Method in Kindness

Prudence Penny is a lady registered in the United States Patent Office, or rather she is several ladies whose name is thus registered. Prudence is one of the ways in which Mr. Hearst collects pennies by the million. In the words of one of Mr. Hearst's full page blurbs : " 'Mother Prudence,' 'Aunt Prudence,' 'Sister Prudence' they call her. She is all that and more." She is a walking dictionary, a "Confidante of thousands," an expert in all the household arts, past master in how to keep husbands, children and a figure. In short she is an institution through which Mr. Hearst dispenses good advice, human kindness, and valuable aid in exchange for the good will of prospective newspaper buyers.

She is not a new institution, but as a major development she is recent. Mr. Hearst has a number of Prudences in different parts of the country. Prudence has been in Manhattan for a little over a year. But she has been so great a success, that her department of the paper was enlarged and she was given full page advertising. The Prudence of Manhattan may be taken as a large scale type of all Prudences in describing this tremendous development of the personal touch in journalism.

She is Mrs. Mabelle A. Burbridge, a widow of 42, assisted by a daughter of 24. Formerly she lived in California and was editor and business manager of The Pacific Fancier, a poultry paper. In November, 1922, she took up her work with Mr. Hearst in Manhattan, giving advice on things valuable to women, both by article and by letter. In the words of the blurb "Prudence's reaction to each letter is individual in itself. . , . Come to Prudence with confidence! Your letter is not departmentalized, rubber stamped, or form-letter-answered. If you have never received a letter from Prudence Penny, you have a sweet experience before you."

In her first year some 70,000 people had this sweet experience. Letters come to Prudence at the rate of about 500 a day. From four to eight assistants are kept busy answering the letters. They are equipped with leaflets of advice on many subjects which can be used as the main part of many answers--leaflets on Party Suggestions, on Hope Chest and Trousseau, on Baby's Welfare--Diets up to 2 Years, on Reducing Weight--Diets and Baths, on Lifting Sagging Face, on Restoring Gray Hair. The whole gamut of human affairs from the cradle to the coffin is provided for in good advice. And in one year of this service Mr. Hearst befriended, and doubtless gained the valuable good will of 70,000 Gothamites, a number that in itself would produce a very respectable circulation for many a newspaper.

Meanwhile Mother Prudence, the very model of a professional good-woman, tries out recipes, tries out the devices which are advertised next to her columns so that she can vouch for them. She even personally sees or visits some of the most desperate cases of poverty and misfortune. Out of the goodness of her heart she hospitably invites you (again in the words of the blurb) :

"Some day when the skies are overcast and you're blue; when you can't seem to make your budget stretch far enough; when the best boy in the world turns out to be only an ordinary male; when you're lonesome, disheartened, weary, despairing--write to Mother Prudence, the confidante of thousands."

Day by Day

The genesis of a newspaper story may be trivial. But good journalism develops a story until it is no longer trivial. Even if the "best" people may not approve of the methods and "effects" of certain types of journalism, credit must be given for enterprise. The Daily News (Manhattan) carries off a palm for a little story which it developed and improved day by day.

On the tenth day of January it ran a little six inch story entitled: MARY M. ROGERS, 20, WEDS COUNT, 40, AT CITY HALL and related simply that "Miss Mary Millicent Rogers . . . granddaughter of the late H. H. Rogers, one of the organizers of the Standard Oil Co., married . . . Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, . . . member of the Belgian branch of the princely house of Salm-Salm, one of the most ancient lines of nobility in Austria."

By the next day the story had improved to "Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, the so-called Austrian nobleman who plucked a $40,000,000 plum from the tree of Standard Oil" and at the same time multiplied five or ten times in dimensions.

By the third day, still increasing in volume, it was "Count's Gold Tinted Love." . . . "He wanted a girl with a million and he said so frankly. But while seeking the girl with a million he did not hesitate to engage himself to a widow de grace with a small competence. Nor did he scorn the beauteous proprietor of a hat shop, nor turn his countly gaze from a moving picture

star from his own part of the world..."

The following day it was "Trail O' Hearts in Count's Wake"--"Count Ludwig Salm von Hoogstraeten, fearing a breach of promise suit by Mrs. Grace Sands Montgomery Coffin, last night sent his brother, Count Salm von Hoogstraeten, to interview Mrs. Coffin."

Still later "Fumes from the Mixture of Gold and Title"--"During the two years that he [the Count] cut a wide swath in the city [Berlin] his name was constantly associated with that of some dancer, actress or other woman whose notoriety drew more attention than her talent."

And as the story prospered, so prospered the pictures which accompanied it. Beginning with a modest profile of the ex-Miss Rogers wearing a string of beads, the News next produced a "full length" with the subject's arms outstretched over flower urns. Her husband, her mother, her grandfather and her ex-fiance figured also, as well as a map of the Count's alleged dominions. Next day "Millicent" appeared in Hindu costume, as well as with her ex-fiance and in several other poses; while there were a number of photo-graphs from the movie The Queen of Sin in which the Count was purported to have taken part as one of 80,000 extras, with such captions as: "And who is the intrepid horseman in the foreground, waving aloft the spear? Can it be our hero? It cannot. If, however, you have patience and a strong magnifying glass you may be able to locate him, for the arrow [several hundred yards in the background] may indicate his approximate position." Next the "other women" began to appear. Then a lady who was quoted as saying: "Everybody is saying that Count Salm picked a prize in Millicent Rogers, but if you ask me she got the world's greatest lover." Coupled with this and similar pictures were scenes from cinemas in which the ex-fiance took part, with such captions as: "Jimmy [Thompson] appeared as a gallant knight in Yolanda--Unlike rival, Count Salm, who won Millicent Rogers from him, Jimmy Thompson was more than just one of 80,000 extras."

If the story continues at this rate of steady improvement the News may get a medal, or a libel suit.