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Show What's the Matter With These United States of America? Our business men are not making the most of their opportunities op-portunities during this war, according ac-cording to Herbert X. Casson in Ass o c i a t e d Advertising, who goes far to prove his point in answering the question, "What is the matter with the United States?" Here is his reply: "As I have been residing in 'London since the beginning of the war, I have been hearing this question asked on all sides. I have never heard any satisfactory answer. No one seems to know. "Why are the American factories not running night and day? Why are railroads not opening up new territory and getting ready for the millions mil-lions of immigrants who have already made up their minds to leave Europe as soon as the war is over? "Why are not fifty American Ameri-can drummers in London right now, trying to sell .$200,000,000 worth of American goods in place of the goods that were bought last year from Germany Ger-many and Austria ? "Why have advertisers become be-come quitters just at the time when their advertisements were most needed and most effective ef-fective in cheering on the business busi-ness forces of the LTnited States? "From the European point of view the United States is a heaven of peace and security and prosperity. It has no torubles that it dare mention to Belgium or Austria or France or Germany or Servia or Great Briton or Russia. "Every tenth Briton has enlisted. en-listed. Every tenth Frenchman French-man is at the front. Every , tenth Belgian is dead. What I does the United States know of trouble ? I '.'If I could afford it I would charter the Mauretania and Lusitania, and convey a party of five thousand American advertisers ad-vertisers to Europe for a trip of education. I would give them a week in London, a week in Paris and a week in Antwerp. Ant-werp. "I would let them look at the United States from the scene of war. I would give them a look at real trouble. I would let them see trains, ten at a time, five minutes apart, packed with the maimed and dying. ' ' I would let them hear, from fragmentary survivors, the incredibV" story of battlefields a hundred and fifty miles wide, and armies that are greater than the entire population of Texas. "I would let them see graves a hundred yards long and full, and Belgium, the country that was, nothing now but twelve thousand square miles of wreckage. "Then when they began to understand to some slight extent ex-tent the magnitude and awful-ness awful-ness of this war, I would say to them: "Now go back and appreciate the United States. Realize your opportunities. Don't start digging trenches when nobody is firing at you. Don't fall down when you have not been hit. Don't be blind to Hie most glorious chance you liave ever had in your life. "Go back and advertise. 3et ready for the most t rem on-.lous on-.lous business boom that any nation ever had. Build your Victories bigger. Train more salesmen. Borrow more money. jo ah est 1 and thank God you ire alive and that your family s alive, and that you are living n a land that is at peace,, at a ime when nearly the whole vorld is at war." Learning to do without gives you more to do with. TCT |
