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=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.

The editorial page of the Journal carries about 2,200 words each week. This page goes to about 30,000 homes, libraries and clubs, and is read by approximately 100,000 persons. Issued fifty-two times a year, it means that Miss Blackwell makes about five million two hundred thousand "drives" per year with her editorials alone to educate the public on equal suffrage.

The news of the whole movement gleaned from the various sources including some two hundred papers and periodicals each week, must be so combined and boiled down as to occupy the smallest space; and it must be interpreted, investigated and its relation to the general current of events brought out so that the propaganda value of the week's news is unmistakable.

Besides the editorials and the regular news of the movement, we use occasional contributed articles, poems and stories. During 1915 for the first time investigations of various sorts and analyses of news, reports and various kinds of data were made to furnish a telling and convincing array of facts, figures, data and information particularly fitted for suffrage workers. Such material has been found especially valuable for use with those who were wavering as to the merits of the cause.

Many people would find it hard to believe, but it is true nevertheless that a paper needs to consider itself something of a business matter. This is particularly true of propaganda papers in spite of all that has been said to the contrary. In the case of the Journal, we need to plan to produce an article that cannot be excelled; we need to manufacture a product so useful, so valuable, so indispensable, that there must be a market for it.

It must be so run that the largest possible number of people will be satisfied with its policy, and this is no easy matter if one has convictions and wants to run the paper according to high ideals and with certain principles dominant. Many people want personal notices and trivial articles in the paper; some wish long manuscripts published; others think their league meetings should be more fully reported. The paper must, therefore, be so edited and the letters of the department must be so written as to make every one feel that the Journal is fair to all and that whatever it does is done with no personal animosities, with no biases, and purely for the welfare of the cause and in accordance with the best ideals we have been able to work out. One of our tasks is to make all realize that in editing the organ of the movement a great responsibility must be met and that mean or small things cannot influence us.

All daily papers, all periodicals and magazines that live and become powerful relate their editorial policy very closely to their business plans. And whether the end and aim of a publication is to make money or to make converts to some cause or idea, the editorial