rd such an opportunity. All the other department
stores threatened to follow suit when the "Clarion" took up the cause of
the Consumers' League.

Mrs. Festus Willard was president of the organization, which had been
practically moribund since its inception, for the sufficient reason that
no mention of its activities, designs, or purposed reforms could gain
admission to any newspaper in Worthington. The Retail Union saw to that
through its all-potent Publication Committee. Perceiving the crescent
emancipation of the "Clarion," Mrs. Willard, after due consultation with
her husband, appealed to Hal. Would he help the League to obtain certain
reforms? Specifically, seats for shopgirls, and extra pay for extra
work, as during Old Home Week, when the stores kept open until 10 P.M.?
Hal agreed, and, in the face of the dismalest forecasts from Shearson,
prepared several editorials. Moreover, "Kitty the Cutie" took up the
campaign in her column, and her series of "Lunch-Time Chats," with their
slangy, pungent, workaday flavor, presented the case of the overworked
saleswomen in a way to stir the dullest sympathies. The event fully
justified Shearson in his role of Cassandra. Half of the remaining
stores represented in the Retail Union notified the "Clarion" of the
withdrawal of their advertising. Thus some twelve hundred dollars a week
of income vanished. Moreover, the Union, it was hinted, would probably
blacklist the "Clarion" officially. And the shop-folk gained nothing by
the campaign. The merchants were strong enough to defeat the League and
its sole backer at every point. This was one of the "Clarion's"
failures.

Coincident with the ebb of the store advertising occurred a lapse in
circulation, inexplicable to the staff until an analysis indicated that
the women readers were losing interest. It was young Mr. Surtaine who
solved the mystery, by a flash of that newspaper instinct with which
Ellis had early credited him.

"Department store advertising is news," he decided, in a talk with Ellis
and Shearson.

"How can advertising be news?" objected the manager.

"Anything that interests the public is news, on the authority of no less
an expert than Mr. McGuire Ellis. Shopping is the main interest in life
of thousands of women. They read the papers to find out where the
bargains are. Watch 'em on the cars any morning and you'll see them
studying the ads. The information in those ads. is what they most want.
Now that we don