Sturgis advertiser. (Sturgis, Dakota [S.D.]) 1887-1???, 1889-05-25
ETHICS AND ADVERTISING.
Are the Doctors and Lawyers Right or
Wrong Not to Advertiser

Wrong Not to Advertiser
The code of legal ethics prohibits
lawyers from advertising their business
in the newspapers; the code Of medical
ethics prohibits physicians from adver-
Using their skill, and tits yet within the
memory of many when unwritten COM
mercial ethics prohibit everything in
the way of advertising beyond state
regulation card that escaped the impu-
tation of charlatanism because it was q
waste of money. Let us test these pre-
sumably elevated standards of profess
sional and business ethics by the mex
orable laws of practical common sense,
which now assert themselves in every
calling of life.
The legal profession of this city has
lost two-thirds Of it legitimate fees within
the last ten years, and it has been taken
from the lawyers by the practical COM
mon sense that entered the field and
advertised its mission every day in all
the leading newspapers. The business
of titles and conveyancing, once an inn
mense source of legitimate income, has
been taken from them by real estate
and title corporations which advertise
their business from January to January.
The large trusts which once gave a
competence to many members of the
bar, have been taken from the lawyers
by trust corporations, and they endorsed
the bar in the struggle by systematic
and persistent advertising in the news
papers. The collection of claims was
once a large source of revenue to the
bar, but commercial and collection
agencies have come in competition and
stripped the bar of that branch of
business by appealing to the public
through the advertising columns of
widely circulated newspaper. The nom
advertising ethics is an impoverished
bar and host of prosperous organiza-
tions which have won the lawyers bust
ness by the practical system of adver-
Using. The bar has it's ethics; the
competitors of the bar have its business,
and that sums up the whole situation.
The physicians affect to discredit any
member of their profession who gives a
card in the newspapers telling where he
may be consulted and to what particular
branch of the profession he gives most
attention; but while physicians are
standing on their assumed dignity other
physicians of various grades, from the
educated specialist to the ignorant
quack, understand that the people now
seek very few in any profession or call
ing, and that all who would succeed
must seek the people. These adver-
Users of remedies for all the varied ills
of humanity now make hundreds OF
thousands while the regulars are MAX
ing their tens of thousands; and there
is twice or thrice the amount of money
paid every year for advertised remedies
than is paid to the entire regular physi-
clans of the country.
"But they are quacks ard are swind-
ling the people and injuring their
health" is the ready answer Of the
regular as he falls back upon the ethics
that shut him out Of the practical, COM
mon sense channels of professional sue
cess. Not so fast, Mr.. Ethics. Pesti-
ferrous as are many quacks, it is de-
batable question whether, taken as a
body, the regulars or the irregulars do
the most harm in administering medi-
cine. There are many proprietary
medicines advertised from year to year,
which are accepted as standard RENE
dies in half the families of the land, and
there is not family in Philadelphia,
not even excepting the family of DIR.
Ethics himself, in which advertised
remedies are not more OF less used, and
they are used solely because they have
been made known by systematic adver-
tising.-PhiladelphiG Times.