Nauseous

Interlocking businesses--the trust idea--has always been a good way of making money. The publishing busi- ness has been witness to it. The Hearst publications are a good example. With several publications under one control, it is only natural that one of them should advertise in another. But the typical tactics of the trust idea in publications are to go beyond the mere exchange of overt advertising and to boost one another editorially. The Hearst papers do this continually. The result of such attempts may almost invariably be diagnosed by a glance at the "puff" which is printed as news or comment. It is usually fatuous, vapid. Its very effort to spread butter is nauseous and flat. The best publishing ethics has not yet forbidden this type of matter. Occasionally it turns up in the most respected journals. The New York Times is an example. Current History, a monthly journal of events, belongs to the Times group. Recently an article, almost a column and a half long, appeared in the Times, puffing its subsidiary. Said the opening sentence: "The August issue of Current History offers objective evidence of the broad diversity and superior utility of the valuable information which it conveys." Perhaps so. But the 'discerning reader is more likely to find in this sentence objective evidence of the Times' belief in the broad diversity and superior utility of group control of publications. If the Times occasionally gave similar column-and-a-half treatment to issues of The World's Work, The Yale Review, The American Re-view of Reviews, The Atlantic Monthly, The North American Review, it might easily escape the charge of puffing. In this matter, however, the Times allows itself to be placed in the category of the Hearst press.