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From New International, Vol. II No. 4, Inside back cover.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
AGAIN WE were obliged to skip an issue. In addition to our severe financial difficulties an unfortunate breakdown occurred in the printshop, causing further delay. This intended June issue therefore carries the July date. But we pledge solemnly that this will positively be the last omission. It is possible for us to make this pledge in view of the encouragement received from the large number of friends that our magazine has established during its period of existence. We feel we can count on these friends to continue their magnificent support and help us make good our pledge.
Comrade Konikow sent us her regular contribution for June and July. Comrade A.F. Remus forwarded six dollars from Michigan as an initial payment on his pledge. He wrote to us: “According to the last issue of The New International if the Stalinists gum up the struggle in France it will fall to America to produce a real successful movement as the European will have failed to measure up to the task for the time being. Much of the tactics advocated for French labor by the ‘Trotskyist’ organization there will have considerable meaning for our movement also when the Fascist bands, now in their embryonic stage, mature. It will be necessary to build physical defense organs to protect the labor unions. The last issue of The New International contained much meat.”
Naturally we have received also a number of anxious inquiries for the missing June issue. Most of them come from Workers Party branches and from regular bundle agents. But it is necessary to remind them that at least 90% of our difficulties would disappear the minute they make up their mind to settle promptly for each issue as it is disposed of. That is far from being the case today and we are in deadly earnest when we say that from now on we shall show that we mean business, but we expect exactly the same from you.
There are some exceptions to the generally bad rule of laxity. Most of the bundle agents abroad, who by the way always receive their supply only after a considerable delay, are among the most prompt when the time for remittance is due. The comrades from South Africa are setting the best example in this respect and on a whole such response has enabled us to build up a large foreign circulation. In the United States our circulation shows some steady progress, but not at all what it could be, and should be. The comrades in San Francisco have again managed to increase their sales and now dispose of a regular supply of 76 copies. Comrade Dahlstrom says that several of these are now being sold on newsstands in the city. A comrade in Fresno, Calif, begins with a small bundle of 5 copies and we have similar news from San Diego, Calif. The party branches in Minneapolis and Akron, Ohio disposed of extra supplies of the last issue.
From the Coöperative News Agency, operating in several states we have received requests for sample copies to be mailed to a number of prospective agents and subscribers. We, of course, complied. The sample copies were sent out and now we are waiting for the response. But our combination offer of a yearly subscription for The New International and the New Militant both for $2.00 has so far proved the most successful promotion work undertaken. A rather substantial number of new subscribers has been entered on our list in this manner. This offer is still good, that is until the New Militant becomes an eight-page weekly. Then there will have to be a change of price for this combination offer. Meanwhile we can only urge the occasional reader to avail himself of the opportunity and become a subscriber at the present easy rate.
In telling this little story of the manager’s grief and difficulties we deliberately refrain from quoting the many encouraging messages we have received, not to speak of the praise for the magazine.
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Last updated on 26 February 2016