The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-02-14

Postmaster General Says Attack of
 Publishers on Proposed Increase
 Is Mad ;S<m Selfish
 s g,Doi"'
 Washingt Q 2 .bruary 13.-Large profits asserted 60 inuring to the publishers
 of masa < 2 and immense losses being
 sustalns SUI. n,a he government in the trans,
 matte v existing rates are made the sasis statement issued tonight by
 Pest. r General Hitchcock in response
 to tho attack made by the magazine pub fishers upon the proposed increase of the
 the large magazines from l to cents q pound. Mir. Hitchcock makes 1t clear that the proposed new rate "does not affect news parers Of any kind, nor does 1t apply to periodicals mailing less than 1000 pounds
 of each issue"
 In the course of his statement MT. Hitchcock says:
 '1n a whole page newspaper advertise
 nent signed b.' s4 of the principal maga- zine and periodical publications of the
 country, it Is stated that the increased
 rate ''wil drive a majority of tine, popu- lar magazines out of existence, and with | them the enormous volume of profitable | first class mail their advertising creates !" The public should know that this charge is made in the face of the fact that q
 part, if not all of the signers of the state-
 ment are realizing tremendous profits from the vast amount of high-priced ad- vertisements contained In the columns of
 is today carrying at the extraordinary low | rate of 1 cent per pound and at total
 cost of more than cents pound
 Government Losing Money During the fiscal year 1910 over S00- oo000o pounds of second class matter was carried through the public mails at loss oe s62, O0000 to the government, while third-class business was practically self | sustaining and on tha of first and fourth
 class matter there was a large saving of revenue. leaving the postal deficit for the year not quite $s.o0o,0Oo While the other classes of mail matter pay the cost of tteir carriage and on the first a's3 fourth classes a large revenue is de@f~sd, the
 great burden of the postal deficit Hes at | tie door of the second class matter. It | remains to be determined whether the | people who mail letters of general corre- srondence, the publishers of books and pamphlets. and the senders of small mer- chandise shall be taxed to meet the de- ficit caused by the extension of the sub sidy rate to the publishers of the largest magazines Of the country.
 Some Statistics
 Tt has been found on investigation that one of the great periodical publica- tions signing this protest contained in H of It's successive issues from January l.
 1910, to and including May 2l. 1910, inclu-
 sive of cover pages. an average of 19.354 agate lines of advertising matter, which,
 at the same rate. would make total of | l, ,0o6, ,40S lines for the year. The publisher announced that on and atfer October l., 1910, the rate for ordinary advertising in this publication would be SC an agate line the charge for the outside cover pages $4500 for the inside cover pages s4n0O an increase respectively from $5
 $36OO and $3300 over former rates. At these rates the gross value of the ordi-
 nary advertising space for one year would
 amount to s6.6sS,4ss. The profits resulting from the increase of advertising, to-wit
 sa57.1o6 would approximately be sufficient to pay the entire postage on both reading matter and advertising at cents per pound on the total mailngs of this pub lication, 24.2S3.543 pounds during the fiscal year 1910 In printed statement recently issued by the president of one of the principal magazine publishing companies of New York city the exceedingly profit able nature of the magazine business was clearly set forth. According to this statement the profits of that one maga- zine for October. 1910. showed an increase over the corresponding month for 1909 of
 100 per cent on advertisements and 1s1 per cent on subscriptions, making a net annual profit for dividends and surplus based on circulation of 900 copies monthly of $34S, ,9So. Regarding the maga- zine business geneI ally this gentleman sGys in his statement that magazine publishers receive gross incomes high
 as $6,0O GOO in single year Dividends
 amounting approximately to s1,00o.ooo yearly have been made
 Big Profits
 Speaking of the publication business of several signers of the protest against the proposed egislatiOn. he says that one of them according to his own statement, realizes a net profit of $1000,000 annually: of another the publisher of two great publications. that his gross income is more than $6,0000O0 annually and that his net profits for the same period are over $1.- 000,00O, in another that the business yields
 more than 10 per cent on a capital of | s10,0o0.0 900; of yet another that his busi- ness represented a profit of 100 per cent a year to it's stockholders. From this it Is apparent that the grounds of protest are the personal in- terest of the publishers and not the well fare of advertisers or the general read Ing public.
 "So far from being a discrimination, | the proposed rate Is distinct step in the direction of equalization of postage rates, and it falls more heavily upon magazines only where they exercise privileges not intended by the original postage statute. While newspapers and periodicals of less | than 40OO pounds of mailings at each is- sue are exempt from It's provision, vet this distinction Is warranted by the facts and Is just and equitable, as the trans- portation of newspapers through the pub lie mails Is for much shorter haul than that of magazines and periodicals. Small periodicals from their size and charac. | ter, are not usually so largely devoted to advertisements because of their limited circulation and when they attain such proportions as to induce excessive ad- vertisements they go above the limitation of the proviso and become subject to