“ it is just as wrong to give and not spend as it is to spend and
not give.” No more troublesome questions were argued by the embattled advertisers than those of expenditure and of saving. Advertisements to influence personal action merge imper ceptibly into those intended to actuate collective action . Argu ments for and against proposed legislation have been widely
circulated through newspaper advertisements and they have often proved distinctly serviceable in presenting facts to a heed less, ignorant, or prejudiced public.20 Where the comparative strength of the two sides has been in doubt, as in the questions of equal suffrage and prohibition , the pros and cons have been vigorously stated . Where authority has felt its strength, it has not troubled to answer the advertising appeals of its opponents. The postal zone law was ably and widely opposed through adver tisements. Direct appeals against entrance into war and against
preparedness were practically answered , not by facts and argu ment, but by indirect appeals to loyalty , patriotism , and honor.
Where the advertisers have been upholding a losing cause, as in the case of compulsory vaccination, and vivisection , their
advertisements have been ignored by their opponents. Adver tisements that have assumed an unproved thesis, as those of
the Association to Resist English Domination of American Commerce, have also apparently been ignored. But a movement to save the retail trade district of New York was carried on
through advertisement and met with surprising success.21
Many of these advertisements have represented not only 20 The first instance noted was the advertisement of oleomargarine; it was used to urge the repealing of an objectionable law and the passage of a better one. - Outlook , November 30, 1912, 102: advertising section .
In a western state, a bill before the legislature to increase the number of trainmen on every railway train was referred back to the voters of the state. Advertisements were published in the press telling in a clear, definite way how the proposed law was a menace both to the people and the roads,
and the bill failed . — New York Evening Post, March 6 , 1916 . The Railway Investors' League advertised an “ Open Letter to All
Investors in American Railway Securities in regard to the Newlands Joint Congressional Committee.” — Daily press, November 21, 1916 . A more questionable illustration has been noted where a state institution
in the Middle West bought editorials in the country press at advertising rates for the purpose of influencing the state legislature to make it a larger
appropriation . - H . Holt, Commercialism and Journalism , p . 25. 21 Daily press, September, 1916.
