Part 6

Papers....Lit.

Circ......Amt. & page.

Every piece of first-class mail that reaches the office is stamped with these abbreviations and is at once checked for the different stages through which it must go before it is filed. The clerk filing must see that every check on the stamp has a sign after the check to show that the particular matter indicated has been attended to.

Of course, another part of the subscription work is in making changes of address, changing dates of expiration and removing names of those who do not want to continue to receive the paper, such as the anti-suffragists, who do not want to be converted, to whom some relative or friend or acquaintance has been sending the paper out of her own pocket.

Then there is the work involved in getting subscribers to renew. When the subscription list contained only twenty-four hundred names and when there were few letters to write, it was possible to know the names and perhaps something of the history of every subscriber, especially since only a few were put on the books in a week. But with a circulation of nearly thirty thousand it is obviously impossible for any one person to give the whole list personal attention.

The result is that the business policy of the paper has had to be changed a number of times to meet the changing needs. In the earlier days of the paper it was thought that subscribers would watch the expiration date on the wrapper of their paper and would send in the renewal price without any kind of reminder. In those days Miss Wilde and her assistant would go over the books twice a year and send a reminder to all who had not renewed. As the list grew larger, this plan seemed unsatisfactory to both the subscriber and the paper. Since people were at liberty to start a subscription at any time in the year, it was plain that a year's subscription would run out at the same time the following year, and since this was going on twelve months in the year, we began sending out bills each month to those subscribers whose subscriptions were about to expire. That system was in operation from 1910 through 1915.

During 1915, it was made possible for us to have enough helpers in the office to make a study of the Circulation Department with a view to seeing where improvements could be made, what leakages could be stopped, and what kind of circulation work was paying. The result was that we decided that along with our efforts to get new subscriptions we must carry on a new kind of work to keep those already obtained on our books. We found that it was not sufficient simply to send the paper to a person for a certain time and then ask her to renew. We found that we needed to study the source of the subscription, the motive for subscribing, and how best to appeal to the subscriber to renew. We found that since we had been keeping the record (1910 through 1915), about 26,000 persons have been on our books and for some reason or other are no longer there. A careful study and a long one showed that those whose papers had been discontinued in that period fell into the following classifications:

1. Those who had died.

2. Unconverted antis.

3. Those who had not paid after we had sent three bills.

4. Those who had moved without giving us their change of address.

5. Those whom the post office reported as "not found."

6. Those who asked to be discontinued without giving a reason.

7. Those who said they could not afford it.

8. Those who said they were too busy to read it.

9. Those who said they were converted and did not need it.

10. Those who disapproved of our policy in some way.

The number of new subscriptions and the number of papers discontinued for 1915, by the month, is shown below so that readers may understand how serious is this problem and so that they may understand why every subscriber and every suffragist ought to help keep the numbers in these ten classes as small as is possible, if they care to have a part in making the paper self-supporting.

1915 New Subscriptions Discontinuances January 1,297 407 February 2,088 346 March 1,048 714 April 532 225 May 1,259 301 June 972 492 July 1,513 253 August 2,265 188 September 1,135 168 October 657 312 November 326 140 December 563 263

In this connection it ought to be said here that all subscriptions divide into two classes: Those that are expected to make converts and may or may not be expected to renew, and second, those who are suffragists and may logically be expected to renew. When an order for a subscription is given, it, therefore, ought to make clear whether it is for a suffragist or for some one who it is hoped will be converted by reading the paper. If the name is that of a suffragist, it is legitimate and entirely fair that we should offer the paper for her at $1.00 a year and should expect her to renew, and it may be considered our fault if she does not. If, on the other hand, the paper is being sent merely as a piece of propaganda literature to a person who knows nothing of the cause, to one who is undecided, or to an avowed anti-suffragist, it ought to be paid for as literature and that name ought not to be counted as legitimate circulation.

How many of the total number of discontinuances come from the use of the paper as propaganda literature, and how many come from the rank and file of suffragists whom we ought to be expected to hold as regular readers, cannot be known. Detailed records showing this are being kept for 1916, and we expect to be in a better position to solve some of the circulation difficulties in the future than ever in the past,--chiefly because we never dared to spend the money to have the records and study and analyses made.

It ought to be said in this connection that we have, since the first of the year, revised our whole system of billing and are sending a different kind of reminder to renew to those who have been receiving a trial subscription, a complimentary subscription from a friend, a first year subscription for which they have themselves paid, from the one we send to those who have been taking the paper for a year or more. With the latter, for the most part, we simply have to remind them that their subscription has run out. In the billing department, therefore, we have six different kinds of reminders or requests to renew.

So much for that part of the work of the Circulation Department that has to do with entering, recording, billing, analyzing and studying. We turn now to what may be called plans and advance work for making more subscriptions come in, that is, for increasing the circulation of the paper.

We have on cards the names of nearly 35,000 members of suffrage leagues who are not subscribers for the Woman's Journal. This large list is, roughly, only about 30 per cent of the dues-paying membership of the suffrage leagues of the country. An effort is being made to get the total dues-paying and non-dues-paying membership of the leagues and organizations in order that we may send each member who is not a subscriber a sample copy of the organ of the movement and ask her to subscribe.

Besides the league lists, we have the names of over 1300 prominent men and women who believe in equal suffrage but are not subscribers. In addition we have other lists totaling about 32,000 suffragists whose names are not on our books.

This makes over 68,000 suffragists who, so far as we know, have never seen a copy of the organ of the movement, and have never been asked to subscribe. Each week scores and sometimes hundreds of such suffragists, who are not subscribers, write letters to our office, to the offices of the National Suffrage Association and to other headquarters and offices, asking for information which the Woman's Journal publishes from week to week. Think of the waste! They have the faith but not the knowledge to make converts, to answer objections, to write "copy" for the newspapers, to make addresses, to take part in debates, to write articles for the magazines, and to do the thousand and one things that suffragists must do if the present generation of women is not to go down to the grave unenfranchised as their mothers and grandmothers did.

Think of it! Nearly 70,000 known suffragists who do not subscribe. In the interest of efficiency they ought all to be constant readers of the paper. But how are they to be reached? There are two ways: First, by the officers of the organization to which they belong; and second, by means of letters, sample copies, and follow up letters until the last one of them has enrolled as a regular reader.

But advance work requires funds. No matter how necessary to the cause of equal suffrage it may be to enroll those 68,000 suffragists as readers, the United States Post Office will not sell us stamps for writing to them unless we can make cash payments. Funds for other parts of the work of increasing the circulation are equally necessary, and the work halts for lack of that which reformers always lack.