ABSTRACT
Reference has been made to village papers with the inside or outside uniform with perhaps dozens of other papers issued in towns near by or distant. Fully one-half of what are known as country weeklies now avail themselves of the economy of this method of production. The paper is bought with one side ready printed, and the fact that dozens or hundreds of other papers are presenting the same letterpress does no harm, for each paper appeals to a separate set of readers, who neither know nor care what appears in a paper in another village near by or far away. The system was first put into practical operation during the Civil War by Mr. Andrew Jackson Aikens, then as now (1905) business manager and part owner of the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. Mr. Aikens was a Vermont boy, having learned his trade as a printer in Woodstock, that most refined and charming example, that can be found in the Green Mountain State or any other, of what a New England village may be at its best. Here while yet a boy, he had known instances when a neighboring paper had overcome the difficulty of a pied form or broken press by availing itself of the facilities of its Woodstock contemporary until the home trouble was overcome. Remembering this, Mr. Aikens brought his experience into practical use one time when Wisconsin printers were leaving the case and shooting stick for the army and real shooting irons. Two papers had applied to the Wisconsin job office to be helped out, and Mr. Aikens having seen a form made up for one, out of the type then standing in the composing room that had already been used in printing the weekly edition of the Wisconsin, conceived that there was no real need of making any change in the matter when he set about filling the order for the other paper, the two happening to be of the same size. No 213complaint or protest having come in and the service being continued from week to week, Mr. Aikens caught on to the idea that more work of the same sort might be had for the job office, and he issued a circular to such Wisconsin weeklies as were situated at convenient railroad points, telling what could be done and naming a price for the service.
