In the draft of a bill which this 1906-7 commission recommends become a law, the following are the means by which circulation “only in response to a public demand” will be attained:
(_a_) By reducing to a _minimum the sample copy, which is one of the main agencies of inflation_. The legitimate periodical employing this means only to a slight extent will not be at all affected.
(_b_) By abolishing all premiums, whether of printed matter or merchandise.
(_c_) By either prohibiting all combination offers, as, for example, a set of books with a magazine, or requiring that in all cases a price shall be set upon both elements of the combination and that the full advertised price of the periodical be paid.
(_d_) By requiring that the publication shall print conspicuously, not only its regular subscription price, but any reduced price at which it is offered in clubbing arrangements and the like.
(_e_) By providing that all copies which the postmaster, in the exercise of due diligence shall be unable to deliver, shall be returned with a postage-due stamp for an amount equal to double the third-class rate. In other words, charge the publisher the third-class rate both for the forwarding and the returning of any copy sent otherwise than in response to an actual demand.
To The Man on the Ladder the commission’s talk, advising the enforcement of “the requirements that the periodical may be issued and circulated only in _response to a public demand_” (page 40 of report), reads much like one of two things--either the inconsidered or ill-considered prattle of persons who want to say _something_, or the argument of _ulterior motive_--of a covert _purpose_ to restrict, to cripple, to _kill_ the greatest instrument for the education of its _adult_ citizens which any nation of earth has to date discovered--an instrument that is economically within easy reach of its exchequer.
How much of a “public demand” does the reader think there would have been for the reaper, for the thrashing machine, for the case-hardened, steel shared plow, for the sewing machine, for the triple expansion engine, for the traveling crane, for any brand of breakfast food, of ham, of flour, books--in short, how much of “public demand” would there have been for any of the mechanical inventions, for any of the multitude of betterments in the housing, clothing and subsisting of our people, _had not that “public demand” been created_? No one wants anything, however excellent it may be, until his attention is called to it and he believes it will _aid him or her_, as the case may be, that it will lighten the stress of labor or increase its product, or in other lines and directions improve the conditions of their lives, industrially or otherwise. Ninety-nine per cent of “public opinion,” as to whether or not that public wants or does not want this, that or the other thing is _influenced_--is promoted by what it _senses_ in personal contact with the thing or by what it hears said of it or _reads of it_.