The Torch Bearer | Page 8

the movement and all who are in any way connected with the paper, I am going to try to take the readers of these pages into the Journal offices and let them see the processes of the department.
While Miss Blackwell, Mr. Stevens, Miss Smith, Mr. Morris and myself are spending part of our time in preparing reading matter and pictures for the paper, and while we are working at the printing office of the Grimes Brothers on Wednesdays, Miss Spink, Miss Ethel Costello and their assistants, Miss Mosher, Miss Isabel McCormick, Miss Falvey, Miss Hegarty, Miss McCarthy, Miss Collins, Miss Cox, Miss Johnson, Miss Gilbert, and Miss Hazel McCormick are diligently at work in the Circulation Department.
What do they all do? the subscriber may ask. In the first place, the Journal goes to forty-eight states, besides Alaska and the District of Columbia, and to thirty-nine foreign countries. On a page by itself, in the back of this little book, will be shown the list of foreign countries.
When a subscription is received at the office, the letter carrying it has to be opened and the money entered by Miss Elizabeth Costello in the ledger--and it takes just as long to enter 25 cents or a dollar as to enter $1,000, and it must be done just as accurately. If the subscription is sent in for one's self, no acknowledgment is necessary, for the next issue of the paper is sufficient to tell the subscriber that her money and order have been received. If, however, as so often happens, one person sends a subscription for another, two additional processes must be carried out: We must acknowledge the order and money to the person who sends it, and we must tell the other person (if the subscription is a gift) that the paper is being sent to her with the compliments of her friend, or by an anonymous person, as the case may be: but at any rate, that the subscription is for a certain time and that she will not be billed for it. This takes two letters and two stamps. When a subscription is sent in by some suffragist who is acting as agent in forwarding subscriptions for other people, we acknowledge the order only to the sender, thinking that receipt of the paper by the subscriber is sufficient acknowledgment. In this connection, one of our worst problems is to learn from those who mail us subscription orders whether they are simply forwarding for other people or are sending the paper at their expense in the hope of making a convert or of introducing it to someone, with the hope that she will want to continue the subscription. The trouble comes in the question of knowing whom to ask to renew. Sometimes the sender means to renew for the person, and sometimes she means to have us ask the person to renew for herself. We have no means of knowing unless the sender tells us. We have found that whichever way we do, some of our friends do not like it. We have, therefore, adopted the system of asking the person who has been receiving the paper to renew for herself unless we have been definitely instructed not to do this. Some people tell us to discontinue the subscription when the time has expired. We do not think this a fair thing to ask, for the obvious reason that everyone ought to have a chance to renew for herself in case the giver does not want to renew for her.
The third step in receiving a subscription is to write the name in the proper place on the subscription lists that go to the mailing company every Tuesday night. The states in these lists are arranged alphabetically, the towns and cities are arranged alphabetically and the names of subscribers are arranged in the same way. In addition to this the books have to be arranged in districts that correspond to the mail routing of the United States post office. This is an arbitrary dividing, and it increases the work of finding the proper place for entering a subscription. In this a post office chart has to be used constantly.
After an entry has been made in the mailing books, the subscription order, before it is filed, goes to the subscription cards. There the clerks must see whether the name is already on the books, or, if not, if it has ever been on our books (In the latter case we revise the former card instead of making a new one). The subscription cards look like the one reproduced below.
[Illustration: Subscription Card]
Some letters that bring subscription orders contain many other items that must be attended to before the order or letter is filed. For instance, a letter may contain a new subscription, a renewal,