The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1922-01-31
UNCLE SAM IN AN
IMPECUNIOUS ROLE

preme right to the titular role in
impecuniosity. Peculiarly, he is i'm
pecunious with newspaper men only.
He stands ready to pay and does
pay for every other form of service
with the single exception of that
rendered by the press. He is more
than fair with others. Sometimes
he goes so far as to set great pro-
ductive machinery into motion on a
cost plus plan. During the war he
followed this practice in many of
the departments affiliated with wars
activities.
1t really was more or less calling
for the publisher to watch the SNUG
and self-complacent shipbuilders as
they counted their profits while his
editorial office was flooded with re-
quests for free advertising. Uncle
Sans liberty loan drives went over
because the publishers of the coun-
try periodically united and put
them over, arousing public interest
to fever heat. The success of every
government enterprise is erected on
the foundation laid by the country's
press. But the newspaper gets
nothing.
The practice of giving free news
paper space belongs to another
epoch. Most everybody has found
it out. Uncle Sam stands out as an
isolated instance of Grass ignorance
of good business practice in news
paper circles. 1t may be that his
agents believe that mailing dispense
tions, wherein country publishers are
accorded certain immunities from
regular postal charges in the cir
culation of their newspapers, calls
for free publicity after the fashion
of the old saw which DEGREES that
one good turn deserves another. Or
it may be that Uncle Sam does not
understand that it costs money to
print and circulate newspapers, not
withstanding the decreased postal
rates under which newspapers reach
readers.
But in any event Uncle Sam is
due for an awakening. Newspaper
publishers have, in a countrywide
sense, reached the breaking point.
To their minds patriotism is one
things, business another, and charity
still another. If Uncle Sam needs
evidence of patriotism amongst
newspaper men as class he can
have cit by reference to the news
paper files of the country dealing
with the late war period. If he
needs CHARITY, a thing not to be pre-
sumed, he should make his demands
upon all classes. If he wants to fall
into accepted business practice hel
must propose to pay for publicity
for his internal revenue department,
for his postal savings department,
and for his several other depart
ments which demand and must have
liberal news mention.
If everybody followed Uncle
Sans example as seeker of free
newspaper publicity the publisher
would quickly find himself back in
the status of twenty-five years ago,
when he was the most despised in
dividual in the community merely
because he could not pay his debts.
His list of gratuities was long a
quarter of a century ago and he
found life very hard indeed. He
usually managed to exist by giving
"orders" to his cheaply paid help
on different tradesmen about town
whom he paid in a desultory man
ner, and when he had ran the gamut
of business circles he folded his
tent and left town for pastures new.
People felt sorry for him if he had
an invalid wife or a large family
of small children, but this did not
keep him immune from maledction
which was heaped because he was a
deadbeat. If he rendered the COM
munity actual service as an able ex-
positor of opportunity the fruitful
acts were forgotten.
From out of this condition news
paper business methods developed.
The publisher brought about his
own emancipation from thralldom
when he came to understand that he
could produce only upon basis of
cost plus profit, like other business
men. His demands were effrontery
until business men came to appre-
ciate the improved conditions. They
were quick to learn that they no
longer dealt with deadbeats, but
with men who held their heads as
proudly as any of their fellows
with men who paid their monthly in
voices promptly and were actually
some pumpkins in their home baili-
t.at-