No particular class of publications is alone in the movement for honest advertising. The better news papers are gradually eliminating objectionable and dishonest advertising, and a few, led by the New York Tribune, guarantee their readers against finan cial loss resulting from advertisements appearing in their columns. Many magazines have adopted the same policy. For example, Good Housekeeping has long guaranteed the statements of its advertisers. But it has not stopped here. 'When Dr. Harvey W. resigned as chief of the Bureau of Chemistry at Washington, Good Housekeeping retained him to analyze all food products advertised in its pages and to establish a definite standard for acceptance of food advertisements. That such a policy pays is indicated by the fact that, while thousands of dollars' worth of advertising were rejected during the first year, the increase in the magazine's advertising since that time has been remarkable.
As illustrative of the policy adopted by many mag azines we quote the following statement of censor ship exercised by the Curtis Publishing Company with reference to advertisements which will be accepted for the Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal: The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal accept no advertisements : 1. Of medical or curative agents of any kind Q Of alcoholic beverages 3. Of subjects immorally suggestive 4. Of a nature unduly cheap or vulgar, or that is too un pleasant either in subject or treatment 5. Of a "blind" character—that is to say, advertising which in purpose and intent is obscure or misleading 6. Of "free" articles unless the article is actually free (a thing is not free if the reader is obliged to perform some service or buy some other article in order to obtain it) 7. Of a financial nature, if highly speculative
8. "Knocking" competitors.
Mr. S. K. Evans has the following to say for the Woman's Home Companion: I want our readers to feel that the Woman's Home Com panion will go shopping with them thru the advertising pages, and will guarantee to make good every advertiser's repre sentations. No reader can have much purchasing security by any other method of shopping, and I want to keep that faith inviolate.
We have had several interesting cases in which we were given an opportunity to prove our principles. A woman bought a bird from one of our advertisers some time ago, and when it arrived it was a dead bird. She wrote to the but it made no effort to satisfy her. Then she wrote to us. It was a small matter to have reimbursed the woman, but we were after the principle, and kept after the advertiser until he finally made good to the woman. She had done her part, doing exactly what the advertiser asked her to do, and had sent her money. If she had been given no satisfaction, her entire faith in advertising might have been shattered.
The associates of one's advertisements just as important indications of character as the associates of an individual. 'We repeat: The objects of an advertisement are three: to be seen, to be remembered and to be believed, and the greatest of these is to be believed. One should prepare his advertisements and choose his mediums with this thought uppermost in mind.