&ilbs Vhat was your fonetion as a reader then? 



Cogginss On other manuscripts it was for my opinion, but 



Alger was accepted already. It was like asking a 

 publisher ilT he wanted tl^# publish one of the best 

 sellers today. He*d say ''Yes" before reading it» 

 Then we had books by W. Burt Poster. These 

 are names nobody will know today* James Otis 

 was pretty well known; he wrote for St. Nicholas . 

 Then we published this series of books. We got tha 

 idea. • .of course, I was not yei^y much of an 

 influence in the decisions in those days. ..but we 

 got the idea we'd like to publish an adventure 

 series dealing with West Point and Annapolis. We 

 wrote to West Point and asked them if they could 

 auggaat sonebody who could write a book and they 

 gaire us the name of a young man who had graduated 

 or was graduating at the time. His name was 

 Paul B. Kalone and he wrote the series starting 

 with Winning his Way to West Point . The author 

 later became a general and later was in command of 

 the Presidio in San Francisco. 



Gilbf Trying to live down the fact he'd written the books, 

 no doubt, (laughter) 



