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About Will Maupin's weekly. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1911-1912 | View Entire Issue (June 9, 1911)
t r i s 1 - A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF CHEERFUL COMMENT Volume 8 LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, JUNE 9, 1911 Number 12 NEBRASKA AS IT SHOULD BE KNOWN A Paper read before the Nebraska Press Association, Omaha, June 6, by Will M. Maupin. We of Nebraska should know, and strenuous days or fall to the rear. Con knowing tell all the world, what Ne- stant, persistent, insistent, intelligent braska is and is to be; what Nebraska advertising is the keynote of success in offers to the homeseeker, the investment any business, and there is no greater or seeker and the health seeker; what hid- more important business than the build den potentialities -iorlLumaiiJUappuies&r4iigef a state. -lie dormant in her fertile soil, and what But there is a condition precedent to she is annually contributing to the sum intelligent advertising. The constructor total of the world's created wealth. Iii the beginning of this necessarily brief paper I want to say, and say em phatically, that the last session of the Nebraska legislature, which performed many good deeds, neglected the ripest opportunity ever offered a legislature to confer a lasting benefit upon the state. I refer to its failure and neglect to make the initial appropriation for a Bureau of Publicity and Immigration. There was no reasonable ground for opposi tion to the measure; no - reasonable ob jection in economy. In fact there was no opposition to the bill. But, unfor tunately, it did not offer opportunities for log-rolling and trading. It had be hind it the solid backing of every enter prising organization in the state, of every wide-awake man who is anxious to see Nebraska take her rightful place among the states of the republic. But because legislation today has become largely a matter of "You tickle me and I'll tickle you;" so largely a matter of trade and barter, this splendid measure calculated to give us a start in the great work of making the truth about Ne braska known to the world, was allowed to die of inanition, of mal-nutrition, of sheer neglect. And in doing so the leg islature worked a grave injury to the commonwealth. States, like corporations and partner ship and firms must advertise in these of the advertising must know what he is advertising. No man engaged in adver tisement building can hope ever to know too much about the business or thes goods he is exploiting. It is all well enough for the newspaper men of Ne braska to claim that they are constantly advertising Nebraska, but the plain, un varnished truth is that they are not do ing it as it should be done, and for the very simple reason that they do not know all they should know about Nebraska. I have lived in fthis state for a quarter of a century longer by several years than the average Nebraska editor. I have tried in my weak way to advertise Ne braska to the world, and I thought for years I knew Nebraska pretty thorough ly. Something like six years ago I be gan studying Nebraska from a different angle. Formerly I had studied it from a car window or in political conventions or by converse with friends in my office. Now, after studying Nebraska for six years as any merchant studies his stock any successful merchant, I mean I have just begun to realize that what I knew of Nebraska up until six years ago was as nothing, and that if I keep on -acquiring knowledge for the next six or eight years as I have during the past six or eight, at the end of that time my knowledge of this great state may qual ify me to emerge from the kindergarten class and enter the first primary. The longest span of human life in this age would not suffice to enable one to grad- uate from the great school wherein knowledge of Nebraska is imparted. Merely as a basis upon which to work intelligently while you study, I purpose giving you some concrete facts about our beloved state. I will not waste your time in detailing bald statistics. The average human mind can not think in millions. Statistical tables appeal only to statisticians. Columns of figures frighten and repel the average man. Be cause of this I undertook, while serving as chief of the statistical bureau of the state, to present the statistics about Ne braska in a more attractive form than the usual table of figures. I hope I may be pardoned if I lay claim to having achieved some measure of success in ad vertising Nebraska abroad. I am of the opinion that the crop statistics of Ne braska, and all other statistics, received a wider range of publicity under the plan I adopted than they had achieved before. One bulletin of comparative statistics reached a circulation of 70,000 with requests for upwards of 250,000 more. And such great journals, as Col lier's, Leslie's Weekly, Munsey's Maga zine, The American Magazine and the Cosmopolitan, to say nothing of the great daily newspapers, gave free to Ne braska a measure of publicity that could not have been purchased with money. Now, here are some facts about Ne: braska, tersely told, that will serve as ' the basis for many a good advertisement of Nebraska: Nebraska was admitted to the union in March, 1867, andris therefore forty four years' old six years less than half a century. All this progress, all this L i r