[The Doctor whose Patients Hang On]
The Doctor whose Patients Hang On
Out in China all things are not topsy turvy. Physicians are paid for keeping people well and when their patients fall ill, their weekly remittances are stopped. The Chinese judge a medical man not by the number of years he lives, but by the length of time his patrons survive.
An advertising medium must be judged in the same way. The fact that it has age to its credit isn't so important as the age of its advertising patronage. Whenever a daily continues to display the store talk of the same establishment year after year, it's a pretty sure sign that the merchant has made money out of that newspaper, because no publication can continue to be a losing investment to its customers over a stretch of time, without the fact being discovered. And when a newspaper is not only able to boast of an honor roll of stores that have continued to appear in its pages for a stretch of decades, but at the same time demonstrates that it carries more business than its competitors, it has proven its superiority as plainly as a mountain peak which rises above its fellows.
The combination of stability and progress is the strongest virtue that a newspaper can possess. Only the fit survive—reputation is a difficult thing to get and a harder thing to hold—it takes merit to earn it and character to maintain it. There is a vast difference between fame and notoriety, and just as much difference between a famous newspaper and a notorious one.
Just as a manufacturer is always eager to install his choicest stocks in a store which has earned the respect of the community, just so a retailer should be anxious to insert his name in a newspaper which has earned the respect of its readers. The manufacturer feels that he will receive a square deal from a store which has age to its credit. He can expect as much from a newspaper which is a credit to its age!
The newspaper which outlives the rest does so because it was best fitted to—it had to earn the confidence of its readers—and keep it. It had to be a better newspaper than any other and better newspapers go to the homes of better buyers. Every bit of its circulation has the element of quality and staying power. And it is the respectable, home-loving element of every community—not the touts and the gamblers—toward which the merchant must look for his business vertebrae—he cannot find buyers unless he uses the newspaper that enters their homes. And when he does enter their homes he must not confuse the sheet that comes in the back gate with the newspaper that is delivered at the front door.