Putnam patriot., 1910-04-15
A C0mmerciaIized Sanctum.

An editor who has recently had the coveted opportunity of stepping from the press on to the platform is Hamil- ton Holt, managing editor of the Inde. pendent and grandson of the late Henry C Bowen. He is one of those representative scholars and men of affairs who have been chosen to de- liver the Barbara Weinstock lectures on sThe Morals of Trade," before the University of California. He chose for his subject, ssThe Commercialism of Jeurnalism.u His lecture has just been issued in attractive form by Houghton, Mifflin X Co. and is of in- terest to people who read newspapers no less than to those who make and edit them.
 MT. Holt examines in detail the ex- tent 10 which commercialism controls journalism. He points out that, &C., eording to the census figures of 1905, there are a9out 10 ,0o0 general adyer- tisers in the country and about ,0o0,- 600 local advertisers. Together they spend s145, ,517 ,59l to get theirproducts before the public. As a result, the sit- uation has become such that the re- eeipts from advertising may run four times as much in the case of daily newspaper as receipts from sales and subscriptions. Consequently the ad- Nertiser becomes the more important business asset of journalism. This is new development, as one understands by the astonishing statement that be- fore the Civil War the largest adser- tisement that ever appeared in news paper was by the E.. X T. Fairbanks Company placed in the New York Holt, "the 20 large department stores alone of New York City spend, so it is estimated, $4 600, ,000 year for adver- Using, while one Chicago mail order house is said to appropriate s50o, ,ooo year for publicity in order to sell s15,- 0O0, 600 worth of goods.u
 Where advertising is so great a fac tor of the business, consideration for she advertiser is natural. This, in MT. Holt's view, is the most menacing as- pect of eommercialism in relation 10 journalism. Of MT. Holt's many in- teresting examples of the advertisers influence on the policy of newspapers, most are taken from the journalism of the largest cities. One example is the that it is almost impossible to obtain publication of criticism of it's methods, or its treatment of employees, in any of the big city papers. Per contra, any case of shoplifting whose wide publica- tion will benefit the department store is at once exploited. Another example, familiar already to the public, is the pull for the theatrical manager.
 MT. Holt makes out a very damning case, perhaps too damning a case to be entirely convincing. But every one who is interested in the subject should get his little book and read it. Inci- dentally, we would like to call his at- tention to the fact that, so far as we are aware, the kind of commercialism he describes has no appreciable influence on the policies of large provincial papers. Cases Of such influence may be cited here and there. But, in gen. eral, it would be impossible in one of our provincial cities for big advertisers to secure control of editorial policy such as MT. Holt has described in New York. This is largely because the owners and editors of such papers are known personally to the papers con- stituency, something, of course, impos- sible in large city.