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Show ' publishers, wo commend this attitude, for we hold that any periodical which cannot maintain itself as a legitimate vehicle of information, without making it primarily an advertisng scheme, does not deserve to live. MAKE THE MAGAZINES PAY. Postmaster-General Hitchcock's plan for making the mag-azines pay a higher rate of postage on their advertising pages than the one-cent-a-pound rate allowed by lav for papers and periodicals published pub-lished for the dissemination of news, etc., is one of the sanest things that has come from the postoffice department in years. There has always been a deficit in the postal revenues, and this is partly chargeable charge-able to the practice which has grown up of carrying thousands of tons of heavy magazines through the mails at a loss. These magazines, most of them, have little or no literary standing; put out on their merits they would fail for want of support. But by turning them into advertising mediums, and making the literary part carry the advertising ad-vertising part, they are able to make big money at the expense of the people, who, in the end, have to foot the bill in the form of a postal shortage. A reasonable amount of advertising in a periodical is a benefit to readers, because it helps pay the expenses, but when the advertising begins to outweigh the literary matter, then it shows that the proposition is mainly an advertising one, and it is only fair that the publishers should pay a higher rate of postage, such as regular advertising books and circulars have to pay. Postmaster-General Hitchcock believes that when this reform is accomplished, the next step in sight will be the one-cent letter postage. He is a practical man, and he thinks the postal service should be run for the benefit of the whole people, and not for publishers or any other class. As |