The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-01-20
,dl-EAGE AND ADVERTISING.
lRutland Hel'ald.)

(Rutland Herald)
The Montpelier Journal asks why
Ghe Legislators of Vermont permit
newspaper publisher to take a cord
of wood in payment for subscriptions
or advertising and then forbid him
to exchange advertising for railroad
mileage. Is there any sense in such
situation?
(St. Adams Messenger)
The Montpelier Journal, in an ed
itorial reprinted elsewhere in this pa
per, puts up substantial argument
against the prohibition of the eX-
change of railroad mileages for news
paper advertising. The suggestion
that the railroad companies practi-
cally subsidized the Vermont press
by this exchange is too childish to
be discussed seriously. The whole af-
fair was never anything more or less
than a reciprocal business PROPOSE
ton and so understood by both par
ties.
The railroad, on it's part, could af-
ford to pay for the publication of its
! timetables, for advertising eXcur-
sions, changes in train schedules, re-
| auctions in fares, and similar infor-
nation, by mileages when it could
not afford the actual expenditure of
money 1t could afford to do a more
| liberal advertising of this kind by
paying for it in mileages, than it could
and does today because it must pay
in money.
The newspaper. on it's part reck-
oned the mileages received in en-
change for this advertising at the reg
ular tariff rate, two cents a mile,
credited the newspaper on account
with as much as each exchange
amounted to, and straightway went
out on the street and sold its mile
ages for cash in ten minutes.
The railroad got it's advertising.
The newspaper got it's money.
The public got better service from
the public service corporations and
from the newspapers because railroad
timetables and all other similar mat
ters Of every day public interest were
literally advertised.
And how was the press corrupted
because it "bartered' with the rail-
road instead of doing business on a
strictly cash basis with them? Who
can point to a single instance that
even suggests suspicion of it? There
is not a more independent public
press in all Independent old New
England than the newspapers of Yer
mont And any man that knows the
political history of this State for the
past ten years knows that all the
time the newspapers were accepting
mileages in payment for railroad ad-
vertising, these very same newspa-
pers were favoring the adoption OF
some of the most radical railroad leg
err enacted, and some of that very
same legislation is now held by GER
tain authorities to cut off the right
of newspapers to accept such ex-
change of mileage any longer!
When the cold facts are looked
sqaurely in the face, it is hard IL
persuade most sensible men that c
newspaper cannot as honestly ac'
cept from the railroad mileage fig
ured at its tariff value for an ade'
quate amount of advertising as il
could accept from a farmer a dozer
or two of eggs on a subscription
The newspapers will give the pub
lie better news service, the railroads
> will be able to give the public extra
transportation facilities and induce
ments more frequently, when the sen
sible reciprocal arrangement of for
mer days is restored.