T has hardly been twenty years since the special representative was first recognized as a factor in the advertising business. Advertising solicitors were plentiful before that time, but usually they worked from the home office or solicited on commission, taking business for almost any paper and turning it in for credit. Then some advertising solicitors of the enterprising sort evolved the plan of confining their operations to a certain paper or list of papers, and later these gentlemen began to be paid salaries. Most of the specials remember the troubles that would come up when working on a straight commission. They would work up an advertiser to the point of beginning advertising and he would place his business through an agency. The agency commission would necessarily be paid and the publisher was not inclined to pay any commission to the man who did the reliminary work. This led to much discussion, and out of this the present special representative system was evolved and its growth has proved its usefulness. The special representative of today works on commission only when he is be yond working on a salary and can make more money on a commission basis. Whatever basis his pay is founded on he is a regular member of the advertising staff of the publications he represents, with authority to do business and carrying with him whatever prestige goes with his papers. Both publishers and agencies recognize the value of the special and there is no friction between them. All who know of the range of work covered by the special representative willingly acknowledge the value of that work in creating and holding business. Through his work advertisers are brought into personal and direct touch with publications about which they would have little or no knowledge. A feeling of regard grows up for the publishers of a paper who send to the office of an advertiser their personal representative. The advertiser comes to realize the value of a publication by being shown by one who has a personal interest in the matter how many copies are circulated, what kind of people it goes to and why it would do him good to use it. The magnificent record made by many comparatively new journals Loren L. Boyle opticians of this country, and is an honor to this bright and enterprising journal. He is the son of Rev. John T. Boyle, the minister who received William McKinley into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Boyle came to Chicago as western manager for his paper in 1903, and in the time he has been here he has made many friends and has become well known in the western field as a hustling special, always ready to talk up the merits of his paper. Hard work has brought deserved success in his case, as it does in most others. advertising management of a medical dispensary. In June, 1895, the Chicago "Chronicle" was founded, and Mr. Barnard was induced to come back to Chicago and take a place on its advertising staff. In 1889 he was sent to New York in charge of the eastern office of his paper, where he remained until 1901, when he was appointed western representative of the New York "Press," which he still represents. Later in the same year he took on the Philadelphia "Record," and the next year the Milwaukee "Evening Wisconsin" and the Boston "Transcript" were added. All these papers are still on his list. That he is able to hold such prizes in the special field speaks well for Mr. Barnard's ability. Loren L. Boyle and became its subscription manager. It was not until January, 1880, that he found the advertising department more congenial and to his liking and he served the above paper, first as assistant, then as advertising manager until August 8, 1885. Certain changes had been made in the office of the Orange Judd Company, publishers of the old monthly American Agriculturist, and a tempting offer was made to him to become the advertising manager of this publication. All of Mr. Briggs' friends, and they are legion, recognized the great preferment, but some of them advised caution, as it was going from a 30 cent a line paper to one that was charging $1.00 per line, and it seemed a question as to whether continued success would follow the change. However, it was an advancement which Mr. Briggs felt he could take the risk on, and his resignation was made on Friday, August 7, 1885, to take immediate effect, and he entered the employ of the Orange Judd Company August 10, 1885. It will thus be seen that Mr. Briggs has been in continuous service with the present companies for nineteen years, and during that time has not lost a day. Mr. David W. Judd, president of the Orange Judd Company when Mr. Briggs united himself with the company, died in 1887, and it was Mr. Briggs who first suggested to the Phelps Publishing Company, of Springfield, Mass., the idea of purchasing the Orange Judd Company, a transaction which involved many thousand dollars. The purchase followed soon after, and gave Mr. Briggs still further opportunity of developing his qualifications as an ad solicitor, as it added to his work the "Farm & Home" and "New England Homestead." Since that time, as all readers of Agricultural Advertising know, the monthly was changed to a weekly, and a purchase made of the "Orange Judd Farmer," of Chicago, and the "New England Homestead," of Springfield, Mass. May 15, 1895, Mr. Briggs was installed in Chicago as western manager of these three weeklies, also the semimonthly, "Farm & Home," owned by the Phelps Publishing Company, and has headquarters at 1443-6 Marquette building. tion he accidentally acquired a smattering of truly useful knowledge never intended by the men who work for "the man of the midnight oil." Later on he became the founder and managing editor of "The Cap and Gown," the university year-book, and as a last offense in his collegiate career of crime he wrote and produced the first original play enacted at the university, and was thereupon formally advised by farsighted Doctor Harper that his term of sentence would be commuted to a B. A. degree. So he quit loafing and started to go to work. As reporter and editorial writer on various Chicago papers he soon lost all the superfluous muscle acquired at the baseball training table, and then he accepted a position with C. M. Henderson & Co., later taking charge of the firm's advertising department. A year or so later he went to the Harry H. Lobdell Company as advertising manager, where for two years he edited and managed the "Lobdell Shoe Monthly," a publication with a circulation of 40,000 copies, intended for shoe retailers throughout the country. In 1898 he became an editorial writer for one of the dry goods papers of the Root syndicate in St. Louis. His next change took him back to Chicago as Western representative of "The Outlook." Mr. Pike is a member of the Agate, the Atlas and the Quoin Clubs, the well-known advertising men's organizations of Chicago and New York. In He began his career as an advertising man with the "Sunday School Times." 1882 he was one of the incorporators of the "Argosy." About this time Munsey fell out with the advertising agencies, or rather with their business, and Mr. Stoddart occupied a very delicate position, but during the whole period of misunderstanding between Munsey and the agencies he managed, without breaking faith with his principal, to keep the agencies in line, "probably better than any other man could have done." Mr. Stoddart is a hard working man, but |