The Press: Hubbub

¶When a Greek meets a Greek they start a lunch counter.

¶ It requires one pilferer to take another into custody. These things are axiomatic. To the layman it seems also true that it takes a real go-getter to go get gogetters.

In journalistic trade sheets, advertising rises to truly heroic heights ; mere ink and pulp perform prodigious feats. Boosters, hustlers, live-wires, pushers, thousands of miles apart, loudly shout or quietly whisper, hint, insinuate, brazenly state or solemnly propound their messages across the page.

On the front cover of Editor and Publisher for Aug. 16, the Chicago Tribune syndicate announced: "CHESTER GUMP IS GOING TO AUSTRALIA ALONE. ... The pride of Andy and Min has gone to Australia to see Uncle Bim. . . . Children will look forward with unprecedented eagerness to the weekly page of Chester Gump's travels and adventures —the mysteries of the ocean liner, the Bim Gump castle, the pet kangaroo, the army of servants, the diamond mines and all the vast possessions of the rich and lonely Uncle Bim. . . ."

On Page 1, The Sun (Baltimore) ex claimed: "HORATIO ALGER IN 1924 — 'Tattered Toms' play but a minor part in the distribution of the Sun-papers. We have newsboys in Balti more -hustling kids with voices as loud as and with car-hopping agility equal to those of any other city. But . ". . carrier circulation is the back bone of the Sunpapers—delivery directly into the home, not by the glorified newsboy of fiction, but by exclusive carriers, supervised by members of the Sun Route Owners Association, responsible business men who can glorify themselves after working hours and pay a good tailor for the glorification. . . .

"Everything in Baltimore Revolves Around THE SUN. . . . Baltimoreans Don't Say 'Newspaper' ; they say 'SUN-paper'."

On other pages :

"First four months of 1924. Car ried more Food advertising than any other paper in the City. NEW YORK EVENING JOURNAL."

. . .

"WHO, WHAT & HOW ABOUT LOS ANGELES? Are you getting the truth from this ridiculed, startling, impetuous city that claims it is out to become the world's greatest metropolis?

"Los Angeles is a D'Artagnan who has touched the imagination of the war-weary, strike-disgusted, politics-stuffed world. It is a city doing the impossible. Hundreds of thousands have come, are coming—the new type of pioneer. . . . Los Angeles dominates the old-world, has 1,050,000 people, ranks third place in building for 1923, leads in intercoastal shipping and has the most unique Little Theatre in America. If John Doe leaves your town for Los Angeles folks are far more interested in what he is doing than if he goes to New York, or Chicago, or New Orleans. SHERLEY HUNTER, Free Lance."

"THE PASSAIC DAILY NEWS leads in Classified, Local and Foreign Advertising in New Jersey's Fastest Growing City. Trading Population 167,395."

. . .

"By Crops, Livestock Products, Manufactures and Mining

WEST VIRGINIA produces annually about $931,387,000. Of course that is not actual net income. As figures, they are misleading, but by matching them with such figures from other states and dividing by population. . . . etc."