New Britain herald., 1915-07-08
! ,'AD|l n ' TISiNG l TODAY
 BUSINESS HONESTY
Newspapers Insist no Dubious Dub
 Articles Appear in Columns

San Francisco, July S.---Talcott Wil-@ Hams, Director of the School of Jour
 nalism on the Pulitzer foundation in
 Columbia University, at the Interna tional Press Congress, Panama-Paci- fc Exposition, today said on The Public and the Advertisement in part
 as follows
 : !, The American advertisement in
 the past half century has made an advance greater than in all it's history
 before through the pressure of public opinion, the increased. vigilance of the A m a n ican newspaper and the higher stand
 ards of the solicitor and advertiser Criticism of the weight and influence of the advertisement in the American
 newspaper today overlooks this ad-
 vance, and forgets the greater weight
 and influence of the advertisement in
 past proyer.y-stricken days of the
 newspaper and the higher stand newspapers when leading newspa- pers freely accepted advertise sments which the worst would not print today. and Horace Greedy pulp licly Wrangled over official advertis- { ing which carried with it political subservience. The moral advance of the advertisement began with the futile attempts to exclude lottery not ices three quarters of a century ago, only successful when our leading newspapers took up the fight. Through steadily improving newspaper prac- tice. public reform and more stringent laws, exclusion or censorship once ap- piled only to the lottery, has widened to medical, financial, commercial, employment and immoral advertising The largest share of this advance has comes in this century and steadily spreads with every year. Any man who will compare American adver- tisements with those of the English, French, German and other European newspapers will find that our press and our public, not apart, but togeth- CT, has raised the moral standards Of our newspapers to level nowhere else maintained. Much demanded and practiced here has never even been attempted elsewhere.
 Truth More Enforced.
 Truth in the advertisement is more and more enforced under so- cial law which in all Jurisprudence, age by age, imposes heavier penalties and wider sanctions on all written agreements which affect value So forgery, once a narrow and specific ] crime, protecting seal ard signature, today aplies to all records affecting payments. The buyer has an i'm creasing protection at law. The same social law will bring the newspaper, the advertiser and his agent to a more exact account. This has been first re- 3quired here in America because the l ! American public has been the first, as it's laws and it's newspapers show, to see that the advertisement, which began as the tool of trade, has become the weapon of democratic institutions. The voluntary recruiting of England has been won through the advertise mert. The industrial reorganization of English society for war has em- ployed the same means. The adver- tisement here has become the one medium through which all causes can command all publicity. News, opin- ion and advertising make the news paper News comes of events. It is created by them. Editorial opin- ion is born of news. In every issue.
 it moves with the news as it's text. The editorial is representative of those who read the newspaper, led and ex-
 pressed by those who conduct it, at
 one leading and serving their public No daily newspaper can or should be far ahead of it's public or of the news. The advertisem ent is the open ground on which causes, trades, cor porations. Charities and churches can reach all the public at all times, and | cd Ia Tyyn iy.a 1ai iC l field a larger expenditure, wider appeal and more general use of the 1iadvertisement to this end. As the state remits taxation on church and l school, so the newspaper should give ] free publicity to these and like ob- l jects, but only as the state remits I taxes, where there is no commercial ] return. As the state does not sup.
 port or aid the aggressive growth of I these agencies so these agencies, I causes and corporations should open I ly fight their battles in the adver- tisement, freer, more efficient moro
 manly and more honest method than 4 begging publicity, getting it by influ-
 ence or aintaining a lobby
 Writing Become Calling.
 3.Advertising under this great
 change Is to become of, increasing 4 importance. Its writing has become a, Z calling. Its business is yearly show ing higher standards and never dis !. played more business honesty. The ! moral censorship of the advertise l ment will rise and grow more vigor- T ous The use of the advertisement to 1 bring all causes and pleas before the 4l tribunal of the people will grow. a| Churches, education, causes, corpor- l ations must turn to this agency or I the public will turn from them. The q newspaper must keep it's columns s worthy of this new task and remem-