The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-03-04
Patent Medicine Advertising; Its Indiscriminate
 Rejection Unjustifiet
(By D. H Mackldn. General Manager,

(By B. H. Macklin, General Manager
 Winnipeg Free Press)
 The unwisdom of nasty and ex- trerne views is one of the ills which some newspaper publishers, like some people in every other class and condi- don of humanity, are subject too It may be termed a. form of mental in digestion, causing a temporary ob- scuTdng of good Judgment A case in point ds furnished by the attitude of the newspaper publishe CTS who are an nonncdng themselves as unaIteraIbly and 1ndiaczdmdnafeay opposed to the publication in their columns of any advertising Of proprietary medicines
 It ds the common sense of the peo- pie which must prevail in the long run, and in this matter of patent med icines the common sense of the people is declaring Itself decidedly. It is true that there have been some frau dllent preparations masquerasding in the guise of patent medicines. Retrd- button has overta,ken them; and leg isdation of increasing severity stands between the public and such in1pos- lures in the future. It ds mo less true that in every walk of fife individuals have been found guilty of some wrong doing. In every learned profession there have been found dndividuals WFlo have dragged down the practice of their profession to the level of the gutter But no sweeping condemna- tfon can justly be founded, and no summary and general Judgment pro nos1nced, on such isolated facts.
 What one of us is there who can not name off-hand a list of patent medicines, many of them time-honor- ed household words through out the land. others of more recent date, which we know by our experience and that of our famiaIes to be of real ser A.
 A proprietary medicine like every other article that comes before the public, has to make good on its merits. It has to meet competition The law of the survival of the fttest applies in this field. as in others. It cannot, on the face of 1t, be argued with jus tice that only the patent medicines with the 5ong- established regulations regulations 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 countenanc- ed?
 The preparation of a proprietary ar- ticle of curative or remedial character the advertising of it, the building up of its reputation, and the maintaining of its repa1tatio ion-all this is business proposition, necessarily dependent for it's enduring success upon the fulfilling of "a real human need, upon the ql1al- ity and excellence of the article sup piled and upon its making good the representations set forth in the ad- vertising announcement In view of these plain observations, the attitude taken by a newspaper publisher who announces that he will print no pat ent medicine advertising at all is man ifestly unJlnsd fable. It is the atti- tude of the man who is so determined to stand up straight that he falls over Backwards, in a. total misconception of what it ds he is doing.
 Not in any such irrational way can a newspaper righbly fulfill its duty of public service. The standard of ad- verddsing morality must be of general application; any wholesale rule of ex- cfueion of patent medicine advertising is not the application of a standard but the abandonment of a standard The Winnipeg Free Press takes the sane and reasonabIe view in regard to patent medicine advertising &that no announcements of a fraudulent char acter designed to n1islead by eUTava- gant promises and assertions, or which should apply to, all advertising should apply to the advertising of patent medicines