Cartographers had long despaired over publishers' inapt use of the Mercator. A 1943 "New York Times" editorial stated that "The time has come to discard Mercator for something that represents the continents and directions less deceptively ... Although its usage ... has diminished ... it is still highly popular as a wall map apparently in part because, as a rectangular map, it fills a rectangular wall space with more map, and clearly because its familiarity breeds more popularity." Because of the lack of novelty both in the projection Peters devised and in the rhetoric surrounding its promotion, the cartographic community had no reason to think Peters would succeed any more than Edwards or his predecessors had.