New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-06-20


other has ID guitar and would like 10 get 10!
it Il set of shirt studs q third wants 10 Duy 0iu
clothes. A myriad of petty things MAKE
their appearance here at an lnsigniin 5
cant cost, but the paper - puDnSnru
solely as an adjunct to a great sales aud bar
ter bureau. Its circulation Is tilning, tne
cost of manufacture little beyond the
bare cost of composition, and the pro-
fits are derived from the commissions
ON the sales and trades which the bureau Guilt
Yates. This is an entirely legitimate Dusl-
ness and convenient one; but 1t Is
not the business of journalism. No great
newspaper could afford To bother with III ltseil;
far less could 1t afford to bother its readers
forced to grope through too many pages To
find what they want. The experiment OF CIV
mg them any more would only result III drlv-
ing them to the smaller and handler papers.
ADVERTISEMENTS STILL \ NECESSITY.
IT, then, the greatest newspapers OF the
futl Ire will not be filled with masses OF small
and comparatively cheap advertising, as to
considerable extent they are now, VIII they 20
to the other extremel The daring idea has
sometimes been advanced that the coming
newspaper would pubnsh no advertisements
at al. Ii is not impossible, though just now
ouitc improbable. The old theory OF selling
the paper to the purchaser FOR the bare
cost of the white sheet on which IL
is printed, leaving the advertisements
it newspaper, has been pretty well ex-
plOded The colossal expenses OF the modern
daily are no logger Tsked upon an income 80
uncertain, and at the best so huctuatlng. III
happens, too, by curious law when Is oiten
found working in business affairs, that the
less Won need advertisements the more you
are likely TO get thenl-whlie the more you
depend upon them as an absolute necessity
for the continuance OF your publication the
less likely they are to come.
L. OH, 10 nNn m
to tall to "A still lower price, and at It's pres
enU price and with their present clTculatlons
none of the great newspapers could eAciuue
advertisements. There Is 10 sufficient reason
TO believe that the Insertion OF attractive
news and miscellany in the place the adyer-
tisements now occupy would draw IN enough
more readers to make the proht on the ~
creased circulation compensate Tor Jhe loss Old
the advertising.
But. preposterous as it now seems, | look
for the day when printing paper Will sell fdr
below Its present price /; ana rest TINS Ialtn
ON the simple proposition that manufactured
article, the process OF manufacturing when Is
easy and comparatively cheap, cannot long
continue to be sold az six cents per pound,
when the bulk of the raw material entering
into it grows in the forest, on every hlll-slde,
aud can be bought at - "A cord. The dispro-
portion between the cost OF the raw
material and the cost OF the manufactured
article is too great 10 be permanently nam
tanned. 1t Is Iue enough that papcI-makeIs
have only the narTOWest margin OF prom
now but better processes Tor making NOou-
pulp and improved machinery Tor converting
IL InIo uapcr must surely come. SO simple
manufacture viii not continue forever add
ing thousand per cent 10 the cost OF the
raw material 1t uses. When the happy day
of really cheap paper comes, the greatest
newspapers may fairly consider the problem OF
excluding everything from then columns but
that winch is OF universal rather than OF par
TALLY private and partially pubic interest.
TUE COST OF a NEWSPAPER
Are are likely soon to hare cheaper nc'rspa-
pers9 You have all been confronted, OF late
wears, by an occasional growl like this:
Everybody has to take lower prices nova
days. Wages are down, the cost of living is
down, everything else has come down to
what it was before the war; why don't you
put down the price of your papCrT But the
newspapers have not come down TO the
prices before the war, and ! make
bold to say that the sagaciOus ones viii not.
The Philadelphia Ledger before the war was
sold AT one cent. | venture to predict that II
it is ever again sold at that price 1t VIII be
many years hence. The New-1ork quarto
daIlies used to be furnished at two cents.
Who thinks of seeing papers like those OF
to-day sold at two cents again ?
4 short answer to the inquiring grOwer
may be readily given We will come down
to ante-war prices whenever yon are ready to
accept an ante-waT newspaper"
What that was few really remember. Look
ing over the files of the journal with which
! am most familiar | have found that on the
busiest days, and under the browning excite
ments that preceded the rebellion, IL was III
the habit of receiving an average OF be-
tween one and two columns OF news
by telegraph from all quarters, exclu-
siye only of the reports of Congress
slOnal proceedings. News from Europe all
came by steamer. News from all the cOnslG-
!. Ia .IfT nt
by post, when 1t came at all. Clippings from
the exchanges were the chief source OF supply.
Even great National Nominating
Convention called for only something
tins was so spread ont by profuse para
graphs and other cheap typographical tricks
as to occupy double the space we should give
1t now. To-day your foreign news comes ex-
cluslyely by the cable; your domestic news
too comes exclusively by telegraph. \
news letter from Chicago or ST. LOUIS
is almost unheaid OF, for the simple
reason that the news has been told 10y tCle-
graph before the letter could start. For the
two columns i'll 1899, from all quarters by
telegraph, we now have page after page printed
and sometimes as much more rcmOrselcssy
thrown INTO the waste basket-sent by tele
graph and paid for, but not used, merely be-
cause the columns will not contain it,
/ have mentioned the transmission of news
by telegraph instead OF the mails as one item
in the increased cost of making the
metropolitan daily newspaper of to-day.
A dozen more might be enumerated.
On no single one does any great news
paper dare 10 undertake material re-
trenchment. To do So would be to abandon
the field to its rivals. The public have been
educated up TO what they now receive, and
would 10 more be put oil with the newspaper
of 1860 than they would tolerate again the
slow mails, OF the antlquatod railroad accom-
mOdatiOns of 1860.
BEFOKE THE WAR AND NOW
But figures are after all more convincing
than mere description. / have selected as the
year affording the fairest data for a COMPARE
son with the present times, the year before