Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1901 — ETHICS OF ADVERTISING. [ARTICLE]

ETHICS OF ADVERTISING.

Kldlcnlouaurnn of the Code Which Goterni Doctor* and .Lawyer*. A writer in Publicity, presumably a lawyer, writes entertainingly on the ethics of his profession in 60 far as it relates to advertising, and taboos the, professional man, be ho lawyer, doctor or clergyman, who advertises. It would appear that he argues from a premise contradictory In its statement, only to reach, as he necessarily must, an Illogical conclusion, not warranted by the intermediate syllogisms. It is false logic, and needs must fall. The fact that he admits advertising has practically become a science and “that the advertiser—the one who has, perhaps, mnue a life study of the benefits of his own system or those of other equally broad-mimled men—is justified in assuming that every man has his own interests at heart, and that with every business man of ambition the advancement of his own business occupies the same position. If, then, the advertiser believes advertising to be one of the most important stages on the high road to business success, why is he not Justified in his endeavor to persuade tho physician or the purist that unless he advertises he pursues a phantom in the form of legitimate personal and professional fame and marked financial benefit?” Of course he Is Justified, and It is only the hide-bound rule of the years when newspapers and other vehicles of advertising were non-existent that trammels him to-day to enter into competition with his mercantile brother. The writer assumes that there are many members of the legal profession who would advertise, to the detriment of their more conservative brethren. Possibly thqt is true. This is not the age of the tallow dip or stage coach, and he who falls in the race need not start on crutches. The etiquette and morals of the bar are high-sounding and sonorous phrases, but the average newspaper reporter with any court experience at all knows what a Sham the ethics of that profession are, and that free advertising is eagerly sought for by the highest counselor or by the police court solicitor. The suggestion has been made, and an admirable one, too, that the papers refuse to print the names of lawyers or physicians in prominent cases unless th«|y advertised. Lawyers furnish their briefs to newspapers; often prepare Interviews; physicians wrlto their own account of difficulty operations, and clergymen synopsis of their sermons, and the newspaper publishes it in choice position without reaping a penny of profit. The enterprising lawyer or physician who casts aside the so-called ethics of the profession and advertises may incur the ill-will of his laggard competitor, but he will have demonstrated that this Is the twentieth century, not the sixteenth.—Fourth Estate.