July - AmericanRadioHistory.Com

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO
SAY?
This is your page, readers! Here's a chance to get
your opinions in print! Write your letter today,
have your say, and maybe you'll win the big prize!
Rudolf H. Hoffmann
T may be spring outside, and soft breezes may be blowing,
but there hasn't been any softening in the temper
of the letters we've been receiving this last month.
Digging our way out of the avalanche of mail, we selected
the following as the most pertinent, to- the -point comments.
And it still goes -our offer of $20.00 for the first prize,
$10.00 for the second, and $1.00 each for the next five. Even
if you aren't interested in the money side of the question,
you must have something to say. Read these letters over,
then write to the Editor, RADIO MIRROR, 1926 Broadway,
New York, and mail it by June 22.
$20.00 PRIZE
How 1 abominate the person who says in a superior
manner, "Oh, I never listen to the radio." To me he is in
the same class with the man in the art gallery who remarked
that he didn't see anything in the pictures.
There are so many wonderful things on the radio now
that a person who cannot find something entertaining and
instructive for his own needs merely shows his own ignorance
or shallowness.
1 do believe we should be more discriminating in the use
of our radios. To turn them on and just let them go constantly,
half unnoticed, is foolish. It dulls our sensibilities,
and at times we then become annoyed and snap the radio
off, as if it were a great offender. Our radio should not be
made to compete with our bridge games and conversations,
but should be listened to with courtesy. Surely we would
not be so discourteous to an artist in the flesh as many of
us are to an artist over the air!
To the people who are always so greatly concerned about
improving radio I suggest that a campaign be started instead
to "Improve the Listener."
MRS. L. K. WELLS,
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
$10.00 PRIZE
Radio is the back -bone of social life in the small town,
in this small mill town there is no moving picture show, and
the people have been hard hit by the depression. Yet each
Saturday night, thanks to the dance programs, rugs are
turned back, the radio is turned on, and the younger crowd
dance.
What mother could fail to be grateful to the makers of
"Such and such" crackers, for making this program possible?
Lou Holtz and his Sam Lapidis stories are still making
them laugh on the Kraft's Whiteman Music Hall program.
Paul Whiteman allowed Lou to play the drums on a recent
broadcast and so helped him realize an ambition.
One first buys their product out of just pure gratitude and
if it's good one continues to buy it.
There is too much criticism of radio advertising.
I know boys of eighteen and nineteen that had rather
listen to Bing Crosby than go out to see the girls. What
boy will hang around a pool hall when at home Guy Lombardo
"is on the air."
Women in small towns were once considered "gossipy,"
but not now. If a Joe Penner fan tells something funny
from his program, the Eddie Cantor fan tries to top it.
So I say let's be more grateful -let's not indulge in so
much criticism. We are getting so much for so little.
MRS. IRVING CAMPBELL,
Brasfield, Arkansas.
$1.00 PRIZE
1 am a high school girl living in a small country village.
To me the radio is the open door to the outside world.
Recently I have read and heard many criticisms of the
children's programs, condemning them because they are not
educational, or because they consist mainly of screaming
and fighting.
In our home there are several husky young lads who
would not miss Jimmy Allen, Tarzan, or Buck Rogers for
even the price of an ice cream cone. They love the noisy
effects and enjoy such programs far more than a serious
dialogue in spite of whatever educational value it may have.
In way of suggestion -why allow popular songs to corn -
mit suicide by presenting them program after program?
LUELLA BELYEA,
Erskine, Minnesota.
$1.00 PRIZE
I have come to the conclusion that all these multifarious
dramatic serials ballyhooing the superb merits of soaps,
hot drinks, and breakfast foods, are excitable and definitely
harmful to adolescent children. These fantastic adventure
and crime plays always come on right at meal time and
quite upset both a child's digestion and the household
routine. The radio should be used to enlighten and instruct
and not to pervert and propagandize people. Why can't
some civilized sponsor build a series of programs around
travel and geography or industry to instruct as well as
amuse school -age listeners? I'm certain many parents would
be grateful no end and show (Continued on page 78)
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