Sunset (magazine)/Volume 31/Publishers' Announcement!

Publishers' Announcement!

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Sunset Becomes a Twenty-five-cent Magazine

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BEGINNING with the December number, SUNSET, the Pacific Monthly, enters upon another stage of its advancement.

For many months the publishers of the Magazine have been experimenting, with their own money, to produce a magazine of two-fold quality—beautiful and efficient—and to learn the cost of doing so. Additional illustrations in color—the most expensively produced of any similar pages in the country—and employment of some of the leading writers of description and fiction in America, these have been the materials of this experiment.

SUNSET, as it is today, is the result. The change of price to twenty five cents means that experimental excellence now becomes permanent and the way is paved to go on to make a bigger and better magazine.

Under the stimulus of added resources, a big investment is being made to bring SUNSET to the point of excellence demanded of its new position. The pages of this announcement show definitely the extent to which the Magazine realizes its obligation.

The Personality of a Magazine

To be a regular and welcome visitor to the reading-tables of intelligent men and women, a magazine must have an individuality, a definite personality. Sporadic hit-or-miss efforts to stir by the shock of sensation, to catch the passing interest in a fad of the day or merely to fill the empty leisure of an hour—none of these things can establish a magazine as a constant factor in the life of a home. Not all magazines aim to be this; most of them hope for it; some of them achieve it.

Sunset, the Pacific Monthly, claims to have become such a factor in the life of one hundred and fifty thousand homes, in many parts of the world, because of a definite and consistent personality. It has been possible to create and maintain this individuality because the magazine is published with a definite purpose, separated from that of immediate profit, and because, in the fulfilment of that purpose, Sunset has consistently reflected the personality of the remarkable territory it serves.

The Pacific Coast of North America has a personality as individual and as easily recognized as that of the friend whose appearance attracts and whose activities interest us. It is a region of varied and in many respects transcendent beauty; it is a country thrilling with the pulse of new development, aflame with the ideal of turning waste places into homes, elated by consciousness that there is no better place anywhere for the larger life of earnest men and women. The mere reflection of this personality has been enough to make a magazine and to give it an important place among the publications of America.

The personality of a friend develops, grows richer, finer, more admirable as the years ripen it. The Pacific Coast obeys a similar law. Its magazine must keep pace or be an imperfect reflection. Sunset for 1914 is the answer to this demand.

First, as to Beauty

More people today are cognizant of the attractions of Nature than were aware of them yesterday and more will learn the lesson next year. Why? Because the automobile is showing us our own surroundings as we have had no way of knowing them before.

From Border to Border through the Wonderful West

To properly show forth in this modern manner the thousand wonders of our west coast, Sunset has purchased a six-cylinder touring car, induced E. Alexander Powell, F. R. G. S., to postpone for a little his impending trip into "Innermost Asia" and has bade him godspeed from the Mexican border to the mountain wall along the Alaskan line beyond Hazelton, in British Columbia. It will take Mr. Powell a year to set down, each month, the "Log of the Sunset Car" and this picture of the magnificent Farthest West, painted in the rainbow colors of its endless variety, by a man who has seen the wonder and the glory of "all the world beside" will be the most thorough work of its kind that has yet been done.

The International Expositions

There is always reason enough to come to see the wonders of the Pacific Coast, but in 1915 there will be an exciting cause which will turn westward the steps of countless thousands who might not otherwise be brought to the point of taking the trip. To celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal by the United States, our Government will hold in 1915 an international exposition at San Francisco, the site having been chosen in token of the importance of the Isthmian waterway to the Pacific Coast. This exposition will open in February, 1915, and its slogan is: "the exposition that will be ready." Thus 1914 must see its mighty preparations practically completed and Sunset is now in a position to keep step, upon the very site itself, with the building of the World's Fair and to set forth, each month, the progress upon buildings and grounds and in the gathering of the materials for the vast exhibition of the world's best in things and ideas. The Exposition site is now a hive of fascinating industry, the cream of which will be shown in these pages, where the progress of the correlated Exposition at San Diego will also be followed.

Hearthstones De Luxe

One of the elements in the "double personality" of the West is found in the existence, in a new land where homes are being carved from the wilderness, of magnificent residences, housing the beauty and the culture of the centers of civilization. Some of these wonderful homes will be shown in Sunset throughout 1914 in attractive pictures and with first-hand comment by Porter Garnett, litterateur and art critic, who has had access to the libraries and art-galleries and wonder-gardens of these homes deluxe.

And Now as to Development

During the fifteen years of its life, Sunset has led in telling the story of the happenings in the great West. In this undertaking it has become a recognized authority. Its pages will continue to present the truth of this new and desirable land, to tell the miracle-tale of reclamation and settlement and to show forth the work and the achievements of the builders of this empire-in-the-making. But, in addition to this task which it has already performed worthily, the Magazine is to add next year a special concrete service to the constantly increasing number of men and women to whom these articles appeal.

"Does apple-growing really pay?" "Is the underground water supply of Arizona and New Mexico reliable?" "Where is the best place for dairying and hog raising in the Pacific Northwest?" "I have five children and $900? Would you advise me to come to California with these assets to raise chickens and truck?" "I'm a singer and have saved $2000. I love country life. Can you tell me whether I could make a living and develop an orange grove with my capital and voice?" "Where is there an opening for a carpenter with a little capital?" "How are the motor roads on Vancouver Island?"

Sunset Service Bureau

These are some of the questions addressed to Sunset. Letters of inquiry concerning a thousand subjects and Western localities are steadily growing in number. With the increasing interest in the West and its affairs, engendered by the opening of the Panama Canal, the stream of inquiries addressed to Sunset will become a torrent. This vast amount of correspondence will be handled through a Service Bureau, conducted by Walter V. Woehlke, whose reputation as a writer upon western development is nation-wide. Mr. Woehlke will make the Bureau a recognized clearinghouse for accurate, authentic information concerning the West. In coöperation with Western agricultural colleges, civic organizations and similar factors he will supply disinterested information and advice as detailed, as accurate, as truthful as it is possible under the limitations of the human equation.

Why "The Pacific Monthly?"

There is to be more than ever reason for that descriptive title of Sunset. The people of the Pacific Coast front the Pacific ocean and the countries whose shores it washes as consciously and as significantly as the people of the Atlantic Coast look across the Atlantic ocean to the countries of Europe. The Pacific ocean is the ocean of action for the twentieth century. Throughout the year Sunset will reflect the action upon this vast stage, the theatre of at once the oldest and the newest of the world's civilization.

Sunset's War Correspondent

The story of the impending contest between the east coast of Asia and the west coast of America for the dominance of the Pacific will be told in Sunset by Arthur Street, whom this magazine is sending as special war correspondent, so to speak, an editorial commissioner who is to make a tour of the entire ocean and to continue on a journey round the world to make a personal analysis of the great changes which must inevitably follow the opening of the Panama Canal. At all points our commissioner will be brought into direct personal touch with the strong men and influences at work in moulding the new developments and his reports will include living touches of these men and influences.

It would be hard to find a more highly qualified commissioner to undertake the enormous task of reporting upon the mighty drama which the world is about to witness than the man who has sailed out upon the Pacific in the interest of Sunset's readers. Arthur Street, for nearly twenty years, has been known to the newspaper and magazine press of America as a special student of large movements of this sort. He has held commanding positions on the standard periodicals of both coasts and his collective index and digest of the newspapers of the United States, conducted by him for fifteen years, has given him an unusual familiarity with public affairs, both domestic and international.

The Pacific Coast of America stands at the edge of a vast and epic panorama of future human action in which the interests of the entire world must be, from now on, indissolubly engrossed. The reflection of that world drama in the pages of Sunset is irresistibly a part of the magazine's duty to the potential region it represents.

Thereby Hangs a Tale!

Sunset does not pretend or intend to be all description or analysis. It knows that the very people most interested in its reflection of the Twentieth Century Land and Sea are just as fond of a good story as those who take no heed of social or economic movements. And Sunset will keep faith with these people at every point.

"The Man Who Won"

William R. Lighton, the creator of Billy Fortune, has written a noble story of Wyoming, the story of the battle for the possession of land between the forces of stock-grazing and home-making. Incidentally a beautiful and appealing love story is involved. And Billy Fortune, though a subordinate character in this big story, is up to his old tricks all through it, and his quaint philosophy and humorous personality make many a bright spot in this narrative of love and war. Arthur Cahill has gone to Wyoming with the author and his illustrations, made, in some cases, from the originals, will add much to the pleasure of this story which will run through most of the year.

A Detective Story as an Extra Serial

In absolute contrast to "The Man Who Won" is "The Allison Pearls," by Edward H. Hurlbut, author of the popular Lanagan stories of the San Francisco underworld. This new Lanagan story, which is a deepening mystery until the final chapter, deals with a baffling robbery in San Francisco high life.

Short Stories

During the last few years, during which Sunset has gained a national reputation as an authority upon Western beauty and development, the magazine has also steadily gained in reputation for the excellence of its fiction. Some of the best writers now appearing before the reading public are contributors to Sunset. Among these Sunset for 1914 will number Peter B. Kyne, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, John Fleming Wilson, Charles G. D. Roberts, Hugh Johnson, John Kenneth Turner, George Pattullo, Hamlin Garland, Grant Carpenter, William Hamilton Osborne and Herman Whitaker.

A Great Miscellany

In addition to the special features enumerated here, there will be a wealth of miscellaneous material, chief among which may be mentioned a series on that vital topic "Immigration" by Robert Newton Lynch, of the California Immigration Commission, a series giving the romantic story of "the golden goddess," being the history of Pacific Coast gold mining, from placer to stock exchange, by Arthur Dunn, and the autobiography of one of the most influential pioneers of the Oregon country.

Sunset's Pictures

The appearance of the magazine will be improved, which is saying no small thing, for the color illustrations of Sunset have made it widely known in this regard. These color pictures will be maintained and will be given greater interest by being made, so far as is practicable, from successful examples of color-photography. In illustration and in dress, generally, the magazine will continue to advance.