The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-03-05

{
fectively under the ordinary condi-
tons of life. Emergency conditions
necessitate the resort to the physician,
or it may be to the surgeon: but in or
binary conditions recourse is properly
had to the remedies which personal
experience has proved to be reliable
and effective.
A proprietary medicine like every
other article that comes before the
public, has thus to make good on its
merits. 1t has to meet competition.
The law of the survival of the fittest
applies in this field, as in others. 1t
cannot, on the face of it, be argued
with justice that only the patent medi-
cines with the long-estatlished repu-
tations are all right, and all the others
wrong. But is that any more Illogical
than to say that no patent medicines
at all should be countenanced?
The preparation of a proprietary ar.
ticle of curative or remedial char
acter, the advertising of it, the build
ing up Of its reputation, and the main
tanning of its reputation-all this is a
business proposition. necessarily de-
the fulfilling of real human need,
upon the quality and excellence of the
article supplied and upon its making
4 good the representations set forth in
the advertising announcement. In
view of these plain observations, the
off fol r.t HI
Ter who announces that he will print
no patent medicine advertising at all
/ is nanifestly unjustihable. 1t is an
! attitude of the man who is SO deter
mined to stand up straight that he
! falls over backwards, in total mis-
conception of what it is he is doing.
4 Not in any such irrational way can
a newspaper rightly fulfill its duty OF
public service. The standard of adj
yertising morality must be of general
application; any wholesale rule of ex
clusion of patent medicine advertising
is not the application of standard
! but the abandonment of standard
The Winnipeg Free Press takes the
sane and reasonable view in regard te
patent medicine advertising that nj
announcements of fraudulent char
acter, designed to mislead by etxrava
CANT promises and assertions. o
which in their language or appearance
offend good taste, should be printed
!. In word, that the rule which shout
apply to all advertising should appl
, to the advertising OF patent medicines
. The Winnipeg Free Press possesse
thousands OF readers who, living i
:. cities and towns, are in the happy pt
sition of being able to take the
:, choice between doctors and pateI
!, medicines when seking alleviate
from ailments. The Free Press ais
numbers among its subscribers man
!, thousands who have no such choice
!, selection. These readers are scattere
: over the rural districts of the Prair
: provinces of western Canada VII
them it is not matter of choice b
= tween doctors and patent medicine
= but between patent medicines or not
ing. The Winnipeg Free Press TAX
the view that any policy of wholesa
rejection of patent medicine advert
v ing would be manifestly unJustifiab
in the interests of the welfare of
readers so situated. With respect
&c the first named class, the Winnip
Free Press will publish the annount
ment of any reputable physician al
the advertisement of any reputat
sc proprietary article, and these reade
d. can tkae their choice. In making su
Id choice might not the opinion be sa
X ly ventured that the great majori
1g of these readers, being by no mea
RS fools, will eercise wise discretion
re