[Illustration: Wendell Phillips A Staunch Friend]
Every live newspaper office has as part of its necessary equipment What is familiarly known as "The Graveyard." Ours is a combination of the Research and Information Departments. It contains pictures of distinguished and leading suffragists in this country and abroad, biographical sketches of them, quotations from them and other suffragists, notable articles, criticisms, reviews and news of the movement which may be useful at some later date, a large amount of information and data and compilation of facts and figures, such as one needs at his fingers' ends in an office which does the kind of work that is being done in few places if anywhere else in the country. The files in this department include also a large amount of statistics and information regarding anti-suffrage activities, workers for the opposition, methods, amount of money spent, sources of income, and an index of the Journal from week to week.
Who was the first woman doctor, what college first opened its doors to women, what was the date of the first suffrage convention, how many times was equal suffrage submitted in Oregon before it was granted, what States in the Union have no form of suffrage for women whatever, who are the most distinguished men advocates of woman suffrage today, how many believers in equal suffrage are there in this country? These are some examples of the myriad questions that come constantly to the Journal for answer—usually at short notice and without a stamped envelope for reply.
Material for debates, speeches, articles for the press, chapters in books, copy to be read into the minutes of the Congress of the United States, refutation of anti-suffrage articles, answers to hundreds and thousands of objections to equal suffrage, questions of how it works, what women have achieved in science, art, literature,—to meet these with the least waste of time and energy is the end and aim of "The Graveyard." Practically all suffragists use it, but no one has ever contributed a penny toward its support, and no organization has ever made an appropriation to maintain it. It is simply another case of the willing mother and the thoughtless daughter!
=Holding the Reins=
[Illustration: Julia Ward Howe President of the Woman's Journal
Corporation for Many Years]
In 1910 there was one woman worker besides the editor-in-chief in the office of the Woman's Journal, and one woman who worked part time. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, who always gave his services to the paper, had died in 1909. There were only four pages to the paper then, and the total subscription list was 3,989. Bills were sent out only twice a year, and hardly any work was being done to increase the subscription list or any department of the paper. Office administration was then a very simple matter—whereas now the Subscription Department alone requires the full time of more than ten workers.
The result is that office administration now is a very different matter. It has become a question of holding the reins of twenty-four young people, all of whom have special work to do, but all of whom need almost constant direction. And while there are heads of departments who oversee the work of clerks and stenographers up to a point, almost daily conferences and supervisions are necessary in order to have the work go on satisfactorily. This takes an immense amount of time and energy and initiative and planning. It is a case of driving twenty-four in hand. Some days it sends the driver home thoroughly wearied.
Besides the absorbing task of keeping the whole staff busy, there is always the exhausting and important matter of mapping out the work, laying plans for advance work, originating and initiating, and making decisions that involve more or less risk.
Then there is the actual personal labor of helping to get the paper to press each week, choosing from a limited supply suitable illustrations, writing some "copy," writing heads, making up, dictating and signing hundreds of letters each week, seeing all callers who need to be seen, and constantly directing and overseeing to keep matters of a thousand and one details ship-shape and accurate.