Coolidge Exploited

President Coolidge was approaching the end of his term of office. He had not yet announced his plans for the future. How might a loud, bold U. S. newspaper have created a nation-wide sensation out of that situation? One way might have been to send to President Coolidge, and simultaneously make public, the following telegram:

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE WORLDS GREATEST NEWSPAPER WANTS YOU AS ITS EDITOR IN CHIEF AND AS THE PRESS STATES YOU ARE CONSIDERING NEWSPAPER WORK THE TRIBUNE WILL PAY YOU A SALARY OF SEVENTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR TO START (STOP) YOUR POLICIES AND THOSE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARE SO ENTIRELY IN HARMONY WITH EACH OTHER THAT YOU WOULD FEEL AT HOME ON THIS PAPER (STOP) THIS OFFER IS MADE IN THE UTMOST GOOD FAITH AND A GUARANTEE ENDORSED BY EVERY NATIONAL BANK IN CHICAGO WILL ASSURE YOU OF THE EARNESTNESS OF THIS OFFER (STOP) CHICAGO IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL AND DELIGHTFUL CITY IN THE WORLD IN WHICH TO LIVE AND WE WANT YOU TO SERIOUSLY CONSIDER THIS OFFER

The Chicago Tribune, loud and bold though it is, never sent any such telegram. Neither did loud, bold Publisher William Randolph Hearst, though he was last fortnight reported as the successful bidder for Coolidge manuscripts after March 4, for the Cosmopolitan.

Yet President Coolidge did receive, last week, a telegram worded exactly as above except that THE DENVER POST was substituted for THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE and the self-descriptive blurb was LARGEST NEWSPAPER IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN THE MISSOURI RIVER AND THE PACIFIC COAST. The telegram was signed by that dark, daring Desperate Desmond of Journalism, Frederick G. Bonfils, owner-publisher of the Denver Post, onetime riverboat gambler.

Had a newspaper or a publisher of high standing made such a gesture it would have been white-hot news. When Publisher Bonfils did it, and splashed the telegram as "news" on the Post's dizzying front page, it received about as much space in other newspapers as if somebody had shipped another raccoon to the White House.

President Coolidge, if the Bonfils telegram got past his secretaries, made no public comment.