The Press: Morale and Morality

Ever since it was cited by the U.S. Post Office last month for naughtiness (mostly because of its lithe, leggy, lightly clad “Varga Girl” drawings), the magazine Esquire has been crusading zealously in its own behalf. In a series of advertisements in newspapers and trade magazines it had been preparing for its Oct. 19 hearing (at which postal examiners will determine Esquire’s right to continue to use second-class mail) by back-patting itself as a soldier-sailor morale builder.

The first ads were calmly logical, only slightly pouty. One mentioned “the galaxy of pinups and other divertissements demanded by the armed forces.” Another: “Soldiers and sailors have been writing us . . . telling us what store they set by their precious copies of this much-thumbed and well-regarded magazine.” A third was eloquent about “the boys” who want “pleasant things to think of, and to look at. … They want to think of girls and gaiety and good times. . . . They want to be reminded of all the pretty, pleasant, soft and gentle aspects of the life they’ve left behind. . . .”

Last week, apparently playing its ace. Esquire enlisted the clergy’s aid. With elaborate piety the latest Esquire ad features a picture of a Guadalcanal chaplain, the Cross of Christ on his collar, rays of holy light slanting across his fighting face.

Its title (“if Holy Joe can go out there, who are we to be holding back?”) seemed to be addressed to the U.S. Post Office itself. Said the ad’s text: “Chaplains have . . . acquired a new breadth of both understanding and tolerance from their daily contacts with [men in the armed forces]. . . . That’s what we have sensed from the letters we have had from chaplains telling us of the tremendous morale-value of copies of Esquire. . . .”