In the matter of Sunday newspapers there was an increase of twenty-nine for the five-year period 1904-09; though there was a decrease in number in the West North Central and the South Atlantic divisions there was an increase in the total circulation of the Sunday newspapers published therein. With the exception of the Middle Atlantic and the East North Central divisions there were increases both in number and in total circulation. The aggregate number of copies reported for 1909 was sufficient to furnish one copy for every fifth person who was ten years of age or over, and was able to read. The growth in circulation of the Sunday newspaper in the metropolitan cities was checked by the establishment of Sunday editions in smaller places. In only two of the ten leading cities, however, was there a distinct loss in circulation on Sunday—Baltimore and San Francisco.
EFFECTS OF EUROPEAN WAR
Press dispatches told the American reading public of the effect of the war on European newspapers. The great struggle had scarcely begun when the French papers began either to suspend publication or to reduce their size, and those which continued publication for the most part confined themselves to a single edition a day and abolished all headline display. Americans who subscribe for London dailies noticed an immediate reduction in size as soon as war had been declared. A cablegram from Amsterdam announced that over eight hundred and fifty German newspapers, according to statistics gathered by the Postal Department, had suspended the first year of the war. Belgian journalism soon became a thing of the past, save that conducted under German supervision.
The effect of the war on American journalism has been even more pronounced, though along different lines. Size and circulation of papers in this country were not at first curtailed, but the amount spent by the American press to gather the news, even when all was quiet near Ypres, would, it is said on good authority, have bankrupted the journalism of Continental Europe. The increased sales of both regular and extra editions put additional financial burdens on the leading dailies. Those who think that the advertisers footed the bills could not be more mistaken
