The Man Who Knew Coolidge/Part 6
Mr. Chairman, reverend sirs, and friends and brothers of the Men's Club of the Pilgrim Congregational Church:
It is difficult for me to express the pleasure and honor I feel in being thus called on as your speaker. There is no organization in which I have taken a greater pleasure in belonging to. While it is true that, due to the pressure of my Americanization work and other duties, I have not been able to attend the monthly Get-Together Supper and Talk as often as I would like, let me assure you that it has been with a pang that I have missed every supper that I have missed.
I've always been a great believer in what the Great Bard says: "Brevity is the soul of wit," and I could almost express everything I want to say to you in the song in which Bert Hubbard has so dramatically led us:
And my friends are your friends,
And the more we get together,
The happier we'll be.
Let me first of all say that I agree most heartily with our chairman that it is the greatest conceivable pleasure and honor to have with us this evening not only Dr. Edwards, our most honored pastor, but also Dr. Otto Hickenlooper of Central Methodist Church, and Dr. Elmer Gantry, formerly of Wellspring Methodist but now so gloriously located in New York, and I want to most heartily and enthusiastically join our honored chairman and our beloved pastor in welcoming these clerical gentlemen among us.
Whatever slight doctrinal, if I may call them so, differences there may exist between the Methodists and we Congregationalists, there is no difference in our aims, and I'm sure that no Methodist could appreciate and honor Dr. Gantry and Dr. Hickenlooper more than we do.
I doubt if anywheres in the whole length and breadth of the land could be found dominies with more eloquence, more active devotion to institutional Christianity, more exemplary and devotional lives, and more courageous and scholarly devotion to the exact truth than these two gentlemen, and while they come here tonight without any preacher's vests or turned-around collars, yet let us remember that however influential we business men may be in economic affairs, it is thinkers like Dr. Gantry, Dr. Hickenlooper, and Dr. Edwards who finally determine our philosophy, our ideals, our judgment in literary and artistic matters, and our ethics in business—and that they will continue so to control us, thank God, no matter what libelous and lying attacks may be made upon them by disgruntled ignoramuses who try to get a little cheap notoriety by questioning their characters!
I will no further refer to certain filthy books and sheets and publications, that love to wallow in filth and to sell their souls for a few pitiful pennies, and I will answer them by saying that these great ministers of the gospel have—and their detractors can take it or leave it—these renowned pastors have the spiritual sanction and financial support of every man like Lowell Schmaltz!
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I've wondered sometimes since I chose the title of this brief and modest talk that I propose to make—"The Basic and Fundamental Ideals of Christian American Citizenship"—if it may not sound a little too highfalutin. It isn't intended to be. I merely want to outline in a simple way the ethics of the New Generation—of the New American Era.
In the old days, preachers were just interested in a lot of confused theories; now they are as practical and as hail-fellow-well-met as any business man. In the old days, business men—the men who produce and sell the conveniences which make life what it is today—were scared of and let themselves be influenced by a lot of kings, lords, generals, journalists, judges, and a lot of impractical people like that.
But now the New Era has come. Now we can breathe a sigh of relief that the old-fashioned aristocratic and leisurely nonsense is over, and that we live in an age dominated by Henry Ford, Woolworth, Marshall Field, Crane, Andrew Mellon, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, Pillsbury, Ward the titanic baker, the founders of the A. & P. groceries, of the United Cigar Stores, and of the Liggett and Owl Drug-Stores, Statler, John D. Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst, Hart, Schaffner and Marx, Charles Schwab, Heinz of the fifty-seven, Swift and Armour, the McCormick harvester family, and such other rulers of modern industry and commerce—the new princes, the new high priests, the creators and protectors of a new philosophy and a new art.
I yield to no one in my admiration for the America of Abraham Lincoln, Emerson, Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne. But those gentlemen lived too early to conceive on the one hand of a nation of a hundred and ten million people, imposing its ideals and rule on the whole world, and on the other hand of standards of living in which the radio replaces the parlor organ, an electric lamp with an art shade replaces the old oil light, and a magazine with two million circulation replaces some old dusty calf-bound book.
If they lived today, they would be heart and soul with us of the New Era. I can see Lincoln as the president of United States Steel, of the Paramount Film Company, or the Wrigley Gum Company; I can see Poe as one of the leading writers for the Red Book; Emerson as president of Columbia or the University of Illinois, inspiring twenty thousand students with his eloquence; and Hawthorne writing ads for the new model Hupmobile.
But the ethics of this New Era are not yet entirely figured out, and I want, in my tiny and humble way, to contribute what I can to them this evening.
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Certain ideals are universal—honesty, chastity, and not boozing too much. But there are two principles almost entirely developed by and peculiar to America of today, and these are Service and Practicalness! (Or some call it Practicality.)
Now let us take Service. Let me start out by defining what I mean by it.
Service is imagination. Service is that something extra, aside from the mere buying, stocking, and delivery of goods, that so tickles the comfort and self-esteem of a customer that he will feel friendly and come back for more. Service is, in fact, the poetry, the swell manners, the high adventure of business.
And this is the first time in history that a nation has conceived the massive, the daring and glittering idea, that you can do more than just sell the customer the goods he wants—that you can, in fact, tie him to you by that subtle form of friendliness known as Service, so that, without its really costing you much of anything, you can make him feel that he's getting double value for his money.
Service! If the Rotarians and Kiwanians had done nothing else, they would have justified themselves and made their place secure in history for all time by their insistence on the value and beauty—the, in fact, if I may without sacrilege say so, religion of Service.
Let me give you a few examples of what I have known done or have fancied might be done in the way of Service.
Take my own profession, office supplies.
Say I sell a fellow an adding-machine. Now there's nothing about the operation of it that any bright girl couldn't learn in half an hour, and as to repairs, of course no sensible office ever monkeys with them, anyway. But when a gentleman buys an adding-machine, I ask him to send the girl who's going to operate it around for a course of lessons—of course absolutely free. Then once a week for a month I send a fellow to the office to look over the adding-machine, to adjust it, and to give further instruction in its use to any one who the boss may designate—again all absolutely free.
Now probably the fellow I send around doesn't know any more about running the ole adding-machine than half the folks in the office, but that isn't the point. The point is that I thus establish in the bosses of that office a feeling of coöperation with me, a feeling of my eagerness to give good measure, pressed down and running over, as the Good Book says, and then when he wants anything further in the way of office supplies, he's the more likely to turn to me. That's Service!
Or take insurance.
In the old days, when a bird—when a solicitor had sold somebody a policy, that ended it, and the solicitor never bothered him again. But happily a more scientific era has dawned. To the really enlightened solicitor, the sale of the first policy is merely the beginning. With an air of impersonal friendliness, and with an especial care to not seem obtrusive, the solicitor makes this customer his buddy for life.
He keeps a file of newspaper clippings showing every move of his customer—say like death in the customer's family, his election to some high position in a lodge, or his wife giving a dinner to Soroptimist delegates—and on every such occasion he expresses to the customer his congratulations. Or condolences, as the case may be.
Of course this has to be done with care. The solicitor must make sure whether the customer dislikes being bothered or not. If not, he makes these approaches in a nice, friendly, chatty, gentlemanly little telephone conversation, working in also some reference to the weather or the World's Series—but never, you understand, directly mentioning business, for otherwise it would not be Service. But if the fellow is touchy and irritable, the solicitor contents himself with nice formal little letters, perhaps suggesting that no reply or acknowledgment is needed.
Then finally, when he feels the prospect is ripe, when a really rich feeling of personal friendship has grown up between them, he makes a quick hard touch, and in a surprising number of cases is able to put over a new and larger policy on him.
That's Service—and, like Virtue, it brings its reward.
And so in other businesses. The grocery customer will often prefer a second-rate apple in a handsome wrapper to a first-rate one carelessly bundled in plain tissue paper. A motorist will stand for pretty bad gasoline if the gas-station employees wear handsome uniforms, greet the customer respectfully, and wipe off his windshield free. A man will often put up with small rooms, high prices, and even pretty poor food if both the reception clerk and the manager treat him like a friend, give him a warm handshake, and, this most especially, learn his name thoroughly and greet him by it when he returns a second time.
That's Service!
And remember that only a low and sordid commercialist would look on it as something which merely sells more goods—though it certainly does that, too. But over and above that, it promotes friendliness, good fellowship, brotherhood, and thus makes for the millennial day when all the world shall be one happy Christian fellowship.
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And now the second peculiarly modern and American ideal—practicalness.
Europe has always had its art, its beauty, but where we have gone beyond the Old Country is that while we want things beautiful—take like an elegant new gas stove—they must primarily be of use. Let me prove my point by going right into the world of professional art and sculpture.
When a European city wants to adorn itself, it puts up, if I may judge from a rather wide reading, and a study of the pictures in the National Geographic Magazine—it puts up in its parks a lot of heathen goddesses—which are rather suggestive, to say the least—along with fountains and such things. But we— Well, we want to decorate a park, and we decide on a statue at once handsome and educative. We figure there's a lot of Spaniards in the city that'll be pleased by recognition, so we put up a fine bust of Columbus; or we see there's a bunch of naturalized Italians, with perfectly good votes, and we recognize them by erecting a monument to—to—well, to Dante. Or we please the Germans by a bust of Gerty. And so we kill two birds with one stone.
Or take a more immediate example. Now that Christmas is not long over, I guess there's some of us that feel the gift business is a little overdone. I have heard gentlemen of my own acquaintanceship assert that they felt certain department stores almost commercialize the sacred holiday. But be that as it may, and it is too involved a question for me to go into it on the present occasion, it is an encouraging and outstanding fact that year by year gifts tend to become more practical.
I have here a magazine published early in December, and therefore largely devoted to advertisements with the rosy blush of the holidays upon them. And where in the old times there would have been an emphasis on impractical things for Christmas—say like books, etchings, and fancy smoking-jackets—what do we find now?
First of all, of course, there are many suggestions for auto accessories as Christmas gifts, as is suitable in a country where the chief object is to go somewhere quick. Fine! Tire chains, tire locks, radiator shutters, moto-meters, and anti-freeze mixtures done up in handsome holly-decorated cans especially for Christmas.
And then the other practical gifts, suitable to gladden the heart of any recipient: pocket cigar-lighters, sharpeners for safety-razor blades, little scales suitable for the bathroom so that every one, man, lady, or child, can daily check up on his health. And what toys! Real electric trains, just like the real article, so that the fortunate child who gets one for Christmas doesn't have to do a thing but press a lever and the train goes by itself, and the child can just sit there and watch it and enjoy himself. What fun!
And all these gift articles mingled in the advertisements with the customary vast store of such other luxuries as only America produces. Ads of towns in Florida that in less than ten years have come in every way to equal if not surpass Venice, Italy. These wonderful new ladies' overshoes with this business, I forget what it's called, but you just pull a business, and the whole business slides open without buttons or hooks and eyes. Splendid ads of sauerkraut, which thus, nationally advertised, rises from its lowly status and takes its place alongside of candy and the telephone company.
And then this:
Here till just recently both typewriters and fountain pens were always in a dull and I might almost say somber black. But now typewriters are appearing in a variety of lovely colors, suitable to the boudoir as well as the office; and as for your fountain pen, you can have it in opal, lettuce green, dawn pink, elephant-hide gray, La Marquis blue, or any other of a dozen tempting hues and shades.
But in this magazine I found an even greater proof of the way in which America combines beauty with sheer practicalness. One advertisement starts out with a letter—I suppose it is imaginary, the product of some copy-writer's genius, and yet in this New Era it might quite possibly be real—from a young lady who's supposed to be writing to her beau, and she says:
You are thinking of me, Sweetheart. Even as I am thinking of you. Thinking … wondering … cherishing each precious hour of anticipation … counting the days until …
And Christmas is almost here. Perhaps you are thinking of a gift for me. Possibly a jewel! Yet no greater jewel will I ever crave than that of your perfect companionship; nor gift would I ask more royal than the honesty of your own heart.
Let your gift to me be something intimate … beautiful … reminiscent always of the Dream Days of Now.
And I ask you … let it be practical!
Sanctuary for the lovely silks and linens and embroidery I am receiving … for the wool blankets … downy comforters … for those precious possessions which I now hoard away in closet, trunk, or bureau drawer. A place of beauty and fragrance, of convenience and safety, where moth and dust will not corrupt nor inquisitive fingers delve … it is of this I whisper, beloved …
Something I have always longed for—that every woman has longed for. Something a girl would so gladly have from her sweetheart … or her husband. a cedar chest …
Then the advertisement goes on to show pictures of the manufacturer's line of cedar chests. And I want to tell you gentlemen that when we have reached a point in American advertising where we can combine straight selling-talk with not only the joyous spirit of the holiday season, but also the most delicate intimacies of young love, and also a cleverly worked-in quotation from Holy Writ, then by thunder we have reached a point of practicalness never hitherto known in history!
At last has come the glorious era when every noble sentiment, every artistic turn of phrase and elegant wording, every instinct of beauty, is no longer forced to run alone and maverick, but can rejoicingly take its proper place in serving commerce and the merchant kings!
Or one more example, which I take from another magazine of the same festal date, about the practical drink for the Christmas feed. Now Germany may have its beer, France may rejoice in its ruby wine, England may have its—its variety of drinks, but we, thank God, have freed ourselves from the dreadful thralldom of alcohol!
And why? Because we find that for business success, alcohol ain't practical! And yet we find ourselves wishing to acknowledge the great feast days with suitable vintages. And so our manufacturers rush in and perfectly fill the gap in an entirely satisfactory manner. Listen to this ad, and note the high-class literary wording:
A right merrie drink to add new zest to a well-cooked Christmas dinner … The majestic turkey has replaced the historic boar's head; the gayly bedecked peacock pie has given way to mince; a fine old ginger ale has taken the place of the flowing Wassail Bowl which once was passed from hand to hand as "the ancient fountain of good feeling where all hearts met together."
In all the world, there is no beverage so appropriate for the Christmas dinner as XXXX Ginger Ale! Served in fragile stemware, it gleams and sparkles like a rare old wine and bids you drink and be merry! Dinner always takes on a new zest, a new distinction when this fine old ginger ale comes to grace your table.There, gentlemen, is our ringing answer to the opponents of prohibition!
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What opportunity in this new and increasingly practical America for any bright fellow today!
Take like Al Smith. Here is a poor boy of the city streets, and a Catholic, and yet we have permitted him to be Governor of New York. Naturally I'm opposed to his being President, but I've been perfectly willing to see him rise as far as he has, and while he's almost certainly never heard of me, if he were here I'd be glad to give him the hand and good wishes of Lowell Schmaltz!
What opportunity today! What coöperation!
You take, for example, the Community Chest. What a colossal and unique American institution that is—all of us combining on every worthy charity, and refusing to support those institutions which our bankers and other experts consider unworthy. Why, just this last fall—
There was a young man in the office of a friend of mine who refused to contribute one red cent to the Community Chest, on the frivolous and indeed almost flippant grounds that the big men behind the campaign for funds—the men who were themselves often the most generous givers!—used their large contributions as a club with which to keep all radical and wrong-thinking charity-workers out of jobs with the various institutions.
So my friend very properly fired this sorehead and quietly passed the word around, and this young man—as you can see, practically a socialist in disguise— Well, I shall be very much surprised if he ever finds it possible to get another decent job in this man's town! I give that just as an example of the way in which, with the increasingly solid American organization, we can on the one hand assist the aspiring and right-thinking young crusader, and on the other hand get rid of all anarchists and hammer-wielders.
For we must never forget that even in the midst of this, the most luxurious and powerful civilization the world has ever known, there are always people who, for some insane reason that they themselves couldn't explain, still criticize and complain and refuse to climb on the band-wagon.
You take this.
I am reliably informed—though certainly I have not sullied my self-respect by reading any of them, but I have been informed of their contents by criticisms given in various sermons—I am informed that during this last year or so there have been published two books purporting to show that George Washington was not the great hero we all know him to be but a man that smoked, drank, used bad language, and flirted. Then there was an alleged biography claiming that Henry Ward Beecher was not what we all know him to have been—the greatest preacher and power for righteousness since Martin Luther, and a man of spotless righteousness and truth—but instead a man whose word and loving friendliness could not be relied on. And no less than three disgraceful books, two of them novels and one a screed by a woman claiming to have known him too intimately, have dared to hint that our Martyr President, Harding himself, was a dumb-bell surrounded by crooks.
Well, I've got an answer for all these authorial gentlemen!
And my answer is that it is not worth the while of a serious and busy man of affairs to pay the slightest attention to notoriety-hunting hacks, who creep out of their fetid holes to bay the moon, who seek by their filthy and lying accusations to keep a foothold in the public eye!
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I see that my allotted time is drawing to a close, but, though it does not strictly belong to my topic, I want to take this opportunity to tell you briefly something of my conversation several months ago with President Coolidge, who was, as many of you may know, a great chum of mine all through our college days.
When I arrived at the White House, the President was just going off on the Mayflower with the British ambassador, as I had failed to apprise him of my coming sufficiently in advance. So we had a shorter visit than usual, but he spoke of certain things on which I know you will be glad to get authoritative information.
"Mr. President," I said—he had indicated that he wanted me to call him "Cal," but I didn't feel it to be fitting—"Mr. President," I said, "how do you feel about this question of decreasing our navy?"
"Well, Low," he said, "I think I can put it to you in just a few words. While of course he is thrice armed that is prepared, as the bard says, yet navies cost a deplorable amount of money, and I should be glad to see them reduced—so far as it is safe."
"Well, how do you feel about taxation?" I said.
"In my opinion," he said, "while there should never be such unjust taxes that the burden of taxation shall fall unduly on those that are compelled to carry on great commercial enterprises, which give jobs to all sorts and conditions of men, yet equally there must never be an intolerable assessment against those that for one reason or another are not well off in this world's goods."
"And finally," I said, "if you wouldn't be betraying any state secrets—I should never ask you to do that, even though we are old friends," I said "what do you think about the situation in China?"
I shall never forget how he straightened up and his eyes flashed fire, as he shot back at me, grimly:
"In my opinion," he said, "there is now arising a situation where it is necessary to do more than merely our obvious duty in safeguarding American rights and properties in China. It is the last desire of myself or of my advisers to involve ourselves in European politics," he said, "but I stand up and say before the world that we do not like the way in which, it is alleged, the Bolsheviks tend to encourage the Chinese to act in an uncivilized manner; and when the proper time comes we shall, if necessary, take whatever action may be necessary."
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So there, gentlemen, you have in the President's own words a clear statement of our foreign policy. Yet to me it is no more remarkable, no more worthy of historical recording, than our domestic policy, which I have just tried to outline, in Service and Practicalness.
And I shall be glad if in my small way I have done anything to make clearer to you the New Era of American Civilization; to express modestly to you the motto of Lowell Schmaltz: "Read widely, think scientifically, speak briefly, and sell the goods!"