Unfair Solicitation?

Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden, publisher of twelve magazines/- and of the New York Evening Graphic, gum-chewers' supreme-de-fruit, watches as a zoo-man watches his charges that hydra-headed amphibian, the Public. He knows the meat upon which this beast and upon which he, Macfadden, may grow great together. Hence, when he saw people everywhere, in lowly hovels, in the great homes which he himself frequents, racking their brains over small squares of paper charted in black and white squares which gaped to be filled in, horizontally and vertically, with words of Egyptian, European and native derivation, he is said to have cried "Meat!" The Graphic, he announced, "will conduct the greatest crossword puzzle contest ever inaugurated by a newspaper." The contest forthwith began. Prizes were announced to aggregate $25,000.

Now in the Bronx (Borough of New York City north of the Borough of Manhattan) is published a sheet less widely known than the Graphic, "but held in esteem by its readers. It is the Bronx Home News. Its editors are enterprising. They read of Macfadden's contest. They knew that innumerable Graphic readers were doing likewise. They knew that these readers would puzzle long to fill in the checkered squares and would appreciate any information that would help them in so doing. Every evening, the editors of the Bronx Home News studied the Graphic puzzles. Every morning they published, for the enlightenment of Home News readers who might also be Graphic readers, of Graphic readers who might be induced to become Home News readers, the answers to Mr. Macfadden's puzzles. They did not call them answers. That would have been too positive. They called them "Probable Answers."

Into the offices of the Graphic began to pour solutions of surprising excellence. Judges shook their heads, astonished. Publisher Macfadden read a copy of the Home News, muttered, growled. Someone, he saw, was feeding his animal, the Public, between meals. He instructed his counsel to appeal for an injunction restraining the Home News from publishing answers. "Unfair solicitation of the customers and circulation of the Graphic." That was what Lawyer Schultz of the Graphic called the behavior of the editors of the Home News.

Affidavits were filed. A hearing was called. Justice James O'Malley of Manhattan listened to the eloquence of Lawyer Schultz. But no, said the Justice, there could be no injunction. The editors of the Graphic might well copyright their puzzles, but how could they copyright their answers, when the answers had never been published? Anyone, even the editors of the Bronx Home News, might guess at the answers.

Discomfited but unsubmitting, the Graphic publishd an editorial. In the first paragraph it declared the Graphic Cross Word Puzzle Contest was the greatest contest in the history of journalism; in the second it declared the Graphic Cross-Word Puzzle Contest was the greatest contest ever inaugurated by a newspaper; in the third, that the readers of the Graphic had a chance to win cash prizes for their answers; in the fourth, that the prizes were real cash; in the fifth, that the prizes were real cash. In the sixth paragraph it declared that it "wanted to be explicit about this." The eighth paragraph was as follows:

"There is no Foxy Grandpa behind The GRAPHIC'S prizes. Every reader of this newspaper knows how many cash prizes there are in our contest. And, besides, The Graphic puzzles are the 'best in the country. They are prepared by an expert and not by a stunned emu."

Graphic readers read this editorial, attacked the puzzles with renewed vigor, continued to copy their answers from the Bronx Home News, which continued to publish them.

/-True Stories, Physical Culture, Fiction Lovers, True Romances, True Detectives Radio Stories, Muscle Builder, Dream World, Dance Lovers, Modern Marriage, Your Car, Movie Weekly.