The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-03-28
The ADVERTISING
SUNDAY BRINGS
IN A DEBATE LAST NIGHT AT
TOWN cRIERs CLUB NEGATIVE
WON IN QUESTION AS TO AID.
vERTIslNG VALUE OF SUNDAY
MEETINGS.

The regular monthly meeting of the
Town Criers club at the commercial
club brought out a good audience and
the meeting proved to be of the
most interesting held this season.
President Nugent was absent and J.. r.
Pierce acted as the presiding officer.
A umbe of committee reports were
had. and the treasurer reported con
ditions Of the club as f%lourishing
financially. Two applications were
presented, and they will be voted OIL
at h next regular meeting.
The entertainment committee had
arranged a debate for the entertain
ment and the subject was: Resolved
that the BILLY" Sunday Meeting
Would Be Valuable Community Ad-
vertising. The affirmative was rep
resented by S. D. Adams and E. C..
Anderson, and the negative by ]. n,
Southland n o. M. Thurber. Each
speaker was allowed ten minutes and
the leaders ten minutes each for re-
buttal. r
The first speaker was MI. Adams,
who commended that the subject had
been somewhat changed from time to
time in the papers, and hat the af-
firmative had prepared their argu-
ments on the basis that the word ''val-
liable" should be used instead of
good" and argued from this stand
point. He ]contended that anything
which served to bring the name of the
city to the minds of a person who haL
never heard of the place before was
valuable publicity. He spoke Of the
In~eA fpuyyoe NA-A NJ.
and that it placed Fargo in the same
class with cities of from 10000 to 50,-
600 population. He spoke of the num-
Der Of people who would come here,
and cited the amount that had been
subscribed to the Billy Sunday fund
by restaurant and hotel keepers, and
contended that, if the affirmative
proved that one man would hear of
Fargo, who had never heard of it be-
fore, that they would have &lade their
point, and it would be of value to
this city.
MI. Southland for the negative in
answer to the argument of Mr.. Adams
contended that advertising was the
throwing of the spot light of publicity,
and the attracting of the attention OF
the people to a condition, and that any
advertising which brought out the fact
that there existed q bad moral condi-
ton, could not possibly be of any val
ue to a community. He said the value
OF advertising could only be meas
ured by the ultimate results. He cited
the condition of Shady Bend, Kan.
which had received a great amount Of
publicity through the tarring and
~feathering Of a school teacher, and
also the fact that that town had de-
creased in population, and had gained
an unenviable reputation in the state
and in the nation.
Mr.. Anderson was the next speaker
for the affirmative, and he had gone
to some, trouble in preparing a paper
in which he recited the case of The
Wichita Beacon, which he claimed re-
ceived over 1000 new subscribers, as Il
direct result of the coming of Billy
Sunday to that city.
o. NJ. Thurber for the negative took
up the question from the same stand
point as his colleague, cited many
places where cities had e~ndeavored to
keep quiet things that were detrimen-
tai to their interest. He said that
in Rochester, Mimi, a saloon keeper
had contributed $500 to the sunday
meetings, because he knew that he
would receive the money back from
the attendants. He said that Roches-
ter gained a great deal of unenviabie
notoriety from the Sunday meetings.
He told of the methods used and of
how the people who went from his
city to Rochester to attend the meet
ings went directly from the trains to
the tabernacle, and from the. taberna-
Gle directly back to the trains: and in
very rare instances did they spend
any money at all except with the rail-
road company, and once in a while for
dinner.
The rebuttal was taken UP by the
two leaders, who occupied ten minutes
each and spoke in a rather facetious
vein, telling many stories to illustrate
the points made, and at the close a
vote was taken, the audience acting
as judge, which resulted in the neg
alive winning eight to eleven.
In the future meetings of the club
it is the intention to have talks by
business men about their own business
and from time to time debates may be
arranged on various topics of interest