Newspapers, just as any other business enterprise, need advertising. But one paper would never carry an advertisement of its competitor, no matter how much money the competitor might be willing to pay for such publicity. Hence, each paper has to take care of its own publicity. In this respect the American newspapers have reached much greater heights than papers in any other country. They talk about their own circulation, tell its readers how many columns of ads they carry, try to prove that they are gaining ground while the competitor is losing. They brag about all the places where they maintain correspondents and point to all their scoops. This kind of publicity, however, may be found also in Europe and elsewhere. But using charity for advertising purposes is about the limit of all that has been done in this respect.

Thus, for its own advertising purposes, one paper is promoting the collection of funds to send ships with toys and other Christmas gifts to Europe for children of nations affected by the war; another went it one better by urging American families to start adopting Belgian children orphaned by the war; one collects money to send flour to Belgium; another promotes the sending of warm socks, gloves, and underwear to soldiers at the front. Thus there was nothing else left for Hearst's Examiner but to get enthused over love for the poor in our own country.....

To back up this campaign, the Examiner gives reasons which, while not always fully logical and frequently more artificial than real, and evidently designed to steal the show on papers advertising by promoting foreign charity, are interesting and merit consideration.

Thus the Examiner writes:

"If you have money to give away, give first to your brother, and then to your 3distant cousin overseas. If you have more than you need for the poor around you, next to you, and across the street, send your surplus to Europe's war victims, or flood victims in China, or other victims on Mars, if you can reach them. But by all means start your charity at home, and keep it at home as long as you find here some poor, some sorrowful mothers, some unfortunate underpriveleged children.

"We have our own war victims, good people who deserve help, because a man who is out of work, and a woman who is out of means to feed her children are true victims of the war which has thrown the whole world into confusion and is responsible for their suffering. Why don't you help the war victims in our own country, our own brothers and sisters, instead of getting excited about the suffering that is three thousand miles away?

"There are many things which prove this heartlessness of the human race. But there are few of them that prove it as definitely as this hysterical, sensation-craving, self-advertising outbreak of charity for Europe while 4the poor at home are expected to go on suffering.

"The Americans are told that thousands of children whose fathers have been killed in the war, will have no Christmas toys, and many local fools start collecting drums and trumpets in order to send them to children whose fathers have been murdered, as if a nice little drum could replace a father for a European child. But how about poor children right here? Hundreds of thousands of them will have a sad December 25, if at least some charities do not start and end at home.

"What is the object of our charitable men? To buy excitement and sensation for the money they give away? Do they believe that their modest donations will find recognition, or will make any difference in Europe where two million people will be killed by next spring and where one hundred million dollars would be just a drop in the bucket? Is there no joy in being able to help those who are near us, to see a smile brighten their somber faces, to know that your own personal donation has caused a particular person's 5happiness?

"This hectic, thoughtless, aimless, hysterical zeal which sends its gifts overseas, and allows it to be distributed and received by God knows whom is false charity. If a member of your own family were in distress, would you not be ashamed to help somebody else first? Of course you would. And as long as there is one single man, or one single woman suffering in your own nation, as long as there is misery and distress here, where you have made your money, where you live, you should be ashamed to give your charity to foreign countries for the only reason that charity to foreigners is more dramatic and gets wider publicity. Give at home as long as all are not taken care of at home. Then, if there is anything left, give abroad".

As we have said above, there is considerable truth to all this in some respects. But of course this does not apply to our brothers and sisters in the old country, because they are our nearest, and we shall make sure that our help goes to those who need it most and does the most good when the time 6comes. But, even so, there is something in it that applies to our own situation. In collecting money for our brothers and sisters in the old country let us not forget our needy at home. In the first place we should see to it that our own local countrymen, widows and orphans, families whose providers are ill or have been long unemployed are taken care of. Whoever sees misery in his own neighborhood should do all he can to wipe it out. Our Ceska Dobrocinna Spolecnost (Bohemian Charitable Association) should be getting more substantial support so that it may be able to comply, at least, with the most worthy requests for help during the long winter. These requests are so numerous that the funds of the Spolecnost will be exhausted long before spring, if our countrymen who can afford it fail to make sizable donations.

All of us feel the effects of the war: Business is slack; unemployment is growing. But there are many among us who are distressed to the point of despair, who do not know where their next meal will come from, where they will live, and how they will keep warm. Extraordinary ills require 7extraordinary remedies, and everyone of us should give willingly, and give more than ordinarily.

The rivalry between our newspapers which leads them to compete in trying to inspire the greatest number of their own readers to the greatest munificence may become the most effective relief campaign, even if it is just a form of advertising, that this or the other paper adopts.