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Postal Subsidies for the Press and the Business of Mass Culture, 1880–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Richard B. Kielbowicz
Richard B. Kielbowicz
Affiliation:
Richard B. Kielbowicz is associate professor in the School of Communications at the University of Washington
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Abstract

Low second-class postage made it easy for national magazines and regional newspapers to reach their readers in the late nineteenth century. But the Post Office and some members of Congress questioned the wisdom of a policy that enabled advertising-filled publications to circulate at subsidized rates. This article traces the efforts to reform the postal policy governing periodicals, which became enmeshed in Progressive Era debates about the value of mass culture and government's role in promoting it.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 64 , Issue 3: Service Industries , Autumn 1990 , pp. 451 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1990

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References

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10 Act of March 3,1879 (Mail Classification Act), 20 Stat. 358–60; Kielbowicz, Richard B., “Origins of the Second-Class Mail Category and the Business of Policymaking, 1863–1879,” Journalism Monographs, no. 96 (April 1986)Google Scholar.

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The proliferation of publishing and advertising trade journals after 1880 reflected the growing segmentation in the fields. Metropolitan dailies were primarily served by Editor & Publisher and the Fourth Estate; small-city and rural newspapers by Publishers' Auxiliary, American Press, and National-Printer Journalist; mid-sized newspapers by Newspaperdom; the publishing industry broadly by Publishers' Weekly; advertisers generally by Printers' Ink; national advertisers by the Mail Order Journal. For details about these and kindred journals, see Mott, American Magazines, 3:273–74, 491–94, 4:243–47, 5:59–71; Schultze, Quentin J., “The Trade Press of Advertising,” in Information Sources in Advertising History, ed. Pollay, Richard W. (Westport, Conn., 1979), 47–62Google Scholar.

16 I Opinions of the Assistant Attorney General for the Post Office Department 564–66 (1881); 858–59 (1883) [hereafter cited as Opinions for the Post Office Departments, Postal Laws and Regulations (1887), 144–45.

17 S. Doc. No. 89, 56th Cong., 2d sess. (1901), pt. 3: 56–57, 67; Printers'Ink, 28 June 1905, 14–18; Mott, , American Magazines, 4:364–68Google Scholar; Annual Report of the Post Office (1908), 281 [hereafter cited as Annual Report]. A postal official enumerated the many schemes used in stretching lists of subscribers. See Penrose-Overstreet Commission, 30–31, 51–80.

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21 Printers'Ink, 5 July 1905, 10–19; 15 Feb. 1905, 18–19; Penrose-Overstreet Commission, 47; Official Register of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1903)Google Scholar, 2:4;(1911), 2:11.

22 Annual Report (1901), 782–83; New Tork Times, 18 July 1901, 2. On the controversy over paperback books passing at second-class rates, see Kielbowicz, Richard B., “Mere Merchandise or Vessels of Culture? Books in the Mail, 1792–1942,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 82 (2d quarter 1988): 179–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 “Bureaucracy in America,” Arena 26 (Dec. 1901): 659–61Google Scholar, quote at 660.

24 194 U.S. 88; Semonche, John E., Charting the Future: The Supreme Court Responds to a Changing Society, 1890–1920 (Westport, Conn., 1978), 174Google Scholar.

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26 Loud's proposals for the second-class mail produced extensive reports and deliberations. See, for example, Congressional Record, 54th Cong., 2d sess. (1896–97), 184–87, 306–8, 462–519, 2095–97, 2169–72; S. Rep. No. 1517, 54th Cong., 2d sess. (1897); H.R, Rep. No. 73, 55th Cong., 2d sess. (1898); S. Doc. No. 89, 56th Cong., 2d sess. (1901), pt. 3; Loud, E. F., “A Step Toward Economy in the Postal Service,” Forum 24 (Dec. 1897): 471–75Google Scholar; Moody, William H., “The Work of the Postal Commission,” Independent 53 (24 Jan. 1901): 195–98Google Scholar.

27 The hearings, findings and legislative recommendations are in Penrose-Overstreet Com mission. For the press's reaction, see, for example, New York Times, 1 Feb. 1907, 5; 2 Feb. 1907, 5; Printers' Ink, 13 Feb. 1907, 47–48.

28 Penrose-Overstreet Commission, vii–lxiii, 129, 500, 523; James H. Collins quoted in ibid., xxxvii.

29 Publishers' Weekly, 9 Feb. 1907, 679; Order no. 907, 4 Dec. 1907, Miscellaneous Orders of the Postmaster General, 12:311–26 (U.S. Postal Service Library); New York Times, 7 Dec. 1907, 8; Mott, , American Magazines, 4:368Google Scholar; Fame: A Journal for Advertisers, March 1909, 58; 4 Opinions for the Post Office Department 613–15 (1907); Printers' Ink, 23 Oct. 1907, 28–29.

30 S. Doc. No. 204, 60th Cong., 1st sess. (1908), 5; S. Doc. No. 270, 60th Cong., 1st sess. (1908), 21–43.

31 H.R. Doc. No. 651, 59th Cong., 2d sess. (1906); Penrose-Overstreet Commission, xlv–l.

32 Arnold, Peri E., Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning, 1905–1980 (Princeton, N.J., 1986), 26–51Google Scholar; Skowronek, New American State, 174–75, 187–94.

33 Figures are for the year ending 30 June 1908. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1960), 496, 711Google Scholar.

34 Annual Report (1909), 7–10, 30–34, 313.

35 Taft, “First Annual Message,” 7 Dec. 1909, The State of the Union Messages of the Presidents, ed. Israel, Fred L. (New York, 1966), 3:2362–63Google Scholar; Annual Report (1909), 7–10, 30–33.

36 Second-Class Mail: Hearings Before the House Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads, 61st Cong., 2d sess. (1910); U.S. Post Office Department, Summary of the Department's Reply to the Periodical Publishers Association of America Regarding Second-Class Mail (Washington, 1910)Google Scholar; New York Times, 29 Jan. 1910, 3; Publishers' Weekly, 5 Feb. 1910, 849–50. For petitions to Congress, see House Committee on Post Office and Post Roads, 61A-H28.4, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, RG 233 (National Archives) [hereafter cited as House Records]; and Senate Committee on Post Office and Post Roads, 61A–J79, Records of the U.S. Senate, RG 46 (National Archives) [hereafter cited as Senate Records]. But for statements supporting a rate hike, see Fame, Jan. 1910, 267–68, 278–79; Burrows, Charles William, “Second-Class Mail Rates,” Yale Review 19 (Aug. 1910): 159–67Google Scholar.

37 “Is the Outlook Subsidized?” Outlook 93 (25 Dec. 1909): 894–96Google Scholar; Collier, Robert J., “Collier's and the Post-Office,” Collier's 44 (29 Jan. 1910): 7Google Scholar; “Let Us Have a Postal Investigation,” Hampton's 24 (Feb. 1910): 297–98Google Scholar; “The Magazines Rally to Defense of Their Postal Rights,” American Press 50 (March 1910): 90–91Google Scholar.

38 “Sign This Protest Against the New Tax,” petition to House Post Office Committee [c. Jan. 1910], 61A–H28.4, House Records; the clipping is attached to a petition with signatures. This file contains hundreds of petitions on the proposed rate hike.

39 Taft to Otto Bannard, president of the New York Trust Company, 2 March 1910, quoted in Anderson, Donald F., William Howard Taft (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 210Google Scholar. See also Juergens, George, News from the White House: The Presidential-Press Relationship in the Progressive Era (Chicago, III., 1981), 106–20Google Scholar, 289n97; see also Pollard, James E., The Presidents and the Press (New York, 1947), 601–29Google Scholar.

40 Taft, “Second Annual Message,” 6 Dec. 1910, State of the Union Messages, 3:2405; Publishers' Weekly, 5 Nov. 1910, 1731–32; “An Unfair and Unwise Move to Raise Second Class Rates,” American Press 52 (March 1911): 71Google Scholar; “An Unpopular Rider,” ibid., 104; Munsey, Frank A., “the Magazine Postage Problem,” Munsey's 45 (April 1911): 14–18Google Scholar.

41 Carter quoted in Dunn, Arthur W., From Harrison to Harding, 1888–1921 (New York, 1922), 137Google Scholar. See also Anderson, William Howard Taft, 205–35.

42 New York Medical Journal to John Kean, 11 Feb. 1911, 61A–J79, Senate Records. This file, as well as 61A–H28.4, House Records, contains dozens of other telegrams, mainly from advertising firms, national magazines, and allied interests. See also Fourth Estate, 25 Feb. 1911, 3, 13; Newspaperdom, 23 Feb. 1911, 10–11. the rather short life of this proposal can be traced in Congressional Record, 61st Cong., 3d sess. (1911), 3849, 4044–105, 4334; S. Doc. No. 820, 61st Cong., 3d sess. (1911); S. Doc. No. 841, 61st Cong., 3d sess. (1911); Haney, Lewis H., “Magazine Advertising and the Postal Deficit,” Journal of Political Economy 19 (April 1911): 338–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 B. F. Simmons to Bourne, 18 Feb. 1911; Bourne to Simmons, n.d., Second-Class Mail File, box 26, Bourne Papers (University of Oregon Library); Holt, James, Congressional Insurgents and the Party System, 1909–1916 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967)Google Scholar; Hechler, Kenneth W., Insurgency: Personalities and Politics of the Taft Era (New York, 1940), esp. 13Google Scholar; Thelen, David P., Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit (Boston, Mass., 1976), 75–76Google Scholar.

44 Congressional Stand, 61st Cong., 3d sess. (1911), 4334, quote at 4089; Joint Resolution 16, 36 Stat. 1458 (1911); Publishers' Weekly, 4 March 1911, 1103–4, 1107; 11 March 1911, 1207–8; Printers'Ink, 16 March 1911, 30; “Big Politics Versus the Magazines,” Hampton's 26 (April 1911): 521–23Google Scholar.

45 H.R. Doc. No. 559, 62d Cong., 2d sess. (1912), 53–151, esp. 137–48; the commission's papers and exhibits are in 62A-F30.1, House Records; “Doubling the Postal Tax on Print,” Literary Digest 44 (9 March 1912): 468Google Scholar.

46 Taft to Otto Bannard, 11 Nov. 1912, quoted in Anderson, William Howard Toft, 211.

47 Juergens, News from the White House, 118.

48 A small surplus reported for 1911 was actually the result of questionable bookkeeping practices. Annual Report (1913), 5–7.

49 Ibid., 325–28.

50 Ibid., 28–29; (1914), 31–32; (1915), 35–37; (1916), 31–33; Rates of Postage on Second Class Mail: Hearings Before the House Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 63rd Cong., 2d sess. (1914); Fourth Estate, 14 Feb. 1914, 2; Mail Order Journal, March 1914, 13; Printers' Ink, 19 Feb. 1914, 17–26. See also the file on the One-Cent Letter Postage Association, National Philatelic Collection (Smithsonian Institution); Mail Order Journal, April 1913, 20; Press Release, 14 April 1913, Post Office Department Press Releases (U.S. Postal Service Library); One-Cent Drop-Letter Postage: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, 64th Cong., 2d sess. (1917).

51 Burleson to Kitchin, 12 April 1917, Records Relating to an Increase in Second-Class Postage Rates, file 182, Records of the Post Office Department, RG 28 (National Archives) [hereafter cited as file 182, POD Records].

52 The House debate on the postal provisions of the War Revenue Bill occurred mainly in May and September 1917. See Congressional Record, 65th Cong., 1st sess. (1917), 2148-49, 2352–58, 2408, 2773–77, 2813–19, 7557–73, 7585, 7597–98; Kitchin quoted in ibid., 488–90. See also the trade journals Mail Order Journal, Editor & Publisher, Publishers' Auxiliary, Fourth Estate, and Printers' Ink for those two months. On the major House players, see Amett, Alex M., Claude Kitchin and the Wilson War Policies (Boston, Mass., 1937)Google Scholar; Ripley, Randall B., Party Leaders in the House of Representations (Washington, D.C., 1967), 25–27, 42Google Scholar; Gilbert, Charles, American Financing of World War I (Westport, Conn., 1970), 82–93Google Scholar.

53 Revenue to Defray War Expenses: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Finance, 65th Cong., lstsess. (1917), 633–58; First Assistant Postmaster General John C. Koons to Hardwick, 23 May 1917, file 182, POD Records; Memorandum for Senator Hardwick, n.d., ibid; Congressional Record, 6354–56, 6399–6416, 7606–33; Editor & Publisher, 18 Aug. 1917, 6; Fourth Estate, 25 Aug. 1917, 2, 5, 23.

54 Fourth Estate, 19 May 1917, 2, 10–11; Editor & Publisher, 19 May 1917, 5, 6,16; Revenue to Defray War Expenses, 223–42, 408–84, 639–57; Printers' Ink, 10 May 1917, 109–13; 17 May 1917, 62–72; Publishers' Auxiliary, 19 May 1917, 1, 4.

55 Congressional Record, 2148; Printers'Ink, 10 May 1917, 79–83, 109–13; letters and telegrams to representatives, 26 April-17 May 1917, 65A-H14.9, House Records. the various combinations of postage and taxes considered by the Finance Committee can be traced in the June 1917 issues of Printers' Ink, Fourth Estate, Publishers' Auxiliary, and Editor & Publisher.

56 Printers' Ink, 10 May 1917, 109–13; Newspaperdom, 10 May 1917, 7; Fourth Estate, 12 May 1917, 8, 26; 19 May 1917, 2, 10–11; Newspaperdom, 24 May 1917, 4. On the development of feature-filled Sunday editions at this time see Lee, Alfred M., Daily Newspaper in America (New York, 1937), 397–403Google Scholar. The rural press's trade journal complained, “There are cities of from ten to twenty thousand people as far as 300 miles from Chicago where there are more Chicago Sunday papers sold than the total circulation of the local daily papers. And this is true because the government has carried the big city papers to those towns at a price that is far below the actual cost of the transportation, and has also provided fast mail trains for the purpose of distributing these big city papers in the shortest possible time.” Publishers'Auxiliary, 19 May 1917, 4. For discussions of how the urban press penetrated the countryside, see Park, Robert E., “Urbanization as Measured by Newspaper Circulation,” American Journal of Sociology 35 (July 1929): 60–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fuller, Wayne E., RFD: The Changing Face of Rural America (Bloomington, Ind., 1964), 291–300Google Scholar.

57 Publishers'Auxiliary, 12 May 1917, 1; Editor & Publisher, 21 July 1917, 6; Bing, Phil C., The Country Weekly (New York, 1917), 244–45, 266–67, 281Google Scholar. See ibid., 4 Aug. 1917, 18–21, for an advertisement touting the superiority of newspapers over magazines in reaching a national audience: “it's more like neighborhood, intimate, friendly stuff, rather than like an occassional [sic] visitor.”

58 Evening Mail, quoted in “To Put Periodicals Out of Business,” Outlook 116 (16 May 1917): 97Google Scholar. See also “The Move to Foster Sectionalism and Hinder Education,” Coal Age 10 (23 Dec. 1916): 1054Google Scholar; “A Blow at National Unity,” Engineering Record 74 (23 Dec. 1916): 758–59Google Scholar; “Opposition to Postage Zone System,” Engineering News 77 (4 Jan. 1917): 36–37Google Scholar; “‘Zone’ Postal Rates,” Nation, 11 Jan. 1917, 38; “The Principle Underlying Newspaper Postage Rates,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle 105 (22 Sept. 1917): 1143–44Google Scholar.

59 40 U.S. Stat. 327–28.

60 Burner, David, “The Breakup of the Wilson Coalition of 1916,” Mid-America 43 (Jan. 1963): 18Google Scholar; Burner, David, The Politics of Provincialism: The Democratic Party in Transition, 1918–1932 (New York, 1968), 3–73Google Scholar; Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform, 211; Link, Arthur S., Woodrow Wilson and the Progessive Era, 1910–1917 (New York, 1954), 250Google Scholar.

61 Martis, Kenneth C., The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789–1989 (New York, 1989), 171–72Google Scholar.

62 The most vociferous proponents of higher postage on magazines and larger newspapers were Rep. William Gordon of Ohio, Sen. Hardwick of Georgia, Rep. Kitchin of North Carolina, Rep. John A. Moon of Tennessee, and Sen. Atlee Pomerene of Ohio.

63 Bensel, Richard F., Sectionalism and American Political Development, 1880–1980 (Madison, Wis., 1984)Google Scholar.

64 Watson, Richard L. Jr., “A Testing Time for Southern Congressional Leadership: The War Crisis of 1917–1918,” Journal of Southern History 44 (Feb. 1978): 3–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quote at 7.

65 Anderson, Adrian, “President Wilson's Politician: Albert Sidney Burleson of Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 77 (Jan. 1974): 339–54Google Scholar; Address of Burleson to the Annual Convention of the National Hardware Association of the United States, 15 Oct. 1919, book 24, Burleson Papers (Library of Congress).

66 Annual Report (1917), 60–64; Printers'Ink, 6 Dec. 1917, 25–28.

67 Wilson to Edwin T. Meredith, 2 Oct. 1917; see also Meredith to Joseph Tumulty, 1 Oct. 1917, The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, ed. Link, Arthur S. et al. (Princeton, N. J., 1966), 43:257, 289, 291Google Scholar.

68 McAdoo to Wilson, 25 Sept. 1917, ibid., 44:257.

69 Correspondence between Bok and Wilson quoted in Steinberg, Salme J., Reformer in the Marketplace: Edward W. Bok and the Ladies' Home Journal (Baton Rouge, La., 1979), 128–29Google Scholar.

70 Quandt, Jean B., From the Small Town to the Great Community: The Social Thought of Progressive Intellectuals (New Brunswick, N.J., 1970)Google Scholar analyzes the central place of communication in the thinking of Progressives.

71 Marcaccio, Michael D., “Did a Business Conspiracy End Muckraking? A Reexamination,” The Historian 47 (Nov. 1984): 58–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century, 448; Thompson, John A., Reformers and War: American Progressive Publicists and the First World War (Cambridge, England, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 2; Thelen, Robert M. La Folette, 130.

72 Act of Aug. 24, 1912 (Newspaper Publicity Act), 37 Stat. 551; Lewis Publishing Co. v. Morgan, 229 U.S. 288; Bennett, Charles O., Facts Without Opinion: First Fifty Years of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (Chicago, III., 1965), 3–70Google Scholar. For a thorough discussion of the act's origins and implications, see Lawson, Linda, “Truth in Publishing: The Newspaper Publicity Act as Government Regulation of the Press” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1988)Google Scholar.

73 Cohn, Creating America, 9.

74 Hillje, John W., “New York Progressives and the War Revenue Act of 1917,” New York History 53 (Oct. 1972): 437–59Google Scholar.

75 Fourth Estate, 6 Oct. 1917, 2, 38, 39; Editor & Publisher, 6 Oct. 1917,6, 26; Newspaperdom, 11 Oct. 1917, 3–4; Fourth Estate, 13 Oct. 1917, 17.

76 Printers'Ink, 22 Nov. 1917, 28–36, 96–97, 104–7; Payne, Will, “Sectionalizing Public Opinion,” Independent 93 (5 Jan. 1918), 16Google Scholar; Beach, Rex, “Chopping Up Our Country: The True Story of a Shameful Piece of Legislation Which Every Magazine Reader Should Know,” McClure's 50 (Jan. 1918): 22Google Scholar, 63; Post, Charles J., Some Postal Economics With Special Reference to the Postal Zone System (New York, 1918)Google Scholar; Printers'Ink, 6 June 1918, 130–39; Jesse H. Neal, executive secretary, Associated Business Papers, to Kitchin, 15 July 1918, H65A-F29.1, House Papers; “Postage and National Unity,” Outlook 116 (17 July 1918): 447–48Google Scholar; Revenue Act of 1918: Postal Rates: Hearings Before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 65th Cong., 2d sess. (1918), pt. 3:1711–2242.

77 See petitions to the Senate, Jan.-Dec. 1918, 65A-K6, Senate Records; and to the House, May 1917-Jan. 1919, H65A-H14.9, House Records.

78 Fourth Estate, 27 Oct. 1917, 4; Zone Systems: Hearings Before the House Committee on Post Office and Post Roads, 65th Cong., 2d sess. (1918); Fourth Estate, 9 Feb. 1918, 11; Printers' Ink, 14 March 1918, 48; Second-Class Postage Bates: Hearings Before the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, 65th Cong., 2d sess. (1918); May-July 1918 issues of Printers' Ink, Publishers' Auxiliary, Fourth Estate, Newspaperdom.

79 Hosmer, G. E., “National Legislation Concerning the Welfare of Printers and Publishers,” National-Printer Journalist 36 (April 1918): 196, 232Google Scholar (on NEA's position); Publishers' Auxiliary, 27 April 1918, 1; 4 May 1918, 4; 11 May 1918, 4; “List of Press Associations Which Favor Zone Advances” [n.d.], file 182, POD Records (twenty-nine county, state and regional press associations); “Annual Address by President, National Editorial Association,” National-Printer Journalist 36 (June 1918): 308Google Scholar; Publishers' Auxiliary, 1 June 1918, 1–2; J. H. Bloom, publisher of Devils Lake Journal, to Rep. J. A. Moon, 26 June 1918, H65A-F21.1, House Records; Ward, Hiley H., “Ninety Years of the National Newspaper Association” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1977), 231–32Google Scholar (the NNA formerly was the NEA).

80 For lawmakers' requests for information to counter publishers' propaganda, see correspondence between Koons and Rep. Herbert J. Drane, 26–28 March 1918; Rep. John Smith, 9–16 April 1918; Rep. John A. Key, 29 April-3 May 1918; Rep. W. A. Ayres, 9 May, 3 June 1918, all in file 182, POD Records.

81 For the Post Office's efforts to gather intelligence on the Nashville Banner, see Koons to Kitchin, 9 March 1918; on Southern Farming, see correspondence between Ways and Means Committee and Koons, 9–13 April 1918; on the Omaha World-Herald, see Koons to Omaha postmaster, 17 Aug. 1918; on McGraw-Hill trade journals, see Koons to Rep. Carl Hayden, 14 Aug. 1919, all ibid. All vigorously opposed the zone law.

82 Koons to Sen. Nathaniel B. Dial, 16 Feb. 1920, file 182, POD Records.

83 Printers' Ink, 28 Feb. 1918, 61–63; Publishers' Auxiliary, 30 March 1918, 1; 11 May 1918, 1, 5; 18 May 1918, 1, 2, 5; Annual Report (1919), 17–21.

84 Publishers' Auxiliary, 27 July 1918, 1. On the continuing efforts of magazines and large newspapers to repeal the law, see Kennedy, Jane, “United States Postal Rates, 1845–1951” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1955), 56–61Google Scholar; Raines, Irving I., “The Second-Class Postal Rate Controversy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, 1953), 53–77Google Scholar. On efforts to bolster the law, see Justification of Zone-System Advances in Postal Rates of Advertising Matter in Periodicals (Cleveland, Ohio, 1918)Google Scholar; and resolutions of press associations and letters from editors, July-15 Nov. 1919, H66A-H15.5, House Records.

85 Fite, Gilbert C., American Farmers: The New Minority (Bloomington, Ind., 1981), 1–41Google Scholar.