The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-03-16
THE. LABOR PAPER.

The hardest hit of any papers through the high cost of paper nave heen the labor papers and the small country papers with restricted ana moderate circulation. The great papers with their enormous and at- fluent clientele of advertisers are hardly hit at all, for most of them are in a position to make the ad'er- tisers come across with increased rates which will correspond to me increased cost of white paper.
 The papers which take up radi- gal or reformist attitude are not natronized by the big advertisers refusing to be the servants ot the great advertisers and the suDser'l- ont tools of great corporations when would assume dictatorial control of the policies of such papers pE virtue of such patronage. the laDor naper cannot turn to it's patrons and add another whack to the rates which il had been in the habit ol charging.
 Ii is no wonder then, that of the S32 newspapers which nave gone ont of business since the imitation in the price of white paper became so marked. many have been labor naners It is wonder that the la bor napers have stood it as well as they have, and the fact that they did. speaks well for the solidarity and loyalty of the working class to their newspapers.
 It shows that the workers have come to realize the necessity or having an organ which will repre- sent their views, and for that req son, if for no other, they sacrihce ouite q lot to keep their paper so- ing.
 Every now and then, especially now with the high costs ol opera tion due to material expenses the Post Office Department endeaVors 10 strangIe where the high cost Of pro-
 
 And during the last session an espe- cialy deadly onset was made Wltil cabinet approval whereby the second class privileges were 10 be removed from the newspapers under what was known as the Randolph amend ment whereby the prohibitlve postal
 ,,.o,,lJ destroy OaDpr $ circulation that the last spark or vitality existing in the smaller lnue- pendent papers would be removed. Moreover as it provided the ridicul- ous zone system for mailing papers, inc new rates would have simply destroved the circulation of Al askan papers of any kind through the mails while it would have pre- vented the Alaska people from re- Ceiving at present prices many ln- valuable papers from the Outside.
 As the Valdez Prospector which very ably protested in an editorial against this infamous amendment said. it was based upon the fallary that the people were existing Tor the benefit of the post office depart ment and the post office department did not exist for the benefit of the people.
 !t has been most instructive to watch the efforts made to make money from the Postal business, as if money had to be made from 1t any more than that the money in- vested in any other public service had to be paid back cent per cent with added interest. But quite apart from this. it is instructive as show ing too, that the Postal Officials ill Washington have no really correct idea of the value of the newspaper from a corrective an educational or an enlightening point of view.
 1t may be inferred that were the efforts of newspapers confined to those which were dominated by Big Business and Great Corporations. there would never be anything else but fawning patronage showered upon them. But because the news paper in any community in the last analysis is that force which by :he weapon of publicity can to greater extent than any other compe. gro gress, fair play and justice to pre- vail anywhere and everywhere. 1t is to be attacked.
 And this brings us back to our