Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/290

 amusing experiences. Belonging to the Socialist local in Pasadena, I several times had occasion to solicit publicity for Socialist meetings. Being a naturally polite person, I did not go to the editor and say, "I'll buy ten dollars worth of advertising space, if you'll publish a quarter of a column of news about my radical venture." What I did was to insert the advertisement, and then send to the editor the matter I wanted published, and it was published. So I thought this was a regular rule; but some time later, when the labor-men of Pasadena started a co-operative store, and I became vice-president of the enterprise, I inserted an advertisement of the store, and again presented my "copy" to the newspaper, and I did not get so much space. The advertising manager of the newspaper explained to the manager of the store that his paper could not boost a co-operative store, because the local merchants which supplied the bulk of its advertising were hostile to such an enterprise!

At the last election the people of California had to decide upon a social insurance measure, and a friend of mine wrote an article in favor of this measure, and could not get it published. I suggested that she publish it as an advertisement, but the "Pasadena Star-News" refused it, even in that form, and explained to me the reason—that the lady had referred to Christian Science as "a foolish belief"! The partisans of Christian Science are accustomed to rent a page in this paper every now and then, and to have their foolishness published without question.

A still stranger experience befell a gentleman in Boston, Sinclair Kennedy by name. In April, 1918, Mr. Kennedy learned that his state was falling far behind in the purchase of war savings and thrift stamps, and by way of helping his government in its thrift campaign, he prepared an advertisement consisting of three quotations, the first from a speech by President Wilson, the second from a speech by the Secretary of the Treasury, and the third from a speech by the Chairman of the National War Savings Committee: all three of the quotations urging that people should purchase only necessities, so that the energies of the country might go to war-production. The "Boston Herald and Journal" contracted to publish this advertisement in four issues; it published it in two issues, and then refused to publish it again, and paid to Mr. Kennedy the sum of five hundred dollars damages for