The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1915-01-05
Confessions ST a
Mail Order Man
By Mr.. M. O. K.
Revelations by One Whose Experience in
ne Business Covers a Range From
Office Boy to General Manager
FAIL TO sUBSIDIzE THE COUNTRY
EDITOR.


lied then, as | do now, the power of
the country press and the great
value it possesses to present a claim
for preference before the people of
the community.
l outlined plan to whip the coun-
try newspapers into line and arrange
for them to carry my advertising mat
ter as well as to persuade them to
give me free reading notices and ed
itorials, telling what a great help and
comfort the mail order houses were
to the people of the country
1t was nothing more nor less than
bribery. l believed that l could get
the editors of the country newspa-
pers to be false to their home inter-
ests and foster ours, for a price
| had the money to pay them and |
thought lots of dollars could do the
work easily and readily.
[ worked months over that cam
paign. 1 prepared an electrotyped
advertisement in which | advised
the use of the mail order medium and
urged the readers of each newspaper
TO send into the big cities for the cat
alogue. | prepared sheets of press
notices" and editorials, with elab-
crate and plain instructions for their
use. | was going to convert the peo-
pie of the whole country to mail order
buying.
| expected to spend thousands of
dollars during the course of the next
few years, but it would be worth it,
If obtained the results. l was after
the peoples dollars.
A strong form letter was prepared
as the first step, this letter to be sent
out to the editors of the country news
papers. From advertising agencies
and from various other sources l
compiled list of something like 49,
600 newspapers, all of which were pub
lished in small towns. I was already
fixed with the big daily newspapers.
The only touble was l couldn't some
how or another fix it with the coun-
try newspaper.
The letter read something like this:
To the Editor:
Dear Sir-You are publishing a newspa-
per for business reasons = not for your
health.
You find it difficult to obtain adequate
support from the merchants in your town.
They do not appreciate the value of your
newspaper as an advertising medium.
We know that you are printing live
newspaper in your community and that
you are entitled to more support than you
are receiving.
The postal laws, under which you enjoy
the privileges of second class postage for
mailing your newspaper, require you to
accept all legitimate advertising offered
at your rates.
Enclosed please find contract for ad-
vertising to the amount of.......... dol
lars. Please sign it and return to us and
we will forward electrotypes of adver-
tisements to be run together with in
structions.
In giving you this business it is but
natural that we shall expect you to run,
each week, the reading notices and edi-
torials sent herewith.
Very truly yours
BLANK ADVERTISING AGENCY.
Yes, it was a great scheme. | ex-
pected to swamp the country with
sugared editorials and splendid no
tees about the mail order business
[ cheerfully anticipated that / would
put the country merchants out of bust
ness. l even went so far as to fig
'ure out plan for taking advantage
of the conditions Of business depres-
sion that would inevitably follow such
a sweeping fall in values and consid-
cred the organization of some sort of
a land trust to buy up the richest
farms and most desirable town prop
erty in the communities where the pol
icy would work out the quickest |
was becoming a multi-millionaire with
out delay.
But | experienced the most aston
ishing disappointment of my life. The
plan. so well considered, so carefully
planned, so craftily laid out, was an
absolute fizzle.
Why? 1t was the perversity of the
newspaper editor. He would not be
bought, he would not be bribed, he
would not be cajoled or threatened
In reading the preceding letter you
have noted the bunk" and the jolly
ing, followed by the appeal to his
business instincts and then the covert
threat about the postal laws. Yes, the
plan was we'll laid.
But who can delve into the soul of
the man who will spend his days and
nights in running country newspa-
per in a community that will not give
adequate support? Who can fathom
the motives of man who hustles all
the time to boost his home town, but
who has difficulty at times in collect
ing the subscriptions to his paper and
who fails to obtain more than grudg-
ing pittance in advertising from the
merchants in his town?
/ could not understand it. | be-
ieved that every newspaper editor
would be overjoyed to receive real
money to the amount of many dollars
each week, merely for printing the
advertising copy and, of course, the
few paragraphs in the way of read
ing notices and editorials, which |
thought he would like to have with
which to fill up his paper.
And the answers. Whew! What a
storm,
One would imagine from the an
swers | received in response to my
courteous invitation to take money
from the mail order houses that the
country editors were wealthy and all
rode in their ewn automobiles.