not help being struck by the difference in spirit between the literary and the advertising sections. If he concludes that the earth is inhabited by two races of men , a race of stumbling, bungling, unhappy failures and pessimists , and a race of vigorous,
successful, radiant optimists, we can scarcely blame him . In
the literary pages the world is the worst of all possible worlds; in the advertising supplement it is the best of all conceivable worlds.
In the magazine proper everything goes askew . The railroads cheat us and kill us. The food manufacturers poison us. The
liquor dealers destroy our moral fibre. The army is depleted . The navy has its armor-belt in the wrong place. Workmen go about without work . Lack of sanitation kills its thousands.
Automobiles do their share the list is endless. But what a reconstructed world of heart's desire begins with the first-page advertisement. Here , no breakfast food fails to build up a man's brain and muscle . No phonograph record fails to amuse. No roof-paint cracks under cold or melts under the sun . No razor
cuts the face or leaves it sore. Illness and death are banished by patent medicines and hygienic shoes. Worry flees before the model fountain pen . Employers shower wealth upon efficient
employees. Insurance companies pay what they promise . Trains always get to Chicago on time. Babies never cry ; whether it's
soap or cereal, or camera or talcum , babies always laugh in the advertising supplement. A happy world , indeed, my masters.” 94 These efforts to secure honest advertising have been of late so much in evidence that it is natural to think that they have been
a product of our own high standards. But the ubiquitous Cobbett when he started the English Porcupine in 1800 announced his intention of refusing questionable advertisements , — " not a
single quack advertisement will on any account be admitted into the Porcupine. Our newspapers have been too long disgraced by this species of falsehood , filth and obscenity .” “ I am told ,” Cobbett continues , “ that, by adhering to this resolution , I shall lose five hundred a year, and excite the resentment of the numer
ous body of empirics,” but apparently he did not abandon it.95 The London Times threw away $ 30,000 a week in advertisements
during the railway mania in 1846,and " mademoney by the loss. 94 New York Evening Post, May 7 , 1909. 95 Lewis Melville , Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and America , I, 123 -124. The Porcupine ran only from October, 1800 to November , 1801 and it is possible that one of the contributory causes of its short career may have been
its pioneer policy in regard to advertising.
