The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-10-29
RECIPROCITY.

other nations, reciprocity, to the news
papers of Richmond, has assumed a
different aspect. There must be more
reciprocity between RichmOnd's mer
chants and Richmonds newspapers. |
At present the newspapers of this
city give the merchants absolute pro
lection from the competition of mer
chants in other cities as far as adver- |
Using is concerned. Neither Rich |
mond paper will accept advertising
from Indianapolis, Dayton or Cincin-
natl merchants. A clear field is Civ
en- 70 the Richmond merchant who adj
vertises as far as outside competition
is concerned and all competition is
limited to the merchants of Richmond |
alone. By placing this limitation on
outside merchants the newspapers Of
Richmond have voluntarily and unset |
fishly given up great source of reve-
nue.. Every year tho merchants from
the cities mentioned above have en-
deavored to gain access to the advcr-
Using columns of both the Richmond
papers but the privilege has always
been withheld. But in return for this
voluntary sacrifice the Richmond
newspapers have not been accorded |
the consideration their action has war
ranted. Many Of the merchants of
Richmond have not seen fit to recipro-
cate with the newspapers and confine
their advertising to the papers of their
city. On the contrary some of our
largest merchants spend more for adj |
vertising with the little weeklies of
nearby towns than they do with the
daily newspapers of their own home |
city. This would not be so bad were !
it not for the fact that invariably ev-
cry town in which one of these week |
lies is located has more subscribers
to the two Richmond newspapers than
to its own weekly. In other words
the merchant who patronizes these
weeklies not only does Richmond and
Richmond newspapers an injustice but
spends his money for advertising fool
ishly because he is only buying du-
plicate circulation. Another point is
the merchant who advertises in Rich
mond newspapers is protected from
the advertising of outside merchants
The merchant who advertises in the
weeklies of nearby towns is not pro-
tected from the advertising Of mer-
chants of other cities. For example,
the Richmond merchant who advertis-
es in a Liberty weekly generally finds
in the same issue advertisements from
merchants in Hamilton or Corners
Vile. At Hammond, Indiana, a news
paper carried out rather interesting
experiment The merchants of Ham
mond were spending a great deal Of
their advertising money with week
lies in nearby towns and very little
with the Hammond daily paper de-
spite the protection it gave from out
side advertising competition The man
ager of this Hammond paper went to
Chicago and closed advertising con-
tracts with some of the largest mer-
chants of that city. These contracts
were all for a period of three months
and aggregated far more than his pap
er had been receiving from Hammond
merchants. Three months of this out
side advertising competition convinced
the Hammond merchants of the value
of advertising in their own home pa
per and at the end of that time the
manager of the Hammond paper had
no difficulty in obtaining enough CON
tracts from local advertisers to war
rant him in doing without outside ad-
vertising. But proving this TO the
merchants of Hammond was very ex
pensive to them on account of the
amount of business they lost to the
Chicago merchants. If Richmond
newspapers We're forced to go to the
extreme the Hammond paper was in
order to convince our merchants of the
great value of their own home adver-
Using mediums it is not difficult to
see what a difference in dollars and
cents it would make to them. Sup
pose Richmond newspapers were fore
ed to seek advertising from Indiana
polls, Cincinnati. Hamilton, Dayton
and Muncie. Hamilton and Cincinnati
can be easily reached by the Penn
sylvania. Dayton or Indianapolis are
within a short distance by interurban
and the c., c. & l.. goes directly to
Muncie. To force such action as this
on the Richmond newspapers would be
nothing short of suicidal for thousands
of dollars worth of purchases would
be attracted away from Richmond if
our newspapers were to open their