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     DEAR SIR: In the issue of May 1, page 8, of CHALLENGE, will be seen my explanation of why a weekly paper is so belated in its discussion of current events. I then said that the paper was in the post-office six days before it was dated, and [8][9] I have as yet, in common with the publishers of most other weekly papers, found no better way of managing affairs. President McKinley was shot on the 6th, and CHALLENGE of the 11th was already on the press, and I myself was in Erie, Pa. With this explanation, you can readily see the absurdity and injustice of asking even such an unparalleled creation as Wilshire to do the impossible and have an editorial on the subject in the issue in which you looked for it. When I have my daily I will, for the first time, let the world see the only fully guaranteed unscoopable paper ever made. As it is now, CHALLENGE, as a weekly, will persistently remain ten days behind the times. CHALLENGE may kill Time, but that is not the same thing as making it, as you seem to wish it to do.
     Yes, CHALLENGE is filled with a great deal of wind about Wilshire, but it appears to be necessary to advertise one’s goods nowadays if you wish to get them off your shelves. My ideas are my stock in trade, and while they ought to sell on their own merits, as they speak for themselves, so to say, I find that ideas, like every kind of goods, sell largely owing to the reputation of the maker.
     Now, for the ordinary manufacturer to get up a great reputation requires lots of advertising, which means much money spent. So far I have been able to get my advertising free of charge, by such expedients as getting arrested for infringing ordinances suppressing free speech and offering your champion, Bryan, $10,000 to debate with me. However, possibly the greatest amount of free advertising I ever got in my life was during the last few weeks, when I was so copiously reported to have been mobbed in half a dozen towns, all at one and the same time. The mere fact it was all untrue does not detract in the least from its advertising value. People here in New York think now that I must have stolen Carrie Nation’s advance agent away from her to get so much notoriety with so little effort. But this is really quite ridiculous. I should have established my own reputation well enough by this time to have the credit fall to me and me alone for such artistic triumphs along the line of self-advertisement. It would be quite as impossible for me to hire an agent to do for me what I can do myself, in the way of getting free advertising, as it would have been impossible for Shakespeare to have hired a typewriter girl to have composed Hamlet. We artists must lead a strenuous life perforce, simply because we can’t hire anyone to create for us.
     If you wish ease in this life, I advise you to hang on to that City Attorneyship, Mr. Man, and never let the Goddess of Art lead you away from politics.