The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1906-02-07
LAURENS, S. c., Feb. z, 1906.
PATENT MEDICINE ADVERTISING.

The following is from the Florence
Times:
''The editor of the Times received a
telegram last night from n of the
big manufactures of proprietary medi-
cines, requesting him to wire his repre-
s%entatives in the Legislature to defeat
house bill number TOO which if passed
would be ruinous to druggists and pro-
prietary medicines and compel that firm
to withdraw all of it's advertising from
this state. Verify we are up against a
proposition. If the newspapers of this
state should lose the advertising of the
patent medicine men they would be in
a bad fix, they get mighty little sup
port from the home merchants and
they would very probably get no more
if they sacrificed what they got for
what they considered the best interests
of the people, namely, the passage of
this bill. We have never seen the bill
and do not know what it is, it may be
bad or it may be good, but we want
to put the public on notice that the
newspapers have had the big stick
waved oyer their heads and we want
also to call attention of the merchants
to the fact that a man with pink and
blue pills, whose only virtue seems to
be in their color, can sell them and
make money through an advertisement
in a newspaper while the men from
whom the paper, ought to- expect sup
port trusts to one customer telling an
other what he is offering for sale or
tries the sandwich man, the circular or
the hand bill"
THE ADVERTISER is one newspaper
that is up against" no such PROPOSE
ton. On the contrary THE ADVERTISER
finds it good business policy to tell the
proprietary medicine people that they
can get into it's columns only by asking
for no special privileges and THE AD-
vERTIsER has the cordial support of
the business men of Laurens. Our adj
vertising rates, it is true, are low but
our merchants take that into considera-
ton and use 4 great deal of space. We
are assured that they find the expendi-
ture profitable. We can point with
pride" TO the firms that have used THE
ADVERTISERS columns steadily for the
past 10, II and IS years and they are
firms ranking in every way with the
best in South Carolina. Some of them
were small affairs when they COM
menced business but they put money in
THE ADVERTISER and we believe that
THE ADVERTISER put money in them.
They have grown and so has THE AD-
VERTISER-the latter from a small
''patent outside" newspaper of invaria-
bly, four pages to an all home-print
newspaper which prints from four to
sixteen pages. The business men of
Laurens have backed THE ADVERTISER
and THE ADVERTISER has had its share
in the building up of Laurens.
The ADVERTISER has at times re-
fused to accept advertising at prices
many times greater than its regular
rates because it would not lend it's cir
culation to promoting q transit and il
legitimate competition with the firms
that are here all the time and steadily
contribute to the newspapers support.
We have no time to fritter away with
these proprietary medicine people,
Long experience has taught us that
they as a rule are not disposed to deal
literally or even fairly with us. We
are not in sympathy with the pending
legislation in the General Assembly
that threatens them; we object to an
advertising censorship; but cit is none
of u funeral" We suspect that nine
in ten of the weekly newspapers in
South Carolina feel about it as we feel.