“NATION OF SITTERS”

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1935, Page 3

“NATION OF SITTERS”

INFLUENCE OF THE RADIO. "INSIDIOUS ENEMY” FOUND. A most insidious enemy of prosperity has been discovered and pilloried before the Federal Communications Committee at Washington, states the -Daily Mail. It is the United States radio broadcasting system, which, according to Mr. Irving Caesar, a New York publisher, has turned the country into “a nation of sitters.”

Mr. Caesar indicted radio for causing 40,000,000 people to idle away 100,000,000 hours daily listening to “free entertainment provided by advertisers of cigars, cigarettes, cosmetics, patent foods, chewing gum, and other minimum labouremploying industries.” He urged upon the commission the establishment of “nights of silence,” during, which the nation might be weaned from its radio-inspired sedentary habits.

When radio, he said, keeps people at home and away from theatres and cinemas, it affects not only those institutions, but also reduces the wear and tear on their clothes and shoes, motorcars, and a number of other products. The necessary replacements would mean employment for millions. “The United States,” ran his argument, “is the only country in the world which permits broadcasting for advertising purposes for eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.' “Advertisers of goods which employ a minimum of labour are allowed to bring this radio opiate right into our homes, distorting our social life and dislocating our economic life. Let us in the interests of prosperity abandon our. sitting posture and go for a walls or ride.”