enterprises lest the charge be brought against them of being influenced by advertising. Almost every department store has its tale of woe about the lack of cooperation from newspapers in announcing the welfare movements started among employees. On the whole, department stores present just as strong a case against the newspapers as do the critics. Did not this condition obtain, there would be more reason to suspect truth in the charge that advertising possibly influences the news and editorial columns.
OPINIONS OF BUSINESS MANAGERS
Don C. Seitz, business manager of The New York World, has testified as follows about the charge that advertisers run the policy of the newspapers:—
I have been for twenty years in the business office of The New York World and I do not recall a half-dozen attempts on the part of advertisers to influence it, and of these attempts only one was a matter of public concern about which there were two very fair opinions. We did not accept the advertiser's view. It is some five years since I have had an advertiser ask me to do anything, even in his personal interests, unless perhaps to print a wedding notice, or the mention of some social affair, and in this I rather think the editors treated him more shabbily than if it had been some one else. Good editors are not interfered with on great newspapers. If they were, there would be neither good editors nor great newspapers.
Louis Wiley, business manager of The New York Times, in his address on "The Newspaper of To-day" has a long list of items which were published in The Times and which mention specifically department stores where omission might have been desired. The Times on several occasions has been absolutely fearless in printing such news. On a few occasions it avoided even the appearance of evil. For example, it refused to sell a political party several thousand copies of a certain issue containing an editorial desired for circulation among voters in an approaching election because it feared that readers might think that the editorial was inspired by party allegiance.
On this matter of outside dictation, General Charles H. Taylor, of The Boston Globe, once said:—
