"Patronizing" Our Advertisers

The Boomton Board of Trade Issues Its Official Report

By the Secretary, FREDERIC C. NELSON

OUR city is miles and miles away from New York, but we are a proud people and have a set determination to be just as "up and coming" in every respect as any other city in America. Good Form is our god and the front and back pages of our magazines are his prophets. We have almost entirely abandoned the "literary sections" with their Prohibition, Poetry and Reconstruction, in favor of a closer perusal of the "mart of trade" section where "ideas" may actually be found. All this has improved our city wonderfully. The women are chic-er than ever, and the men are gradually shedding that Springfield look and are taking to "class" and "snap". There are more kitchen cabinets in our homes, more tar soap per capita in our bathrooms, and more clever clothes per square male, than there were copies of "The Spoon River Anthology" under the old regime. The overwhelming sentiment in favor of smartness can only be appreciated by the man in a last year's hat.

SO strong a hold is advertising taking on our citizenry that it is a common sight to see blind-folded men smelling of a handful of tobacco before filling their pipes. They are blind-folded because they are aware that otherwise there would be no way of being sure that it is their nose which knows. And our housewives have almost given up serving toast for breakfast because of the terrible craving for cigarettes which the very smell of toast excites in their husbands.

At a small tea the other afternoon I was surprised to see several of the guests pouring hot water, tea, or cream upon the highly polished table; and the hostess, instead of appearing in the least annoyed, actually seemed pleased. I confess my astonishment with reluctance, for had I read the advertising pages with the fidelity which is due them, I should have known long 'ere this that polished tables and floors are only waiting for a shower of tea or moulten lead or coal tar or what not, so that the good form of the furniture polish may be established beyond a doubt. Our children know already that mud pies are made in the parlors of the best regulated families and that a water fight in the front hall means nothing in the lives of parents who read advertisements. But I digress. At that same small tea was a charming girl, who was the center of a large crowd of men and women who were mauling her frightfully but in the best of humour. The young men simply couldn't seem to let go her hand; the old dodos patted her cheek; and the dowagers simply manhandled her. The girl bore up wonderfully under this social massage, however, probably realizing that one acquires a "skin you love to touch" entirely at one's own risk.

To be sure, there are certain inconveniences that must be put up with if one is to live happily in a modern advertising town. Only yesterday, for instance, I saw a friend of mine trying to go downtown in his car. But he couldn't make more than eight or ten feet at a time because of the wildly gesticulating mob which got in his way, climbed upon the running board, and actually forced my friend to stall his engine. Remembering a magazine article on the I. W. W. which I read before on the Dawn of the New Day, I wondered if the Proletariat had not got out of hand. The man who was with me at the time laughed at my discomfiture.

"Why," he exclaimed, "that's Richards, the 'man who owns one'. Those people are acting in perfectly good form; they're just 'asking him'."

That same man has some little difficulty in enjoying his meals because everything from soup to nuts tastes like spearmint to him. Even the tooth paste which is guaranteed to make his toasted corn flakes taste better (as if such a thing were possible) seems to make no difference. As he confided to me recently, "the damn flavour lasts".

Some of us older folks, who were brought up in a different age, can never seem to become accustomed to the sight of pretty girls and clean-cut young men rubbing their teeth with litmus paper—right on the streets, too. It is, however, being done as the advertising pages will show, and we are not to be permitted to remain in the rear of any forward movement. The advertising pages have a faculty for dignifying the humblest matters—even to our underwear.

CAREFUL attention to advertising is revolutionizing our whole municipal life. The children have learned to take such a new and wholesome attitude toward housework. They delight in running vacuum cleaners, taking baths, cleaning refrigerators, and turning washing machines. The little dears evince childish glee at the prospect of "picked-up lunches" of baked beans, deviled ham, prunes, or corned beef. At the merest suggestion of bacon or canned soup they squeal with delight. One family in our city had boneless codfish for six days consecutively, and the delighted yelps of t*he youngsters were so vociferous that the neighbors ran over to see what was the matter. The arrival of the weekly and monthly magazines has to be kept a secret in some families. Otherwise the bellowings of hunger for dried currants and pistachio jelly could not be suppressed.

The maids and cooks are beginning to see the light, too. They never sweep or dust any more. They simply purchase some washing powder and then sit about and grin. It is indeed a pleasure to see them seated comfortably with a Harold Bell Wright novel, while the housework booms along of its own momentum.

NOW that babies do not cry, our women have plenty of time to play cards and make calls, and the only reason they do not do much of either is that they have learned from the advertising pages that the really nice women spend all their spare moments recommending cold cream to their maids or showing the smiling creatures how to operate a carpet sweeper—this, of course, when the children are at school.

Our working classes, too, have been greatly benefited by our city's new passion. Garage men are wreathed in smiles as they hand us their moderate bills. They are muscular fellows who spend their odd moments balancing huge iron weights over their heads or giving us lectures on the value of this or that brake lining, tire, or spark plug. Stenographers smile at the boss and ignore the younger clerks, so fascinated are they by dictagraphs, multigraphs, and filing cabinets.

Some days ago I was aroused from my work by a strident chorus, if such it may be called, of barking dogs. Glancing out of my window, I saw that a host of canines was blocking the entrance to the music store across the street while a cordon of police with nets tried in vain to drive them away. Upon opening the window I heard the strains of a talking-machine in the store playing, "I'll Say She Does". The poor brutes were only listening to their Master's Voice—just the way the rest of us are.