The Molders

The problem of an age of industrialism is not: "How much can we produce?" but: "How much can the public consume?" Wherefore the vast, highly organized, temperamental estate called "the molders of favorable public opinion," or, more prosaically, Advertising Men. Last year, when the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World fore-gathered in London, voted Houston, Tex., as their next meeting place, U. S. enthusiasm knew no bounds. It was so infectious that the staid London Times was moved, even ten months later (in March), to elaborate a special supplement in celebration of Texas--her history, her heroes, her landmarks, her better buildings, her institutions and, of course (for there is much British capital in Texas and more to come), her rich enterprises in cotton, oil, beef. Had royalty been expected in town, Houston could have bibbed and tuckered herself no more gaudily than she did last week. The streets were fringed with clouds of bunting by day and streams of brilliant bulbs by night. Hotel lobbies babbled greeting from a thousand bulletin boards, ten thousand posters. No automobile but had its "Welcome!" pennants. No public official but had furbished up his funny stories and tucked a speech into his coat against an emergency.

This matter of bringing a convention to a city is not to be taken lightly. If properly boosted, it means mounds of dollars in revenues, piles of superlatives in the post-mortem headlines and bread-and-butter letters, a conspicuous place in the sun for at least a few of the organizers for at least a few days and an enviable chapter in the Chamber of Commerce or Kiwanis or Rotary records.

Last week, it was Houston against the world. Just as the Houston delegation to London last year rallied to the cry of: "Houston in 1925!" so, before ever the business of the convention was under way, the delegations to Houston were shouting: "St. Petersburg [Fla.] in 1926!" "Next year in Philadelphia!" and a band from Mexico City, gorgeously dight, attended Senor Arturo M. Elias, a half-brother of President Calles, about town. Under its stirring notes, careful listeners could hear the patient little refrain: "Perhaps we'll meet some sunny day in Mexico."