January, I908
MR. MUNSEY'S START.
"It is probable that I never should have found my-
self iin the publishing business," says Mr. Munsey,
"but for the fact that the general mainager of the
Western Union Telegraph Company sent me to Au-
gusta, Maine, to take the management of their office
in that city. I was a youngster at that time, with life
before me, and with an insatiable ambition. I had
picked up telegraphy and was using it as a stepping-
stone to soniething better, as a means to an end. But
to get out of one kind of activity and into another, for
which one has no special training, is not easy. I
learned this fact through bitter disappointment and
?many heartaches. The four walls of a telegraph office
wereito me as a cage to a tiger yearning for thle bound-
less freedomi of the jungle.
"After locating in Augusta myself, I secured for
one of my schoolboy chums a place with the chief pub-
lishing-house there. Two or three years later, when
lie had gained a pretty good knowledge of the busi-
ness, he obtained a position in New York, in a some-
what similar conicern, at a very handsome advance in
salary. Through him, as well as through miiy intimate
acquaintance with the proprietors of the various pub-
lisling establishmnents in Augusta, I had absorbed a
considerable superficial knowledge of publishing. So,
in working up plans for a publication of my own, I
was able to give them the semblance of practicality.
Yet what I knew of actual publishing was just enougli
to be dangerous.
With a capital of four thousand dollars, of which
lie provided one-quarter himself, Mr. Munsey went to
New York, intent on starting the Argosy. However,
a day's investigation made it clear that the plan was
tiseless. He was compelled to take his idea to a pub-
lisher, who undertook the publication of the magazine,
iiaking Mr. Munsey its editor and manager. Five
mionths later the publisher failed and Munsey was
again faced with a new difficulty. This time he gave
his claim against the piublisher for the good-will of the
Argosy and started to publish it himself.
"I had no capital, and no mleans of raising any. A
bad phase of the imatter was that a good many sub-
scriptions had been received, and the money used up.
These subscriptions had to be carried out-that is,
papers had to be printed and mailed every week to the
end of the term paid for. No one had any faith in the
Argosy, or believed it possible that I could pull it
through. I could get no credit anywhere. The pro-
position was too risky for the paper dealer, for the
printer, and, in fact, for every one from whom I pur-
chased supplies.
"From a friend of mine in Maine I borrowed three
hundred dollars, and what a tremendous amount of
money it seemned! Not only every dollar, but every
cent of that three hundred dollars counted vitally in
the continuance, the keeping alive of the Argosy. And
keeping it alive was about all I could hope to do, and
about all I did do, for a good many months. It was
then that I learned the publishing business basically,
learned it as I never could have learned it under other
circumstances, learned it in all its economies, in all its
shadings and delicacies of shadings."
EDITOR AND OFFICE BOY.
"It was summer, when the publishing business is at
its worst, when few subscriptions are coming in, and
reading is at its lowest ebb. I was everything from
editor and publisher down to office boy. And editor
w.th me meatnt vriter and contributor as well. I

Printer and Publisher
wrote much of the paper myself-freshened and
hrouight up to date old things that had been published
sears before. They were not quite so good as new
material, but they were a great deal better than noth-
ing. The main thought with me was keeping the paper
alive, for so-long as there was life there re e possi-
bilities, and in possibilities there was to me a kind of
sustainling hope.
"It would be a long story to tell the details of the
awful struggle that ensued during the following
months, and, in fact, during the three or four follow-
ing years. There were many times-hundreds of
times, I might almost say-when it seemed as if an-
other number of the Argosy could not be produced.
But with a determination to keep it alive at all
hazards, a determination that amounted almost to an
insane passion, I went on, and on, confronting defeat
on every hand and yet never recognizing it."
This was the beginning and from it has grown the
wonderful organization, that stands as an example of
what can be accomplished by perseverance and ability.
PAPER TRUST IS ACTIVE.
THE already large holdings of New Blunswick forest
lands by Amnerican pulp and paper manufacturers have
been inmcreased by the purchase of a tract of 650 square
miles by the International Paper Company. The land
lies in the Dalhousie district on the Restlgouche River,
and contains abaut 350,ooo acres of heavily-wooded
spruce lands. . N. Burbank, President of the Inter-
national Paper Company, announced that the entire
output of the company's mill for 19o8 has been con-
tracted for. The extensive purchases of spruce lands
in Canada which have been made by the company
within the past year had several purposes, chief among
which is the idea of providing against the rapid deple-
tion of forest lands in the United States.
J. and A. McMillan, the printers and pub-
i:shers of St. John, N.S., have produced from their
. mvn plant a very attractive calendar for 1908.

The Leap Year Question
Wmnds Pub. C,
Ne~ Yor

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