State

THE STATE A Weekly Survey of North Carolina Entered 1» irinnd'CUu matter. June I. 1933. at the Po»toffice at Raleigh. North Carolina, under the Act ot March 3. 1879 Vol. XVI._ No. 1 June 5, 1948 A Biography of The State It uais .started exactly I.» years ago, and in this anniversary edition we are republishing' ulial we think arc some of the best articles that were run «luring* its early years. »!/ CARL IT was exactly fifteen years ago that the first issue of The State made its appearance. That was buck in June. 1933. Up until that time I had been pub¬ lisher ol the Washington Progress. a weekly paper down in Washing¬ ton. N. C. And prior to that 1 had done newspaper work in Wilson and New Bern for a few years. W. O. Saunders and I used to talk about establishing a statewide weekly. He. as you know, was editor of the Elizabeth City Inde¬ pendent and published what was generally regarded as the livest weekly in the state. But we never took any definite action. It was some time during the lat¬ ter part of November that Jim Weatherspoon. of the Durham Life Insurance Company, asked me to come to Raleigh and talk over a proposition with him. I found out that he wanted me to do a daily broadcast over WPTF on the activ¬ ities of the legislature. The idea appealed to me. so I told him I’d do it. My wife, despite her vigor¬ ous protest, finally agreed to run the Progress for me during my absence. That was one of those long ses¬ sions and it lasted until well into May. The broadcasts seemed to go over pretty well so I decided that just as soon as the legislature wound up its affairs. I'd try out the magazine idea. I called on a number of industrialists, insurance и company executives and other in¬ dividuals and told them of the plan I had in mind : to start a pub¬ lication that would make the peo¬ ple of North Carolina better nc- uainted with their own state, here would be historical articles, descriptions of interesting places and other things of that nature. There would be pictures of various scenic attractions and biographies of outstanding citizens. A strictly North Carolina publication from every point of view. As you know, no newspaper or magazine of this type can get along without advertising. That’s where you make your profit; the circula¬ tion doesn’t count. However, you’ve got to have the circulation in order to get the advertisements, and that is one reason why most publications are satisfied to break even on their circulation or come close to doing so. I made the prospective adver- EXTRA COPIES Wo are printing a limitcil number of extra copies of this issue. As you can see. it is much larger than usual. If you wish extra copies for yourself or your friends, you can get them for 25 cents per copy. Better let us know right away, however. We feel sort of silly, letting this picture appear on this page. (Voice from the rear: "And that’s not all. brother: the picture looks silly, too.") But in the past we have re¬ ceived a number of requests from our readers, asking that it he pub¬ lished. We believe that they were sincere in this, so that's the reason we are doing it. Anyway, aftei you've been reading a publication for about fifteen years, it is per¬ fectly natural that you should want to know what the guy who runs il looks like. Well, we can’t help how the pic¬ ture looks, but here it is. tisers this proposition: "Let me run an ad for you during the first four issues. The amount of money you spend for this purpose won't break you. If. at the end of a menth, you find that the publica¬ tion isn’t worth anything, you can discontinue. On the other hand, if you think it really is worth while. I hope you'll continue using space." A sufficient number of them THE STATE. JUNK 3. 1948 81^53 5