looked, for it is
certain to affect seriously the production of literature as to quality,
and its distribution. Capital has discovered that literature is a product
out of which money can be made, in the same way that it can be made in
cotton, wheat, or iron. Never before in history has so much money been
invested in publishing, with the single purpose of creating and supplying
the market with manufactured goods. Never before has there been such an
appeal to the reading public, or such a study of its tastes, or supposed
tastes, wants, likes and dislikes, coupled also with the same shrewd
anxiety to ascertain a future demand that governs the purveyors of spring
and fall styles in millinery and dressmaking. Not only the contents of
the books and periodicals, but the covers, must be made to catch the
fleeting fancy. Will the public next season wear its hose dotted or
striped?

Another branch of this activity is the so-called syndicating of the
author's products in the control of one salesman, in which good work and
inferior work are coupled together at a common selling price and in
common notoriety. This insures a wider distribution, but what is its
effect upon the quality of literature? Is it your observation that the
writer for a syndicate, on solicitation for a price or an order for a
certain kind of work, produces as good quality as when he works
independently, uninfluenced by the spirit of commercialism? The question
is a serious one for the future of literature.

The consolidation of capital in great publishing establishments has its
advantages and its disadvantages. It increases vastly the yearly output
of books. The presses must be kept running, printers, papermakers, and
machinists are interested in this. The maw of the press must be fed. The
capital must earn its money. One advantage of this is that when new and
usable material is not forthcoming, the "standards" and the best
literature must be reproduced in countless editions, and the best
literature is broadcast over the world at prices to suit all purses, even
the leanest. The disadvantage is that products, in the eagerness of
competition for a market, are accepted which are of a character to harm
and not help the development of the contemporary mind in moral and
intellectual strength. The public expresses its fear of this in the
phrase it has invented--"the spawn of the press." The author who writes
simply to supply this press, and in constant view of a marke