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From Fourth International, Vol.6 No.10, October 1945, p.290.
Transcribed, marked up & formatted by Ted Crawford & David Walters in 2008 for ETOL.
We now have an agent in Portland, Oregon, C.M. Hesser. Already he has doubled Portland’s bundle order and writes that he hopes some day we have as many thousands of subscriptions for the FI as for The Militant.
“Every issue seems to me to be better than the last one. I believe that the sales for the FI are bound to pick up from now on. The Militant is bringing the workers to the ideas of Trotskyism and from there they will come to the FI. Everything in its own good time. However, I hope that we will be giving the FI a little push once in a while – it’s a very good magazine.
“The new masthead is good – however I am a little spoiled – I remember the New International of many years ago when each issue had a different color masthead. They sure were all right. I of course know that that set-up costs money. However, the day will come again.”
As we’ve reported before in this column, newsstand sales have been growing by leaps and bounds since the end of the war. This is especially true in New York, where the bundle order has been increased to 350 copies.
A follow-up report on sales in our new location in Pittsburgh:
“The Fourth Internationals that we placed in Kauffman’s Department Store book section sold out within two weeks. The clerk informs me that there were additional requests for copies after the original bundle had been sold.”
* * * *
Requests are still being received for the June issue containing the Interview with a Soviet Citizen. The letters which contain these orders are very interesting. They express doubts about Stalinism accompanied by curiosity about Trotskyism.
The latest of these letters comes From Indiana. D.W. writes:
“Please send me at earliest convenience two copies of the FI for June 1944. After searching and searching for an ‘answer’ and having rejected Stalinism long ago when I lived in New York – I am eager to know more.
“My son has returned a much decorated veteran (Infantry). My husband is in the Army here. I have just quit an Army Hospital where I have seen ‘our own’ mishandle ‘our own’. Some of the P.W.s were more helpful with stretcher cases than ‘our own’. Please speed the papers to me.”
A veteran of this war, who is just catching up on the FI’s he missed while away, says:
“I especially want to comment on Trotsky’s article on United States and Britain in the August FI. The inevitable conflict between American and British imperialisms did not break into the open in this war, but all the elements of a future clash exist.”
From Edinburgh, Scotland, comes the following letter:
“Requests for your magazine come from some unexpected quarters. A friend of mine employed in the Edinburgh University Students’ Union has been asked on several occasions for copies. As Edinburgh University is not exactly renowned as a center of radical politics these requests are quite significant.
“If you could possibly forward one or two I would feel greatly obliged. Your funds are not limitless, I know, but one or two copies of the FI can do a great deal of good.”
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Last updated on 10.9.2008