The Washington times., 1912-01-10
THE BIC MISTAKE THE DEMO.
Gratis MADE.

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made to a real publicity expert who
would have shown them and saved them
from the big mistake they made in
fixing the date of the gathering.
Advertising is of the greatest value
to political campaign. It is one of
the biggest, indeed, vastly the biggest,
item in cost of national campaign.
Spellbinders, campaign literature, dis
play publicity in newspapers and mag
azines-all these represent vast ex-
penditures. Yet the newspapers stand
ready to give more of the most valu-
able publicity absolutely free than
money could buy.
That comes in their news reports of
the national conventions. The greatest
single publicity asset that national
party has is its quadrennial national
convention. It is the focus-point of
all thought for a fortnight. The people
want to read nothing else. All the
newspapers want is a chance to give
as much space as possible to the best
possible matter about this one over
shadowing affair. That publicity is of
inestimable value; it is the best adver-
tising campaign that has ever been in
vented.
Let us see, then, how the Demo
Gratis have treated their opportunity
to reap this harvest. The Republican
convention will open in Chicago June
lS-Tuesday. For ten days before that
date the town will be filling up with
the conventions advance guard of pub.
licists and journalists, and the press
will carry acres of type, all having posi-
tive, unquestionable advertising value.
Then the convention will begin its
actual deliberations, and the volume of
publicity will be multiplied many fold.
The preliminaries of the Democratic
gathering will be going on at Balti-
more, while the Republican convention
itself will be on at Chicago. The two
will overlap; the more imminent i'm
portance of the Republican doings will
blanket the Democratic preliminaries.
The newspaper correspondents will be
at Chicago; the public interest will be
there; the newspaper space will be de-
manded for Chicago's news; and SO the
Democrats will lose most of the great
volume of publicity that they ought to
garner during this period of prelimi-
naries at Baltimore. n
Then comes the Baltimore conven-
ton. The best the Republicans can
possibly do will be to conclude their
business on Thursday; that, however,
is almost inconceivable. A long plat.
form or nomination fight might actually
carry the convention over into the fol-
lowing week. At the best, the men
who must do most of the actual re-
porting of both conventions will have
to make a hop, skip, and jump from a
man-killing season of hard work at
Chicago, right into the thick of bust
ness at Baltimore. They will be worn
out; will have had no chance to keep
in touch with preliminaries; will be
consumed with more or less violent
"grouch" against the fate that imposes
month of work without sleep; and
so the Democratic gathering will again
get less effective publicity than it
ought to secure.
The two conventions ought never to
be nearer together than two weeks,
and three is better. The Democrats
have simply thrown away the oppor-
tunity for the biggest publicity har-
vest they could possibly garner; and
they seem to have done it merely be-
cause nobody happened to tnlnk.
1t is very real and serious error
the like of which, repeated a few times
would put an end to good deal of the
Democratic confidence that pervades
the land.