The Torch Bearer by Agnes E. Ryan
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[Illustration: Women's Suffrage.]
=Woman's Journal and Suffrage News=
A weekly paper devoted to the interests of woman, to her educational,
industrial, legal and political equality, and especially to her right
of suffrage.
Founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell
_Editor-in-Chief_
Alice Stone Blackwell
_Contributing Editors_
Mary Johnston Stephen S. Wise
Josephine P. Peabody Zona Gale
Florence Kelley Witter Bynner
Ben B. Lindsey Caroline Bartlett Crane
Ellis Meredith Mabel Craft Deering
Eliza Calvert Hall Reginald Wright Kauffman
_Artists_
Mayme B. Harwood Fredrikke Palmer
Mrs. Oakes Ames
_Deputy Treasurer _Assistant Editor_
Howard L. Blackwell Henry Bailey Stevens
_Circulation Manager_ _Advertising Manager_
Marie Spink Joe B. Hosmer
_Finance_ _Managing Editor_
Mildred Hadden Agnes E. Ryan
=THE TORCH BEARER=
A Look Forward and Back at the
Woman's Journal, the Organ of
the Woman's Movement
By Agnes E. Ryan
=Contents=
The Torch Bearer
In the Balance
Taken Into Our Confidence
Some Changes
It Speaks for Itself (Editorial Department)
Suffrage Volunteer News Service
The Connecting Link (Circulation Department)
What Papers Live By (Advertising Department)
Prints and Reprints (Literature Department)
The Graveyard (Research and Information Departments)
Holding the Reins (Administration Department)
Capturing the Imagination (Press and Publicity Dept.)
A Word in Time (Field Workers' Department)
The Hope Chest (Finance Department)
Early Stockholders
Present Stockholders
The Journal Goes to 39 Foreign Countries
The Corporation
=List of Illustrations=
Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell
Alice Stone Blackwell
Charts:
Increase in Cost of Publishing
Increase in Circulation
Propaganda Work
The Woman's Journal Staff:
Circulation Department
The General Staff
The Directors:
Alice Stone Blackwell, Emma L. Blackwell, Maud
Wood Park, Grace A. Johnson, Agnes E. Ryan
The Woman's Journal artists:
Fredrikke S. Palmer
Mrs. Oakes Ames
The Woman's Journal Printers:
E.L. Grimes, M.J. Grimes, William Grimes
Mary A. Livermore
William Lloyd Garrison
Wendell Phillips
Julia Ward Howe
Armenia White
Margaret Foley
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Mrs. David Hunt
The Anti and the Snowball
Justice, simple justice is
what the world needs.
--Lucy Stone
[Illustration: Lucy Stone.]
[Illustration: Henry B Blackwell.]
=Founders of the Woman's Journal=
=The Torch Bearer=
So wonderful are the days in which we are living and so rapidly is
the canvas being crowded with the record of achievement in the woman's
movement that it is time for readers of the Woman's Journal and for
all suffragists to know somewhat intimately and as never before what
goes on in the four little rooms in Boston where the organ of the
suffrage movement is prepared for its readers each week.
Before telling what has been done and what is planned and hoped, it
will perhaps be well to give a little picture of the paper which to
many has been the "Suffrage Bible" since it was started over forty-six
years ago by Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell and the little band of
woman's rights pioneers who saw, almost at the dawn of the movement,
the need of an organ.
Before the charter for the Woman's Journal was granted in 1870,
$10,000 had to be paid into its treasury. This was at a time when
there were few millionaires in the world, and $10,000 then must have
looked like as many millions today.
How ardent, then, must have been the few, how eloquent the
presentation, to have raised $10,000 with which to start a paper for
the sole purpose of advocating equal rights for women! But they were
ardent and eloquent, and from the road to martyrdom they have come to
us through history as great men and women of their time. The pages of
the Woman's Journal are brilliant with their sayings, and the reports
of the early stockholders' meetings echo the voices of that pioneer
band led by Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and
Julia Ward Howe.
Never for a single week since 1870 have the women of the country been
without a mouthpiece to voice their needs and wrongs. This has
been due chiefly to the fact that the Stone-Blackwell family has
continuously given not only of its services in editing and managing
the paper, but also has made generous contributions for years to
enable the paper to continue.
So much in brief for the forty years from 1870 to 1910. From July 1,
1910, to September 30, 1912, the financial support of the paper was
assumed by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. After
that it fell to the manager of the paper either to get contributions
to meet the deficit each year or to borrow. On October 1, 1912, Miss
Blackwell contributed $2,000; on January 31, 1914, she again gave the
paper $2,000.
With the exception of these $4,000, I have raised or borrowed each
year the necessary money, over and above receipts, to keep the paper
going. With the beginning of 1915 Miss Blackwell began to feel that
she could not continue indefinitely to make up a deficit, and she
began seriously to consider cutting the size of the paper to four
pages or making it a monthly.
The 1915 campaigns particularly needed all the aid that the Journal
could give, and feeling keenly that the proposed changes would greatly
reduce its power of usefulness, the following points were made by Mr.
Stevens and myself in further consideration of the matter with Miss
Blackwell and a few warm friends of the Journal:
With the single exception of the _Irish Citizen_, the Woman's Journal
is the only suffrage paper in existence which has no organization back
of it. _Jus Suffragii_ has the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
_The Woman Voter_ has the New York Woman Suffrage Party. _Votes for
Women_ in England has the United Suffragists. _The Suffragette_ had
the Woman's Social and Political Union of England. _The Suffragist_
has the Congressional Union. _The Headquarters News Letter_ has the
National Suffrage Association.
Now, while the Journal has had no organization with large membership
and resources to make it a power, it has shown great vitality as
witnessed by the fact that it is the oldest surviving suffrage
periodical in the world. Furthermore, it has shown such remarkable
growth during the past few years, with no capital put up to promote
it and build it up as other businesses are built up, that it seemed
apparent that all it needed to make it strong and self-supporting was
a reasonable amount of capital, a reasonable amount of time and the
wholehearted co-operation of suffragists in general which has been
growing in an encouraging degree. It seemed a time for faith and not
for fear.
It was accordingly decided to retain the eight-page size, to continue
the paper as a weekly and to borrow the money necessary to meet the
deficit, believing that the great body of readers of the Journal
would approve and sustain this decision when it was brought to their
knowledge. They would feel that a backward step should be impossible.
At the present time and covering the indebtedness of the Journal from
October, 1912, to January, 1916, the figures are as follows:
Borrowed in 1915....................... $10,500
Owed E.L. Grimes Company for printing,
paper stock, mailing, approximately .. 9,000
________
$19,500
The assets of the Journal at the time of the last stockholders'
meeting (January 28) included the following:
Subscriptions in arrears .................$4,968
Sales accounts ........................... 45
Advertising accounts ..................... 460
Legacy of Miss Caroline F. Hollis......... 3,000
Legacy of Mrs. Mary E.C. Orne............. 4,000
Legacy of Mrs. Hollingsworth ............. 1,000
______
$13,473
The amount to be raised, therefore, to meet the indebtedness of the
three years and three months from October 1, 1912, to January 1, 1916,
is $6,027.
From these figures it will be seen that we have to count upon
collecting nearly $5,000 in subscriptions in arrears, upon legacies to
be paid within the year, to meet the expenses of furnishing a paper to
the cause, and that even then we must have over $5,000 additional to
be out of debt for 1915.
[Illustration:
Alice Stone Blackwell
Editor of the Woman's Journal]
While the Journal has always had a few gifts each year and an
occasional legacy, both gifts and legacies have, in their very
nature, been uncertain quantities and not to be relied upon. It has,
therefore, followed that from 1870 to 1910, as well as in the
period above referred to (1912 to 1915), for forty-three years,
the Stone-Blackwell family has borne the brunt of the burden of the
support of the paper on which the whole suffrage movement has depended
so completely for nearly half a century. As Mrs. Chapman Catt says,
"The Woman's Journal has always been the organ of the suffrage
movement, and no suffragist, private or official, can be well informed
unless she is a constant reader of it. It is impossible to imagine
the suffrage movement without the Woman's Journal." That is the way
suffragists feel about the paper from the Atlantic to the Pacific and
abroad,--and yet there is no organized, systematic effort made for its
support and maintenance.
There is, moreover, no suffragist but will say at once that this
paper, which is for the advancement of all women, should be supported
by all suffragists in an organized way rather than by a few--out of
their own pockets. I am working to bring this to pass. I believe one
of the results that will follow the heavy expenditures made by the
Journal in 1915 will be organized support of the paper.
Since the Woman's Journal is the organ of the movement, since it gives
the news of the movement, voices the wrongs of women, and furnishes
data as well as inspiration with which to work, it is important that
it reach the largest number of women possible each week with its
message, and so far as is possible for a paper, convert them into
efficient, consecrated workers, possessed with the ideal of equality
and justice for women. It is, therefore, obvious that, however good
the editorial output, it counts for comparatively little if it goes to
only a small number of people.
From 1870 to 1907, there is no record of the number of subscribers to
the paper, for the price of the paper was changed from $3 to $2.50 to
$1.50. The price is now $1 per year. The last change was made in 1910
because it was becoming clear that a lower price would mean a larger
circulation, while a higher price made it prohibitive to many.
Furthermore, the lower price was in harmony with the growing tendency
to remove the membership fee in suffrage organizations because it had
proved a handicap in having a large backing of women for the cause.
So many women of humble means, or no independent means, wanted to take
the paper and could not!
Bearing in mind, then, that the aim of the Journal, both from a
propaganda and business viewpoint, is to reach large numbers, that is,
to have a large circulation, I have had two charts drawn which will
show that, although the cost of publishing is heavy, the cost
of production is not advancing as rapidly as is the increase in
circulation. In other words, the circulation of the paper has
multiplied over eleven times in the last eight years, while the cost
of publishing for the same period has multiplied less than eight
times. The following charts show this graphically.
Compare the two long vertical lines. The longer one shows the increase
in the number of readers. The shorter one shows the increase in the
cost of publishing the paper.
[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.)
We are, therefore, face to face with the fact that, while all
suffragists are agreed as to the merits of the paper and the need it
fills, very few have considered its problems, few have helped to carry
its burdens, and no organization today makes itself responsible for
any of the paper's expenses.
With the advancing movement's heavy demands on the paper, however, the
time for a change has come. The paper's support in the future ought
to be borne by the body of organized suffragists rather than by the
devotion and sacrifice of the few. Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell
died in harness. Alice Stone Blackwell, their daughter, is no longer
young, and ought not to suffer from overwork and worry in connection
with the struggle to keep the paper going.
So much for the past. What shall be the story of the future? The paper
has been almost inevitably in debt. Its present bills and loans must
be met. It will doubtless be possible to raise money to meet them
from individuals as in the past, although that is an uphill and rather
thankless task. But it does seem as if those who labor early and late
in the office, often single-handed, ought not to have to go out to
raise money to meet a deficit they were obliged to incur purely in
order to serve the woman's movement.
What is the solution? I want to propose a definite, practical,
constructive solution,--one that will not only lift the paper to
self-support almost at once, but will strengthen the whole movement
in the very things that Mrs. Chapman Catt and all others know is most
needed,--education and organization of women. What I want to propose
is that as suffragists we show what our present power is; that we show
the strength of our present organization; that as leaders and workers,
organizers and speakers, we get behind our paper and push it with all
our might; that, so far as is humanly possible, we enroll as regular
readers every member of our respective organizations; that we give our
paper a backing as much to be reckoned with as the so-called women's
publications that are so conspicuous on the news-stands. It can be
done. We have the power.
Doing it is bound to mean more education and more organization. For
the Journal fills its readers with zeal for the cause; it makes
them want to work for it; and it makes them well informed, efficient
workers. By taking this one step we have the power to put the entire
movement on a new footing!
But how is the paper to be put into the hands of all suffragists? They
are many and to send them a well-edited, well-printed paper will be
expensive. How are bills and loans already incurred to be met? By
gifts and legacies from individuals as in the past--in the uphill,
undignified way? Or by getting all readers of the Journal, all
believers in it as an educator, to join themselves into a mighty army
to enroll as subscribers for the Journal every possible member of a
suffrage organization?
Until the second way shall be in operation long enough--say, two
years--to have a chance to work out successfully, there is absolutely
no question but that the needs of the situation must be met in
the first way. But must it be done by begging--in humiliation
undeserved--or will those who are able consider it a privilege, an
opportunity, to take the burden from the backs that are bent and sore
from carrying it?
* * * * *
In the Balance
If this were the crucial moment in a campaign and you
saw that votes for a suffrage amendment were in the
balance, you would give of the best that you have,
with all the fervency of your heart. But campaigns are
not won in a day. They are won only by constant and
untiring advance work. The Woman's Journal does a
big share of this advance work. The Journal is always
in campaign. The Journal needs your help now and it
needs it given as freely as if a critical Election Day were
only six weeks off. The campaigns of this year and the
next few years are in the balance now. A privilege,
an opportunity for furthering a great world movement,
waits on those who are able.
* * * * *
=Taken Into Our Confidence=
In the following pages our readers and the great body of suffragists
are taken quite generally into our confidence. If they see any
skeletons in the closets, we shall ask them to remember that we did
not want the skeletons there.
All persons who have ever tried to raise money for a worthy cause, all
suffragists who have given balls and bazaars, all who have labored
to make an audience pledge its last dollar for suffrage, all who have
ever tried to run an impecunious newspaper, all who have ever tried
to finance any kind of a movement for the betterment of mankind, will
know that the figures given here are written in blood and should be
read only by those of an understanding and sympathetic heart.
1908--1915
Cost Circulation
1909.................. $5,303 2,328
1910.................. 10,020 3,989
1911.................. 18,510 15,275
1912.................. 24,499 19,309
1913.................. 24,588 20,309
1914.................. 27,509 21,303
1915.................. 38,137 27,634
[Illustration: THE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT Left to Right-First row
Haxel McCormik, Franklin Grammar School Marie Spink, Western Reverse
University, Ethel Costello, Cambridge Commercial College, Second row:
Helen Hegarthy, Charlestown High, Eleanor Falvey, South Boston High,
Edith Mosher, Comer's Commercial College, Agnes McCarthy, South Boston
High, Mary Collins, St. Joseph's Academy Third row: Isabel McCormick,
Boston University; Donna Cox, Belmont High, Ethel Johnson, Fisher
Business College, Lucia Gilbert, Berlin High.]
[Illustration: THE GENERAL STAFF
Left to Right--First row Vina Smith, Wellesley College, Agnes E. Ryan,
Boston University, Elizabeth Costello, Comer's Commercial College,
Howard L. Blackwell, Harvard University. Second row Carlisle Morris,
Harvard University, Mildred Hadden, Western Reserve University, Henry
Bailey Stevens, Dartmouth College, Ethel Power. Third row Joe B.
Hosmer, University of Missouri, Mary Gallagher, Bryant and Stratton
Commercial School, Thomas Kennedy, Mary Healey, Fisher Business
College, Thomas McGrath, Lawrence Grammar School.]
=Some Changes=
To the friends of the Woman's Journal who used to visit its office
on Beacon Street, and remember the tiny room with its staff of two or
three workers, the pictures of the office staff on the accompanying
pages will come as a surprise. This is the 1916 staff, however, and
the movement has grown most encouragingly in every branch since the
quiet days on Beacon Street.
Every phase of the Journal work, from handling a subscription list of
about 30,000 to answering a thousand and one questions of debaters,
press chairmen and speakers, has grown to such proportions that it
has been necessary to divide the work into ten variously developed
departments, which will be described in the following pages.
=It Speaks for Itself=
The Editorial Department in the main speaks for itself and does not
need a special report. It has its seamy side, however, and little as
people want to believe it, it is not merely the literary branch of the
work. On the contrary, the editorial work of the Woman's Journal is,
figuratively speaking, divided into sevenths. It is one part literary
or journalistic, two parts business, and four parts propaganda.
There is, of course, a great deal of pleasure in editorial work for
the mere fun of it, for the variety and fascination it affords, for
the mere delight in expressing thought in writing and in choosing
pictures to carry the weekly message. But when a publication has to
be put to press on the same day every week, when one feels almost
instinctively that each issue must be better than the one before, and
when each week of the world every worker in the department carries a
double or triple load, some of the pleasure of writing and editing and
planning is worn away.
The material for the contents of the paper is gathered each week
from a variety of sources: From letters, personal interviews, press
chairmen of league and associations in the different states,
from bulletins, newspapers, periodicals, reports of meetings and
conventions, and from clipping bureaus. All material has, of course,
to be sorted and worked over for the various departments. It divides
chiefly into matter for editorials, for propaganda articles, for the
news columns, and for the activities reported under the headings of
the various states.