The rate then for copy service would be one-eighth of a cent per copy not to exceed2 ounces, one-quarter cent per copy not to exceed 4 ounces, and one-halfcent for each additional 4 ounces or fraction thereof to be prepaid in money as second-class postage is now paid. Tabulated, it would appear thus:Not exceeding—Cents.2 ounces⅛4 ounces¼8 ounces¾12 ounces1¼16 ounces1¾20 ounces2¼24 ounces2¾28 ounces3¼Etc., etc.The net result calculated by the pound will be, upon the periodicals above the average weight of 4 ounces and not exceeding a pound, a change from 1 to about 1¾ cents per pound. For heavier periodicals the rate would average 1⅞cents per poundfor those weighing 2 pounds, and increasing by aninfinitesimalfraction with the proportion of weight above 4 ounces but never reaching, no matter how heavy the periodical may grow, the limit of 2 cents per pound.While the actual increase of rate upon thenormalperiodical, especially in view of the publisher’s right at all times to send it by bulk at a cent a pound, would be so small as not to upset his business, there would be two advantages to the postal revenue, one at each end of the line.(1) The making of a definite minimum charge for the handling of the individual piece. (2) Increase of revenue as the periodical grows heavier, due to the fact that the initial rate of one-quarter cent for 4 ounces isless than the incremental rate.This system of payment by the individual piece with a minimum limit of weight and an increased rate for each increment of weight iscommon to the postal systems of the entire worldwith the exceptions of Canada and the United States. The only difference is that in the present project the incremental rate is higher than the initial rate.Although this graduated scale would appear to be more favorable to the smaller periodical than to the large one, it must be borne in mind that the periodical weighingless than 1 ounceand of necessity paying the initial rate ofone-quarter centwould be paying a rate (2 cents per pound), slightly greater than the large periodical. This increase upon the periodical weighing less than 2 ounces finds ample justification in the obvious fact that the expense of handling second class matter is not to be measured simply by gross weight. On the contrary, as was pointed out by the representatives of the publishers in comparing the cost of handling second-class with that of first-class mail, such expense is to be measured by the number of pieces handled and frequency of handling.A pound of periodicals which is made up of 10 or 12 or, as is sometimes the case, 30 or 40 separate pieces, each one of which requires a separate course of handling and delivery, can not with justice be treated as the equivalent of a pound of matter which requires but two, or, at most, four courses of handling and delivery.This increase would be offset, moreover, for thenormalperiodical weighing less than 2 ounces, the country weekly, by the retention of the free county privilege.
The rate then for copy service would be one-eighth of a cent per copy not to exceed2 ounces, one-quarter cent per copy not to exceed 4 ounces, and one-halfcent for each additional 4 ounces or fraction thereof to be prepaid in money as second-class postage is now paid. Tabulated, it would appear thus:
The net result calculated by the pound will be, upon the periodicals above the average weight of 4 ounces and not exceeding a pound, a change from 1 to about 1¾ cents per pound. For heavier periodicals the rate would average 1⅞cents per poundfor those weighing 2 pounds, and increasing by aninfinitesimalfraction with the proportion of weight above 4 ounces but never reaching, no matter how heavy the periodical may grow, the limit of 2 cents per pound.
While the actual increase of rate upon thenormalperiodical, especially in view of the publisher’s right at all times to send it by bulk at a cent a pound, would be so small as not to upset his business, there would be two advantages to the postal revenue, one at each end of the line.
(1) The making of a definite minimum charge for the handling of the individual piece. (2) Increase of revenue as the periodical grows heavier, due to the fact that the initial rate of one-quarter cent for 4 ounces isless than the incremental rate.
This system of payment by the individual piece with a minimum limit of weight and an increased rate for each increment of weight iscommon to the postal systems of the entire worldwith the exceptions of Canada and the United States. The only difference is that in the present project the incremental rate is higher than the initial rate.
Although this graduated scale would appear to be more favorable to the smaller periodical than to the large one, it must be borne in mind that the periodical weighingless than 1 ounceand of necessity paying the initial rate ofone-quarter centwould be paying a rate (2 cents per pound), slightly greater than the large periodical. This increase upon the periodical weighing less than 2 ounces finds ample justification in the obvious fact that the expense of handling second class matter is not to be measured simply by gross weight. On the contrary, as was pointed out by the representatives of the publishers in comparing the cost of handling second-class with that of first-class mail, such expense is to be measured by the number of pieces handled and frequency of handling.A pound of periodicals which is made up of 10 or 12 or, as is sometimes the case, 30 or 40 separate pieces, each one of which requires a separate course of handling and delivery, can not with justice be treated as the equivalent of a pound of matter which requires but two, or, at most, four courses of handling and delivery.
This increase would be offset, moreover, for thenormalperiodical weighing less than 2 ounces, the country weekly, by the retention of the free county privilege.
The foregoing is substantially the commission’swholeargument, save a little more talk about “normal” periodicals, “normal” weeklies, and a statement to the effect that all countries, other than the United States and Canada, increase the piece, or copy, postage rate as the weight of the periodical increases—that is, these other countries do not give aflatpound, gram or other unit of weight rate.
Now, I shall briefly state my objections to some points in the above quotation—those points I have italicized.
The reader, however, must bear in mind that the scale of increase in mail rates above reprinted appliesonly to single copies—to copies mailed to individual addresses. For copies mailed inbulk, in packages weighing not less than ten pounds, to some agent of the publisher or other individual, to be taken up by the agent or individual at train or at central postoffice, the commission recommended the cent-a-pound rate.
In adverse criticism of the commission’s argument for penalizingweight, because all foreign countries do so, I need but say:
1. There are more high-class newspapers—papers which, necessarily, have weight—published in this countrythan is published in all the rest of the world.
2. There are four times as many of what the 1906-7 commission—also Postmaster General Hitchcock—would class as “periodicals” published in this countryas are published in all the rest of the world.
Sounds “loud,” does it? Well, look into the matter. Maybe I am mistaken. If so, it is a mistake made after thirty years of study of the conditions controlling in my country—inyourcountry—and of the prices paid in other countries forefficient, satisfactory service.
3. Those “other countries”—the stronger ones, at any rate—eitherownorabsolutely controlthe railroads which transport their mails. In some of them, rail transportation of mails—also of government officials, the service personnel of the army and the navy, and of other government “weight”—arecarried free of charge.
4. Those “other countries,” of which so much is said and written ostensibly for our enlightenment, have gone through the mill—theirpeoples have beenground finein mills of sophistry and special pleadings, to which,for fifty years, we have been carrying our grists.
5. Those “other countries” are making their mail service a source ofgovernmental revenue.
The people of this country, today, no more expect a revenue from the government’s postal service than they expect it from the War, the Navy, the Interior, the Judicial or other service department.
The people wantservice, not revenues, from any federal service department.
And you gentlemen who vote away the people’s money for servicesnotrendered—which youknowwill not be rendered when you vote to “burn” the money—will, before those independent periodicals are through with the recent sand-bagging attempt to censor or control theirpublished thought—you will learn, I mean to say, that people wantservicenot revenues; that they want “duty,” as an engineer would name it, not acoachedprattle about B. T. U. or other legislative and official thermics.
Now, let us look back at that quotation—at some of the points in it I have italicized.
First paragraph quoted: Aside from small country dailies—now carried by mail to addresses inside the county of publication free—and fraternal papers, Sunday School sheets and similar publications, there are few periodicals published in this country which weigh two ounces or less.
First paragraph following tabulation: “The rate would average 1⅞ cents per pound” for periodicals weighing two pounds.
A glance at the table shows that the piece or copy rate on a periodical weighing 28 ounces is given as 3¼ cents. A periodical weighing two pounds, or 32 ounces, would be charged a half cent more, or 3¾ cents for mail carriage and delivery, instead of 2 cents as now.
Second paragraph following the table, also in last paragraph quoted: “Normal” periodicals.
What is a “normal” periodical? Are the 4 or 8 page weeklies published in the back counties and the small religious, college, Sunday school and fraternal sheets that weigh two ounces or less “normal” periodicals? Are the dailies of our large cities, weighing from four to twelve ounces, “normal” periodicals? Is the Saturday Evening Post, weighing from ten to twenty ounces a “normal” periodical?
Are any of the periodicals in the following descriptive list “normal?”
The newspapers and other periodicals named in the following tabulation are those I could find within convenient, likewise hurried, reach. I tried to get them as near concurrent dates as I could. The tabulation will show the reader the proportion of advertising to body matter, printed in the different periodicals on the dates named.
Readers particularly interested in the data presented in the tabulation should, however, understand that for the newspapers listed, no account was taken of the “write-up” or “promotion” advertising printed as reading matter. Some newspapers, at certain times, carry a considerable amount of such paid matter while the standard monthly and weekly periodicals carry little or none of it at any time:
Next to last paragraph: Note the statement that “the periodical weighing less than one ounce” must “of necessity” pay the “initial rate of one-quarter cent” or “two cents per pound.”
The initial rate as given in the table is but one-eighth of a cent.That would make a per copy mail rate of two cents per pound, whereas an initial rate of one-quarter cent per copy would make four-page sheets and leaflets “normal” periodicals weighing less than one ounce pay at a rate of four cents per pound.
Next, note thecrossedargument in the paragraph just referred to. The commission seems to accept the argument made by the publishers—that it cost less to handle a pound of mail made up of but one to four pieces than it costs to handle a pound made up of from ten to fifty pieces. That is a fact which admits of no controversy, is it not?
Then why did this commission advise the adoption of a flat rate of increase of two cents a pound (one-half cent for each four ounces), as the mail rate on periodicals weighing more than four ounces.
If the argument of the paragraph just cited is sound—and it certainly is sound—a just graduation of the mail charge for the carriage and piece handling of the heavier periodicals should scale downwards and not continue a flat rate, especially not continue at a flat rate on increase in weight that is greatly excessive, as two cents a pound certainly is.
I shall speak further of periodical weights later in connection with railway mail pay and car rentals. The report of this 1906-7 commission in various other paragraphs manifests a clear intent to restrict and, if possible, to curtail the expansion of second-class mail matter, not only by curbing the enlargement of periodicals in size by increasing the second-class rate and by penalizing added weight, but by putting restrictions upon the periodical publisher which must necessarily make it more difficult for him to increase his circulation. These restrictions, so far as yet expressed, apply to the publisher’s sample copy privileges and to the amount of advertising a periodical may carry.
On page 48 of its report the commission, speaking of methods to curb a periodical’s growth in both circulation and weight, advises that the following be covered into the law in lieu of certain phrasings now in the statutes and which, the commission asserts, have proved quite inadequate in restraining periodicals from expanding their circulation beyond a point which they are pleased to call “normal.” They advise that the law “enforce the requirement that the periodical may be issued and circulatedonly in response to a public demand.”
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 aminimum 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.
(a) By reducing to aminimum 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 inresponse 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 saysomething, or the argument ofulterior motive—of a covertpurposeto restrict, to cripple, tokillthe greatest instrument for the education of itsadultcitizens 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 willaid 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 oftheir 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 isinfluenced—is promoted by what itsensesin personal contact with the thing or by what it hears said of it orreads of it.
That statement is as true of the members of the 1906-7 commission and of Postmaster General Hitchcock as it is of Mr. William Mossback of Mossville, Connecticut. The “demand” of each of us—ourdesireto possess this or that—is prompted—is created—by what we see, hear, feel, taste, smell orreadof it. We stand at the head of the nations of earth for progress in the various fields of mechanical improvement, from kitchen utensils to laundry equipment, from the plow to the electric crane. What is true of the progress of our people through the adoption of labor-saving mechanical devices, implements and machinery is correspondingly true in various other fields of progress—a progress largely the result of promoted “demand” for the better things, for the improvements of which our people havereadin our newspapers and in our monthly and weekly publications—yes, read of in the advertisements and in descriptive write-ups of such periodicals, if you will have it so.
So this prattle about issuing a periodical “only to public demand” is not only prattle—it is not only unsound and unbusinesslike both in theory and service practice, but it is also astealthy attempt to garrote the facts, likewise an attempt to subject the great publishing interests of the country to therankest kind of injustice.
How is the publisher to secure additional subscribers if he be denied mailing privilege to sample copies?
True, the bill recommended by this commission would allow the publisher to mail sample copies to the extent of ten per cent of his subscribed issue. Mr. Hitchcock, however, as I shall shortly show, proposes to excludeallsample copies from the mails.
The following is quoted from Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report and shows that the Postoffice Department, as at present directed, is determined to curb the growth and development of periodical literature in this country in every way possible—ways that scruple not atbiased rulings and grossly unjust distinctions. In the following Mr. Hitchcock is after what he is pleased to designate as an “abuse of the sample-copy privilege.”
In order to discontinue the privilege of mailing sample copies at the cent-a-pound rate, legislation in substantially the following form is suggested:
That so much of the act approved March 3, 1885 (23 Stat., 387), as relates to publications of the second class be amended to read as follows:“That hereafter all publications of the second-class, except as provided by Section 25 of the act of March 3, 1879 (20 Stat., 361),when sent to subscribersby the publishers thereof and from the known offices of publication, or when sent from news agents to subscribers thereto or to other news agents for the purpose of sale,shall be entitled to transmission through the mails at one cent a pound or fraction thereof, such postage to be prepaid as now provided by law.”
That so much of the act approved March 3, 1885 (23 Stat., 387), as relates to publications of the second class be amended to read as follows:
“That hereafter all publications of the second-class, except as provided by Section 25 of the act of March 3, 1879 (20 Stat., 361),when sent to subscribersby the publishers thereof and from the known offices of publication, or when sent from news agents to subscribers thereto or to other news agents for the purpose of sale,shall be entitled to transmission through the mails at one cent a pound or fraction thereof, such postage to be prepaid as now provided by law.”
In drafting the above recommended legislation Mr. Hitchcock no doubt was greatly assisted by the luminous suggestions, advice, analyses, etc., of his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, to be found on pages 331 and 332 of the 1910 report—which suggestions, advice, etc., is based largely on “estimates”—“estimates” which any student or careful observer of the Postoffice Department methods of figuring and accounting will readily discern are, in several particulars, somewhat “influenced,” if not, indeed, “fixed.”
Up to January 1, 1908, periodical publishers were allowed to mail sample copies of any issue in number equal to that of their subscribed lists. Acting on the recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, no doubt approved by Mr. Hitchcock, the mailing privilege on sample copies was cut down, January 1, 1908, to 10 per cent of the subscribed issue. Now comes Mr. Hitchcock with a bit of recommended legislation, as quoted above, which would, if favorably acted upon by Congress, deny the mailing privilege toallsample copies at the cent-a-pound rate.
Though not pertinent to the subject immediately under consideration, I desire here to call the reader’s attention again to a point in Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended legislation as quoted above—a point which is conspicuously worthy of a second notice and to which I have called attention on a previous page.
Mr. Hitchcock’s report, from which the foregoing piece of recommended legislation is quoted, bears date of December 1, 1910. Keep that in mind. In that recommendation he would grant acontinuanceof the cent-a-pound postage rate on periodicals “sent to subscribers,” but to such only. No sample copies are to be carried and handled,mind you, at the cent-a-pound rate after Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendation becomes law—that is, if it ever does become law.
Now, the subscribed mailings of any periodical—newspaper or other—are piece or single-copy mailings, which are admittedly the most expensive or costly to the government to transport and handle.
Yet Mr. Hitchcock recommends thatthe cent-a-pound rate shall continue to be extended to such single copies—a most just and sensible recommendation.
But Mr. Hitchcock when he wrote that bit of recommended legislation was thinking—and thinking only, if indeed he gave the subject anypersonalthought at all—of curbing the circulation growth of periodicals and, as a means to that end, recommends the exclusion of all sample copies from the pound-rate privilege.
Read carelessly or superficially that bit of suggested legislation in itself does not appear to have anything to do with sample copies. On second and more careful reading, however, its purpose becomes clear. If the cent-a-pound rate is to be allowed only to regularlysubscribedcopies of a periodical, thenallsample copies must be mailed, if mailed at all, at the third-class rate—must pay eight cents a pound.
When it comes to covering or cloaking ulterior purpose or intent in legislation, Mr. Hitchcock is an expert, it would appear from the rider he so strenuously tried to put astride the 1911-12 postoffice appropriation bill, and from the foregoing as well as some others of his suggestions to Congress. But the point to which I more especially desire to call to the reader’s attention when I obtruded that last preceding quotation at a point where it interrupted a consideration of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission’s report was this:—
As previously stated, Mr. Hitchcock’s 1910 report bears date, December 1, 1910. On that date, as appears from the last quotation, he desired a law that would bar all sample copies from the mails at the present second-class rate. It also appears that Mr. Hitchcock at the date named—December, 1, 1910—desired that all periodicals issued, except sample copies,be carried, as now, at the cent-a-pound rate.
Somewhere around February 1, 1911—barely two months after he makes that cent-a-pound recommendation—we hear Mr. Hitchcock assertively declaring, and contentiously arguing, that it costs the government9.23 cents per poundto transport and handle second-class matter.
What happened to his mental gear in so short a time to induce solouda change in his mind?
Or was it a change of mind? On page 328 of that 1910 departmental report, Mr. Britt, Third Assistant Postmaster General, who has charge of the accounting division of the service, makes the bold statement that it cost the government $62,438,644.70 more to carry and handle the second-class mail last year than was received for the service. Being an “expert” figurer Mr. Britt found no difficulty in arriving at that absurd 9.23 cents a pound as theactual costto the government of carrying and handling second-class mail. On pages 7 and 8 of the report, Mr. Hitchcock himself gives publicity to a conviction that the cent-a-pound rate should be increased on certain periodicals—the magazines—generously suggesting that the increased rate be confined to their “advertising pages” only. In the loosely worded “rider” he carelessly—or purposely—uses the word “sheets” in place of the word “pages” as used in his report.
Still, in face of his Third Assistant’s lofty figuring, the conclusions of which are announced on page 328 of the report, and of his own statement of the “reasons for an increase of rate” on periodicals of themagazine class, for carrying and handling their “advertising pages”—in face of these statements, how did his mental gear so slip, or “jam,” as to induce him to recommend, on page 35 of thissamereport, the enactment of a law continuing the cent-a-pound rate onallperiodicals mailed, except sample copies?
Did he intentionally double cross both himself and his Third Assistant or, in his anxiety to curb the circulation growth of periodicals,did he forgetwhat he and Mr. Britt had said?
What’s the answer?
I give it up. However it may appear to the reader, to The Man on the Ladder it appears that Mr. Hitchcock in his 1910 report has written, figured and “recommended” himself into a situation that is far more humoresque than it is consistent or informative.
Returning to the report of the 1906-7 commission, I will mention a few more of its objectionable recommendations.
As previously stated, the Penrose-Overstreet Commission recommended the enactment of a law requiring that newspapers and other periodicals devote not more than one-half their space to advertising matter (Section 3 of recommended bill, page 50 of report). Thus,in pressing an ill-conceived purpose to restrain the growth of circulation and increase of weight of monthly and weekly periodicals, they would, it appears, cut into that division of their published matterwhich produces the greatest revenue to the government for carriage and handling.
The truth of the last clause preceding has been so frequently and conclusively shown as to require no argument to convince the veriest tyro in knowledge of federal postoffice affairs and the sources of its revenues that the statement made is true. Elsewhere in this volume, however, the truth of the statement will be found fully established.
I confine the application of the statement to monthly and weekly periodicals, to such as are of general circulation. It of course applies, but in lesser degree, to newspapers. The advertising matter published in the newspapers is largely of local character, while that published in our high class monthly magazines and weeklies, in trade journals, etc., is largely general in character. The advertisements published by the former are chiefly those of local merchants and manufacturers and of local, commercial, financial and other interests. On the other hand the advertisements carried by the class of monthly and weekly periodicals indicated represent persons, companies and interests widely scattered throughout the country. Because of this phase in the character of the advertisements carried, the newspapers advertising space is not nearly so large a contributor to the government’s revenues from first, third and fourth class mail carriage and handling as is the advertising space of our high-class monthly and weekly periodicals.
It is true that this 1906-7 commission makes a somewhatstrainedeffort to assign two chief reasons for its recommendation to curtail the space which publishers of periodicals of all kinds may devote to advertising matter.
1. The commissioners appear to have been carrying around with them a stern purpose to suppress what they designate as the “mail order” publications, devoted largely to advertising the wares carried in stock by one or, at most, a few firms that individually or jointly pay for publishing the “weekly” or “monthly”, as the case may be.
There can be no question that there is a large number of such alleged periodicals which have been issued and distributed through the mails for theplainlymanifest purpose of advertising the merchandiseof those who pay for publishing them. I believe, however, that there are fewer of such fake periodicals enjoying the mail service at second-class rates today than there were ten or fifteen years ago. The Postoffice Department, it must be said to its credit, has “disciplined” a large number of them out of existence or, at any rate, out of the second-class mail rate privilege.
But even if there are more of such fraud and fake periodicals today than formerly, any fair-minded man must agree that it is a very rank injustice to punish—to penalize by harsh restrictions and increased mailing rates—the thousands of legitimate and highly serviceable periodicals for the sins of a comparatively few alleged publications which have abused or are abusing the second-class mail rate privilege.
The department, with its large force of inspectors and investigators, should be able to weed out and exclude such “fixed” periodicals. If it cannot do so it appears to The Man on the Ladder that it would not require a very large amount of industrious, strenuous thinking on the part of six robust, competent legislators to frame a law that would reach theguiltywithout punishing or crippling the innocent.
2. This commission was also, it would appear, a stickler overcompliancewith the postal statutes—statutes (those now largely governing) enacted in 1879 and 1885, therefore so antiquated in their wording in several particulars as to be a misfit when attempt is made to apply them to the vast business and varied character of periodicals today.
The statute of March 3, 1879, in its definition of what the law would recognize as a periodical says, among other things, that a periodical must be “originated and published for the dissemination of information of a public character, or devoted to literature, the arts, sciences, or to some industry.”
This portion of the statutory definition the Commission seems to have entertained a special grudge against. At any rate it expatiated at considerable length in its report, against the inadequacy, lack of definiteness, etc., of the definition as given. The commission’s chief objection seems to center around the fact that space in periodicals should not be devoted to “commercial ends.”
On page 35 of the report the commission says: