sidered, and with an unusual proportion of new members and others who rarely attend, two reports bearing upon the journal question were offered.

The Committee on Promulgation of Homœopathy offered the following suggestions: (The italics are mine.)

"Only a first-class publication would answer the purpose: anything short of it would be a waste of time and effort."

"The fact that a journal endorsed as the official organ of the Institute and national in scope can at once begin with a fixed and large list of bona fide subscribers, and is thus from the start in a position to command excellent advertising patronage at good rates, has a fixed monetary value which some reliable house could be made to appreciate.

"Experience proves that a weekly publication of not less than forty pages, standard size, would not only be needed to make a desirable journal, from a professional and literary standpoint, but that it could obtain better rates for advertising than a semimonthly."

"The publishers should not be physicians and members of the Institute; friction would result and do the Institute permanent injury."

Then followed the report of the Journal Committee.

It advised that there should be made "in the name of the Institute a contract for not more than five years with some reliable publishing house to publish a weekly journal of not less than forty-eight pages.”

"To contract to obligate the Institute to no financial responsibility beyond the amount of $2.50 per annum for each member in good standing in the Institute, each such member to receive a copy each week."

Following these reports discussion occurred-for which see. the Transactions, pages 67-71, and the reports were adopted. What has transpired since then is as follows:

The Journal Committee sent out impossible specifications and received no homoeopathic bids. An editor's salary of $3,000 was named, a forty-eight-page weekly journal, surveillance over the editor and over the advertising, and general control of the journal in the interests of the Institute were demanded.

The expenses necessitated approximated $14,000.

For this the Institute was to pay about $5,000.

The remaining $9,000 was to be made up from outside subscriptions and advertising.

Nobody wanted the job.

Several homoeopathic journals were ignored in the matter, notably the North American Journal of Homœopathy, which had opposed the idea at Atlantic City and again at Kansas City.

Finding it impossible to act on the basis they had outlined at Kansas City, and which the Institute had acquiesced in at their request, the committee called a consultation at Cleveland in October. To this the Medical Century was invited, but no other homeopathic journal.

At this time it was learned that the Lippincotts had made a tentative offer, but it was not considered because the Lippincotts publish allopathic books.

A Kansas City house also put in an offer, accompanied by a bond for faithful performance of contract, but it was not considered, for like reasons.

Both had been asked to bid.

At this Cleveland consultation a contract, such as it is, not worth the paper upon which it is written, for reasons too numerous to mention, and which the Institute will be called upon at Detroit to confirm, was entered into, upon an altogether different basis than that proposed and ordered at Kansas City, and for altogether a different periodical.

We were to have a weekly journal, by a responsible publishing house, at $2.50 per annum per member.

Now we have a monthly periodical at $2 per member. Then we were to have a publisher not a physician and member of the Institute, lest friction result and permanent injury follow.

Now we have a publisher at once a physician and member, and friction and injury quantum sufficit.

Then the committee was to have surveillance over the advertising.

Now that has been defined "as ethical which does not promise the improbable."

Then the papers and discussions were all to have a place in the Journal.

Now Section 6 of the contract says the editor shall have control over the assignment of space.

Then the contract was to have been made with some reliable publishing house which could be brought to realize the considerable monetary value of the Institute's membership subscription, and its prestige in relation to securing rates for advertising.

Now we pay $5,000 a year of the Institute's cash to one of our already established journals to reduce its size and change its name and dress, the Institute gaining nothing out of its prestige and its twenty-two hundred members in one subscription bulk.

I am prepared to establish by incontrovertible evidence that the Institute can publish a semi-monthly journal for that which it now pays for a monthly, and makes all the advertising clear, for the salary of the editor, the balance to go in the Institute's strong box.

I am also prepared to establish, from likewise indisputable evidence, that the Journal can be published by the Institutethe printing, wrapping and postage-for less than one half than it now pays for the same periodical.

I am also prepared to show that neither party to this remarkable five-year contract, purporting to bind the Institute in the sum of $25,000, can legally enter into any such contract as the one which has been made.

It may also again be safely stated that by establishing an Institute journal we not only destroy the real value of our transactions, as such, but that we also antagonize or invite the indifference toward the Institute and its work of nearly or quite all the other journals-thus with one killing the hearty support of almost twenty.

Large experience as a journalist justifies the view that all our non-official periodicals, every one of which is needed for the local and general propagation of homoeopathy, will suffer a decrease in both subscription and advertising patronage because the Institute has set itself up in journalism against them. Advertisers will naturally consider an official organ of a national society its best advertising periodical, while subscribers will naturally, in many instances, give up journals

for which they have to pay, because they are to get the Institute Journal in connection with their Institute membership. To my mind the twenty are more necessary and more valuable to the Institute and to homœopathy than will be the one.

Quoting from memory, the following journals have been altogether ignored in this matter:

The New England Medical Gazette.

The North American Journal of Homœopathy.
The Hahnemannian Monthly.

The American Physician.

The Homeopathic Journal of Obstetrics.

The Homeopathic Eye and Ear Journal.

The Cleveland Medical and Surgical Reporter.
The Medical Counsellor, Detroit.

The Clinique, Chicago.

The Medical Advance.

The St. Louis Homœopathic Reporter.

The Critique, Denver.

The Progress, Denver.

The Iowa Homœopathic Journal.

The Pacific Coast Journal of Homœopathy.

The Homeopathic Recorder.

The Institute's Journal Committee seems to have practically surrendered all control over the journal to the publishing company which issues it. The editor is given the assignment of all space, and we retain no surveillance over the advertising so long as in the judgment of the publishing company it does not promise the improbable. And yet, the contract, in Section 8, does very kindly "permit the Secertary of the Institute to become associate editor so long as that official is persona grata to the party of the first part." This, it is understood, is why our Secretary declined to serve. He was to have been "permitted" so to serve, to have given of his time and ability, to a private enterprise of a private corporation, very considerably profitable, without compensation, fee or reward, except that as our Secretary he was to have been allowed to serve as associate editor of our Journal so long as duly obedient to the interests of the selected publishing company.

This is about the Institute's relation to its official periodical, according to the contract.

Why the unseemly haste which has been exhibited in this matter?

It had waited nine years; might it not have been made to wait another, or until the Institute, which had been promised a weekly and which at urgent request had ordered a weekly, could have decided for itself whether or not it wants a monthly instead? And if it should have decided to want it, how it could best and most safely to all its interests set about getting it?

Not a single journal of our school except the favored one was asked to make a bid upon the monthly basis!

There are some phases of this subject that can hardly be properly discussed through an open letter or in the journals. In fact, it is doubtful if some features of it would better be brought before the Institute, or would not be better threshed out in the courts. The Institute, which entered into this contract, is not yet an organized incorporation, and is certainly not yet empowered, has not yet empowered itself since incorporating, to engage in a business transaction of any kind. The whole affair has been done in a slipshod and unbusinesslike manner, and the Institute may well consider whether, while not yet too late, it would not be best to set aside the entire transaction and the establishing of an Institute Journal.

C. E. FISHER.

April 15, 1909.

Correspondence

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, April 10, 1909.

To the PACIFIC COAST JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY: There has just been held in this beautiful city a meeting of the homœopaths of Western New York, which is likely to mark an era. It is a combination meeting-a coming together of the forces, a union of the elements. All the "wings" were folded, all the animosities, if any have been existing, were laid aside, and a reunion of homoeopathic strength in this splendid homœopathic centre, such as gladdens the heart and yields great chunks of wholesome joy, characterized the celebration of the one hundred and fifty-fourth anniversary of the birth of Hahnemann.