A STARTLING STRIKE.

Otaki Mail, 7 November 1923, Page 3

A STARTLING STRIKE.

NEWSPAPERS CRIPPLED. EFFECT ON BUSINESS. (Correspondent Christchurch Press.) SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26. Tito sensational strike of tlie pressmen employed on the New York news- ] papers has. wrought- untold liavuc to advertisers, and the subsequent continued lack of advertising space, as a result ot the strike, lias been reflected in all branches ol finance, commerce and industry. For the firs’, time in the history ol the. countiy, people generally have begun to Jearn that: store advertising is looked upon by the shopping public as. news, lor immense space is paid lor by 'the large department stores of New \York. Department store heads, merchants and business men of all kinds state that business has been seriously hampered, and they expressed the fear that unemployment might become general from longer crippling of the daily medium contact between merchant and

■'The slump in business undoubted'y is due to -Mir iiKtt.kity 1 advertise j it'd newspapers " dec, red me 1 L-o.fo '"7io Ih' i: C ' m:0:n . stoics. "Tho dearth of woma. JlYdp-t pc!-- "u: he hei::::r the bn soil Cull be iai'.i t • nothing bther tftuß the fact tisat N ■ fort is wiu-.-ai newspapers.” The strike of newspaper pressmen compelled the Now York newspapers to issue curtailed editions, groups oi publishers issuing a joint print oi but a few pages. obviously Hus meant that all advertisements had to be limited. Stores which, uted to take a page, or a Tiali page, to tell ol bargains and new styles, were now restricted to lour or six inch announcements. In this exigency all sorts oi advertising schemes have been resorted to in ail effort to attract the trade, but without result. It was demonstrated, as never before, how greatly the public, and especially women, are swaved into making decisions w buj merchandise through newspaper advertising. , , „,, , •’Most women,” a departmemaJ store manager said, '’don't go out aimlessly hunting bargains, low a man on a duck hunting expedition. ‘ln manv cases* they are induced to start-on* shopping tours by our newspaper advertisements. With rhe newspaper advertisements removed there is no wav of attracting them.' Even the ultra-fashionable . Fifth Avenue -hops have been sc-nouslj affected. ‘•Our clients are postponing their puichases until they see in the new -pa- ■ pers what they can buy,' one stien ' store owner said. I All of this indicates that advertise-, I nients appealing, to women are jusi I as necessary as the' heart and home 1 topics the soeietv columns, what wo-, ' men shall wear, and other features of: i the modem metropolitan newspaper, j printed circulars mailed to customers ■ were tried in New: York, hut they did not have the drawing power of the ' customary advertisement, and, furthermore,' mailing made the circulars prohibitive. .Just as the New: York newspapers were going to press at midnight the pressmen quit quietly from their posts after removing the plates without authority, and" walked out leavingthe publishers helpless- There hau been dissatisfaction among the ranks of fhe strikers, but it w'as not known that a walk-out was imminent.