36 report of the forest committee 



Cartoons and Editoriai,s. 



While we can hardly systematize any way to obtain help through editorials 

 and cartoons, such help is often generously given if asked. It may be of tre- 

 mendous value. During campaigns for forest laws it exerts great influence upon 

 legislators. Most dailies readily recognize the topical appropriateness of forest 

 fire cartoons during unusually dangerous weather, and there is probably no instru- 

 ment so effective in promoting public precaution. Often their own artists will 

 make them, but few will be offended by the offer of sketch ideas or even finished 

 drawings. 



PUBLICITY METHODS AND DEVICES OTHER THAN THE PRESS. 



THE simplest introduction of this topic is to say that the promotion of 

 forest business can utilize to advantage practically all the devices used to 

 promote any other business. Excepting the dishonest and prejudicially 

 vulgar, there is hardly an idea successfully applied to modern advertising and 

 sentiment-moulding that cannot be adapted, with suitable modification, to arrest- 

 ing and directing the public mind in favor of forest conservation. The problem 

 is to select from these, or develop new ones, so as to get maximum results from 

 the money and effort available. 



This involves both ingenuity and considerable knowledge of mechanical 

 technique. The forest propagandist should either employ experts or devote 

 considerable study to an art usually quite foreign to his training. As a rule, 

 unfortunately, he has done neither, and what effort he has made has been in 

 borrowing ideas from the very few who have given the subject study or in using 

 his original ideas very imperfectly. 



Probably the commonest attempts are along the line of posters, circulars and 

 like special publications. A collection of these issued throughout the United 

 States will show general weakness in two directions. One is a tendency to 

 borrow instead of to originate. The other, and more inexcusable, is the spoiling 

 of good ideas by neglect of the first laws of presentation. Only recently has it 

 been realized that the personal welfare and pride of the reader, rather than 

 ultimate good to the community, is the strongest line of attack. Brevity, clear- 

 ness, and the compulsion of direct personal appeal instead of the impersonal 

 statement of fact, are still much neglected. But the greatest ignorance is shown 

 concerning the mechanical make-up of the finished product. The vigor of color 

 schemes, the carrying power of different sizes and styles of type, the weight of 

 contrasting backgrounds and borders, the balancing of type and picture designs, 

 the mailing weight and durability of paper stocks— all these and many other 

 points have been reduced almost to laws by expert advertisers outside of forestry, 

 but forest propagandists seem hardly to know there are such laws. 



Confinement to the commonplace printed mediums mentioned, with all origi- 

 nality devoted to giving them new dress, is another evidence of our lack of pub- 

 licity sense. Wholly new inventions are as useful here as in advertising town 

 lots or merchants' wares. And the most successful publicity agent of all is the 

 one who, besides creating opportunities, keeps the most watchful outlook to turn 



