The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1918-11-08
COME RACK
AT TILE GOVERNMENT


The newspaper men caused some
thing to drop in Washington moi
long ago. Washington had been tell
ing publishers how they must oper
ate their business to save waste Of
paper, and they proceeded to obey
orders to the letter, but in the
meantime they began keeping tai
on Washington to see how official
dom was wasting paper and 10
something dropped.
Publishers all over the land be
gar sending in reports to the print
and paper chief of the war industries
board, telling what lot Of circul.
ars they receive in their mail every
week, asking for space in the news
paper giving publicity to the various
war activities. Enough of these re-
quests reach most of the publishers
to fill up all their space, and nearly
all Of the requests are urgent and
worthy. If they were all granted
the people could not read the stuff,
and publishers put most of it in the
waste basket.
But that is not where the publish
ers caught Washington mapping;
some Of these requests come in du-
plicate and triplicate, and one editor
reported having received twenty
nine copies of one circular, all ad-
dressed in the same handwriting, on
the same kind of stationery and they
all reached him within one week,
indicating that his name was on one
mailing list in twenty-nine different
places. Washington was .bombarded
from editors all over the United
States advising them to curtail some
what on the tons and carloads Of
stuff they are ma-4ing out that no
body has time to read, and much Of
which is not even opened. The Re-
publican office has been receiving
one ten-page pamphlet once week
for twelve years, and for twelve years
never breaks the wrapper, but simply
slides them into the waste basket.
They contain good stuff, but the ad-
dressee has no use for it.
When official Washington had
been bombarded for short time
about these hundreds of sources of
waste, waste in paper, waste in man
power for writing, printing and mail
ing and waste of space in mail cars
and post offices handling it, the
paper chief called a meeting Of the
heads of departments together to
see what could be done among
themselves to stop the waste, and to
quit asking publishers for a world
of space at the same time be telling
them how much to cut down on paper
consumption. In the course of long
sessions they devised nineteen para
graphs of don'ts for stopping their
own waste, as against sixteen para
graphs they had laid down for the
publishers to obey and swear to.
But while doing that they evened
things up by finding three more para
graphs to tell publishers to do.
Publishers who have no subscription
list and merely print street herald
or bulletin to distribute free along
the street and at the houses, are
listed to get in line and obey news
paper orders excepting that they are
required to curtail rs per cent be-
low their July business whereas
bona fide newspapers must curtail
Is per cent and see that nobody re-
ceives copies unless they pay. If an
advertiser wants to see his ad, the
publisher sends him the page that
his announcement is printed on, or
If he wants the whole paper sent to
him he pays like other people. The
man who uses posters and dodgers
or any kind of a delivered-free
printed sheet is required to reduce
his consumption as much as he can,
and Is per cent reduction is manda-
tory