Weekly journal-miner., 1918-09-04
EXCHANGE TABLE GATHERS ONLY
 DUST NOW
SOMEBODY TAKES SOME OF THE JOY OUT OF THE LIVES OF PUBLISH FRS BY PROHIBITING SWAPPING OF PAPERS.

the past.
 This time-honored institution, which for years untold has been an integral part of every newspaper of- flee in the land, from the Squeedunk Weekly Herald 10 the big metropoli- tan dailies. has been laid on the altar and sacrificed aS a burnt offering to the war god, and has gone into the limbo of things of other days along with the public sugar bowls, free rail road passes, pug dogs, liver pads and roulette wheels
 The exchange table" is now gath ering dust instead of newspapers, a recent order having been handed down from the high and mighty at the national capital prohibiting publi- cations of all sorts sending out ex- change copies.
 Ever since newspapers have been Tn vogue, the mail in the average print shop has consisted of at least so per cent exchanges. and the office boy whose duty 1t was to make the daily trips to the postoffice had to take basket with him to carry back all of the publications which came in from all parts of the map. While some of the exchanges were of interest to the editor. a great many of them were of such small import that they were never opened or read, and after hang ing around on the exchange table for few days were generally con signed to the trash heap.
 From reading the foregoing para graphs, the reader might gather the idea that the editors mail nowadays is of small volume and that it con sists only of important letters and the few papers which the quill driver might have felt constrained to sub scribe and pay for. However that is not the case With the passing of the exchange. another sort of mail is now coming in copious gobs which still compels the office boy tor the pretty girl in the front office) to carry a basket along when making trips to the postoffice The new brand of mail consists principally of govern ,ment publications, publicity matter and press agent stuff of all descrip- 4ions which misguided persons. firms and officials direct in great quantities to the editors in all parts of the land in the apparent belief that the soft hearted desk man may give space to it in the columns which he controls.
 By actual count, there were 2l specimens of the literature of the sort above mentioned in the Journal-Min CTS mail on Tuesday morning. Should any editor be disposed to print even 2 fraction of the matter which is sent him along with requests for its publi cation, the average paper would have no room left for the publication of local or telegraphic news. And the great trouble Is that most of the pub licity matter comes from sources which are really deserving of boost ing if the newspapers had the space to spare Some of it comes from the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Lib cry Loan Committees, the Thrift Stamp campaign managefs. and countless other kindred patriotic or semi-patriotic organizations. The war department and the members of con- gress also send copious quantities of news-nIatter and the Y NJ. C. A. war workers do the same. While the war is ;n progress tons Of official bulle-. tins are placed in the mails-none of which requires postage, being carried by the frank of some member of con gress or one of the executive depart ments-some of them good, some bad and some indifferent. \ few of the pieces of mail do carry one-cent stamps, and as few editors have any time or inclination to examine mail matter which carries only a green stamp, the majority of these are care fully filed away in the waste basket as soon as the eagle eye of the desk man lights upon the Number 10 en- yelopes which are generally used to enclose this species Of literature. So, when the boss notes that the office boy( or the D. 2. from the front of fice) returns from the postoffice with a heaping pile of letters, Inc no lon ger gets excited or imagines that the mail of the day is Of vast importance . He merely goes through the pile of envelopes with practiccd hand, re- taining the honcst-to-goodncss letters
 which bear the small, purple litho- graphcd likeness of the father of his country, losses the onc-Cent stuff and the frankcd envelopes into the dis card, and mumblcs something about not seeing why the government per mits all of this sort Of stuff to go through the mails and then sets up 2 cry about the shortage of paper and . the postofficc department deficit caus- ed by handling such quantities of dead-head first and second-class mail matter.
 But the old-time exchange" seems 10 be in the same category with C0i. n