[The Cellar Hole and the Sewer Hole]
The Cellar Hole and the Sewer Hole
A coal cart stopped before an office building in Washington and the driver dismounted, removed the cover from a manhole, ran out his chute, and proceeded to empty the load. An old negro strolled over and stood watching him. Suddenly the black man glanced down and immediately burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, which continued for several minutes. The cart driver looked at him in amusement. “Say, Uncle,” he asked, “do you always laugh when you see coal going into a cellar?” The negro sputtered around for a few moments and then holding his hands to his aching sides managed to say, “No, sah, but I jest busts when I sees it goin' down a sewer.”
The advertiser who displays lack of judgment in selecting the newspapers which carry his copy often confuses the sewer and the cellar.
All the money that is put into newspapers isn't taken out again, by any means. The fact that all dailies possess a certain physical likeness, doesn't necessarily signify a similarity in character, and it's character in a newspaper that brings returns. The editor who conducts a journalistic sewer, finds a different class of readers than the publisher who respects himself enough to respect his readers.
What goes into a newspaper largely determines the class of homes into which the newspaper goes. An irresponsible, scandal-mongering, muck-raking sheet is certainly not supported by the buying classes of people. It may be perused by thousands of readers, but such readers are seldom purchasers of advertised goods.
It's the clean-cut, steady, normal-minded citizens who form the bone and sinew and muscle of the community. It's the sane, self-respecting, dependable newspaper that enters their homes and it's the home sale that indicates the strength of an advertising medium.
No clean-minded father of a family wishes to have his wife and children brought in contact with the most maudlin and banal phases of life. He defends them from the sensational editor and the unpleasant advertiser. He subscribes to a newspaper which he does not fear to leave about the house.
Therefore, the respectable newspaper can always be counted upon to produce more sales than one which may even own a larger circulation but whose distribution is in ten editions among unprofitable citizens.