The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-05-12
Modern Advertising

business concerns does more to see
that the people get fair deal than
the advertising man.
In New York City there are meet
ings throughout the Fall and Win
ter months, many times week, of
men engaged in the profession of ad-
vertising, all studying how to i'm
prove advertising conditions, and, as
a result of these meetings, newspa-
pers and magazines are printing
higher-grade advertising.
You can not have failed to notice
that the best advertisers are now de-
voting their advertisements to sim
pie, commonsense statements that
intelligent people will readily be-
lieve, and not to boast, and brag,
and generalities that mean little or
nothing. The intent is to inform
and convince the public of certain
facts
OF late years, numerous publica-
tions have adopted rigid rules
against the publication of objection
able advertisements, though few
have adopted such rules until they
have grown to opulence through
profiting by the publication of the
very class of advertising they now
exclude.
1t is good sign, nevertheless,
and leads to the belief that, in time,
newspapers and magazines will hold
themselves as responsible for state
ments in their advertisements as for
statements made in their news and
editorial columns.
Advertising has not always been
as honest and STRAIGHTFORWARD as it
is today. The wisest merchants and
manufacturers have found that dis
honesty in advertising, while it
does not cost social ostracism and
may not put a man back of the bars,
does not pay.
Values in Merchandise.
A dishonest public made whatever
dishonest advertising there was in
the past, and makes whatever there
is today.
Expecting merchant to sell with
out protit-a manifestly immoral
propOsition-has led the stOrekeeper
to offer goods for less than you ought
10 pay for them, in order to interest
and attract your trade
Demanding the things you eat and
wear and use for less and less mon
ey all the while has led many store
Keepers to attempt to meet this de-
mand by encouraging the manufac-
turers to depreciate qualities that
they might keep the prices low; and
this attempt, failing to satisfy the
lnsatlate demands of the public, has
led to exaggeration and often to de-
iberate falsehood in advertising.
Why should people not be willing
to pay fair price for the things they
buy-why not insist on paying fair
price? Why should it not be a good
move to begin now and cease ex-
pecting so much for your money,
put ban on the product of the
sweat-shop, and refuse to buy the
product of underpaid labor?
Why not ask your storekeeper if
the men and women who make the
clothes that they are able to sell you
so cheaply are paid fairly for their
work. Why not endeavor to learn
if child labor is employed in the
making of the goods you use? Why
not insist on really good things at
fair prices, rather than drag down
manufacturing and mercantile stand
ards by always demanding cheaper
stuff?
If the people would do this they
would help nightly to raise the
standards, insuring better pay and
improved conditions for labor, en-
couraging the making of better
goods, and make honest advertising
not only advisable but absolutely
necessary.
Encouraging EXtraya2ance.
Advertising men and advertising
have been charged with leading the
public-especially the feminine por-
tion of it-into eXtravagant habits,
and, it is said, have spread discon-
tent, making people wish for things
they wouldn't think of if we did not
Keep eternally telling them about
them and urging them to buy. The
best thing about these charges is
that they are true. ! plead guilty
Delighted to do so. We hear many
Jests about women and their hats.
Let me tell you men who talk so
much about the encouragement of
industries, that to satisfy the desires
OF women for hats there are six
hundred factories in New York city
alone, employing more than twen-
ty-nine thousand persons, and the.
output of these factories in Nineteen
Hundred Nine amounted to more
than sixty million dollars-seventh
on the list of New York's industries
far exceeding the output of Paris
with all its high prices.
Do you believe in encouraging
such an industry, or would you de-
stroy it and have your wives dress
as do the Quaker women in Eastern
Pennsylvania, with their old gray
bonnets?
The Simple Life.
| ought to tell you right here that
the jokes current about the cost of
hats are gross eXaggerations. Why,
the average price paid for women's
hats in Newark, in the best stores, is
less than five dollars.
suppose we ceased urging you
and your wives to wear good clothes,
furnish your homes in good taste,
put in the latest sanitary equipment
and the best heating apparatus, to
use good foods and plenty of soap,
to put on rosy cheeks and Grecian
headdress.
Suppose we should go back to what
we like to term the simple life