WILL YOU SANCTION THIS? 
By REX BEACH 
PRESIDENT AUTHORS' LEAGUE 
C ONGRESS — or a sufficient majority of it—has voted to destroy maga¬ 
zine reading. 
It has accomplished this by passing a simple law reestablishing a postal 
“zone system for all publications—a zone system and postal principle that 
was abolished by President Lincoln in 1863, and by establishing through 
a complicated system postal rates that mean increases of from SO to 900 
per cent postage increases to all periodical readers. 
. By this “zone” system American readers of periodicals—home, educa¬ 
tional, scientific, business, or religious—are to be penalized by enormous 
postage increases on the weekly or monthly papers they read, and the 
greater their accidental remoteness from the city of publication the greater 
is the penalty that is placed upon them. 
Magazines have been a slow growth. In 
the process ’of their development and evolution 
it has happened that publishing is chiefly con¬ 
centrated in the East. The large magazine 
increase in postage, therefore, discriminates 
unfairly but with great force against the 
entire West—beginning even with western 
New York and Ohio and increasing rapidly 
until such .States as Washington, Oregon, 
New Mexico and California are to pay nine 
tunes the amount of postage formerly paid 
on the advertising pages alone of their maga¬ 
zine. What this increase means in cost to 
readers is incalculable. 
It means that hundreds of thousands of 
readers will be compelled to give up their 
periodicals owing to the terrific increase in 
their postage cost. 
I could do no better than quote the fine 
words of a Western woman, Miss Arminda 
Wood, president of the Woman’s Club of Racine, Wis. : 
The many splendid magazines published to-day,” she wrote in an ap¬ 
peal to Eastern women from the women of the West, “are a means of edu¬ 
cation to many a home where other opportunities are lacking. And many 
of these homes are remote from publishing centers — many even remote from 
city life. It is the magazine combined with rural delivery that has brought 
to the door of the countrywoman material which helps her solve problems 
needing advice more easily obtained by her city sister. Through this medium 
WILL YOU HELP? 
protest 
and de- 
Write to your Congressman, 
against this destructive law, 
mand its repeal. 
Get your club or association to adopt 
resolutions demanding its repeal. 
Will you enroll to help repeal this law 
that penalizes periodical readers with 
heavy penalties? 
If so, send your name and address-and 
a copy of any resolutions adopted-to 
CHARLES JOHNSON POST 
she has known current events, has guided her children by the educational 
influences offered, and has been able to keep herself in harmony with the 
world from which she was separated. Periodicals and newspapers are as 
essential as food to the country home. 
“Then again the attractive magazines in every city home means keeping 
together the family circle. To make the magazine prohibitive by excess 
postal rates would be to take away from mothers one of the means whereby 
they have battled against outside attractions. 
“Now just because a woman lives in a Western State remote from 
publishing centers—and of course home interests affect the woman 
most—is she to be made to pay a penalty in order to bring oppor¬ 
tunities to her door? To enforce the 50 to 
900 per cent periodical postage law would 
be causing mental starvation to many who 
have only this means of keeping abreast of 
the times. 
“Every thinking Eastern woman should 
put her full strength into a drive which will 
give her Western sister the same advantages 
which she enjoys.” 
Arid to this may be added the splen¬ 
did report of the United States Postal 
Commission appointed in 1844 to determine 
the functions and purposes of the Post 
Office in relation to the people of our 
nation. The function of the Post Office was, 
it said: 
“To diffuse throughout all parts of the land 
enlightment, social improvement, and na¬ 
tional affinities, elevating our people in the 
scale of civilization and bringing them to- 
. gether in patriotic affection.” 
This was the purpose of the Post Office. 
This 50 to 900 per cent postage increase on magazines is not a war tax. 
ubhshers were already taxed by excess profits and income taxes. It is 
not a war tax; Postmaster General Burleson has so stated in his annual 
report when he declared it is permanent postal legislation—unless repealed 
tliiougli your protests to Congress and Congressmen. Will you write—tele- 
giaph or urge the passage of resolutions of protest against this destructive 
law ? 
The CAREY PRINTING CO. INC. 
New York 
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