Often a bridesmaid but never a bride HE case of Geraldine Proctor Twas really pathetic. Most of And as Miss Proctor's birthdays She was often a bridesmaid but Your mirror can't tell you when That's the insidious thing about halitosis (the medical term for unpleasant breath). Halitosis creeps upon you unawares. You may even have it for. years without knowing so yourself. That of course is when halitosis is a symptom of some deep-seated organic trouble a doctor must correct. Or maybe a dentist. But so commonly halitosis is rather a temporary or local condition that will yield to more simple treatment. Listerine, the well-known liquid antiseptic, possesses wonderful properties as a mouth deodorant. When regularly used, it arrests food fermentation and leaves the breath sweet, fresh and clean. As such it becomes an indispensable friend to people who wish to enjoy the comfortable assurance that their breath is always beyond reproach. Listerine will put you on the safe and polite side. Provide yourself with a bottle today and use it, regularly as a gargle and mouth wash. Your druggist has handled Listerine for years, and regards it as a safe, effective antiseptic of great merit. Start using Listerine today. Don't be in doubt another day about your breath-Lambert Pharmacal Company, Saint Louis, Mo. Th THE FORGOTTEN FIRESIDE BY MARSH K. POWERS HAT something has happened to the American home is an inescapable fact which we all recognize. Its old-time social dominance is obviously in eclipse, and the reasons which have been adduced to explain this obvious lessening in its importance are many and varied. A recently published statement bearing on this subject halted me abruptly, not merely because it translated this National tendency into dollars and cents, but rather because it pointed out a notable parallel. There is thought-provoking material in the sentences quoted below, here reproduced for brevity's sake without their context: "Last year they [the people of the United States] spent over $3,500,000,000 [wholesale prices] for the purchase of automobiles and accessories. . . . It is interesting to note that the building shortage a year ago (1919) was estimated at $3,500,00,000." we Without attempting any exhaustive check-up of the accuracy of the two figures (in fact, disregarding wholly their almost suspicious coincidence), must all of us accept the basic fact that they mirror a fundamental National truth-that the American home in the past twenty years has decreased in its relative importance. At the same time, we cannot argue against our clear realization that these same two decades have seen an astonishing industry, the manufacture of motor cars, start from absolute zero and climb into a position of major industrial importance. These facts are so self-evident that we need not tire our brains to prove the accuracy of the quoted statistics nor dispute the pros and cons of whether there is a cause and effect to be traced between the two. Ministers have deplored the passing of home life; reformers have harangued against it; magazines have pointed to it with alarm; teachers have testified to the handicaps which it imposes upon their efforts. And simultaneously automobile rows, the country over, have gone merrily on with the sale of passenger cars so long as there was money in the family purses to cover the initial down payments. Too often the commentator on American life breaks out into an unjust philippic against the automobile, ascribing to it a series of ills for which it is wholly blameless, for which, in many cases, it is simply a means and in no way the cause. That printing disseminates lies as well as truth is not held to be an impeachment of the printing-press. If, however, there can be traced out of the two simultaneous developments any other parallels which possess economic or social application, then it is worth while to delve deeper into the subject for the sake of the lessons that may be disclosed. Could we go back into colonial days and compare the yearly investments in home building and home adornment with the sums then spent on horses and carriages, we would certainly see a sitoation diametrically opposed to that of the present. In fact, we need not go far back into the previous century to find a sufficient contrast-a period when a man's business success and his fam ily's social standing were measurable almost solely by the residence occupied; that is, by its neighborhood, its size, and its apparent luxury. So long as the home was thus socially emphasized, it was almost automatic that a heavy percentage of a family's income should go into the home. Even the newly wedded couple just breaking out of their teens felt the social urge of immediate home-ownership. To-day in many communities this urge from the outside is virtually non-existent. A family feels, and correctly too, that it in no way endangers its social acceptance to be residence-renters or apartmentdwellers. But what about the automobile? Bald as the statement may sound, the motor car has stolen into the vantage point formerly occupied by the home; it has become the most widely accepted symbol of a man's ability to purchase luxuries, and, as such, furnishes a far more convenient and definite yardstick than any previous gauge. Jewelry carries no price tag, can be cheaply imitated without serious risk of detection, and can be seen by comparatively few. A home is more visible; but it does not accompany its owner from point to point, and its cost can only be roughly approximated by a layman. An automobile, on the other hand, accompanies its owner in public and is a commodity whose cost is no secret; its value can be and is known by men and women far above or below the particular financial stratum which forms its market. Your grocery-boy is quite probably a connoisseur on motor values. wife's four-year-old godson recently pointed out to her an equally youthful neighbor in order to pass on the (evidently) important information that "her father owns two C-s." My Ignoring all the ethical and social aspects of this condition, and studying it solely from its business aspect, one fact juts uncompromisingly out of the picture: It is an advertised product which has thus come to dominate the Nation's thoughts and modify its habit. By advertising-and more particularly by continual advertising of prices-the motor car has been made this accepted standard, and the public has in turn, by adopting it as a measure of financial standing, accorded the automobile a marginal value, an increased desirability, over and above the inherent worth it holds as merchandise and the value of the service it affords. Now for a paragraph of contrastsand explanations. In a period when manufacturers of domestic building materials were nibbling at the advertising pages of our publications the motor-car manufacturer was purchasing full pages and double spreads in magazines and newspapers, and employing color where available, with a freedom which seemed foolhardy, even criminal, to old-timer industries. He was reversing the usual manufacturing process by first shouldering a predetermined production quota, and then applying whatever sales energy necessary in order to save himself from being smothered by unsold parts. motor cars were to be made possible for the masses, standardized quantity production was primarily imperative, but quantity sales were equally necessary. Advertising on a scale never previously attempted for commodities of high-unit selling price offered the one hope of solution. was If Hence it was that new makes of motor cars, even in their first year, were often heralded in campaigns more extensive, more expensive, than the older and larger manufacturers of home-building material, more tradition-bound, had ever considered. The pleasure, the profit, and the pride of automobile ownership were dramatized in illustration and reading matter. A baby industry developed into a giant long before it had passed its teens. And the result? By 1919-20 the automobile had so usurped the interest of the American family that in thousands of instances a family preferred to squeeze itself into a cramped apartment rather than live more expansively and forego. its motor car. The joke about the mortgage on the house to buy an automobile had simultaneously developed into a standby of the humorous magazines. I recall one instance of a few years back where a family of five adults and two children slept in a $32.50 six-room apartment, but rode in a seven-passenger, $6,000 car. I can show you a suburban garage, very nearly as large as the cottage in front of it, which houses a world-famous passenger car de luxe. From Indianapolis comes a story of a family which had three times saved the money for installing a bathroom in its home, only to spend the hoardings elsewhere for commodities forced to its attention by more aggressive sales tactics. Among the possessions of this bathroomless family is an $1,800 motor car. Such paradoxes are SO commonplace that every reader can probably duplicate or outstrip these samples. In my own home city the volume of recent building similarly reflects this willingness to accept less spacious living quarters. Construction has swung heavily to apartments offering "two rooms with the efficiency of five." Under such construction, the same amount of building material formerly required to house one family now roofs three, and the building-material industry suffers cordingly. ac What are the business lessons to be drawn from all this? (Continued on page 610) Yellowstone Park Three great wonder spots-Yellowstone Park, Rocky Mountain (Estes) Park, and Colorado, all on one circle trip Note where your Burlington-Northern Pacific Vacation takes you-for the price of a round-trip ticket to Yellowstone alone! Enter Yellowstone through Gardiner Gateway-tour the park leave over Cody Road-words cannot describe it. Then, Colorado-side trip to tranquil Rocky Mountain (Estes) Park. Thence Denver and near-by vacation regions direct, or across the Continental Divide to Grand Lake and back through Denver's Mountain Parks. In one trip, on through trains! Vacation costs are down STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24, 1912, OF THE OUTLOOK, PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT NEW YORK, N. Y., FOR APRIL 1, 1922. State of New York, County of New York, ss. Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally appeared Robert D. Townsend, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Managing Editor of THE OUTLOOK, and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management, etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, required by the Act of August 24, 1912, embodied in section 443, Postal Laws and regulations, to wit: 1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are: 2. That the owners are: The Outlook Company, 381 Fourth Ave., N. Y. City. Stockholders of The Outlook Company owning 1 per cent or more of the total amount of stock: Harold T. Pulsifer....381 Fourth Ave., New York City N. T. Pulsifer...... ..456 Fourth Ave., New York City Lawson V. Pulsifer....456 Fourth Ave., New York City Chas. Stillman, C. C. Stillman, E. G. Stillman (Trustees for J. A. Stillman)...55 Wall St., New York City Chas. Stillmau. J. A. Stillman, E. G. Stillman (Trustees for C. C. Stillman)...55 Wall St., New York City Chas. Stillman, J. A. Stillman, C. C. Stillman (Trustees for E. G. Stillman)...55 Wall St., New York City Dorothea V. A. Swift..27 East 62d St., New York City Robert D. Townsend..381 Fourth Ave., New York City 3. That the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are: None. 4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving the names of the owners, stockholders, and security holders, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and security holders as they appear upon the books of the company, but also, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain statements embracing affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner; and this affiant has no reason to believe that any other person, association, or corporation has any interest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other securities than as so stated by him. (Signed) ROBERT D. TOWNSEND, Managing Editor. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 30th day of March, 1922. THE FORGOTTEN FIRESIDE (Continued) As I see them, they are three in number. First and foremost is the fact that if genuine homes (and all that makes them priceless) are to be "sold" to the Nation again the task needs to be shouldered by those who have a permanent, selfish, monetary interest in the accomplishment. It can be attempted economically only by advertising, and that advertising must not be too narrowly intent upon the sale of individual commodities, but must sell the home idea, its comforts, its luxuries, and, above all, its social advantages-in other words, pride in the home must be re vived and made fashionable, not only among the moneyed classes, but throughout the rank and file of the public. Each for himself, home-building-material advertisers must phrase their messages-and this can be done so that the desire for a home is fostered while the advertisements are also actively selling particular brands of merchandise. Secondly, each manufacturer of building materials and home furnishings must feel the pressure of this need so personally that he will materially help to swell the volume of home advertising by his own publicity efforts, so that, in its total, it will hold its own or surpass the force of publicity behind the automobile or behind any other commodity which tends to reduce the per capita expenditure in homes. There is a final moral, however, which is far broader in its application and is worth heeding by every reader who is either personally active or is financially interested in any commercial or industrial enterprise. It points a lesson which may be slangily stated, "You never can tell"-be wary of the future and do your thinking for to-morrow to-day. Keep in mind that in 1900 we were still doubting the survival of the automobile. A man who would then have dared prophesy that within twenty years it would be affecting home-building expenditures and competing with notable success for a considerable slice of the American family's dollar against even so-called "necessities"-such a man would have been hooted down. In the light of that unforeseen reversal, I cannot but wonder what rockfounded industry, whose leaders to-day are complacently viewing their "assured" future market, is doomed to a similar jolt from a source now unknown. The motor car shoved the home rudely to one side. Belts pushed suspenders out of fash ion. The piano is no longer the social sine qua non that it once was; a perioddesign phonograph will serve instead. National prohibition (the impossible) closed the doors of a host of breweries. The unknown movies jolted the centuries-old legitimate stage and have emerged from the scuffle with a husky percentage of the amusement slice of the dollar. Yet what would you ask to seem more firmly intrenched than did suspenders, pianos, breweries, and the speaking stage a few short years ago? The precaution of wiser, more ample, more educational effort by each of the old-timers in advance of its vital need might have held a goodly share of what has now been lost. an obvious but sometimes forgotten axiom of naval history, that the capital ship cannot be destroyed. For if all the battleships are eliminated, the capital ship will consist of the next most formidable class, even if the Navy is reduced to the state suggested in the story wherein the Secretary of War is made to inquire: "Where is the Army this morning?" "Sir, he is out rowing in the Navy." UGH J. HUGHES is Director of Mar Hkets in the State Department of Agriculture of Minnesota and one of the keenest and sanest students of farm problems in the Middle West. ENRY C. SHELLEY, a former editorial associate of Mr. A. S. M. Hutchinson's on the London "Daily Graphic," presents a character study entitled "The St. Address or R. R.. City.. .State... PARADISE WATER Author of 'If Winter Comes." Although Organizing a Company? Mr. Shelley was for a time literary editor of the Boston "Herald," he is an Englishman and the author of "Literary By-Paths in Old England," "The British Museum," etc. At one time Mr. Shelley contributed London correspondence on literary and social topics to The Outlook. ARRY LEE is the winner of the Will Hiam Lindsey prize of five hundred dollars, offered by the Poetry Society of America for the best poetic drama submitted during 1921. His play depicted the life of Saint Francis of Assisi, and was called "Il Poverello." Save the usual incorporating expenses and taxes, and avoid personal liability by forming your organization on the regulation Common Law Plan under a pure Declaration of Trust. National Standard Forms (the work of recognized attorneys) furnish complete requirements with which any one in any State can organize and begin doing business the same day. Pamphlet A-19 free. C. S. Demaree, legal blank printer, 613 Walnut, Kansas City, Mo. E529A |