Unwise subscription price increases (at the wrong time or rate) force cancellations and deny the service to former readers, especially small business. This is contrary to the public interest. In hearings before a House committee last June, two well-known publishers were asked if they couldn't pass on higher postal rates in higher subscription prices? Andrew Heiskell, chairman of Time, Inc., and William F. Kerby, president of Dow-Jones & Company, both replied that in their judgment, it could not be done without curtailing circulation. Our experience proves it. In better times or in smaller doses, necessary increases in costs or postal rates can be absorbed. But if the increases provided in the present phasing schedule, plus the additional increases projected by USPS during that period, must all be imposed in the next four or five years, the results could be disastrous for many publishers. Even hopes for early economies from postal modernization and mechanization are unlikely. Postmaster General Klassen testified before the House sub-committees that the vaunted 21 Bulk mail facilities will not be operational until 1975. The 181 Preferential mail processing centers are still in the planning stage. Electronic equipment for these centers, which is expected to save $1 billion in processing costs, is still being tested. Final approval may await some field experience on the bulk centers and then it will take six years to fully implement the new system. That pegs substantial benefits from the Pref and Bulk system to some time after 1980. Against this broad background, it seems only reasonable that the ten-year phasing and other provisions of S-411 (the McGee bill) and S-842 (the Kennedy-Goldwater bill) should recommend these to your committee and Congress. They dovetail in timing with the expected economies of postal modernization, cushion the impact on publishers and their subscribers, and yield special attention for small publishers and the continued vigor of a free press. We also hope you give serious thought to the provision in S-630 (Nelson bill) which would outlaw the per-piece charge as part of rate design. It seriously discriminates against small and light-weight publications. We strongly recommend your approval of S-842 and S-411. April 4, 1973 Statement of The Authors League of America, before the United States Senate on S.842 and S. 1404 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: My name is Irwin Karp. I am counsel to The Authors League of America and its member organizations, The Authors Guild and The Dramatists Guild. The Authors League is a national society of professional writers many of whom publish articles, stories and poetry in magazines. The League and its member Guilds submit this statement in support of the Bills introduced by Senators Kennedy and Goldwater and their distinguished cosponsors, and by Senator Humphrey, to preserve the existence of periodicals threatened by the increases in second-class postal rates. We ask that this statement be included in the record of the Committee's hearings. The Authors League believes that the second-class rate increases ordered by the Postal Service pose one of the gravest threats to freedom of communication ever faced by this country. Unless legislation is passed to cut back the increases, many small periodicals will be forced to follow LOOK and LIFE magazines down the road to oblivion. All of us authors, readers and the public at large will suffer an irreparable loss. To prevent this, Congress must provide lower rates for smaller periodicals, extend the period of adjustment and limit to 50% the cost burden of future increases on non-profit and regular rate second-class periodicals. Naturally, authors' organizations are concerned because the destruction of periodicals will harm many of their individual members; writing for magazines is a primary source of income for many authors. However, The Authors League also is concerned for other reasons. Small periodicals, which earn no profit and often operate at a loss, publish the great preponderance of work by scholars, scientists, historians, engineers, poets, economists and critics. Only periodicals can bring this invaluable material to the public. Now, as in the past, much of the best contemporary literature is published in the very magazines which would be the first victims of the proposed rate increases. These are published in every part of the country. As authors, readers and members of the public we are also concerned with preserving the second class mails as the channel of communication most essential to the system of free expression envisioned by the First Amendment as the keystone of our democratic society. "Public discussion is a public duty" said Justice Brandeis. And "the maintenance of the opportunity" for 93-910 O 73 13 that discussion "is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system. (Stromberg v. California). The second-class mail, more 11 than any other channel or medium of communication, has provided that opportunity for discussion. It has enable innumerable periodicals to bring the public a vast range of political, social, literary, economic and scientific views and opinions. No other medium has better served "our profound national commitment that debate on public issues be uninhibited, robust and wide open." (N.Y. Times Co. v Sullivan) Book publishing cannot deal with as many subjects, or discuss current issues as promptly. The handful of meaningful television documentaries cannot replace the thousands of articles which periodicals publish each year on vital questions, no less the scientific, scholarly and technical articles. Nor could daily newspapers fill the void that will be left by the death of many small periodicals. Periodicals provide a diversity of editorial viewpoint and a variety of opportunities for authors to reach the marketplace of ideas, unmatched by the other media. There are only three television networks, a few hundred stations and fewer individual owners. The comparative handful of major book and newspaper publishing firms do not provide anything like the diversity or independence of the small periodicals. Moreover, these other media are essentially "closed" to newcomers · either by high costs or the limitations of broadcast channels. However, it is still possible for new publishers, for minority groups, for learned societies and others to enter the market place of ideas by publishing new periodicals if they can distribute their publications through the second-class mail. But this access will be destroyed unless the scheduled rate increases are rolled back by the Congress. These periodicals cannot survive without access to the mails. Many of the most important depend entirely on the second class mails, having no newstand circulation. And they cannot absorb the proposed rates. They carry little or no advertising. They cannot shift the increases to their readers without a fatal drop in circulation. It does not require a parade of statistics to prove that small,independently-owned periodicals which now break even or lose money, will be killed if their postage burdens are more than doubled. The lethal effect of the scheduled increases is clear. Really the issue is whether Congress should provide the Postal Service with the funds needed to roll back the scheduled increases in secondclass rates whether the Federal government should support the second-class mail as the indispensable channel of communication and public discussion. The Authors League respectfully submits that Congress must provide these funds, if we are to continue our commitment to uninhibited discussion on public issues. It should be remembered that many of the periodicals whose lives are at stake have themselves been "subsidizing" public discassion, literature, science, education and technology for many years by continuing to publish without profits, or at substantial losses. Moreover, Congress has appropriated millions of dollars annually for the "Arts" and "Humanities" and is about to approve $880 million - for the next three years to promote the very purposes which these periodicals have served for decades, thanks to the considerable financial sacrifices of their editors, authors and publishers. Moreover, the competitor which has injured so many magazines in their struggle for advertising revenue - television has always enjoyed a vast subsidy from the Federal government. Until recently, stations paid nothing for their exlusive rights to use the public's property, the channels from which they earn millions in profits. Today, all they pay is a nominal license fee equal to 12 times the highest rate for a 30 second spot "commercial". Thus for the right to use a valuable channel in New York, a major network pays well under $100,000 a year. This is considerably less than a small periodical like the Nation, Commonweal or New Republic required to pay annually before the rate increases to use another public channel of communication, the second class mail. The right to use valuable, income-producing public property at a token charge is no less a "subsidy". - was But subsidy is not the correct word. The sums which Congress would appropriate to prevent the escalation of the second-class rates serve a constitutional purpose as important as the national defense or the Federal courts, which Congress also supports by appropriations. Indeed, the sums which the Congress spent to keep the second-class rates at their pre-1970 levels and thus accessible to periodicals of every size, viewpoint and function was the only expenditure it made to implement the most important provision of the Constitution, the First Amendment. It should continue that policy. Since the opportunity for public discussion is "essential to the security of the Republic" and "the maintenance of that opportunity is a fundamental principle of our consitutional system", the Authors League submits that Congress must act to preserve the second-class mail as the public channel of communication which best affords that opportunity. The Congress must provide the funds need to roll back the proposed rate increases which would prevent many periodicals from using this channel and destroy them. The Authors League thanks the Committee for the opportunity to present this statement. |