er periodicals address at least half that number, and
the humblest of the widely known magazines reaches a quarter of a
million--five times as many persons as jammed their way into the San
Diego stadium one time to hear a speech by the President of the United
States.

Put yourself into the shoes of the manager of one of these forums, and
try to understand some of his difficulties.

A dozen times a day the editor of a popular periodical is besieged by
contributors to make some sort of answer to the question: "What kind of
material are you seeking?"

What else can he reply, in a general way, but "something of wide appeal,
to interest our wide circle of readers"?

There are times, of course, when he can speak specifically and with
assurance, if all he happens to require at the moment to give proper
balance to his table of contents is one or two manuscripts of a definite
type. Then he may be able to say, off-hand: "An adventure novelette of
twenty thousand words," or, "An article on the high cost of shoe
leather, three thousand five hundred words." But this is a happy
situation which is not at all typical. Ordinarily, he stands in constant
need of half a dozen varieties of material; but to describe them all in
detail to every caller would take more time than he could possibly
afford to spare.

He cannot stop to explain to every applicant that among what Robert
Louis Stevenson described as "the real deficiencies of social
intercourse" is the fact that while two's company three's a crowd; that
with each addition to this crowd the topics of conversation must broaden
in appeal, seeking the greatest common divisor of interests; and that a
corollary is the unfortunate fact that the larger the crowd the fewer
and more elemental must become the subjects that are possible for
discussion.

Every editor knows that a lack of judgment in selecting themes of broad
enough appeal to interest a nation-wide public is one of the novice
scribbler's most common failings. It is due chiefly to a lack of
imagination on the part of the would-be contributor, who appears to be
incapable of projecting himself into the editorial viewpoint. I can
testify from my own experience that a single day's work as an editor,
wading through a bushel of mail, taught me more about how to make a
selection of subjects than six months of shooting in the dark as a free
lance.

Every editor knows that nine out of ten of the unsolicited manuscripts
which he will