The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-01-04

ed by the dissemination of knowledge
through the newspapers do not pay it.
The newspapers, themselves, as Mr..
Seitz points out, bear the entire bur
den.
The trust magnates have in effect
suggested that the price of newspapers
be doubled. that the charge for adver-
Using be increased and that the size of
the paper be cut down. Nothing of the
kind can be done. as all publishers can
readily recognize. The people are ac-
customed to paper of a certain size at
a certain price. Says Mr.. Seitz:
THE man who issues a one-cent
newspaper must issue one-cent
newspaper and nothing else; he cannot
raise the price from day to day to
meet changing conditions, as the mer-
chant 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 Newspaper Publishers asso-
citation and the Periodical Publishers
association are looking about for some
method to break the bands which bind
them"
The paper trust controls absolutely
or owns outright all except negligible
percentage of the paper mills and the
sources from which the raw materials
come. In addition a benefcent repub-
Iican congress has placed a tariff of Sc
per ton or 80 cents per hundred pounds
on news print The publishers are Civ
en- no protection by the tariff. Foreign
newspapers come into this country free
of duty. The publishers have not ask
ed that q tariff be placed on their for
eign contemporaries, for they cannot be
competitors, but they DO ask for the re-
moval of the tariff on print paper.
AS showing the power of the trust
Mr.. Seitz points to the fact that recent
~ an arbitrary increase in prices was
made Under the present arrangement
no contract for paper is to be made at
a lower figure than $3.50 per hundred
pounds and 10 ordinary lot is to be
sold at less than $3.50 per hundred
pounds. In former years the price has
ranged between $1.9O and $500 per hun
dred pounds, which gives some idea Of
the trusts exactiOns. An idea of what
this means in dollars is given by Mr..
Seitz as follows
Three newspapers in New York use
at least $500 tons of paper per week
alone. Many newspapers using from four
or five or six thousand tons of paper
a year were at the end of their con-
tracts; prices were hOisted $4,000 and
$50. 600 and 100000 a year. in many cases
the sum equaling the net profits. When
they sought for bids among the several
selling agencies. their letters remained
unanswered and they were turned back
TO their original source of supply. help
less and without resource. 1t is not
unnatural, therefore, that a cry of an
ger should come up from the newspa-
per offices and that the newspapers
should feel that the tariff is indeed.
the mother of trusts. Here is the
whole material of vast industry held
in the hands of less than twenty men"
President Roosevelt has made a great
show Of opposition TO some other trusts
Does it not seem that he should in
stitute proceedings against the paper
trust, And does it not seem that he
should have the backing. not only of
all the newspapers and periodicals, but
of all the people. in such 2 campaign?