Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1918)

America Divided Do You Want It? IN this time of unprecedented national peril and world peril, do you want America to be one nation, strong with the strength of unity? Or do you want America split with perhaps half a dozen sections, weak with the ills and evils of sectionalism? This last is no danger born of hysterical dream, America has been committed by act of Congress to a course leading toward such a disastrous result, and this split in national life will begin July 1, 1917 — unless the present law be altered. Here is the situation : Modern nations are bound together not so much by the machinery of government as by Ideas. Fundamental ideas held in common by all, fully exchanged so that distantly placed people may understand and sympathize with each other — these are what bring a nation together and what hold it together. The greatest instrument and medium for the constant dissemination of these big nation-binding ideas is the press— particularly the weekly and monthly periodicals. These periodicals have not local or sectional bias; they go to all parts of America, and serve all parts alike; their great service is in helping bring all parts close together into one through a common understanding. These nation-binding periodicals are confronted with certain injury and destruction — which means loss to you personally, and loss to your country. Postal legislation was introduced in the present Revenue Bill, and is now law, which divides the country up into "zones" and increases the average carrying charge upon magazines and periodicals about 300 per cent — as much as 900 per cent for the more remote sections of the country. This increase varies from 50 to 900 per cent. This tremendous increase in rates is not necessary for the business solvency of the Post Office Department. Last year the Post Office Department earned a surplus of nearly $10,000,000. This measure is a tax-gathering contrivance. It is a tax upon ideas — upon that spreading of ideas which hold us together and inspire us as a nation. The Post Office was never designed as a tax-gathering contrivance; it was basically designed to give service to the people — to all the people at the same rate. The Post Office should not be perverted from its noble purpose. And any such method of taxation is not necessary in order to tax the publishers' profits. The publishers are not trying to evade taxation. They will gladly accept any rate of tax upon their profits that may be levied. Most of them have gone on record as being willing to turn over to the Government their entire net profits for the period of the war. This measure, through its "zone" system, will have the following disastrous consequences: 1. It will destroy a large part of the periodicals of the country. You will lose the magazines that have kept you informed on your country's problems, that have helped you in your work. Your children will lose the clean publications that have entertained and help educate them. And eventually such magazines as do survive will have to pass their unnecessary increase in cost on to you in case you live at a. distance from any publishing center. It amounts to this : You are fined because your occupation or your preference prevents your living in New York. 2. Infinitely more serious, this "zone" system will result in dividing the country into sections, each developing its sectional ideas. The nation will be split into an East, a Middle West, a Pacific Coast, a South, a Southwest. And this split will be made in the world's greatest crisis, when we should be striving for union rather than disunion — when North should be bound to South and East bound to West by the constant flow of ideas — National Ideas. This is the time of all times when America must be a united America — one nation strong with the strength of unity. Let your influence be used to that end. The Authors' League of America, Inc. REX BEACH, President GERTRUDE ATHERTON ALICE DUER MILLER JULIAN STREET Executive Committee GELETT BURGESS HARVEY O'HIGGINS LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON CHANNING POLLOCK LEROY SCOTT HELEN S. WOODRUFF Write your Congressman and demand the repeal of the iniquitous postal amendment No. 2