The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-01-05
EVENING CHAT
az RuTH CAMHRoN.

met a friend of mine, a woman whom
admire and look up to, on the trolley
car the other day, and found her reading
a very cheap magazine. of which I had
formerly heard her express the greatest
disapproval.
Why, how comes it that you are read
ing this?'' 1 questioned.
She looked shame-facedly down at the
magazine which she had made partial
attempt to hide under her bag We'll,
she said, you see, I had to wait at the
dentists one day, and 1 picked up one of
the summer numbers and got tremend-
ously interested in So-and-So's new
serial. And since then, I've been buying
the magazine just to follow that up. Yes.
know it's a silly story and not a par
ticularly nice one, but really it's awfully
clever and interesting"
Let me tell you something about this
magazine and this story. The story,
which written by a well known mod
ern writer, was offered first to another
magazine of good repute and good stand
ing. The editors read it and acknow--
edged that it was tremendously interest
ing, and that it would be a big card, but
they said. 1T is not the kind of stuff we
want to offer to the young men and wo-
men of America and they refused it.
The less scrupulous magazine accepted l.,
and by dint of combining several simlla.
stories with it, actually succeeded In
selling out one particular issue of their
publication.
And this was the kind of magazine and
story my friend was advertising. by adj
clever and interesting that she had to
follow it up against her better judgment
To be sure, she also said that it was not
particularly nice. but to how many people
would that be an efficacious deterrent
Comparatively few, fancy. And in the
light of the magazines success with its
collection of morbidly salacious and sex
Haunting stories it is impossible to blink
the fact that that dispraise would be 70
many most powerful magnet.
My friends, the women of America, 1
think there's only one way for us to
treat the decadent and salacious litera
ture that is being offered to us so abund-
antly just now And that way Is most
emphatically not to read it and say we
don't like it, because it isn't particularly
nice, and yet all the time advertise it oy
talking about it-even though we talk
against it. Any publishing agent VIII
best kind of advertising, and is always
preferabl to silence
No, the way to put our foot down on
of existence. is not to buy it, not to read
it. not to talk of it-in fact, to ignore it
as completely possible.
Don't add your dime or your dollar Ito
that makes the publisher think the
American public wants that sort or
thing.
| Don't add your voice to the discussion
| for and against that makes everybody
want to read the book or the story, so as
to be able to talk about it.
For every head that you chop off this
serpent by denunciation. two more heads
groW-for every story that you advertise
in this way, two more stories will be
published.
salacious literature is by ignoring him.
Don't look at him, don't feed him with
| the silver and gold he must have to sup
port life, and / think you VIII be sur
prised to see how very soon he viii die
and his ugly body dry up and blow away
and be forgotten.