Pine Safes Gompany

space to boosting some other kinds of roofing that I spent years ago boosting wooden shingle roofs' I would be rich and retired today, I verily believe. That isn't just a guess. I've been talked business to lots of times.

Next subject-Stories t i J"nL of years ago I got a perfectly grand story from a rancher in deep West Texas. I believe it was entirely original with him, and that I was the first to have the privilege of telling it. I told it on the radio soon after. It was grabbed by radio folks from coast to coast, and was nationally popular within thirty days time. It came back to me from everywhere. But like the gal in the old melodrama who came back "without any wedding ring," the story came back without any quotation marks. That didn't worry me. I've seen my stuff come back that way all my life.

But the other night I went to a movie, a very good one' "Rhythm on the Range," featuring Bing Crosby and Bob Burns. And the biggest laugh in the show comes when Bob Burns leans over to the lady in the dining car, whose coffee was too hot to drink, and says: "Take my coffee, lady. It's been saucered and blowed, both." For "Saucered and Blowed" is the story I'm just telling you about that got so popular a couple of years ago. It's printed in my book "LOTSA" FUN, and I printed it before that in my "Favorite Story" department in this journal.

Folks nowadays don't use many quotation marks. Some of them do, however, and when you meet them it makes you feel a little better toward the human race. Thomas Dreier, famous publicity man of Melvin Village, New Hampshire, edits and publishes a number of the highest types of house organs for important business corporations and groups throughout the East. He frequently uses my stuff-always with my name and address. The other day two of his magazines came in, "The High Road," and "The Howard Way." One of them used an editorial from this journal, the other a darky story. Both gave full credit. But there aren't many Tom Dreier's, unfortunately. I use plenty of stuff myself that I catch on the bounce, clip, find enclosed with letters from friends, which I have no means of identifying, and therefore do not attempt to identify it. But whenever I use anything whose author I am certain of, I am delighted to give him credit. Lack of copywriting makes no difference, and shouldn't make any. It's a matter of common honestY. ***

Figures show that the Townsend Weekly has made a net profit of $75,000 at last report. I suggest to my fellow publishers of trade journals that they do not ionsider that fact too seriously. I don't want to be responsible for any suicides. But I'll say this: we're in the wrong business, boys, we're in the wrong business.

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"\Moman are healthier now than they ever were before,,' declares a headline on a woman's page. Oh, yeah? The Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company is spending $gas,000 this year for advertising. See if you can make those two statements jibe.

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Talk about your "substitutes for lumber." Definite and no doubt correct figures show that we now have 250,000 American families living in trailer-automobile homes. And the figures I have read of late concerning the present growth of that trend of home-seeking are almost too staggering for belief. There is no possible doubt, however, that the trailer making business has become one of the best and most active lines of industry in the land today, and that we now have a very, very large ..foating" population, living on wheels.

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They own no real estate, pay no direct taxes but the gasoline and oil taxes, go and come as they please, shift according to the seasons and their own desires for variety, and live a nomadic life that unquestionably has its attractions. The big national magazines are giving much atten- tion to t'his new and interesting subject. Poor old building industry ! Just about the tirne we decide that the homebuilding era is due to take on great power, a lot of the sort of people to whom we would expect to sell homes, buy themselves a trailer-home and start drifting.

Nevertheless, and ""aJi rira"lrding, home building IS growing apace all over the country. Building figures are rising steadily. There are still many millions of people who are not living in trailers, and who are still interested in the type of home that stands on a firm foundation. If we can sell all of THAT type who could and should own a home, business is going to be grand

Caught a swell phr"""*thJ olt", a"y in one of Westbrook Pegler's syndicated articles. He was telting of the scenery as he traveled through the New England states, and he was impressed with the wealth of white paint he saw everywhere, and commented on it as follows: ..\Mhite paint, the badge of solvency and self-respect throughout the New England states, still gleams against the background of the woods and fields."

Grab that phrase, ,on nlrr,J-it"r" .rra paint merchants !