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First issue of Mortuary Digest was not impressive in appearance—32 pages with scanty advertising & illustration—but it was pungent in its discussion of funeral problems. One of Editor Witman's first editorials pooh-poohed the profession's effort to popularize the term "mortician."
Excerpt:
"Why there should be a stink attached to 'undertaker,' I don't know. ... As long as the public insists on thinking of morticians and funeral directors as 'undertakers,' I feel that the sensible thing . . . is to follow the lines of least resistance, and admit that we are undertakers."
Other editorials: a foreboding of war between undertakers and cemeteries if the latter persist in the alleged practice of urging patrons to pay less for caskets, more for memorials; an argument in favor of high-pressure injection of embalming fluids; an alarmed view of "directories of funeral directors" charging high fees for listing names.
There were articles on funeral prices, cut-rate practices, arrangement of the casket display room so that the prospect will not always select the cheap ones. Only once was the delicate (to the undertaker) subject of cremation mentioned; thus:
"The greatest objection to cremation is the usurpation of the funeral directors' rights by the crematory people. Though they have stoutly maintained that a funeral director cannot profitably own his own retorts, this is not the case. They simply want to cremate so that they can sell the urn and the niche. Funeral directors often take bodies to crematories, and have a devil of a time getting the ashes. The crematory people want to get into the families, and spread the high-power selling racket." Editor Witman's solution: Let the funeral director carry a sideline of urns at a modest price and "sell" a bigger funeral. As in most trade magazines, there is a page in the Mortuary Digest reserved for informal shoptalk. It is headed "The Back Room." Advertisements in the funeral press are quite different from the subtle "institutional" advertisements of casket makers, cemeteries and crematories which appear in popular magazines. Some are outspoken : "This casket will be a wonderful seller. . . ." "The casket of the month— Rustless Zinc." . . . "Nature-Glo—Rivals Cosmetic Effect of Living Blood." . . . "William H. Doty! The Fluid Man." . . . Also there are classified advertisements. Sample:
FOR SALE: N eon electric crucifix, with case, in good condition; $35 takes it; 150 dozen pall bearers gloves. . . . One new prayer rail with case $55.
Washington Pinsticker
In recent months the monthly Washingtonian, which was established about five years ago as an innocuous houseorgan for the Hotel Mayflower (named The Mayflower's Log), has been publishing less & less news of Society, more & more pungent comment on politics. Last fortnight The Washingtonian definitely abandoned its conservatism, came out as a magazine "which pokes pins into almost everything and everybody in town," began its pinsticking with a cover caricature of a button-nosed Herbert Hoover in red-white-&-blue.