The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-06-10
CIRCULATION LIAR
Associated Advertising Clubs
Hear Him Denounced.
Troubles of Advertiser and
Publisher Due to Lying.
OLD As GUTENBERG TYPES
Hope of Help to Honest Pub
fishers in New Postal Law.
Penftentiary for Signers of
False Circulation Claims.

Baltimore. Md. June 1e-James
Kelley of the Chicago Tribune. speak
ing before the convention of the AS
ISOLATED Advertising Clubs of Amer
| lea here today declared that the trou-
bles that exist between advertiser and
publisher, the handicaps that prevent
harmonious dealings between the man
who publishes and the man who ad-
vertises, are based on what might
euphoneously be called one standard
for editorial honor and another for
business Stripped of politeness of
phraseology, the trouble or problem.
he said, was really based on lying"
Based on Lying.
That is the root of it, he contin-
ued, plain and affidavit lying and with
the lie there goes necessarily, hand in
hand, secrecy. subterfuge, lack of CO.
operation and trouble-trouble-t
BILE for the honest publisher. and trou-
bile fer the advertiser who cannot dis
tinguish between the statement of the
dishonest publisher.
Third Degree Used.
1T is a strange commentaries
an astonishing commentary on the eth
les of one of the greatest industries in
the world-that its business integrity
is at so low an ebb that newspapers.
chandise. have to submit to the third
degree to have established which, if
any of them, are telling the truth
about what they have to sell.
Must Be Shown.
What would your tailor say. if
when you purchase a suit of clothes
you should insist on submitting to
chemical analysis the cloth of which
the suit is to be constructed? What
would a jeweler think, a reputable
jeweler. if a customer insisted on test
ing with acid and file the article that
L. i
utable merchant say if his goods were
analyzed. tested and otherwise inspect
ed before they were purchased?
The Circulation Liar.
And yet this is the situation in
the publication field today, and this
honest publisher, and distressing and
troublesome to the advertiser, is due
largely, yes, wholly. to the newspapers
themselves. The circulation liar is not
quite as old as Gutenberg types, but he
is not much younger. He is not. I am
glad to say, as numerous as he was
years ago, but he is just as perniciously
active as ever, and his influence is
more devastating than at any time
past. His performances. however, are
not condoned as generally as they were
in the days gone by. You know, and
I know, that for years a circulation
statement was generally regarded as
entitled to the Place of honor in any
joke book. There We're men, the soul
of honor in the editorial conduct of
their papers. who would not hesitate
to make a sport of veracity when it
came TO circulaL ;on-
Advertisers Must Know.
AS time rolled on, advertisers began
to insist on knowing what they were
buying. If they paid for all WOOL,
they did not want shoddy. As a re-
suit various schemes and methods were
devised for finding out if the editor,
the man who is supposed to act as
leader of public thought, guardian of
public morals, exposer of crookedness,
and prophet of reform, was telling the
truth. Think of the irony of this sit
uation. And when 1 think of it, 7 do
not blame the advertiser for accepting
with grain of salt any publishers
statement, and I also have a certain
amount of sympathy for the advertiser
who resents editorial criticism of the
veracity of his statements when he
knows that the profession rapping
him over the knuckIes contains in its
ranks some of the finest long and short
distance falsifiers on earth.
Guilty of Fraud.
These men who lie about their cir
culation, VINO defraUd the advertiser,
are lust as guilty OF obtaining money
under false pretenses, as is the cheap
swindler who palms off a brass watch
on a farmer under the pretension that
it is gold. One of these days I hope
to see this guilt made equal under the
law If an advertiser can be prosecu-
ted and sent to Jail for swindling the
public, the publisher who defrauds the
advertiser should occupy an adjoining
eel.
Should Be Prosecuted.
AT the time I am preparing this
address, the supreme court has not
passed on the constitutionality of the
new postal law 1 hope that the law
is held constitutional. l hope that the
will not hesitate to prose-
cute for perjury every publisher, be
he big or little, who makes a false
statement regarding circula ton.
hope that the law will be SO amended
that it will be made obligatory on the
editor. publisher or owner, to sign the
affidavit personally.
Publisher Should Sign.
At the present time, one in a sub
ordinate position can sign the state
ment- In Germany each newspaper
has a libel editor. When a libel is
published, and the paper is brought