The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
A correspondent notes that the New York World devotes two
illustrated pages to the Vanderbilt-Marlborough brat, and wants
to know what I think about it? Why, I think that old Josef
Phewlitzer has succeeded in elongating the Vanderbilt leg. No
editor ever publishes such tommyrot unless paid therefor, because
he knows that no sane person will read it. It was an
advertisement, ordered and paid for by somebody, probably
Consuelo's rather gay mother, who, albeit divorced from her first
husband for cause, has the distinguished honor to be gran'dam to
an incipient duke, who will probably grow up to be as utterly
worthless as his daddy. . . .
Jno. H. Holmes, editor of the Boston Herald, writing on the "New
Journalism." says: "Huge circulation is extremely profitable. It
produced revenue from the sale of the paper, and a still greater
revenue from the volume of advertising." In other words, the
average "great daily" is simply a mercenary advertising graft. It
may "produce revenue," but seldom profit from circulation, for
the price to agents is frequently below the cost of white paper
and expressage. The subscription price is usually placed below
the profit line, and extra inducements offered in the way of
"premiums." Somehow, a circulation, bona fide or fake, must be
worked up as an excuse for elongating the business man's leg. And
he is a "dead easy mark." The yap who purchases checks of
strangers and bets on monte is no more gullible than the average
victim of the advertising grafter. A sucker is said to be born
every minute; and strange to say, most of them are produced in
the cities. The business man who makes an advertising contract
without investigating the circulation claims of the publisher,
would invest in confederate bonds or buy gold bricks. If he
suffered the loss it would not much matter--would be simply
another case of the fool and his money soon parted; but it is
shifted to the consumer. The people must pay the merchant's
advertising bills, just as they pay his rent and insurance; and
the amount of which they are annually fleeced to pay for what has
no actual existence, would meet all expenses of government and
leave a tremendous surplus in the treasury. This nation wastes
annually for worthless fake advertising more than it pays for
education. . . .
A Galveston traveling man writes me as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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