Preliminary LOC to The Reluctant Famulus #106

Charles Rector
524 Lake Avenue Apartment #3
Woodstock, IL
60098
crector@myway.com



Dear Mr. Sadler:


     Its getting late, so I don't have time to write a full LOC for the entirety of TRF #106.  However, I feel that I need to protest that abomination (I refuse to call it an article)  by Mr.  Matt  Howard.

     Where to begin?  Mr. Howard claims that the Saturday Evening Post was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1897.  This is pretty interesting since Franklin passed away in 1790.  It gets even more interesting when you consider that the Post was founded by Franklin in 1728 as the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper.  In 1821, its owners changed the name to the Saturday Evening Post.  In 1897, the Curtis Publishing Company took it over.

     It gets even worse.  Throughout most of its existence, the Saturday Evening Post had a hard line conservative editorial policy that was arguably to the right of Barry Goldwater.  Around 1962, there was an  editorial shuffle at the Post that resulted in a more liberal editorial team taking over.  In 1964, the Post attacked Goldwater, a move that alienated many readers and old time staffers alike.

     To be sure, there were other problems afflicting the Post.  It was a general interest magazine at a time when advertisers searching for a mass audience were deserting general interest magazines in favor of TV.  The Post had a circulation of about 6 Mil., but since its perceived demographics were farmers and other rural citizens, advertisers did not have any real interest in them.  Advertising rates for the Post and other general interest magazines were actually higher on a cost per 1,000 basis than TV.  In a desperation move, the Post cancelled many of those subscriptions, a move so egregious that the Federal Trade Commission ordered the Post's publishers to reimburse their readers for the unfulfilled portions of those subscriptions.  The magazine was shut down in 1969.  As for the idea that Jack and Jill was the reason why the current owners bought the Post, the Post came with a great many companions.  It is highly doubtful that the people who bought the Post did so solely to acquire Jack and Jill.     In 1972, the magazine was reborn as a nostalgia zine that continues today that has nothing to do with the original other than the fact that has the same name.


     The downfall of the Saturday Evening Post was significant in that it prompted one of the most memorable exchanges in the history of sci-fi prozine history.  In the November 1971 issue of Amazing, there was a LOC by Richard S. Shaver who wrote about how humanity was being subjected to dumbing down by "dero sabotage of our mental life."  Shaver went on to claim that "...all publishing of all kinds went down 60% to 90%.  That is, old standbys like the Sat. Eve. Post went to the wall with a 60% drop in circulation."  Shaver's babble was contradicted in the March 1972 issue of Amazing in a LOC by Gary L. Engler.  Quoth Engler:  "Mr. Shaver apparently wasn't reading the Saturday Evening Post before and during its skid from popularity.  Its death was earned.  The loss of quality during its last few years was dramatic and mercifully, for the readers, fatal. "

     As for Dale Carnegie's supposed influence on Joseph Goebbels, i Googled that and found nothing.  In any event, Goebbels was the Propaganda Minister some time before Carnegie's book was published in 1936, 3 years after the Nazis took over in Germany.

     As for the idea that some guy named "Charles Mason"  was responsible for a series of grisly murders, after reading a book by Dale Carnegie, it should be pointed out that Charles Manson learned about that book by taking classes in a California prison.  There is no evidence that he actually read that book.  In their 600+ page book, Helter Skelter, which is generally considered as being the definitive account of the Manson "family" case, there is no mention of Charles Manson reading that book or that Carnegie's ideas had any influence on Manson's behavior.  Given that his name was given as "Mason" three different times, its hard to see how that could have been a mere typo.  BTW, Mr. Sadler, you have indicated that you are about 70 years old.  The Manson family murders happened in 1969.  Should you not have remembered those events to prevent those errors from getting in your zine in the first place?  Ditto for the reasons for the downfall of the Saturday Evening Post.

Given all these facts are accessible from sources other than the unreliable Wikipedia, it is absolutely unacceptable that this thing was published in an otherwise classy zine as TRF.


P.S.:  I suppose that you could protest that someone like myself who spent the years 1987-1995 as a graduate student in History at the University of Arkansas and has a Master of Arts degree complete with a 199 page master's thesis to show for it has an unfair advantage over someone  like Mr. Howard.  However, as far as I can tell, Mr. Alfred D. Byrd does not have any sort of degree in History, but instead, a  B. S. in Medical Technology at Michigan State University and an M. S. in Microbiology at the University of Kentucky.  Mr. Byrd gets his facts straight.
Mr. Howard should too.


P.P.S:  Is this guy the Matt Howard who is from Carmel, IN, and who is now a pro basketball player?  If so, then guys like him should not wonder just why people think of athletes like him as being "dumb jocks."  If you can't get your facts straight, then you shouldn't wonder just why folks think you're stupid.