in 
 cr* 
 
GIFT OF 
 
low "Reason -Why" 
 Copy Dried Up 
 a County 
 
 Reprinted From 
 JUDICIOUS ADVERTISING 
 
 Published by 
 
 American Issue Publishing Company 
 
 WESTERVILLE, OHIO 
 
How "Reason- Why" Copy Dried Up a 
 County. 
 
 Reprinted from "Judicious Advertising" 
 
 Many are the uses of good advertising 
 creating appetites and thirsts, but simon- 
 pure "reason why" copy had a new work- 
 out a few weeks ago in Lenawee County, 
 Michigan in which it turned the trick with 
 the biggest "dry" majority in Michigan. 
 
 The copy writer first laid out plans for a 
 beautiful "human interest" campaign that 
 would bring sobs from a murderer, but 
 his "dry" ideals were badly spilled on find- 
 ing that the voters were talking against 
 local option rule on the basis of the possi- 
 bility of higher taxes. 
 
 So taking a new tack and getting right 
 down to the commercial aspect of the 
 thing, a campaign which led off with a talk 
 of rule by outside "booze barons," followed 
 by actual facts and figures showing how 
 taxes are really cut down by the elimination 
 of saloons, was decided upon. 
 
 The first ad of the two weeks* campaign 
 of "reason why" copy had for its keynote 
 "shall the whiskey machine of the United 
 States rule Lenawee County and you?" 
 
 For an entire week th<? cloud, which pre- 
 vented Voters frdni k)eking : at the sentimen- 
 tal si^le of the question, was hammered 
 away -at, facts arid figures, -even United 
 States government reports being brought 
 into play. 
 
 It was necessary to lift the cloud of com- 
 mercialism, in a measure, selfishness, which 
 was keeping the sentimental side in the dark. 
 
 2 
 
The copy writer realized that the moral 
 phase of the situation was bound to turn the 
 trick, if six weeks hard pounding of "grass 
 growing in the streets," "higher taxes" and 
 "Sahara" arguments by the "wet" campaign 
 manager could be vercome in the short 
 space of a week. Page and half-page news- 
 paper copy was used. 
 
 So an information bureau was established 
 at the local option headquarters and every 
 piece of copy that went out to the two daily 
 papers and fifteen weeklies and semi-week- 
 lies carried a coupon, called the "free in- 
 formation coupon." Voters were asked to 
 write upon the ten lines in the two-column 
 coupon any questions which were not quite 
 clear in their minds and they would be im- 
 partially answered, no matter what the re- 
 sult. Whether the reader's 'inclinations 
 were "wet" or "dry" he was asked to sub- 
 mit his doubt, no matter what its nature, to 
 the information bureau. 
 
 This gave a splendid opportunity to get 
 "under their skins," talk to them by the 
 hour with "dry" arguments upon the very 
 questions upon which their votes depended. 
 It also gave a good resume, based on the 
 law of averages, of what was nearest to the 
 voters' hearts what to talk to them about. 
 
 Its working was beautifully illustrated in 
 the case of a wealthy young man, of con- 
 siderable influence in a very "wet" section 
 of the county. As was usual, the letter was 
 turned over to a member of the anti-saloon 
 organization acquainted with the sender of 
 the coupon, and was answered in every 
 phase, with the result that return mail 
 
 2729*45 
 
brought the significance that his vote would 
 be "dry" and enclosed was a contribution to 
 the anti-saloon league's campaign. 
 
 The copy writer attempted to hook up 
 the business aspect to the anti-saloon league 
 copy as strongly as was possible under the 
 circumstances, his reasoning being that a 
 voter naturally expected the church and 
 ministers to be "dry"; consequently when 
 the arguments were advanced by "we busi- 
 ness men who are backing the fight against 
 the open saloon," they carried considerable 
 weight, for the business men, naturally look- 
 ed upon the side most helpful to the county 
 generally. 
 
 An attempt was made to form a business 
 men's association to stand for the "dry" 
 side, but in view of the fact that even the 
 business men, who themselves were lending 
 some backing to the campaign, refused to 
 come out into the open, because of the 
 fear that the election might go "wet," the 
 effort was abandoned. 
 
 So the strongest business backing which 
 could be given in the copy was that of "we 
 business men who are backing up this cam- 
 paign." Even that took the "wets" by sur- 
 prise and while they were said to have had 
 a business men's association behind them, 
 they failed to make any effort to counteract 
 the apparent results of the coup. 
 
 The copy writer in the first two days of 
 the campaign corrected the mistake of talk- 
 ing to the voter in the third person. On the 
 third day of the campaign, the copy which 
 went to the papers completely merged the 
 interests of the men behind the league and 
 4 
 
the voters and made the play that "we" 
 the voter and the league were fighting a 
 common enemy, the "outside whiskey ma- 
 chine" had a noticeable effect simply a bit 
 of psychology that worked out to the de- 
 sired end. 
 
 "Arthur Brisbane type," 8 point bold- 
 face, said to be the most easily read type in 
 the world was pitted against the 8 point 
 Roman of the "wet" campaigners, who ran 
 their ads as reading notices, "which were 
 not read," according to the "dry" copy 
 writer. 
 
 The psychology of the "dry" campaign 
 was perfectly worked out in every detail 
 after the first three days of experience be- 
 gan to give the ad-writer the proper grip 
 on the situation. 
 
 Nearly all matter was set two column 
 measure in 8 and 10 point boldface, thereby 
 taking advantage of the newspaper's dis- 
 play rates, besides making it three or four 
 times as readable. 
 
 Scientists tell us that the human eye can 
 grasp only four short-length words at a 
 single glance. Except for the first day's 
 ads, no more than five words ever composed 
 the "dry" headlines. And these were, for the 
 most part, in very black, heavy Gothic, 
 which made the letters large, because of 
 the six and seven column width of the ads. 
 In the leading county daily the front page 
 was secured upon days when two sections 
 composed the publication. 
 
 "One mistake which I believe was made 
 in many 'dry' campaigns," said the "dry" 
 ad-writer, "was that the anti-saloonists 
 55 
 
talked too much in their ads on outside ex- 
 amples of the 'dry' regime not enough on 
 the results or expected results in their own 
 counties. That was a thing which was re- 
 ligiously avoided in the Lenawee campaign's 
 last two weeks. Only such examples as 
 were directly applicable or could be made 
 directly applicable to Lenawee County were 
 utilized in the campaign. As a sidelight on 
 the campaign, the first result of this mode 
 of procedure resulted in the 'wet' campaign 
 manager stating in his ads that 'the clever 
 dry ad-writer is a mental acrobat/ of course, 
 both the 'wet' manager and myself were im- 
 ported for the election, yet strange as it may 
 seem, the people being fully cognizant of 
 the fact that outsiders were handling the 
 campaigns, they regarded the importation 
 of a .man to handle the 'dry' side as pro- 
 gressiveness on the part of the anti-saloon- 
 ists and the importation of the 'wet' man as 
 an imposition, despite the fact that the lat- 
 ter had been given six weeks' extra time to 
 intrench himself." 
 
 Whenever the "dry" cause was referred 
 to in the advertising copy, the anti-saloon- 
 ists were made to array themselves on the 
 voters' side by continually talking how 
 "WE will be $1,000,000 richer when Lew- 
 anee is dry." Another coup which was 
 sprung was the use of United States gov- 
 ernment liquor statistics by making them 
 directly applicable to Lenawee County in 
 this manner: by taking the total amount 
 of intoxicating beverages sold in the entire 
 country and dividing by the number of sa- 
 loons in the United States the average in- 
 
come of each saloon in the country was 
 figured. This multiplied by the number of 
 saloons in Lenawee County gave the total 
 yearly drink bill of the county. This sum 
 was held up to the voters and they were 
 told how, every year, that amount of money 
 was being earned within the county and 
 spent in Lenawee saloons to go outside of 
 the county and do the county no good what- 
 ever it was compared with the cases of 
 Americans making big piles of money in 
 the United States and then taking it across 
 the water to England to spend it. 
 
 Naturally enough the "wet" side disputed 
 the fact that every Lenawee County saloon 
 took in $7,500 a year the amount which 
 was averaged down from United States 
 government figures. In answer to their 
 statement the entire internal revenue com- 
 missioner's digest report was presented in 
 interesting form, so as to be easily read- 
 able and the statement made that there was 
 no reason for believing that the Lenawee 
 saloon was above or below the average 
 and the warning "not even the outside 
 booze barons can dispute Uncle Sam's 
 bookkeeping" served to clamp the lid on the 
 "wet" side and brought forth from them 
 only the weak statement that "nobody 
 knows what Lenawee saloons take in." That 
 nailed their "higher taxes" talk. 
 
 At no time during the campaign was 
 there expressed any "if" as to the probable 
 outcome of the campaign. There was an- 
 other bit of psychology which worked ad- 
 mirably. Every ad carried with the atmos- 
 phere of certainty no bragging that Len- 
 
awee "WOULD go dry" simply the state- 
 ments were "WHEN Lenawee goes 'dry' ". 
 Neither did the copy ever carry any threat 
 to the voters if they voted "wet" the ad- 
 mission was never even made that any of 
 them had the intention of voting anything 
 but "dry" and on that basis the pretty pic- 
 ture of "dry" Lenawee was happily painted 
 for them, so that only the extremely rabid 
 "wets," those who were not by any means 
 the better class of citizens, were able to 
 resist the "dry" picture. 
 
 One headline, which with the ad that 
 ran beneath served in a large measure to 
 overcome the "wet's" higher tax threat, was 
 "Lenawee County $1,000,000 Richer!" It 
 must be remembered that the county is the 
 third richest in the United States and in- 
 stead of this being a detriment to the "dry" 
 cause, which it might have been if the "wet" 
 manager had utilized the opportunity it 
 proved a boon, for the "dry" ad-writer held 
 up the $1,000,000 that two "dry" years would 
 leave within the county because of the elim- 
 ination of the saloon. This was the key- 
 note of that ad: "Let's keep this Million 
 ourselves and not give it away outside the 
 county let's increase our property valuation 
 by a million," and thus played upon the 
 germ for more which exists underneath the 
 shirt of the man who has accumulated even 
 a little. The $1,000,000 represented the 
 Lenawee County drink bill for two years. 
 
 Another effective mode of showing the 
 
 voters of the county the alleged injustice 
 
 of the saloon regime was the comparison 
 
 of the $500,000 a year drink bill with the 
 
 8 
 
yearly saloon license $31,000 for the entire 
 county's saloons. This was done very ef- 
 fectively by a simple comparative illustra- 
 tion, of the drink bill and that part of it 
 which came back to the county. Side by 
 side were placed two solid black columns 
 one of them was sixteen inches in height 
 and the other one inch in height. The form- 
 er, as indicated directly beneath it repre- 
 sented Lenawee's drink bill and the latter 
 Lenawee's revenue from the saloon. Then 
 the query was propounded: "Does it pay 
 Lenawee?" This all had the effect of shat- 
 tering the "wet" manager's talk of how the 
 removal of that $31,000 was going to work 
 disastrously for the tax-payers. The in- 
 justice of the saloon regime, as set forth 
 in the illustration run in every county paper 
 and daily, quickly appealed to a large clique 
 of voters who had been led to believe taxes 
 were surely going up. 
 
 Then by a tabulation based upon state, 
 county and United States government fig- 
 ures, the voters were shown just how the 
 elimination of saloons cut down taxes in 
 reality. Lenawee's annual tax was divided 
 up into various departments and figures 
 showed the number of inmates, whose pres- 
 ence in various penal and charitable insti- 
 tutions was caused by drink. By this ac- 
 curate process of deduction of the money 
 it cost to take care of drunks, saloon-wreck- 
 ed lives, etc., it was quickly shown that the 
 $31,000 that the saloons paid was far too 
 small to take care of the wrongs which they 
 inflicted upon the community. This argu- 
 ment, one of the most effective of the en- 
 9 
 
tire campaign according to the "dry" copy- 
 writer, was tabulated and boxed with a 
 heavy black border and step-head "How 
 'Dry' Lenawee Cuts Down Your Taxes." 
 It was kept standing throughout the cam- 
 paign and was used at various intervals 
 when its presence was demanded in the 
 day's ads. 
 
 Towards the end of the campaign more 
 money was needed by the Lenawee County 
 Anti-Saloon League. The publicity pace 
 was pretty swift and for four days a plea 
 for more cash, not a begging demand, was 
 made in a straightforward manner under the 
 caption of "News for Lenawee Drys." It 
 brought a flood of dollars with each day's 
 appearance of the three-paragraph plea as 
 part of the regular daily "dry" ad. The re- 
 sult was gratifying, for it showed the effect 
 that the reason-why copy was having upon 
 the "drys" themselves, who thoroughly ap- 
 proved the manner in which the publicity 
 campaign was being handled. 
 
 It was planned to make the home stretch 
 of the campaign a pace too hot for even 
 the moneyed "wets" to follow, so the final 
 three days' campaign was laid out, so as to 
 be psychologically perfect. 
 
 On Thursday a "landslide" ad was planned. 
 For Friday the first talk of the campaign 
 on "sentiment" was laid out and for Satur- 
 day a most daring anti-saloon league feat 
 one that almost made the Lenawee "drys" 
 afraid of the result was carefully planned 
 with every thought on the possible come- 
 back from "wet" headquarters. In addition 
 the issuance of an entire daily newspaper 
 10 
 
in the interest of the "drys" was scheduled. 
 
 Thursday's "landslide" ad, which, as was 
 usual with each of the daily ads appeared in 
 both Adrian daily papers, was captioned 
 "JUMP IN AND WIN!" the four word 
 headline stretching clear across the entire 
 seven columns of the front page of the lead- 
 ing paper. 
 
 The talk beneath the caption was aimed 
 directly at the unconvinced voter, yet he was 
 spoken of in the third person literally 
 "talked about to his face." It was planned 
 with a view to the psychological effect upon 
 the man of "wet" intentions. It was meant 
 to show him that everybody else was going 
 to vote "dry" and he oughtn't to be one of 
 the rank outsiders. The effect desired was to 
 create a "wet" panic, if possible, and bring 
 about a general landslide onto the band- 
 wagon in fact, a final rush for cover, which 
 it did admirably to no uncertain extent. Fol- 
 lowing was the talk beneath the headline of 
 the "landslide" ad: 
 
 "You VOTERS who are dead certain that 
 the death of the open saloon means a RICH- 
 ER, a CLEANER Lenawee County 
 JUMP INTO THE BREACH, BROTH- 
 ERS, AND WIN! 
 
 "The Whiskey Machine is ON THE 
 RUN BACKWARDS! 
 
 "Now is the time to do the HEAVY 
 WORK with just a few hours remaining 
 show the FACTS about local option en- 
 forcement to at least ONE man show him 
 how MENTAL, PHYSICAL and FINAN- 
 CIAL HEALTH invariably follow the end 
 of the saloon in EVERY community it has 
 II 
 
never failed yet and every lie of the 
 BOOZE BARONS is NAILED by the same 
 mouth that told it! 
 
 "You CONVINCED VOTERS far out- 
 number the UNCONVINCED now go af- 
 ter them show them the FACTS 
 PROVE the TRUTH! We've laid all the 
 FACTS before you and the PROOF- 
 NOW is the time to use them. 
 
 "Good Old Lenawee County's citizens 
 are of the highest class mentally in the 
 United States they're VOTING on good, 
 hard, bed rock FACTS NOT on the liquor 
 trust's twisted, garbled, half-told calcula- 
 tion. SHOW the UNCONVINCED the 
 LIGHT to RIGHT and every man YOU 
 reach will Vote "YES" on Monday and 
 one year from TODAY he'll thank YOU for 
 the advice. 
 
 Last Prop Knocked From Under the 
 Booze Barons! 
 
 "At last the WHISKEY MACHINE has 
 FLOPPED they say "local option is a 
 good thing, but you can't enforce it." They 
 say they would be in favor of local option 
 "only it can't be enforced and the saloons 
 ought to be regulated." 
 
 "BUT they've told it to the wrong class 
 of people they've told it to the people 
 whose INTELLIGENCE makes enforce- 
 ment a CERTAINTY! By telling Lenawee 
 County citizens we can't enforce local op- 
 tion, they've INSULTED our INTELLI- 
 GENCE They've accused YOU and US 
 of sneaking into the side door of the "blind 
 pig" that the whiskey machine openly ac- 
 cuses itself of intending to establish! 
 
 12 
 
"And thanks to an upright community 
 there are not sneakers enough in Good Old 
 Lenawee to conspire with and support the 
 whiskey machine's "blind pig" for a minute! 
 That's why there will be no blind pig in 
 Lenawee!" 
 
 As will be noted from the above, a 
 strong play was made upon the vanity side 
 and the way was paved for enforcement of 
 the law if the county went "dry." 
 
 In order that the "wets" might get no 
 wind of the proposed coup, the issuance of 
 a newspaper was not decided upon until 
 five o'clock Thursday afternoon. The pa- 
 per was regular seven column size, four 
 pages. It had to be in the hands of the 
 postoffice officials at 9:50 a. m. the following 
 morning to insure it being delivered to the 
 voters Saturday, for the postoffice was 
 flooded with "wet" literature and the post- 
 master, with the rest of the city and county 
 administration being decidedly "wet" no 
 loopholes could be overlooked which might 
 be construed to block the delivery of the 
 paper. 
 
 Within a few minutes the name "Len- 
 awee County New Era" was decided upon 
 for the paper. With the newspaper in view, 
 C. A. Briggs, the Chicago Tribune cartoon- 
 ist, had been prevailed upon to draw a 
 cartoon picturing, as the caption read, "a 
 Lenawee Business Scene After May i," the 
 closing date of the saloons if the county 
 went "dry." 
 
 The copy writer got the cartoon and all 
 his copy into the hands of the printers at 
 one of the Adrian newspaper offices by 8 
 13 
 
o'clock that evening. Linotype men, make- 
 ups, galley-boys, pressmen were kept on the 
 job all night. At 4:30 in the morning the 
 forms had been locked and at 4:45 the flatbed 
 press was cramming out the first and only 
 edition of the "Lenawee County New Era." 
 At six o'clock the entire edition of something 
 over 10,000 copies had been run off, it be- 
 ing the intention to deliver the paper into 
 the hands of every voter in Adrian and in 
 other extremely "wet" sections of the coun- 
 ty which had been perhaps a little neglected 
 with "dry" arguments. 
 
 Twenty-five "dry" workers toiled 
 throughout the night addressing wrappers. 
 A few minutes after six the entire edition 
 was loaded into a covered van, so. that no 
 early-waking "wets" might scent the coup, 
 and rushed over to the local option head^ 
 quarters where the dutiful workers were 
 awaiting them. At the appointed hour 
 9:50, Friday morning every copy was in 
 the Adrian postoffice and the next morning 
 was in the hands of the voters it was es- 
 pecially desirous to reach. The anti-saloon 
 league and ministers were not made a part 
 of the New Era as the line beneath the pa- 
 per's title read "issued by the business men 
 backers of a great movement to cure the 
 evils of the open saloon." This was believed 
 to be particularly effective with the rabid 
 "wets," who were known principally be- 
 cause they had the faculty of absenting 
 themselves from anything in which the 
 church had a finger. 
 
 The 'dry" ad-writer stayed up all night 
 to see the coup carried off without a hitch. 
 14 
 
The following rilo^nift^' l-je; feiisily- 
 himself in the preparation of the day's copy 
 which, according to the plans laid out, con- 
 sisted of a sentimental talk headed, "For 
 Your Little One's Sake Vote Yes." 
 
 In this ad the feature was the photo- 
 graphic creation of a peach basket heaped 
 high with baby heads a happy thought 
 bearing in white lettering: "Lenawee Coun- 
 ty's Choicest Product." This with a talk' on 
 the enticement of the white lights, open door 
 and music of the saloon along with the 
 thought that "where there is no temptation 
 there is no danger," added more grease to 
 the skids towards Lenawee's water wagon. 
 Within the ad were arguments calculated to 
 make the "wetest" father fall into line 
 and from reports from several sources the 
 desired effect was achieved, for the son of 
 one of the officials of the "wet" organiza- 
 tion dropped into the local option head- 
 quarters the same evening for a supply of 
 "dry" posters. Then followed the intelli- 
 gence that the official had resigned from the 
 saloonists' cause. 
 
 On Saturday when the last papers before 
 the election were issued the final bombard- 
 ment that the "dry" leaders were somewhat 
 afraid of, was scheduled. It amounted to 
 the acknowledgment that no matter 'if Len- 
 awee is "dry" those who cared for liquor 
 could keep it in their own homes. It was 
 a rather daring tack for the anti-saloonists 
 to take, because the "wets" had been con- 
 stantly talking "local option doesn't pro- 
 hibit," hence the possible come-back was 
 indeed to be dreaded. Yet it meant the 
 15 
 
cor-r&iing of "hundreds of votes, for the sa- 
 loon element had been preaching to the 
 occasional drinker that he would be "dry" 
 forevermore if the county voted that way. 
 He had been even told that "he couldn't 
 even have alcohol to heat the baby's milk 
 in the morning," so the effect gf the ad was 
 instantaneous, for it quoted the Michigan 
 law on the subject, quoted from a test case 
 and conveyed unerringly, convincingly the 
 information that the citizen still possessed 
 the liberty to keep liquor in his own home 
 when entertaining those who were in good 
 faith his guests. 
 
 This had the effect of bringing in many 
 German votes. The ad was aimed primarily 
 at the city of Adrian itself, in which the 
 "drys" figured there would probably be a 
 "wet" majority of 1,500 which must be over- 
 come by the county vote. So admirably 
 did the plan work out that the city of Adrian 
 itself produced a "dry" pluraity of its own, 
 which paid no uncertain tribute to the worth 
 of the "dry" plan. 
 
 In view of the fact that at its last election 
 Lenawee County went overwhelmingly 
 "wet" and that the "wet" campaign manager 
 had never before lost an election, much of 
 the credit for the victory must be given to 
 the reason-why copy. 
 
 Publicity stories written by the "dry" 
 copy writer also cut a big figure in .he 
 campaign. From five to eight stories, teem- 
 ing with real news value were handed out 
 each day to the dailies to be run on their 
 own news merits. 
 
 16 
 
YA 00915 
 
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