ithee,' she said."

* * * * *

And I am not at all sure that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ivanhoe" wouldn't
have made better reading if they had lapsed into the photographic at
times. Mr. Lewis may overdo it, but I expect to re-read "Main Street"
some day, and that is more encouragement than I can hold out to Mrs.
Stowe or Sir Walter Scott.

LVI

"EFFECTIVE HOUSE ORGANS"

To the hurrying commuter as he waits for his two cents change at the
news stand it looks as if all the periodicals in the United States were
on display there, none of which he ever has quite time enough to buy. It
seems incredible that there should be presses enough in the country to
print all the matter that he sees hanging from wires, piled on the
counter and dangling from clips over the edge, to say nothing of his
conceiving of there being other periodicals in circulation which he
never even hears about. But any one knowing the commuter well enough to
call him "dearie" might tell him in slightly worn vernacular that he
doesn't know the half of it.

One cannot get a true idea of the amount of sideline printing that is
done in this country without reading "Effective House Organs," written
by Robert E. Ramsay. The mass effect of this book is appalling. Page
after page of clear-cut illustrations show reproductions of hundreds and
hundreds of house-organ covers and give the reader a hopeless sensation
of going down for the third time. Such names as "Gas Logic,"
"Crane-ing," "Hidden's Hints," "The Y. and E. Idea," "Vim," "Tick Talk"
and "The Smileage" show that Yankee ingenuity has invaded the publishing
field, which means that the literature of business is on its way to
becoming the literature of the land.

For those who are so illiterate as not to be familiar with the
literature of business, I quote a definition of the word "house organ":

"A house magazine or bulletin to dealers, customers or employees,
designed to promote goodwill, increase sales, induce better salesmanship
or develop better profits."

* * * * *

In spite of Mr. Ramsay's exceedingly thorough treatment of his subject,
there is one type of house organ to which he devotes much too little
space. This is the so-called "employee or internal house organ" and is
designed to keep the help happy and contented with their lot and to spur
them on to extra effort in making it a banner year for the stockholders.
The possi