BARRING BILL-BOARDS

It has been entertaining to wonder whether the next young woman to appear under the auspices of Lucky Strike or Chesterfield on the bill-boards of the land would be a Greta Garbo or a Clara Bow type. The country may have benefited by the redistribution of funds produced by wagers, won and lost, on the next sport to be glorified by the versatile female athlete who posed for a gasoline company as "Power," "Speed," and "Balance," in successive months. Undoubtedly bill-board advertisements, like traveling salesmen and muddy weather, being unpredictable, have added glamor to life, and being thoroughly vexing, strength to the human character.

When the United States Rubber Company abandoned its efforts to educate the nation in its local history, the mightiest of the roadside Titans disappeared. Perhaps, however, having given this generation its degree in Indian nomenclature and the battles of King Philip's War, the Company is only waiting for fresh undergraduates in its highway university. This possibility, and the failure of their companies to follow a worthy example, have lead to attempts in New York State to curtail bill-board advertising through legislation prohibiting advertising in certain places and taxing it heavily in others.

Apparently even a measure of such obvious value to the public may be caught in the tangling folds of the political not. "The bill-board interests are united and determined to prevent regulation," it is reported. Their opposition ought surely to be overcome. It would be a worthy gesture for large industrial firms to abandon bill-board advertising, as the leading gasoline manufacturers have done in France. The tobacco companies could sacrifice the privilege of having rival cigarette signs four abreast without exercising too generous self-denial.