Getting On 
 
 The Confessions of a Publisher
 
 Printed by W. H. Smith & Son 
 at the Arden Press, Letchworth
 
 Getting On 
 
 THE CONFESSIONS OF A 
 PUBLISHER 
 
 By John Adams Thayer 
 
 
 London 
 
 T. WERNER LAURIE 
 CLIFFORD'S INN
 
 Copyright, 1911 
 By John Adams Thayer 
 
 Entered at Stationers' 
 Hall 
 
 American edition under 
 the title "Astir: A 
 Publisher's Life- 
 Story 
 
 French edition , under 
 the title " Les Etapes 
 du Succes; Souvenirs 
 d'un 'business man' 
 Americaine " 

 
 
 
 To My Wife: 
 
 My Best Friend and 
 
 Comrade 
 
 
 810877

 
 Contents 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 1. A Publisher at Thirteen .... 1 
 
 2. A Union Printer 16 
 
 3. Type Founding before the Trust . 33 
 
 4. On the Road from Texas to Maine. 46 
 
 5. A Type Expert in Philadelphia . . 66 
 
 6. Advertising Manager of "The 
 
 Ladies' Home Journal "... 83 
 
 7. A Month and a Day with Munsey . 105 
 
 8. A Year with a Newspaper . . . 131 
 
 9. Bleaching a Black Sheep .... 152 
 
 10. The Fight for Glean Advertising . 164 
 
 11. My Master Stroke in Advertising . 178 
 
 12. Publishing Everybody's Magazine . 191 
 
 13. The Discovery of Tom Lawson . . 212 
 
 14. Divorced with Alimony .... 234
 
 A Confidence 
 
 Writing is work, and the hardest kind 
 of work. The man who digs with pick 
 and shovel in the street has an easy job 
 in comparison." 
 
 As I thought over his words I won- 
 dered if I, too, could not write a book. 
 I believed I had something to say. If 
 the art of writing came by work and 
 work and yet more work, there was 
 hope for me. Had I not written and re- 
 written advertisements till they passed 
 muster, and in the end realized large 
 sums? But an advertisement while it 
 may be a short story is rather a dis- 
 tant relation of a book. How should I 
 clothe my ideas to fit them for the polite 
 society in leather and cloth on the world's 
 great bookshelf? I envied the trained 
 writer, who, knowing the style of many 
 men the lucid Howells, the picturesque 
 Gautier, the descriptive Dickens 
 could, as I thought, fashion to his own 
 ends the diction that best suited his
 
 A Confidence 
 
 theme. I know now that a writer, if 
 he is sincere, does not pick this or that 
 style as a printer chooses this or that 
 font of type. Good or bad, it must be as 
 much a part of him as his character. 
 
 But this I had to learn, and, while 
 I was groping for light, some one told 
 me to read the memoirs of a famous 
 general. At the end of the first chapter 
 I put the book aside, for it told only of 
 ancestors. I have ancestors myself 
 one, they say, made himself felt in 
 William the Conqueror's day but their 
 dim ghosts played no part in my world 
 of actualities, and plainly had no busi- 
 ness in my book. Disappointed in my 
 general, I decided to tell this story in 
 my own way. Dates and figures, 
 which bore most people, I have avoided. 
 Details I have given when details 
 seemed significant, and old letters and 
 scrapbooks, preserved from boyhood, 
 have repeatedly recalled them with a 
 
 XI
 
 A Confidence 
 
 precision which no memory, however 
 retentive, could equal. 
 
 Though it was my good fortune to 
 know some of them intimately, I have 
 not essayed to depict or characterize the 
 employers and co-workers with whom I 
 have touched elbows in my business 
 career. I have merely set down, in all 
 sincerity, and without prejudice, a few 
 plain truths, and I trust that the most 
 romancing spirit will see naught else 
 between the lines. 
 
 This autobiography is a story of hard 
 work, not luck. To quote an apprecia- 
 tive friend: "When a man starts as a 
 printer and makes a habit of working 
 unlimited hours a day, using every pound 
 of pressure and energy, developing every 
 atom of his originality and initiative, I 
 don't think it particularly lucky if he 
 arrives somewhere at the end of forty odd 
 years. It recalls Maurice Barrymore's 
 remark at billiards, when he made a 
 
 Xll
 
 A Confidence 
 
 twice round the table shot on a fluke, 
 which caused his opponent to drop his 
 cue and exclaim: "Holy God!" With 
 his sweet smile, Barrymore replied : 
 "No, not wholly God. I was in it, 
 too." 
 
 Hard work has entered into these 
 pages, but with the work has come 
 pleasure. To live one's business life 
 over again, as I have here, is a pri- 
 vilege which few know. With the opti- 
 mism which has been my lifelong tonic, 
 I send this book forth. American youth 
 is ambitious to do something worth 
 while. As I see it, there is but one 
 legitimate road to that goal. 
 
 Xlll
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 Chapter One 
 
 HEN as a mere child I 
 went upon the platform at 
 a Sunday School concert 
 and recited : 
 
 ' ' When Pm a man, a man, 
 I'll be a printer if I can, and I can," 
 
 I was probably as heedless of the real 
 meaning of the couplet as I was of its 
 prophecy. Led to a seat beside my 
 mother, I sat with my hand in hers 
 and heard the other boys declare, "I'll 
 be a lawyer," and "I'll be a preacher 
 if I can, and I can," with equal uncon- 
 sciousness that these callings also would 
 figure among my future ambitions. As 
 advertising then ranked as neither art,
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 trade nor profession, it found no place 
 among these stimulative jingles. 
 
 I don't know where I got the idea of 
 becoming a preacher, but I did enter- 
 tain it. In fact, I have in my scrap-book 
 a twenty-five year old letter from the 
 Secretary of the Boston Unitarian As- 
 sociation acknowledging my application 
 for assistance, and promising its serious 
 consideration. The matter went little 
 further, however. I consulted my dear 
 old friend, Daniel Monroe Wilson, au- 
 thor of the well-known book "Where 
 Independence was born," then pastor 
 of the first Unitarian Church of Quincy, 
 Massachusetts, and I remember that 
 while he did not advise me against 
 entering the ministry, he spoke of the 
 small salaries received by ministers, of 
 his own many charges and of the diffi- 
 culties he had met in trying to make his 
 sermons please the important men in the 
 church, and at the same time interest the
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 women. I felt then that I had a "call" 
 to preach, but I have come to doubt its 
 force. Had it been serious, nothing would 
 have stopped me from following my bent. 
 At that period too many young men 
 without funds burned to undertake the 
 cure of souls, but since even the clergy 
 confuse their sources of inspiration it is 
 not surprising that the lay mind often 
 goes astray. It was one of the cloth who 
 in later years told me the story of a 
 brother minister who resigned a charge 
 of many years to accept a parish only ten 
 miles away. "I feel that I am called," 
 he said. A practical member of his ves- 
 try inquired what salary the new parish 
 was to pay, and on receiving his answer, 
 dryly remarked: "Dear brother, that is 
 not a call; it's a raise." 
 
 As for the law, that was my father's 
 idea, as was the idea which grew out of 
 it and determined my career. A native 
 of Vermont, my father came in early 
 
 3 B2
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 manhood to Massachusetts at the time 
 Sumner, Wilson and Wendell Phillips 
 were spurring people to think about the 
 great issues which had their final settle- 
 ment in the War of the Rebellion. He 
 took an active interest in the problems 
 of labour, abolition and currency re- 
 form and became known as a man of 
 sterling principle, fearless speech, and 
 as an uncompromising opponent of 
 slavery. My mother's interest in these 
 matters was no less keen. She had early 
 developed a talent for writing, and even 
 as a girl had been, with Lucy Larcom 
 and Mary Livermore, a contributor to 
 that once famous journal of her birth- 
 place, "The Lowell Offering." In later 
 life she wrote much for the local papers 
 of Cambridge, the "Boston Common- 
 wealth" and "The Woman's Journal;" 
 while the "Christian Leader" con- 
 tained weekly contributions from her, 
 both prose and poetry. Of such parent-
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 age, I was born in Boston, February 
 20, 1861, two weeks before the inaugu- 
 ration of Abraham Lincoln, and re- 
 ceived my father's name. Several horo- 
 scopes, given me for my amusement in 
 after years, agree that on that date 
 Mars and Jupiter were in friendly 
 juxtaposition, and therefore I could be 
 considered lucky. So I have been con- 
 sidered, but inasmuch as for twenty 
 years after my schooldays my lot con- 
 sisted of hard work at long hours for 
 small pay, I have concluded that luck, 
 as Matthew Arnold said of genius, is 
 largely a question of energy. I am will- 
 ing to concede, however, that it was a 
 piece of good fortune to begin life in a 
 community which from colonial times 
 downwards has smelled of printer's ink. 
 This local characteristic had beyond 
 doubt its influence in shaping that second 
 idea of my father's which I mentioned 
 at the top of this long paragraph. His
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 future lawyer must have an education, 
 and realizing that the "printing art," as 
 he called it, was a great educator, he 
 purchased for me in my thirteenth year 
 a small printing press and a few fonts 
 of type. 
 
 I began by printing calling cards at 
 ten to twenty cents a dozen, and as it 
 was then a fad for young people to ex- 
 change them, I soon put money in my 
 purse. Within a year I had made 
 enough to buy a small foot-power press, 
 and by adding to my fonts of type, I was 
 able to print business cards and do other 
 modest commercial jobs. My ambition 
 outran this little success, however, and 
 I launched a four-page monthly paper 
 about four by six inches in size. I called 
 this pygmy "The Printer," and at the 
 head of the editorial column styled my- 
 self "Editor and Publisher." Under the 
 caption "Terms" one might further 
 read that the paper was to be had for
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 ten cents a year, a prudent stipulation 
 adding that the annual postage, which 
 amounted to twelve cents, was to be 
 paid by the subscriber. The advertising 
 rates were as tempting as the price of 
 subscription. Three cents would pur- 
 chase a line of Long Primer or what is 
 now known as ten-point I had no Agate; 
 while fifteen cents would insure a whole 
 inch of publicity placed beside "pure" 
 reading. But, as for securing advertis- 
 ing, I recall no precocious signs of fit- 
 ness for the business I was eventually 
 to follow. Such as I obtained was chiefly 
 taken on the "exchange" basis, and 
 some fruit, candy, or a bunch of mild 
 cigarettes, for strictly private consump- 
 tion, would in a twinkling exhaust the 
 earnings of an inch of space. My real 
 profits were indirect. I picked up, self- 
 taught, the rudiments of a valuable 
 trade, and I absorbed enough of the 
 "lead poisoning of type," to borrow
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes' phrase, to 
 colour my whole future. "Keep on, 
 John," said Charles Walker, Superin- 
 tendent of the famous Riverside Press, 
 from whom I used to buy scrap paper 
 for my diminutive monthly; "some day 
 you will be the head of a publishing 
 house as big as this." 
 
 Meanwhile I shared the usual pas- 
 times of the American schoolboy. For 
 us Cambridge lads there was swimming 
 in the Charles at an old dilapidated fort 
 called the "magazine," some boating, 
 and an occasional excursion across the 
 bridge to the Beacon Park race-course 
 in Brighton. 
 
 We did not sit in the grand-stand. A 
 few of us knew a secret passage under 
 a corner of the fence, which for a 
 number of seasons escaped the vigilance 
 of the guardians of the Park. The best 
 race I thus saw was the one in which 
 Goldsmith Maid trotted a mile in 2.14, 
 
 8
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 the record at that time. If there were 
 no races, we boys would ourselves make 
 trials of speed for a quarter of a mile or 
 more. One of my companions was John 
 Glarkson, who afterwards gained cele- 
 brity as a baseball pitcher. He was then, 
 in fact, the pitcher of a club called the 
 "Centennials" which I captained. One 
 match game with a Boston club I can 
 never forget. Both pitchers were excel- 
 lent, and at the end of the fifth inning 
 neither side had made a run. The "Cen- 
 tennials" were on the outfield, Clark- 
 son had struck out two men and excite- 
 ment ran high. My position at this 
 critical juncture was that of catcher, 
 and, as gloves and masks were expen- 
 sive, our club did not possess them. The 
 upshot of this enforced economy was 
 disastrous for me. Clarkson's next ball 
 was a foul tip, and as he already had 
 much of the speed for which he was 
 celebrated later, it shot through my
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 hands, and, striking my mouth, knocked 
 me down. Obliged to go to a neighbour- 
 ing house for repairs, I found on my 
 return that our opponent had scored 
 three runs. I was able to resume my 
 place, however, and as the rival pitcher 
 lacked Clarkson's staying power, the 
 Boston Club went home defeated. I 
 bear with me yet, unnoticed by the 
 world, some results of that, to me, 
 famous game of ball. 
 
 As for my education, in the literal 
 sense of the word, it was sound so far 
 as it went. I was graduated from the 
 Webster Grammar School and attended 
 the High School for about a month. 
 Many a time since I have wished that 
 I could have continued, for it is this 
 latter training, even more, perhaps, than 
 a college course, which is the young 
 man's mainstay when he enters business. 
 But my people were poor, a livelihood 
 had to be gained, and so it fell out that 
 
 10
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 the composing-room became my high 
 school and the world my university. 
 
 I sought work in a printing office as 
 a matter of course. It was the natural 
 thing to do. I had not only handled my 
 own type; I had almost all my boyhood 
 neighboured and had the freedom of the 
 Riverside Press. Knowing the Super- 
 intendent and many of the workers, I 
 had become familiar with every branch 
 of the business. Thus it was that I found 
 my first employment, not as an office 
 boy, but as a bona fide printer. My pay 
 was five dollars a week ; my hours were 
 from seven till six. 
 
 The story of the next five years may 
 be briefly told. It was a struggle to rise 
 by shifting from one printing office to 
 another. Sometimes a change would 
 mean slightly more pay; or again, the 
 same wage with a better opportunity to 
 master the business. So it was that in 
 those five years I worked in seven dif- 
 
 11
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 ferent places, and thereby gained in- 
 valuable experience, for practically 
 every printing office has its distinct line 
 of work. For example, with my first 
 employer, Daniel Dwyer, of Sudbury 
 Street, Boston, I got my first knowledge 
 of newspaper work, for he printed 
 "The Daily Hotel Reporter," a paper 
 which chronicled the hotel arrivals, the 
 weather probabilities and information 
 of like value. The weather report 
 came late, and as in those days there 
 was only an hourly horse-car to Gam- 
 bridge, the tardy item often compelled 
 me to choose between a tedious wait 
 for the pottering car or a walk home. 
 Many a night, as I tramped over the 
 Charles, I kept myself awake by sing- 
 ing "I stood on the bridge at midnight," 
 but though it was the same old bridge 
 of Longfellow's song, the clocks some- 
 how always struck a later hour. 
 The poet himself was an occasional 
 
 12
 
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 visitor to the composing-room of one of 
 my places of employment. This was the 
 University Press in Cambridge, the old- 
 est printing establishment in America 
 and the home of many famous books. I 
 recall that I worked on a new edition 
 of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" among others, 
 and it was, of course, his own volumes 
 which brought Longfellow's snowy locks 
 and beard amidst our dingy toil. Of 
 charming personality, and a manner 
 at once dignified and sweet, it was 
 a pleasure to the workmen even to 
 see him, while to have a word with 
 him in reference to a piece of his 
 work in hand was counted a great 
 honour. 
 
 Changing from shop to shop as I did 
 puzzled my friends. It made it difficult 
 for them to keep track of me and it also 
 caused them to believe that there was 
 something radically wrong in my make- 
 up. Yet during these migrations my 
 
 13
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 salary increased by successive stages till 
 at nineteen I held a permanent situa- 
 tion at twelve dollars a week, with a 
 prospect of a small advance. But I was 
 too ambitious to be content with this, 
 and having heard much of the success 
 of a few young men who had followed 
 Horace Greeley's historic advice, I de- 
 cided to throw up my position and go 
 to Chicago, which meant West to me. 
 It conveyed another meaning to my 
 fellow-workers in the printing office, 
 however. They had planned to give me 
 a bowie knife and a revolver, but on 
 learning that I was only going to Chi- 
 cago, decided that I would need nothing 
 of the kind, and presented me with their 
 good wishes instead. 
 
 I remember distinctly the day I went 
 down to draw my last week's salary. 
 The leading member of the firm looked 
 over his glasses kindly, but not sym- 
 pathetically, and said : 
 
 14
 
 A Publisher at Thirteen 
 
 "So you are going to Chicago, are 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied. 
 
 "Have you a job out there?" 
 
 "No." ' 
 
 "Well," he said, "I guess you'll get 
 one ; you've a good trade. But remem- 
 ber, *A rolling stone gathers no moss.'" 
 
 15
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 Chapter Two 
 
 T this time trade unionism 
 was not deeply rooted in 
 Boston. So lax, in fact, was 
 its grip that members of the 
 Typographical Union were 
 allowed, if they chose, to 
 work at a lower wage than the fixed scale 
 of fifteen dollars a week. In Chicago the 
 situation was far different, and before I 
 started West I was strongly urged by 
 one of my fellow workmen to join the 
 union in Boston, and obtain a travel- 
 ling card, permitting me to work in 
 all offices throughout the country. As 
 this implied a jump from twelve to 
 eighteen dollars a week, the prevail- 
 ing scale in Chicago, I lent a willing ear. 
 But on looking into the question of 
 
 16
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 eligibility I found the constitution pre- 
 scribed that a union printer must be 
 twenty-one, at least, and have worked 
 as many years as an apprentice, as 
 love-sick Jacob first agreed to serve for 
 Rachel. It seemed to me that I had 
 run against a dead wall, but my friend 
 reassured me by saying, that although 
 I was only nineteen, my knowledge of 
 the business was such that he felt war- 
 ranted in arranging the matter for me, 
 which he did. 
 
 Thus equipped, I began a journey 
 which etched itself on my memory as 
 lany of far greater scope have not. 
 For one thing, I had my first and only 
 ide on an engine, an experience I have 
 lever yearned to repeat, as the engineer 
 lerived more amusement from me than 
 did from his hospitality. The Grand 
 Trunk Railway, by which I went on 
 account of its low fare, quite upheld 
 its inglorious reputation. There were 
 
 17 G
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 countless delays, an accident to the en- 
 gine, and a loss of nearly a day in the 
 schedule, but arrive we did at last and 
 I began my hunt for work. The value 
 of my travelling card was at once made 
 plain. Within two or three days after I 
 reached Chicago, I found employment 
 at the union scale. 
 
 Unfortunately, the disadvantage of 
 union membership also developed. My 
 position was temporary, the dull season 
 came, and I found myself in the street, 
 handicapped by the local prohibition 
 against accepting less than the standard 
 wage. The work was there. Again and 
 again during those weeks of idleness I 
 could have had it. At last I came across 
 a most tempting opening. A foremanship 
 in an office publishing a number of edu- 
 cational papers offered a kind of experi- 
 ence which had not previously come my 
 way. It was not a union shop, however, 
 and its pay fell two dollars short of the 
 
 18
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 prescribed scale. I decided that the situa- 
 tion was desperate and needed a desper- 
 ate remedy. But what? Long pondering 
 persuaded me to appeal to authority 
 against the cast-iron rule. 
 
 Acting on this idea, I called on the 
 secretary of the Typographical Union, 
 and was by him passed along to the 
 chairman of some forgotten committee, 
 whom I found in the composing room of 
 the "Inter-ocean," making up the paper 
 for the day. In this forum I pleaded my 
 case. I was out of work; I needed money; 
 if I could have permission to accept this 
 lower wage until another opportunity 
 came I would not only relieve my ne- 
 cessity, but keep a "rat" out of a job. 
 I think this latter argument must have 
 struck him as new. * * Rats, " as non-union 
 men were called, were not regarded with 
 favour in Chicago, and as I waxed elo- 
 quent on the wisdom of excluding them 
 from work, I perceived that my court 
 
 19 G2
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 of appeal was duly impressed. The per- 
 mit was granted and I took the coveted 
 place till the dull season passed. 
 
 The fact that I was now for the first 
 time a foreman impressed me but little, 
 for, bound as I was to keep my promise 
 to secure union work as soon as possible, 
 I knew my authority would be brief. The 
 value of this stop-gap lay in the character 
 of the shop itself, which bore out my 
 father's belief that the printing art was 
 a great educator. This office was differ- 
 ent from any of my former places, and 
 the various educational books, papers 
 and pamphlets which flowed from its 
 presses, gave me at once an insight into 
 the care one must expend on work of 
 this kind and widened my notion of my 
 calling. In the popular fancy a printer 
 is an ink-smudged pressman, or a com- 
 positor who sticks the type of a book 
 or daily newspaper; but just as there 
 are many branches of the business, so 
 
 20
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 there are many kinds of printers. Used 
 in its broad and proper sense, the term 
 "printer" means much, and brings to 
 mind not only the names of men like 
 Gutenberg, Gaxton and Franklin, but 
 a whole train of reflection on the force 
 which the art they practised has exerted 
 upon human history. Taking the rank 
 it did, the shop of my temporary fore- 
 manship could not fail to influence a 
 youth eager to get on, but besides the 
 benefit I had from the character of its 
 output, I enjoyed the special advantage 
 of frequent talks with the cultivated 
 gentleman who held the chair of editor. 
 On publication day, the last hour before 
 going to press was usually devoted to 
 changing words in particular passages, 
 and this hour the editor would spend 
 with me. To this day I marvel at the 
 ease with which this expert would 
 trace words back to their original 
 source that he might use the ones 
 
 21
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 which most authoritatively expressed his 
 thought. 
 
 The slack season over, I readily found 
 work with the J. M. W. Jones Company, 
 one of the largest printing offices of that 
 period. Here again was another phase 
 of the business. They called themselves 
 railroad printers, and, although they also 
 handled poster and job work, the print- 
 ing of rate books, coupon tickets, thou- 
 sand-mile books and the like was their 
 principal feature. Few things could be 
 more tedious. For a fortnight I satura- 
 ted my brain with U P, D & R G, G B 
 & Q, G & A, P R R, etc., as I set up a 
 route book for the use of ticket agents 
 throughout the country. Seeing no glim- 
 mer of progress ahead of me in this sad 
 stuff, I chose an opportune time to but- 
 tonhole the foreman and tell him of my 
 training for the higher forms of job work. 
 This means the typography of letter- 
 heads, booklets, invitations and such 
 
 22
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 orders, from manuscript copy, and is a 
 class of work which barely one out of a 
 hundred ordinary compositors can per- 
 form. Owing to the illness of one of the 
 men, I was given a trial, and, acquitting 
 myself satisfactorily, I was retained in 
 preference to many employees of longer 
 service who were laid off when dull 
 times again came round. 
 
 In this office I participated in my only 
 strike. Conducted with admirable dignity, 
 it vividly impressed me at the time and I 
 think deserves mention here. I have al- 
 ready pointed out that the Typographi- 
 cal Union in Chicago was a powerful 
 organization. Each large printing office 
 had a "chapel," so called, and whenever 
 a local difficulty of any sort arose, the 
 chairman had merely to say the word 
 and the matter would be discussed on 
 the spot. One afternoon there came to 
 my ears the same sound Mr Speaker 
 makes when he calls the House of 
 
 23
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 Representatives to order. It was the 
 Chairman of our Chapel. He had no 
 gavel, but his liberal use of a mallet on 
 the marble slab, found in all printing 
 offices for the imposition of type pages, 
 brought us flocking round him instantly. 
 When all the hundred or more com- 
 positors were assembled, he said that a 
 number of members had requested him 
 to call a special meeting, and with this 
 brief preface asked a compositor named 
 Cummings to state the case. Mr Cum- 
 mings was also brief. "There are few 
 men here," he said, "who are satis- 
 fied with the present foreman. I don't 
 question his ability as a printer or his 
 efficiency as an executive. The volume 
 of work he turns out daily is immense. 
 Unfortunately, the volume of his pro- 
 fanity is also immense. We have made 
 complaints, but the truth is he can no 
 more change his foul speech and hector- 
 ing manner than the leopard can change 
 
 24
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 his spots. We are men, not slaves, and 
 I know I only voice the general opinion 
 of my fellow-workmen when I say that 
 this office needs a new head. As we have 
 previously brought this matter to the 
 attention of the General Superintendent 
 without result, I move that we quit this 
 office in a body and do not return until 
 another foreman is appointed from among 
 the employees of this room." The reso- 
 lution was carried unanimously, and, 
 changing quietly to our street clothes, 
 we departed. We all returned the next 
 morning. There was a new foreman. 
 
 The change in executive made no dif- 
 ference to me. Handling my own work 
 with despatch, I had come in for none 
 of the deposed foreman's profanity, 
 while I flattered myself that I had en- 
 trenched myself in a position which I 
 could have as long as I liked. But with 
 this conviction came the query: Where 
 will it lead? A foremanship would be 
 
 25
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 the next step, after long service ; then an 
 office of my own, which would require 
 capital. I decided that if I meant some 
 day to be my own master it behoved 
 me to acquaint myself with the busi- 
 ness end of printing, and with this in 
 view, I one morning took off my apron 
 and presented myself to the super- 
 intendent. In a little speech, which I 
 had carefully prepared beforehand, I 
 told him that I had had wide experience 
 in artistic job work and knew, if he 
 would transfer me to his business de- 
 partment, that, on account of my ability 
 to sketch and plan, I could give ideas to 
 customers which would increase orders. 
 I also added, when he asked what salary 
 I wanted, that though I now drew the 
 usual composing-room wage of eighteen 
 dollars, I was perfectly willing to work for 
 twelve dollars until I had proved myself 
 worth more. The superintendent listened 
 to me patiently throughout, promised to 
 
 26
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 consider the matter and probably for- 
 got all about it. Having then little of 
 the persistency which I later found it 
 necessary to develop, I made no second 
 call upon him, but continued in the room 
 above till after about a year's absence, 
 the incessant hot weather joined forces 
 with a fit of homesickness to drive me 
 back to my parents, my friends, and the 
 salt breezes I knew so well how to find 
 in a sail-boat in Boston Harbour. 
 
 The foreman yielded a very reluctant 
 assent to this vacation project of mine. 
 In fact, his last word was a charge to 
 hurry back and give the other boys a 
 chance. The knowledge and experience 
 I had gained in the West proved of such 
 value, however, that I secured a Boston 
 foremanship at a Chicago salary. Thus 
 another year passed. More experience 
 came with it, of course, but no real pro- 
 gress toward my ideals, and I therefore 
 accepted the offer of a New Bedford 
 
 27
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 printer who wanted a foreman. This 
 man cherished a dream of starting a 
 daily newspaper as soon as conditions 
 should warrant the venture, but the 
 scheme hung fire in my time, and the 
 close of a year in his employ again 
 found me ripe for change. I was and 
 have ever been a stout heretic regard- 
 ing the rolling stone adage, which my 
 old-time employer tagged to his sober 
 godspeed for Chicago. Moss is for 
 ruins. In change lie possibilities. 
 
 It was at this juncture that I had my 
 first real experience in soliciting adver- 
 tising. The week before I left New 
 Bedford there appeared in one of the 
 daily papers three columns of taking 
 description of various local enterprises. 
 It belonged in what is known as the 
 "reading notice" category. In reality 
 an advertisement, it read like news. I 
 thought the language used was worthy 
 of a better cause, but the scheme itself 
 
 28
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 interested me, for, happening to meet 
 the man who controlled it, he talked to 
 me of his methods and of the towns he 
 had " worked." His first move, on ar- 
 riving in a promising field, was to engage 
 a column or two of space in one of the 
 leading dailies at advertising rates. He 
 would then call upon the chief firms, 
 advertisers or non-advertisers, and, pre- 
 senting his newly-printed card inscribed 
 "Special Editorial Writer" to the paper 
 in which for the time being he owned 
 space, would confide his intention to fill 
 two or three columns of Saturday's 
 issue with live editorial comment upon 
 the foremost business houses of the 
 town. He would state that a big an- 
 nouncement was not necessary, the 
 smaller the paragraph the better, and 
 then, if an order were given him, 
 gravely note the personnel of the estab- 
 lishment, the date of its founding, and 
 its speciality. By evening these memo- 
 
 29
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 randa would reappear in an item of ir- 
 resistible praise. If a merchant said he 
 would take twenty lines, the paragraph 
 would fill forty, so cleverly dovetailed 
 that to eliminate half would ruin all. 
 Naturally, the labour of writing amounted 
 to nothing after this self-styled editor 
 and his assistants had covered a number 
 of cities. If an item were needed for a 
 florist, say, they had only to turn to an 
 indexed book to find a flowery para- 
 graph which had already done good 
 service. 
 
 This man's account of his success led 
 me to believe that advertising, then in 
 its infancy, was something it might be 
 well to add to my fund of practical ex- 
 perience. In any event, it promised a 
 living while I looked about for another 
 stepping-stone. So reasoning, I invaded 
 Rhode Island and worked the editorial 
 advertising scheme with the "Provi- 
 dence Times." I took two young men 
 
 30
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 with me, advancing their travelling ex- 
 penses on the understanding that they 
 should reimburse me out of the profits 
 from their work. My assistants, how- 
 ever, showed no aptitude for soliciting 
 orders. Having paid down a deposit for 
 space, the work had to be pushed to 
 completion, but as I did practically all 
 of it myself, meanwhile footing the bills 
 for three, my personal gain was small. 
 Indeed, I even worked one night on 
 the "Times" as a compositor to add 
 five dollars to my funds. The publisher 
 of the paper congratulated me on filling 
 so much space at a time when adver- 
 tising was languid, and even debated 
 offering me a position as solicitor, but 
 nothing came of it. Nor did anything 
 come of my round of the printing offices. 
 There was but one offer made me 
 which seemed worth a second thought. 
 This was from a master printer who 
 wished to give up active work. I was to 
 
 31
 
 A Union Printer 
 
 manage his place for a year, and then, 
 taking it over myself, pay him out of 
 the profits. The plant had been success- 
 ful, but as I looked over the office, with 
 its dark corners and low-studded walls, 
 I contrasted it with the large well-lighted 
 composing rooms to which I had been 
 accustomed, and there and then told 
 myself it was no place to spend my life. 
 With this decision, more momentous 
 than I knew, I again set my face toward 
 Boston. 
 
 32 

 
 Type Founding Before the 
 Trust 
 
 Chapter Three 
 
 OSTON seemed to be my 
 Mecca. It did not worry 
 me that I was going back 
 without a position. I had 
 my trade and the Typo- 
 graphical Union here would 
 not require me to work at a specified 
 wage. By now, however, I had the 
 fixed idea that the printing business and 
 I should part company, and I decided 
 to advertise for a place in a publishing 
 house or some kindred business in 
 which my previous experience would 
 tell. 
 
 An opening turned up. Galling at the 
 Boston Type Foundry, I learned to my 
 delight that there was a possibility of 
 
 33
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 a few weeks' service in the specimen 
 department. Delight ! The word is not 
 half strong enough. To give a job com- 
 positor free rein in a type foundry is 
 like turning a youngster loose in a toy 
 shop. Brimful of enthusiasm I presented 
 myself to Mr. John K. Rogers, who, 
 though he bore in print the unusual title 
 " Agent," was the actual head and 
 largest owner of this solid house which 
 traced its beginnings back to the adminis- 
 tration of President Madison. He was a 
 Bostonian of the old school, dignified, 
 courteous, amiable, and so considerate of 
 others that he hesitated to let me take 
 this temporary work because he thought 
 it might cost me a permanent position 
 elsewhere. My eagerness overcame his 
 scruples, however, and I was engaged 
 at the same, unescapable salary of eigh- 
 teen dollars a week, for a term, as he 
 carefully explained, not exceeding three 
 weeks, the hours being from eight to 
 
 34
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 five. This was my first encounter with 
 the eight-hour plan, and I showed my 
 surprise. 
 
 "I long ago decided," he said, jestingly, 
 1 ' that the proper division of time is eight 
 hours for work, eight hours for play, 
 eight hours for sleep " 
 
 "And eight dollars a day?" I continued, 
 completing the rhyme. 
 
 "Not yet, young man," he smiled. 
 "Not yet." 
 
 I think I would have worked for eight 
 cents a day rather than forego the 
 toy shop. The first days were full of 
 surprises. Great novelties to me were 
 the types for the blind, and the Hawai- 
 ans, both of which were exclusive pro- 
 ducts of this foundry. It was a wonder, 
 too, where all the type went to, for 
 over a thousand pounds were cast and 
 finished every day. But this was be- 
 fore the Mergenthaler type-setting 
 machine revolutionized methods, and 
 
 35 D2
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 while country weeklies would use their 
 outfits for a decade or more, the big 
 dailies, issuing many editions and print- 
 ing from stereotype plates on rotary 
 presses, required a new " dress" every 
 second year. Neither the hydraulic hot 
 press, nor the later cold press, had been 
 introduced, and stereotyping from papier- 
 mache matrices was generally in vogue, 
 the matrix being prepared in the old- 
 fashioned way by beating the paper into 
 the type form with brushes. One famous 
 newspaper, the " Salem News," was 
 still printed directly from the type on a 
 curved rotary press and many was the 
 paragraph, which, through hasty " justi- 
 fication," spilled out while the press was 
 running. Conditions being such, outfits of 
 body and job letter were always being 
 shipped to the papers of New England 
 and their supply was an important factor 
 in the business. 
 
 But the most profitable branch of type- 
 
 36
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 founding then, as now, was the manufac- 
 ture of "job" faces, used for headings, 
 newspaper advertisements, and, more 
 especially, circulars, business cards, let- 
 ter heads and the like. Fresh designs 
 were from time to time brought out by 
 the various type-founders, and when I 
 entered the Boston establishment three 
 new series of letters were ready to be 
 shown to printers. It was amusing to 
 discover one of the oldest tricks of trade 
 in general, playing its part in the sale of 
 these wares. Just as the fruit vender 
 always puts the largest and rosiest apples 
 at the top, so the type-founder selects 
 certain plump capitals to grace his spe- 
 cimen sheet and keeps others out of sight. 
 There were less than twenty letters in 
 our alphabet. A F L P T W and Y were 
 avoided, but M, considered the most 
 perfect, was chosen as the "monitor" 
 and all the other letters had to line 
 with it. 
 
 37
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 Two imaginary sign-boards: 
 
 JOHN ROBINSON HIDES 
 WILLIAM LATHAM-PAPER 
 
 best illustrate the type-founder's discreet 
 arrangement of his apple-cart. 
 
 As I studied the specimen sheets which 
 had hitherto been issued to display new 
 type faces, I perceived why Mr Rogers 
 felt sure that he needed my services for 
 only three weeks. But I forgot the time 
 limit. I saw an opportunity and I felt I 
 was equal to it. Why not show these 
 different faces in a manner so attractive 
 and unusual that printers would not 
 glance and pass by, but grow absorbed 
 and decide that they could not do without 
 them? On my way home from my 
 second day's work I bought two bot- 
 tles of coloured ink red and green 
 some paste and a ruler; and with the 
 printed samples of type before me, I 
 worked far into the night, preparing a 
 
 38
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 proposed specimen sheet, to be printed 
 in colours. Previously these had shown 
 merely two or three sample lines, and 
 then left it to the printer's imagination 
 if he had one to discover how the 
 type could best be used. My sheet gave, 
 not only samples, but adequate illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 Taking my night's work to the foun- 
 dry, I showed it to my sole associate of 
 the specimen department, a pressman. 
 He thought it novel and admirable, 
 but doubted if I could put the scheme 
 through. More valuable was his sugges- 
 tion that I delay broaching the subject 
 till after lunch, a piece of advice capable 
 of wide application. The early afternoon 
 is the time to take any new suggestion to 
 any employer. Approaching Mr Rogers, 
 therefore, when the important affairs of 
 the morning were off his mind and the 
 small bottle of claret he drank daily was 
 still a warm and cheering memory, I 
 
 39
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 found him not only pleased with the 
 interest I had taken, but even willing, 
 as soon as I made it plain that it was no 
 more difficult, if one knew how, to print 
 in colours than in black, to give me au- 
 thority to go ahead. It thus fell out that 
 the third day of my employment saw me 
 in charge of the specimen department, 
 consisting of one man, one press, and, 
 most important, types and materials for 
 my every want. 
 
 This foothold obtained, I worked with 
 an aim more far-reaching than the sale 
 of this particular series of type. I wanted 
 this specimen sheet to coax such prompt 
 and liberal orders from the printers as 
 should prove the value of my idea, and 
 remind my employer that he had other 
 fine faces of type, too gingerly shown in 
 the past, which I could also display in 
 an attractive manner. On the day the 
 sheets were mailed, I took care that 
 the foreman of every large printing- 
 
 40
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 office in the city should personally re- 
 ceive a copy. The result was all I hoped. 
 Orders flowed in at once, the three-week 
 limit was passed in safety, and plans for 
 new sheets and new specimen books 
 multiplied so fast that I saw myself a 
 fixture for as long as I chose to remain. 
 With the assurance of permanency 
 came the same old query: "Where will it 
 lead?" A rolling stone who had profited 
 by nearly every roll, I could never 
 settle into an easy corner and forget the 
 thought of advancement. It seemed to 
 me now that, with my knowledge, I 
 could help both the business and myself 
 if I were to see the printers personally, 
 as a salesman, but my employer vetoed 
 the idea. Another suggestion, which I still 
 believe sound, also failed to appeal to 
 him. There were in St Louis two foun- 
 dries; one the St Louis Type Foundry, 
 the other the Central Type Foundry, 
 once a branch of our own house, but 
 
 41
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 now a separate concern manufacturing 
 both faces and type bodies identical with 
 those of the parent establishment. It 
 struck me that if we could arrange with 
 the former firm to keep a consignment 
 of our faces in stock, we should have a 
 new outlet in the South-west for Boston- 
 made type. It must be remembered that 
 these were the days when the type 
 bodies of the foundries differed one from 
 another so widely that it was the part 
 of wisdom for a printer to deal exclu- 
 sively with a single house. These various 
 bodies of type, known under the arbi- 
 trary nomenclature of "Nonpareil," 
 "Long Primer," "Pica," and other 
 names as unmeaning to the layman, were 
 done away with by mutual agreement 
 even before the Type Trust came into 
 being, so that now the type bodies of 
 all American, and even the English 
 foundries, are on a basis of "points." 
 Framed to deal with the haphazard con- 
 
 42
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 dition of things before the point system, 
 my plan had a value which would, I 
 think, have justified itself in practice, 
 but the conservatism of both the Boston 
 and St Louis foundries was such that 
 nothing came of it except the conviction 
 on my part that it was time for me to 
 try another field. Thinking that perhaps 
 one of the large English firms might be 
 susceptible to American ideas, I wrote 
 to the two leading type foundries of 
 London. The reply from the Gaslon 
 Type Foundry was novel and gave a 
 piece of good advice. "Whilst thanking 
 you for the offer of your services," it 
 ran, "we beg to say that, in our opinion, 
 it is better for a young man to remain 
 in a country where labour is, and is 
 likely to be for some time, at a pre- 
 mium, than to go to an old country 
 where labour is, and is likely to be for 
 some time, at a discount." 
 The immediate cause of my leaving 
 
 43
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 the Boston Type Foundry was a patent 
 hammer, one of the inventions of my 
 father. This particular hammer, which 
 I now undertook to manufacture, was 
 an improvement upon an earlier model 
 which had been put successfully on 
 the market some twelve years before. 
 This later attempt was less fortunate. 
 Technical difficulties arose, and in less 
 than a year the cost of production had 
 swallowed not only the profits from the 
 sales, but twelve hundred dollars of 
 borrowed money besides. Boston being 
 glutted already, I set out with a trunk 
 full of hammers for Chicago, but as my 
 arrival coincided with the annual stock- 
 taking of the hardware stores, I could 
 as easily have sold parasols to the Es- 
 quimaux. 
 
 Once more I fell back on my trade. 
 Turning up next morning at the print- 
 ing office where I had been employed 
 so many years before, I found the fore- 
 
 44
 
 Type Founding Before the Trust 
 
 man to be a fellow- workman of the days 
 of the profanity strike. With a brief 
 summary of my fortunes in the inter- 
 vening years, I told him that I wanted, 
 at once, three or four weeks' work. 
 
 "All right," he said. "Will you begin 
 now or to-morrow morning?" 
 
 I took off my coat. 
 
 45
 
 On the Road from Texas to 
 Maine 
 
 Chapter Four 
 
 HIS return to my old trade, 
 I determined should be but 
 a make-shift. During the 
 following week I therefore 
 wrote the chief type-foun- 
 ders of the West, applying 
 for a position as salesman. I told of 
 my work with the Boston Type Foundry, 
 and enclosed a copy of a letter given 
 me by Mr Rogers which contained a 
 sentence I felt sure would catch the 
 eye. This testimonial, as old-time in its 
 flavour as its author, ran: "I believe 
 that Mr Thayer's ability and honour- 
 able conduct entitle him to a more 
 prominent place in the business world." 
 From the St Louis Type Foundry came 
 
 46
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 a favourable response. They were in 
 need of a man to travel in Texas, 
 but naturally wished to see him in the 
 flesh before coming to terms. Disposing 
 of my hammers to one of the big hard- 
 ware stores which ten years later still 
 had them on sale I said good-bye to my 
 trade for the last time, and took train for 
 St Louis. 
 
 Face to face, the matter was soon 
 arranged. I was to cover Texas and 
 Arkansas, with expenses paid, at a 
 salary larger than I had previously 
 received. The prospect exhilarated me. 
 The eighteen-dollar-a-week mark was 
 finally passed; I could "roll" to my 
 heart's content. As the firm not only 
 manufactured type, machinery, and 
 other printers' supplies, but dealt 
 largely in paper, I spent a preliminary 
 fortnight wandering round the great es- 
 tablishment studying the latter business, 
 of which I knew little. By the end of 
 
 47
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 a week I had memorized the various 
 classifications and could with my eyes 
 shut tell the difference between machine- 
 sized and book paper, or No. 1 and 
 No. 2 news. Prices were high in those 
 days and the dailies paid six cents a 
 pound for paper which now costs less 
 than two. 
 
 My maiden trip was to last four 
 months, and the programme of the 
 first two weeks had been mapped out 
 in minute detail. Midsummer notwith- 
 standing, I was supposed in this space 
 of time to visit several places in Arkan- 
 sas, and then, crossing the Texas border, 
 make eighteen or twenty towns and 
 cities on the exact days specified in my 
 strenuous itinerary. I found it novel, 
 interesting and hot. Despite its name, 
 Hot Springs, Arkansas, proved cool, but 
 once in Texas I sighed for the sea 
 breezes and invigorating nights of the 
 East. I thought of the East, too, as I 
 
 48
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maiae 
 
 now ran squarely against the Colour 
 Line. One piping Sunday in New Bos- 
 ton, when the mercury had climbed to 
 105 in the shade of the hotel piazza, 
 where, book in hand, I waited for even- 
 ing, a negro approached, and halting at 
 a respectful distance, asked for a drink 
 of water. "Of course," I said. "Go 
 back to the rear of the house." But I 
 had scarcely taken up my book again 
 when "Get out of here, you black trash ! 
 There ain't no water here for such as 
 you ! " came explosively from the pro- 
 prietor's wife, and the negro shot by. 
 The poor wretch was out of sight be- 
 fore intercession was possible, and I 
 could only wonder what my abolition- 
 ist parents in the other Boston would 
 think of such a refusal on such a day. 
 
 It was perhaps unfair to judge Texas 
 by Eastern standards, however. Life 
 was still rough and chaotic there in 
 many localities. Texarkana, which, as 
 
 49 E
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 its name implies, owes allegiance to two 
 commonwealths, was the scene of nu- 
 merous shooting affrays and one of its 
 notorious saloons stood in Arkansas so 
 near the State line that a fugitive had 
 merely to cross the street to reach 
 Texas and absolute immunity till re- 
 quisition papers could be obtained. In 
 odd contrast, was the collapsed * * boom " 
 town, Denison, which, once boasting 
 twenty thousand souls, now reckoned 
 its population by hundreds. The story 
 of its decline is soon told: the railroad 
 had failed to come that way. The fac- 
 tories and fine residences were tumbling 
 to ruin ; the pavements were grass-grown 
 and treacherous ; the lamp-posts had a 
 Pisa Tower incline ; and the inhabitants, 
 neither rural nor urban, were, for lack 
 of a police force, compelled to take turns 
 in patrolling the silent streets. 
 
 The lot of a salesman in such a country 
 had little variety and less ease. I used no 
 
 50
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 Pullman cars. A few were in use on the 
 "Gannon-Ball" trains, but they were 
 not for me. When night overtook me on 
 the road, I curled up in the seats of an 
 ordinary day-coach with one valise for 
 a foot-rest, the other for a pillow. Tra- 
 velling thus, it will surprise no one that 
 my expenses averaged only two dollars 
 and a half a day. Once when I spent 
 nearly twice that amount I explained 
 my extravagance in the weekly report 
 sent to headquarters. Under the head- 
 ing " Remarks" I wrote: "The large 
 expense on this day was occasioned by 
 the fact that I left Waco at 4 a.m., saw 
 our customers in Temple and Belton, 
 and arrived at Georgetown the next 
 morning at three." Valuable experi- 
 ence came with the hardships, however; 
 my persistence developed, my knowledge 
 of human nature broadened. I bent 
 all my energy towards obtaining orders 
 from responsible firms, and the harder 
 
 51 E2
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 the nut to crack the more pleasure I 
 took in dragging it from its shell. In 
 Galveston, to give an illustration, the 
 principal publishers greeted me with 
 the statement that they made all their 
 purchases in New York and that I 
 could sell them nothing. Why should 
 they buy of me when the freight rate 
 direct to New York by steamer was 
 less than half that to St Louis by rail? 
 Nevertheless, when I left town two days 
 later, one of the best orders of my whole 
 trip stood in their name. 
 
 This showing so satisfied the firm 
 that they straightway packed me off 
 on another campaign. On this second 
 trip I added much to my knowledge of 
 selling goods; learned much also about 
 travelling salesmen, and made up my 
 mind, if I ever got back, that Texas 
 should see me no more. To bring the 
 company to agree with me was another 
 thing, as I recognized, perhaps a week 
 
 52
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 after my next return to St Louis, when 
 I was told to get my samples ready be- 
 cause the Old Man meaning the Presi- 
 dent, William Bright intended to start 
 me off again at once. Mr Bright, be 
 it said, was no ordinary man. An in- 
 defatigable worker, whose one defect 
 was a too close attention to detail, he 
 brought to the direction of this capacity 
 a mind fertile in ideas. Beyond ques- 
 tion he invented the card index system 
 for book-keepers. The ledger of our 
 entire business was kept on cards 
 arranged alphabetically in special tin 
 boxes patented by him, a rod and a 
 padlock securing each file in the man- 
 ner now widely known. Fortunately 
 for me, our personal relations were 
 of the pleasantest. Often his guest 
 at luncheon, and a frequent visitor at 
 his country house, I met an indulgent, 
 if astonished hearing, when without 
 mincing words, I announced that I had 
 
 53
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 decided to travel in Texas no more. 
 Asked for reasons, I furnished many, 
 but the heavy shot was this: "I intend 
 to marry some day," I said, "and I owe 
 it to my future wife whom I haven't 
 met not to become a confirmed travel- 
 ling man, unable to do anything else, and 
 saddled, perhaps, with bad habits." To 
 the head of a family as happy as it was 
 numerous, this domestic argument made 
 its prompt appeal and he inquired kindly 
 what I meant to do. I modestly suggested 
 that he permit me to try city trade, a 
 field in which we had no one, and the 
 novelty of the idea taking his fancy, a 
 city salesman I became. A year of such 
 service followed. Then, choosing an op- 
 portune time, I asked him if he did not 
 think I was entitled to a better salary. 
 He hesitated for a moment before he 
 answered. " Don't be in a hurry, boy," 
 he said, looking benevolently over his 
 glasses. "There's George, and Ernest 
 
 54
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 and Frank, who have grown up with 
 me. If I raise your salary, I feel that I 
 must raise theirs." I did not see the logic 
 of this reasoning, and soon after trans- 
 ferred my allegiance to a brass foundry. 
 
 This move proving as ill-judged as 
 my experiment with patent hammers, 
 I thereupon committed an even graver 
 error than leaving the type foundry: I 
 went back to it. The end of another 
 year found me still marking time. 
 
 It was a home letter, telling how much 
 I was needed by my parents in their old 
 age, which gave a final spur to my unrest, 
 and I began to cast about for ways and 
 means to return. Learning that with the 
 death of Mr Rogers, the old Boston Type 
 Foundry had passed into the control of 
 its former St Louis branch, I proposed 
 myself as a salesman for my former house. 
 A new specimen book of the combined 
 faces of both firms was just then under 
 consideration, and my offer to take this 
 
 55
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 over as well, clinched the matter and I 
 was engaged forthwith. My expenses 
 paid, not for the journey merely, but for 
 the cities I visited en route to see our 
 resident agents, I returned with flying 
 colours. That home-coming remains a 
 touching memory to me, for I then came 
 to appreciate the truth, which many learn 
 too late, that life's real joys lie in doing 
 for others. 
 
 My work on the specimen book forbade 
 continuous travel, and as I now mapped 
 my own route, ^followed no cast-iron 
 itinerary, and made few trips of more 
 than a week's length, I found my jour- 
 neys far pleasanter than in the South- 
 west. Hard as they had been, however, 
 the experiences of Texas and Arkansas 
 proved of value, and thanks to their 
 schooling I sold outfits and dresses to 
 many a crusty printer and publisher of 
 conservative New England. Nowhere, 
 east or west, had I known such an ob- 
 
 56
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 stinate case as I presently encountered 
 in that stronghold of odd characters, 
 Vermont. This opinionated citizen of 
 Burlington bore a reputation so difficult 
 that salesmen thought it a waste of time 
 to cross his threshold. Transferred to 
 the Dark Ages, he would have built up 
 a lurid reputation as an ogre. Undis- 
 mayed by these tales, I went early for 
 my first call, and finding the publisher 
 out as I had hoped mounted to the 
 composing room, and with the free- 
 masonry ot an old printer, soon had the 
 confidence of the foreman. His^equip- 
 ment was as bad as I expected, and as 
 he unburdened his troubles, I told him 
 that I meant to see his employer later, 
 and suggested that we draw up a memo- 
 randum of the type and material really 
 necessary to his work. As time sped on 
 the list grew, and finally, in the hope 
 that I might secure an order for a small 
 part of the things I had set down, I went 
 
 57
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 below. His mail finished, the Terror sat 
 barricaded by his desk, the cares of the 
 universe wrinkling his brow. A curt 
 nod acknowledged merely acknow- 
 ledged my existence, and his perusal 
 of a newspaper continued. Seating my- 
 self near, I waited for him to speak. 
 After fifteen minutes he swung sud- 
 denly round in his chair. 
 
 "What can I do for you? "he de- 
 manded peremptorily. 
 
 Tone and remark were alike familiar. 
 I had heard them too often to tremble. 
 Handing him my card, I said that it 
 being my duty to call on the leading 
 publishers of Burlington, I had come 
 to his office earlier in the day, and 
 finding him out, had visited his com- 
 posing room. As a practical printer, 
 I felt sure I could do something for 
 him. 
 
 "What is it?" he snapped. 
 
 I produced my list. 
 
 58
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 "Here are the things your foreman 
 thinks he needs." 
 
 He merely glanced at it. 
 
 "We don't need this," he blustered, 
 but prodded the push-button for the 
 foreman. 
 
 I was such an interested listener to the 
 dialogue which ensued that they with- 
 drew to finish it out of hearing. The list 
 came back cut in half, but the half was 
 mine. Over the hotel dinner that night 
 I made a present of my method to the 
 other salesmen. 
 
 It was at this period I heard of the 
 wonderful commissions given book 
 agents, and while I suspected that sell- 
 ing books must be hard indeed to secure 
 such terms from the publishers, I de- 
 cided to have a try at it during a two 
 weeks' vacation at Bar Harbour. My 
 book was an attractively illustrated 
 volume about that resort; the commis- 
 sion, equally attractive, was forty per 
 
 59
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 cent. I felt sure that if I could only get 
 at the people who lived in these impos- 
 ing homes, I should sell many copies, 
 but occupied, as the colony was, with 
 social affairs, personal interviews proved 
 impossible, and after two days of rebuffs 
 I fell back on the vain expedient of 
 sending the book with an inspired letter. 
 The real reason for my non-success was 
 the false pride which is the bane of the 
 immature. I did not want the fascinat- 
 ing young ladies of my hotel to think I 
 was a book agent ! One volume only 
 found a purchaser. The subscription 
 blank I sent to the publisher was a copy; 
 the original, which I still retain, bears 
 the signature of James G. Blaine. 
 
 But this was merely by the way. My 
 real work, in sufficient quantity, lay else- 
 where. In addition to the special services 
 I had contracted to perform I handled a 
 large amount of the firm's correspon- 
 dence, which, neglected by the mana- 
 
 60
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 ger, who held his place by virtue of 
 family ties, would frequently fall to me. 
 I did not resent this. Active and full of 
 energy, I even took pleasure in attack- 
 ing a mass of orders, telegrams and 
 letters a foot high, writing everything 
 by hand. Many a night I would go to the 
 office, work till two o'clock, drop in at 
 the old Boston Tavern for a few hours' 
 sleep, and then return early to my desk. 
 I learned much of business methods in 
 this way, but I could not lift my salary 
 above twenty-five dollars a week, though 
 I did piece out my income with expert 
 appraisals of publishers' and printers' fire 
 losses, which, though infrequent, brought 
 me from thirty to fifty dollars a day. 
 
 Matters stood thus, when, in 1891, there 
 came persistent rumours that the type 
 foundries of the country proposed to enter 
 a trust backed by English capital. This 
 was absorbing news for me. If the old 
 Boston Type Foundry were submerged, 
 
 61
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 what sort of life-preserver would I get? 
 I therefore wrote, without delay, to Mr 
 James A. St John, of St Louis, who 
 was the virtual head of our combined 
 houses, asking the truth about this report 
 and my own chances for an increased 
 salary. His reply was not reassuring. 
 Unfamiliar with the details or the results 
 of my work, he could promise no ad- 
 vancement till he had, sometime in the 
 vague future, paid a visit to Boston; as 
 for the trust, it looked to him as if it 
 would go through, in which case he 
 would no longer be identified with the 
 business. 
 
 Plainly it behoved me to seek pastures 
 new. Some months before I had tried to 
 enter a publishing house. The attempt 
 had failed, but the belief remained that 
 such a business held great possibilities for 
 a man of my practical knowledge, and I 
 was even now studying how best to ob- 
 tain recognition when I saw an advertise- 
 
 62
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 mentinthe "Boston Herald." It was not a 
 * ' want ad. , " so-called. Displayed in large 
 type and occupying three inches of promi- 
 nent space, it spoke to me as emphati- 
 cally as if it called me by name. 
 
 WANTED 
 A FIRST GLASS MAN 
 
 To take charge of the advertising 
 pages, make up and direct artistic 
 composition, etc. Must be familiar 
 with the whole range of advertising 
 business, and something of an ex- 
 pert at devising artistic display. 
 "The Ladies' Home Journal," 
 Boston Office, Temple Place. 
 
 I read and reread that advertisement as 
 a street car bore me to Cambridge, and 
 with every reading the conviction grew 
 that here at last was the field for which 
 all my varied experience had been a prepa- 
 ration. There would be many answers, of 
 course. How could I make my own effec- 
 
 63
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 tive? Galling at the Boston office of the 
 Journal, I learned that only written appli- 
 cations would be received, and that night 
 was devoted to the all-important letter. 
 This I next day supplemented by three 
 other letters written for me by promi- 
 nent Bostonians who knew my qualifica- 
 tions. One was from Mr Robert Luce, the 
 author and legislator; another from Mr 
 Potter, then publisher of "The New Eng- 
 land Magazine," who told of his satisfac- 
 tion with the type I had selected for him 
 without consultation ; while the third was 
 from my boyhood encourager and life- 
 long friend, Charles Walker, superinten- 
 dent of the Riverside Press. Taking care 
 to have my application type-written, I 
 thereupon despatched the whole array to 
 the local office of the publication and 
 awaited results. A few days later the 
 editor, coming to Boston, sent for me. My 
 application had been specially remarked, 
 and after making note thereon that I 
 
 64
 
 On the Road from Texas to Maine 
 
 would accept forty dollars a week, he said 
 that it would be considered. A silence of 
 some days ensued which I myself broke 
 by writing directly to the head of the com- 
 pany. This brought a response from the 
 publisher, who asked me to come and see 
 him in Philadelphia. I did not get the 
 forty dollars a week then but I did get 
 the position. 
 
 65
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 Chapter Five 
 
 ARRIVED in Philadelphia 
 
 early one Monday morning, 
 enthusiastically happy over 
 the prospect which lay be- 
 fore me. I remembered 
 the inspiring rise of that 
 other Boston printer who first trod these 
 streets in the early morning, eating a roll 
 as he came. With a purse better lined 
 than his I breakfasted at Green's, but 
 as I struck into Arch Street opposite 
 the office of my new employer, I paused 
 by the iron grating of the quiet church- 
 yard where Franklin lies, and with 
 bared head paid my silent tribute to his 
 memory. 
 
 The Philadelphia of 1892 seemed any- 
 thing but the "decaying place" he had 
 
 66
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 found it, and "The Ladies' Home Jour- 
 nal," though not the great publication it 
 is to-day, had already begun its extraordi- 
 nary march towards success. Some two 
 years before my coming, Mr Edward 
 W. Bok, a young man who had served 
 his literary apprenticeship with Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, had been entrusted with 
 its editorial direction. Widely heralded 
 as the youngest and highest paid editor 
 in America, he had no easy task before 
 him, but his ability was as remarkable 
 as his opportunity, and the magazine 
 sparkled with new life. Many novel 
 series of articles piqued the public inte- 
 rest: "Unknown Wives of Well-known 
 Men," "Unknown Husbands of Well- 
 known Women," and most effective of 
 all, a Famous Daughters number, to 
 which the children of Thackeray, Dick- 
 ens and other literary celebrities con- 
 tributed. 
 
 Meanwhile the Journal's typogra- 
 
 67 F2
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 phical appearance remained unchanged 
 until the publisher, Mr Cyrus H. K. 
 Curtis, one day conceived the plan, new 
 at that time, of issuing a periodical which 
 should be artistic from cover to cover. 
 This meant that he must not only use 
 better illustrations, but replace all the 
 black and heavy types, then used for 
 advertising, with the lighter styles just 
 coming into vogue. To carry out this 
 revolution was my task, and to me, 
 knowing little of advertising, it seemed 
 to present no great difficulty. But my 
 cheery optimism struck an immediate 
 snag in the simple fact that advertisers 
 prepared and electrotyped their own 
 announcements, and, having in many 
 cases used the same advertisement for 
 years, had come to reverence its crude 
 yet familiar features as the cause and 
 mascot of their prosperity. Yet here 
 we came with the impious proposal, 
 that if they wished to advertise with 
 
 68
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 us, the sacred fetish must change and 
 purify its face! 
 
 We had to make our own precedent 
 in this matter. One newspaper, the 
 "New York Herald," had laid down 
 arbitrary rules forbidding display type 
 altogether, and formed its larger letters 
 by combinations of the capitals of usual 
 reading size; but there was no instance 
 of such action on the part of a magazine 
 publisher, and our clients rebelled most 
 vigorously against the innovation. Ac- 
 customed to deal with publishers who 
 would accept any copy, they would fre- 
 quently hold back an advertisement till 
 the last moment in the hope that it 
 would slip into our pages unrevised, but, 
 intuitively sure of my employer's back- 
 ing, I tried the drastic remedy of leav- 
 ing these late-comers out. This, though 
 effective in some cases, had its financial 
 drawbacks, and I resorted to the gentle 
 expedient of a registered letter to all 
 
 69
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 advertisers, acquainting them with our 
 rules of display. To insure the better 
 printing of the magazine, I explained, all 
 advertisements must be reset in our own 
 type. We could use no electrotypes sent 
 us, but, if sufficient time were given, we 
 ourselves would be glad to submit proofs 
 for approval; otherwise advertising mat- 
 ter must undergo such modifications as 
 would permit its insertion under our 
 rules. Open war followed. Taking 
 the offensive themselves, they flatly re- 
 fused to pay for advertisements thus in- 
 serted. But they fought in an out-of-date 
 cause. A valuable medium, steadily grow- 
 ing in favour, the " Journal" could not be 
 ignored, and as its appearance improved, 
 their desire to make use of it strengthened. 
 Inevitably they came to our way of think- 
 ing, settled their unpaid bills and continued 
 with us on our own terms. 
 
 In this general house-cleaning, black 
 cuts naturally had to go. This reform 
 
 70
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 was, in its way, more difficult than the 
 change of type, because it often neces- 
 sitated a new engraving at our own ex- 
 pense ; but in this work, too, the sup- 
 port of my chief was sure. It is often 
 said of Mr Curtis that once he has the 
 right man in the right place, he gives 
 him full sway. Certainly, I could not 
 complain on this score. I was given suf- 
 ficient rope to make or hang myself. 
 Only once in all my typographical 
 changes did I consult him. A full-page 
 advertisement, the price of which was 
 three thousand dollars for the single 
 issue, had put me in a quandary. Arriving 
 just before we went to press, the proof 
 bore the warning : "Will not accept any 
 change in this advertisement," yet its 
 top line, "How to Feed the Baby" was 
 displayed in as flagrant disregard of our 
 new rules as big black type could make 
 it. To leave out a full page now was a 
 serious matter, for beyond the money 
 
 71
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 loss loomed the necessity for alteration 
 of the magazine's make-up. Hoping to 
 get permission to reset the line in lighter 
 type, or to "stipple" it, I set the long 
 distance telephone humming, but it was 
 a Boston client, and in the Massachu- 
 setts calendar that particular day stood 
 consecrated to Bunker Hill. Hanging 
 up the receiver, I decided to leave the 
 decision to headquarters, and taking 
 my way in some trepidation to Mr 
 Curtis, I showed him the proof. He 
 gave it a brief glance. 
 
 "Well, what about it?" 
 
 "It doesn't come within our rules of 
 display," I answered. 
 
 To my relief he did not ask me to 
 define them. 
 
 "You're the doctor," he said tersely, 
 and handed the proof back. 
 
 I felt that explanations were due, how- 
 ever, and pointed out that the page must 
 either go in as it was, or be left out alto- 
 
 72
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 gether and reading matter found to take 
 its place. Its money value being what it 
 was, I had hesitated to act without con- 
 sulting him. At this he turned in his 
 chair and delivered some axiomatic truths 
 about weak-kneed publishers who went 
 to the wall because they did not adhere 
 to their rates; gave out inflated circu- 
 lation statements ; formulated policies 
 and broke them ; and committed other 
 sins common at the time. But of the 
 page in hand, never a word ! 
 
 Our mail a few days afterward con- 
 tained a letter from the advertising 
 manager who had sent me the omitted 
 advertisement. One paragraph ran: "As 
 we have never been favoured with a 
 copy of your rules of display, would it 
 not be well to send us either a framed 
 or an unframed impression of these im- 
 pediments to business, to hang in our 
 outer office for our own reference, and 
 as an awful example to the many repre- 
 
 73
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 sentatives of other publications who call 
 upon us?" We retained this advertiser's 
 business notwithstanding. 
 
 Out of this endeavour to make our 
 pages attractive throughout grew a 
 policy which, as far as I personally was 
 concerned, came to wear the aspect of 
 a crusade. I had been with the Jour- 
 nal but a short time when there came a 
 six-time order for an advertisement of a 
 certain syrup of hypophosphites, set in a 
 black type which I saw must be changed 
 materially. To its subject matter I gave 
 no thought. Endorsed by physicians, it 
 had the earmarks of a first-class adver- 
 tisement, and as such had received Mr 
 Curtis' sanction. I knew little or nothing 
 about patent medicines myself, for in my 
 home they were never used, my father's 
 only cure-alls being tincture of rhubarb 
 and tincture of turpentine ; but after this 
 special remedy had paraded its claims 
 before my eyes for several issues I began 
 
 74
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 to investigate proprietary medicine as 
 a whole, and to perceive something of 
 the vast range of fraud and quackery 
 which lay behind its philanthropic mask. 
 Choosing an opportune time, I suggested 
 that it would be to our benefit to decline, 
 not only this particular advertisement, 
 but patent medicines of every kind. Mr 
 Curtis' assent was immediate and hearty. 
 He said my predecessor had failed to use 
 good judgment in this matter; that he 
 personally had no desire to accept such 
 advertising, and that he was glad I un- 
 derstood it. So began, modestly enough, 
 a course of action which was to have 
 consequences more far-reaching than I 
 dreamed. 
 
 While these problems were, one after 
 another, meeting solution, there sim- 
 mered in my mind a thought which I 
 hoped time might translate into some- 
 thing more substantial. It took its rise 
 from a letter which our Boston agent 
 
 75
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 addressed me perhaps a week after my 
 service with the Journal began. There 
 was nothing remarkable about the con- 
 tents of this letter, but its envelope gave 
 me the title "Advertising Manager." 
 What did it mean? Inexperienced as 
 I was in the details of the business with 
 which I was grappling, I had few leisure 
 moments, but whenever the chance came 
 I would fish this envelope out of a drawer 
 and recall a piece of advice given me 
 years before: "Put your ambition high, 
 and work up to it." For some time, 
 however, I would always slip the en- 
 velope back again with the reflection 
 that I had much to learn and must make 
 good my present footing before I bothered 
 my head with titles. The "department" 
 at the outset consisted of myself and a 
 desk, but my employer, hearing that I 
 often worked far into the night, presently 
 instructed me to hire a clerk to keep my 
 records. This spare time gained, I began 
 
 76
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 to study how to better myself. To im- 
 prove the typography of the Journal, 
 to make it up in first-class shape, and to 
 keep a record of the accounts were my 
 ostensible duties, but in thinking over 
 my experience as a salesman, I saw no 
 reason why, if I could sell types and 
 printing presses, I could not also dispose 
 of advertising, and so prove myself of 
 further value to the house. 
 
 I saw my chance in the Journal's back 
 cover. Full-page advertisements were 
 rare, even at this time of low prices, 
 and the back-cover page usually held 
 four announcements, though in dull 
 seasons even eight would sometimes 
 mar the space which I reasoned could 
 be more artistically and more profitably 
 devoted to one. My plan to utilize our 
 cover in this manner was quickened by 
 the fact that "The Youth's Companion," 
 with half a million circulation, was be- 
 ginning to insert full-page advertisements 
 
 77
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 prepared and sold by Mr Francis A. 
 Wilson, then the most successful pro- 
 moter of advertising of a truly national 
 scope. It was a novelty for a publication 
 to prepare advertisements for a customer, 
 but as advertising agents had already suf- 
 fered shocks at our hands, I could see no 
 harm in administering a few more, and 
 with the firm resolve to sell full pages to 
 some of our clientele, I began to scan our 
 order book for likely victims. 
 
 At that day advertisers would contract 
 for a definite period, with the privilege of 
 increased space at the same price, there- 
 by gaining an advantage over those less 
 prudent, if the rate in the meantime ad- 
 vanced. Selecting my man, provisioned 
 in this way, I spent several days analys- 
 ing his advertising, and then formulated 
 a full-page announcement which, I be- 
 lieve, struck straight at the heart of his 
 special needs. My complete plan in- 
 cluded a handsome wood engraving at 
 
 78
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 the top of the page, but wood engravings 
 meant money. At this pass I went to 
 Mr Bok, who had often complimented me 
 on my achievements, took him frankly 
 into my confidence, found him a willing 
 listener, and gained his consent to incur 
 the necessary expense. But for that bit of 
 encouragement from a fertile mind, ever 
 open to ideas from others, my advertising 
 career might perhaps have been nipped 
 in the bud. As it was, it bore fruit al- 
 most as soon as planted. Long before 
 this, of course, I had made my adver- 
 tiser's acquaintance by letter, and I had 
 now only to tell him that I meant shortly, 
 on a trip to Boston, to stop off, meet him 
 personally and show him an advertise- 
 ment I had prepared. I had chosen well 
 my customer, a future friend, and the 
 day I sold him my first full page remains 
 one of the happiest memories of my 
 business life. 
 
 My arrangement with the Journal 
 
 79
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 stipulated for an increase of salary at 
 the end of the third and sixth months, 
 but inasmuch as at the close of the 
 eighth month I had secured by per- 
 sonal solicitation nearly six thousand dol- 
 lars worth of advertising, I requested 
 that beginning with October my pay 
 be raised from forty to fifty dollars 
 a week. In the formal reply, the 
 Treasurer said, that while my services 
 were fully appreciated, they deemed my 
 application untimely and recommended 
 that any further requests for an 
 increase be deferred to the end ot 
 the year. But this disappointment 
 was soon forgotten. For years, with- 
 out any requests whatsoever, my re- 
 muneration continued to grow and on 
 the announcement of my forthcoming 
 marriage another unexpected increase in 
 salary came my way. Taught diplomacy 
 by this, I went gingerly about that other 
 project which had its inspiration in the 
 
 80
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 envelope still reposing out of sight in my 
 desk drawer. 
 
 There was a sound reason behind my 
 ambition to wear the title of the office I 
 filled in fact. Personality nowhere counts 
 more than in the advertising business, and 
 as my correspondence grew I saw the 
 need of emphasizing this factor. Feeling 
 sure, however, that any direct suggestion 
 on my part would come amiss, I arranged 
 a little coup d'etat. Planning a letter- 
 head for the exclusive use of the Adver- 
 tising Department, I had my own name 
 placed in one corner in very small type. 
 The Treasurer's name, on the contrary, 
 bulked quite as large as a treasurer's 
 should, and my modesty won his gratified 
 approval. But there remained Mr. 
 Curtis. Without his authority the en- 
 graved letter-head bearing my name was 
 waste paper. Delaying its use, there- 
 fore, I watched my opportunity, and in 
 the course of routine it came. Having a 
 
 81 G
 
 A Type Expert in Philadelphia 
 
 few days latter to confer with him on 
 an important matter, I submitted a letter 
 on the subject, which, as regards con- 
 tents, could not fail to meet his appro- 
 val. In heading, it was open to doubt, 
 for it was written on the new paper. 
 The letter, true to my expectation, 
 passed muster. The heading escaped com- 
 ment, but not notice. The following day, 
 he, in turn, showed me a letter, wherein 
 to my great satisfaction, he referred to 
 me as "my advertising manager." 
 
 Not long afterwards I ran across a 
 sailor-man, who, years before, had cap- 
 tained a relative's yacht in which I had 
 enjoyed many outings in Boston Har- 
 bour. On his asking what I was 
 doing, I rippled off: "Pm Advertising 
 Manager of 'The Ladies' Home Jour- 
 nal,' Philadelphia." 
 
 "I don't know what that means," he 
 said, his moon face wreathed in smiles, 
 "but it sounds good." 
 
 82
 
 Advertising Manager of 
 "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 Chapter Six 
 
 NY account of my own 
 activities as Advertising 
 Manager of "The Ladies' 
 Home Journal" should be 
 prefaced with a word 
 about the striking cam- 
 paign for a larger circulation set on 
 foot by Mr Curtis before I entered his 
 employ. No such project had been at- 
 tempted since the days of Robert Bonner. 
 The latter, so the story goes, took whole 
 pages of space in the " New York Herald," 
 and in small type duplicated, a thousand 
 times or more, the single line: "Are you 
 reading the new story in this week's * New 
 York Ledger ?" The cost was of course 
 great, and his friends thought him mad; 
 
 83 
 
 G2
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 but when the pastor of his church, a man 
 who never read an advertisement, called 
 to show him the error of his ways, Mr 
 Bonner had a clear vision of his ultimate 
 success. So it was with Cyrus Curtis. 
 The publishing world prophesied bank- 
 ruptcy, but he footed his extravagant 
 bills with a stout faith. Aiming at a 
 feminine clientele, one of his first and most 
 telling moves was to follow the advice of 
 his agents, N. W. Ayer & Son, and take 
 large space in "The Delineator, " which, 
 with a circulation of half a million 
 monthly even then, was spreading broad- 
 cast fashions to exploit its paper patterns. 
 This counsel was disinterested, for the 
 usual commission given advertising agents 
 was denied, but it would have been cheap 
 at any price. "The Delineator's" rates 
 were low, and six thousand dollars spent 
 in announcements, cleverly prepared and 
 exceptional in size and style, so beguiled 
 the women of the country, that Mr 
 
 84 

 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 Curtis, as sure as Bonner of his final 
 victory, straightway decided to disburse 
 a thousand dollars a day for a year. 
 
 The full benefits, naturally, did not 
 accrue at once, but the course of display 
 so lavishly begun was all the time making 
 for success, and work in plenty developed 
 for the department of which I now became 
 the responsible head. Continuing the plan 
 of preparing announcements for adver- 
 tisers I had used so successfully in selling 
 my first full page, I designed others with 
 such good results that Mr Curtis hit upon 
 the idea of establishing a "Service Bu- 
 reau," and engaged Miss Jennie Frazee 
 solely to write advertisements. A delight- 
 ful little woman who wrote as she talked, 
 she had won her spurs with the dry goods 
 house of Barr Brothers, of St Louis, where 
 her work attracted Mr Curtis by its origi- 
 nality. Her advertisements were aimed 
 at the average customer, not the literary 
 critic, and if one caught her up for a lapse 
 
 85
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 of grammar, she would reply, "Yes, but 
 that's the way the majority of people 
 would say it." Her coming necessitated 
 the services of an artist, and we accord- 
 ingly enlisted the aid of Miss Jessie Will- 
 cox Smith, now well known as an illus- 
 trator. Announcements written by Miss 
 Frazee and illustrated by Miss Smith 
 proved successful from the outset; and 
 when advertisers, who usually took 
 twenty-five or fifty lines, saw the work 
 of these clever collaborators, they would 
 double, triple and even quadruple their 
 space. Other artists were soon needed, 
 and our bureau was further strengthen- 
 ed by the work of Miss Violet Oakley 
 and Miss Elizabeth Shippen Green, who 
 also have since achieved marked distinc- 
 tion in the world of art. 
 
 At this time I entered my first and 
 only prize contest. Allcock's Porous 
 Plasters were my theme, and as they 
 had alleviated the penalty of too long 
 
 86
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 hours at my desk, I wrote in full 
 sympathy with the subject. In one in- 
 spired evening I produced a series which 
 brought me one hundred and fifty dol- 
 lars, the first prize. 
 
 Advertising was then placed mainly by 
 advertising agents, and one of them, Mr 
 J. Walter Thompson, of New York, find- 
 ing it impossible to obtain a special rate 
 in the Journal, not unusual for him in 
 other publications, now proposed, in con- 
 sideration of a five per cent discount, to 
 pay for all advertising in advance, a 
 cheque to accompany every order. As 
 Mr Curtis' expenditures were enormous, 
 this suggestion from a man who placed an 
 immense volume of advertising held ad- 
 vantages too great to neglect, and with 
 the understanding that other agents 
 should receive the same discount for such 
 payments, this radical departure from 
 custom was adopted. Soon after my 
 coming to the Advertising Department, 
 
 87
 
 Advertising Manager of " The Ladies' Home Journal " 
 
 we issued a new rate card, and announc- 
 ing this plan, added that we should deem 
 advance payments proof of an advertiser's 
 or agent's financial stability. The rigour 
 of this rule was later modified to allow 
 five days' grace from the date of the bill ; 
 failure to settle within that time, the post- 
 mark of the letter being admitted as evi- 
 dence, serving to deprive the tardy of 
 any discount whatever. To the manufac- 
 turers of dress goods and other feminine 
 wear the notion of paying for advertise- 
 ments nearly a month in advance seemed 
 revolutionary in the extreme. They gave 
 their customers from three to six months' 
 time, and dated their bills ahead at that ! 
 But the Journal was a powerful me- 
 dium, five per cent was five per cent 
 and they fell in line. 
 
 This scheme of payment made it neces- 
 sary to forward copies of the magazine to 
 advertisers, in advance of publication, 
 to the end that they might see their an- 
 
 88
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 nouncements before ordering the next 
 insertion. For a number of years, there- 
 fore, our advertising clients would receive 
 a complete copy three weeks ahead of 
 the reading public. But one day there 
 appeared in a Philadelphia daily, accre- 
 dited to a Chicago newspaper, a poem 
 by Eugene Field, which a too zealous 
 exchange editor had cribbed from some 
 advertiser's advance copy of the forth- 
 coming Journal. The press of a push- 
 button brought about an immediate con- 
 sultation with the justly indignant 
 editor, and I was asked, as soon as 
 might be, to devise some effective 
 check upon thefts of this nature. Half 
 an hour later, Mr Bok's face lit with 
 surprise and pleasure as I laid before him 
 a "dummy" which solved the problem. 
 It contained the cover, the advertise- 
 ments and the titles of the articles, but of 
 other matter not a stickful. In this form, 
 the reading part blank, it went out 
 
 89
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 thereafter and so continues to this 
 day. 
 
 Owing to definite agreements and other 
 causes, several of the patent medicines to 
 which I have already alluded, for some 
 time remained a thorn in my side, but, 
 hoping to be rid of them all by and by, I 
 had to content myself with making full- 
 page glorifications of Beecham's Pills, 
 Scott's Emulsion and Dr William's Pink 
 Pills for Pale People as inoffensive in 
 type and copy as I could. Guticura was 
 especially difficult to whip into present- 
 able shape, but I wrestled with it to such 
 good purpose that a full-page advertise- 
 ment of the soap ran monthly, yet with- 
 out affront to the eye, for nearly a year. 
 As Mr Curtis' publicity campaign brought 
 business from other sources, these pro- 
 blems, and in fact the whole body of 
 objectionable advertising from which they 
 sprang, gradually dropped out of sight. 
 The very first medium in the publishing 
 
 90
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 world which an advertiser put upon his 
 list, we could afford to pick and choose 
 and be as fastidious as we pleased. 
 
 Many fallacies were dispelled here, 
 many theories tested. One interesting 
 advertising fact we developed was 
 woman's undoubted influence over man. 
 A manufacturer of men's suspenders, 
 for example, thought it a waste of 
 money to advertise in a woman's maga- 
 zine. We proved him wrong. Follow- 
 ing up this idea, probably the first 
 political announcement aimed at men 
 through women, now appeared in our 
 publication. Paid for by the National 
 Republican Committee, it devoted a page 
 to an entertaining tale of a woman who 
 went abroad thinking she could buy su- 
 perior dress goods cheaper than at home. 
 Samples of fabrics were illustrated and 
 prices compared. High protection was 
 then rampant and the little tale reached 
 the inevitable climax that the fair travel- 
 
 91
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 ler returned to America without buying 
 anything. The advertisement was headed 
 "Where I Purchased After All." 
 
 Some numbers of a magazine, particu- 
 larly those of April and November, always 
 overflow with business, and as advertisers 
 are prone to wait till the last moment, I put 
 in practice another novel method. Two 
 days before we closed one of these issues, 
 my assistant handed me a memorandum to 
 the effect that if we received all the copy 
 for which we had orders and promises, 
 every inch of space would be filled. Need- 
 ing all the time I could get to arrange this 
 specially large amount of business, I ac- 
 cordingly wrote this telegram: 
 
 "Please do not send any more adver- 
 tising for the April number, as the space 
 is fully taken." 
 
 Showing this to Mr Curtis, I told him 
 that I meant to send copies of it to every 
 one of the forty odd advertising agents of 
 the country. Here, as always, lengthy 
 
 92
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 explanations were needless. Handing the 
 telegram back, he said: "Good idea. Send 
 them." Half an hour later, my assistant 
 came with a sad face to tell me that she 
 had made the mistake of counting a full- 
 page advertisement twice. Telling her to 
 be more careful in the future, I cheered 
 her up with the assurance that the mes- 
 sage would bring to us more than the four 
 columns we lacked. And so it proved. 
 Never does an advertiser long to use a 
 publication so much as when he is barred 
 out. These strategic telegrams of mine 
 roused much favourable comment in the 
 advertising world, but when similar mes- 
 sages left our office in the future the space 
 was actually taken. 
 
 While things fared so well in my depart- 
 ment, the western office, under the man- 
 agement of Mr Thomas Balmer, was such 
 an important factor that the advertising 
 from the West often more than equalled 
 the amount obtained in the East. To Mr 
 
 93
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 Balmcr, more than any one man, is due 
 the credit of lifting the advertising busi- 
 ness to the high plane it now occupies. 
 Bringing to his work a long experience 
 gained in other walks of life, he sug- 
 gested ideas which in some cases seemed 
 Napoleonic, but which we know as 
 standard policies to-day. Realizing that 
 a truly scientific advertising must base 
 itself on psychology, he set to work to 
 analyse business failures, and conclu- 
 sively proved, among other things, that 
 the advertiser who buys small space, 
 pays dearest. Again, scrupulous of the 
 ethics of his profession, he originated 
 the contract plan between agent and pub- 
 lisher which makes it obligatory for the 
 former to retain the publisher's full com- 
 mission and give rebates to no one. These 
 instances indicate the remarkable calibre 
 of the man, who, becoming the first west- 
 ern representative of an eastern publica- 
 tion, ever carried out the policies of his 
 
 94
 
 Advertising Manager of " The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 home office with unflinching loyalty and 
 a firm hand. 
 
 During my connection with "The 
 Ladies' Home Journal" I saw many 
 business managers come and go, and as I 
 wished to broaden my experience of pub- 
 lishing I took it into my head that, when 
 the next vacancy occurred, I would 
 make a bid for it. Presently the chance 
 came, and I told Mr Curtis that I be- 
 lieved I could fill the place acceptably. 
 He pointed out, as I felt sure he would, 
 that neither in salary nor rank was the 
 position as important as my own. Where- 
 upon I brought to light my carefully 
 devised plan of driving a double team, 
 or, in other words, acting as Business 
 Manager and Advertising Manager at 
 the same time, with an assistant in each 
 department. His rejoinder to this, ended 
 the interview. "It is not my policy," 
 he said, "to put two departments in the 
 hands of one man." 
 
 95
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 I should not have been my self, however, 
 had I not made that attempt. The aspira- 
 tion to get on which spurred me from office 
 to office as a union printer still persisted, 
 and, undiscouraged by this rebuff, only 
 bided its time. Casting my eye over the 
 magazine field I saw possibilities in the 
 " Atlantic Monthly." Printed at River- 
 side Press, it was the first magazine of 
 which I had any knowledge. A great 
 publishing house was behind it, with a list 
 of books by famous old-time authors as 
 well as newer favourites. As a business 
 proposition for the book end, the idea was 
 sound, if, as I planned, the magazine could 
 be increased from its small circulation of 
 less than 25,000 copies up into the hundred 
 thousands. To do this, the "Atlantic" 
 would have to be materially changed and 
 illustrated. On one of my trips to Gam- 
 bridge, I pointed out to my old friend, 
 Charles Walker, this striking opportunity, 
 and he, speaking of it to the publishers, 
 
 96
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 brought about an early interview. The 
 delightful gentleman who has been for so 
 many years the head of this old house was 
 interested, but to change the magazine in 
 any way never ! It was Boston. 
 
 As was generally the case wherever my 
 lines were cast, my next difference of opi- 
 nion with my employer hinged upon the 
 question of salary. Indeed, with the ex- 
 ception of Mr Curtis, I had never worked 
 for anybody who raised my pay as often 
 as I thought I deserved. I was not always 
 right in so thinking, for when I became an 
 employer myself, I learned that rapid pro- 
 motion may handicap a young man's use- 
 fulness. Be this as it may, I had these 
 notions about my services, which, until I 
 came to Philadelphia, no one seemed to 
 appreciate at their full value. Here, for 
 five years, increases came regularly. Then 
 I was forgotten, or at least it seemed so, 
 for one day the looked-for raise failed to 
 appear. Selling personally large quanti- 
 
 97 H
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 ties of advertising space in addition to 
 many full pages, I believed my work 
 should be better paid and resolved that, 
 if I could not persuade my employers to 
 agree with me, I would again get out into 
 the world of opportunities. Nothing de- 
 veloping at the next meeting of the Board 
 of Directors, I frankly petitioned Mr Cur- 
 tis for five thousand dollars a year. My 
 reasons were two; I felt I was worth it, and 
 I needed the money. To the latter argu- 
 ment he dryly replied, that whether I 
 needed the money or not was a personal 
 matter in which he had no interest. As 
 for the salary, he stated that so many 
 heads of departments had requested more 
 pay for their subordinates that the total 
 amount involved had decided him to de- 
 lay all increases for another year. 
 
 My disappointment must have been evi- 
 dent, for a few days later I was told that I 
 might go abroad at the company's expense 
 a suggestion I had often advanced and
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 that in the fall the salary I asked would be 
 mine. Supplied with ample funds and fol- 
 lowed by a bon voyage telegram from the 
 editor, I set out on my first transatlantic 
 trip. The outing broadened my point of 
 view, and put me in the way of meeting 
 many advertisers and advertising men 
 whose acquaintance later proved valu- 
 able assets. I now first came to know 
 the hospitable courtesies of Mr Thomas 
 H. Barratt, Managing Director of Pears' 
 Soap, whose remarkable offices and beau- 
 tiful home with its art collection, which 
 included Millais' " Bubbles" and Land- 
 seer's "Monarch of the Glen," I found 
 full of interest. 
 
 The fall saw me back at work and 
 my salary at the five-thousand-dollar 
 mark promised. Those were piping 
 times everywhere and the Journal rode 
 on the crest of the wave. Totalling a 
 quarter of a million dollars at my 
 coming, the business of my department 
 
 99 H2
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 now had a yearly volume of twice 
 that amount. It was the heyday of ad- 
 vertising, and the salaries of advertising 
 men were beginning to mount with the 
 profits. Repeatedly, I could have gone 
 to newspapers at a higher salary. Syste- 
 matized to the last detail, the Chicago 
 and the New York offices practically in- 
 dependent, my department ran with the 
 precision of a faultless machine. By 
 normal standards I should have been 
 content. But I was not. I had leisure 
 now for reflection, and reflection told me 
 an unwelcome truth. Lodged perma- 
 nently among the odd scraps of philo- 
 sophy by which I steered my course, was 
 a watchword given me by a well-disposed 
 friend early in my business life. ' * Don't 
 get into a rut, my boy," he warned. " If 
 you find you are in one, pull yourself out 
 quick." Was I not in a rut now? I had 
 been with the Journal six years a 
 long time for me to work for one em- 
 
 100
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 ployer. If I were not to become, as I 
 hoped, a vital part of this concern, would 
 not continued service unfit me to do 
 battle elsewhere? In the fiercely com- 
 petitive business world, I had watched 
 new men come, and old men go. A mere 
 employee, I too, some day, my maximum 
 usefulness past, might tread their melan- 
 choly way. 
 
 Speedily, and yet with deliberation, I 
 set down my thoughts in a letter to the 
 publisher, which I sent to a Boston friend 
 for revision. This friend, an advertising 
 agent well-acquainted with Mr Curtis, 
 had acquired the art of "smooth" writ- 
 ing. My own style is to call a spade a 
 spade, and not "an agricultural imple- 
 ment for removing the crust of the 
 earth," but I realized the importance of 
 this step and wanted the best advice pos- 
 sible. I received the advice, and my 
 chief the letter. I said that I was satis- 
 fied with my position and my salary, but 
 
 101
 
 Advertising Manager of " The Ladies' Home Journal " 
 
 in contemplating the future, as a young 
 man should, it seemed to me that "I 
 should be placed where others of my 
 class are: with such a stock interest, in 
 addition to a fair living salary, that I 
 could feel myself a part of the integral 
 whole, all working for a common end." 
 This, I suggested, could be arranged by 
 giving me an option on twenty thousand 
 dollars worth of the company's stock. 
 Mr Curtis' reply was not " smooth." 
 "There is no such quantity of stock 
 for sale," he stated, and as the flash 
 in his dark eyes met mine, I read 
 that my future was to him another 
 "personal" matter in which he had no 
 concern. I was as a spoke in a wheel; 
 a part of his great machine, and I had 
 failed to interest him beyond the day's 
 work. I did not take umbrage at this, 
 though to know it was worth while. 
 Men, who are not slaves, make of their 
 lives what they will. Before this brief 
 
 102
 
 Advertising Manager of "The Ladies' Home Journal" 
 
 interview ended, there flashed across my 
 mental vision other positions which I had 
 declined ; other possibilities in the world 
 yet untried. To my optimistic nature 
 change still meant progress. To take 
 one more roll, before the moss gathered, 
 was my determination. And I saw an- 
 other milestone near; another break in 
 the life-line of my business career. 
 
 Within a month I resigned, having 
 meanwhile secured a position as business 
 manager for Frank A. Munsey. I asked 
 no advice this time. Men of affairs, 
 seeking counsel of their fellows, desire 
 merely to have their plans approved. 
 Munsey was considered impossible. Other 
 men had gone to him and stayed but a 
 few weeks. All advice would be against 
 the experiment. Therefore, I sought 
 none. 
 
 Just before I left for New York, my 
 friends rich, well-to-do and poor gave 
 me a costly farewell dinner at the Belle- 
 
 103
 
 Advertising Manager of " The Ladies' Home Journal " 
 
 vue Hotel. I had never figured so pub- 
 licly as guest of honour, and, touched by 
 this tribute, I promised myself that I 
 would some day show my appreciation. 
 As the feast neared its close the chair- 
 man received and read this telegram: 
 
 "To be dined and wined upon entering 
 a town is one thing. To be dined and 
 wined by friends and business people 
 after six years of citizenship is quite 
 another thing. I wish I were with you 
 to-night to join in personal felicitations 
 to Mr Thayer. Frank A. Munsey. 
 
 104
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 Chapter Seven 
 
 RANK A. MUNSEY is 
 
 a brilliant man in more 
 ways than one. A real 
 genius seldom makes a 
 success of a business un- 
 dertaking, but a man who 
 is a genius in spots can be successful in 
 business. Munsey is a genius in spots. 
 During the financial panic of 1907 his 
 purchases of common steel were so large 
 that he made millions of dollars on the 
 rise in values, and those who followed 
 his advice at that time likewise profited, 
 as I have good reason to know. His career 
 as a publisher is a most interesting tale. 
 Braving New York with "a gripful of 
 manuscripts and about forty dollars in 
 cash" to use his own words he for years 
 
 105
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 faced what seemed almost sure failure. 
 Seeing plan after plan crumble, doing two 
 men's work by day, writing his own serials 
 at night, meeting changing business con- 
 ditions with fresh ideas, and, finally, a 
 hundred thousand dollars in debt, fighting 
 a single-handed battle with a great dis- 
 tributing monopoly which tried to shut 
 him from his public such was the rise of 
 the man who after a quarter of a century 
 found himself owner of several daily news- 
 papers and many monthly magazines. 
 
 It has been said by a rival that * ' Munsey 
 is not a magazine publisher, but a maga- 
 zine manufacturer." As it is a known fact 
 that the Frank A. Munsey Company's 
 annual profits exceed a million dollars, it 
 is clear that, as far as earnings go, he is 
 the most successful "manufacturer" in 
 the magazine world. Some men issue 
 magazines at a loss ; Munsey makes his to 
 sell. It was not a manufacturing pub- 
 lisher who drew the above distinction. 
 
 106
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 My first day with Mr Munsey stands 
 out in my mind as distinctly as the one, 
 when a boy, I was promoted to long pants. 
 I was told that first morning to attempt no 
 actual work, but to " breathe in the at- 
 mosphere of the place." This was a new 
 line of work for me, but I did my best. 
 My arrangement was for a year at a 
 salary of seventy-five hundred dollars; 
 our actual relationship lasted for a month 
 and a day. The story is best told in two 
 letters and a prophecy. 
 
 As a New Year's present, the following 
 letter was handed to me at the close of 
 day, December 31, 1897 : 
 
 " New York, December 31, 1897. 
 "My dear Mr Thayer, 
 
 "This week which ends to-night com- 
 pletes your fourth week with us. I have 
 been studying you I suppose about as 
 closely as I should expect you to study 
 a new man in your department. If I 
 
 107
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 were in your place and you in mine, I 
 should be glad to have a frank statement 
 from you of the impressions you had 
 formed of me. Feeling this way myself, 
 I naturally assume that you would like to 
 know what impressions I have formed of 
 you, and for this reason I write you this 
 letter. 
 
 "In a word, you are not the strong man 
 I expected you to be. You have shown 
 nothing of the versatility I expected to 
 find in you, nothing of the alertness of 
 temperament I expected to find in you. 
 You have brought no new ideas to the 
 house, no new ideas to the advertising 
 department. You have brought no busi- 
 ness, either directly or indirectly, to the 
 advertising department in the four weeks 
 you have been here not so much as a 
 line. You have shown no extraordinary 
 genius in your correspondence ; you have 
 written no advertising, have got up no 
 advertising. And in your handling of the 
 
 108
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 force you have not evidenced any re- 
 markable executive ability or even first- 
 rate diplomacy. 
 
 "When you complained yesterday that 
 I did not show sufficient confidence in you, 
 I replied that you had done nothing yet 
 to command my confidence. You an- 
 swered that it was three months before 
 you did anything at 'The Ladies' Home 
 Journal* [sic]. Be this as it may, I sub- 
 mit to you that there is a very wide dif- 
 ference between the young man direct 
 from a type foundry, with absolutely no 
 knowledge of the advertising business, and 
 no pretence of knowledge of the adver- 
 tising business, and on a nominal salary 
 between such a man and a giant in the 
 business, a full grown man, a fully 
 equipped man, a great big salaried man. 
 From the one I should not expect much, 
 from the other I have every right to 
 expect a great deal. 
 
 "Such answers as these on this point 
 
 109
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 show a lack on your part of a closely 
 reasoning mind, and no man can appeal 
 to me, can command my confidence in a 
 managerial position unless he shows well 
 thought out reasons for every act, every 
 move he makes, every statement he 
 makes. This is only one of the instances 
 that lead me to believe that you are not 
 a close reasoner. Moreover, your ten- 
 dency towards red tape, your tendency 
 to surround yourself with a halo of ex- 
 aggerated importance, your petty jealousy 
 when a man from the advertising depart- 
 ment comes to me, or I send to him to 
 come to me all this is extremely dis- 
 tasteful to me, and will not go for a 
 minute in this house. 
 
 "In the four weeks you have been 
 here you have hardly been out of your 
 office. I expected, as a matter of course, 
 that you would lose little time in putting 
 yourself in touch with the advertising 
 agents and with the army of advertising 
 
 110
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 solicitors employed by these agents, to 
 say nothing of bringing your personality 
 to bear upon the leading advertisers of 
 New York and New England. I made it 
 quite plain to you a few days ago that the 
 course you were pursuing did not appeal 
 to me as the wisest one, and I think you 
 announced to Mr Ridgway that hereafter 
 you would be in your office only a small 
 portion of the time, or. something to this 
 effect. But in discussing the matter yes- 
 terday or the day before you told me 
 that there were so many of our solicitors 
 in town that it was not wise for you to 
 go down and recover the ground. In a 
 word, if it is not wise for you to do this, 
 and if it is not wise for you to establish a 
 personality with all these men as the 
 representative head of the department, 
 then it is not wise for me to keep you 
 as the representative head of the depart- 
 ment. 
 
 "Now I will tell you, my dear Mr 
 
 111
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 Thayer, just where the great big mistake 
 has been, and there is no question in my 
 mind but that you have made a mistake 
 and that I have made a mistake. You 
 have over-estimated your capacity to do 
 for us and under-estimated our capacity 
 to do for ourselves. This is the mistake 
 you have made. The mistake I made 
 was engaging you on the great big repu- 
 tation you had, the glowing statements 
 of your friends, and the showing you 
 made for yourself in the several conver- 
 sations you had with me. 
 
 "Here is what Mr Barber said to me 
 in Boston one day last fall. 'There is a 
 possibility, Mr Munsey, that you can get 
 a great genius in the advertising business.' 
 'Yes,' I said, 'who is he?' 'Who is he,' 
 Mr Barber replied with a smile, 'why 
 there is but one man in the whole coun- 
 try.' After a good deal of fencing, and 
 the promise of strict secrecy on my part, 
 I learned that that one man was Mr 
 
 112
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 Thayer, of 'The Ladies' Home Jour- 
 nal,' and Mr Barber assured me that it 
 was Mr Thayer who had brought the 
 advertising department of 'The Ladies' 
 Home Journal' up to its matchless stan- 
 dard stood for the department, made 
 the department, was the department. 
 And Mr Barber added that, with 'The 
 Puritan' on my hands in addition to my 
 other publications, if I could have the 
 assistance of Mr Thayer, could have Mr 
 Thayer at the head of my advertising 
 department, I need have no further 
 thought of it, and that Mr Thayer would 
 make such a showing as we never could 
 hope to have without him. 
 
 "Well, all this impressed me tremen- 
 dously; it would have impressed most 
 men tremendously. Then, too, there 
 was Mr Clark's statement to the effect 
 that you were a wonderful business man, 
 a man of rare energy, an indefatigable 
 worker, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 113 I
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 "These are the causes that led to my 
 mistake, and I think I stated accurately 
 the causes that led to the mistake on 
 your part. You may not be ready to 
 grant even yet that your coming here 
 was a mistake, but from my point of 
 view there is absolutely no doubt about 
 its being a mistake at the salary at which 
 you came. No man, I do not care who 
 he is or what his line of work is, can 
 afford for a minute to allow himself to 
 accept a salary bigger than he is himself. 
 The minute he does this that minute he 
 is at a serious disadvantage. 
 
 "It is possible you might be worth this 
 much, or at all events a good handsome 
 salary, to a house that knows nothing 
 of the advertising business itself, to a 
 house having a moderate knowledge of 
 the publishing business, but here it is 
 different. Your mind has not covered a 
 wider range of thought than the com- 
 bined minds operating this business, and 
 
 114
 
 A Month end a Day with Munsey 
 
 your experience has been less rather 
 than greater than that of the combined 
 forces operating this business. This being 
 the fact you have brought nothing to the 
 business, no knowledge we did not al- 
 ready have, and as to your individual 
 capacity candour compels me to say that 
 we have with us half a dozen men whose 
 average salary is one-third of yours all 
 of whom are men who can make them- 
 selves of greater value to me than I 
 believe it possible for you to be. 
 
 "This is a straightforward, unbiased, 
 and as kindly a statement as I can make 
 of my impression of you at the end of the 
 four weeks with us. I regret exceedingly 
 that I cannot make you a report that 
 would be full of glowing praise, but it 
 cannot be done. 
 
 "With this statement before you you 
 will not be misled. You can bring your 
 reasoning powers to bear upon the prob- 
 lem, and together with me help to figure 
 
 115 12
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 out the wisest way we can both get out of 
 the mistake we have made. I regret the 
 mistake vastly more on your account 
 than I do on my own, and it is my pur- 
 pose to treat you in the most generous 
 possible way to do whatever I can for 
 you to help you in making other con- 
 nections or to help you in starting a 
 business of your own something, any- 
 thing that will be to your best interest 
 and to my least disadvantage. I can 
 better afford the loss than you can, and 
 I want to stand back of you to the greatest 
 degree possible in all rational consider- 
 ation. Between us we ought to be able to 
 devise some plan that would let you out 
 without injury to your reputation. The 
 sooner some move of this sort is made the 
 more I can afford to do for you and the 
 better it will be for you in every way. 
 Feeling as I do, you see how unwise it 
 would be for you to attempt to go on 
 seriously with the work. On the other 
 
 116
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 hand, it would be very unwise for you to 
 seem not to go on with the work as usual 
 until some definite plan is fixed upon be- 
 tween us. There is no reason why this 
 thing cannot be handled gracefully, 
 cleverly and satisfactorily to both you 
 and myself. It will depend very largely 
 upon your disposition in the matter, upon 
 whether you accept my view in the case 
 gracefully and reasonably or whether you 
 oppose it in a way to annoy me. 
 
 "Let me repeat that above all else, 
 above all personal consideration, I want 
 to help you to the greatest possible reason- 
 able degree in getting out of the mistake 
 we have jointly made. 
 
 "Let me say one word more. If you 
 prefer to stay here throughout the year, 
 and for which I agreed to pay you a 
 salary of seventy-five hundred dollars, 
 you may stay. I made a year's agree- 
 ment with you at this salary, and it shall 
 stand if you wish it to, but to my mind 
 
 117
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 it would be a most unwise thing for you 
 to do. 
 
 "Very truly yours, 
 (Signed) " Frank A. Munsey." 
 
 A Sunday and a holiday came with this 
 letter. Perhaps you can imagine the feel- 
 ings of a man, who, only a few weeks 
 before, in a position considered to be the 
 most prominent in its line in the country, 
 now, in his change for betterment, found 
 himself, at an inopportune time, and 
 under adverse conditions, cast out into 
 the "cold, gray world." 
 
 Notwithstanding this letter, I was not 
 crushed. The last paragraph, in which 
 Mr Munsey put into writing his agree- 
 ment with me, up to that time only verbal, 
 was an earnest of the honesty and fairness 
 of the man. 
 
 As an uninterrupted conversation with 
 Mr Munsey was quite impossible, I wrote 
 him the following letter: 
 
 118
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 "January 3, 1898. 
 "My dear Mr Munsey: 
 
 "I have your letter and I admire the 
 frank way in which you have put the 
 matter. I have naturally been studying 
 you very closely, but this letter tells me 
 more than a dozen interrupted interviews. 
 You are a wonder to me, and the more I 
 see of you the more I wonder and marvel 
 at the great success you have made and 
 are making. My study has developed the 
 fact that you reason closely but sometimes 
 often your quickness of perception is 
 colored changed altered entirely by 
 your emotional instincts. I realize that 
 you are slow to put confidence in any one, 
 but I say most emphatically right here at 
 the start that you engaged me for a defi- 
 nite purpose, and I should have your 
 confidence from the beginning and that 
 confidence should not grow less until I 
 made serious mistakes or exercised bad 
 judgement. I came to you on the record 
 
 119
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 I have made, and when you say I lack all 
 or any one of the business qualities that 
 go to make up a progressive business man 
 you accuse my former employers of lack- 
 ing business acumen and sense and imply 
 that my business friends men with whom 
 I have come into contact and know me for 
 the work I have done, know me for the 
 business I have taken from them person- 
 ally are blind, ignorant imbeciles. 
 
 * 'If you were manager of a railroad and 
 engaged an engineer you would tell him: 
 'There's the train; there's your assis- 
 tant; there's your schedule, go by it. I 
 want you to run that train and I'll look 
 to you for its safe arrival at its destina- 
 tion.' If, however, before the train started 
 you told the fireman that he could use 
 just two shovels full of coal an hour and 
 gave the conductor and train hands to 
 understand that you didn't want the pas- 
 sengers hurried, etc., you could not 
 expect results, until such time that you 
 
 120
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 decided that was not the way to run 
 a train. 
 
 "I have been in New York four weeks. 
 I have been put in a cage and you have 
 walked around and looked at me and said 
 to yourself, 'He's not doing any thing.' I 
 knew you were studying me, but baffled 
 at every turn in attempts to do anything, 
 I could do nothing but think of what was 
 needed to be done and of the results that 
 would come from such action. 
 
 "Taking up the advertising end of the 
 business: I do not over-estimate my 
 capacity to do for you in this line, for it 
 is run in the most expensive and unbusi- 
 nesslike manner, and the results are far 
 from what they should be. Advertise- 
 ments are inserted without any order; 
 conditional orders are accepted and the 
 conditions not complied with; advertise- 
 ments are charged at the wrong price and 
 charged to irresponsible agents, etc., etc. 
 the general idea everywhere being to 
 
 121
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 get through the day and take no thought 
 of the morrow. 
 
 * * My judgement tells me that we would 
 have just as much and more business if the 
 agents and their solicitors and the adver- 
 tisers were not seen so often. The 
 principal reason why advertisers use 
 your publications is because they have 
 value. This is the thing that should 
 be impressed upon advertisers by letter, 
 by circular, by an occasional personal 
 call. Where friendship secures one 
 order, merit, rate and circulation bring 
 twenty. Too much personal solicitation 
 is annoying to the advertiser and agent. 
 This personal plea of asking advertisers 
 and agents to send you advertisements to 
 put money in your pocket is a false theory 
 to work upon every prominent adver- 
 tiser and agent will tell you this. 
 
 "I believe that both Mr Barber and 
 Mr Clark gave you their honest opinion. 
 Mr Barber said in your words, 'If 
 
 122
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 Mr Thayer was at the head of your ad- 
 vertising department you would need to 
 have no thought of it.' He meant this, 
 and I am certain that he is right in the 
 matter, for I managed an advertising de- 
 partment with an income of nearly a 
 half million dollars and there is no rea- 
 son to think for one moment that when 
 I left that department, I also left my 
 brain, my sense and my judgement in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 "You didn't tell all that Mr Clark said. 
 When I told Mr Clark, after my resigna- 
 tion, that I had heard from you that he 
 had said good things of me, he told me 
 that you wouldn't tell me all he said. 
 This was to the effect that I would do for 
 you if I was given a chance if you would 
 let me do something. He also affirmed 
 that I couldn't do anything, for you 
 wouldn't let me. I went on to tell him 
 that I didn't believe anything of the kind. 
 I had been with two large concerns whose 
 
 123
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 owners wanted to run everything, but I 
 found that they were very willing to drop 
 part of their labour on my shoulders. 
 And when they discovered that I was a 
 man who could assume responsibility, 
 do things satisfactorily and bring results, 
 they were glad to have it so, for it made 
 their mind free for other and more im- 
 portant things. 
 
 "With you now, whether you believe 
 it or not, you are showing the strain of 
 overwork. You will feel this more as 
 time goes on, and you will have to drop it. 
 What better thing could you do right now 
 than to throw on me the advertising end 
 of the business? You doubt my ability? 
 If you have such doubts it is because your 
 overworked brain leads you to doubt 
 everyone. Your great business needs me 
 much more than I thought it did. There 
 is lots of work. Much time is wasted by 
 lack of a little system, expensive salaries 
 paid without proportionate results. 
 
 124
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 "The salary of seventy-five hundred 
 dollars that you are paying me is meagre, 
 compared with the results that I could 
 show at the end of the year. How 
 much money did you lose last year in 
 unpaid accounts? Do you know? You 
 are aware of the fact that good judge- 
 ment in this particular alone is worth 
 at least twenty-five per cent, of the 
 amount you lost last year. 
 
 "I should be false to my own honour, 
 my loyalty to you, if at this time I should 
 give up thoughts of making your success 
 much greater. In the years to come I 
 expect to see your great publishing house 
 the first in the land, its fame world-wide. 
 I anticipate a success that will far surpass 
 that of Sir George Newnes. At that 
 time I will be glad to stand by your side 
 as one of the faithful lieutenants who has 
 done his part to bring this about. 
 
 "Look around at the men who have 
 overworked their brain the result is 
 
 125
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 always the same. You may have more 
 power than any of them, and I believe 
 that you have. There is a limit, how- 
 ever, to all power, all endurance. You 
 will admit that Sir George Newnes has 
 made a wonderful success. Take him 
 for an example: how has he done it? By 
 looking after every department of his 
 business? No, indeed. His advertising 
 manager told me in London that when 
 Sir George wanted to see him he gave 
 him twenty-four hours' notice ; when he 
 wanted to see Sir George he gave a 
 week's notice and the appointment was 
 made. This could be called 'red tape'; 
 it is carrying things too far. 
 
 "I know that I can manage the adver- 
 tising end of your business, perform all 
 the functions of the business management 
 to your entire satisfaction, but not, how- 
 ever, unless you believe in me, in my 
 worth, in my ability, in my judgement. 
 
 " It is a necessity for you to have loyal 
 
 126
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 lieutenants who understand business me- 
 thods. Your business has grown so fast 
 that you did not have time to educate 
 young men. You have engaged me as a 
 man who knows, without further educa- 
 tion or training. There is lots to learn 
 in your great big business. I am yet a 
 young man; Fm pliable and can change 
 ways to meet the situation. You need 
 the benefit of my education, my training, 
 and my year's service will prove this to 
 be true, and the * bright and brilliant* 
 men who think I have made a mistake in 
 coming to you will hold a different 
 opinion of the matter will have a dif- 
 ferent opinion of the great personality 
 whom I now hail * Chief.' 
 "Faithfully 
 (Signed) ' ' John Adam Thayer. " 
 
 But my reply did not change the state 
 of affairs. Mr Munsey rejoined that he 
 had given thirty days' long, deep, earnest 
 
 127
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 thought to the problem before he wrote 
 me. "Were you in fact a man of all the 
 strength that your reputation gave you, 
 with my estimate of your ability, you 
 would be so seriously handicapped that 
 it would be impossible now for you to 
 work out the problem here for which 
 you came." 
 
 A few days after the passing of the 
 letters I sat in Mr Munsey's office, which 
 was then on the eleventh storey of the 
 Constable Building, looking down on Fifth 
 Avenue. It was raining. The flicker- 
 ing lights below, the hurrying cabs and 
 people all told of the end of another 
 business day. It was the end, too, of 
 my term with Munsey, a milestone on 
 the road of my career. After a long- 
 continued conversation we had reached 
 a settlement. I was to give my resigna- 
 tion and receive a cheque for twenty- 
 five hundred dollars, and, that I might 
 go abroad, an order for one page of 
 
 128
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 space in " Munsey 's Magazine," worth 
 five hundred dollars, and good for the 
 advertisement of any steamship line. 
 This was in addition to the salary I 
 had drawn weekly. Financially, the 
 settlement was satisfactory, but I was 
 keenly disappointed to lose the year's 
 service and its consequent experience. 
 Mr Munsey believes himself to be a 
 close reasoner, and this, probably, was 
 the cause of his insisting, in defence 
 of his arbitrary action : ' ' Thayer, I say 
 again that I will do anything I can to 
 help you. I hope you believe that I 
 have treated you fairly. But I must 
 re-affirm to you that you are not the 
 strong man your friends represented 
 you to be." I started to interrupt him, 
 but he continued, "Five years from 
 now will prove it, whether you believe 
 it at this time or not." 
 
 If you were a scratch golf player, and 
 someone to belittle your knowledge of 
 
 129 K
 
 A Month and a Day with Munsey 
 
 the game, said that you and Colonel 
 Bogey were eighteen holes apart, would 
 you not feel indignant ? 
 
 I was indignant. I jumped to my feet, 
 raised the forefinger of my right hand 
 and looked him squarely in the face. 
 Then, with the emphasis an energetic 
 advertising man often uses to clinch an 
 important deal, I told him that he had 
 given me no opportunity to do anything 
 for him ; that he was absolutely mistaken 
 in his estimate of me. I closed the inter- 
 view by assuring him, and the words 
 came deliberately, that it would not take 
 five years to prove him wrong. Handi- 
 capped though I might be by his action 
 in forcing me out without a chance to 
 show my ability, I would do it in less time. 
 
 130
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 Chapter Eight 
 
 UT I did not go abroad. 
 Indeed, I still have among 
 my assets the order for a 
 page of space in "Munsey's 
 Magazine"; I toured New 
 York's publishing houses 
 instead, looking for another position. 
 It was not a cheering experience. For 
 gossip, no village sewing circle can sur- 
 pass the advertising fraternity of the 
 American metropolis. A story will il- 
 lustrate its possibilities. Two well-known 
 advertising men agreed to say to the first 
 magazine solicitor they met, "Have you 
 heard that Mixon is to make a change?" 
 Upon a reply in the negative, they were 
 to add, "Well, if you haven't heard of it, 
 don't say anything about it." Each, it 
 
 131 
 
 K2
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 was understood, was to speak to but one 
 person. Now Mixon held an enviable 
 position. He had been for years the 
 advertising manager of one of the big 
 magazines, enjoyed a very handsome 
 salary, and entertained no thought what- 
 ever of leaving so snug a berth. Sud- 
 denly he found his peace troubled. Forty- 
 eight hours after the jokers dropped their 
 seed on Broadway, it bore fruit in Chicago 
 in the breast of a man who wanted to 
 succeed Mixon and wired to bespeak his 
 influence. This was but a foretaste. The 
 next few days showered him with con- 
 gratulations, and his bewildered firm with 
 inquiries and applications for the position 
 he was to vacate. There was nothing 
 vague or half-way about these statements. 
 They had a ring of downright fact which 
 his employers thought demanded expla- 
 nation. In the upshot, the victim even 
 felt it necessary to announce in "Printer's 
 Ink," an advertising journal, that the 
 
 132
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 rumours were absolutely without founda- 
 tion. 
 
 Such conditions are more amusing to 
 hear about than to confront, but, facing 
 the gossip myself, I took a Mark Tapley 
 pride in being jolly under depressing cir- 
 cumstances. I could put up well enough 
 with the sorry-for-you tone of voice and 
 the I-could-have-told-you-so friend, but 
 it was less easy to learn that some people 
 thought the great woman's magazine had 
 made me, and that without it as a prop 
 I was down and out. I had known men 
 to leave good positions only to find them- 
 selves worse off. But I would not admit 
 that such was my case. In a dark mo- 
 ment, however, the thought did come to 
 me that Mr Munsey might be right in his 
 estimate, and it startled me to such an 
 extent that I put my head in my hands, 
 as I had done many times before when 
 the occasion was less serious, and fought 
 the issue squarely to a finish. Reviewing 
 
 133
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 the long struggle I had made, I could 
 come to but one conclusion: I had been 
 dumped out on my life's journey by an 
 accident. I had misjudged not myself, 
 but my vehicle. 
 
 While I cast about for exactly the best 
 opening, I deemed it best to "get out of 
 the wet," as the saying goes, and my 
 umbrella took a form I had little antici- 
 pated. My calls on the publishers and 
 advertising men had been fruitless. 
 My Munsey salary, which was known, 
 seemed to stand as a bar, and no offers 
 were forthcoming. In the vast quantity 
 of information I collected in these 
 rounds, however, I came across the ser- 
 viceable hint that "The Boston Journal," 
 a daily newspaper, needed an advertising 
 manager. I cannot say I was tempted. 
 Indeed, when I recalled my first news- 
 paper experience, it took courage to face 
 the prospect at all. While I was in Phila- 
 delphia, as I have mentioned, I had 
 
 134
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 several opportunities to become adver- 
 tising manager for dailies, but I did not 
 look favourably on such work. That 
 they appeared daily was one great draw- 
 back. Another, more vital, was the fact 
 that they then thought nothing of run- 
 ning all sorts of patent medicine and ob- 
 jectionable advertising. 
 
 But a newspaper was better than stag- 
 nation, so off went a type-written letter 
 to Stephen O'Meara, who was the 
 "Journal's" publisher. In applying for 
 the position I pointed out that there 
 were some things, as yet untried by 
 dailies, which could be pushed to success 
 with a strong conservative paper such as 
 his own. The advertisements could be 
 set in a manner new to Boston; they 
 could be written more effectively ; they 
 could be illustrated artistically all with 
 the aim of attracting the large dry goods 
 houses, which, unlike Wanamaker's and 
 the great firms of other cities, neglected 
 
 135
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 to make adequate use of publicity. This 
 letter appealed to Mr O'Meara, as did 
 my reply, when, at a later conference, 
 he broached the question of pay. I said 
 frankly that I did not wish a big salary 
 just enough to live on would do; but 
 what I did want was a percentage of the 
 increased business which I would bring 
 to his paper. This suited him precisely, 
 and I once more took up life in my old 
 home. 
 
 Naturally, I brought a fresh pair of 
 eyes to bear upon my birthplace. Boston, 
 as one of her noted sons has said, is un- 
 like other great American cities. "Some 
 of her institutions, through antiquity or 
 association, have acquired a positive 
 sanctity. Pedigree is important. The 
 average inhabitant spends much of his 
 time watching the grandson of his neigh- 
 bour's father to see the old man's charac- 
 teristics crop out in him. The boy's 
 failures will be remembered against his 
 
 136
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 own offspring fifty years hence. It is a 
 city of long memories and traditions." 
 I now met this dead weight of the past at 
 every turn. With "The Ladies' Home 
 Journal" I had dealt with large adver- 
 tisers, and I expected to reach a similar 
 clientele here. But the pillars of Boston 
 commerce were another race of beings 
 altogether. As regards advertising, the 
 great majority of dry goods merchants 
 still dwelt in the Middle Ages. They 
 put in a new elevator occasionally ; they 
 now and then enlarged their stores ; but, 
 prosperous by Boston standards, they 
 saw no reason why they should change 
 their outworn methods of advertising. 
 Entrenched behind their Chinese Wall 
 of indifference, I found them as difficult 
 to get at as the residents of Bar Harbour, 
 who, in my one experience as a book 
 agent, would neither see me nor the 
 volume I had to sell. 
 
 Finally, I drove an entering wedge with 
 
 137
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 the house of Shepard, Norwell and Com- 
 pany. Mr Edward E. Cole, the junior 
 partner, a man of keen business calibre 
 and old-school amiability, became in- 
 terested in my ideas, and told me he 
 had planned a similar innovation some 
 time before with Mr Loring F. Deland, 
 whose advertisements, though simple, 
 were remarkably effective. Mr Cole 
 ordered a half-page advertisement to 
 appear weekly for six months. I was 
 not only to advise and suggest, but 
 write and illustrate the items in any man- 
 ner I saw fit. In pursuance of this plan I 
 would even take hats and garments of 
 various sorts from the store for an artist 
 to sketch before I wrote my own copy. 
 With this beginning, one would think, as 
 I thought, that other firms would prove 
 easily accessible, but such was not the 
 case. Often the heads of houses refused 
 to see me at all, and the one chance I had 
 of talking to perhaps the most prominent 
 
 138
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 of them, was obtained by standing guard 
 till he issued from his private office. I ap- 
 proached him, stopped when he stopped, 
 walked on when he walked, and so, fol- 
 lowing him round his great establishment 
 as he made a journey to a distant depart- 
 ment, I put my argument as best I could. 
 He would hardly listen and kept referring 
 me to his advertising manager, a man with- 
 out power, on whom I had already wasted 
 many hours. Knowing that his prejudice 
 against my paper had its source in an of- 
 fensive news item, I pointed out that 
 years had elapsed since it appeared ; that 
 the "Journal" was under entirely new 
 management, and, a stronger medium in 
 every way, would bring him sure re- 
 turns for his advertising if he would only 
 try it. It was no use. This was Boston 
 of the long memory. He could not, even 
 for profit, forgive the paper which long 
 ago exploited the news that his son had 
 married a shop-girl. 
 
 139
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 But I had been in similar predicaments 
 and had no doubt of the outcome. I re- 
 membered an amended proverb quoted 
 by a former employer: "All things come 
 round to him who will but wait" if he 
 hustles while he waits. My task was to 
 build up such a medium as would compel 
 people to advertise. I had already abol- 
 ished the black, inartistic type used by 
 other Boston dailies for headings and ad- 
 vertisements, and the new faces wrought 
 a great improvement in our typographical 
 appearance. But I realized that some- 
 thing more unusual than this must be 
 done to acquaint advertisers with the fact 
 that the " Journal" had taken on a new 
 lease of life and energy. It has fallen to 
 me more than once in my experience to 
 hit on ideas in advance of the times, and 
 the proposition it now occurred to me to 
 employ was one which later became very 
 popular, and, under the name of Sunday 
 Supplement, is a feature of many 
 
 140
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 newspapers in America. I suggested 
 to Mr O'Meara that he reduce the 
 " Sunday Journal" to half its size, and, 
 using a larger type and better paper, 
 make it in effect a weekly magazine, 
 with the news of the world thrown in 
 for good measure. He began to smile, 
 as I continued, and took from a drawer 
 of his desk a showing of half the Sunday 
 issue in the form I advocated. He was 
 pleased that he had anticipated my sug- 
 gestion by a year or more, and as this 
 made my own way easier, I was no less 
 glad. Few men of ideas get anywhere 
 in this world unless they harness power 
 to their originality. The valuable idea 
 is the idea which in the expres- 
 sive slang of the day delivers the 
 goods. 
 
 So it was, that barring the news 
 section, the Sunday paper was halved 
 in size and doubled in quantity of pages. 
 The type and paper did not conform 
 
 141
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 to my plan, but we had taken the step, 
 which was the main thing. Following 
 up the campaign, I urged Mr O'Meara 
 to publish daily the figures of our 
 growing circulation. To this he demur- 
 red, saying that we would suffer by 
 comparison with the grossly overstated 
 statement of the "Boston Herald." But 
 just here seemed to me our opportunity. 
 His knowledge of the "Herald's" real 
 standing being exact, I persuaded him to 
 offer to give a thousand dollars or so to 
 some hospital if our rival could prove to 
 a selected committee of advertisers that 
 its circulation came within fifty thousand 
 of its printed claims. This appealed to 
 him, and we were soon in the thick of 
 a circulation war with the battery all 
 on our side. The breastworks of the 
 enemy were soon levelled by the pungent 
 editorials for which Stephen O'Meara 
 was noted, and not long afterward, with 
 a change of management, the colours 
 
 142
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 fell, too, and the circulation figures were 
 withdrawn. 
 
 This controversy and the change in 
 size proved most effective. Circulation 
 increased and orders for advertising so 
 multiplied that one Sunday, in addition to 
 many columns of smaller advertisements, 
 I marshalled eleven full-page announce- 
 ments of local houses. As the receipts 
 naturally showed a healthy growth of 
 several thousand dollars each week, I 
 deemed the time ripe to ask my chief to 
 put our scheme through in its entirety. 
 But Boston conservatism once more 
 blocked the march of progress. He was 
 gratified with my work, but stronger than 
 his ambition to see the " Journal" use 
 better paper, larger type and modern 
 illustrations, was his wish to repay his 
 friends some of the money they had 
 advanced him to secure control of the 
 property. My argument that they 
 were wealthy, had no need of the 
 
 143
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 money, and would beyond doubt approve 
 of the change was of no avail. He 
 agreed in theory, but balked at practice. 
 In two other things I met disappoint- 
 ment. I wanted to see advertisements 
 take their proper place at the bottom of 
 the page, instead of alongside reading 
 matter at the top in the clumsy fashion 
 to which Boston still clung; and I longed 
 for authority to turn all objectionable 
 advertisements from the door. But these 
 policies involved decreased receipts for an 
 indefinite period, and decreased receipts, 
 though they meant an up-to-date publica- 
 tion, were unpopular in the counting-room. 
 I made the best of the situation, hoping 
 presently to see a loophole for further 
 reform, but the future, instead of accom- 
 modating me, produced the Spanish War. 
 This event, while not materially affecting 
 Boston, made a vast difference in the plans 
 of general advertisers, and with the can- 
 cellation of orders of this class, I found 
 
 144
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 that my successful local work merely 
 stopped the gap of a deficit. After the 
 battle of Santiago, the general advertising 
 returned, and this, coupled with my local 
 business, plainly indicated, that if I could 
 renew my contract on the same terms, my 
 second year would net me a handsome 
 income. When the matter came up for 
 discussion, however, I was again made to 
 realize that I dwelt in the city of sancti- 
 fied traditions. I was told that for the 
 year to come I must be limited to 
 seventy-five hundred dollars, which was 
 "a good salary for Boston." This final 
 example of conservatism so disgusted 
 me that I resigned on the spot. 
 
 A half hour in my own office, with my 
 head in my hands, altered my point of 
 view. I again went upstairs and with a 
 smiling countenance said I had thought 
 the matter over, and concluded that, 
 after months of hard work, day and 
 night, I was tired out. If he approved, 
 
 145 L
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 I would withdraw my resignation and 
 take a vacation. Mr O'Meara readily 
 assented, as I felt sure he would, and I 
 went to Cuba. 
 
 Vacations have properly slight rele- 
 vance to this story of a business career, 
 but as on this particular outing I for once 
 saw history in the making, it, perhaps, 
 deserves a digression. Arriving in Ha- 
 vana the afternoon of December 31, 1898, 
 the day before Spain surrendered the 
 island, I presented to Major General 
 Ludlow a letter of introduction from the 
 son of one of his close friends, and asked 
 for a pass which would enable Mrs Thayer 
 and myself to see the next day's ceremo- 
 nies at the palace. He referred me to his 
 Adjutant-General, who was with him at 
 the time, and the pass was presently forth- 
 coming. I was unaware that President 
 McKinley, out of consideration for Spain, 
 had cabled instructions that the cere- 
 monies should not be public, only the 
 
 146
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 militia and two Press representatives to 
 be witnesses ; and in the same ignorance I 
 set out the following day for the palace. 
 American troops guarded the building, but 
 the general's pass took us by without de- 
 lay in the wake of a group of gentlemen 
 in evening dress. Following their lead, 
 we entered, by mistake, a side entrance 
 of the palace, and to our surprise found 
 ourselves in the private apartments of 
 Governor-General Gastellanos. Knowing 
 no Spanish, I could only extend my pass 
 to his secretary, but the card worked its 
 immediate magic, and amidst bows from 
 the assembled suite, which made our way 
 seem like a royal progress, we were 
 ushered to the throne room. This great 
 chamber we found tenanted only by our- 
 selves, but as we glanced from its immense 
 windows into the plaza we saw on a near 
 building a group of Americans, among 
 whom we identified the wives of generals, 
 senators and other notables who chanced 
 
 147 L2
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 at that time to be in Cuba. Believing now 
 that a mistake had certainly been made, 
 I displayed my pass to a gentleman in a 
 wonderful uniform and was assured in 
 musical Spanish, of which I understood 
 not a syllable, supplemented by gestures 
 as plain as English print, that our location 
 for the ceremonies was absolutely perfect. 
 So it proved. I looked at my watch. It 
 was five minutes to twelve. At that in- 
 stant rose the solemn strains of the Spanish 
 anthem. As it ceased there was a mo- 
 ment's silence. Then up through the case- 
 ments came the Star Spangled Banner, 
 and the procession, which had formed be- 
 low, wound its way through the great 
 portal and up into the room where we 
 were. Major-General Brooke, and the 
 officers under his command, their dress 
 uniforms and yellow sashes a bright note 
 of colour, entered first; then came the 
 swarthy Cuban leaders, their uniforms 
 less splendid, but their dignity beyond 
 
 148
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 question; and, last of all, General Castel- 
 lanos and his staff. The scene was too 
 painful to prolong. A moment of forma- 
 lities and it was over, and the defeated 
 said farewell. It was an ordeal for a man 
 of Castellanos' temperament. Tears came 
 to his eyes. "I have been in many bat- 
 tles, " he faltered, * * many trying situations, 
 but never in a position like this." Then, as 
 we watched, the little handful of Spanish 
 troops, headed only by fife and drum, set 
 their faces towards Spain. The drama 
 which began with Columbus was finished. 
 Returning to my desk, I took up work 
 again with my old-time energy, but hav- 
 ing by now gauged the possibilities of 
 Boston, I worked with an eye open for 
 another position elsewhere. It was not 
 long in appearing. Just at this time Mr 
 George W. Wilder obtained control of 
 the Butterick Publishing Company, a 
 million dollar concern in New York, 
 manufacturing paper dress patterns and 
 
 149
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 publishing a monthly periodical called 
 "The Delineator." This great enterprise, 
 of which his father had been the brains, 
 had through mismanagement fallen into 
 a bad way, but by hard work Mr Wilder 
 and his brothers finally purchased the 
 stock interest of Ebenezer Butterick and 
 secured the direction of its destinies. 
 Casting about for an advertising man, he 
 consulted the advertising manager of the 
 American Tobacco Company, who, at 
 Mr Wilder's suggestion, wrote to ask if 
 I would entertain an offer. He was, he 
 remarked, looking not for the most bril- 
 liant man in the business, but an honest 
 one; a requirement that shed a certain 
 light on the task with which that man 
 would have to cope. A few days after- 
 wards I went to New York and a brief 
 interview settled my engagement. Our 
 plans we threshed out a week later at 
 Mr Wilder's country home, Cheshire 
 Place, in the New Hampshire hills, 
 
 150
 
 A Year with a Newspaper 
 
 where I pointed out to him the great 
 possibilities I saw in "The Delineator," 
 and showed him the first real rate-card 
 which that sadly bungled periodical was 
 to possess. 
 
 151
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 Chapter Nine 
 
 EORGE WARREN 
 WILDER, the real head of 
 the Butterick Company, 
 has a sense of humour. 
 Returning from lunch with 
 him and some of the staff 
 one day soon after I became his adver- 
 tising manager, I was escorted to a pair 
 of Fairbanks' scales in the shipping 
 department. With solemn mien my new 
 chief indicated that my weight was to 
 be taken, and after prolonged adjust- 
 ments of the various digits, it was as 
 gravely announced that I tipped the beam 
 at one hundred and eighty-eight pounds. 
 Whereupon, leaving the other witnesses 
 of this rite behind, he took my arm, led 
 me by devious ways to an obscure, seldom- 
 
 152
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 used office, and carefully closing the door, 
 turned the key. 
 
 "You have been here long enough," 
 he said, his face all seriousness, "to know 
 that the advertising department of 'The 
 Delineator* has been grossly mismanaged. 
 We have had no fixed rate. For years ad- 
 vertisers and advertising agents have had 
 no confidence in us. We lack character. 
 Now I believe you will remedy this, for I 
 am told that you are the very man in the 
 advertising world who can do it best and 
 do it quickest. It means much to me, for 
 I have great plans for enlarging this busi- 
 ness. You will have a very hard job to 
 bleach this black sheep of ours, but it will 
 be worth while." Then, his blue eyes 
 lighting with amusement, he added with 
 a smile: "Forget your weight taken to- 
 day. You're going to lose a lot of it." 
 
 I found the sheep not only as black 
 as he had stated, but unsound in body 
 in other ways for which, as an adver- 
 
 153
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 tising man, I had scarcely expected to 
 prescribe. During my days in the New 
 Hampshire hills, I had blue-printed the 
 possibilities of the future so strongly on 
 Mr Wilder's mind that that ever-active 
 organ demanded prompt and tangible 
 results, but these involved more than 
 increased advertising receipts. Better 
 printing, better illustrations, improved 
 typography, attractive front-cover pages, 
 and, logically, a larger circulation, were 
 all imperative. In all these matters, out- 
 side my province, I assisted materially, 
 and the selection of the circulation mana- 
 ger and his assistant, the art director, and 
 the foreman of the composing-room 
 where our advertisements were set, also 
 devolved upon me in the course of my 
 service. It was natural for Mr Wilder 
 to advise with me in these affairs, for his 
 own knowledge of the publishing business 
 was meagre, but my all-round zeal brought 
 down on me the displeasure of the heads 
 
 154
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 of other departments, who could not 
 make out why an advertising man should 
 suggest and push to completion ideas 
 which did not pertain to his speciality. 
 They did not know that my knowledge 
 of publishing included every branch of 
 the business, and I had no occasion to 
 explain. Of the paper pattern depart- 
 ment familiar to the women of countless 
 households I had no knowledge. Nor 
 did I seek it. I believed that if I con- 
 centrated my abilities on the problems of 
 publication, Mr Wilder's hopes would be 
 the sooner realized. 
 
 Meanwhile, I had my particular share 
 of the black sheep to look after. Of my 
 association of nearly four years with the 
 Butterick Company, the first twelve 
 months were at once the most difficult 
 and the most interesting. My arrange- 
 ment ran, that, if I increased the adver- 
 tising receipts by fifty thousand dollars 
 during the first year, my salary should 
 
 155
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 be ten thousand dollars, but, this in- 
 centive aside, I realized that the plans 
 for enlarging the business made a larger 
 income from this special source of high 
 importance. With a circulation of nearly 
 half a million monthly, "The Delinea- 
 tor" had been issued primarily as a 
 catalogue of its pattern industry, and its 
 advertising receipts, which at the time of 
 my coming averaged 136,000 dollars a 
 year, were merely incidental. 
 
 It is very difficult to establish a fixed 
 price for advertising in a publication 
 which has never had one, but this was 
 what I now had to do. The advertising 
 agents of America who handled the busi- 
 ness which was worth while had lost all 
 confidence in "The Delineator," but they 
 knew me, and when I announced that 
 the rate was now two dollars to all 
 comers they showed their faith to a man. 
 Perhaps I should say, except one man. 
 There was a Doubting Thomas, who, 
 
 156
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 holding the magazine's past in sore re- 
 membrance, could not believe his ears, 
 and requested me to put the amazing 
 new doctrine in black and white. He 
 had lost many orders in the past because 
 of the dickering and cutting which had 
 prevailed, and wanted a letter guaran- 
 teeing him a rebate if he could prove, 
 after sending us business, that any other 
 advertiser or agent had secured a lower 
 price. I not only gave him the guaran- 
 tee he asked, but offered him access to 
 our books, files and correspondence 
 should he harbour suspicion in the future. 
 I had never met the man or dealt with 
 him in any way, but my letter convinced 
 him and he became a constant client 
 thereafter. 
 
 Once made, I kept the rate as rigid as 
 the laws of the Medes and the Persians, 
 disappoint whom it might. This some- 
 times had humorous consequences. Per- 
 haps a month after I took hold of the 
 
 157
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 department, I received a letter from Mr 
 Charles E. Raymond, the Chicago man- 
 ager of the advertising agency of the 
 J. Walter Thompson Company, enclos- 
 ing an order for one of his customers at 
 the old rate. He explained, that on 
 account of absence from the city, he had 
 neglected to send it before or write me 
 concerning it ; and as Mr Raymond was 
 then, as he is still, a dependable man in 
 his field, I knew he wrote the truth. It 
 was important that no exceptions be 
 made, however, and I accordingly replied 
 that I knew he was acting in good faith, 
 and that under ordinary circumstances 
 his order would be accepted, but the 
 advertising department of "The Deline- 
 ator" had such a dubious past that I 
 would do nothing to stir even a breath 
 of suspicion in the future. I closed with 
 a reference to the man who lived so up- 
 right a life that he leaned backwards, 
 saying that, while I did not want to 
 
 158
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 appear to play that role, conditions were 
 such that I must decline his order. Mr 
 Raymond's laconic answer ran: "Dear 
 Sir: You are leaning backwards." 
 
 A curious paradox of this question 
 is the fact that, although it is suicidal 
 for a publisher to have more than 
 one price for advertising of the same 
 kind, it is yet possible for a publication 
 to contain in the same issue announce- 
 ments of three advertisers all charged 
 at a different rate. A rise in circu- 
 lation naturally involves a better rate, 
 but a notice of an intended increase 
 is customary, and up to a specific date 
 the publisher will take orders to run a 
 year at the ruling price. Sometimes a 
 publisher is forced to take such action 
 oftener than yearly, with a correspond- 
 ing shortening of the time allowance, and 
 so it fell out that during my connection 
 with "The Ladies' Home Journal," "The 
 Delineator," and later with "Every-
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 body's Magazine," there would be ad- 
 vertisements at different rates in a single 
 issue, though the periodicals were on an 
 absolutely one-price basis to all. 
 
 The end of the first year found the 
 rate firmly established, but the receipts 
 of my department, owing to my war on 
 the objectionable advertisement of which 
 I shall speak in detail later, fell seven 
 thousand dollars short of the expected 
 increase of fifty thousand dollars. But I 
 was highly pleased with our showing, 
 notwithstanding, for "The Delineator" 
 was unmistakably on the upward march. 
 Moreover, my work gained me the 
 maximum salary after all. The unde- 
 sirable advertising I had refused was 
 taken into account, for, as one of the 
 firm pointed out, there was no reason 
 why I should be punished for working 
 for the best interests of the business. 
 
 During all this time I had in the back 
 of my head the intention to get my old- 
 
 160
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 time friend and co-worker of "The 
 Ladies' Home Journal " to assist me. I 
 needed the strongest possible man in the 
 West, and that man, beyond a shadow of 
 a doubt, was Thomas Balmer. But how 
 should I persuade Mr Wilder to add to 
 my staff an assistant who would demand 
 a salary equal to my own ? The right 
 opportunity seldom fails to come to one 
 who can curb his impatience and bide his 
 time. I recognized the "psychological 
 moment," which novelists are so fond of 
 mentioning, as I sat, fishing-rod in hand, 
 on the bank of a pond at Cheshire 
 Place. 
 
 "I'm going to get a stronger man in 
 the West very soon," I dropped as 
 casually as if it were a mere question 
 of bait. 
 
 "Are you?" said my host. "Who is 
 he?" 
 
 "Thomas Balmer. The strongest ad- 
 vertising man in the world." 
 
 161 M
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 "What!" smiled Mr Wilder. "I 
 thought you were it." 
 
 I assured him that Mr Balmer had no 
 equal as a result-getter, and was un- 
 doubtedly what I had just said, the 
 greatest man in the business. With this 
 opening I proceeded to outline his pro- 
 gress as Western manager of "The 
 Ladies' Home Journal," and the innova- 
 tions for which the advertising world in 
 general was his debtor. The question of 
 cost followed, and I said that while I 
 knew he had declined many big-salaried 
 offers, I believed I could get him to come 
 to us for my own salary if he might have 
 the same increase when he proved him- 
 self worth it. Whereupon Mr Wilder 
 interrupted: "Let's go over to that other 
 pond. There's more fish there." 
 
 With the requisite authority I left 
 New Hampshire the next morning, 
 happy in the thought that I was sure of 
 a stanch ally in the special reform I had 
 
 162
 
 Bleaching a Black Sheep 
 
 so close at heart. Even more serious to 
 me in the bleaching process than the rate 
 was the question of quality. As much 
 as the company needed greater receipts 
 and as I wanted to earn my maximum 
 salary, I could at no time tolerate the 
 thought of any compromise with my 
 arch-enemy the objectionable advertise- 
 ment. I longed to drive it, not only 
 from our own magazines, but, if I could, 
 from the printed page everywhere. 
 More than any other professional am- 
 bition, I wanted to see American ad- 
 vertising clean. 
 
 163 M2
 
 The Fight for Glean Advertising 
 
 Chapter Ten 
 
 HEN in the regeneration of 
 ' * The Delineator's " adver- 
 tising department, I faced 
 the question of quality, I 
 lost no time debating a 
 policy. The only course I 
 could pursue was the one to which 
 I had so far consistently adhered: 
 all patent medicine, objectionable and 
 doubtful matter must be declined. But 
 where draw the line? Fraudulent ad- 
 vertising is objectionable always, but 
 objectionable advertising is not always 
 fraudulent. There are grades in adver- 
 tising matter as in conduct. Black and 
 white are easily distinguished; it is with 
 the greys that doubt comes. 
 It happened that one of these neutral 
 
 164
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 cases arose soon after my coming and I 
 saw in it a chance for an object lesson 
 more forcible than a Niagara of verbal 
 argument. There turned up one day an 
 order for a hair restorer, an advertise- 
 ment which had found** The Delineator" 
 a friendly medium for years. I decided 
 to decline this order, but I wanted the 
 company to know what I was doing: the 
 Official I picked out to consult was bald. 
 As I put before him the large advertise- 
 ment of the hair restorer, with its ** Be- 
 fore" and ** After" cuts of a man as ill- 
 thatched as himself, I told him that the 
 order amounted to three thousand dol- 
 lars; that we had space for it; that it 
 had run for many years past. I added 
 that to me, however, it seemed a grave 
 error to accept it unless it could do the 
 things it promised. 
 
 "Do you believe in such things?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "I!" he exclaimed. **Do you think 
 
 165
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 that if there was a remedy, I'd have 
 stayed bald for thirty years?" 
 
 In carrying out this policy, I had a most 
 invaluable assistant in Mr Balmer, who, 
 with his high ideals, was naturally in sym- 
 pathy with the idea. There was nothing 
 half-way about our reform. It struck 
 clear to the root of the evil. Many ad- 
 vertisers promised impossible values for 
 trivial amounts, and it was not long before 
 we announced that not only patent medi- 
 cines and objectionable advertisements 
 would be declined, but all which were 
 extravagantly phrased. Thus an asser- 
 tion that a lady's suit worth seventy-five 
 dollars would be sent on receipt of 
 twenty-five dollars in cash would be 
 considered "extravagantly phrased" and 
 the order declined, unless personal ex- 
 amination proved its truth. It is diffi- 
 cult to explain to the layman the detail 
 with which every announcement was 
 censored. The word "cure" had to be 
 
 166
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 stricken from every advertisement before 
 it appeared in our columns. If a well- 
 known make of vaseline was said to 
 "cure" sunburn, we obtained the adver- 
 tiser's consent to change the word to 
 "relieve," or declined his money. In 
 our printed communications to clients, as 
 well as in the magazine itself, we enlarged 
 upon what we were doing in this line, and 
 made a bid solely for high-grade adver- 
 tising. It came in good volume. So 
 much so, in fact, that the close of our 
 second year saw our total income from 
 this source nearly one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars more than the year before. 
 
 But, as I have intimated, my crusade 
 in this cause embraced a wider field than 
 the columns of "The Delineator." I 
 wanted to see this much-needed purge 
 universal. Nearly all the general maga- 
 zines inserted advertisements of liquors, 
 patent medicines and other matter as 
 questionable, and with the exception of 
 
 167
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 the " Saturday Evening Post," published 
 by Cyrus Curtis, the weeklies were also 
 transgressors, the religious organs in 
 some cases out-Heroding their secular 
 contemporaries in guilt. The chief sin- 
 ners of all were the great daily news- 
 papers, many of which carried adver- 
 tisements grossly fraudulent. I was 
 characterized as a drastic reformer in 
 my efforts to suppress some of this 
 shameless trading on the sick and feeble- 
 minded, and I daresay I deserved both 
 the title and the epithet. Certainly, 
 wherever I saw an offending head I hit 
 it. My great opportunity came when 
 I was asked to speak on any topic I chose 
 before the Sphinx Club, an association 
 of men devoted to various advertising 
 interests. I delivered this address at the 
 Waldorf-Astoria, October 8, 1902. My 
 subject, illustrated by stereopticon slides, 
 was " Should a Publisher accept Fraudu- 
 lent and Objectionable Advertising?" 
 
 168
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 The daily newspapers furnished me 
 with sufficient ammunition. Of the nu- 
 merous humbugs they had helped foist 
 upon the public I chose three conspicuous 
 examples for comment: the "divine 
 healer," Francis Truth; the so-called 
 Lucky Box; and "Five-hundred-and- 
 twenty-per-cent " Miller. The exploits 
 of these charlatans are doubtless graven 
 deep in the minds of their victims, but 
 the general memory is a thing of wax, 
 and it will do no harm briefly to recapi- 
 tulate these outrageous swindles at which 
 so many newspapers of America con- 
 nived. 
 
 It is the press of New England which 
 should bear the odium of Francis Truth's 
 shameless success. This quack, schooled 
 to unusual cunning among fakers of the 
 most dangerous type, easily found com- 
 plaisant publishers to print his advertise- 
 ments, headlines and all, in the guise of 
 news. Thanks to their trumpeting of his 
 
 169
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 miraculous "cures," he established him- 
 self luxuriously in one of Boston's best 
 sections and surrounded himself with 
 scores of clerks, who, with series of 
 manifolded letters, "treated" the stricken 
 and deluded thousands who could not 
 flock directly to his door. To those who 
 did come he showed a trophy -room 
 decorated with discarded canes, crutches 
 and braces. Among these convincing 
 relics were also displayed the charred 
 ends of many expensive cigars, for even 
 the smoking habit came within the range 
 of his divine activities. When the crash 
 came, the office boy testified that these 
 stumps had been smoked by the Healer 
 himself after his exhausting labours for 
 ailing humanity. But there were profits 
 before the crash ; ten months of profits, 
 which accumulated at the astounding 
 figure of thirty thousand dollars a week. 
 Then Francis Truth was placed under 
 arrest. The publishers escaped. 
 
 170
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 Intellectual Boston, the haven of all 
 cranks and "isms," was also the friendly 
 nursery of that monumental fake, Park- 
 er's ' ' Three Star Ring Lucky Box. " This 
 talisman, which cost less than a cent to 
 manufacture and sold for ninety-nine, was 
 made of wood and contained a suspended 
 brass ring bearing three stars. The first 
 advertisement announced that "Boston 
 was mystified." Trust Boston! It fur- 
 thermore stated that hundreds had been 
 made happy. Its heading was similar to 
 that of a regular news story, and as news 
 it undoubtedly passed with careless thous- 
 ands. As the superstitious paid in their 
 money and the swindle thrived, two- 
 column announcements detailed the won- 
 ders it had worked. A woman lost her 
 valuable watch; ninety-nine cents invested 
 in a lucky box recovered it. A ship went 
 down in fifteen fathoms of water; the sole 
 survivor carried a lucky box. The happy 
 possessor of another lifted the mortgage 
 
 171
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 on his home lifted it with the box. A Wall 
 Street operator wanted a tip in a panic, a 
 poor man wanted a job, a girl wanted to 
 go to the Paris Exposition, a spinster 
 wanted a husband the lucky box brought 
 them all their heart's desire. The lame 
 threw away their crutches, the drunkard 
 forsook his cups, nothing was impossible 
 in the advertisements! The crowning 
 stroke of knavery was the injunction: 
 * * Successful people with health and wealth 
 are requested not to send for any more 
 boxes, as Mr Parker prefers to deliver 
 the remaining lot to those who are in 
 greater need of this world's goods. " Over 
 75,000 of these boxes were sold, and when 
 the postal authorities intervened 20,000 
 letters still awaited delivery. The news- 
 paper publishers of the Modern Athens, 
 who ran this advertising, shared in the 
 loot at the rate of three dollars and a half 
 per inch. 
 
 W. F. Miller spread a still wider net. 
 
 172 

 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 He began his financial career with a ten 
 dollar bill loaned him by two friends. He 
 ended it after handling millions in 
 State's prison. Through the newspapers 
 of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and 
 other cities he held out the glittering bait 
 of ten per cent a week on an investment 
 of twenty dollars. And he paid it for a 
 while. The timid pioneers who sent him 
 their little capital found themselves draw- 
 ing the astounding interest of 520 per 
 cent, and every man-jack of them be- 
 came, on a five per cent basis, a willing 
 agent to coax others to send their savings 
 to this wizard with the Midas touch. The 
 advertisements continued, the money 
 poured in. One week saw seventy 
 thousand dollars withdrawn from Boston 
 and Philadelphia savings banks to swell 
 the flood which at high tide reached a 
 mark not far from three million dollars. 
 Miller's press agent styled him a Napo- 
 leon of Finance. His scheme was 
 
 173
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 certainly Napoleonic in its audacity. 
 Nothing could be more simple. He paid 
 the dividends out of the principal. 
 
 Advertising, and advertising alone, 
 made Miller and Parker and Truth pos- 
 sible. Unabetted by the press, they would 
 never have risen from the obscure ranks 
 of the thimble-riggers and the adepts at 
 three card monte. And it is not the 
 publishers who need the money who print 
 such advertising ; it is not offered to them. 
 It is the paper of good standing, large 
 circulation and high advertising rates 
 which gets the business, and, open-eyed, 
 becomes party to the fraud. 
 
 A bill, introduced recently in the 
 Massachusetts Legislature, to prohibit 
 the publication of certain paid matter in 
 newspapers unless marked as an adver- 
 tisement, will be a corrective of many 
 similar frauds. 
 
 Like others who attempt to remedy ex- 
 isting evils, I found myself in advance of 
 
 174
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 the times. Nothing showed this more 
 plainly than the difficulties I now met in 
 trying to form a society for the suppres- 
 sion of fraudulent and objectionable ad- 
 vertising. Prominent men, identified with 
 advertising, when asked to serve on the 
 Board of Directors, regretted that they 
 had not sufficient time. Others declined 
 for the reason that they knew there were 
 other men better able to cope with the 
 situation. I vigorously advocated the for- 
 mation of this society, engaged a secre- 
 tary and personally met the contingent 
 expenses, but disappointed at the lack of 
 interest shown and finding it required too 
 much of the time which I felt belonged to 
 my employer, I reluctantly put the idea 
 aside. 
 
 But the fight itself I did not abandon. 
 If I could not raise a regiment, I could at 
 least do my part as an independent sharp- 
 shooter. I accordingly stood rigidly by my 
 creed in practice, and by letter and word 
 
 175
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 of mouth did what I could to win over 
 the publishers of other periodicals. This 
 private campaign had one striking result. 
 Among the letters I sent out was one to 
 * * Collier's Weekly. " It was of the * * Con- 
 stant Reader" brand, which sometimes has 
 an influence with a publisher. It ran: "I 
 see * Collier's* every week and I find in it 
 patent medicine and other advertisements 
 which 'The Ladies' Home Journal' and 
 'The Delineator' do not insert. Why do 
 you accept such advertising? I am sure 
 you do not need the money." A Phila- 
 delphia man fathered the communication, 
 and the response, duly forwarded to me, 
 was cheering. "Upon receipt of your let- 
 ter," it read, "I called our advertising staff 
 together, and we have decided, as soon as 
 certain contracts are completed, to discon- 
 tinue the insertion of such advertising." 
 The letter was signed by Robert Collier, 
 the brilliant son of the founder of this 
 great house. Occupied as editor, this ad- 
 
 176
 
 The Fight for Clean Advertising 
 
 vertising phase had not been seriously con- 
 sidered by him. He needed but this word 
 of mine to set him thinking. Filled with 
 crusading zeal himself, Mr Collier not 
 only drove every doubtful advertisement 
 from the pages of his famous weekly, 
 but, enlisting the trained intelligence of 
 Mr Samuel Hopkins Adams, printed the 
 series of articles entitled "The Great 
 American Fraud." These, combined with 
 the vigorous attack made by ' 'The Ladies' 
 Home Journal," dealt patent medicine 
 advertising the severest blow it ever re- 
 ceived. 
 
 177 N
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 Chapter Eleven 
 
 HE Cinderella -like trans- 
 formation of "The Deline- 
 ator " gave me many knots 
 to untie, and I count my 
 handling of one of them 
 the master stroke of my 
 advertising career. It was not as might 
 be imagined a contract for advertising 
 space footing up into many thousands 
 of dollars. Contracts of from six to 
 twelve pages of space were not unusual. 
 This, on the contrary, was the cancel- 
 lation of an order and its story with 
 its sidelight on the business methods 
 of two kindred yet widely dissimilar 
 nations is not uninteresting. About five 
 years before my engagement, the But- 
 terick Company entered into a contract 
 
 178
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 with the Pears' Soap Company, of Lon- 
 don, for back-cover advertising in "The 
 Delineator" and a pattern catalogue or 
 two, this space to be paid for quarterly 
 on the basis of about six shillings per 
 thousand circulation, the latter to be 
 guaranteed under oath. Two years before 
 my coming, the contract had been renewed 
 for three years with an option for still 
 three more at the same price. Any one 
 can understand that with a circulation of 
 500,000 at six shillings per thousand, the 
 amount of money thus received for the 
 back cover would be about seven hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars. But here was a 
 virtually new "Delineator," a well- 
 printed and well-made publication, with 
 page-space twice the size of the ordinary 
 magazine, and therefore qualified to ask 
 twice the amount which the ordinary 
 magazine of equal circulation could de- 
 mand. 
 Upon learning of this contract with 
 
 179 N2
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 its ill-advised mortgage on the future, 
 I took the matter up with the officers 
 of the company, and a letter was de- 
 spatched to the London offices to see 
 what could be done. Nothing was accom- 
 plished, however, for the London repre- 
 sentative was not an advertising man, and 
 when he broached the question, it was 
 put in such a way that Mr Barratt, the 
 managing director of the company, de- 
 clined to cancel any part of the order. 
 Realizing how detrimental it would be to 
 our interests to have such a long time 
 contract on our books, I arranged to sail 
 for the other side. I had met Mr Barratt 
 previously, as mentioned in an earlier 
 chapter, and knowing that there was 
 really only one way of doing business in 
 London, I decided to play the game 
 strictly according to English rules. My 
 first call on Mr Barratt, therefore, was 
 at a time when I knew he would not be 
 in his office. I left a card with the name 
 
 180
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 of my hotel, the exclusive Garlton, which 
 I had decided to patronize because I re- 
 membered it had a place in Mr Barratt's 
 affections. Two days later I received a 
 letter from his secretary, asking me to 
 call the next day at five o'clock. I suppose 
 my call extended over an hour. We 
 talked of London, of English art, English 
 cathedrals, English weather of course 
 but of the purpose of my visit not a word. 
 Just as I was about to go, I casually men- 
 tioned that before leaving for Paris I 
 should like to take up a business matter 
 with him, and asked for an appointment. 
 He as casually regretted that as he was 
 leaving in about a week on a fishing trip, 
 he feared he could make no appointment. 
 Finally, however, he so far sacrificed his 
 sacred routine as to ask me to come in 
 the next day. I was prompt and brief. 
 First telling him of my work with "The 
 Delineator," and of the great strides that 
 had already been made, I added that I 
 
 181
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 found myself handicapped in my progress 
 because I could not give an American 
 advertiser any of the back-cover pages. 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" he 
 asked. 
 
 I thereupon explained that since Mr 
 Wilder's son had secured control of the 
 company he had enlarged its scope mate- 
 rially by the purchase of a competing 
 company, which likewise published a 
 magazine for women. Would he not be 
 willing to give up six pages of "The 
 Delineator" and use pages in the other 
 publication instead? 
 
 "Will this assist you personally?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "Then I'll do it." 
 
 I cabled my office that evening, and a 
 few days later in Paris word came that 
 the first page vacated by Pears had been 
 sold to another advertiser for twelve 
 
 182
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 hundred dollars. But there still remained 
 the ill-starred option. Waiting till the 
 existing contract had nearly run its term, 
 I brought up the question of its renewal 
 in a letter to Mr Barratt, in which I 
 took pains to state that I had looked up 
 the amount of money he had paid us for 
 advertising, and was surprised to learn 
 that it amounted to over one hundred 
 thousand dollars. I reasoned, of course, 
 that when his conservative British eye 
 fell upon this good round sum he would 
 feel constrained to reduce his advertising 
 in our mediums. And I was right. He 
 gave up his option, discontinued for a 
 time, and when Pears' advertising again 
 appeared, the regular price was paid. 
 By reason of increased circulation and 
 improvement in the magazine, the back- 
 cover page of "The Delineator" brought 
 twenty-four hundred dollars within two 
 years thereafter. 
 
 In the campaign to lift "The De- 
 
 183
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 lineator's" circulation from the five hun- 
 dred thousand we had to the million we 
 obtained, we ourselves became extensive 
 advertisers. Daily newspapers and other 
 magazines were our chief mediums, of 
 course, but for a time we also used the 
 bill-boards to familiarize the public with 
 a catch phrase I had devised. I tried 
 more than a year to hit upon something 
 suitable, but nothing came to me till one 
 day I read an article on the psychology 
 of advertising, by Professor Scott, in 
 which he made it plain that the direct 
 injunction "Cut this coupon out and 
 mail it to-day " would draw more replies 
 than the less emphatic "Use this cou- 
 pon." Acting on this hint, I had repro- 
 duced the line in my handwriting, "Just 
 Get 'The Delineator,'" and waited to 
 see if the women of the country would 
 obey. They did. To my personal 
 knowledge the phrase even tantalized 
 men into buying copies to satisfy their 
 
 184
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 curiosity. One hundred thousand dollars 
 were spent to popularize this phrase. 
 
 Early in the first year of my service, 
 Mr Wilder began carrying out his plans 
 for the enlargement of the business. One 
 day he said bluntly: "Have you ten 
 thousand dollars?" "No," I replied, 
 my thoughts skipping to the Boston 
 savings bank where I had tucked away 
 three thousand of Mr Munsey's money. 
 "Not all of it, but I can get the 
 balance." 
 
 The conversation ended as abruptly as 
 it had begun, but it had its sequel later in 
 the announcement that I could buy a 
 hundred shares of stock in the Butterick 
 Publishing Company, Ltd, for a hundred 
 dollars a share if I could raise the money 
 within a week. I had had one modest 
 experience in finance in Philadelphia, 
 where I borrowed money to buy a small 
 block of "Ladies' Home Journal" stock, 
 which I closed out on leaving the city, 
 
 185
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 but this was a larger affair altogether. I 
 had friends and friends, but as I can- 
 vassed the seven-thousand-dollar variety 
 I racked my brain making a list of those 
 who, having the sum, might loan it. 
 Eventually, by the process of elimination, 
 I got down to five names. I went to the 
 wealthiest man first. He lived in Boston, 
 but had a summer home on the coast, 
 and my acquaintance with him was such 
 that I went to the latter, and, as he was 
 away, waited for his return. He arrived 
 late, but promptly invited me to dinner. 
 As we took our coffee afterwards on the 
 broad verandah overlooking the ocean, I 
 made known the purpose of my visit. 
 He listened carefully, and telling me that 
 I was probably paying twice over what 
 the stock was worth, advised me against 
 the investment. As he had related his 
 own early struggles for success, first as a 
 clerk in a drug house, and later as a 
 manufacturer, I was much impressed. I 
 
 186
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 knew that he was even more than a mil- 
 lionaire, and that seven thousand dollars 
 was a small amount for him to loan me 
 if he believed in the proposition as much 
 as I knew he believed in me. 
 
 So reasoning, I went back to New 
 York. Conservative Boston had taken 
 two days of the precious seven. How- 
 ever, there were five left, one of which 
 was Sunday. Two Philadelphia friends 
 were next on the list, and, working late, 
 I took the midnight train to the Quaker 
 City. Philadelphia may be quieter than 
 Boston, but it is less conservative. The 
 first man I called upon heard me out with 
 interest, told me that no man ever made 
 money until he got into honest debt, and 
 promptly said, that as I could probably 
 get a loan from a bank of sixty per cent 
 on the stock, he would endorse my notes. 
 I was elated, thanked him heartily, and 
 departed. I thought it wise, however, 
 to call on my other listed friend, and 
 
 187
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 after telling him my story mentioned 
 the offer which I had just received, and 
 asked his advice. He volunteered to 
 loan me the remaining thousand dollars 
 upon my note, but thought perhaps he 
 could let me have the entire amount in 
 cash, I to send him the stock as security. 
 He would advise me the next day. I thus 
 obtained the stock in the parent com- 
 pany, and by the absorption of other 
 companies at different times later, my 
 ten thousand dollars doubled and tripled 
 in value. But that is another story, and 
 of its kind most interesting. When a 
 Captain of Finance like George Warren 
 Wilder transforms a company with a 
 million dollars into three, six, and then 
 twelve million dollars of capital, he 
 achieves what the great financier Morgan 
 did in a larger way with United States 
 Steel. And the end is not yet. The 
 profit which came to me by the purchase 
 of this stock was put to a good use, as I 
 
 188
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 shall soon relate. Had I followed my 
 Boston friend's advice, this story would 
 never have been written. This was my 
 last borrowing experience, for I went to 
 banks thereafter the only really legiti- 
 mate place for loans. 
 
 Three years and a half went by. The 
 concern, which, as some one has pic- 
 turesquely put it, began with a capital of 
 "a ream of paper, a pair of scissors and 
 a good idea," continued its steady march 
 toward the great financial success I have 
 outlined. The share my own department 
 played is most succinctly told in figures. 
 The 137,000 dollars received in adver- 
 tising by the Butterick Company the 
 year previous to my coming had grown, 
 in the final year of my service, to over 
 600,000 dollars. It exceeds a million 
 to-day. 
 
 One day, in the President's office, I saw 
 the architect's drawing of a massive stone 
 edifice, fourteen stories high, to be built 
 
 189
 
 My Master Stroke in Advertising 
 
 for and devoted solely to the business of 
 the Butterick Company. Facetiously, 
 the Treasurer remarked: " Look at your 
 new building ! " As I looked I thought : 
 "Many a true word is spoken in jest." 
 As Treasurer, he well knew that my 
 department made it possible. 
 
 But the new building never housed me. 
 Mr Thomas Balmer, my successor, occu- 
 pied the sumptuous offices of the adver- 
 tising director, for, before the structure 
 was roofed, I perceived a long-awaited 
 opening to become a publisher myself. 
 I had resigned many times before, but 
 on this occasion I took my employer with 
 me. As I said at the outset, Mr Wilder 
 has a sense of humour. To all of our 
 advertisers and advertising agents he sent 
 a printed postal card on which my own 
 name was blazoned in type which broke 
 all rules of display. It read: "Wanted 
 A successor to John Adams Thayer." 
 
 190
 
 f 
 
 Publishing "Everybody's 
 
 Chapter Twelve 
 
 URING these many years 
 of hard work to upbuild 
 other people's publications 
 I naturally had at the back 
 of my head the idea of one 
 day becoming a publisher 
 on my own account, but my special 
 knowledge of the field had taught me 
 that it usually meant a long fight to put a 
 publication on its feet. 
 
 The story of McGlure's struggle had 
 come to me from his own lips. I was a 
 Philadelphian when he started his maga- 
 zine, but we met from time to time, and 
 he one day outlined his life. Boyhood, 
 his college days at Knox, where his 
 later partners, Brady and Phillips, were 
 his classmates ; his varied experiences 
 
 191
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 with Albert A. Pope, of bicycle fame, 
 with the Century Company, with his own 
 syndicate, and, finally, with "McClure's 
 Magazine" all were passed in review, 
 and I remember his adding that he had 
 reached the enviable position at last 
 where he did not care whether he made 
 fifteen or a hundred thousand dollars a 
 year. Change and rest were what he 
 wanted now. 
 
 And there was Munsey. I could not 
 forget his eleven heart-breaking years; 
 his severe toil by day, his still more ex- 
 hausting drudgery by candlelight, when, 
 as he himself has said, he made "a com- 
 plete switch from red-hot actualities to 
 the world of fancy," and by sheer force 
 of will produced serial stories for his 
 magazines at the rate of six thousand 
 words a week. 
 
 Both these men gambled with their 
 health and nervous energy; and as I 
 realized the risks they had run, because 
 
 192
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 of their ignorance of the game, I resolved 
 to bide my time until I was assured of 
 two things : capital, or financial backing, 
 large enough to lift the venture over the 
 rough and stubbly spots always found in 
 the critical first year; and an associate 
 as familiar with the manufacturing branch 
 as I was with the advertising and business 
 end. But, the novice may ask, what 
 about the editor? The prosaic answer 
 is, that with a few notable exceptions, 
 editors do not make magazines financially 
 successful. It is far more difficult to 
 secure a capable advertising manager, 
 and he will demand, and probably re- 
 ceive, twice the editor's salary. 
 
 Cognizant of these facts, I felt that 
 I had reached another significant mile- 
 stone when Mr Erman J. Ridgway 
 advanced the idea of purchasing ' 'Every- 
 body's Magazine." During my brief 
 term as Mr Munsey's business manager, 
 Mr Ridgway and I served a common 
 
 193 O
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 employer, but as he was located in New 
 London at the printing plant, we did not 
 come into personal contact. After my 
 return to New York, however, we oc- 
 casionally met, and I received various 
 letters from him, which I showed to 
 Mr Wilder in the hope that we could find 
 a place for him as superintendent of the 
 mechanical department. We were both 
 convinced that in certain lines he had 
 ability of a very high order, but, the 
 emergency not arising, nothing ever 
 came of these talks, and, till we joined 
 forces, our actual acquaintance was slight. 
 In some of our casual meetings, how- 
 ever, he had mentioned his ambition to 
 publish a magazine and his many futile 
 attempts to interest moneyed men in 
 such an enterprise, and it fell out, there- 
 fore, that when he brought his latest 
 project to me, I saw in him the ally for 
 whom I had been waiting. 
 
 I was eager for the experiment. After 
 
 194
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 nearly twelve years as an advertising 
 man I found my work monotonous. 
 Aside from a steadily increasing salary, 
 which had then reached probably the 
 top-notch of the time, I had lost sense of 
 progression and craved a new outlet for 
 my energy. I found it promptly now. 
 Monotony and stagnation were unknown 
 in the days which followed. There was 
 first the question of finance. To invest 
 all my savings in a publishing venture 
 was not my intention at the start. Ridg- 
 way, who was younger than I, had no 
 money, so in talking over plans for the 
 purchase we decided that we would take 
 a third partner and let him finance our 
 work, we to draw small salaries until 
 we put the magazine on a paying basis. 
 The thought of coming down from a 
 thousand dollars a month to five thou- 
 sand dollars per year had no disturbing 
 influence upon me. When the matter 
 was broached to Mr Wilder, whom I 
 
 195 02
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 selected to be the " angel," a phase of 
 business acumen appeared which I had 
 not anticipated. It was simply this: I 
 had the money covering one-third of 
 the purchase price of the magazine 
 therefore I should back the venture; 
 Ridgway, having no capital, could not 
 do likewise, but an insurance policy 
 would be taken out, covering his life, the 
 premiums to be taken care of by the 
 company until we had paid the purchase 
 price of the magazine out of our profits 
 and were out of debt. My optimism was 
 such that I needed no time to consider 
 this serious aspect of the transaction. I 
 assented at once. 
 
 Definite negotiations were then begun 
 by Mr Wilder, whose experience in 
 dealing with big men and big figures 
 made it easy for him to put the matter 
 in such a light that an offer of one-fourth 
 less than the asking price of one hundred 
 thousand dollars was accepted. Fifteen 
 
 196 

 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 monthly notes for five thousand dollars 
 each were duly signed, endorsed and 
 delivered to Mr Robert G. Ogden, then 
 the New York partner of John Wan- 
 amaker, and the magazine was ours. 
 To be sure the notes had yet to be 
 met, but as the payment of the first 
 lay six months in the rosy future, we 
 glowed with the self-satisfaction of the 
 improvident man, who, settling his debts 
 in similar fashion, said, "I'm glad that's 
 paid and off my mind." Mr Ogden's 
 final words showed that he shared our 
 confidence, and read to-day, have a ring 
 of prophecy. "Boys," he said in part- 
 ing, "I know you will make a big suc- 
 cess. That is the principal reason why 
 I entertained your offer in preference to 
 others even larger. I want to see the 
 magazine win out handsomely, and as 
 I am retiring from active business, I shall 
 watch its growth with great interest. I 
 believe it is now on such a basis that 
 
 197
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 I can compare it to a peach-tree, well- 
 planted and nurtured, with ripe fruit 
 that needs only plucking." 
 
 We had our own notions about culti- 
 vating our peach-tree, however, and in 
 our talks with our readers, which we 
 made a special feature, we stated just 
 what kind of a magazine we proposed 
 to give them. As we followed word 
 with deed the news promptly got abroad 
 that "Everybody's" was different from 
 the common run. A paragraph, which 
 appeared in a well-known weekly, bears 
 witness to the impression we made, and 
 in its way voices our ideal. It ran: 
 
 "Everybody's Magazine begins to be 
 something more than an entertaining ten 
 cents worth of fiction and articles. An 
 identity has been developed a sturdy 
 and aggressive identity all its own and full 
 of interest and promise. Thus far the 
 magazine has prided itself on the time- 
 liness of its features and the healthy 
 
 198
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 virility of its fiction. Now it has found 
 itself entered on its own mission, headed 
 out on its particular crusade. The key- 
 note of this individuality is the article 
 by Alfred Henry Lewis, 'The Madness 
 of Much Money.' It is safe to say that 
 it will be generally read and appreciated 
 all over the country. Throughout this 
 number the magazine shows a purpose 
 to depart from the baleful worship of 
 Mammon and its possessors, which char- 
 acterizes so much of the writings in cur- 
 rent periodicals." 
 
 When I entered their field, many pub- 
 lishers offered me frank sympathy, but as 
 I am no pessimist I gave more weight to 
 the cheerier welcome of Mr William W. 
 Ellsworth. " I congratulate you," he said. 
 "You will get a lot of fun out of it." As 
 the secretary of the Century Company, 
 I felt that he, if anybody, ought to know, 
 but I understood better the special brand 
 of amusement he had in mind after he 
 
 199
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 had told me a story of Theodore Roose- 
 velt. Meeting the latter in Union Square 
 one piping midsummer afternoon during 
 his stirring term as Police Commissioner, 
 Mr Ellsworth expressed his surprise that 
 he was not then enjoying himself at 
 Oyster Bay, to which Mr Roosevelt 
 characteristically replied : "Do you think 
 I could get more real fun anywhere than 
 I am having right now in New York?" 
 So it was with us. We worked hard, but 
 the work was as absorbing as a game. 
 
 The objectionable advertisement loomed 
 in the forefront of our problems, this time 
 a more insidious enemy, because, like the 
 Greeks, it came bearing gifts. In com- 
 mon with other general magazines. 
 "Everybody's" at the time of our pur- 
 chase was running patent medicine and 
 other advertisements at variance with 
 the high standard I had set for myself. 
 The test came over an order for a num- 
 ber of pages of Orangine Powders, which 
 
 200
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 reached us a few days after we assumed 
 control. Just at this juncture the adver- 
 tising agent, who some years before had 
 edited my " smooth" letter to Cyrus 
 Curtis, dropped in to see me, and, hand- 
 ing him the order, I asked his opinion. I 
 expected him to confirm my own convic- 
 tion that, a publisher now myself, I could 
 do no less than practise the doctrine I had 
 so energetically preached. To my sur- 
 prise he disagreed. 
 
 "Other magazines are beginning to 
 decline these things," he said. "Take the 
 money they turn away. Wait till you 
 have many pages of advertising. Then 
 you can afford to be more particular." 
 
 I thanked him for his advice, but the 
 headache "cure" went back. The next 
 day I joyously announced to my associate 
 that business was looking up : I had even 
 declined several pages. Asked for par- 
 ticulars, I told of the temptation I had 
 put away. He stared his surprise. 
 
 201
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 "But isn't that good business?" he de- 
 manded. "'Munsey' and other maga- 
 zines take it." 
 
 "' Munsey' and the others can afford 
 to take it," I answered. "If we can't 
 make a success of 'Everybody's Maga- 
 zine' without running the stuff I have 
 declined for so many years, then we'll 
 make a failure of it, and I shall lose my 
 money and you your time." 
 
 From that moment we were in hearty 
 accord in this policy. The next day I 
 sent broadcast an elaborate announce- 
 ment of our policy. In this circular I 
 told of our appeal to the agent, of our 
 belief in his friendship, of our regard 
 for his opinion. We felt, however, that 
 in this instance he was wrong hence 
 the announcement. We had use for the 
 money, but in this reform we were lead- 
 ers, not followers. 
 
 We now began advertising in the daily 
 papers, but of our many advertisements, 
 
 202
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 the first, though small, is best remem- 
 bered. As our initial number was for 
 June, we increased the output only ten 
 thousand copies, for magazine sales are 
 less as summer comes. A week after 
 publication, the entire edition being sold, 
 my professional eye saw an opportunity 
 to advertise, and on the train to my office 
 I formulated an advertisement headed 
 "Our First Mistake." Reading the an- 
 nouncement to my co-worker, I asked 
 his opinion. The day was a sultry one, 
 and we were both fagged with the work 
 on our first issue. Without hesitation 
 he said, "Oh, I don't know. I guess 
 not." 
 
 "All right," said I, and the advertise- 
 ment in a dozen pieces went into the 
 basket. 
 
 I had much to do, and knew we would 
 get along without its aid. No one little 
 thing could stop our success. But on 
 returning from lunch, Mr Ridgway said 
 
 203
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 he had been thinking it over, and that he 
 did not know but it would be a good plan 
 to advertise as I suggested, and there- 
 upon mentioned a point of which I had 
 not thought. So we sat opposite each 
 other at our big flat desk, and I waited 
 for him to write the advertisement. This 
 done, he tossed it over. 
 
 "What do you say?" 
 
 I read it. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. I guess not," I 
 replied, and back I tossed it. 
 
 He thereupon tore the paper up and 
 threw it into the basket. 
 
 The humour of our action struck us in 
 an instant, and we looked into each other's 
 eyes and laughed. I then suggested that 
 he get his draft, I mine, and that jointly 
 we prepare one which would suit. So we 
 stuck together the torn fragments. The 
 advertisement was sent to the leading 
 newspapers of the country and was a 
 great success. Our assistant editor, a 
 
 204
 
 Publishing "Everybody's 
 
 most intelligent woman, told me that she 
 read it without realizing it was our own 
 till the very end. 
 
 With the editorial work of the magazine 
 I did not concern myself. Mr Ridgway 
 directed this department with the aid of 
 able editors, both men and women. I did, 
 however, reserve the right to pass finally 
 upon the contents before it went to press. 
 Occasionally a picture or an article was 
 cut out on my suggestion and others sub- 
 stituted. I had a hand, too, in "With 
 Everybody's Publishers," which at the 
 beginning was a strong feature of the 
 magazine. The department, "Under a 
 Spreading Chestnut Tree," was also one 
 in which I became interested. In fact, 
 I recall that I paid twenty-five dollars to 
 the man who suggested this heading and 
 some stories which came with it. The 
 stories were returned. The heading should 
 have gone back also, for I found out later 
 that this also was a "chestnut," having 
 
 205
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 been used in a New York paper for 
 many months. 
 
 I was always eager to get the type- 
 written copy of "Frenzied Finance" be- 
 fore it went through the editorial depart- 
 ment. Thereby hangs a tale. In one of 
 Mr Lawson's chapters he referred to a 
 "meeting of the Board of Directors of the 
 United States Steel Corporation, wherein 
 Mr Henry H. Rogers, having made his 
 invariable plea for quick action, was in- 
 terrupted by the president of the corpora- 
 tion, who blurted out: 'Mr Rogers will 
 vote on this question after we have talked 
 on it.' In a voice that those who heard 
 it say sounded like a rattlesnake's hiss in 
 a refrigerator, Mr Rogers replied: 'All 
 meetings where I sit as a director vote 
 first and talk after I am gone.'" Re-read- 
 ing this, after it had been put in type, I 
 found that our editors had changed the 
 species of the snake. Demanding a rea- 
 son, I was informed that neither did 
 
 206
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 snakes inhabit refrigerators nor rattle- 
 snakes hiss, but that on conferring together 
 in the absence of the editor-in-chief, they 
 had decided to let the refrigerator remain, 
 but to make it a black snake, which really 
 did hiss. I instructed these sticklers for 
 exact biology to restore the sentence to 
 its original pungent form. A few days 
 afterwards, Mr Ridgway, who was in the 
 West, also noticed the alteration and tele- 
 graphed: "Have editorial department 
 change black snake to rattlesnake as 
 originally sent." 
 
 The man who turns the pages of his 
 magazine in slippered ease seldom reali- 
 zes the labour involved in its preparation. 
 He appreciates that authors have written, 
 artists plied brush and pencil, and editors 
 racked their brains to provide these novel- 
 ties which instruct or beguile his evening 
 hour, but of the enormous mass of detail 
 the important little things which lies 
 beyond, he knows nothing. Who, for ex- 
 
 207
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 ample, imagines that the weather enters 
 into the magazine publisher's calcula- 
 tions ? Yet it is one of the factors which 
 must be considered when the monthly 
 question "How many copies shall we 
 print ?" presents itself. An April number 
 issued during the last days of March will 
 sag dismally if the usual bad days are 
 passed before it reaches the news-stands. 
 In fact, I should say that a too lamb-like 
 exit of March would make a difference 
 of twenty thousand in the sales of an 
 edition of half a million copies. The 
 caprices of climate aside, it is never an 
 easy matter to gauge the size of an edi- 
 tion save in the case of a gradual increase 
 or a gradual decline of circulation. 
 
 Or take the cover design. Who con- 
 siders with what effort it may have been 
 evolved? In our early days we had 
 much assistance from Ralph Tilton, son 
 of Theodore Tilton, in handling this 
 troublesome detail. It was he who pro- 
 
 208
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 posed that we have auto-chromatic plates 
 made from actual designs, photographed 
 down to the proper size. While our first 
 cover was not particularly artistic it 
 represented two hearts cut on a birch 
 tree it was yet different from all other 
 magazine covers, and caused comment 
 by reason of its sentiment and novelty. 
 He formulated many other ideas for us, 
 suggesting them often in less time than it 
 takes me to tell of it. After " Frenzied 
 Finance" began, the endless problems 
 which came up in regard to business, 
 advertising and editorial, crowded us so 
 closely that we all, including the art 
 director who was very capable in his 
 line had difficulty in finding new designs, 
 but in such emergencies Ralph Tilton 
 never failed us. Once when we were 
 in desperate straits, I telephoned him to 
 meet me at the Caf6 Martin for luncheon. 
 An idea was at once forthcoming. " You 
 say your Lawson article treats of stock 
 
 209 P
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 market operations. To me that suggests 
 bulls and lambs. Why not go to a toy 
 store and get a bull's head and a little 
 lamb on wheels ? Arrange them artistic- 
 ally, with a suitable background, and you 
 will have a good cover." Whereupon 
 he pencilled on the table-cloth a rough 
 sketch for a design, which was not only 
 appropriate but highly striking. Sugges- 
 tions of this kind stimulated our imagina- 
 tions, and I believe that one of our most 
 effective covers was that of a tiger, photo- 
 graphed direct in its natural colours from 
 a beautiful two thousand dollar rug that 
 I happened to see in the shop-window of 
 a Broadway furrier. I had read the 
 manuscript of the Lawson article the pre- 
 vious day, and as it contained the ex- 
 pression, "This cruel, tigerish system," 
 the beast's eyes, glaring at me through 
 the glass, brought me to a halt, and in an 
 instant gave me the idea. 
 
 210
 
 Publishing "Everybody's" 
 
 On its business side, as well as in 
 quality, " Every body's Magazine" was 
 created afresh during the first twelve 
 months of our ownership. Abolishing 
 the cut-price club plan, we put the sub- 
 scription list on a stronger basis, and in 
 a year doubled our circulation. As a 
 natural result, we also doubled our adver- 
 tising rate. When we bought the pro- 
 perty, its price was one hundred and 
 fifty dollars a page, one dollar per page 
 per thousand circulation being the re- 
 cognized rate among general magazines, 
 though an extra twenty, or even fifty, 
 thousand is often given for good measure. 
 With a showing of three hundred thou- 
 sand we could ask three hundred dollars 
 a page, and on this healthy footing we 
 already stood when the publication of 
 " Frenzied Finance" began to increase 
 our circulation to the merry tune of fifty 
 thousand copies a month. 
 
 211 P2
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 Chapter Thirteen 
 
 i was as a private in a 
 company of Hayes and 
 Wheeler Cadets that I had 
 my first glimpse of Thomas 
 W. Lawson. That curious 
 phase of our political 
 life, the torchlight club, reached its cli- 
 max of extravagance in the legion of 
 plumed knights who eight years later 
 went down to defeat with James G. 
 Blaine, but it was a sprightly and pictur- 
 esque factor in the Tilden-Hayes cam- 
 paign, and, as such, served as a vent for 
 the abundant energy of the youthful 
 Lawson. I did not know him personally 
 then, for he was a captain, and, even in 
 campaign clubs, captains and privates are 
 far removed. But I heard so much of 
 
 212
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 him as we made our noisy crusades about 
 the suburbs of Boston that his share in 
 this boyish episode persisted in my me- 
 mory till our actual acquaintance began. 
 In the twenty odd years which inter- 
 vened, the captain of the torchlight com- 
 pany became a captain of finance. If a 
 single word can summarize an epoch, the 
 word for that quarter century is money. 
 Colossal fortunes never rolled themselves 
 up more quickly; men of commanding 
 intellect never devoted themselves with 
 more relentless'energy to a sordid ideal. 
 The ally of the foremost financiers, 
 Thomas W. Lawson's knowledge of the 
 inner history of this period was second to 
 none, and when one day, disgusted .with 
 the methods of his associates, he told the 
 press of America that he meant to spend 
 the rest of his life and his fortune if 
 necessary in showing up Standard Oil, 
 our silent partner, Mr Wilder, was struck 
 with an idea. Dining with me that even- 
 
 213
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 ing, he suggested that if we could get 
 Tom Lawson to write the story of Amal- 
 gamated Copper for our magazine, we 
 should have something worth telling, 
 something people would be eager to read, 
 something which would boom our circu- 
 lation. The idea made an instant appeal 
 to me, and the next morning I men- 
 tioned it to Ridgway, saying I approved 
 of it, and that, if he agreed, I would at- 
 tempt to secure the story. He replied 
 that Wilder had telephoned him about it 
 the day before, and that while he doubted 
 if we could get it, he saw no harm in try- 
 ing. That night, notwithstanding I had 
 received no answer to a telegram in- 
 quiring whether Mr Lawson was there, 
 I went to Boston, taking with me the 
 editor, John O'Hara Gosgrave. 
 
 As a preliminary move we first called 
 on my friend, General Charles H. Tay- 
 lor, of "The Boston Globe." It is not a 
 matter of common knowledge that Gene- 
 
 214
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 ral Taylor was one of the pioneer ten- 
 cent magazine publishers. Launching his 
 venture under the name of " American 
 Homes," he was on the threshold of a 
 tremendous success when the great Boston 
 fire of 1872-73 destroyed his editions and 
 plant. But for this he would doubtless 
 have set the pace for other magazines 
 instead of concentrating his energy upon 
 publishing the powerful daily so ably man- 
 aged by his talented sons. Retaining a 
 keen interest in the field where he him- 
 self had turned so promising a furrow, he 
 readily gave me a letter of introduction, 
 and as I have often known trifles to score 
 where larger artillery fails, I thought it 
 expedient to ask him to mention that, a 
 Boston boy myself, I had once marched 
 among Mr Lawson's torchlight hosts. 
 This General Taylor did, and, as Mr 
 Lawson himself afterwards told me, the 
 allusion reached its mark. 
 Our first attempt to see him, however, 
 
 215
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 was unsuccessful, but his secretary told 
 us that we had interested Mr Lawson, 
 who wished to know exactly the kind of 
 articles we wanted and what we pro- 
 posed to do about advertising them. 
 Then, finally, at the close of the day 
 there was brought to our hotel a type- 
 written paragraph, unsigned, which stated 
 that he knew just what we desired, but 
 not being certain he wanted then to begin 
 to write it, would give the matter con- 
 sideration. With this showing, which 
 might mean all or nothing, the editor 
 and I returned to New York. 
 
 Now foremost among the personal 
 characteristics of Mr Gosgrave is the 
 quality of persistence. He had assisted 
 Doubleday-Page in editing "Every- 
 body's" under the John Wanamaker 
 regime, and coming over to us at the 
 time we bought the property, was the 
 acting editor of the magazine under Mr 
 Ridgway. He had already shown signs of 
 
 216
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 the great ability, which, on the establish- 
 ment of "Ridgway's Weekly," later won 
 him the full editorship of " Everybody's," 
 at a salary equalled by few editors. At 
 the time of which I write this dominant 
 quality was even stronger, untempered 
 by experience, than it is now, and in the 
 hope that he might put our business in so 
 plausible a light that Mr Lawson would 
 consent, we sent him back to Boston. 
 It was without doubt his resolute siege of 
 the financier's outer office which finally 
 won, for after many days Mr Lawson 
 became so impressed with his persistence 
 that he granted him an interview. This 
 talk had its prompt sequel in a general 
 conference which settled the matter on 
 a basis beyond our rosiest dreams. In 
 his characteristic manner Mr Lawson 
 outlined what he hoped to accomplish, 
 disclosed his remedy for the evils he 
 proposed to attack, and then stating that 
 having looked us up since our first 
 
 217
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 request for an interview and decided 
 that we were game, told us that he 
 intended to write the articles for serial 
 publication without payment, and to 
 advertise them in the daily newspapers 
 at his own expense. We had secured 
 a prize unique in the annals of magazine 
 publishing. 
 
 But where, it was often asked, did 
 Lawson come in ? There was no ready 
 answer to the question, for we never 
 precisely knew. "The Remedy," which 
 he explained to us at our second inter- 
 view, was only to be given to the public 
 after " Frenzied Finance " was finished. 
 It was his belief that when this was 
 unfolded and the American people, with 
 the great downfall of the trusts, had come 
 into possession of the millions ruthlessly 
 pillaged from them, he also, in common 
 with the people, would reap the material 
 benefit of his work. 
 
 The profit to "Everybody's" was 
 
 218
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 happily less remote. Mr. Lawson's first 
 article sketched, in his inimitable way, 
 what he meant to tell. The hors- d'ceuv res 
 of the feast to follow, it whetted the 
 appetite of the American public as never 
 did cocktail and caviar tempt the palate 
 of the veriest gourmet. Nor did Jonah 
 open wider eyes upon his record-break- 
 ing gourd than we turned on the miracle 
 wrought in our circulation. We beheld 
 the wonderful vision of owning a great 
 magazine property without the long, 
 hard preparatory struggle of a "Mun- 
 sey" or a "McClure"; we saw our- 
 selves, free of worry as to personal 
 needs, possessed of power to continue 
 our work for what we believed to be 
 the common good. 
 
 Mr. Lawson's laurels were not to 
 pass unchallenged, however. The July 
 issue, wherein ** Frenzied Finance " 
 began its spectacular career, also con- 
 tained the first instalment of a serial 
 
 219
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 which we had arranged to publish long 
 before the Lawson project arose. In 
 the early autumn Mr. Hall Gaine per- 
 formed his annual pilgrimage to London 
 to call upon his publisher. The latter, 
 having transatlantic connections, men- 
 tioned to the author that the circulation 
 of " Everybody's Magazine" had made 
 extraordinary gains. "Yes," said Mr. 
 Caine, "I expected it. That is the 
 American magazine which is publishing 
 my new story, *The Prodigal Son." 
 
 It was my lot to have many interviews 
 with our remarkable contributor, some of 
 them intensely interesting. Indeed, I may 
 say that although I have waited hours, 
 even days, to see him so many were the 
 demands upon his time I have always 
 felt repaid for the delay. A fluent talker, 
 his conversation was as entertaining as 
 his literary style, which I need remind 
 no one has a racy vigour all its own. 
 These visits of mine had mainly to do 
 
 220
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 with the exploiting of " Frenzied Fi- 
 nance." At the time he promised us the 
 story we had discussed many suggestions 
 for its advertisement. One was that we 
 offer fifty thousand dollars as a prize for 
 the best essay on * * Frenzied Finance " at 
 the end of its serial run. As Mr Lawson 
 put this forward as the condition on which 
 he would give us his story, we readily 
 assented, though we believed, and even- 
 tually persuaded him, that there were 
 more effective ways of advertising. The 
 regular monthly announcements each in- 
 volved a race against time. Magazine 
 publishers usually send out the advertise- 
 ments of their forthcoming issue in ad- 
 vance, the agent mailing them direct to 
 the newspapers with instructions to insert 
 on the day of publication. It was never 
 possible for us to follow this custom. 
 Written by Mr Lawson the afternoon 
 before the magazine was to appear, the 
 advertisements of ** Frenzied Finance" 
 
 221
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 were put in type by some Boston news- 
 paper, and then rushed to the other dailies 
 throughout the country by telegraph. 
 Once in a while the announcement would 
 be ready in time for someone to carry it 
 to New York, whence it could be tele- 
 phoned to nearer points, like Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore and Washington. But these 
 occasions for economy were rare. 
 
 Joining him late one afternoon for a 
 twelfth hour consultation of this sort, I 
 found his desk heaped high with a mass 
 of letters, telegrams and cheques, all in 
 answer to one of his large financial adver- 
 tisements of the day before. He was 
 forming a five-million-dollar pool for the 
 purpose of selling short American Smelt- 
 ing and certain other stocks which he 
 claimed were grossly inflated. By the 
 action of this pool these stocks were to be 
 put down to a point near their real value. 
 Only wealthy men were invited to parti- 
 cipate, and the smallest cheque acceptable 
 
 222
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawsofi 
 
 from any one person was twenty-five 
 thousand dollars. Taking up one of these 
 letters, with its lemon-coloured enclosure, 
 he turned it over to me with the remark, 
 "That's a good-sized cheque, Thayer." 
 The amount was fifty thousand dollars; 
 the letter, which began "Dear Tom," 
 said briefly that the writer believed in 
 the pool and would later in the week, 
 perhaps, double his subscription. Both 
 letter and cheque were signed "Russel 
 Sage." Since the venerable financier 
 had been handled without gloves in his 
 articles, I was surprised, but as the 
 cheque also bore the usual scrawl of a 
 bank cashier, it did not occur to me to 
 doubt its authenticity. A few days later, 
 however, happening to call on the Vice- 
 President of the Corn Exchange Bank, 
 upon which the cheque was drawn, I 
 asked to see their method of certification, 
 and then perceived that the five-million- 
 dollar pool was short a distinguished 
 
 223
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 member. When I next saw Mr Lawson 
 I told him that he had deliberately de- 
 ceived me. The wonder in his blue eyes 
 turned to merriment as I explained. 
 "That was fair," he said. "It was sent 
 me as a joke I passed it on." 
 
 During one of my trips to New Eng- 
 land I chanced to be a witness of his 
 sensational meeting with the mining 
 operator, Colonel Greene. The latter, 
 using page advertisements in the daily 
 press, had called the author of ' ' Frenzied 
 Finance" a liar, a fakir and a charlatan, 
 and stated that he proposed to take an 
 early train to Boston to settle with him. 
 On the appearance of this advertisement, 
 we received a telegram from a city in 
 the far West, addressed to Mr Lawson. 
 It ran: "Bully boy. You are doing a 
 great work. Others besides Colonel 
 Greene have notches in their guns. I 
 am taking first train to Boston." I also 
 took the first train to Boston, in the hope 
 
 224
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 that I might arrive in advance of these 
 two redoubtable warriors. In the morn- 
 ing papers that day appeared a telegram, 
 supposedly from Mr Lawson to Colonel 
 Greene, to the effect that as he had 
 much consideration for his office, which 
 contained many art treasures, he would 
 meet him in front of the Old State House 
 where the blood of patriots had pre- 
 viously been shed. Crowds thronged 
 the historic spot, but Colonel Greene 
 failed to appear. On my way to Mr 
 Lawson's home that evening, he regaled 
 me with a number of interesting episodes 
 of his earlier life, wherein attempts to 
 assassinate him had proved futile. Se- 
 curing lodging for the night at the 
 Touraine, the clerk telephoned me early 
 the next morning that Mr Lawson had 
 called and sent in his card to Colonel 
 Greene, who by now had reached the 
 battle-ground. Hastily donning my 
 clothes, and without breakfast, I de- 
 
 225 Q
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 scended just in time to witness their 
 meeting in the hotel corridor, and to 
 mount with them to Colonel Greene's 
 apartments. No weapons were used in 
 this encounter. It was a battle of words, 
 in which the author of " Frenzied Fi- 
 nance" was an easy victor. 
 
 At this period Mr Lawson figured in 
 an episode closely personal to myself. 
 I have referred in an earlier chapter to 
 the touching tribute paid me by my 
 friends when I left Philadelphia. It 
 remained a warm memory in the years 
 which followed, and I cherished the hope 
 that I might some day show my appre- 
 ciation. In January, 1905, this thought 
 of a decade crystallized in a definite 
 plan. I decided that I would myself give 
 a dinner and ask, not only those old-time 
 friends, but such new ones as had in the 
 meantime come upon my horizon. 
 
 Public dinners are often stupid affairs, 
 and unless a Patrick Francis Murphy or 
 
 226
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawsofl 
 
 a Simeon Ford is to speak, they are 
 avoided by the man fond of home and 
 family. Private dinners, without some 
 amusing feature, may be quite as unin- 
 teresting, and I therefore planned that 
 my guests should be entertained in some 
 novel way. Given under such circum- 
 stances, no list of guests was issued, no 
 representatives of the press were per- 
 mitted to be present, no speeches were 
 reported. Notwithstanding this fact, the 
 newspapers of New York and other 
 cities printed various accounts of the 
 dinner. The one which follows has its 
 humorous points : 
 
 LAWSON OF BOSTON BRINGS 
 PROSPERITY TO MAGAZINE 
 
 Publisher of "Frenzied Finance" Series Gives 
 
 Dinner at St Regis, on Gold Plates 
 
 Lawson Talks over Phone. 
 
 "New York, February 20. (Special) 
 John Adams Thayer, who is Secretary 
 
 227 Q2
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 and Treasurer of the Ridgway-Thayer 
 Publishing Company, gave a dinner at 
 the St Regis Hotel to-night to celebrate 
 his birthday anniversary. Incidentally 
 the dinner also celebrated the prosperity 
 of * Everybody's Magazine* since it 
 became the medium through which 
 Thomas W. Lawson of Boston exposes 
 himself and others. 
 
 "It was a feast fit to celebrate a six 
 months' hunt for the money devil. 
 About Thayer sat nearly forty congra- 
 tulants. Some of them share his present 
 prosperity, but most of them are men with 
 whom he had been associated in the past. 
 They had been invited with cards which 
 were engraved in facsimile of Thayer's 
 own handwriting. As a cheerful jest 
 they had also been furnished with cards 
 entitling them to admission at the front 
 entrance of the St Regis. 
 
 *'The dinner was served on a modest 
 collection of plate which the hotel clas- 
 
 228
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 sifies as its 'special banquet gold ser- 
 vice.' The menus were bound in brown 
 leather, and included a letter from Law- 
 son to Thayer, which carefully was 
 copyrighted by Thayer, thus keeping it 
 from any possibility of reproduction by 
 vulgar newspapers. 
 
 "Telephones had been provided at the 
 place of each guest, and at ten o'clock 
 the inevitable Thomas Lawson, who is 
 in Boston, was put into connection with 
 all of them at once. He talked for 
 twenty minutes. Some of his auditors 
 said afterward it wouldn't do at all for 
 them to tell what he said. Others said 
 simply they couldn't remember. 
 
 "Certainly Lawson dealt cheerfully 
 with the host of the evening, and com- 
 plimented him on his prosperity in batt- 
 ling with the armies of greed and their 
 vulgar display of ill-gotten wealth. Like- 
 wise, he said the past, present and future 
 finance was known only to one man, and 
 
 229
 
 The Discovery of Tom Law-son 
 
 that one man was at the Boston end of 
 the telephone." 
 
 Mr Lawson's speech by telephone 
 was not at all serious. His letter, on 
 the other hand, struck a different note, 
 yet one equally characteristic of the 
 man. It was entitled "Looping the Life 
 Circle," and was read by Mr Ridgway, 
 who has oratorical abilities of no mean 
 order. Copyrighted as it was at the 
 time, it has never before been published. 
 
 "Looping the life circle is the order 
 of human existence. Old Ringmaster 
 time cracks his whip as the man steps 
 out upon the flying zone to begin his 
 wonderful journey by way of sunland, 
 moon and starland to the enchanted 
 chamber at the world's end. Round the 
 great orbit he swings through spring 
 days and summertime, and above the 
 music of the spheres the crack of the 
 Ringmaster's whip signals the passing 
 
 230
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 years, faintly at first, louder as the mel- 
 low autumn shadows fall and in thunder 
 tones as the circle spins into the hoary 
 regions where Winter is king. To-night 
 the echo of the whip's crack, dimly 
 heard, is in the air, and we who cling 
 near your rim of the circle rejoice that 
 its course is still in the August loop, and 
 that before you and us stretch glorious 
 days of racing in space amid suns and 
 constellations hung out for our delec- 
 tation. Afar off, indefinite as a dream, 
 is the enchanted chamber, so that 
 what need we care, while our grip 
 on the rim is strong, for the lightning 
 play or the bleak wind that blow in the 
 wild waste places, or for the grey gates 
 man at the world's end. To-night's flight 
 is through the perfume of stellar gar 
 dens; to-morrow we will pick the ripened 
 fruit in Orion's orchards, and before 
 Time's whip cracks out again, who 
 knows through what Aladdin realm we 
 
 231
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 may be flitting. So let us be glad glad 
 of the speed and the beauty, of the per- 
 fume and the vision, but most of all glad 
 that Fate has set us so close together 
 on the circle rim that while the echo 
 of the Ringmaster's whip is still in the 
 air, we can clasp each other's hands and 
 know that whatever storms lower, we 
 have not to weather them alone." 
 
 I possess two personally inscribed 
 books of Mr Lawson's. One is "The 
 Lawson History of the America's Cup,"' 
 the other "Frenzied Finance." In the 
 latter he penned this : 
 
 "My dear Thayer: 
 
 "As sure as water seeks its level, 
 released balloons the sky, and stocks the 
 earth, crime will hunt its creator. 
 
 "You little thought when General 
 Taylor sent you with that note that you 
 and I would be condemned to travel 
 hell together without a fire extinguisher 
 
 232
 
 The Discovery of Tom Lawson 
 
 or insurance policy, but we live and 
 learn. 
 
 "To show you I do, and that I pick 
 blooms from the bush of forgiveness as 
 I travel, I wish you and yours a most 
 happy Christmas. Believe me, 
 
 "Yours very truly, 
 "Thomas W. Lawson. 
 "Boston, December 25, 1905." 
 
 233
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 Chapter Fourteen 
 
 R LAWSON'S great serial 
 began its course in July, and 
 as it is customary to give 
 the cover design of that 
 month a patriotic touch, 
 this issue, the best we could 
 produce, bore an eagle with outspread 
 wings ? the American flag printed in strong 
 colours. The red, white and blue attracted 
 much attention on the news-stands. It 
 also drew the notice of the Chief Police 
 Commissioner of Boston, who declared that 
 the American flag was used as an adver- 
 tisement, and that therefore the magazine 
 could not be sold. The news-dealers in 
 Boston, however, always ready for an 
 emergency, decided that their customers 
 should be supplied, even without the 
 covers, and so announced by large signs. 
 
 234
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 Whereupon the Commissioner's decision, 
 of course, got into the newspapers, whose 
 many comments and editorials led to in- 
 creased sales in Boston and vicinity. 
 Perceiving a chance to help the sales in 
 other parts of the country, I made a hur- 
 ried trip to Boston and had a talk with 
 the Commissioner. He had a charming 
 personality and was very polite, but in- 
 sisted that he must obey the letter of the 
 law and prohibit the sale of the magazine. 
 After my talk with him I gave an inter- 
 view to the Boston papers, told of the 
 conference and stated that the publishers 
 of "Everybody's Magazine" had no 
 thought of desecrating the American 
 flag in fact, that we did not consider 
 the cover an advertisement at all. Our 
 idea was to encourage rather than to dis- 
 courage patriotism. Changing the cover 
 of the second edition, which was then on 
 the presses, we reproduced in a large 
 broadside many of the editorials and
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 items referring to the suppression of the 
 first edition, and sent these sheets to the 
 editors of newspapers throughout the 
 country, requesting them, as believers in 
 right and justice, to reprint some of them, 
 with or without comment. The fact that 
 we were ourselves large advertisers at 
 the time helped considerably, and the 
 immense amount of free advertising 
 which we received resulted in the sale 
 of the second edition. In many places 
 throughout the country copies of the 
 July issue were sold at three and four 
 times its regular price, and extraordin- 
 ary stories reached us of the manner 
 in which the magazine circulated from 
 hand to hand. In a letter which came 
 to us from an isolated town near Quebec, 
 it was stated that one copy of the July 
 issue had been read by forty-five different 
 people. 
 
 Then began the incessant call for back 
 numbers. The demand was so great 
 
 236
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 that we printed a little pamphlet called 
 "The Chapters Which Went Before," 
 and this assisted greatly in putting the 
 story in the hands of the public. Al- 
 though the August issue exceeded its 
 predecessor by fifty thousand copies, it 
 yet fell twenty-five thousand short of the 
 newsdealers' requirements. Month by 
 month we taxed the full capacity of a 
 number of printing establishments, until, 
 in less than a year after Mr. Lawson's 
 articles began, we announced an edition of 
 one million, which he himself had predicted. 
 In the meantime we had to effect a 
 revolution in our advertising. With 
 our circulation climbing in the amazing 
 fashion I have described, we justly felt 
 that our price for advertising should 
 increase pro rata, but as it is customary 
 for publishers to give notice of an ad- 
 vance, meanwhile taking orders at the 
 old rate for a year, we found ourselves 
 in a dilemma. The unusual situation 
 
 237
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 seemed to warrant unusual measures, 
 and we accordingly decided to break 
 with tradition and announce an immediate 
 increase, without notice, to four hundred 
 dollars per page. To impress advertisers 
 with the fact that the occasion was excep- 
 tional in every way, we printed this an- 
 nouncement in two colours on Japanese 
 parchment paper, and, giving it the form 
 of a proclamation, affixed the signature of 
 the secretary and the seal of the company 
 at the bottom. Yet, even before a later 
 rate of five hundred dollars per page, was 
 established, our circulation had so grown 
 that we felt certain of an ultimate 
 monthly issue of a million. We there- 
 upon made a price of a dollar a line per 
 thousand circulation, with a bonus of one 
 hundred thousand thrown in, but this de- 
 vice was short-lived. Advertisers must 
 know in advance what they are to pay ; 
 otherwise it is impossible for them to 
 arrange their expenditure. 
 
 238
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 These rapidly advancing prices made 
 our back-cover page very costly, for this 
 position in all magazines is valued at four 
 times a regular page. It so happened that 
 one of these back-covers was for once not 
 sold in advance. A week remained in 
 which to find a customer at its fixed price ; 
 I was in a quandary. We had announced 
 an edition of a million copies, and this 
 space, which at the old rate had brought 
 as high as two thousand dollars, had 
 now doubled in value. Who would buy 
 a page worth four thousand dollars? 
 Then I had an inspiration. Why not 
 advertise it! Such a thing had never 
 been done, but if anything of value could 
 be sold by advertising, why not this ? The 
 idea came to me in the early morning 
 at the hour when dreams come and it 
 was so realistic that I awoke, rose and 
 wrote the announcement. Then I sought 
 repose again and found it. I also found a 
 buyer for the page. On the very day of 
 
 239
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 its appearance in the morning "Sun" my 
 advertisement brought a customer. 
 
 Those were roaring times in the adver- 
 tising world generally, and, what with the 
 growth of the field and the dearth of spe- 
 cialists, I had presently to pay [fifteen 
 thousand dollars annually, with a Con- 
 tract for three years, to the wonderfully 
 efficient man who took the burden of 
 "Everybody's" advertising department 
 off my shoulders. 
 
 Giving our readers the same number of 
 reading pages as "Harper's" and "The 
 Century," we felt that we were entitled 
 to more than ten cents a copy. But to 
 raise the subscription price of a magazine 
 is an important step. I was well aware of 
 this, for "The Ladies' Home Journal" had 
 doubled its price a few years before I went 
 to it, and I had specially studied the work- 
 ing of this phase of publishing. With our 
 mounting circulation and low advertising 
 rate, for the higher prices, though an- 
 
 240
 
 Divoroed with Alimony 
 
 nounced, were not yet in force, profits 
 were small. At fifteen cents a copy, 
 there would be little loss on circula- 
 tion. When to make the change was the 
 problem. Then, one morning, the daily 
 newspapers did us the kindness to print 
 the statement that "Everybody's Maga- 
 zine" was to be suppressed. The attor- 
 ney for Henry H. Rogers, of Standard 
 Oil fame, had written the American News 
 Company that if the magazines were dis- 
 tributed and put on sale throughout the 
 country, action at law would be taken. 
 The elevated train, on which I rode that 
 morning, seemed to creep at a snail's pace. 
 Arriving at my office, I burst in on Mr 
 Ridgway. 
 
 "Now's the time!" I cried. 
 
 With the dignity of a foreign ambassa- 
 dor, the active partner of my troubles 
 leaned back in his chair and smiled. 
 
 "Yes; for what?" said he. 
 
 "To increase our price!" 
 
 241 R
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 My co-worker took fire himself. In a 
 moment he had our printer on the tele- 
 phone, the presses were stopped, and the 
 change was made. The free advertising 
 given us by the magic name of Standard 
 Oil was so immense that the edition for 
 the month, though larger than before, 
 was swept from the news-stands on the 
 day of publication. 
 
 Our horizon was sometimes troubled 
 with clouds without this silver lining of 
 gratuitous advertisement. We never wor- 
 ried about the money for the pay-roll, or 
 for the paper, or for the printer those 
 nightmares which haunt the bedsides of 
 many publishers ; but we did face breath- 
 taking situations. These were more or 
 less closely related to Mr Lawson's per- 
 sonality. One such episode had its storm 
 centre in a picture of Mr J. Pierpont 
 Morgan, to whom Mr Lawson referred 
 in one of his chapters. Not finding a good 
 photograph for reproduction, we asked 
 
 242
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 Mr Lawson if he had one we might use, 
 with the upshot that we made a plate 
 from a steel engraving which was in itself 
 a work of art. After the magazine ap- 
 peared on the news-stands we were 
 waited upon at our offices by the pub- 
 lisher of the engraving a limited edition 
 and he came prepared. He had with 
 him, in fact, the law of copyright, which 
 clearly stated that one dollar a copy 
 could be claimed for every impression 
 we had made. Inasmuch as our output 
 that month totalled 700,000 copies, we 
 were liable for seven hundred thousand 
 dollars. It was a most interesting after- 
 noon. 
 
 Another incident, as disconcerting, 
 reached its climax while we were pre- 
 paring to issue "Frenzied Finance" in 
 book form. Literary friends of Mr Law- 
 son had advised him that his material 
 should be re-arranged for book publica- 
 tion, and to this he agreed. At the last 
 
 243 R2
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 moment, however, by a quick decision 
 of the author, it was all restored to the 
 original shape in which it had appeared in 
 the magazine. As we were very anxious 
 to publish the first volume promptly, this 
 embarrassed us, but we pushed the work 
 forward, and, having more than half the 
 book in type, were pluming ourselves on 
 our wonderful progress, when Mr Law- 
 son again called a halt with a long tele- 
 gram. Our dismay may be imagined as 
 we read that he preferred another style 
 of type and that the book must be reset. 
 He added that it was one of his constitu- 
 tional proclivities to change things, and 
 referred us to a certain remark made by 
 District Attorney Jerome at a public din- 
 ner in Kansas City. On this occasion, 
 which was in Mr Lawson's honour, Mr 
 Ridgway had used this language: "When 
 God needed a father of his country, He 
 raised a Washington ; when He needed an 
 emancipator for the country, He raised a 
 
 244
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 Lincoln; when He needed a saviour of 
 the country He raised a Lawson." Mr 
 Jerome, who followed, paraphrased this 
 dizzy flight by saying that, in his opinion, 
 when God created Lawson He needed 
 some one to raise hell. 
 
 The close of ** Frenzied Finance" found 
 us issuing between five and six hundred 
 thousand copies monthly. Long before 
 this we had striven to produce a maga- 
 zine which, outside the Lawson feature, 
 should be well worth its price, and hence 
 it fell out that the great bulk of the circu- 
 lation was retained. With an increased 
 advertising income, not only were divi- 
 dends in order, but also larger salaries. 
 Visions came of owning my own home 
 and an automobile or two. The magazine 
 was on such a sound footing that it would 
 take years of mismanagement or extrava- 
 gant expenditure to injure the property. 
 With the advertising department in the 
 hands of a capable manager, I planned to 
 
 245
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 travel extensively, taking turns with my 
 partner. I even thought of going around 
 the world. "See America first," was in 
 my thought, however, and soon a trip 
 was made to California. I dined at the 
 Poodle Dog in San Francisco, fished at 
 Catalina Island, saw the Grand Canon of 
 Arizona ; spent a delightful afternoon and 
 evening with Professor John Muir on the 
 edge of the Petrified Forest and returned 
 in Mr Wilder's private car to New York. 
 I had been gone two months. During my 
 absence ambitious plans for the establish- 
 ment of a weekly paper had been hatched 
 by Mr Ridgway. It was to be a great na- 
 tional journal, published under the name 
 of " Ridgway 's A Militant Weekly for 
 God and Country." As big locally as 
 nationally, it was to be published in four- 
 teen of the largest cities of the country 
 with responsible heads and assistants in 
 each city. The Washington Bureau was 
 to be the great important feature. The 
 
 246
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 people were to be told exactly what the 
 Government was doing with the thou- 
 sand millions of dollars it spends every 
 year. In this city alone a staff of from 
 six to ten news-gatherers and editors 
 would garner the week's history and 
 telegraph it on Friday to each of the 
 cities where "Ridg way's" was to appear. 
 Moreover, it was to have, the Foreword 
 stated, good wholesome fiction, with 
 honest sentiment and "red blood." 
 
 I was not in sympathy with this grandi- 
 ose dream. I had risked my all at the 
 establishment of " Everybody's," and 
 now that we were out of debt, I wanted 
 to see a surplus before I gave serious 
 thought to another publication. I there- 
 fore advised my partner to put it aside 
 for another year or two till we should be 
 in a better position to take it up. Sur- 
 prised as I was at his determination not to 
 delay the founding of his weekly, I was 
 still more taken aback when the project 
 
 247
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 was seconded by our silent partner. Mr 
 Wilder, during our business life, sat as 
 judge upon our differences, which were 
 few and far between, and in this instance 
 I felt as confident as I had on the other 
 occasions that he would decide with me. 
 I found myself in the minority, however. 
 Their idea was another "engine fighting 
 for the common good." In my own life, 
 I had fought long and hard for my daily 
 bread, and before taking up the fight for 
 others on this colossal scale, I wanted to 
 see myself so entrenched that I need not 
 worry about personal needs. I was be- 
 tween the upper and nether millstones. 
 One of my partners was blessed as few 
 men are blessed, and in addition had 
 much of this world's goods. Mr Ridg- 
 way had his interest in the magazine 
 and the ambition to plant his Excelsior 
 flag on loftier heights. Divorce, there- 
 fore, was the natural outcome, and it 
 came quickly. Disposing of the larger 
 
 248
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 part of my interest at a price which was 
 considered fair, my alimony was further 
 swelled by the continuance of my salary 
 for three years. S. S. McGlure and 
 John S. Phillips, of "McClure's Maga- 
 zine," parted company about the same 
 time, but the sentiment which attended 
 the break between these college chums 
 and intimate friends, played no part in 
 my separation from Mr Ridgway. We 
 were merely co-workers for three happy 
 years of business life. To Mr Wilder I 
 was bound by other ties. 
 
 Since then water has flowed under the 
 bridge. The weekly I opposed long since 
 completed its short cycle from premature 
 birth to early death. Its nineteen num- 
 bers entailed a loss of over three hundred 
 thousand dollars! But "Everybody's," 
 soundly based, has gone on from strength 
 to strength. Even as I end this chapter 
 the newspapers tell me that, by increasing 
 
 249
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 its stock by three millions, the Butterick 
 Company has acquired " Everybody's 
 Magazine." Three millions of Butterick 
 stock for the publication we bought in 
 1903 for seventy-five thousand dollars! 
 And it is worth it even more. 
 
 Since then, also, I have enjoyed to the 
 full the vacation I have earned. The 
 reader who has followed these pages to 
 their close my companion for thirty- 
 five years will realize what this has 
 meant to me. I have looked upon men 
 and cities. I have circled the globe. And, 
 indeed, it is a small globe. Even in India 
 my eyes fell upon the hoary advertise- 
 ment, * ' Mother Almost Gave Up Hope, " 
 and as I recognized one after another 
 familiar nostrum, exiled from its native 
 land, I perceived that the heathen in his 
 blindness bows down to more than wood 
 and stone. 
 
 In this holiday of mine there comes to 
 me every now and then that sage warn- 
 
 250
 
 Divorced with Alimony 
 
 ing of my old-time friend: "Don't get in 
 a rut." Recalling this, I think of men 
 who have retired temporarily from busi- 
 ness, only to lose all desire to resume 
 their share in the world's work. Then I 
 ask myself if this happy, do-as-you- 
 please life is growing on me? Am I be- 
 coming a chronic pleasure-seeker? Am 
 I falling into a vacation rut ? And I say 
 to myself: "Look out!" 
 
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