Governor Elmer Holt has taken the initial step to stop the liquor advertising racket in Montana, it was disclosed at the executive offices today when a letter was made public which had been sent
to Henry A. Woare, secretary or the Montana State Press association, in response to a request from
Woare for a definition of the policies of the liquor control board with regard to the placing of liquor advertising in the papers of the state...
..."Replying to your letter of Dec. 18, 1936, concerning advertising of distillers and dealers in liquors sold by the state liquor stores, I have consulted with the other two members of the board, and we are in unanimous agreement that the board has nothing to do with the designation of newspapers in which advertising shall be placed. Orders for liquor will not be made conditional upon the placing of advertising with any particular publications. So far as the board is concerned, all newspapers in Montana are entitled to the same right to sell advertising space upon its merit as an advertising medium without interference from the board."...
...The paper complained of by members of the State Press association is
The Western Progressive, a tabloid weekly published in Helena under the direction of Lewis Penwell, U. S. collector of Internal revenue. For almost two years advertising agencies have been given to understand that if they wanted orders for liquor from the State of Montana, they had to give The Western Progressive a large amount of advertising. If they failed to advertise, their representatives were told, no more orders could be expected.
“We do not want to advertise in The Progressive," said the vice president of a big New York advertising agency, "but our clients have received word from the liquor control board of Montana that we must place advertising in The Progressive, or we will get no more orders. It is purely a matter of policy—not business nor advertising—but we have our orders and we have to place the advertising in The Progressive and pay their outrageous rates."
The Western Progressive has been receiving $1.51 per column inch for liquor advertising, almost
double the rate charged by such papers as The Billings Gazette and the Great Falls Tribune, which
have twice the circulation of The Progressive. The Helena papers charge only one third the rate exacted from the distillers and liquor dealers by The Progressive and both have about the same circulation as The Progressive, under 10,000 copies.
The last issue of The Western Progressive carried 479 inches of liquor advertising — it had nothing else — netting Mr. Penwell and his associates $437.66 or more than than the entire income of the average first class country weekly for an entire month.
From the Fallon County Times