"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the
best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with conviction.
The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced through them with
considerable wonder and amusement. They were decidedly metropolitan in
size, and carried a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his
perusal he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distortion to
the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of
headlines and by manipulation of the point of view, all items were made
to subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the
most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full
measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets
as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its
own importance," were read in the body of narration.
"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful journals in
the West," commented Baker. "They possess an influence inconceivable to
an Easterner."
The advertising columns were filled to bursting with advertisements of
patent medicines, sex remedies, quack doctors, miraculous healers,
clairvoyants, palm readers, "philanthropists" with something "free" to
bestow, cleverly worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses
of mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with wave motors,
water motors, solar motors, patent couplers, improved telephones and the
like, all of whose stock now stood at $1.
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