Postal Increases: Publish and/or Perish

THE only thing a nickel will still buy is idea power. It emanates from that great Georgian monolith, the U.S. Postal Service, which until last year charged 2.48-c- to deliver a 7.6-oz. magazine to its readers. Two copies distributed for a nickel --the greatest bargain in power since the Tennessee Valley Authority. A steal? Postal authorities think so, and they say that it is time to stop the ripoff. So, in addition to increasing the cost of first-and third-class mail, they are currently escalating second-class (magazine and newspaper) rates by an average 127% over five years (see THE PRESS). If a raise anywhere near that size takes effect, nickel power will end--and with it, a profound phase of American history.

Two centuries ago, George Washington addressed himself to the critical subject of public information. Citizens, he said, were "on a pivot, and the touch of a feather would turn them away ... Let us bind these people to us with a chain that can never be broken." The chain was the Post Office, providing intelligence to the most remote outposts.

In 1971, Congress issued a statement of Washingtonian resonance: "The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the nation together through the personal, educational, literary and business correspondence of the people." Note the common word bind. Suddenly that vital concept is threatened. For with the abrupt increase in rates, the binding would weaken or break. Many a magazine would disappear.

sb

Those unfamiliar with the field may suspect that magazine publishers are simply crying wolf, that they could, if necessary, pass the extra cost on to readers or advertisers. But in an era of rising costs, many readers are unwilling to absorb a disproportionate hike in price. As every circulation manager can testify, a steep increase in subscription rate invariably means a lowering of circulation. Yet it is the size of their marketplace that permits America's big magazines to assemble large, highly skilled staffs and broad research and technical facilities and to produce quality editorial material at low cost per copy. Such magazines are part of America's vast educational network.

The present economics of advertising also argue against drastic increases in the cost of space. Crimped in audience and resources, national journalism would cease to be truly national and society would lose a medium crucial to understanding the complexities of contemporary life. Publications now affluent--scarce these days in any event--might survive by making cruel sacrifices of quality. In the end they would seem distant, poor relations of today's better periodicals. Others already struggling to survive would simply go under.

The choir of protest--not surprisingly--has joined some very disparate plaintiffs. Billy Graham, defending the religious press, asks: "Is the Post Office Department, in the name of economy or efficiency or what have you, attempting to tax the exercise of religious freedom?" Jerome A. Barron, incoming dean of the Syracuse University law school, feels that the large increase may be unconstitutional. "Public information seems to be at stake here," he says. "If periodicals whose very life is ideas must perish because the price of Government-assessed distribution through the mails makes continued publication ruinous, I believe that the question of the affirmative responsibility of Government to implement First Amendment values is directly raised."

Commentary and the New York Review of Books disagree on almost everything from politics to esthetics; their condemnation of the increase is just about their sole display of unanimity. Kent Rhodes, executive vice president of the Reader's Digest, finds that "the rates as proposed cannot be justified " Paul Krassner, editor of the rakehell Realist, sees the escalation as nothing less than Government repression.

Comforting as this conspiracy theory is for the new apocalypticians, the U.S. Postal Service has no plan for wrecking the Bill of Rights. It merely seeks to act in a brisk, businesslike fashion. James W. Hargrove, former senior Assistant Postmaster General, put it succinctly: "The very large increases in second-class mail are required to put on a fair and equitable basis postage rates for magazines, newspapers and so forth, which have been for many years fixed by law at substantially less than their carrying costs. For the first time, this class of mail will not only pay for its carrying costs, but contribute to the overhead of the Postal Service."

On the face of it, this seems a reasonable demand. But there is considerable room for argument about just what is the true cost of carrying various types of mail, and how far efficiency can be pushed without jeopardizing the Postal Service's basic mission. For example, is mail delivery once a day really necessary? Why not every other day? Why deliver heavy or fragile packages? Why not eliminate tiny stations that still exist in farm, forest and ranch lands? The reason, of course, is that these activities benefit people.

In fact, Time Inc., which certainly does not claim to be a disinterested bystander, has always backed reasonable postal economy and efficiency. That is why years ago it began doing some of the Postal Service's work. All copies of TIME, LIFE, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED and FORTUNE are now zip-coded and sorted in advance. Most require little or no additional sorting until they reach the post office nearest to the reader. Other companies do the same. This processing originated, of course, in self-interest. But it has worked toward the efficiency of the mail system. The Postal Service is--and always should be--a public service. It should be both inexpensive and efficient. But it should have the same aim it had in Washington's day: to supply the public with information and intelligence. Second-class rates are--and always should be--a subsidy for the readers, not the magazines.

sb

There are nearly 10,000 mass, medium-size and small magazines in America. All of them are competing for attention in the open marketplace. Under normal circumstances each year, some are born, a few flourish, most scrape by and some die. This is as it should be. No magazine can rightfully ask for a handout or a federal grant. But both mass and specialty magazines can ask to be spared from radical changes in the rules of economic engagement, from cost increases that demolish all previous cost equations. It requires little imagination to predict what would happen to the hundreds of apolitical periodicals like Cat Fancy Magazine, Film Comment, Black Stars, and Turtle and Tortoise Monthly --as well as the mass-circulation magazines. The loss of any publication diminishes civilized tradition and shrivels belief in the power of the written word. It is a notion that Jonathan Swift could have constructed: the Post Office is solvent and the press and the readers are deprived.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.