The Glenwood post., 1915-09-25

the newspaper mans stock of goods,
deserves to suffer.
You all have the experience of every
day receiving something like from three
to dozen pieces of free press matter
which, if you devoted the necessary
attention to sift the wheat from the
chat, would take an hour of your
time. Let us snxlyze few of these
sO-cslled valuable offerings. Firs.
Of all the national government is prob
ably the greatest offender and this is
followed by our agricultural college,
state university, normal schools ard
other institutions. Now much Of The
matter sent out from this source IS
valuable, contains information that has
distinct news vaiVe and is worthy Vi
publication, but the editor has to read
this stuff to decide whether or not it
is something he desires to p ace before
his readers; that takes time, and time
is money.
Now everyone of the men who write
this matter are remunerated for 50 10
ing and none of those institutions pa
any taxes, nation, state, county or city,
but the newspaper man, who is expect
ed to publish this stuff for nothing,
has to pay wages for composition, buy
paper, pay taxes, national, state, county
and local, and the Unite States gov.
ernment which asks 50 III of th.
newspapers Is particularly anxious to
see that We pay the income tax.
: Now l am not unmindful of the news
value of matter in the above class, but
on the other hand 1 am deeply sensible
Of what it costs newspaper men to give
publicity to all of this free press stuff
without receiving in return any favors.
The foregoing is probably an illus
tration of the least of the free press
stun evil. Going further we come to
publicity matter in favor of peace,
where wealthy people have subscribed
to an organization to employ a press
agent to compile and secure its circu-
lation, and then ask the editor to give
it publicity for nothing. Then comes
along arguments in favor of increasing
our national defenses; from another
organization, which is financed by the
manufacturers of armaments. Again.
along come health notes. Many times
carefully compiled by some medical
man, and just as carefully wrapped il
an indirect advertisement for some
product. l have in mind at this tim,
one received few weeks ago that wa.
loud in its praise of the splendid med
lcinal qualities of grape juice. No
need to ponder over who supplies tn.
money for that, and I am not referring
to Bryan. Then We have publicity
matter to promote eugenic marriages
and later We will be furnished more
publicity in favor of eugenic couples
being compelled to adopt children. And
SO could go on and on, but you men
know the existence Of this evil and its
extent rs well IS do and will close
with one or two other instances,
Take the automobile manufacturer:
there is NO reason in the world why en-.
newspapers should give publicity TO
automobile manufacturers whether in
the form of jokes or not, but we do,
and what is the results The automo.
bile manufacturers are getting rich
and the newspaper men, we'll As /
said before, our secretary here led me
into this talk by reason of the fac:
that the sO-called state fair at Pueblo
sent lot of publicity matter to the
News with he usual "insult" of 4
couple of complimentary tickets to use
If we came to Pueblo. Later he sent
me special piece of publicity with a
request that it be published in the
News and I complied, but at the same
time voiced my sentiments rather forci.
oily As to newspapers being made the
"FsI Guy" for an organization that
paid everyone else for their work ex-
eept newspaper publishers. He for
wardcd my eonmunicstioa to the sss-
retary and later sent me his reply from
which want to read an extract: eve
endeavof and do advertise in all Of the
PaPsfs through tie Arkassas Valley
asd tAs San Lais Valley whsrs W eet
cur business and fer these advertise
nsnts ws pay regular rates I esaaot
imagine that N aavertisensnt in eus
1t H. 0sssa Junction pepsrs vesll
pesdaes fer - 90 hah Il H. esst."
New Asse b N iastitutisa that svsry
tve ysaRs gsss = H. staAs lsgis1aGuzs
ana ssdsavses . PIT tAFs1GA . AtN