The next morning H. R. called Andrew Barrett into the inner office.
"Shut the door," said he.
Andrew Barrett did so and looked alarmed--alarmed rather than guilty.
"To-morrow, and until further notice," said H. R., sternly, "you will
tell the department-store sandwiches to parade in front of the various
newspaper offices from morning until night."
"But not in Park Row, surely?"
"Exactly! And find out whether the business managers of the various
newspapers have been holding conferences with the managing editors. They
probably will--this afternoon or to-morrow."
"How can I--"
"By paid spies--office-boy scouts. Of course, lady stenographers being
more in your line-- No! Look me in the eye!"
Andrew Barrett blushed and said, feebly:
"I am taking the count, Chief."
"Very well. I shall now go out and do your work. See that you do mine!"
And H. R. went out, leaving Andrew Barrett full of devastating
curiosity.
"I wonder what he has up his sleeve now?" mused young Mr. Barrett. "I'll
bet it's a corker!"
H. R. himself called on the head of one of the most progressive of New
York's great department stores--a man to whom full pages on week-days
were nothing. He, therefore, had heard of H. R., and also had used
sandwiches. He greeted the founder of the S. A. S. A. with respectful
interest. H. R. said, calmly:
"I am here now to make you a present of from ten thousand to fifty
thousand dollars a year--in cash!"
Mr. Liebmann, of course, knew that H. R., though an aristocrat, was
neither a fool nor a lunatic. He diplomatically asked, "And my gratitude
for your kindness may be expressed just how, Mr. Rutgers?"
"By accepting the cash and putting it in your pocket, to have and to
hold until death do you part."
"Mr. Rutgers, I am an old man and suspense is trying." And Mr. Liebmann
smiled deprecatingly.
"I have come to show you how you may save the amount I have mentioned in
your newspaper-advertising appropriation. You big advertisers are now
helpless to help yourself. There are no rebates and you can't play one
paper against the others. Those days are over. Will you hear me to the
end and not go on at half-cock while I am talking?"
"Yes," promised Mr. Liebmann, impetuously.
"Mr. Liebmann, you must write a letter to all the advertising managers
of all the newspapers, saying that you have decided to discontinue all
advertising in the daily papers as soon as your contracts expire. Hold
your horses! Explain that you intend to reach your suburban trade
through the fashion magazines, local papers, and circulars, and that for
Manhattan and Brooklyn you have decided to use sandwiches--Don't talk
yet!"
"I am only listening," Mr. Liebmann hastened to assure him.
"The newspapers know that you are a Napoleonic advertiser. They will pay
to your communication the double compliment of belief and consternation.
They know you know your business and that you are not only ultra-modern,
but a pioneer. You have always been a highly intelligent advertiser. You
will then let me supply you with one hundred of our best men, who will
parade in front of the newspaper-offices in full regalia, and also in
plain sight of your dear friends, the advertising managers. You know
their psychology. Take it from me, you'll win.
"The only thing you mustn't do is to call the reductions rebates. There
is no way by which the papers can get back at you. If I can make New
York feed the hungry, would it be very difficult for me to make the
advertising managers act wisely? Of course, if your letter does not
bring about a saving of not less than ten thousand dollars a year you
will not have to pay a penny for the sandwiches. I wish nothing written
from you. The word of a Liebmann is enough for a Rutgers. My family has
been in New York long enough for you to know whether a Rutgers is a man
of his word or not."
"I'd rather shake hands with you than save a million a year in
advertising," said Mr. Liebmann.
H. R. looked him straight in the eye--suspiciously, incredulously,
insultingly. Mr. Liebmann flushed and then H. R. said, earnestly:
"I believe you, Mr. Liebmann!" and shook hands.
Mr. Liebmann, bareheaded, proudly escorted him to the sidewalk. He
thanked H. R. to the last.
H. R. called on the other liberal advertisers and, with more or less
ease, succeeded in impressing them as he had Mr. Liebmann.
Then he visited the managing editors of all the daily papers. He began
with the best. The managing editor was delighted to see the man he had
helped to make famous.
"I have come," H. R. told him, "to ask a great favor of you. I am, as
you know, very greatly interested in charity work. Your paper has been
good enough to publish my views."
H. R. spoke with a sort of restrained zeal simply, not humorously,
obviously as a one-idea man, a crank, still young and undyspeptic. The
editor prided himself on his quick and accurate insight into character.
He said:
"Oh yes; I know about your work."
"Thank you. Well, sir, I find my usefulness to the cause somewhat
impaired by the persistence with which my name is associated with the
merely commercial phase of sandwiching. You know the sandwich men
commercially were vermin, and I have taught them to pay for their own
food. I took paupers and unpauperized them."
"And the signs in your parade were great. I told them at the Union
League Club that at least one poor man's parade had shown brains. Not a
single threat! Not one complaint! Not one window smashed! Not one
spectator insulted! It showed genius!" And the editor held out his hand.
"I am a Christian, sir," said H. R., gently.
"Well, I'll shake hands, anyhow, if you'll let me," said the editor,
cordially.
H. R. took his hand and looked so embarrassed that the editor would have
sworn he blushed. This was no publicity-seeker, no fake modesty. Yes,
that must be it--a Christian, the kind editors seldom shake hands with.
"And so," continued H. R., earnestly, "if you please, if you would only
tell your reporters not to mention me in connection with sandwiches I
could do more for the cause. You see, what I did with the sandwiches was
merely the entering wedge. I don't want you to think I am complaining of
your reporters, sir; they have been more than kind to me; but if you
could see your way clear to not speaking about sandwiches as though they
were my personal property--"
"You are the man who gave free sandwiches to New York," smiled the
editor, as though he had said something original.
The situation was more serious than H. R. had believed, but he said,
with dignity:
"I made free men of pariahs, sir. That job is finished. The newspapers
have helped nobly; and to-day, thanks to them, charity is brought daily
before their readers."
"But it is less picturesque than your courtship of Miss Goodchild with
sandwiches."
"There were"--and H. R. smiled deprecatingly--"peculiar circumstances
about my personal relations with Mr. Goodchild. Of course, I also
desired to prove to intelligent but not very original business men that
sandwiching is the most effective form of advertising. It is like all
art, sir. The personal quality gives to it a human appeal that no
combination of printed words on a page can have."
"How do you make that out?" asked the editor.
"When you read a play you see the printed words; but when you see the
same play well acted you find that the same words you have read and
liked reach the public through the senses of sight and of hearing as
well as through the intellect, and is thus trebly efficient on the
stage. Now, sandwiching is beyond question the highest form of
commercial advertising. It succeeds even in love! And--"
"I congratulate you," said the editor, heartily.
H. R. looked so serious that the editor found himself saying, with even
greater seriousness, "What you say is extremely interesting."
"I have long studied--in my humble way--the psychology of the crowd. I
have discovered some very interesting things--at least they are
interesting to me, sir," apologized H. R., almost humbly. "I am led to
think, indeed I feel certain, that the art of sandwiching is in its
infancy. The marvelous imagination of the American people, their
resourcefulness and ingenuity, will make the development of artistic
sandwiching one of the most extraordinary commercial phenomena of the
twentieth century. But personally I am not interested in advertising,
sir, except as in this instance as a means to an end. When the result is
reached that is the end of my interest. And so, sir, though I feel
gratitude for the noble work your paper is doing for the cause of
charity, I really and honestly think that less attention should be paid
to the business side of one of our successful experiments with the
submerged tenth, and more to charity itself. Can't you tell your
reporters that sandwiching at union wages has nothing to do with it?"
"News is news," said the editor, shaking his head regretfully. "We print
what is of interest to our readers."
"If your readers were made to think of filling other people's stomachs
instead of their own there would be less dyspepsia--and more
newspaper-readers, sir. It is a discouraging fact that the world appears
to be more concerned over making money than over the unspeakable folly
of dying rich."
"We can do without death more easily than without money," observed the
editor, sententiously.
"Oh no! Death was invented in order to teach men how to live wisely.
This is the only reason why the cessation of the organic functions,
which is life's one great commonplace, has at all times attained to the
dignity of rhetoric. But I am taking your time. I hope you will be good
enough to drop sandwiches and stick to charity. I thank you for your
kindness; and--and," he finished, diffidently, "I should like to shake
hands with you."
He looked appealingly at the editor, who thereupon shook his hand
warmly.
"I'll do what I can for you, Mr. Rutgers. I am very glad to have met
you. Anything we can do to help you in your efforts we shall gladly do.
You are a very remarkable man and you have done greater work than you
seem to realize."
H. R. shook his head vehemently, however, and retired in obvious
confusion.
With a few trifling differences, due to the divers editorial
personalities, he did the same thing to the other managing editors. All
of them thought that none of the reporters really knew what manner of
man H. R. was. Withal, all of them were right. He was a wonder!
On the next morning the eyes of the business managers of the great
metropolitan dailies, morning and evening, were made to glow by
twenty-seven letters from their biggest advertisers. The tenor of the
communications was that, as soon as existing contracts expired, the
twenty-seven biggest would do their urban advertising by means of
S. A. S. A. sandwiches. They expected to reach the suburbs through
fashion journals, circulars, and local media.
The advertising managers smiled, not only at the palpable bluff, but at
the evidence of an infantile conspiracy. Before ten o'clock, however,
the vast crowds in front of their very doors made them swear. Scores of
sandwich men, advertising the said twenty-seven shops and the day's
bargains, were parading up and down, causing said crowds to collect and
to comment audibly and admiringly.
The advertising managers rushed to the managing editors to tell than
that something must be done to prevent their sudden death. The managing
editors, to a man, recalled H. R.'s prophecy of the marvelous growth of
the most effective form of advertising.
"That H. R.," said the managing editor of the _Times_, "is a wizard!"
"You fellows made him," bitterly retorted the business manager. "He's
had more free advertising than I can book in a hundred and ten years!"
"Why, he particularly asked me not to mention sandwiches!"
"Well, by gad, you'd better not!" Then, "What d'ye want?" he snarled at
his first assistant, who came in with a sheet of paper in his right hand
and a look of perplexity in both eyes.
The assistant silently gave him the copy:
ALL THE LEADING SHOPS AND THE BIG DEPARTMENT STORES OF
GREATER NEW YORK ARE USING OUR SANDWICHES. THEY EMPLOY THE
BEST ADVERTISING TALENT IN THE WORLD.
THEIR EXPERTS UNANIMOUSLY HAVE DECIDED THAT SANDWICHING IS
THE HIGHEST FORM OF ADVERTISING YET DISCOVERED. IT IS THE
CHEAPEST WHEN RETURNS AND RESULTS ARE CONSIDERED.