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Show H.-RS CIRCULATION "GROWS" BY DECLINING Its Own Figures Show It; Sunday Circulation no Longer Given; Tribune Leads All Papers in Advertising. i c The Herald-Republican is engaged these days in a frenzied effort to convince the public that it is gaining in circulation and advertising. . The Tribune knows nothing of that paper's circulation circula-tion except what it, in common with the public, may judge from the paper's semiannual statements. It does know of the advertising adver-tising carried by every paper in town, the Herald-Republican included. in-cluded. Not for the purpose of annoying that paper's busy staff, but simply that the record may be kept straight, The Tribune wishes to print a few excerpts from the official statements made by the Herald-Republican. On Wednesday of this week the Herald-Republican printed a flamboyant boast, beginning with this paragraph : "The record of the Herald-Republican's steady and consistent growth in circulation cir-culation and increase in popularity with advertisers is shown conclusively con-clusively by the statement of circulation for the last six months." Then follows a claim of 1S,530 net average daily circulation. Six months ago, October 1, 1913, in its official statement, that paper said: "The actual paid circulation of the Herald-Republican is 20,126." But oath was taken to only 14,874. Six months before be-fore that, April 1, 1913, the official statement claimed 21,875 net paid, and still six months earlier, in October 1, 1912, the official document required by the government carried the supplementary statement that for the month of September, 1912, the paper had a net paid daily average of 23,852 and a Sunday average of 32,586. Let us place their figures in order : Daily. Sunday. September, 1912 23,852 32,586 Period ending March 31, 1913 . . 21,875 31,350 Period ending Sept. 30, 1913... 20,126 30,007 Period ending March 31, 1914. 18,530 No figures. A glance at these figures from which Sunday totals have disappeared dis-appeared will not exactly disclose "the steady and consistent growth" of which the Herald-Republican is talking. The Tribune is in no position to tell whether these figures are correct or not, but it does know they should be taken with liberal allowance of salt if they are no more nearly accurate than that paper's advertising adver-tising figures and its declaration of ownership contained in its official statement. In its issue of April 8 it falsified the advertising adver-tising figures for April 5 in order to show to advantage. Fully verified advertising figures show that The Tribune has led every paper in town every month of the year, both in local advertising adver-tising and in total volume of paid advertising. These figures show an average excess in the Sunday Tribune over the Herald-Republican Herald-Republican of more than eighteen columns, and they show, a handsome gain dver the corresponding months of last year, while the Herald-Republican sustained an actual loss in two of the three months, and escaped a loss in the aggregate of the quarter year only by the grace of extra political patronage. |