"GOOD BUSINESS"
"Good Business" IT IS NOT philanthropy—this proposal of the Harvester Trust to put a million dollars at the service of Professor Holden in developing the crops of the Corn Belt. It is simply "good...
...Jackson's account of the writing of it is illuminating—and alive with the germ of independence which finds so favorable a culture-medium in Wisconsin...
...La Follette's asked' each to tell, in his own way, how he came to write his novel...
...Men who know what really is wrong with our way of doing things are as thick as flies in New York newspaper offices, but they might as well be flies in a bottle.—Pearson's...
...If its high standard of content is maintained in the new form, its readers will welcome the physical improvement and will not object to giving advertisers space "next to pure reading matter" * * * ¶CARTOONISTS of newspapers upholding the cause of the Roosevelt party have recently been called to the carpet by paragraphers for portraying the Bull Moose with a full set of upper front teeth, which, as they point out, is plain nature-faking...
...Wisconsin (to use one conspicuous example) thinks so...
...The American has been one of the most interesting and ably-edited of the monthlies...
...Bigger crops mean bigger sales of agricultural implements...
...The farmers—and the rest of the people—maintain this college and experiment station...
...The idea that has met with most encouragement is that of making the nation and the states partners in this enterprise of developing the nation's agricultural resources to the uttermost...
...If this institution can produce improved journalists, we are for it...
...When the people themselves, through their own agencies of government and education, use a part of the money in the public treasury to increase the efficiency and raise the standard of farming, whereby the national wealth may be doubled and trebled, is this not indicative of the new democracy...
...POINTING TO THE FACT that more than a half million workers are either killed or injured in the United States every year, Gustavus Ohlinger, general attorney for the Ann Arbor Railroad, said at a recent meeting of the American Railway Surgeons...
...but if enough of us were to do this, then Christmas would be made Christmas indeed to those thousands of working girls who have come to look forward to the holiday season with only reluctance and dread...
...Simply by doing our Christmas shopping early...
...He has, for one thing, drawn with skillful hand the justice-hunger, as distinguished from foodhunger, which is so controlling in the Mid-West granger...
...The farmers of that state don't wait upon big corporations to hire experts to assist them in "growing two ears of corn where one grew before...
...Legislation is pending in Congress to the same end, only on a nation-wide scale...
...And we can...
...A product of the Middle West, he has sensed, in a rare degree, the spirit that is making of the north Mississippi Valley the experiment ground for real democracy...
...What influences, what inspirations, what ideals have found expression through these men...
...At the state's agricultural college in Madison there is Professor Moore and his co-workers who are developing seeds especially adapted to Wisconsin soil and climate that already have increased the value of the crops of the state several millions of dollars a year...
...The "unrest" of a free people grown keenly sensitive to and burningly resentful of political oligarchy, industrial despotism, and social injustice, has its dramatic qualities...
...THE American Magazine for December appears in a new size which its publishers say "marks an important epoch in the history of periodical making...
...Edwards will tell "Why I Wrote A Man's World...
...Three Inspiring Novels HAVE YOU NOTICED how the new spirit of freedom —educational freedom, political freedom, industrial freedom—is finding its way into the novels of to-day...
...His work has been reviewed in an earlier number of this magazine...
...And isn't the Wisconsin way far better than the trust way...
...It is their own institution...
...The "million dollar fund" of the Harvester Trust serves to emphasize the work that is now under way under the people's own auspices and at the public expense...
...Would you, even at some little sacrifice of convenience, be willing to share in a general eftort to protect, if necessary, the girl who waits upon you at the shop counter from one day or two days or a whole week of tortured body, pain-racked feet and hands, and benumbed brain—d'ays of utter weariness...
...whereby Uncle Sam will duplicate every dollar invested by a state in spreading the gospel of pure-Tsred seed and scientific tillage...
...Do you believe in the plutocratic way where the rich and powerful confer favors upon the people in their own fashion and to their own ends, or in the democratic way where the people do things for themselves—and grow in strength and power in the doing of it...
...the idea being that a little money intelligently invested in helping the farmers get more out of the land brings back rich returns in the increased tonnage that will be hauled to market...
...Mekwin will tell "How I Came to Write The Citadel," and Mr...
...There is not one of us who would not gladly do this, if we could...
...The Midlanders is a splendid romance...
...What impulses have directed their writings...
...It is being discarded in faver of a system of compensation based solely on the fact of death or injury in the regular course of employment...
...And the quality of some of these recent novels that have had their inspiration in Insurgency is rich with promise of a virile and wholesome addition to the body of American literature...
...One bill (the Lever bill) has already passed the House and is on the Senate calendar to be taken up when the nation's law-makers meet again next week...
...The present system providing for remuneration in the event of either death or injury has been condemned as archaic, extravagant and disturbing to industry...
...Bursting bins on the farms mean more dividends to Harvester Trust stockholders...
...One of us may not help much, or a dozen, or a thousand...
...The new form permits of three columns of reading matter to the page, much larger and more artistic illustrations, and a book nearly as thick as the old standard-sized magazine...
...They engage their own experts...
...They are written by men who have, in a very intimate way, sensed the popular revolt against The Things That Are and the strivings toward The Things That Are To Be...
...It is simply "good business...
...When a big corporation makes such an investment (which of course carries with it measurable public benefits, although designed primarily for private profit) is it not suggestive of the old feudalism...
...And they, too, have found that investing taxes in its support is "good business...
...its impulse is profoundly affecting the current of American life...
...The railroads have long been engaged in "development" work...
...Jackson is one of the younger and more promising of our novelists...
...it has its source deep down in the springs of American character...
...The progressive movement has opened a fresh field for the writers of fiction...
...Would you, if you could, in the Christmas Spirit, make a gift to one of these that" would transform the anniversary of Christ's birth into a day of gladness and peace...
...We are sure that every reader will find them all of exceeding interest and value...
...It is not a new idea...
...Newspapermen already know more about what is wrong with this country than their employers will permit them to print...
...Three novels of this type which we consider of especial interest and strength are The Citadel, A Man's World, and The Midlanders...
...In later issues of La Follette's Mr...
...We believe, however, that the school for journalists could well have awaited a reform school for publishers...
...The response was most gratifying—and inspiring...
...Last week a committee of the Wisconsin Bankers' Association met at the Wisconsin College of Agriculture with tne University's crop experts and gave their endorsement to a plan for establishing in each of the seventy-two counties of the state a county superintendent of agricultural education, to work with the University in demonstrating in a practical way to the farmers the improved methods of growing crops and raising animals—work similar to that which the Harvester company engaged Holden to do...
...Good news...
...The Shop Girl's Christmas WOULD YOU, if you could, help to make Christmas happier for one—just one—of the great army of women and girls who swell the ranks of industry in our country...
...On another page of this magazine Charles Tenney Jackson tells "Why I Wrote The Midlanders...
...But if it is "good business" for the railroads and' the Harvester Trust to put good, hard xoin into showing the farmer how to get greater returns from his labor and his- land, is it not equally "good business" for the state and the nation to do so...
...What-not ¶THANKS to the beneficence of the late Joseph Pultizer, we now have at Columbia University a School of Journalism...
Vol. 4 • November 1912 • No. 48
