Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1930-12-12

with the stamps selling by thou
sands and kilograms from many
parts Of the country asking about
them.
The presses in Wilmington couldn't
print them fast enough, so a Phila-
delphia printer was enlisted. Through
its Washington correspondent. the
newspaper got the postmaster gen
erals permission to put up booth
in the Philadelphia post office lobby.
From Jacob Riis. on December 10:
"Good for you and for Philadelphia
and the North American. Keep 1t
up. l am glad the little seed !
sowed in the Outlook last summer
has borne fruit"
Five days before Christmas the
governor of Pennsylvania and the
Pennsylvania branch of the Nation
al Red Cross indorsed the stamp.
Four days before Christmas an edi-
torial urged that "a Million Mercy
Messengers" be bought by the peo-
pie. Two days before Christmas
Happy New Year" was added to
the stamp design, the demand hav-
ing grown so. The day after
Christmas more than half a mil
lion already distributed to city, state
and nation.
Then a flight of signed indorse-
ments from Washington, President
Roosevelt, Secretary of State Root,
Secretary Of War Taft; from Balti-
more, Cardinal Gibbons; from other
places leaders in public life, phil
anthropy and education all featured
on page one.
On January s, check for $l.013-97
sent to Miss Bissell, the proceeds Of
the North Americans part in this
preface to stamping out the plague
several times the sum Delawar
cans had wanted to raise and
feared they could not get. And as
much more from other sources In
Pennsylvania. All told, Delaware
and Pennsylvania raised $4,000 from
this first sale or stamps.
Meantime, the National Red
Cross stopped, looked and listened,
at an annual meeting, to Miss Bis.
sell and the cubby-hole man, and
slowly but surely decided to get be-
hind the stamp. So the field was
widened for the second round of
these harmless bullets" harmless
to all save the deadly germs.
On November -, 1908, the first
gun in the second campaign was
fired by the North American. page
one promise to sell 1,000,000 of the
1908 stamps, and one month later
to the day it ordered its fourth mil
lion. Meantime
Every day from November ~ to
January 1, the Red Cross Christmas
Stamp was a matter of first-page
moment, and many day it was
given precedence over all other
news in the North American.
SIT is splendid" said President
Taft at the meeting of the Red
Cross in Washington, December s.
Two days later the first page of the
North American came out with
border of the stamps in red and a
three-column facsimile likewise col
ored. Other newspapers in many
parts of the land were joining the
procession. When the curtain was
rung down on this act, in January,
the net result of the stamp sale
throughout the nation was $135, 900.
~ never could have believed it,"
said Miss Bissell.
Gimme one" and how the tinkle
OF that copper coin has grownl
Annual sales of Christmas seals
amounted to $53,000,000 to date,
from this source alone. Yet the
money is the least part Of 1t. The
message is what has counted most.
Between them, the death rate from
tuberculosis has been cut in half.
And 1t is still going down. Its fate
isAsealed.
ia. 1880. Western Newspaper UnIon.l