The torch bearer

by Agnes E. Ryan

[Illustration:
Increase in Circulation
Increase in Cost of Publishing]

As a propaganda paper, the Woman's Journal has, of course, always sent out many papers per year purely for educational purposes. Hundreds of papers have gone each year since 1870 through 1915 to campaign states, to legislators, to libraries, to newspapers, to ministers and teachers, in the attempt to make converts, and every suffragist having any perspective of the movement knows that such propaganda work by the Woman's Journal is to a great extent what has advanced the movement to its present status. In other words, the Journal has from year to year carried the torch on,—but it has always been at the sacrifice of a large sum to be raised, over and above the receipts, either from the Stone-Blackwell family or from a few friends of the movement.

The year 1915, with the advance of the movement in general, and in the four big campaign states in particular, has been exceptional as a propaganda year for the Journal. When a call came for Journals or for information which the Journal workers could give, whether from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, the call has been answered promptly; we have not said,—when the amendments were to be voted on at a definite time,—"You must wait until we have raised the money to pay for what you ask." We are proceeding in the same way with the campaign states of 1916. What else can we do when the need is so great?

The following illustration shows the extent of our propaganda work, measured in papers, for 1915. It does not show what has been done in the way of furnishing information and argument, refutation and data, material and articles for the press or for special articles, debates, and speeches.

This chart shows the free propaganda use of the Journal as compared with the paid circulation. The black lines show the paid circulation of the Journal per month, that is, the number of papers paid for by the subscriber or by the single copy. The gray extension of the lines shows the number of papers furnished by the Journal, for which the recipient did not pay. The reader can here see at a glance what a large part of our work does not bring any financial returns.

[Illustration: The Journal as Propaganda]

If a diagram could be shown of the number of letters we have answered during the year, the amount of time it has taken, and the number of writers who do not even send a postage stamp to carry information back to them, and the consequent deficit the paper incurs in this way alone, the result would shock the average suffragist into a new attitude toward the paper, which she has called upon as freely and thoughtlessly as a girl in her teens calls upon the time and resources of the mother who has always stood near and ready to meet her every need "without money and without price."

At this point, I want again to call attention to the fact that the Woman's Journal is, with one exception, the only suffrage paper in existence which does not have some organization back of it which helps to meet its financial responsibilities. Although it has always been the organ of the movement, it has stood alone for the most part, depending on the devotion of a few to make up any sum that might be needed to meet the lack of organized suffragists to support it as part of their suffrage work.

It is, of course, easy to see how this has come about. In the beginning the number of suffragists was so small that there was little organization. The movement was carried on by a few and a few supported the paper. Times have changed, however, and all of the other branches of suffrage work are being carried on by organizations with the body of believers meeting the expense of running the work.

There has, however, always been this difference between the expense of maintaining the Journal and supporting the work of the suffrage organization: The Journal has been published every week for over forty-six years; it has never missed an issue, and its expenses have gone on. In other words, it has always been in campaign, while for the most part during those forty-six years the organizations have had comparatively little expense, they have not usually maintained a headquarters, have had few or no meetings, and have had few and short campaigns. Now, because the Journal has survived the times of no organizations, the times of few and weak organizations, it is thoughtlessly expected to go on as it has since 1870, paying its bills as best it might. In the meantime, its work has increased so that it is large enough to be unwieldy without being self-supporting. (Self-support cannot come until its paid circulation is about 50,000.)