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not help being struck by the difference in spirit between the literary and the advertising sections. If he concludes that the earth is inhabited by two races of men, a race of stumbling, bungling, unhappy failures and pessimists, and a race of vigorous,

successful, radiant optimists, we can scarcely blame him. In

the literary pages the world is the worst of all possible worlds; in the advertising supplement it is the best of all conceivable worlds.

In the magazine proper everything goes askew. The railroads cheat us and kill us. The food manufacturers poison us. The

liquor dealers destroy our moral fibre. The army is depleted. The navy has its armor-belt in the wrong place. Workmen go about without work. Lack of sanitation kills its thousands.

Automobiles do their share the list is endless. But what a reconstructed world of heart's desire begins with the first-page advertisement. Here, no breakfast food fails to build up a man's brain and muscle. No phonograph record fails to amuse. No roof-paint cracks under cold or melts under the sun. No razor

cuts the face or leaves it sore. Illness and death are banished by patent medicines and hygienic shoes. Worry flees before the model fountain pen. Employers shower wealth upon efficient

employees. Insurance companies pay what they promise. Trains always get to Chicago on time. Babies never cry ; whether it's

soap or cereal, or camera or talcum, babies always laugh in the advertising supplement. A happy world, indeed, my masters.” 94 These efforts to secure honest advertising have been of late so much in evidence that it is natural to think that they have been

a product of our own high standards. But the ubiquitous Cobbett when he started the English Porcupine in 1800 announced his intention of refusing questionable advertisements, — " not a

single quack advertisement will on any account be admitted into the Porcupine. Our newspapers have been too long disgraced by this species of falsehood, filth and obscenity .” “ I am told ,” Cobbett continues, “ that, by adhering to this resolution , I shall lose five hundred a year, and excite the resentment of the numer

ous body of empirics,” but apparently he did not abandon it.95 The London Times threw away $ 30,000 a week in advertisements

during the railway mania in 1846,and " mademoney by the loss. 94 New York Evening Post, May 7, 1909. 95 Lewis Melville , Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and America , I, 123 -124. The Porcupine ran only from October, 1800 to November , 1801 and it is possible that one of the contributory causes of its short career may have been

its pioneer policy in regard to advertising.