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postage stamps or railroad tickets because they have got to have a postage stamp or a railroad ticket. It is not habit, as Mr. Calkins says. It is necessity, and they have got to have it now. If we persuaded them through advertising that they would have to have insurance, they would n't have to have it now. They would have to have it at a more convenient season. Insurance is, as he says, an intangible, an idea, a service. There is never a time, except when it is too late, when you can't do without an intangible. Insurance makes a high appeal that is, an appeal toward providing for the future of yourself and your family. But the average young man is much more confident than the circumstances warrant of the continuance of his health and strength and ability to earn money.

We have a great deal of printed matter over which infinite pains has been taken to make it readable, attractive, human — in other words, to make it tell the story of insurance as Mr. Calkins would have it told. We have newspaper advertisements which we furnish to our agents, and which, when conditions seem favorable, we encourage them to use and to pay for; and we believe in advertising, but we have got to put our advertising where we think it will bring the greatest returns per dollar spent, and it would be suicidal, not only legally but actually, for us to embark on any great campaign of national advertising, because it would in our case raise and not lower the price of insurance. And if we charge more for insurance than other people do, we are lost. So we have got to advertise in a way that will really come home to the average young man, and the way we do it is sometimes by sending him printed matter through the mails and following it up by a call from a man who can tell him about insurance, and who can fit him with insurance, and do it now. Unlike Mr. Calkins's company, we try to keep, as well as we may be able to, the human touch with this young man after he has taken insurance with us. We do send him a little advertising matter with the notices of his premium due. We do try to be polite. We do congratulate him when he has made his last payment, and, incidentally, try to sell him some more insurance at this time. We do try to get him, through our agents, to tell us of more men who he thinks might be interested in insurance. We believe that this is the way to sell insurance.

We are not in a conspiracy of silence. In fact, it has sometimes seemed to me that we were in a conspiracy of talk; only our talk does not happen to be through the particular channels which interest Mr. Calkins, but it is a great deal more effective, and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it costs less in the end than it would if we followed Mr. Calkins's notions. There

is n't any body of men who are more interested in furnishing widely the product which they have for sale and in furnishing it at the lowest possible price than the life-insurance men. There is n't any body of men who are more enthusiastic about what they are selling, to whom the human part of it is more appealing. I don't know a single life-insurance man who is not enthusiastic over his calling, not because of the statistics, and the algebra, and the calculus, and the adding machines, and the Hollerith machines that he uses, but because it is filling a real need, because it is something that helps the civilized world to keep together, something without which it wouldn't keep together. We want to sell insurance largely and cheaply more than Mr. Calkins wants to have us. We are investigating all the time with the one idea in our minds of doing our business more economically and efficiently. We are not any different from Mr. Calkins, or from the automobile manufacturers, or from any other class of business men, but it just happens that his kind of advertising is expensive for most insurance companies, and so we do not use very much of it.

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Have just received your good letter and check. We will get through the coming winter in good shape. The check finished up what was still needed for the grubstake. That means food ahead for one year. I wish everybody in the world could say the same.

I counted the years that are left if I live to be seventy, and find there are twenty-two. I wonder how many hopes will come true in these precious years. Daddy reached the Promised Landthat dream came true. Brain food — the pile of books in the corner of the cabin. Friends-a box full of letters to read over this winter.

Daddy's favorite song used to be "There's a long, long trail awinding, To the land of my dreams.' Here is the song he sings now, to the tune of 'Where the River Shannon Flows':

There's a river that is flowing
Up to the northern sea.

"T is not famed in song nor story, But it has a charm for me.

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It is interesting to note that your glutton for punishment, Hilda Rose, has gone into new pastures where the hardships are really abounding.

If, however, she finds the life up there too soft, I might suggest a new line of endeavor - growing table grapes for the Eastern market in Fresno County, California. Here she will find a rich field, beset with all the hardships and disappointments to satisfy the most exacting readers of the Atlantic Monthly- intense heat, bitter toil, harassing labor troubles, scarcity of water, no remuneration, and plenty of wolves in the form of fresh-fruit dealers.

Sincerely,

HAZEL FARMER STITT

***

A friendly reader draws our attention to an omission in Willis Sharp's much discussed paper which we are glad to correct. LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA

DEAR ATLANTIC, I desire to express my very great appreciation of Mr. Sharp's article in the August Atlantic

entitled 'President and Press.' He presents a much-needed rebuke both of the attitude of the President and the newspapers. It is a public service of great value in a period when, as a result of the war and prosperity, the value of criticism and opposition seems to have almost ceased to be recognized.

The statement of the attitude of the press is, though, too broad. The Scripps Howard newspapers have taken issue with the President's attitude. I feel quite sure that you will find much the same view that Mr. Sharp expressed appearing in the Cleveland Press, Denver Evening News or Rocky Mountain News, San Francisco News, and other Scripps Howard newspapers. In fact, my understanding is that the President's address before the United Press Association last April was because of the critical attitude that the United Press and the Scripps Howard newspapers had taken toward the Administration's course in Nicaragua and Mexico. I am sure you will find in the Scripps Howard newspapers a protest against the President's view as expressed in that address, as well as his attitude on previous occasions.

I thought you would be glad to have your attention called to the unintentional error which you made in dealing with the attitude of the press. J. C. HARPER

***

How many of our contemporary readers remember the name of Robert Bonner, famous in the days of our youth? The New York Ledger, 'devoted to choice literature, romance, the news, and commerce,' paid handsomely in its day for Mr. Bonner's racing stable. He had a way with him, did Mr. Bonner, in all public utterances. We recall an advertisement placing his estate on Long Island for sale. It began, in display type,

IN THE HEART OF THE MALARIAL DISTRICT

A sale (advertisers please notice) promptly followed.

A friend now sends us a copy of the Ledger for March 15, 1862, from which we extract the following kindly notice of the Atlantic Monthly of that day:

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, a magazine which has been published for some time with varying fortunes, is attempting to increase its circulation, and has, as we perceive by an evening paper, advertised a single article by one of the numerous list of distinguished contributors to the

LEDGER; though most of our writers never send anything to other publications. We should be glad to see the magazine literature of the country in a more flourishing condition. Our good wishes, however, or those of anybody else, will do it no good. The only way to obtain success is to deserve it. The active, vigorous mind of our people requires more substance and greater variety. People soon sicken of the same dish, even at the breakfast-table; though it be successively boiled, broiled, roasted, fried, stewed, hashed and re-hashed, with all the artistic skill of a French cook. The secret of the LEDGER'S prosperity is, that we avail ourselves of all the highest talent which money can command; (besides keeping the fastest horses in the country.) - Read the article by Dr. Windship, 'the strong man of Boston,' who, the other day, lifted upwards of two thousand pounds, Avoirdupois, and expects to lift three thousand before he gets through writing for the LEDGER.

***

'Something in the Eye,' in the Contributors' Club for August, has reminded this disillusioned patient of a treatment which she believes to be far too common.

Briefly, one of my experiences was with a skin specialist of St. Louis, to whom I went for treatment of my hands. This same specialist had treated a sister before me for some time. When I reached his office I sat in the waiting room quite a while; then a stenographer entered by one of the three doors in this room and took my name, address, and so forth, and left the room. I sat a while longer and then another door opened and my name was called and I was ushered into a small treatment room, where I sat another while. The physician came, looked at my hands, asked two questions, then handed me a diet list and a prescription. He had given me not the slightest word as to my trouble or even the slightest information, and, feeling I should know what I came for, I asked him a few questions, but got only very brief replies. Next I was told to go into another room for a treatment of the hands and I assumed it was X-ray, but do not know for certain. As I was leaving this room I inquired of the first stenographer I had seen what the charges would be, and she pertly replied, 'You'll get a statement at the end of the month.' I said, 'Well, I want to know now.' She advised that I could speak with the doctor again if I wished, so I did and was told after a little wait that if I was a wage earner the charge would be ‘three and five.' This ended my call on this specialist, and I left his office feeling I never wanted to seek his services again.

AMALIA KRUMREICH

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Are typewriters people? When my little Rem (Remington Portable), first came to me, it was like adopting a baby. He weighed just eleven pounds, he had to have his little mat to play on, he must be carefully covered, he needed new ribbons, he came down with childish disorders. It used to seem to me sometimes that he needed everything but a bottle and a gocart — as it was, I carried him. He has been doing very badly lately, and yesterday he grew worse and worse, so there was nothing for it but to telephone to the Service Office. In an hour or two an automobile drew up, and a young man, with a bag, stepped out and walked briskly to my door. I introduced the patient, described the symptoms, and hung around with all the solicitude of a mother, while the young M.D. (M. can stand for mechanics as well as medicine) poked and prodded, just as it has been done to me a hundred times. Then he did something, somewhere, and the little invalid was a cure. But what made it all so human was that, when I asked anxiously, 'What was the trouble?' (I think I said 'Doctor') he looked grave and said, 'It was the lever.' ALICE GRAY TRUSLOW

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Not long ago, writes a correspondent, there was a lady in Boston whose job it was in part to drive about town in a Ford car. A friend one day noticed on the floor a stout bundle of Atlan tics tied with a string, and asked what it was for. 'Well,' the lady said, 'you see I'm rather short and they make a good foot rest. I used to take any kind of magazines, but they were always stolen, in garages and even on the streets, so I tried the Atlantics and they haven't been touched. I've used these for more than a year!'

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A Missionary Audit

The Business Methods of Foreign Missions The Paradox of Humanism.

A Discussion of the Modern Temper Two Sonnets.

Collective Unreason

Past and Present.

Haig of Bemersyde

A Reputation Ten Years After

Tellings. A Story

Have My Doubts

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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. Publication Office, 10 FERRY STREET, CONCORD, N. H. Editorial and General 05 8 Arlington Street, Boston, Mass. 40c a copy, $4.00 a year; foreign postage $1.00. Entered at Post Offices at Concord, N and Ottawa, Canada, as second-class matter. Copyright 1927, by The Atlantic Monthly Company, Boston, Mam

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