The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1900-06-14
CAMPAIGN LITERATURE.
How 1t Is Circulated by the Million
Pieces Through the Nail.

L. A Coolidge in Ainsiee's Magazine.
It has been said that the distribution of
literature has come to be about the most
important feature of a national commit
tees work. This phase of campaigning
has reached truly colossal proportions. The
head of the literary bureau of national
committee must be a man OF rare judS-
ment, of~Varied resources aud of unusual
executive ability. The head of the repub-
lican literary bureau in 1896 was Perry S.
Heath, now assistant Postmaster General.
The head of the Democratic bureau was
Daniel McConvile of Ohio. Documents
We're sent out from both headquarters by
the ton The Republican Committee dis
tributed over 10000 .0O1 pieces of ''htera-
ture." Over 1900 packages were sent by
freight or express, and over 100 carloads of
printed matter In the shipping depart
ment alone 275 people were employed. The
distribution by he Democratic Commit
tee was almost equally rs large. The work
has been reduced to a science. Each COM
mittee has lists of voters which are fur
ntshed originally by the various local com
mittees in states and congressional dis
tricts, and these lists are so arranged that
50 far as possible, just the right kind OF
document win be sent to each voter, and
just the right kind of argument will be
presented to each mind. The Republican
, and Democratic National Committees to-
7 day each have at least 30G000 names on
their lists. BY far the largest proportion
of documents distributed are speeches in
Congress, which 90 out under congress
iOnal franks, thus reducing immensely the
expenditures for postage. Of such great
advantage is this that in the congressional
! session Immediately preceding a presiden
tial campaign. many speeches are made
chiefly with a view TO their distribution.
Entire books have been inserted in the
Congressional Record in this way. In
! recent Congress Tom Johnson. The mill
ionaire congressman from Ohio. printed
as a part of his speech Henry Georges
! book on Progress and Poverty" and this
was sent out by The hundreds of thousands
1 under congressional franks. OF course the
| National Committees have TO bear the eX-
! pense of paper and printing.
| This class of documents is far from com
prising all that go out. The literary bu-
/ reau of a national committee is a great
! workshop. The Republican Committee in
| 1895 employed twenty-seven writer's, most
of them specialists on the tariff, on cur
rency and on other topics of a political
nature. and these men were kept busy al
headquarters constantly preparing timely
material us the occasion might demand.
Much of this work was sent out through
The newspapers. and three or four columns
of matter for this purpose were prepared
every day. Statements cards, eXplana-
tons, interviews were distributed TO the
press in the guise OF news. one of the
rooms at headquarters was lined with
books of reference end two or three men
were kept busy all the time responding to
tel6grs ms from all over the country ask
ing for information on all sorts of ques-
tons A speaker assigned to talk in
given town would pick up the local oppo-
sition paper on his arrival, and find
settlement about the tariff or about the
currency which he thought he ought 20 re-
fer to on the platform that night. He
would telegraph promptly to headquarters
for exact information, and within an hour
or two he would receive a reply telling
him exactly how he could meet the point
which had been raised. Similar inquiries
would come daily from editors Of news
papers in remote districts which lacked
reference facilities of their own. The
press bureau was highly important adj
junct to the literary department. over
L. 600 newspapers were furnished with
plate matter. patent insides and occasional
editorials Bulletins were sent daily by
telegraph al the expense of the commit
tee to 100 morning newspapers and TO $50
afternoon prints These bulletins ranged
all the way from 100 to 300 words in length.
There were special departments for al
most every conceivable class of popula-
iou. Men We're kept busy preparing doc
uments in German Swedish, Denish,
Polish and Hebrew, which were to be sent
10 localities where any one of these Ian
guages happened TO prevail. There was
coIored bureau which had charge of all
questions relating to the colored vote,
sending out literature to convince the, ne
gro that his interest lay in continuing TO
support the Republican party. There was
a woman's bureau under the charge Of
Mrs. j. Ellen Foster, who had fifteen wo-
men in her department preparing for dis
tribution literature calculated to affect
l.
recognized by the politicians that, although
| there are few states where women are al
| lowed TO vote. there is not one in which
they do not exercise a great and some
| times decisive influence upon the ballot.
| There were departments to look after COM
mercfal travellers. bicycles. savings insti-
! tutions and life insurance companies