The Standard Out of Temper

New York, 1895

Giving Way to Anger When Compelled to Compete for Public Work.

The Standard is very mad. The Town Board passed a resolution to have all public printing and official supplies furnished under contract. This was done at the suggestion of Republican officeholders, who had been bored almost to death by patronage hunters. These Republican officeholders had been censured by the Republican town committee for not giving their orders to a Republican printing office, which meant the Standard. These officers gave their work to the office that could do it best and for the least money. This action in the interest of economy was not pleasing to the Republican committee and the Republicans who own Standard stock.

A representative of the Standard went to Supervisor Everitt and complained that the passage of the resolution to throw the work open to competition would place all the work in one office. He meant THE FARMER office. The Supervisor said: "Why, not at all. The Standard office has a chance to bid for the work the same as every other office, and if the Standard can do the work cheaper than any other office, then the Standard will get all the work."

The representative of the Standard said his office could not do work as cheaply as THE FARMER office did it, because the Standard has not the facilities, being scantily supplied with type and having no first class presses.

Of course this is the truth. The Standard "farms out" nearly all of its work to city offices. Consequently two offices are getting profit out of it. THE FARMER does all kinds of work right on the premises. We have five splendid presses, one alone costing $2,800, and we run them by steam, and cut paper by steam, and we tons upon tons of type, having added....

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 4, 1895, p. 1.

Note: The article ends early because the page is ripped and the rest is missing.

Conan Doyle's First Novel

1895

S. S. McClure Tells How It Was Received In England.

S. S. McClure, in a recent interview, tells of his first acquaintance with Dr. A. Conan Doyle.

Mr. McClure said he was visiting Andrew Lang at St. Andrew's university, in Scotland. Mr. Lang said: "There is a young man named Dr. Doyle, who has written a capital shilling shocker (which is British for dime novel), and who is about to have a novel published by Longmans, and this man has a future."

"On my way back to Edinburgh," said Mr. McClure, "I purchased a copy of the shilling shocker, which proved to be one of the earliest and greatest of the famous Sherlock Holmes stories. I read it with unbounded delight. It was more than a shilling shocker. It was a great story, and although a detective story it certainly was a piece of literature.

"I continued my journey to London and purchased on the train copies of the two great critical journals, The Athenaeum and The Academy. It happened that both contained a review of Conan Doyle's new novel, 'Micah Clarke.' Dr. Doyle's name was then unknown to literature, and the book was heralded as a great work by a new writer. The Athenaeum scored the novel in strong terms and expressed wonder that any publisher should dare publish a book so dull. The Academy, on the other hand, praised the novel and rated it between 'Kidnapped,' by Stevenson, and 'Westward, Ho,' by Kingsley. It is needless to say that The Academy's verdict was the right one and the verdict of the public. I bought and read 'Micah Clarke,' and I instantly recognized the promise of this writer and arranged for his new novels and stories."

Possibly No Newspaper Next Week — High Paper Costs

Maine, 1916

Note: This notice, letter, and editorial concerns high rates for the paper they needed to print newspapers. The publisher of the newspaper, The Fryeburg Post, of Maine, was Libby & Smith. All of this took up a large section of page 1 on Sept. 26, 1916. The letter to their paper warehouse is a reproduction (typewriter face) of what they sent. After the editorial following that is the notice from Libby of returning to a law practice.

Notice from Libby & Smith.

The moral support of our subscribers is earnestly requested at this time. While a final answer to the following letter has not yet been received, there is little encouragement held out. Of course if the answer should prove to be favorable we would be sorry to have troubled our readers with our troubles, but as we are using our last white paper on hand, with no certainty of getting any more, this week's paper may be our last chance to reach our subscribers for the present. The name of the paper warehouse is not printed, as they are innocent in the matter. The mill is the Pejepscot Paper Company.


Sept. 12, 1916.

Messrs.

Gentlemen:

Confirming to-day's interview between your Mr.______ and our Mr. Libby, the only contingency in view to prevent our discharging our crew, shutting down, and merely collect old bills to live on and pay rent until reason resumes sway, is for your mill to furnish our paper at the price named.

That price yields them fabulous profits, yet as conditions are we are willing to pay it.

As for the extortionate price in your last bill, and the fact that they can ship to Egypt the output our Maine papers have printed on during the past twenty-five years, that is for your mill to decide. We cannot submit to it, and must resist by the only course open to us.

If there is a possibility that your mill will break away to this extent from the piratical raid instigated by Mr. Dodge we ought to have this confirmed before making what explanations we can to our subscribers in the last week's papers we have paper for. Also we ought to give our crew notice. Of course if any untoward happening should prevent our reaching our subscribers through our own papers, we must depend on the Portland dailies and one telling another.

With of course many regrets,

Yours very truly,

(Signed) LIBBY & SMITH.


The forgoing letter explains itself. For months every month's paper bill has jumped to a new high level, and no assurance regarding the future. Apparently the only limit on the news paper mills' mad rush for profits is what their customers will pay to avoid suspending publication until prices drop. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are trying to get the paper mills to do the right thing, and the proposition of the mills is that all white paper for small newspapers shall be pooled into one man's hands, who shall have full charge of distributing it among the papers. This would be a most villainous trust, the very monopoly the International Paper Company has been working for years to bring about. And anybody can imagine the price!

The mills say to publishers, Do not impoverish yourselves, raise your rates to subscribers and advertisers. But we know that our subscribers, at the end of two years' crop failure, are not in position to pay more; also in Maine when the farmers are poor the merchants are poor. Besides, we do not feel inclined to take a hand in this kind of a raid.

The news paper mills have no more right to demand ten years' profits on one year's business than the train crews had to cut off the country's life by suspending transportation, or than the Germans had to sink the Lusitania. Because one has a chance to do a thing does not prove his right to do it.

If this is a year of boom prosperity, it ought to be passed around; not certain ones grab the whole and impoverish the others.

The relations between the news paper mills and the publishers who consume their products are very intimate. Banks in a money scare do not charge their customers the highest panic interest rate merely because they can get it from others; instead of that they protect their customers at a fair rate. And banking is supposed to be the coldest blooded of all kinds of decent business.

If some of our readers are inclined to blame us for this step, we can only urge that the way to overcome a wrong is to resist it, not yield to it. Somebody may get hurt but the wrong will be righted. If one-third of the newspapers of the country would promptly take the course we are taking, instead of impoverishing themselves to enable the paper mill owners to make ten years' dividends in one year, they would be brought to their sense of decency at once, not in a kind way but in the way they deserve.

At any rate, having taken this course, we can only depend on the moral support of our subscribers, whether this altogether wrong situation may possibly be averted, or be over in a fortnight, or last through the war.

LIBBY & SMITH


In the interim until we are able to secure white paper again I shall — resume the practice of law — and will to the best of my ability serve the interests of any client who may employ me for even the smallest business.

Charles Thornton Libby.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 1.

Note: A few of the inside pages have an additional notice:

No Paper Next Week?
Do not fail to read the reason on the first page.

A Japanese Composing Room — Newspapers, Typesetting

1878

A Japanese Composing Room.

A Tokio (Japan) correspondent of the New York Evening Post, has written up the Nichi Nichi Shinbun or Daily News, the leading journal of the empire. The description of the composing room, as given below, will be found interesting reading:

Next to the editorial room is located the space set aside for the composing force. First we come to the proofreaders, two intelligent persons who have a high reputation for scholarship. The necessity for such attainments becomes apparent when we learn that a full font of type comprises fifty thousand characters, while no less than three thousand are in constant use and two thousand more in frequent employment. And not only must the proof-reader be careful to amend all grammatical slips and typographical errors, but he should have a quick eye for inelegances in the manuscript and for imperfections in the characters themselves.

Separated from the proof-readers by a low latticed railing is the office of the foreman, the magistrate of the cases, and beyond him again we reach the printers. The type is disposed about the room on long racks like those in a public reading room, and the aisles furnish a promenade wherein the compositor can labor in his vocation and take exercise simultaneously.

The matter when set is placed on galleys, and a proof taken. Then the foreman manipulates it into the shape in which the public see it. Four forms are used, each eleven by sixteen inches. The first — that is, the last — page is occupied by a display head, the information concerning number of issue, place and date of publication, price and days of appearance, which commonly follow the title, and government notifications. After these come editorial leading articles and paragraphs. The last — that is, the first — page is devoted to market reports, scientific information and advertisements, and with the official editorial matter makes up the outside forms, which are sent down to press at midnight.

On the "inside" we find the day's discoveries of the reporters and such editorial articles, communications, etc., as found no corner in the outside forms. Such is the routine "make up," but it is elastic enough, of course, to suit the journalistic requirements of the day. During the war, when Mr. Fukuchi was for a time at the front as a special correspondent, much space and attention was given to telegraphic news, but the lack of an associated press makes such matter rather costly, and only a limited amount appears. Each correspondent, however, is furnished with a private telegraphic code, and is empowered to send the journal by this means information that seems to justify the outlay.