I Developing a Great Electrical By J. GEORGE FREDERICK telephone companies of the country became consolidated with the Western Union Telegraph Company, their several instrument shops were consolidated in two. Consequently, the one which had existed at Cleveland, T would be very hard indeed to say accurately whether the rapid extension of the telephone in rural districts is responsible for the rapid growth of the Western Electric Company's business and advertising, or whether the Western Electric Company is re- the original headquarters of the Western sponsible for the rapid growth of the rural telephone. It is certain that the Western Electric Company has pushed the cause of telephone service in rural districts with great energy for a number of years, and that the company itself gives a great deal of credit to the vigorous advertising VOLI-NOI inter-phones which the company is selling for Advertising has been one of the most efficient tools with which this business was built up from the very start. When the scattered Union, was to be abandoned. George W. Shawk, a foreman, bought its equipment and began a miscellaneous manufacture. He was so much better a workman than a man of general commercial experience that when he wrote the pronoun "I" in his letters he put a dot over it. This was the original foundation plant of the Western Electric Company, but very quickly it passed into a series of different stages, resulting finally in 1869 in General Stager, an official of the Western Union Telegraph The factory was Company, becoming a partner. electricity was gradually becoming a vital part of commerce. It Electric Company reaches and supplies. The first public exhibition of the telephone on July 5th, 1876, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition heralded the first assurance of commercial success for this instrument. The To do this means constructive work in adWestern Electric Company began the manufac vertising, of the most vigorous kind. It ture of such instruments and prospered still means a catalogue on which alone something more. At the beginning of 1879 the Western over $100,000 a year is spent. It means keepUnion Telegraph Company was so well satis-, ing in touch with the vast number of elecfied with its investment in the Western Electrical retailers, and it also means reaching tric Company that it was ready to turn, over the city populations for inter-phones, etc. In its New York factory and buy all its instruments and supplies from it. During the fierce competition between the Western Union and Bell Telephone Company, ending in 1879, the Western Electric Company was kept busy making telephones for the Western Union exchanges. (It is not commonly known that the Western Electric Company at that time endeavored to make itself the telephone company as well as the telegraph company; which is a most interesting thing to reniember in view of the vice versa fact that the telephone company now is said to have virtually swallowed the telegraph company!) When the Western Union Telegraph Company gave up its attempt at telephone business the Western Electric Company was left without any private line business or telephone business, and it looked as though the company would have to develop something new. But the Bell Telephone Company was too farsighted not to desire to have the assistance of so efficient a manufacturing organization to supply its many needs; and then was begun the period when the Western Electric Company manufactured all the materials used by the great Bell Telephone System, which continues until today. But immense as is this business, it is still only one department of the Western Electric Company's business; for with the development of the electrical population in this country of something like six million people, or about one million houses (to say nothing of innumerable manufacturing, retail and institutional establishments) there grew up a vast market for supplies alone. In addition to this market from independent and individual electric sources, a market for home and office electrical appliances, more particularly, electric fans, motors and inter-communicating telephones grew up: while in rural sections there developed innumerable small groups of party telephone systems. All these the Western addition to this it must be remembered that the Western Electric Company sells and acts as distributors for a great volume of electrical products manufactured by others. The company employs twenty-four thousand men, and has factories at Chicago, New York, Montreal, Antwerp, London, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Vienna, St. Petersburg and Tokio. Distributing houses are located in twenty-four of the principal cities of the United States. Few people realize the technical and engineering importance of the Western Electric Company in the telegraph and telephone plans of the country; for it is the Western Electric Company's engineering department which bears the burden of mechanically advancing the efficiency of telephone and of making pessible the present high standard, as well as anticipating the future. Telephone engineers have recently added five hundred miles to the range of long distance transmission, which cans a great deal more commercially than it would scem on the surface. New York City and Denver have now been connected by telephone, and it is expected to reach further on to San Francisco. The 1910 status of telephones in New York City, for instance, means 375,000 stations served from 52 central offices. The plans for 1930 have already been figured out, and preparations begun for 2 400,000 stations to be served from 109 central offices. Nothing more graphic of the rapid progress of the company could be possible than a recapitulation of annual sales: done is in trade papers, for this company sells goods to practically every industrial field in the world. It sells to railways, to mines, to ships, to farmers, to rich country gentlemen and to about every other class of people in the world. Its advertising manager is obliged to be technically informed to some degree in all of the many trade paper classes in which the company advertises, and he must also keep himself in touch with general advertising just like any other general advertiser. As a central medium for the immense organization of twenty-four thousand employees throughout the country a house organ, The Western Electric News, was started in March of this year. It is one of the most comprehensive house organs ever launched, being of large three-column size of twenty-four pages, and printed on very good paper, with a threecolor cover, including in the April number a plate paper supplement illustration of E. M. Barton, one of the officials of the company. The company operates a pension system, which has already paid out over $103,000.00 in the past six years. It has an educational department aiming toward the improvement of the personnel of the company. The organization is run with plenty of in N dividual freedom for the various department branches, as they are all run as individual units, responsible for the entire business, with only one measure for the success of each distributing house the return on the investment with the percentage realization from the territory. The educational activities are under three broad subdivisions of activity-engineering, manufacturing and commercial. In addition to this excellent central work there are any number of local clubs among salesmen and factory employees in various parts of the country. The Hawthorne Men's Club of the Chicago branch is a good example, with athletic and social activities, which are expected to advance the general interests of the company. The Minneapolis branch has a "ginger club" in the sales department, which has done much to keep the men up to high level. In fact, this matter of stimulating salesmen has had especial attention from this company. Prize salesmen to make trips to Hawthorne are selected after contests based on a newly arranged point system, which is planned so that a graduated scale of points, covering not only the class of goods, but amount of sales reached has given the highest amount of stimulus to the salesmen. The Smile of Commerce By JOHN WALLER OW is the time to "cash in" on the "smile of commerce." "Everybody's doing it." This smile was formerly the sole property of the dentist and the manufacturer of tooth powder, but with the uplift magazines preaching and teaching the gospel of good cheer; with the splash writers for the daily papers telling how a sunny smile will cure anything from a sour stomach to sallow complexion; with the ministers preaching merry sunshine sermons and magazine writers teaching the joys of a generous grin. it is not to be wondered at that the advertiser has come to appreciate the full value of the smile in salesmanship. Yesterday the dentist and the tooth powder, man "smiled" alone-today the tailor, the automobile man, the seedsman, the milliner, the shoe man, the chef, the corset girl, the laundry soap girl and the safety razor man all greet you with a generous grin and get away with it. When an enterprising manufacturer of gum decides to put a new brand on the market, he forthwith places an order, as his first step toward success, with the local engraver to pose a perfect lady with a healthy looking mouth before his camera, get her on the broad grin. then press the button. When the negative has been finished it is retouched to give the "smile" a little wider extent, the half-tone is made the "copy" is written and sent broadcast-and the gum man is headed straight for fame and fortune. When the maker of a new hipless corset decides to increase his advertising campaign he insists on a model upon which to show his new make of corset that will grin from ear to ear and appear to enjoy it, even if everything else is taken away from her except the smile and the corset. To be sure of having his latest book listed among the ten best sellers, the publisher knows he can never succeed if he fails to use in his advertising a picture of a lady with a spreading smile. And this is just as it should be. It's impossible to carry a good thing too far, and the man who uses a happy, contented, smiling face in his advertising has adopted a good idea and the smile at least can't be Icarried too far. Suppose that the manufacturer of Pink Pills for Pale People used in his advertising the picture of a pleasant-faced, sparkling-eyed girl with a well formed mouth and a fetching smile. And then again, suppose that the manufacturer of Pale Pills for Pink Peopie used in his advertising the picture of a hollow cheeked, single toothed old lady with both freckles and frowns. If both advertisements appeared on the same page of the magazine you happened to be looking through, which one would you read? Having read it, which one would get your money? Having gotten your money, which one is entitled to having made the sale? Why the lady with the smile, of course! Nor is this profitable smile that can't be erased confined to the ladies-not by a long shot. The man who shaves in four minutes by using a Runaway Razor, and a little common sense, grins at you from the top of a full page advertisement and gives you a better opinion of the Runaway than you had before. The kindly old man who goes out in the garden and from a little piece of ground fills his wheelbarrow with celery, turnips, beets, cantaloupes, French fried potatoes and stuffed tomatoes, is an old and welcome friend of yours and mine. Not because his garden truck is so inviting, but because he wears a broad brimmed hat and a grin-not a rah-rah hat and a grouch. The gentleman who is en-"tire"-ly satisfied with himself and the brand of goods he sells wears an infectious grin and the athletic fellow who is "taking his tub" smiles at you as he says, "Come in-the water's fine." "Keep smiling" is a good motto. "Keep your model smiling" is a profitable one. Growing Crops a Little Late But Doing Well Season Two or Three Weeks Late in Middle West But Normal in Northwest-Winter Wheat Injured in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio-Abandoned Area Planted to Other Crops Fruit Outlook Excellent Sugar Beets PromisingStock Doing Well-Ground Full of Moisture and Everything Favorable to Large Yields Monthly Report of AGRICULTURAL ADVERTISING'S Crop Expert. I T is now possible to give a pretty definite opinion as to the condition of winter grains. Because of the late spring and the presence of large amounts of snow, it is out of the question to determine the amount of damage by cold weather during the winter of 1911-12 prior to May 1. Briefly stated, winter wheat, and to a certain extent winter rye, were seriously injured in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Illinois. In none of the other winter wheat states was the damage much more than usual. True, a few spots in Wisconsin suffered severely and a few Kansas and Oklahoma counties will have less wheat than usual. Outside of the four states first mentioned, however, the damage is not severe and with the favorable conditions which have obtained since the opening of spring the crop is coming along in first-class shape. Of all the authorities who estimate the condition of crops, the department of agriculture this year was probably nearer than any other. I give below the figures on winter wheat and winter rye as presented by the department of agriculture on May 1 of this year. These relate to the states in which readers of AGRICULTURAL ADVERTISING are particularly interested. I do not deem it necessary to include every state in the Union. Taking the country as a whole, however, the department finds that 20 per cent of the acreage seeded last year was abandoned because of winter killing. There remains, therefore, 25,744,000 acres to be har |