POLITICAL SALESMANSHIP

There is a clamor in these times among the newspapers and the vulgus for the business men in government offices rather than the old-time politicians. The business men are answering the call and carrying in with them under their arm business methods and business maxims. Among the revolutionary theories propounded is that of Mr. Davis, Secretary of Labor,--that it will pay to advertise politics as well as patent medicine.

Mr. Davis feels that President Harding is the worst advertiser in the country and therefore that nobody knows of his great work. He proposes that an office of Administration Publicity be established to broadcast with trumpet blares what the President is so reticent in telling. There will be a hierarchy of advertising agents, speakers and political salesmen, in fact all the machinery of commercial selling, including "popitalks". The party in power will peddle its wares to the nation while the nation pays the overhead.

Fortunately the idea is likely to remain a pipe dream of Republican campaign managers. President Harding has always been reluctant to talk about himself and now does not view with favor Mr. Davis' plan. Congress, which holds the purse strings, still has unpleasant memories of the criticisms which fell on Mr. Creel's Public Information Committee for alleged propagandist efforts. The Administration Publicity office would doubtless degenerate in a very short time into a propaganda bureau with the sole object of keeping the defending party in and the besieging party put. It probably would not even be successful, to that extent. Actions speak louder than words. If an Administration has been successful, "virtues will plead like angels trumpet-tongued". And conversely, if its wares are worthless, no amount of salesmanship will be effective in dumping them on the community.