The Marion County News from Hamilton, Alabama • 3

THE MARION COUNTY NEWS, HAMILTON, ALABAMA, NOVEMBER 23, 1939. TODAY and TOMORROW by FRANK PARKER PUBLICITY might tend to make people interested in buying something either "advertising" or "publicity." The lifference between the two is that the publisher gets paid for printing advertising material, while he doesn't get paid for printing publicity matter. That's why the business office gets sore at the press agents who send in publicity stuff, and editors print it because it's more interesting than a lot of the news they get. I've had a lot of experience with small papers and with big ones, and I've never seen the big ones turn down a good story merely because there was a suspicion that it might be a piece of "planted" publicity. I counted one day recently eight firstpage news stories in the most influential of all New York papers, every one of which had its origin in a press-agent's office.

The biggest corps of publicity men anywhere is that maintained by Uncle Sam. Nine out of ten "news" items you see coming from Washington are the product of the Government press agents. PROPAGANDA depends We hear a lot about "propaganda." It is suposed to have the mysterious power of making people believe white is black, or that everybody we don't like is a Red. Propaganda is a perfectly good word. It means any effort to influence public opinion, and began with the organized effort to propagate the Christian, religion.

We use the word nowadays to designate efforts to make people believe that one side or another in any controversial question is lying and the other side is not. If it's the side we're for it's just "educational" but if it's the side we're against it's "propaganda." The only way propaganda or publicity gets into a newspaper is by the editor's volition. There is no sinister, backstairs way of getting propaganda printed, that I ever heard. of. I've been editor of several newspapers and I've printed lots of publicity stuff that I knew was propaganda for something or other, but only because it was interesting to me, and I thought it would interest my readers.

BILL expert What started me off on publicity and propaganda is a couple of mimeographed sheets I lately got in my mail from Bill Sharpe. Bill is an expert propagandist for his home state of North Carolina. If the things he sends out to the papers about North Carolina aren't true, they're at least interesting and they get printed. Presumably they make people think it's a pretty good state. Bill sends along a story, for example, about the town of Louisburg, N.

where folks like to take things easy; so some of the sidewalks have ben edivided into three traffic lanes, the center one for walking and the two outer ones for sountering, talking politics or just loafing. Sounds like a good idea for any town. Then Bill comes along with a geographical discovery. The school books for years have taught that Mount! Mitchell is the highest mountain in the eastern states, with Clingman's Dome second. But Bill Sharpe that a North Carolina peak without even a name, one of the "Black Brothers" in Yancey, County, is three feet higher than Clingman and only 39 feet lower than Mount Mitchell.

Unimportant, perhaps, but interesting-and it's propaganda. FACTS pay My observation of press agents publicity men has been long and, on the whole, favorable. I can't recall having caught one in a deliber ate lie in forty years or so. The big business organizations which used to refuse to tell newspapers anything, discovered that it was better to tell them the flat truth than to leave it to reporters to guess at it. The Pennsylvania Railroad started the plan of telling the newspaper men all about every accident on its line.

It made friends of the papers and did away with guesswork estimates of the number of people hurt (in train wrecks and what caused them. Others saw the value of that sort of frankness, and a new profession was born, that of "Public Relations Counselor." Men with that title differ from press agents mainly that they work harder and get more money. One of them told me once that his greatest difficulty was in getting his employers to tell him the truth so that he could pass it on to the papers. The top men in that profession have such a reputation for square dealing and truthfulness that the newspapers take their word out question. CHAINS example One of the topics on which much publicity material comes in my mail is that of chain stores.

When it comes from public relations organizations of standing I accept their statements of fact. Therefore it interested me, and seems worth passling on, to learn that the housewives of America are throwing more and more of their patronage to the chain stores, for economy's sake. In the first nine months of this year the 29 leading grocery, variety, shoe, apparel and auto supply chains last year, while the independent NATURAL CHILEAN NITRATE or SODA Plenty of it! No Increase in Price There will be no increase in the present price of Natural Chilean Nitrate of Soda during this entire season ending June 30, 1940. You can get all you want. Large supplies are in the United States now and ships are regularly bringing in additional cargoes to meet the expected increase in demand.

Plenty for everybody's needs. no increase in price. YAS SUH. AN' NOW WE'S BACK ON YO'RADIO SATURDAY NOV. 25 TUNE IN Beginning SUNDAY NOV.

26 ON YOUR RADIO Uncle Natchel program every Saturday night on WSB, WRVA, and WSM, and Sunday afternoon on WIS, WPTE, WBT, KWKH, Enjoy the WIDX, WMC, every WAGF, WDBO, WSFA, WORD, WIBY. stores in the same lines gained only about 6 per cent, acording to Department of Commerce reports. One thing that turned public attention to the chain stores was the publicity campaign begun last year to combat legislative efforts to impose ruinous taxes on all kinds of chains. That started millions of housewives to throw their trade to the chains, when they began to learn the truth about their price-saving methods, and to realize that they would have to pay more if the chains were taxed out of business. That's the press agent's story, at least, and believe him.

Howard Hughes Is Winner Of Collier Trophy Award New York, Howard Hughes' name was officially added to the list of aviation's immortals today (Friday, Nov. 17th) with the announcement that he has been awarded the famous Collier Trophy "for the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding The award, as announced in the current issue of Collier's Weekly, was based on the following citation: "To Howard Hughes and his sociates for their epoch-making round-the-world flight in 91 hours and 14 minutes. This flight involved notable advances in aerial communications and engineering; demonstrated the value of organization and planning in longrange aircraft operation and afforded a world-wide demonstration of the superiority of American aviation products and techniques." The trophy, which will be presented formally later by President Roosevelt, was established in 1911 by Robert J. Collier, son of the founder of Collier's Weekly, and is awarded each year under the auspices of the National Aeronautic Association. The trophy committee is composed of leaders in American aviation, under the chairmanship of Major, James E.

Doolittle. Other Collier Trophy winners down the years have included Capt. Alfred A. Hegenberger (blind flying) Frank Caldwell (controllable pitch propeller); Glenn L. Martin (Martin bomber); Donald Douglas (twin-engined transport); the U.

S. Army Air Corps (first successful trans-Pacific service), and many can Airways (inauguration of regular trans-Pacifics ervice), and many another. In announcing the award, Collier's further states: "The radio work done by and the Hughes expedition was the most dramatic of the numerous scientific accomplishments rolled up on, the world flight of Hughes' Standard Lockheed 14 with two 1100 horsepower Wright G-102 Cyclone engines. Four radio receivers at the New quarters picked up 900 weather obYork World's Fair operation headservations each day of the flight, from all over the world. Every time Hughes landed--at Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks and Minneapolis- he was handed a complete weather forecast for the next leg of the trip.

"But other scientific work of great value was done. For one example, there was the testing and proving of the new remote control of the Sperry Gyropilot, the airplane's Iron Mike. In all the 14,824 miles of the flight, Hughes' plans never deviated more than six miles from its course. "For another, there was the sucPosition Computer. This strangely cessful operation of the Line of named gadget a calculating machine for performing the laborious mathematical operations in getting a plane's longitude and latitude bearings at any given time.

Tired navigators can make mistakes but this machine, simple and swift when properly operated, doesn't. "What it all figures out to is that the Hughes expidition was a scientific triumph from beginning to end, aside from the record-smashing speed with which Hughes and his flight crew girdled the earth over the Great Circle route. The speed was only one of the manifold results two years careful, last-detail preparation. Data and experience amassed by the Hughes expidition will be used by aviators for years to come. It is that fact that brings Mr.

Hughes victoriously within the conditions of the yearly Collier Trophy Award." Mrs. Maggie Short of Fort Worth, complained in court that she was running her grocery store under insurmountable difficulties because relatives living across the street thumbed their noses at her custon- Subscribe now and help your favorite boy or girl in the contest. Don't Forget Us When You Need 8 Circulars Billheads Envelopes Statements Letterheads Church Minutes, etc We Are EOPLE ERFECT RINTING RACTICAL RODUCERS for of Give Us A Trial and Be Convinced THE MARION COUNTY NEWS Hamilton, Alabama.