River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1906-08-16


Gliding to print the truth about the
trusts.
They have concluded to give their
readers the power of knowledge.
Without knowledge people are help
less.
It is the basis of our self-goyern-
ment.
When we know what to do we can
do it, 1t is free country. The peo-
pie control everything.
All Power is in the
Hands of the People.
No political party has power except
through the people.
No political party can act without.
popular support.
1t may do so, but that is suicide
at the next election it loses its
power.
Political parties have but to hear
the verdict of the people to realize the
peoples power
Combinations of capital are equally
helpless
they must yield to the people or
be crushed.
In these matters of meat, railroads
and insurance the power of reform is
in the hands of the public.
The people have but to decide what
they want done and it will be done.
The Power Of the Press
Belongs to the People.
Publicity is the cure for the
trusts" the President has said,
because when the press gives the
facts to the public the public will ex-
ercise its mighty power.
The press belongs to the public.
The people who read the news
papers and magazines control them.
Let the people cease to read any CIV
en- publication and no matter how much
money it's publisher has and how
much advertisers spend in it, it's pow
er is gone.
The people are represented by the
press. They delegate their power to
it's columns when they undertake to
Lave it solve public questions, for 1t
lust as much or more than when the
public power is delegated to mem
Der of the legislature or of Congress.
To secure the representation of the
public is the aim of every ambitious
publisher. He is representative OF the
public just to the extent he has sub
scribers, just to the extent people
read his publication.
Getting Subscribers is
Almost Like Getting Votes
It's about the Same as getting votes
subscription is practically vote
for the policy of the publication. 1t
furnishes the cash with which to pub.
lish. 1t furnishes the moral support
that lies in the fact that people read
any given publication.
So the struggle is for circulation.
The great giants in publishing are
the city Tress. Millions in money backs
the enterprises of the city publisher.
He reaches out into the whole coun'
try for subscribers.
He makes his publication so inter-
esting that e eryone wants to read it.
He gets public support two ways
first he gets subscribers from districts
where previously the people have
supported the local press solely. Then
he gets support from the city advertis.
ers who want the country trade-the
mail order houses, the whole long list
of advertisers who are sapping the
country's cash and paying the city
publisher to help them do it.
He wakes wealthy and hires the
best writer's in the country and de-
cides to make his publications so in
teresting that everybody will have to
read them. He stirs up public ques-
tions-goes after the meat trust, the
insurance trust, the railroads. all the
vast enterprises which handle the
peoples money and products and dis
tribute and augment the peoples pros
perity, or vice versa, whichever way
YOU want to look at it.
The City Versus
The Country
It's the same old story-creating
central control, bringing the peoples
money into the cities to be handled
by the men who publish the maya
zines and daily newspapers and who
aim to abolish the country store and
the country publisher by making it
impossible for them to compete just
as the other trusts have centralized
other things, such as insurance and
cattle-killing and management of rail-
roads.
It's the city versus the country
the non-producer versus the producer,
the middle man Tersus the end man
the fellows who take control of com
modities and cash between the pro
Queer and the consumer and adding
nothing to either commodities
or cash amass vast fortunes
for themselves. Last year the
countrys products were over twelve
billion dollars in value but the farmers
and the other working people g0t only
two billion dollars of this money. Who
got the rest?
It's the corrupt, immoral, sensa-
tionaI, lawless, dirty and diseased
city versus the incorruptible. moral