The answer is that the advertising in the periodicals, the very advertising the Administration is trying to drive out of existence, _is far and away the most important creator of profitable first-class postage that exists_. That, furthermore, the varied and constant efforts of publishers to extend the circulation of their periodicals by sending out tens of millions of circulars, _each making for a 2-cent reply_, and the great and complex business that has been built up around _the originating and handling of advertising_ have made this national market for reputable wares--a market where the purchasing is done by mail with 2-cent stamps--the stamps that pay the Postoffice Department’s bills and give it $23,000,000 a year to spend over and above receipts from rural free delivery, in advancing that splendid service for the country dweller. There were published in 1909 in fifty American magazines 12,859,138 lines of advertising, for over 5,000 advertisers, who used over 25,000 different advertisements, and it is obviously impossible physically to tabulate complete results. But let us nail down certain specific examples of advertisements inserted in magazines, _and follow the record right through_, of the work they did for the postoffice, the expense they put the postoffice to, and the profit they brought it. These score or more of specific instances tell the whole story. Read, especially, the first instance--the complete bookkeeping transaction of one magazine advertisement in account with the United States postoffice: A MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT IN ACCOUNT WITH THE UNITED STATES POST OFFICE. In the Saturday Evening Post of November 26, 1910, was published a 224-line advertisement of the Review of Reviews. Three thousand seven hundred replies were received, 1,776 of them inclosing each 10 cents in first-class postage. The paper on which this advertisement was printed weighed 0.132815 ounce. The half of it printed with the advertisement weighed 0.06640625 ounce. One million seventy thousand copies of the Saturday Evening Post were sent through the United States mails, so that the postoffice transported 4,440.9 pounds of this advertisement. At 9.23 cents per pound--the pound cost of transporting and handling second-class matter given by the Postoffice Department--the total cost of giving the postoffice services to this advertisement was $409.90; postage paid at 1 cent a pound, $44.41; loss to postoffice, $365.49. THE POSTOFFICE’S GROSS AND NET GAIN FROM FIRST-CLASS POSTAGE CREATED. 3,700 inquiries were received by the Review of Reviews.