218 HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 109 TO INVESTIGATE THE POST OFFICE JUNE 26 AND 27, 1911. WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 67 461 HE6331 1911 COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN THE POST OFFICE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. [Committee room, room 293, House Office Building. Telephone 589. Meets on call WILLIAM A. ASHBROOK, Ohio, Chairman. JOSHUA W. ALEXANDER, Missouri. II RICHARD W. AUSTIN, Tennessee. ERNEST CORNELL, Clerk. EXPENDITURES IN THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT. CHARGES OF THE LEWIS PUBLISHING CO. Hon. WILLIAM A. ASHBROOK, UNIVERSITY CITY, St. Louis, Mo., June 8, 1911. Chairman Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR SIR: Receipt of your letter of May 27, addressed to E. G. Lewis, president of the Lewis Publishing Co., has been acknowledged. This letter is to make a full response to yours of that date. I have been appointed to represent the Lewis Publishing Co. before your committee in this investigation. Proper credentials will, in due course, be filed for the purposes of the record of your committee. The resolution of your committee and embodied in your letter calls for any complaints against the administration of the Post Office Department with regard to the business relations of the company with the department. Below you will find the company's specific declarations of complaint. Please note that items Nos. 11 and 12 appear to be against the administration of the Department of Justice. However, the acts complained of in those items were at the instance of the Post Office Department, as will be shown, and it is assumed to be proper, therefore, to include them in this statement of particulars. Preparatory to stating the items of complaint, the following is given for the information of your committee: The Lewis Publishing Co. is a corporation, duly organized as a printing and publishing company under the laws of South Dakota. It is duly licensed to do business in the State of Missouri. From the beginning, when the matters herein complained of took place, its printing plant and publishing plant were located in University City (Winner Station, St. Louis post office), St. Louis County, Mo. The company began. operations in that place in the year 1904. The Lewis Publishing Co. was in 1905 publisher of the Woman's Magazine and Woman's Farm Journal, both monthly periodicals. Both publications were of large circulation and in great demand throughout the United States. The circulation of the former was approximately 1,500,000 and of the latter 600,000. The Lewis Publishing Co. bore a good reputation with the public generally. It's two magazines were clean and wholesome and edited with care, both in the reading matter and the advertisements. The company carefully censored and investigated the good faith of every advertisement offered for insertion in the columns of its magazines, and guaranteed every subscriber against fraud or loss through patronage of any advertiser therein. The revenues of the Lewis Publishing Co. from the subscription and advertising patronage of its two periodicals were approximately $850,000 per annum. The Woman's Magazine was regarded as a leading mail-order advertising medium. The 96509-11 629 |