metal plates that can be cut into pieces and as much or as little used as may be desired ; ready -print service furnishes sheets
printed on one side, on two or more pages , by or through the distributing organization , the remaining pages being printed in
the office of the paper receiving the service.46 Plate service does not carry advertising, but ready-print service carries advertising and derives its greatest revenues therefrom , the newspapers receiving nothing from it. In 1912 , it was estimated that 16 , 000 newspapers in America received either plate service or ready
print service, and that these newspapers were read by 60,000,000 persons.47 Thus practically two-thirds of the population of the
country depend on these news syndicates for information in regard to the larger world and for knowledge of the articles advertised through them .
As this service is rendered without
charge to not fewer than 16 , 000 newspapers of all shades of
opinion and by its very nature does not lend itself readily to the manipulation of headlines , it may be assumed that its statements are reliable. Moreover, it must be said that much of the material
furnished is not in any sense news, but consists of humorous articles, jokes, fashion notes, “ anything that may interest , amuse , or thrill," and thus it plays no important part in the work of the historian. Its chief interest for him lies in the existence of the syndicate itself as a means of purveying somewhat harm less information to an extraordinarily large number of persons.48 46 Newspapers receiving this kind of service were at one time said to have “ patent outsides ” or “ patent insides. "
The custom apparently originated
in America at the time of the Civil War and grew out of the difficulty in printing newspapers since so many journeymen had enlisted . A . N . Kellogg, of the Baraboo , Wisconsin , Republic, ordered half-sheet supplements from
the Madison Daily Journal,and issued his first “ patent inside ” July 12, 1861. The idea spread rapidly . - F . W . Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Ill inois, 1814 - 1879 , p . lxxxix .
47 These facts are given by Charles A . Brodek in connection with a de
cision rendered by Judge Landis, August 3, 1912, that involved the American Press Association and the Western Newspaper Union . These news syndi cates were enjoined by the decree from selling below cost or otherwise unfairly competing . – Daily press of August, 1912. An account of the important use made of plate service in distributing agricultural news is given by R . L . Slagle in “ The Development of the
College and Station News Service ,” Proceedings of the Twenty -sixth Annual Convention of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experi ment Stations (1913), pp. 150 - 154.
· 48 How widely the use of plate matter has been extended was made apparent in October , 1919, when certain weeklies printed the text in type
