chicken and striped gravy--you know, Red--not the kind you see on the
bill-of-fare in the cafes which they jokingly term “spring” chicken,
without going on record as to just what spring; not the kind that's
cooked all in one piece and tastes like the pet chicken that Grover
Cleveland raised when he was in the White House; but rather that
old-fashioned, unjointed, juicy, tender, fried-brown country chicken
that you're sure first saw the light of day about May 1st, this year.
Well, anyway, Mother and I piled into the old gas buggy last Sunday
and went out in the country just in order to satisfy that craving. You
know, Red, I never had a particularly strong leaning toward the farm or
anything that goes with it, with the exception of an occasional visit
made with the sole intent of just gorging myself on the good things to
eat that the farmer always seems to find right handy without having to
haggle with the grocer over the price. Not that I thought I was better
than the farmer--not that I didn't appreciate that he was the backbone
of the nation, and this and that and this and that, but somehow or
other I just never did fall for those poetic rhapsodies and popular
songs that usually tell in a high falsetto how dear the old meadow and
pigpen were to the heart of a prodigal son. You know I always had the
secret hunch that all of that patter was mostly bunk and was written
only for commercial purpose to be sold to and raved over by some
little mouse of a shop-girl that was trying to carve out a career as a
counter-jumper in a department-store basement or by some lonesome hick
that had come into the city expecting to conquer it and Cook County in
three months and was having trouble to rustle shoes for himself on his
salary as a bus boy in a one-arm chair feed-bag oasis.
I have made the mistake of looking on the farm as a sort of necessary
evil where they just put the seed in the ground every spring and then
let nature do its worst and the reason I didn't wake up sooner was
because I'd been stopping too much at these near-farms where they
advertise chicken dinners for two dollars and have an electric piano
and a toddle parlor just back of the dining room.
On the way down to the place I was going, I drove up to a pretty likely
looking farm with a big red barn and went in. It was a fancy stock farm
and much to my surprise they had electric lights, radiators and an
electric fan over each stall. They had some blooded cows in there that
they milked four times a day--the attendants were all dressed in white
like barbers in a loop shop and the only thing that was missing was the
blonde manicurist. Even the pigs were washed and primped up and the
thing that struck me so funny was that the manager in his conversation
actually showed that by running it that way, it paid dividends on the
investment. To make a long story short, I went along on my journey
impressed with the fact that the fellow who ran that place wasn't just
indulging a fad or hobby but rather was making a success because of
brains and because he knew his business. That started me thinking and
when I arrived at the farm that had agreed to feed me for a day I was
viewing things in a new light.
When I stretched out on the cool back porch after a meal that can be
gotten only on a real farm--out there where the very sky seems to
come a little closer, where the traffic officer's whistle would be
sacrilegious and the smell of burning gasoline was only a memory--I
fell to talking business with my host. I found that I had this farmer
business all wrong. True, it was a hard life and a gamble with the
elements; true, the price of farm products had been taking a merry
toboggan; but I found a spirit of optimism--a studied forgetfulness
of the drab part of it--a highly scientific and intelligent working
out of a problem that formerly I had guessed was only happenstance. My
host had a reason for planting corn on the north eighty and oats on
the east quarter. The rations for his live stock were as carefully
planned as the contents of a baby's nursing bottle. In a word--he knew
his business and as a result these minor factors of price declines and
other annoyances were only an incident in the successful carrying out
of a well defined plan.
Naturally, Red, I got to thinking of you and your work and I wondered
if you were thoroughly impressed with the necessity of your knowing
your business as you have never known it before. I wondered if you
could tell the Boss if he asked you right quick the price your
competitor was getting for every one of the staple products in your
line. I wondered if you had a good knowledge of which branches had too
big a stock of certain items and just what you were really doing to
change that situation. I wondered if you considered your slow stock
report--your Bible--and the thing to really worry over. I wondered
if you knew how much the plants had of your product--just how it was
moving and just when you should recommend a packing order, and then if
such recommendation were made whether it were based on it being the
time of the year when the raw material was the most reasonable.
I wondered if you appreciated that the successful marketing of your own
product rested largely on your shoulders--yours for the planting--yours
to generate enthusiasm over--yours to be posted on as no one else in
the organization.
Coming home that night I was telling Mother of the lessons that the day
had taught. I asked her if she thought that even you might not glean a
lesson from the farmer. It was funny, Red, to hear her. I don't know
why except that to her, like all mothers, you're still just her baby
boy--either that, or else you've been practicing your salesmanship on
her, for she thinks that you're 'way ahead of me on the things I've
been wondering about you. She actually believes that you could take the
man that first packed food in cans and teach him something. Of course
I didn't argue with her because I never won an argument with Mother,
but I just made up my mind that I'd drop you a little note and tell you
that if you didn't put the old one-two on the jaw of that problem of
yours by being the best posted man on your line in the whole office,
that it was going to make a serious dent in the confidence of
Your loving,
“DAD.”
P. S. The only pessimist I found on the farm, Red, was a bull-frog that
croaked at night in the creek. He reminded me of a certain type of
salesman--he didn't sell anybody anything.
_Dad Takes an Interest in the Boy's Big Sales Contest_
Dear Hal:
Since you have been sending me copies of all the circulars and
bulletins gotten out by the General Sales department, as well as your
own department, I have been kept pretty well informed as to what your
firm was doing and planning to do and I don't mind telling you that I'm
as interested as a kid on December twenty-third, in this latest stunt
you're pulling--this national convention of leader salesmen campaign.
There are several inferences that I draw from the literature that's
been put out on it so far and I think I see some angles to it that may
have escaped you and I figure you might be interested in just how this
all looks to an innocent bystander such as myself, so I'm going to
exercise my prerogative of commenting copiously, as 'twere.
Before you get ready to tell me to keep my comments to myself, I want
to tell you about an introduction I once had to a brother knight of the
grip. It was in my early days of order-teasing that I met up with a
prune peddler on my territory by the name of George Shifflett. George
was one of those typical grocery salesmen of the old school. Happy,
well formed, jovial, a hale fellow well met, fairly radiating good
fellowship and, at the same time, a salesman plus. I was called in to
a strange city, and before going I told George about it and mentioned
that time would perhaps hang rather heavily on my hands. George sat
down and wrote a little note of introduction to a friend of his, whom
he said would give me an entree to anything and everything in that
town. Although the letter was not sealed, I didn't think to read it,
but as soon as I arrived I hunted up George's friend and presented my
credentials.
His friend was also a peddler of the George type. He immediately opened
up the letter and this is what it said: “This is my friend--treat him
kindly and often.” Just how well George's friend obeyed this admonition
is neither here nor there, and there's no use rubbing it in by
referring to the customs of ancient times, suffice to say that the only
point in the story in connection with my relations with you is that
in the comments I am continually making on your business, I am merely
trying to treat you “Kindly and often”--not in the way George's friend
treated me, but I hope in a more beneficial and less bibulous manner.
But, to get down to this leader salesmen campaign--I naturally begin
first to look for holes in such a plan, having gone through a good many
campaigns myself, but for the life of me I cannot find any in your
plan. It's about the finest thing I've ever seen. You know the trouble
with most national campaigns is that you have one house, or one bunch
of salesmen, competing with another on a product on which the selling
conditions vary greatly, one part of the country with another. But, in
this one the salesmen merely compete with the salesmen at the local
branch, in an effort to determine just what man in each class is the
better salesman on a fairly wide line of products. I cannot think of
anything that would create more rivalry among your salesmen than your
plans, for the convention program that is laid out is both recreative
and educational and the big point that I'm sure will not be overlooked
by the men is the opportunity it affords the winners to become better
and more personally acquainted with the men who direct their movements
and destinies.
You know, when I used to be a salesman I looked on the Chicago office
as being only just a little lower than the pearly gates--almost as
unattainable and a place that could only be reached in the way of a
visit by the manager and an occasional special salesman. I wondered how
I could ever be picked for a better job when the fellows who do the
picking had never seen me. It took me quite a while to break into that
holy of holies, and as I look back at it now, it seems I must have had
a lucky star for I finally got in, but I had to wait a good many years
and I didn't have the opportunity to win an introduction such as is
planned for the winning leader salesmen in your campaign.
Now Red, listen to me--the success of this campaign doesn't depend
entirely on the amount of enthusiasm that your department sales manager
and the branch house managers generate. Not at all--they'll have the
enthusiasm in sufficient quantity all right--just leave that to the
managers and salesmen.
This campaign will be won by one thing--plans--Red, that's the
word--plans. No salesman is going to kid himself into winning this
campaign. The fellow who wins will be the chap who first realizes that
there has been a change come over business in the last few weeks.
He'll have a good idea of just who he's gunning for and his list will
include every merchant that has hinges on his door. He'll have samples
and selling arguments on each of the campaign items and he'll not make
the mistake of underestimating the amount of goods that it's possible
to sell each customer. Last, but not least, for the full length of the
campaign he'll be up in the morning before the proverbial rooster has a
chance to crow, and like the sign in the drug store window, he'll “work
while you sleep.”
Red, it's your job to lead. Are you giving those boys the suggestions
and selling arguments that it's your place to supply? You know the
finest compliment that can be paid you at the convention is to have
not one, but several of those snappy winners slide up to you and tell
you just how much help you really gave in those plans.
Now, don't give me the “busy signal.” Of course, you're busy--why
shouldn't you be, but listen Red--this campaign is the most important
thing that your company is putting on this year--make it your first and
most important duty--lead 'em, Red, lead 'em!
You know, Boy, every time I think of your job and your problems, I'm
reminded of the difference between a real live salesman in a clothing
store and one of the wax dummies in the window of that same store. Both
are salesmen after a fashion, and the poor wax dummy that sits behind
the plate glass all day is doing his best and helping to sell goods in
a measure, but Red, you never bought a suit of clothes of one of 'em in
your life, now did you? No, you bet you didn't, but the boy with the
Elgin movement and the snappy sales argument, behind the counter teased
many an order away from you, now didn't he? All right--now the thought
I'd like to leave with you just before I take off my shoes and make a
midnight raid on the ice-box is:
That department sales manager chair that you're sitting in was never
intended for the outer casing of a mummy--shake 'em up, Red, and make
it snappy!
Your loving,
“DAD.”
_Dad Surrenders When the Boy Lands the Big Job_
Dear Hal:
For once in my life, I confess to you that I'm starting a letter that I
don't know how to write.
Mother and I just finished reading your telegram that announced you had
just been made general sales manager of your company. While it was not
so much of a surprise in one way--it has been a long while since you
received your last promotion and naturally we knew you would not be
satisfied until you had climbed even further up the ladder--still, I am
somehow differently impressed with this last elevation of yours than I
have with your previous steps.
I don't know how I could better illustrate my feeling than to say that
when you were a little fellow about ten I started in to give you what I
thought at the time was training in the fundamentals of the different
stages of boyhood. I can look back now and see where I used to hold
myself up to you as a sort of example. Yes, I'll admit now that I used
to paint the Old Man as being quite some fellow in his youth. While
you seemed impressed from year to year as the so-called schooling
progressed and were interested in my teachings, I realized finally when
your voice began to change and a peach-skin fuzz began to form on your
upper-lip that you weren't a little boy any more. Altho I recognized
your growth, not until your twenty-first birthday did I realize that
I must needs pursue a different plan, for lo--my once little lad had
suddenly grown to manhood and if you'll remember I ceased advising you
against the pitfalls that the boy must guard against and began talking
he-man language from then on.
Similarly, from the time you started as a salesman for your company,
until the present, I have taken a keen delight in listening--sometimes
with a good deal of patience, but withal a great relish--to your trials
and problems as they came to you along the same old road that I myself
had traveled and I kidded myself into thinking, at least, that probably
I was doing you some good by tearing pages from my experience in the
past and applying them to your problems, and I never realized until
just tonight that like the other experience, I had been so busy being
a pal of yours that momentarily your gradual growth had escaped me and
I must now look upon you in a new light--as being the equal, if not
the superior, in experience, knowledge and acumen of the Old Man who's
tried to tutor you along the way.
General sales manager--Well, Boy, Howdy! My hat is off to you, Red,
with a couple of Salaams! Needless to say, I knew you'd get there and
again, needless to say I know you'll fill the chair.
Just for tonight, Red, now listen--just for tonight I'm going to forget
momentarily your title and lapse into the old vein. After this, if you
insist, I'll call you Mister Red, or any other title you wish, but I
just cannot resist the temptation of still imagining you to be the same
old impetuous, impulsive, don't give-a-dam Redhead who used to put
wrinkles into my forehead, and I'm going to talk to you accordingly.
No, I never was a general sales manager, but I know all about how the
job should be run, just like Harry Sparks knows all about raising
babies--he never had any. Red, did you ever see that play, “If I Were
King”? No? Well, neither did I, but I imagine it's something like
the way I'm looking at this new job of yours. I can well imagine
your feelings, anyway--especially these first few days after your
appointment.
I know you're leaning over backwards trying to act natural in this new
job of yours. Every fellow who comes up to wish you well you sort of
look over mentally and wonder if his good wishes have a real kick, or
if they're about one-half of one per cent. You are painfully aware that
there are those in the organization who think you have a horse-shoe in
your hip pocket, while others wonder just how you got that way. One
minute you wonder if you look and act so that no one could suspect a
swelling of your hat rest and the next moment you're wondering if the
Boss doesn't wonder if you're sufficiently dignified for the place.
All-in-all, Old Top, I'll bet you're in a peculiar state of mind and
will remain so until the odor of mothballs and the price tag wears off.
But, Red--forget it! You know they say that good prize-fighters, or
the best artists on the stage are those who are totally oblivious to
either boos or applause, and forget their audience in the intensity of
their art. You've been handed a real job this time and you should have
neither the time, nor inclination, to do other than put all your energy
and ability into it. Simply because it's a big job, don't think for
a minute that you will not continue to run afoul of some things that
will make that old red-headed temper of yours assert itself, but, Boy,
you'll have to handle it differently than in the old days.
You have heard how certain supposedly big men when irritated used to
chew up lead pencils, turn over the desk and go thru divers forms of
brainstorms, but no, Red--that's fiction--they're not doing it that way
this summer. Do you remember the illustration I gave you one time years
ago when you got all “het up” because a barber had made a positive
appointment with you when you were in a hurry to catch a train and then
broke it, so you had to let the old brush-pile stay on? Remember, I
told you never to get mad at a man who was below you in intelligence
and if that fellow had any intelligence he wouldn't have been a barber?
Well, Red, the old rule will work in the new job--always let the other
fellow do the getting-mad thing; when he does, he'll make a fool of
himself; if you get mad, too, you're getting down to his level.
Stick to the sales end, Red, as long as you're in it, at least. Don't
worry about how poorly the men in the other ends of the business handle
their duties. God in all his infinite wisdom has never yet produced a
genus homo who was capable of personally directing the manufacturing,
selling, advertising and executive ends of any one business. True,
the president of companies like yours does those things, but not
alone, Boy, not alone. He has a lot of high-class men like yourself
specializing and directing certain ends of it. Don't be too big,
however, to detect a good idea or suggestion from those in other ends
of the business. I once knew a great sales manager who got the best
sales lead of his experience from an office boy.
And, Red, be human--keep away from the clouds--keep your feet on
terra firma. From the time of the Man of Galilee who said, “Suffer
little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is
the kingdom of heaven,” great men of all ages and walks of life have
realized that true greatness was marked by humility. Have time, Boy,
to listen to the story of a problem solved that the junior clerk in
the department is just aching to tell you, and, Red, like the other
jobs you have held, be a leader. Now more than ever before must you, by
example and precept, be a real leader of those you captain.
Much of your success will depend upon those with whom you surround
yourself. Be ultra conservative in your selection. It may not have
occurred to you, but in choosing you for the big job those who had
your selection in their power observed pretty carefully whether or not
you had character. Character is the solid foundation of all success;
without it no great heights can be reached and kept.
Boy, I could go on indefinitely, but I must close. Even now, as the
realization of your present age and particularly your position strikes
me anew, I feel a sense of awe. I will not write you this way any
more--I'm done. Henceforth, my letters will be postscripts on the
bottom of Mother's and will only tell of my adventures chasing a
little white ball around a cow pasture. The mantle has fallen on your
broad and worthy shoulders--instead of my telling you what to do, I'm
resigned to have you give me the post-graduate course, for as Kipling
says:
“Tho I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
Your loving,
“DAD.”
_Transcriber's Notes_
A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.
Irregularities in the salutations and signature blocks of the letters
have been normalized to a single form.
Words and phrases with different spacing or hyphenation have been
normalized into a single form.
Archaic spellings have been retained.
Variability in case of "boy" when used as a proper noun have been
standardized to upper.
Mismatched ending quotes for nested quotes have not been changed.