansion.
=What Papers Live By=
[Illustration: The First Editor of the Woman's Journal Mary A.
Livermore]
One of the well-known facts in the world of publishing newspapers and
periodicals is that neither magazines, newspapers nor periodicals of
any kind live by the subscription price. Most of them live chiefly by
advertisements.