Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/419

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, 1918.


is to -day placed on the paid advertisement for conveying to the public a mass of announcements obtainable in no otherway. They

transmit important information , explanations, and apologies, correct misapprehensions, announce policies , improvements

planned , and public hearings on them , give public notice of ex oneration by courts, and point out opportunities of a non

commercial character . Many of the side lines of advertising are no less important to the historian than are these large,more conspicuous classes . The connection between advertising and manners may at first thought

seem remote, yet that good manners may be inculcated through the advertisement is believed by at least one great business corporation ,58 and that bad manners may nullify the advantages

of advertising was made clear at a recent convention of American bankers.59

The agile advertisement sometimes squares the social circle,60 and it not infrequently assumes a proprietary right in individuals in any way conspicuous in official or business life and politely appropriates them in the interests of business firms.61

Advertisements of auction sales of important art collections, as that of the Davanzati Palace, contain detailed descriptions of works of art and of collections often not elsewhere accessible in

print outside of expensive catalogues, while the daily press through 68 The New York Telephone Company carried a series of advertisements giving suggestions in regard to the correct use of the telephone and stating

that they “ are published at the request of a number of large business houses

that are interested in developing pleasing telephone manners among their employees.” It announces that one of the most important rules that has been developed

and adopted by a number of large business houses is : “ Take a personal interest in every telephone call you handle ."

69 “ A teller or a cashier with a grouch will waste a whole year's advertising appropriation . . . . What does it avail you to advertise that the man with the dollar is as welcome as the man with a thousand if the man with a dollar

finds that it isn 't so ?” — E . G . McWilliams, Report of Convention of American

Bankers at Kansas City, Missouri, 1916 . 60 The Clyde Steamship Company advertises that “ class restriction aboard ship is now eliminated by the inauguration of an exclusive 'One

Class' cabin service," but it is secured through a $ 19 rate on Wednesdays and Saturdays and a $ 24.90 rate on Tuesdays and Fridays. — New York Times , November 14, 1916 .

61 An advertising agency in 1916 ran a series of open letters to men of national and international prominence in the interests of a certain brand of