Bourne High School - Canal Currents Yearbook (Bourne, MA)

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6 CANAL CURRENTS games. Hardly a day goes by in which an advertisement, of some sort, is not received in the mail and if it wasn’t for ad- vertising hardly a program would be heard on the radio. There are a thousand and one methods of advertising in use today. Billboards line the country roads for miles. The papers and magazines are supported by the ads in them. In every theater there is a reel of film advertising the products of merchants in that town. Airplanes fly through the air dumping tons of advertising matter over the side. In every parade there is a line of trucks advertising some product on banners. On the whole, advertising has no real meaning. “The Pure Food and Drug Act” purified the product itself, and to- day no product can be misrepresented by the label on the container. This act, however, doesn’t say anything about advertising. The ads can say what they please and there is nothing to stop it. Take toothpaste for example. All tooth- paste manufacturers say their paste is the best; but the main ingredient is the same in every one. Sodium Oxychloride, which is merely salt and water, chemically combined. Advertising on the whole is nothing but keeping the name of something before the public eye. These advertisers be- lieve in Barnum’s saying “There’s one born every minute”. I am going to pass on to you this definition of an advertise- ment. “An advertisement is nothing but a picture of a pret- ty girl eating, drinking, wearing, holding, smoking or driving something to be sold.” Stanley Cook, ’36. TRANSPORTATION Today most of the world goes places at a greater rate of speed and in far greater luxury and ease than was thought ever possible half a century ago. To the average person of that period, traveling eighty miles an hour, crossing the ocean in five days, or flying through the air from coast to coast in one day would be crazy dreams that could never come true. We of the present generation who have these things can not imagine life without them. How dull and inconvenient would be a new existence without a car, train or airplane. But what of the great number of lives lost each year in the accidents that seem bound to occur?

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EDITORIALS EDITOR’S COMMENT This year we have tried to take a stride ahead with the ideal of giving our readers more for their money. In past years, the magazine has been a Junior class project with all material coming from that class. This year, although the Juniors are managing the magazine, we decided to include literary material from all classes in the high school. We have “scouted’’ with the proverbial eagle’s eye for material, and we have found that which we believe will be of interest to our subscribers. We need not remind you of the crowded condition which exists in our high school at present. There are only two other schools in the present B. H. S. class on the Cape. How- ever, by next October, we shall be enjoying a new school building. Because of some false rumors, and some ill feeling caused by these false rumors, we are including in the maga- zine a special article on the new building as well as a set of outline plans copied from the original plans in Mr. Peebles’ office. We are happily indebted to the townspeople for their approving the new much-needed addition to our high school. D. Ingerson, ’36. MODERN ADVERTISING The merchants of times long gone past, did not adver- tise their products as advertising is done today. No indeed, they let the merits of their products be their advertising agent. Their high pressure salesmen were merely the house- wives gossiping to their neighbors of the porkchops they had from “Schultz’s Butcher Shoppe” or the fine shoes they got from “Peter’s Bootee Shoppe”. The inn keepers were about the only ones to advertise at all. In front of their inn they would have a carving of a telescope for the “Spy Glass Inn” or a painting of a pirate for the “Buccaneer’s Rest”. This is entirely different from modern advertising of today. Why even in this room I can see a placard advertising basket ball

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CANAL CURRENTS 7 The number of deaths that have resulted from sea disas- ters in recent months is shocking. The reason for them has not been found. Each of the last three was on a fast, luxuri- ous liner — crowded with vacation-seekers. Approximately one hundred and seventy-two people lost their lives on two of these. Surely these catastrophies have struck fear into the hearts of travelers. The death rate due to automobile accidents is truly a disgraceful thing. In nineteen hundred thirty-three, nearly thirty thousand people were killed in accidents . . . and more than eight hundred and fifty thousand were injured, and this past year the death rate was over thirty six thousand. A good many people devote the greater part of their lives to the designing of faster automobiles. Is it not ironical then that these man-invented machines are so responsible for loss of life and cause so much suffering? Mary McNamara. BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA SILVER JUBILEE It is particularly fitting this year for the Junior magazine to include a brief outline of the Boy Scouts of America who are celebrating their 25th anniversary during 1935. Early in 1910, the idea of introducing the Boy Scout move- ment along lines similar to those of the English Boy Scouts, which had been organized in 1907 and developed under the personal supervision of Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell, was first proposed by Mr. W. W. Boyce of Chicago. It is significant that Mr. Boyce’s interest was occasioned because of an actual service rendered him in true Scout spirit by a London Boy Scout, in fulfilment of his obligation to do a Good Turn daily without compensation. Mr. Boyce secured the cooperation of friends in Washing- ton, D. C., and with the active assistance of Mr. Colin H. Liv- ingstone and Mr. R. W. Gates, proceeded to incorporate an organization of the Boy Scouts of America under the laws of the District of Columbia. This was effectively accomplished on February 8, 1910. Due to the development of the move- ment it later became expedient to secure Federal incorporation which was done by special act of Congress in June 1916. The year 1911 saw troops springing up in every state. The first national Good Turn occurred in the next year in a cam- paign for a safe and sane Fourth of July. Also during the