Word: contested
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Your article on the "Puzzle Trust" in the issue of Oct. 31 was surely entertaining but one paragraph was so abridged as to be quite misleading. Since I was a participant in the Graphic's cinema title contest and was subpoenaed as a member of the so-called "Puzzle Trust" that was unearthed here in New York. I should be able to throw additional light on the matter...
Since puzzle solving is the hobby of many professional and business people they eventually become quite expert in this line and accordingly their names are usually among the winners in contests all over the country. When the Graphic announced a $50,000 picturegame these expers of the alleged "Puzzle Trust" joyfully entered the contest and won most all of the big awards...
When it was discovered that their regular readers had captured so little of their huge fund, the Graphic was surprised and provoked. Therefore, since the rules of the contest had bot been so framed as to keep out the experts, the Graphic proceeded two months after the game was over to disqualify them by embodying a number of additional ex post facto rules in an affidavit which they said winners must sign in order to get their awards. Probably not one winner in ten could truthfully sign the affidavit...
...Graphic made its contest so difficult that none but experienced puzzlers had a ghost of a chance, and so expensive (an entry cost from $9 to $12) that comparatively few of their regular readers tried the game. Those of them who did participate endeavored to find the best answers in a catalog of over 6,000 titles in small print, whereas the so-called experts purchased for $1 each lists of answers compiled by other experts, which contained about 40 titles per picture, and from these short lists they made their selections that won the big money...
...Graphic's contest was too difficult for their average reader, and the harder they make them the better for the experts. A simple contest for simple people would have been much more successful...