Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-01-13
READY TO "cRAwFIsH"

est in America-the business of. print
zines and books-puts the contentious
of representatives of this great indus
try in a nutshell when he says:
double the price OF your newspapers
to the public, increase your advertising
rates, cut down the size OF your papers,
and give US the benefit is in effect the
message conveyed to the newspaper
publishers of America by the combined
manufacturers OF news print paper,
who turn out approximately 5000 tons q
day of the raw material required in
producing daily and weekly publica-
lions in the United States. Like warn
ing has gone to the periodical publish
ers and to the job printers from the
makers of the better grades of paper.
"It is an extraordinary situation in
which the publishers find themselves.
They have no protection from the tariff.
They employ the highest priced labor
paid by any large trade. 1t is the most
intelligent and it is the most highly
organized. In no industry is the stand
ard of wages maintained so definitely
as by the men employed in printing
establishments. The publisher sells his
wares at fixed price. The man who
issues a 1-cent newspaper must issue a
1-cent newspaper and nothing else; he
cannot raise the price from day to day
to meet changing conditions, as the
merchant or manufacturer can. He can
sell his advertising only at fixed rate
because, in a way, he is a common car
rier; were he to vary his rates he would
soon be in trouble with his customers.
In the article which is his only raw
material of Importance he is put to sore
straits, and today the American News
paper Publishers association and the
Periodical Publishers association are
looking about for some method to break
the bands which bind them.
by reason of the fact that spruce
timber is the only really economical
paper making material, and water
power the only power that will cheaply
grind the wood, the paper maker is in
a sense a natural monopolist If this
were not enough. he is highly protected
by the tariff, news paper alone being
burdened with tax of Sc per ton. This
tax did not always exist. 1t was Gre
ated as a preliminary to the successful
formation of the International Paper
company. better known as the paper
trust"
All of which is true. The arguments
in favor of an immediate reduction in
the tariff on paper and the raw material
of which it is underwood pulp and
spruce timber-may be employed, with
slight modification, in the cases Of
scores of other commodities now con-
trolled by trusts whose exactions are
Just as burdensome as those imposed
upon the people by the paper trust.
And yet, strangely enough, some of
those newspapers which are making the
loudest demands for an immediate
revision of the tariff on paper and wood
pulp hesitate to ask that the rule be
applied uniformly to all other articles
unfairly protected.
Few persons not familiar with the
luQuSlAS VI llAofAAAAS a RA~N
ably know that three New York news
papers alone use nearly 5000 tons of
white paper each week. Mr.. Seltz
points out that many newspapers using
from four to six thousand tons of paper
per year were at the end of their con-
tracts when the recent unwarranted
increase of from $40 to $12 per ton was
added to the price of paper by the
trust; that prices were hoisted from
$40, 900 to 100000 per year to some pa
pers, in many of these cases the sum
equaling the net profits on the trans
action of business. When the publish
ers sought for bids among the several
selling agencies their letters remained
unanswered and they were turned back
their original source of supply, help
less and without recourse. Naturally
enough a cry of anger arose from nearly
every newspaper Office OF Importance in
the country.
The whole material for this vast
industry is now held in the hands Of
less than twenty men. So accurately
have they measured the ability of the
Scandinavian peninsula and Canada to
compete with them in furnishing raw
material that they have raised their
price to "the exact level of the tariff
fence" At the time Mr.. Seitz wrote his
article the trust was selling paper in
London at cents per pound delivered,
and in Australia at 2 2-5 cents, while
since September last no publisher in
New York city has been able to buy
news paper for less than 21a cents per
pound.
What will the end be? ut is the pur-
pose of Canada within less than
year." says Mr.. Seitz in conclusion, "to
place prohibitive duty upon the ex-
port of timber, and American manufac-
turers are already crying to the news
papers and periodicals to save them
from this calamity They will get no
help. They have pulled the house down
upon their own heads. With rare
unwisdom they have capitalized their
business until it can be capitalized no
more. They have erected a tariff wall
that has shut them out of Canada, and
they are obstinately trying to maintain
themselves on the impossible basis of
stationary production against an in
creasing demand. They are asking the
publishers to curtail, to keep down, to
diminish, when if they were wisely