In the second issue it picked up two and a half pages of advertising and jumped to twelve pages in the third issue. At this time the total number of pages also increased to twenty-four.
It remained this size for the remainder of Volume 1, and halfway through Volume 2 when the magazine went up to thirty-two pages and carried seventeen pages of advertising. The masthead, in addition to the editor’s name, now carried the name of Leroy Somers as advertising manager and the publishing address was changed to Bay City, Michigan.
Leroy Somers must have been a good advertising man, for the magazine showed a steady gain in advertising until the summer of 1929 when it reached a peak of 68 pages of advertising. The magazine now contained 128 pages and was a handsome printed job.
By this time the staff was greatly augmented. Leroy Somers had been promoted to publisher. Herlands was still editor, but a man named Fenwick was managing editor and there were two associate editors named Billingsly and Hogate. And a new star had appeared as advertising manager. His name was Benj. O. Chapman!
The magazine held its own for three issues with Benj. O. Chapman as advertising manager, but in the fourth Chapman dropped the “j” from Benj. and the advertising took a nose dive to a paltry 47 pages of advertising. Of course, this was in the fall of 1929 and the stock market crash may have had something to do with that. A month later the name of Hogate was dropped as associate editor. Fenwick went in February, 1930, and Billingsly was promoted to the post of managing editor. The associate editorships remained vacant. In this month the magazine was a scanty 48-page issue, with only nineteen of those pages containing advertising.
It had twenty pages of advertising in May and twenty-two in June. The boys were fighting hard. But the forces of the depression were too strong. In August came the crackup. Leroy Somers and. Julian Herlands went! The Sugar Beet Publishing Company was dissolved and replaced by the Billingsly-Chapman Publishing Company. The masthead now carried the names of Robert Billingsly as president and editor and Ben O. Chapman, vice-president and advertising manager. Also the publishing office was moved to Duluth, Minnesota.
An editorial told of the reorganization and complained bitterly of the competition of the Cuban and Philippine cane sugar. There was a whining note to it that suggested the hand of the advertising manager had written the editorial instead of the editor.
The new organization, with its trimmed overhead, ran along a little better for five or six months, picking up a few pages of advertising. But in the early part of 1931 the bottom seemed to fall out of the sugar beet market — at least the sugar beet advertising, for it plummeted to an appalling eight pages in one issue. It carried that amount for two more issues, then dipped to seven.
Holding his breath in anticipation, Sargent turned to the masthead of the next issue — June, 1931. It had happened! Billingsly was gone. Ben O. Chapman was editor and publisher of the Sugar Beet Review and the name of the publishing company had been changed to Chapman Publishing Company.
Coincidentally, the advertising leaped to fourteen pages, exactly doubling the previous issue. Without being aware that he did it, Frank Sargent let out a sigh of relief and drew a deep breath of anticipation. Ben Chapman had written a sizzler of an editorial, in which he blasted the United States Congress, Cuba, and the Philippines. He insisted that the United States should cast adrift the Philippines. Let Japan take them if she would. In the next paragraph he advocated the annexation of Cuba, declaring that it was necessary to the defense of the United States.
Chapman remained publisher and editor for four issues and the magazine skyrocketed until it was again 96 pages with 54 of them advertising. Ben O. Chapman now relinquished the editorial post to a man named Smythe. Two months later the editor’s name was Burton and a month after that Mathews. Mathews remained for four long months and was then replaced by Carter, who lasted three months. Dumont assumed the editorial reins for two issues, to be replaced by Erlinger. With Erlinger, Chapman became fed up with male editors and took on Ruth K. Reese who must have been, a whiz of an editor, for she remained on the job for nine consecutive issues. Then Chapman went back to men and Frank Sargent gave up trying to follow the different names.
He counted the advertising, however, and discovered that Chapman was doing very well indeed for depression years. In the summer of 1933 the magazine was almost as thick as a mail-order catalogue and carried in excess of eighty pages of advertising. Chapman was now blasting the NRA in his editorials.
Sargent skipped two or three issues, then noted that the magazine was again becoming thinner. He counted an issue and found that it contained 57 pages of advertising.
An editorial decried the Versailles Treaty and demanded that the United States collect the European war debts at the point of the navy’s 16-inch guns. Ben Chapman volunteered his own services to take over Cuba.
The December, 1933, issue carried only twenty-one pages of advertising and Chapman declared that the Brain Trust was ruining the country. The only thing that would save it was the immediate annexation of Cuba and the collection of the war debts.
In June, 1934, Chapman gave the Philippines to Japan and included Mexico in his annexation filibuster. The magazine carried thirteen pages of advertising and a man named Wagonholtz was the managing editor.
The next month Chapman brought the war home and published a scathing denunciation of the domestic sugar beet industry because it would not support its own trade journal. Ferdinand Hooper was the editor this month.
In August and September Chapman went back to the Caribbean, with a side excursion to Washington where he proposed a ten-cent a pound tariff on cane sugar. He gave Mexico back to the Mexicans, as unworthy of this country’s time and trouble. He put out a feeler, however, for Bermuda, Barbados and Jamaica, which he expanded in October to an outright demand, as part payment of the war debts. The October issue showed a nice improvement in advertising and November looked like old times, with 34 pages of advertising. It held that many through December and January of 1935 and then Sargent received a shock.
Chapman was gone! He had sold the magazine to Louis J. Suttles. The jingoistic Chapman who had fought cane sugar and Cuba, the Philippines and Great Britain, France and the Versailles Treaty... and countless reluctant advertisers... had given up the battle.
Louis Suttles had bought the magazine in January of 1934 and was still the owner. Sargent closed the last bound volume and returned the entire stack to the librarian’s desk. He saw with a start that it was four-thirty in the afternoon. He had spent hours with the Sugar Beet Review and its Horatio Algerish hero, Ben O. Chapman.
He left the Crerar Library and after standing on the corner of Michigan and Randolph for a few minutes, began walking slowly southward. At Madison he turned west and plodded through throngs of workers homeward bound. He crossed the river and approached Canal Street and the huge Northwestern Depot. Even though his footsteps had carried him here, he looked at the building with a start.
Then he entered. At the information desk they informed him that the train for Duluth would leave at five-thirty and reach the northern city at nine in the morning. The fare, including Pullman, was fourteen dollars.
Sargent was on the train when it pulled out of the depot. His only baggage was a small parcel containing a shirt, a change of linen, a toothbrush and a cheap razor that he had purchased in the station.
Chapter Eighteen