out the world.' And to substantiate its words, it had only to produce an account-book which was common to the branch agencies of Haasenstein and Vogler and the parent concern at Berlina book which proved the unity of the enterprise.

Havas and the Société Générale must have been convinced by this reasoning, as those two agencies entered into an agreement with the European Agency, dated October 25, 1913. By its terms the French concerns pledged themselves not to accept any advertisements from foreign countries for the French press, and not to accept any orders from French business houses for foreign publication.

Thus, in the first year after its foundation, the Agency had begun to carry out the plan that it had marked out for itself, and to make itself, by slow degrees, master of the French press, by becoming an important purveyor of advertisements, and consequently the dispenser of those receipts without which a newspaper cannot exist.

Georg, the great man of the house of Haasenstein and Vogler, had taken his precautions, in case he should fail to put his hand on the French press, and the latter should rebel, by founding at Geneva, through the medium of dummies, the Société Générale d'Affichage the purpose of which was to accomplish through advertising by bill-posting, what the European Advertising Agency proposed to do through the newspapers.

In the first days of its existence this bill-posting agency succeeded in acquiring certain French establishments, already in existence, which it allowed to keep on operating under their former names. In 1913, it had branches in the following towns in France: Agen, Bayonne, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Cannes, Evian, Luchon, Marseilles, Menton, Montauban, Nice, Royan, and Tou

has acquired the concession for the municipal bill-posting in certain large French towns, notably, Albi, Agen, Bayonne, Biarritz, Cannes, Marseilles, Menton, Montauban, and others.

By the creation of the Société d'Affichage and its grip on the French billposting agencies, Georg, and through him the European Advertising Agency, were able, whenever they chose, to threaten to dispense with the services of the newspapers and resort to advertising on the bill-boards.

We may cite, on the subject of the efforts made to extend this enterprise and of the outlay that Georg was prepared to make an order to obtain control of the whole bill-posting industry of France, the following characteristic episode:

In 1912 Doctor Hermann Stoll, director of the Maggi Company, proposed to the manager of one of our large bill-posting agencies to put him in communication with a friend of his, M. Georg, who had a proposition to make to him.

One fine day Georg appeared, armed with a letter from his friend Stoll. The interview took the following course; although we do not vouch for the exact words, we give their meaning faithfully.

Georg. The Société Générale d'Affichage, of which I am the manager, and with which you are familiar, is extending its field of action in your country by purchasing existing agencies. We are ready to take over yours. How much do you want for it?

M. X.-Your question takes me by surprise, but I am sufficiently well acquainted with the ideas of my associates to reply

that we are not selling our business. It is a business to which we are attached, and which we propose to develop ourselves.

Georg. You force me to speak in a different tone. I am Georg-people do not oppose my wishes. Understand that I can find all the capital I need to crush those who are in my path. You cannot contend with me. You will be ruined if you try it. I give you fair warning.

M. X.- Very good; we shall see.

who will give you all the information you may need. Furthermore, we have been in business relations for about thirty years with the leading London papers: Times, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post, Graphic, Sphere, Illustrated London News, etc., etc., and they also will give you all references.

We believe, however, that the fact that the firm of Michelin of Paris has entrusted us exclusively with their advertising for such countries as Australia, West Indies,

VI

Even during the war the European Agency has displayed tremendous energy in monopolizing foreign advertisements. On December 4, 1916, it wrote to the Malay Mail, imprudently introducing itself under the ægis of a great French house, from whom it claimed to have acquired a monopoly of advertisements destined for Australia. The House thus involved formally contradicted this claim; but we will pass over this eminently Teutonic device. The letter went on to say:

We wish, during the war, to draw closer the commercial links which exist between us and the United Kingdom and to develop the business we are doing with the English Colonies, so as to keep away from the Allied countries all foreign competition in future.

We have been established for 35 years as advertising agents, having been one of the first firms founded on the European Continent; we are only beginning to develop our relations with the English Colonies which we regret to say it have been rather neglected up to the present. The Michelin business is a start; others will follow and we have the firm intention to induce as many of our clients as possible to sell their products in Australia, with the help of advertising.

In order to facilitate the financial side, we have asked the Lloyds Bank, our bankers, to give references on our firm to the Union Bank of Australia at Melbourne,

China, etc., etc., gives you all guaranties.

We may remark incidentally that the European Agency, founded in 1912, here describes itself as being 35 years old. How does it justify this statement? Everything is made clear if we remember that the partnership be tween Haasenstein, Vogler, and Georg dates from 1882. This is a manifest confession.

In July, 1914, the Agency sent a circular letter to America, to the large manufacturing concerns and business houses, in the following terms:

Mr. Jean H. Fulgeras, associate of this Company, will be in the United States during the month of September, and will be glad of the opportunity to confer with you in regard to the possibility of extending your market into France and Continental Europe.

In the expressed opinion of many large American houses, Mr. Fulgeras is the bestinformed man in Continental Europe on conditions as they apply to America, and is therefore in a position to give you accurate and valuable information in regard to selling and advertising possibilities on this side.

Our extensive organization - we are the sole 'Foreign' representatives of the majority of the most important newspapers of France enables us, not only to offer efficient advertising service, but to secure, if desired, the services of reliable, energetic selling agents.

We believe that we have the privilege of serving more American advertisers than any other firm or combination of firms in France.

Some of the well-known American clients we are serving are:

Williams Pink Pills

Doans' Kidney Pills & Ointment
Omega Oil & Cadum Soap
Colgates Soap, etc., etc.
Nuxated Iron

Goodrich Tire Co.

Vaseline Chesebrough

Thus we find a Boche concern offering to supply American manufacturers with 'reliable, energetic selling agents' to distribute their products in our country; a Boche concern undertaking to control, with a staff selected by itself, the course of commercial transactions between the United States and France! With what object? We can easily guess.

It is opportune, at this point, to call attention to the Agency's double game: while it is clear, on the one hand, that it wishes to obtain orders for advertising which will enable it to strengthen its hold on our French press, it is no less clear, on the other hand, that, on the pretext of developing the sale of American products in European markets, it keeps itself posted as to the terms of sale of our ally, the United States, to inform German industrial interests thereon, as any one can see.

In the autumn of 1917, Printer's Ink, an American periodical, printed two interviews with the same Jean H. Fulgeras, of the Société Européenne de Publicité,' in which he dwelt upon the vast market awaiting American products in France through judicious advertising in the great Parisian newspapers. 'Until a few years ago,' he said, 'the advertising-agency situation in Paris was in rather bad shape. Such agencies as existed were space-brokers pure and simple. . . . To-day, thanks to the introduction of American ideas. and the demands of American advertisers invading the field, the situation is infinitely improved. . . .'

When these facts were disclosed in the campaign that we entered upon in the columns of L'Homme Libre, which resulted in the sequestration as a German concern of the Paris house of Haasenstein and Vogler, what did the great newspapers say which figured in Fulgeras's notices as having given to that concern the exclusive right to represent them? They held their peace all except two, which declared that they had no direct agreement with the European Advertising Agency.

Now, although it was true that that Agency had no direct contract with the papers in question, still, the HavasRenier combination had previously organized a special agency for each one of them, the function of which was to control and develop the advertising of the paper in question; and it was with these interpolated agencies that the European Agency had relations through the Havas-Renier group.

Will it be said that the actual control, direct or indirect, of the advertising of a newspaper, does not necessarily influence its editorial policy, which may well remain independent despite that circumstance? To prove the contrary, it will suffice to recall the silence of the great newspapers concerning the disclosures that we made as to the origin, the object, and the operation of the European Agency. That silence on their part was all the more significant because our campaign was based upon documents easily verifiable, which any one could procure, as they were matters of public record.

Not only did those papers remain mute: when the European Advertising Agency was sequestered, and on appeal the decision was affirmed by the President of the Tribunal of the Seine, the same papers, actually going so far as to distort the terms of the decree, announced that 'only the German interests in the Agency were sequestered.'

This way of putting it was calculated to give the impression that the agency itself was not under sequestration, and that only the interests of certain stockholders had been seized.

This will seem a shocking thing to many people; but we must remember that it is hard to break off abruptly connections of such long standing, and to free one's self of a domination which one has undergone for so many years. It is to be feared that the German agency, having been sequestered by the French courts, is being reconstituted under another name, to continue the work projected by Haasenstein and Vogler and carried on by that house in French Switzerland and Italy. These fears are not chimerical if we reflect upon the effort that the Germans are sure to make, to introduce their products into the Entente countries after the war. As the Allies will refuse to purchase commodities which bear the German label, the Germans will not fail to disguise them, and to offer them under new names, with the same cynicism that they displayed in changing the name of Haasenstein and Vogler at Geneva and Milan. One can see, then, how important it is for them to control the advertising pages of French newspapers, in order to introduce these new marks and to guide German manufacturers and merchants in their extensive 'puffing' operations.

The centralization of advertising, like that of finance, imposes this new condition, that the moral standpoint of the man who manages it must change. Just as the banking association which handles hundreds of millions of deposits can no longer be managed according to the narrowly individual principles applied in a small or medium-sized bank, but must be alive to the obligations which are attached to the management of every form of public service, so it will certainly not be deemed allowable

for all the newspapers of a country to be in the hands of a group which handles them without thought of anything except deriving the maximum profit, whatever the reaction of its manage ment on the national interests.

The newspapers must understand that it is with them a matter of selfpreservation to refrain from handing over their advertising to an agency which they do not control, but which, on the contrary, holds them under its influence. We must remember what happened in Italy, our ally, where we have seen the Haasenstein and Vogler concern wield an execrable influence over the papers which favored intervention, threatening to give them no more advertisements, if they did not change their politics. The plain inference is that a newspaper not only loses its freedom when it lets its commercial advertising to an agency, but that it also exposes itself to the risk of seeing its resources suddenly diminish or disappear. It must therefore defend its independence if it has any regard, not only for public morality, but for its own material interests.

Is this all? No. There is also the national and social side of the question; for we cannot conceal from our selves the fact that a press managed too largely from a commercial standpoint may become a source of danger to the country. It may become basely demagogic, by flattering the impulses of the crowd, whether they are good or evil, without pausing to reflect where this course may lead the nation — all to increase its circulation. Under present conditions it would be for war so long as the people wanted it, ready to take the side of peace if the people should ever waver. Patriot or 'defeatist'-it would matter little; it would follow slavishly an unthinking popu lace, ignorant of the problems involved, - could it be otherwise? — in order to

Here is the other extreme: having acquired influence, it would be a question simply of turning that influence into cash; of selling it to whoever can use it: liquor-sellers, shady financiers, as well as honest workmen and shopkeepers. The distinction between the pages would be a matter of indifference: the fourth, and even the first, to save appearances, would belong as of right to the highest bidder, even if he were a German.

We can say, therefore, without exaggeration, that, in a democratic state, the fate of the nation is in the hands of the newspapers. Under many circumstances they are needed to sustain the moral courage of the people; and, under other circumstances, to prepare

tions which are necessary, for example, on the morrow of a war like that in which we are now engaged.

We live, in very truth, under a régime of public opinion which makes it impossible to carry through any reform without the approval of a majority; and how are the people to be stirred to action unless the newspapers devote themselves to the task; unless they are guided by a fervent and unselfish desire?

Immense power immense duty! And so the press must take account of its mission, and determine, above all things, not to allow itself to be enslaved by any combination whatsoever, to the profit of one knows not what organization which may have designs against the country.

I. A BALLOON ATTACK

'I'm looking for two balloonatics,' said Talbott, as he came into the messroom, and I think I've found them.'

Percy, Talbott's orderly, Tiffin the steward, Drew, and I were the only occupants of the room. Percy is an old légionnaire, crippled by rheumatism. His active service days are over. Tiffin's working hours are filled with numberless duties. He makes the beds, and serves food from three to five times a

day to members of the Escadrille Lafayette. These two being eliminated, the identity of the balloonatics was plain.

"The orders have just come,' Talbott added, and I decided that the first men I met after leaving the bureau would be balloonatics. Virtue has gone into both of you. Now, if you can make fire come out of a Boche sausage, you will have done all that is required. Listen. This is interesting. The orders are in French, but I will translate as I read.