The “Let your hair down”

Media

Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: The “Let your hair down”
Language: English
Year: 1954
Subject: American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, Inc.; The American Chamber of Commerce Journal.
Rights
Fulltext: October, 1954 AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 403 “LET YOUR HAIR DOWN’’ WE had a very nice party on the occasion of the official opening of the Chamber’s new offices in the Elks Club Building on September 30, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Several hundred people came,—mem bers, government and diplomatic offi cials, heads of the other chambers of commerce, newspaper men—Filipi nos, Americans, Britons, Spaniards, Chinese, etc. When the editor saw that everyone was properly dressed, he went so far as to put on his own coat and tie. There was ample food and drink,—the bar serviced by the Elks Club and the table by the Army and Navy Club culinary department next door. A special loud-speaker arrangement had been set up for the calling of cars, but it was some hours after the affair started before there was any calling. The festive occasion, in a sense, marked the debut of the new Exe cutive Vice-President, Stanley N. Fisher, who was meeting numerous members of the Chambers and other prominent Manilans for the first time. There were so many friendly introductions and meetings, and the party was otherwise so exhilarating, that, perhaps, he may have been a little confused, when he noticed -a quiet gentleman whom he had not met yet and, in the general atmos phere of goodwill which prevailed, he put his hand out to him and said, “Good evening, sir. I am Stanley Fisher. May I know your name?” The gentleman made a reply which in the hub-bub Mr. Fisher did not catch, but he made as if he had understood and asked, “What firm are you with, sir?” Then the gentle man smiled a little and said, “I am the American Ambassador.” Mr. Fisher took a quick second look, and, we have no doubt that the world reeled for him at that moment, but he made a quick, if desperate, re covery, saying with an apologetic grin, “Mr. Ambassador, it must be refreshing to meet someone who does not know you!” After that, according to Mr. Fisher, they had a very nice chat about Manila, Baguio, Bontok, and how the Admiral had first come to these shores in 1914 as the com manding officer of a 420-ton des troyer. Subscribe to this Journal P5.00 a Year ttTVrow here is something'.” exclaimed the editor, with a copy of the September Fortune in his hand. “I am delighted, of course, by the results of the ‘reader survey’ of the Journal recently concluded by a special Chamber committee, but listen to this, from ‘Fortune’s Wheel—Notes from the Publisher’: ‘“An editor knows from experience that success is measured by how HERE’S A SIMPLE WAY TO SOLVE YOUR SPEED REDUCTION PRODLEMS Parallel Shaft Drive Get the proper drive for your needs from the Worm Gear Drive Gearmotor and Helical Gear Drive broad LINK BELT line Whether it’s a helical, parallel shaft or worm gear drive that best fits your needs—you get an unbiased recommendation, an incomparable product from your Link-Belt power transmission representative. Exclusive Representatives jor Link-Belt Company, U.S.A. THE EARNSHAWS DOCKS & HONOLULU IRON WORKS Main Office: Cor. TACOMA & 2nd Sts., PORT AIIEV • MANILA • TEL. 3-35-41 Branch Offices at: BACOLOD CITY • CEBU CITY • • P. O. BOX 282 close he comes in practice to what he originally had in mind. (No good editor is ever satisfied.)’ “Now what I originally had in mind in planning the Journal was not anything based on a questionnaire, but on my experience as an editor and, furthermore, on what I admit was a half-intuitive idea of what businessmen, especially American businessmen here, needed and wanted. And although I am not fully satisfied, —as I should not be, I do feel that the Journal comes fairly close to what I ‘originally had in mind’. I have been very fortunate in that the Chamber Board went along with me in this, and gave me the opFor- Link-Belt builds all types— you get the one that suits all your requirements for ratio, space, shaft position, shock loading and many other factors. Call us today for prompt, expert sendee. 404 AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1954 portunity I needed, in that the mem bers also supported the Journal with their advertising, and in that the readers have supported the Jour nal with their subscriptions, some of them for three and four years in advance. I repeat that I myself am not entirely satisfied with the Jour nal as it is; I hope for improvement and will work hard for it; but I am pleased with the results of the ques tionnaire, though, as I said, no questionnairing had anything to do with the planning and laying out of the Journal. Like anything of the sort must always be, it was in in ception a piece of creative work and our big task is to keep it so.” want to move food without damage? ask Fairbanks-Morse To answer a question with a ques tion, "How do you pump solids?” That was the question asked by engineers faced with pumping fish, easily bruised foods, sewage or in dustrial waste. They asked the world’s largest pump manufacturer for a pump that would not clog. Fairbanks-Morse design engineers gave them the first truly non dogging pump ... exactly the unit that the food industry, municipal authorities and industrial manage ment wanted. Whenever a pumping problem KJMJJ • SCALIS • Dlim LOCOMOTIVES AND INMNU • ELI CT ■ KA I MACHINERY • RAIL CARS • HOME WATER Fairbanks, Morse & Co., Inc., Export Division / 80 Broad Street, New York 4, N. Y., U. S. A. (vW Fairbanks-Morse a name worth remembering when you want lha best 'the ‘‘Readership Survey” was conducted by Robot Statistics under the direction of a special ‘‘Journal Financial Committee” ap pointed early this year by Mr. Paul R. Parrette, President of the Cham ber. The Chairman of the Committee was Mr. Harry A. Lee, President of Philippine Advertising Associates, Inc., and the other members were Mr. J. Lasley, of Grant Advertising, Inc., and Mr. Richard Bownass, of the International Harvester Company of Philippines. In a covering letter to Mr. Parrette accompanying the report, Mr. Lee stated that the survey established that (1) the Journal is well read arises—be it for a vertical or hori zontal pump .. . centrifugal, deep well or propeller type, with a capac ity of one to half a million gallons per minute—the engineers of the world seek the solution supplied by Fairbanks-Morse design engineers. For only from Fairbanks-Morse can you get originality of engineering and design that assures you out standing performance. Look for the pump designed for greater efficiency—it carries the famous Fairbanks-Morse Seal of Quality. by recipients and pass-on readers; (2) back copies are retained and used for reference purposes to an im portant degree; (3) all of the 26 regular features are read by enough people to justify their retention; and (4) the Journal is well thought of by 9 out of every 10 readers and no unfavorable comments or suggestions for improvement were made by enough readers to warrant attention. “The survey strongly indicates and con firms the fact that the Journal is well read, respected, retained, and, as such, must be a publication of influence.” The survey covered only Philip pine readers and not the overseas readers of the Journal. Mr. Lee, in his summary, stated that the “survey findings indicate that the Journal is exceptionally well read... 75% of Journal recipients read it regularly. . .” “There are strong indications of substantial additional readership particularly among employees of companies receiving Journal copies. . .83% of Journal recipients say other people read their copies and 78% of the secondary readers are employees.” “That the Journal has retention value and is utilized beyond first reading is in dicated by the following findings: 76% of Journal recipients file their copies; 52% use the Journal for reference purposes; 12% take their copies home.” “Of the 26 regular features, none is read by less than 1/3 of the Journal recipients either regularly or occasionally; editorials are best read, the range of readership by features being 33% reading Freight Car Loadings up to 93% of recipients reading Editorials regularly or occasionally.” The foregoing was quoted from the summary of the report prepared by Mr. Lee. Readers, and our column editors, too, will be interested in the percentages of recipients of the Journal who read the various fea tures (total percentages of regular and occasional readers): Editorials, 93.2%; Articles, 80.7%; Legisla tion, Executive Orders, Court Decisions, 85.7%; The Government, 75.7%; Imports, 71.1%; Cost of Living Index, 68.2%; Banking and Finance, 67.9%; Ocean Shipping and Exports, 62.5%; The “Let Your Hair Down” Column, 61.8%; Mining, 60.4%; Copra and Coconut Oil, 57.5%; Credit, 57.1%; Port of Manila, 56.8%; Food Products, 56.1%; Sugar, 55.4%; Lumber, 53.2%; Desiccated Coconut, 51.1%; Manila Hemp, 50.7%; Building Construction, 50.0%; Philippine Safety Council, 48.6%; Manila Stock Market, 47.9%; Tobacco, 47.5%; Real Estate, 47.1%; Textiles, 45.7%; Electric Power Production, 42.5%; Freight Car Loadings, 33.6%. The Rice column had not yet been begun when the survey was made. Of the respondents to the ques tionnaire sent out, 44% were Filipinos, 31% Americans, 5% British, 2% Chinese, and the remainder of various other nationalities. Roughly, some 45% were executives and other busi nessmen, some 20% were professio nals, some 12% were government officials, legislators, diplomats, conOctober, 1954 AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 405 suls, etc. and the rest could be clas sified as general readers. To the question, “What do you think of the Journal in its present form as a whole?” of the 77.2% of the respondents who an swered it, 73.6% were favorable and only 3.6% were critical. The great majority used such expressions as “good, fine, satis factory”, “excellent”, “good as a source of information' , "very good”, "useful publica tion”, "interesting reading”, "standard above other magazines”, “valuable for students’ reference”, “well-edited”, “presentable”, “compact and complete”, “a sound rfisumfe of Philippine business”, “has cultural value”, etc. Unfavorable responses listed in cluded such statements as “magazine too small”, “not up-to-date”, “sides too much with Western ideas”, “arti cles inclined to generalities”, “articles too brief”, “very dull”, “informa tion can be found in local papers.” Among the suggestions offered, none of them made by more than a very small percentage of the re spondents, were: “include more upto-date data”, “more pictures”, “a column on the activities of Filipino and other businessmen”, “profiles and speeches of prominent business men”, “articles published should give the two sides of questions”, “improve the lay-out”, “more legible type”, “articles on labor trends and unem ployment statistics”, “articles in the Chinese language”, “an annual in dex”, “open a ‘Readers’ Forum’” “reduce the price”, “issue free copies,” etc. “As for those suggestions,” said the editor, “or some of them, we do publish an annual index; readers will find it in the last pages of the December issue of every year. As for a ‘Readers’ Forum’, that is, more or less, what the ‘Hair-Down’ column is supposed to be. The type we use, for quoted matter, most tables, and certain columns, such as ‘The Government’, is small,— 8-point, but we are forced to keep the Journal down to a reasonable number of pages in proportion to the amount of advertising. We do all wish that we could bring the tabulated information in the Journal closer to the date of publication, but we have found this impossible so far; some of the column editors do wait until after the end of the month to be able to include that month’s statistics in their ‘copy’, but this is not always possible, es pecially if they have to get their figures from the provinces. “I think that all our column editors should be well satisfied with the results of the survey. All but a very few of the columns are read by at least half of those who receive the Journal and who answered the questionnaire; some of them are read by two-thirds, three-fourths, and even more of those who responded. It stands to reason that some columns cover fields that interest a larger number of readers than others. Such a column as ‘Tobacco’, for instance, interests chiefly tobacco-men, where as a column on legislation and court decisions naturally interests more or less all the readers of the Journal. The actual percentages, a few points, more or less, do not mean much. There is not a single column in ‘The Business View’ section that does not very evidently fill a want, and that makes the effort to write it every month well worth while. “I am very grateful to all of the column editors whose work indi vidually and collectively contributes so greatly to the value of the Journal. I am very grateful also to all of those readers who took the trouble to answer the Committee’s question naire and for their doing so in so a generous way as to give us all such great encouragement.” FORD TRUCKS NEW SERIES B-500 AND B-600 SCHOOL BUS SAFETY CHASSIS Series B-500—154-in. wb. for upto 36-Pass. bodies—G.V.W. 12,000 lbs. Series B-600—192-in. wb. for up to 54-Pass. bodios—G.V.W. 16,000 lbs. 210 in. wb. for 55-Pass. bodies—G.V.M. 17,000 lbs. I new 1 new MANILA TRADING & SUPPLY CO. Mai ila 20th Street, Port Area Telephone 3-34-51 The correct address of The Highland Shop is 609 A. Mabini BATANGAS THE BATANGAS TRAD1NC CO. Bataogaa, Balangae R. ISABELA A. G. TRADING CO. Echague, Isabela LAGUNA Mr. SIXTO B. REYES San Pablo City ASSOCIATE DEALERS: manila FORTUNE ENTERPRISES. INC. Corner Echague and Ayala MT. PROVINCE BAGUIO TRADING & SUPPLY CO. 33 Abanao St.. Baguio City NUEVA ECIJA Mr. BRIGIDO LOBR1N Paco Roman St., Cabanaluan City PAMPANGA Mr. FELIX B. PUNZALAN San Fernando, Pampanga PANGASINAN DACUPAN TRADING CO. Dagupan City St.. St., QUEZON Mr. ALFREDO LIM Lu ~ ». Que TARLAC TRAD1NGC& SUPPLY ~ rlac, Tarlac . Tarlac, Ta 406 AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1954 come articles which have appeared in the Journal seem to go on forever. Take, for instance, the edi tor’s own article, “Eastern and West ern ‘Psychology’ ”, which appeared in the June, 1952, issue of the Jour nal. First, the Mutual Security Administration (MSA) requested per mission to reproduce the article for its American personnel, and some time later, the G. F. Atkinson Com pany asked permission to do the same. Now an executive of Caltex (Philippines) Inc., has asked permis sion to reproduce the article for this purpose. The article itself was re printed in the Journal by request, with some revision to bring it upto-date, from the original which ap peared in the Philippine Magazine some years before the war. At that time it was quite widely reproduced in American and European magazine digest publications. It has there fore had some 20 years of life and still seems to be going strong. Not that proof is needed, yet the following letter is proof that the Bureau of Public Schools is making use of the accumulation of excess copies of the Journal which we sent the Bureau a month or so ago when the Chamber moved its quarters to the Elks Club Building. The letter EVERETT STEAMSHIP CORPORATION Owners-Brokers-Agents Manila 155 Juan Luna St., Tel. 2-79-31 General Agencies AMERICAN MAIL LINE To and From Seattle Tacoma Philippines Indonesia Portland Vancouver Japan Straits PACIFIC TRANSPORT LINES To .nd From C.lifornia-J.p.n-Philippinoa BARBER-FERN-VILLE LINES To U.S. Atlantic Via Strait.. Suer. Mediterranean FERN-VILLE FAR EAST LINES To and From North Atlantic Porta Cull Porta-Philippinea Via Panama MESSAGERIES MARITIMES To and From Europe and Mediterranean Porta EVERETT ORIENT LINE Philippines, China. Japan Korea, Strait., and India Porta EVERETT STAR LINE PHILIPPINE STEAM NAVIGATION CO. Serving the Philippine Ialanda UNITED STATES SALVAGE ASSOCIATION UNITAS OSLO THAI AIRWAYS is from Mr. Constancio T. Medrana, Superintendent of the Mountain Na tional Agricultural School, at Trinidad, Benguet, Mountain Province, ad dressed to the editor, and ran: *‘Cn behalf of our school, I wish to acknow ledge receipt with thanks and appreciation of the 24 copies of the American Chamber of Commerce Journal donated by the American Chamber of Commerce. The copies were shipped to us from Manila by the Bureau of Public Schools. “The magazines are indeed very valuable references for our students and teachers. They are now accessioned in the school library for reading. “We thank you again. Very sincerely, etc.” Index to Advertisers Page Alhambra Cigar & Cigarette Mfg. Co. 389 American Steamship Agencies.................. 402 Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co...................... 385 Columbian Rope Co. of Philippines.. . . 393 Earnshaws Docks & HIW........................ 403 Engineering Equipment 8s Supply Co.. . 386 Erlanger 8s Galinger, Inc........................... 394 Everett Steamship Corp............................ 406 Fairbanks, Morse Co................................. 404 Frawley Philippine Corp........................... 395 Gaberman 8s Hagedorn, Inc..................... 399 Goodrich International Rubber Co....... 390 Heilbronn, J. P. Co..................................... 395 Insular Lumber Co...................................... 387 International Harvester Co..Inside Back Cover Koppel (Philippines) Inc........................... 396 Luzon Brokerage Co................................... 396 Luzon Stevedoring Co................................ 397 Macleod 8s Co. of Phils.............................. 397 Manila Broadcasting Co............................ 394 Manila Electric Co...................................... 373 Manila Machinery 8s Supply Co............ 398 Manila Trading 8s Supply Co.................. 405 McCullough Printing Co........................... 398 Metropolitan Investigative Agency, Inc 401 Motor Service Co........................................ 400 National City Bank................................... 391 Nell, Ed. J. Co............................................. 399 Neuss, Hesslein 8s Co................................. 399 O. E. S. 8s S. Co.......................................... 400 Pacific Far East Line, Inc....................... 400 Pacific Merchandising Corp..................... 392 Pasig River Bodegas................................... 401 Philippine Education Co........................... 401 Philippine Manufacturing Co.................. 388 Security Delivery Service......................... 393 Sharp 8s Co., Inc., C. F............................. 406 Stevens, F. H. 8s Co.................................... 402 Standard-Vacuum Oil Co..Inside Front Cover United States Tobacco Corp................. 402 Westinghouse Electric Co.............Back Cover Advertisements in this JOURNAL are read by the leading business executives of the country