The Tribe of Ad

Bg Mrs. F. E. Conner, of Sauamento, Before the Sacramento Valleg Lumbermen's Club

It was easy enough to promise to prepare a paper on the subject of advertising for this occasion, but when I came to realize the utter futility of attempting to tell progressive' business-like lumbermen anything about modern met;hods of attracting attention, I knew that I had heedlessly rushed in where even ar1 expert ad man-or woman would fear to tread. Wishing h,owever, to redeem my rashly given pladge by doing something with the theme, I turned to the past with th'e hope that the ancient history of advertising might yield at least a note of interest and perhaps afford a few suggestions whi,c,h would be helpful to the merchant of today.

Sometime, somewhere, I had read a f'ew lines concerning "The Tribe of Ad." I remembered those four promising words quite distinctly, but nothing else remained in a m€mory that suddenly and unaccountably had ceased to function p'roperly. There they were-four lonely words, Melchisidick like possessing neither beginning nor end, and absolutely devoid of when,ce or wither. It was at this time I suffered severely from stage fright. Now the Good Book says,-"if a woman would know anything, let- her a-sk her OWN husband." That may be very good advic'e f'or advertising was simply that of telling a story with perspicuity and force, and it is very probable that the thrillers which have survived the centurie,s, and enjoyed popularity with generation after generation of entranced readers were written by his hand, Ad knew that IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE.

The decendents of Ad waxed strong and in,herit'ed the earth. In due course of time their tribal chieftains planned and caused to be builded that gigantic silo known to history as the Tower of Babel, and as it rose toward Heaven they covered its outer wall,s with glaring posters, striking cartoons, and lively, readable advertising copy of all sortsprose, poetry-and flss v615s-calling attention to suitability of valley lands for fruit culture, dairying, and ,home building; exploiting the fertility of hillside ranges, extolling the grandeur of the timber belt, and dwelling upon the distinctive merits of hardwood flooring, wooden shingles, lap rustic, and ten-penny nails.

This must have been the golden age of advertising. Tribes, clans, and bewhiskered individual pioneers of all nationalities from the four corners of the earth and th'e isles of the sea flocked to Babel, and the tower became the proto' citizens of less favored localities, but in Sacramento, when men, or women would know anything they ask the City's charmingly clever and witty librarian, Miss Susan T. Smith.

I asked and received quite promptly this remarkable bit of information. "Ad is a Tribe decended from the son of Ad, son ol Uz, son of Shem, son of NOAH. The tribe at the confusion of Babel went and settled on Al-Ahkaf (The Winding Sands), in the province of Hadram:aut, Shedad was their first king, but in consequence of his pride, both he and all the tribe perished either from the drought or the Sarsar (icy wind.)"

Scieniisis can take the scattered bones of a prehistoric monster, and aided by the art of articulation-and a strong imagination, reconstiuct beastly forms that roamed the earth when Adam was training his first wife and the snake was learning its a b c's. Now, the history of trhe Tribe of Ad, or that por,tion of it that has come down to us, is a very, very meager sldeleton, to be sure, and I am not a scientist, but I have tried to evolve a legend from it that may show the antiquity of advertising, and prove that it was efficient and as needful then as now.

Ad, the father of ancient and modern methods of advertising, was the great grandson of Noah. Ad pilayed about the irk itself in his infancy, explored itg numerous aPartments and hall bedrooms, became familiar with its shape, size, and peculiar details of construction, and listened attentively many, many times while Noah and Shem discnssed itre buiiding of the ark. the lumber supply, the flood, and the remarkabfu housing conditions that obtained during the forty day,s and nights of intensive weather. It will bJquite readily seen that Ad must lr19 g{hered an-enormous amount of ltetBRIAL for COPY. He knew his subject and believed in it an'd in himself. To him the art of type of our modern stock exchange-a thing for which the world was not ripe at that time. Interpreters were scarse and the multiplicity of languages and dialects, coupled with some unethical business practises that began to creep in, caused a mix-up that finally drove the disgusted Tribe of Ad'to the desert places places of Al Ahkaf.

Realizing that their efforts had not been truly appreciated, and fearing that they had been over optomistic in their previous endeavors, they now sought to develop a less spectacular scheme of attracting public notice, and were once again on the high road to prosperity when they unwisely elected a king, Shed Ad, to rule over them.

Shed Ad was a dignified, conservative business man of the old school, too proud to advertise, jealous of competitors, determined to rule or ruin. Shed believed that business would 6qrns-fe him-and that time spent in wooing it was wasted indeed. In the spring he prepared a tribal bu.dget in which no funds were provided for advertising or publicity work of any sort. Sign boards were torn down. house organs discontinued, newspaper copy withheld, advertising agencies disrupted, and ad men exiled or imprisoned.

- The inevitable happened. Desert sands drifted silently over the doorsteps of on,ce prosperous marts of trade, spiders spun their silken webs across office desks and vacant chairi, Gila monsters and horned toad,s took possession of deserted lumber yards, the feet of a purchasing public ceased to resoun,d in the lonely streets, wolves bayed the moon in the silent midnight hours, and at length the Tribe of Ad persihed mi'serably in tlhe "icy wind" of disappointed ambition that rattles the dry bones of any city, towlr, or individual that waits in serene, peaceful, confidence for "som,ething to turn uP."