The New York herald., 1921-05-23
The booksellers convention

deavor, performs extraordinary SER
vice for his customers and his asso-
ciates and for every branch of his
chosen trade without receiving any
public recognition. At his own
funeral. perhaps, he may be eulogiZed,
but not before.
In creating the Honorary Follow
ship Of American Booksellers the
American Booksellers Association has
developed ar idea of beauty AMI melit;
! one that might well be copied by
other associations of business men.
Each year any one in the broad
stretches of the book trade, whether
or not a member of the association,
may nominate a candidate for lie
fellowship 1t is not necessary that
the candidates be members of the as
sociation. After the nominations are
all in the several hundred association
members vote from the list for ''those
of the book trade who have done the
most to raise bookselling to a high
level of efficiency" The five names
receiving the largest number of votes
are thus awarded the fellowship, with
an appropriate parchment to COM
memorate the honor.
Fifteen nominations were made th,s
year. The five men elected included
Charles +. Butler of Brentano's. New
York; Joseph Jennings of the Old
Corner Bookstore. Boston; George w.
Jacobs of Philadelphia. William Harris
Arnold Of the Syndicate Trading Com
pany. New York, and J. X. Gill of
| Portland ore.
Even to be nominated for the fell
lowship may well be regarded as a
great honor. for the nomination i'm
plies out of the ordinary achievement.
The ten other nominations included
Alexander Robertson, Davis James,
c. c. Parker w. d, Wilson, w. X.
Stewart, Louis Keating. Miss Mahony
of book caravan fame, Byrne Hackett,
Laurence CONNIE and Frank Shay.
1t is customary for speakers to get
up before booksellers meetings and
tell them what dubs they are as re-
tailers. This has been done so often
that many book store proprietors have
begun to believe it true. Carl II. Fast
. department store counsel who has
studied stores of all kinds and in many
cities, proved himself to be both OBJ
serving and original when he told the
booksellers:
/"You can take pride iA the fact that
you are among the best retailers in
the United States The bookseller is
really rendering a service of advising
his customers on the books that will
give him pleasure. You booksellers
make it your practice to use discern
ment and discretion in adapting mer-
Chandise made in the mass and printed
by the ton to the individual service
and development of human beings.
That is the highest ideal OF retailing
American retailing is so wofully
blind and inefficient that you will
render immense help in bringing about
a better America if you will see to it
that the reading function is used TO
give the public more and more knowl-
edge in the moulding of a saner nation,
with less extravaganza, less wasteful-
ness and with higher standards of
business, finance and economic condi-
tions.
AS booksellers you can do even
more than the average teacher or pro-
fessor because you are graduating
students every day. while the instruct
crs keep one group for four years"
This thing of being a special corre-
spondent to the booksellers convention
wasn't all II might have been. First
we had to take several days away from
regular work then 1t was necessary
10 get an Atlantic City expense account
past a newspapers great metropolitan
cashier. and finally we had to use up
a whole afternoon on our return to
New York hunting up people who could
tell us what happened Mt the conven-
tion.
please. mister. will you gimme one
of them books" said the lady hat
bandit as we emerged from the BAN
quet room carrying an armful of pub
. fishers favors which were distributed
at the annual dinner. We handed her
copy of Oppenheim's new detective
novel THE Proflteers.' and wondered
If she got the point.
While on the subject of Oppenheim s
new thriller we suppose from the title
that it is set in either a check room or
a prohibition cabaret.
When the advertising business is a
bit slow the firm members of Barton,
Durstine & Osborn all write books. Ap-
parently Charles II. Bernhard Of the
McMullen agency whles away his
spare time writing music. In any
event. he was responsible for the
scores of most of the songs sung at
the Wednesday evening play on the
Steel Pier.
If we could write music we wouldn't
waste our talents doing It for book
. sellers convention songs. Wed write
stories for newspapers printed in Yid-
dish.
Frances Stelof, who presides over the
!