The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 76/No. 21      May 28, 2012

 
James P. Cannon on getting
‘Militant’ into workers’ hands
(Books of the Month column)

Below are excerpts from Letters From Prison by James P. Cannon, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for May. A founding leader of the Socialist Workers Party, Cannon was jailed at the Sandstone, Minn., federal prison from 1944 to 1945 along with 17 other leaders of the party and of Minneapolis Truck Drivers Local 544-CIO for opposing Washington’s imperialist aims in World War II.

In his prison journal, Cannon addresses key questions of building a communist party in response to growing interest among working people. In the selection below he discusses proposals on how to increase the readership of the Militant as the party prepared for an ambitious subscription effort. Copyright © 1968 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY JAMES P. CANNON

Sandstone, March 16, 1944

The news about The Militant is just right. Now is the time to start the sub campaign. … I offer the following concrete proposals:

1) A special rate of twenty-five cents for six months.

2) The goal should be 3,000 (yes, three thousand) new subs.

3) There should be a definite time limit for the reduced rate campaign—sixty or ninety days, no more. (Otherwise you will endanger the financial structure of the paper by getting people out of the habit of paying the regular rate.)

4) It should be an all-out, high-pressure party campaign. (This is timely, and the morale in the ranks can sustain it.)

5) The financial transactions and technical details of the campaign should be handled through the regular business manager’s routine, but the party must be mobilized and driven into action from the National Office and all party attention and activity centered on the attainment of the quota goal.

6) Quotas should be assigned to the branches, taking as a minimum basis and obligation four subs from each member.

7) The subs should be printed on prepaid postal cards so as to eliminate all unnecessary bookkeeping and addressing of envelopes. (This method was one of the secrets of the great success of the old Appeal to Reason.)1

8) The campaign should be strongly publicized in the paper, and not announced until every technical detail is worked out and ready.

9) Don’t fail to use a thermometer to illustrate the progress of the campaign in the paper, and this time make it a good one. …

Sandstone, March 27, 1944

Three thousand papers going every week for six months to the same people, who have not been getting the paper before, should be more effective than the same number of papers being distributed, more or less at random, as with the mass distributions. …

Sandstone, June 7, 1944

Here is a suggestion for the sub campaign which is liked here: Write a special circular to the new readers gained in the campaign enclosing four prepaid sub cards in each letter and asking them, if they like the paper, to sell them to four friends and remit the dollar. This would involve the printing of 20,000 new cards, but in my opinion it would be worth the investment. Perhaps you can leave off the postage stamp as that would cost $200, and instead enclose an envelope for mailing the cards.

It may seem strange to propose to trust strangers with prepaid sub cards—they might sell them and keep the money—but my experience in similar ventures has shown that the risk is very small and worth taking. Even in the worst case, if some cards are sold and not paid for, you will have some new readers to show for it and still be the gainer. It is really worthwhile to try to involve the new trial subscribers in the campaign and it will be a very great gain, and well worth the expense, if some of them respond. We must keep trying, by new and extraordinary measures, to expand and push out the boundaries of our active supporters.

Include in the letter greeting the new subscribers some questions: 1) How do they like the paper; 2) If they like it what features do they like best; 3) What are their criticisms and suggestions. I believe you will get some interesting replies which can be printed in the “[Militant] Army” column. … We don’t know what the new people are thinking and should make every effort to find out. …

Sandstone, December 25, 1944

The principle that readers must pay for the paper is a sound one; people are inclined to put a higher value on things they pay for, even if it is a very small amount, than on throwaway sheets which they get for nothing. I believe all experienced organizers recognize that throwaway leaflets are the most expensive and least productive of all propaganda methods. That, however, does not prevent some people, who have not yet formed the habit of thinking and weighing experience, from periodically making excited proposals for free leaflet distribution as a panacea. But, nevertheless, experience has also shown that it is the principle of paying, not the amount paid, that is most important. The two should not be confused and lumped together. …

Sandstone, January 1, 1945
An agitational paper which does not lead him from the first reader to the second, and then still higher, in time becomes monotonous. He doesn’t feel the need of mere “agitation” so strongly on matters on which he is already convinced; and may even get tired of it and fall back into passivity and indifference unless he is led, step by step, into the deeper questions of Marxism with the ever new and ever changing variety of interests aroused by their presentation and discussion. …
 
 
Related articles:
Need to reestablish pace in subscription campaign
Spring 'Militant' subscription campaign April 14 – June 10 (week 4) (chart)  
 
 

Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home