PYLE DRIVEN

C.C. "Cash and Carry" Pyle is hardly as lacking in sagacity as he has lately been given credit for being. The fact that his widely heralded Bunion Derby has been buried on back pages of the daily press ever since the starting gun is no cause for worry. It is a well-known maxim that the public, like the sea elephant, can be fed a good deal but when fed too much gets nauseated. No one knows this better than the wary Mr. Pyle.

By this morning his weary marathoners will have covered approximately 1800 miles, or a little over half their trek. They are now in the state of Missouri, having plodded steadily onward ever since the fourth of March. It is hardly to be supposed that the reading public, long-suffering as it is, could have stomached a daily blurb as to the progress of the caravan. This, too, is as the A B C to Mr. Pyle. But only wait until the final sprint breaks loose somewhere in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, and the handful of hardy soles left cuts loose. Then will come the deluge, Syndicated throughout the length and breadth of the land will be feature stories on the great race. They will not run on back pages; they will be real news. And in the last few weeks of the procession the country will be showered with about as much information on the ranking of the runners, their vocations, the age of their mothers, the kind of gum they chew, as it can well stand.

It takes the courage of one's convictions to undertake such a project as this one. It takes a not inconsiderable assurance to let slip the goading of the public's interest until the last thousand miles. But gigantic indeed is the mentality of Mr. Pyle, and better than most others does he know not only what the public wants but in what doses it can stand it.