The Torch Bearer | Page 8

think Angela Morgan must have felt when she wrote the
following lines for the beginning of her great poem, "Today:"
"To be alive in such an age! With every year a lightning page Turned in
the world's great wonder book Whereon the leaning nations look....

When miracles are everywhere And every inch of common air Throbs a
tremendous prophecy Of greater marvels yet to be. O thrilling age!"
The Woman's Journal is the connecting link between the individual
suffragist and the movement itself, and a certain thrill and delight and
marvel get hold of me when I realize how wonderful each year is and
how full of prophecy and promise and marvel is the cause for which we
all work.
Because the Circulation Department of the Woman's Journal is the
tangible bond which holds us all together and makes one big family of
all who work for 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