Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/438

398 This second regulation was also assailed on the ground that if the letter of the law was enforced book reviews and dramatic criticisms would have to bear an advertising label. The Evening Post, of New York, was somewhat facetious in its comment:—

"When book reviews and dramatic criticisms are duly labeled "Advertisement," as the Post-Office authorities would have it, H. Sillingsbee Jones, author of the original novel, "Heartache," may find notices of the following nature in his weekly envelope from the clipping bureau:—

""Heartache" is a fairly appropriate title for this latest story from the pen of Mr. H. Sillingsbee Jones, but "Headache" would have been better. There may have been a reason why this book should have been inflicted on a long-suffering public, but the reason, like the author's grammar, is not obvious. If the possession of nothing to say, and an utter inability to say it, constitute a call to authorship, then Mr. Jones is divinely inspired. There may be worse books than this in print, but we do not know where they are to be found. In all seriousness, why should labor and money be wasted on stuff like this? Advertisement.""

Such a postal regulation, however, did much to help codify the code of ethics for newspapers,—a code which, at the beginning of the period, was without form,—and imposed by law a self-restraint and self-respect upon newspapers outside the straight and narrow way. No attempt has been made to make it apply either to literary or to dramatic criticism.

The Prohibition movement found a prompt reaction in the press. As time went on, one newspaper after another began to exclude advertisements of spirituous liquors. As one section after another became dry, numerous complaints were made that distillers and brewers were using the columns of the newspapers to market liquors in sections where their sale was prohibited by law. Protests were so numerous that Congress passed a law—approved March 3, 1917, and effective July 1, 1917—which, according to Liquor Bulletin No. 1, issued by the Postal Department and mailed to publishers and news agents, provided:—

No letter, postal card, circular, newspaper, pamphlet, or publication of any kind containing any advertisement of spirituous, vinous, malted,