The Book of Business Etiquette Nella Braddy 1295 downloads.pdf

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Book of Business
Etiquette
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The Book of Business Etiquette

Author: Nella Braddy

Release date: October 13, 2007 [eBook #23025]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23025

Credits: Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images from the Home Economics
Archive: Research, Tradition and History, Albert R. Mann
Library, Cornell University)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF
BUSINESS ETIQUETTE ***

The Book of
BUSINESS ETIQUETTE

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

First Edition

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED
(AS BEFITS AN AUTHOR)

TO
THREE BUSINESS MEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
It would be a pleasure to call over by name and thank individually the
business men and the business organizations that so graciously furnished
the material upon which this little book is based. But the author feels that
some of them will not agree with all the statements made and the inferences
drawn, and for this reason is unable to do better than give this meager return
for a service which was by no means meager.

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CHAPTER PAGE

PART I
I The American Business Man 1
II The Value of Courtesy 17
III Putting Courtesy Into Business 40
IV Personality 70
V Table Manners 94
VI Telephones and Front Doors 108
VII Traveling and Selling 130
VIII The Business of Writing 153
IX Morals and Manners 183

PART II
X “Big Business” 209
XI In a Department Store 242
XII A While With a Traveling Man 250
XIII Tables for Two Or More 268
XIV Ladies First? 279

Transcriber's Note: Please note that the book
does not credit an author. The Library of
Congress lists Nella Henney as the author.

PART I

THE BOOK OF
BUSINESS ETIQUETTE
Top

I
THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN

The business man is the national hero of America, as native to the soil
and as typical of the country as baseball or Broadway or big advertising. He
is an interesting figure, picturesque and not unlovable, not so dashing
perhaps as a knight in armor or a soldier in uniform, but he is not without
the noble (and ignoble) qualities which have characterized the tribe of man
since the world began. America, in common with other countries, has had
distinguished statesmen and soldiers, authors and artists—and they have not
all gone to their graves unhonored and unsung—but the hero story which
belongs to her and to no one else is the story of the business man.
Nearly always it has had its beginning in humble surroundings, with a
little boy born in a log cabin in the woods, in a wretched shanty at the edge
of a field, in a crowded tenement section or in the slums of a foreign city,
who studied and worked by daylight and firelight while he made his living
blacking boots or selling papers until he found the trail by which he could
climb to what we are pleased to call success. Measured by the standards of
Greece and Rome or the Middle Ages, when practically the only form of
achievement worth mentioning was fighting to kill, his career has not been
a romantic one. It has had to do not with dragons and banners and trumpets,
but with stockyards and oil fields, with railroads, sewer systems, heat, light,
and water plants, telephones, cotton, corn, ten-cent stores and—we might as
well make a clean breast of it—chewing gum.
We have no desire to crown the business man with a halo, though judging
from their magazines and from the stories which they write of their own
lives, they are almost without spot or blemish. Most of them seem not even
to have had faults to overcome. They were born perfect. Now the truth is
that the methods of accomplishment which the American business man has
used have not always been above reproach and still are not. At the same
time it would not be hard to prove that he—and here we are speaking of the
average—with all his faults and failings (and they are many), with all his

virtues (and he is not without them), is superior in character to the business
men of other times in other countries. This without boasting. It would be a
great pity if he were not.
Without trying to settle the question as to whether he is good or bad (and
he really can be pigeon-holed no better than any one else) we have to accept
this: He is the biggest factor in the American commonwealth to-day. It
follows then, naturally, that what he thinks and feels will color and probably
dominate the ideas and the ideals of the rest of the country. Numbers of our
magazines—and they are as good an index as we have to the feeling of the
general public—are given over completely to the service or the
entertainment of business men (the T. B. M.) and an astonishing amount of
space is devoted to them in most of the others.
It may be, and as a matter of fact constantly is, debated whether all this is
good for the country or not. We shall not go into that. It has certainly been
good for business, and in considering the men who have developed our
industries we have to take them, and maybe it is just as well, as they are and
not as we think they ought to be.
There was a time when the farmer was the principal citizen. And the
politician ingratiated himself with the people by declaring that he too had
split rails and followed the plow, had harvested grain and had suffered from
wet spells and dry spells, low prices, dull seasons, hunger and hardship.
This is still a pretty sure way to win out, but there are others. If he can refer
feelingly to the days when he worked and sweated in a coal mine, in a
printing shop, a cotton, wool, or silk mill, steel or motor plant, he can hold
his own with the ex-farmer's boy. We have become a nation of business
men. Even the “dirt” farmer has become a business man—he has learned
that he not only has to produce, he must find a market for his product.
In comparing the business man of the present with the business man of
the past we must remember that he is living in a more difficult world. Life
was comparatively simple when men dressed in skins and ate roots and had
their homes in scattered caves. They felt no need for a code of conduct
because they felt no need for one another. They depended not on humanity
but on nature, and perhaps human brotherhood would never have come to
have a meaning if nature had not proved treacherous. She gave them berries

and bananas, sunshine and soft breezes, but she gave them trouble also in
the shape of wild beasts, and savages, terrible droughts, winds, and floods.
In order to fight against these enemies, strength was necessary, and when
primitive men discovered that two were worth twice as much as one they
began to join forces. This was the beginning of civilization and of
politeness. It rose out of the oldest instinct in the world—self-preservation.
When men first organized into groups the units were small, a mere
handful of people under a chief, but gradually they became larger and larger
until the nations of to-day have grown into a sort of world community
composed of separate countries, each one supreme in its own domain, but at
the same time bound to the others by economic ties stronger than
sentimental or political ones could ever be. People are now more dependent
on one another than they have ever been before, and the need for
confidence is greater. We cannot depend upon one another unless we can
trust one another.
The American community is in many respects the most complex the
world has ever seen, and the hardest to manage. In other countries the
manners have been the natural result of the national development. The
strong who had risen to the top in the struggle for existence formed
themselves into a group. The weak who stayed at the bottom fell into
another, and the bulk of the populace, which, then as now, came somewhere
in between, fell into a third or was divided according to standards of its
own. Custom solidified the groups into classes which became so
strengthened by years of usage that even when formal distinctions were
broken down the barriers were still too solid for a man who was born into a
certain group to climb very easily into the one above him. Custom also
dictated what was expected of the several classes. Each must be gracious to
those below and deferential to those above. The king, because he was king,
must be regal. The nobility must, noblesse oblige, be magnificent, and as
for the rest of the people, it did not matter much so long as they worked
hard and stayed quiet. There were upheavals, of course, and now and then a
slave with a braver heart and a stouter spirit than his companions incited
them to rebellion. His head was chopped off for his pains and he was
promptly forgotten. The majority of the people for thousands of years
honestly believed that this was the only orderly basis upon which society
could be organized.

Nebulous ideas of a brotherhood, in which each man was to have an
equal chance with every other, burned brightly for a little while in various
parts of the world at different times, and flickered out. They broke forth
with the fury of an explosion in France during the Revolution and in Russia
during the Red Terror. They have smoldered quietly in some places and had
just begun to break through with a steady, even flame. But America struck
the match and gathered the wood to start her own fire. She is the first
country in the world which was founded especially to promote individual
freedom and the brotherhood of mankind. She had, to change the figure
slightly, a blue-print to start with and she has been building ever since.
Her material came from the eastern hemisphere. The nations there at the
time when the United States was settled were at different stages of their
development. Some were vigorous with youth, some were in the height of
their glory, and some were dying because the descendants of the men who
had made them great were futile and incapable. These nations were
different in race and religion, in thought, language, traditions, and
temperament. When they were not quarreling with each other, they were
busy with domestic squabbles. They had kept this up for centuries and were
at it when the settlers landed at Jamestown and later when the Mayflower
came to Plymouth Rock. Yet, with a cheerful disregard of the past and an
almost sublime hope in the future they expected to live happily ever after
they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Needless to add, they did not.
Accident of place cannot change a man's color (though it may bleach it a
shade lighter or tan it a shade darker), nor his religion nor any of the other
racial and inherent qualities which are the result of slow centuries of
development. And the same elements which made men fight in the old
countries set them against each other in the new. Most of the antagonisms
were and are the result of prejudices, foolish narrow prejudices, which,
nevertheless, must be beaten down before we can expect genuine courtesy.
Further complications arose, and are still arising, from the fact that we
did not all get here at the same time. Those who came first have inevitably
and almost unconsciously formulated their own system of manners.
Wherever there is community life and a certain amount of leisure there is a
standard of cultivated behavior. And America, young as she is, has already
accumulated traditions of her own.

It is beyond doubt that the men who came over in the early days were, as
a rule, better timber than the ones who come now. They came to live and
die, if necessary, for a religious or a political principle, for adventure, or
like the debtors in Oglethorpe's colony in Georgia, to wipe clean the slate of
the past and begin life again. To-day they come to make money or because
they think they will find life easier here than it was where they were. And
one of the chief reasons for the discontent and unrest (and, incidentally,
rudeness) which prevails among them is that they find it hard. We are
speaking in general terms. There are glorious exceptions.
The sturdy virtues of the pioneers did not include politeness. They never
do. So long as there is an animal fear of existence man cannot think of
minor elegances. He cannot live by bread alone, but he cannot live at all
without it. Bread must come first. And the Pilgrim Father was too busy
learning how to wring a living from the forbidding rocks of New England
with one hand while he fought off the Indians with the other to give much
time to tea parties and luncheons. Nowhere in America except in the South,
where the leisurely life of the plantations gave opportunity for it, was any
great attention paid to formal courtesy. But everywhere, as soon as the
country had been tamed and prosperity began to peep over the horizon, the
pioneers began to grow polite. They had time for it.
What we must remember—and this is a reason, not an excuse, for bad
manners—is that these new people coming into the country, the present-day
immigrants, are pioneers, and that the life is not an easy one whether it is
lived among a wilderness of trees and beasts in a forest or a wilderness of
men and buildings in a city. The average American brings a good many
charges against the foreigner—some of them justified, for much of the
“back-wash” of Europe and Asia has drifted into our harbor—but he must
remember this: Whatever his opinion of the immigrant may be the fault is
ours—he came into this country under the sanction of our laws. And he is
entitled to fair and courteous treatment from every citizen who lives under
the folds of the American flag.
The heterogeneous mixture which makes up our population is a serious
obstacle (but not an insuperable one) in the way of courtesy, but there is
another even greater. The first is America's problem. The second belongs to
the world.

Material progress has raced so far ahead of mental and spiritual progress
that the world itself is a good many years in advance of the people who are
living in it. Our statesmen ride to Washington in automobiles and sleeping
cars, but they are not vastly preferable to those who went there in
stagecoaches and on horseback. In other words, there has been considerably
more improvement in the vehicles which fill our highways than there has
been in the people who ride in them.
The average man—who is, when all is said and done, the most important
person in the state—has stood still while the currents of science and
invention have swept past him. He has watched the work of the world pass
into the keeping of machines, shining miracles of steel and electricity, and
has forgot himself in worshipping them. Now he is beginning to realize that
it is much easier to make a perfect machine than it is to find a perfect man
to put behind it, and that man himself, even at his worst (and that is pretty
bad) is worth more than anything else in the scheme of created things.
This tremendous change in environment resulting from the
overwhelming domination of machinery has brought about a corresponding
change in manners. For manners consist, in the main, of adapting oneself to
one's surroundings. And the story of courtesy is the story of evolution.
It is interesting to run some of our conventions back to their origin.
Nearly every one of them grew out of a practical desire for lessening
friction or making life pleasanter. The first gesture of courtesy was, no
doubt, some form of greeting by which one man could know another as a
friend and not an enemy. They carried weapons then as habitually as they
carry watches to-day and used them as frequently, so that when a man
approached his neighbor to talk about the prospects of the sugar or berry
crop he held out his right hand, which was the weapon hand, as a sign of
peace. This eventually became the handshake. Raising one's hat is a relic of
the days of chivalry when knights wore helmets which they removed when
they came into the house, both because they were more comfortable without
them and because it showed their respect for the ladies, whom it was their
duty to serve. And nearly every other ceremony which has lasted was based
on common sense. “Etiquette,” as Dr. Brown has said, “with all its
littlenesses and niceties, is founded upon a central idea of right and wrong.”

The word “courtesy” itself did not come into the language until late
(etiquette came even later) and then it was used to describe the polite
practices at court. It was wholly divorced from any idea of character, and
the most fastidious gentlemen were sometimes the most complete
scoundrels. Even the authors of books of etiquette were men of great
superficial elegance whose moral standards were scandalously low. One of
them, an Italian, was banished from court for having published an indecent
poem and wrote his treatise on polite behavior while he was living in
enforced retirement in his villa outside the city. It was translated for the
edification of the young men of England and France and served as a
standard for several generations. Another, an Englishman, spent the later
years of his life writing letters to his illegitimate son, telling him exactly
how to conduct himself in the courtly (and more or less corrupt) circles to
which his noble rank entitled him. The letters were bound into a fat, dreary
volume which still sits on the dust-covered shelves of many a library, and
the name of the author has become a synonym for exquisite manners.
Influential as he was in his own time, however, neither he nor any of the
others of the early arbiters of elegance could set himself up as a dictator of
what is polite to American men, of no matter what class, and get by with it.
Not very far by, at any rate.
It is impossible now to separate courtesy and character. Politeness is a
fundamental, not a superficial, thing. It is the golden rule translated into
terms of conduct. It is not a white-wash which, if laid on thick enough, will
cover every defect. It is a clear varnish which shows the texture and grain of
the wood beneath. In the ideal democracy the ideal citizen is the man who is
not only incapable of doing an ungallant or an ungracious thing, but is
equally incapable of doing an unmanly one. There is no use lamenting the
spacious days of long ago. Wishing for them will not bring them back. Our
problem is to put the principles of courtesy into practice even in this hurried
and hectic Twentieth Century of ours. And since the business man is in
numbers, and perhaps in power also, the most consequential person in the
country, it is of most importance that he should have a high standard of
behavior, a high standard of civility, which includes not only courtesy but
everything which has to do with good citizenship.
We have no desire for candy-box courtesy. It should be made of sterner
stuff. Nor do we care for the sort which made the polite Frenchman say,

“Excusez-moi” when he stabbed his adversary. We can scarcely hope just
yet to attain to the magnificent calm which enabled Marie Antoinette to say,
“I'm sorry. I did not do it on purpose,” when she stepped on the foot of her
executioner as they stood together on the scaffold, or Lord Chesterfield,
gentleman to the very end, to say, “Give Dayrolles a chair” when his
physician came into the room in which he lay dying. But we do want
something that will enable us to live together in the world with a minimum
degree of friction.
The best of us get on one another's nerves, even under ordinary
conditions, and it takes infinite pains and self-control to get through a trying
day in a busy office without striking sparks somewhere. If there is a secret
of success, and some of the advertisements seem trying to persuade us that
it is all secret, it is the ability to work efficiently and pleasantly with other
people. The business man never works alone. He is caught in the clutches of
civilization and there is no escape. He is like a man climbing a mountain
tied to a lot of other men climbing the same mountain. What each one does
affects all the others.
We do not want our people to devote themselves entirely to the art of
being agreeable. If we could conceive of a world where everybody was
perfectly polite and smiling all the time we should hardly like to live in it. It
is human nature not to like perfection, and most of us, if brought face to
face with that model of behavior, Mr. Turveydrop, who spent his life
serving as a pattern of deportment, would sympathize with the delightful
old lady who looked at him in the full flower of his glory and cried
viciously (but under her breath) “I could bite you!”
When Pope Benedict XI sent a messenger to Giotto for a sample of his
work the great artist drew a perfect circle with one sweep of his arm and
gave it to the boy. Before his death Giotto executed many marvelous works
of art, not one of them perfect, not even the magnificent bell tower at
Florence, but all of them infinitely greater than the circle. It is better,
whether one is working with bricks or souls, to build nobly than to build
perfectly.

Top

II
THE VALUE OF COURTESY

Every progressive business man will agree with the successful Western
manufacturer who says that “courtesy can pay larger dividends in
proportion to the effort expended than any other of the many human
characteristics which might be classed as Instruments of Accomplishment.”
But this was not always true. In the beginning “big business” assumed an
arrogant, high-handed attitude toward the public and rode rough-shod over
its feelings and rights whenever possible. This was especially the case
among the big monopolies and public service corporations, and much of the
antagonism against the railroads to-day is the result of the methods they
used when they first began to lay tracks and carry passengers. Nor was this
sort of thing limited to the large concerns. Small business consisted many
times of trickery executed according to David Harum's motto of “Do unto
the other feller as he would like to do unto you, but do him fust.” The public
is a long-suffering body and the business man is a hard-headed one, but
after a while the public began to realize that it was not necessary to put up
with gross rudeness and the business man began to realize that a policy of
pleasantness was much better than the “treat 'em rough” idea upon which he
had been acting. He deserves no special credit for it. It was as simple and as
obvious a thing as putting up an umbrella when it is raining.
People knew, long before this enlightened era of ours, that politeness had
value. In one of the oldest books of good manners in the English language a
man with “an eye to the main chance” advised his pupils to cultivate
honesty, gentleness, propriety, and deportment because they paid. But it has
not been until recently that business men as a whole have realized that
courtesy is a practical asset to them. Business cannot be separated from
money and there is no use to try. Men work that they may live. And the
reason they have begun to develop and exploit courtesy is that they have
discovered that it makes for better work and better living. Success, they
have learned, in spite of the conspicuous wealth of several magnates who

got their money by questionable means, depends upon good will and good
will depends upon the square deal courteously given.
The time is within the memory of living men, and very young men at
that, when the idea of putting courtesy into business dealings sprang up, but
it has taken hold remarkably. When the Hudson Tubes were opened not
quite a decade and a half ago Mr. McAdoo inaugurated what was at that
time an almost revolutionary policy. He took the motto, “The Public be
Pleased,” instead of the one made famous by Mr. Vanderbilt, and posted it
all about, had pamphlets distributed, and made a speech on courtesy in
railroad management and elsewhere. Since that time, not altogether because
of the precedent which had been established, but because people were
beginning to realize that with this new element creeping into business the
old régime had to die because it could not compete with it, there have been
all sorts of courtesy campaigns among railroad and bus companies, and
even among post office and banking employees, to mention only two of the
groups notorious for haughty and arrogant behavior. The effects of a big
telephone company have been so strenuous and so well planned and
executed that they are reserved for discussion in another chapter.
Mr. McAdoo tells a number of charming stories which grew out of the
Hudson Tubes experiment. One day during a political convention when he
was standing in the lobby of a hotel in a certain city a jeweler came over to
him after a slight moment of hesitation, gave him one of his cards and said,
“Mr. McAdoo, I owe you a great debt of gratitude. For that,” he added,
pointing to “The Public be Pleased” engraved in small letters on the card
just above his name. “I was in New York the day the tunnel was opened,”
he continued, “and I heard your speech, and said to myself that it might be a
pretty good idea to try that in the jewelry trade. And would you believe it,
my profits during the first year were more than fifty per cent bigger than
they were the year before?” And we venture to add that the jeweler was
more than twice as happy and that it was not altogether because there was
more money in his coffers.
Mr. McAdoo is a man with whom courtesy is not merely a policy: it is a
habit as well. He places it next to integrity of character as a qualification for
a business man, and he carries it into every part of his personal activity, as
the statesmen and elevator boys, waiters and financiers, politicians and

stenographers with whom he has come into contact can testify. “I never
have a secretary,” he says, “who is not courteous, no matter what his other
qualifications may be.” During the past few years Mr. McAdoo has been
placed in a position to be sought after by all kinds of people, and in nearly
every instance he has given an interview to whoever has asked for it. “I
have always felt,” we quote him again, “that a public servant should be as
accessible to the public as possible.” Courtesy with him, as with any one
else who makes it a habit, has a cumulative effect. The effect cannot always
be traced as in the case of the jeweler or in the story given below in which
money plays a very negligible part, but it is always there.
On one occasion—this was when he was president of the Hudson
Railroad—Mr. McAdoo was on his way up to the Adirondacks when the
train broke down. It was ill provided for such a catastrophe, there was no
dining car, only a small buffet, and the wait was a long and trying one.
When Mr. McAdoo after several hours went back to the buffet to see if he
could get a cup of coffee and some rolls he found the conductor almost
swamped by irate passengers who blamed him, in the way that passengers
will, for something that was no more his fault than theirs. The conductor
glanced up when Mr. McAdoo came in, expecting him to break into an
explosion of indignation, but Mr. McAdoo said, “Well, you have troubles
enough already without my adding to them.”
The conductor stepped out of the group. “What did you want, sir?” he
asked.
“Why, nothing, now,” Mr. McAdoo responded. “I did want a cup of
coffee, but never mind about it.”
“Come into the smoker here,” the conductor said. “Wait a minute.”
The conductor disappeared and came back in a few minutes with coffee,
bread, and butter. Mr. McAdoo thanked him warmly, gave him his card and
told him that if he ever thought he could do anything for him to let him
know. The conductor looked at the card.
“Are you the president of the Hudson Railroad?”
“Yes.”

“Well, maybe there's something you can do for me now. There are two
men out here who say they are going to report me for what happened this
morning. You know how things have been, and if they do, I wish you would
write to headquarters and explain. I'm in line for promotion and you know
what a black mark means in a case like that.”
Mr. McAdoo assured him that he would write if it became necessary. The
men were bluffing, however, and the complaint was never sent in.
Apparently the incident was closed.
Several years later Mr. McAdoo's son was coming down from the
Adirondacks when he lost his Pullman ticket. He did not discover the fact
until he got to the station, and then he had no money and no time to get any
by wire before the train left. He went to the conductor, explained his
dilemma, and told him that if he would allow him to ride down to the city
his father, who was to meet him at the Grand Central station, would pay
him for the ticket. The conductor liked the youngster—perhaps because
there was something about him that reminded him of his father, for as
chance would have it, the conductor was the same one who had brought Mr.
McAdoo the coffee and bread in the smoking car so many months before.
“Who is your father?” he asked.
“Mr. McAdoo.”
“President of the Hudson Railroad?”
“Yes.”
“Boy, you can have the train!”
So far as monetary value of courtesy is concerned we might recount
hundreds of instances where a single act of politeness brought in thousands
of dollars. Only the other morning the papers carried the story of a man who
thirty years ago went into a tailor's shop with a ragged tear in his trousers
and begged the tailor to mend it and to trust him for the payment which
amounted to fifty cents. The tailor agreed cheerfully enough and the man
went his way, entered business and made a fortune. He died recently and
left the tailor fifty thousand dollars. Not long before that there was a story
of an old woman who came to New York to visit her nephew—it was to be

a surprise—and lost her bearings so completely when she got into the
station that she was about ready to turn around and go back home when a
very polite young man noticed her bewilderment. He offered his services,
called a taxi and deposited her in front of her nephew's door in half an hour.
She took his name and address and a few days later he received a check
large enough to enable him to enter the Columbia Law School. A banker is
fond of telling the story of an old fellow who came into his bank one day in
a suit of black so old that it had taken on a sickly greenish tinge. He fell into
the hands of a polite clerk who answered all his questions—and there were
a great many of them—clearly, patiently, and courteously. The old man
went away but came back in a day or so with $300,000 which he placed on
deposit. “I did have some doubts,” he said, “but this young man settled
them all.” Word of it went to people in authority and the clerk was
promoted.
Now it is pleasant to know that these good people were rewarded as they
deserved to be. We would be very happy if we could promise a like reward
to every one who is similarly kind, but it is no use. The little words of love
and the little deeds of kindness go often without recompense so far as we
can see, except that they happify the world, but that in itself is no small
return.
Courtesy pays in dollars and cents but its value goes far beyond that. It is
the chief element in building good will—we are speaking now of courtesy
as an outgrowth of character—and good will is to a firm what honor is to a
man. He can lose everything else but so long as he keeps his honor he has
something to build with. In the same way a business can lose all its material
assets and can replace them with insurance money or something else, but if
it loses its good will it will find in ninety cases out of a hundred that it is
gone forever and that the business itself has become so weakened that there
is nothing left but to reorganize it completely and blot out the old institution
altogether.
One must not make the mistake of believing that good will can be built
on courtesy alone. Courtesy must be backed up by something more solid.
An excellent comparison to show the relation that good manners bear to
uprightness and integrity of character was drawn a number of years ago by
a famous Italian prelate. We shall paraphrase the quaint English of the

original translator. “Just as men do commonly fear beasts that are cruel and
wild,” he says, “and have no manner of fear of little ones such as gnats and
flies, and yet because of the continual nuisance which they find them,
complain more of these than they do of the other: so most men hate the
unmannerly and untaught as much as they do the wicked, and more. There
is no doubt that he who wishes to live, not in solitary and desert places, like
a hermit, but in fellowship with men, and in populous cities, will find it a
very necessary thing, to have skill to put himself forth comely and seemly
in his fashions, gestures, and manners: the lack of which do make other
virtues lame.”
Granting dependability of character, courtesy is the next finest business
builder an organization can have. One of the largest trust companies in the
world was built up on this hypothesis. A good many years ago the man who
is responsible for its growth was cashier in a “busted” bank in a small city.
The situation was a desperate one, for the bank could not do anything more
for its customers than it was already doing. It could not give them more
interest on their money and most of its other functions were mechanical.
The young cashier began to wonder why people went to one bank in
preference to another and in his own mind drew a comparison between the
banking and the clothing business. He always went to the haberdasher who
treated him best. Other men he knew did the same thing. Would not the
same principle work in a bank? Would not people come to the place which
gave them the best service? He decided to try it. Not only would they give
efficient service, they would give it pleasantly. It was their last card but it
was a trump. It won. The bank began to prosper. People who were annoyed
by rude, brusque, or indifferent treatment in other banks came to this one.
The cashier was raised to a position of importance and in an incredibly
short time was made president of a trust company in New York. He carried
with him exactly the same principle that had worked so well in the little
bank and the result in the big one was exactly the same.
In a leaflet which is in circulation among the employees at this institution
there are these paragraphs:
We ask you to remember:
That our customers can get along without us.

(There are in Greater New York nearly one hundred banks and trust
companies, every one of them actively seeking business.)
We cannot get along without our customers.
A connection which, perhaps, it has taken us several months to establish,
can be terminated by one careless or discourteous act.
Our customers are asked to maintain balances of certain proportions. If
they wish to borrow money, they must deposit collateral. They must repay
loans when they mature; or arrange for their extension.
If a bank errs, it must err on the side of safety, for the money it loans is
not its own money but the money of its depositors. We (and every other
bank and trust company) operate almost entirely on money which our
customers have deposited with us. The least we can do, then, is to serve
them courteously. They really are our employers.
Ours is a semi-public institution.
Every day, men try to interest us in matters with which we have no
concern. It is our duty to tell these men, very courteously, why their
proposals do not appeal to us. But they are entitled to a hearing. It may be
that they are not in a position to benefit us, and never will be. But almost
every man can harm us, if he tries to do so. And a pleasantly expressed
declination invariably makes a better impression than a favor grudgingly
granted. We ask you, then, to remember that our growth—and your
opportunities—depend not only upon the friends we make, but the enemies
we do not make.
Remember names and faces. Do something, say something that will bring
home to those who do business with us the fact that the Blank Trust
Company is a very human institution—that it wants the good will of every
man and woman in the country.
That is the kind of courtesy which has builded this particular
organization. It is a pleasure to visit it to-day because of the spirit of
coöperation which animates it. They have done away with the elaborate spy
systems in use in so many banks, although they keep the management well
enough in hand to be able to fasten the blame for mistakes upon the right

person. The employees work with one another and with the president,
whom they adore. It is, as a matter of fact, largely the influence of the
personality of the president filtering down through the ranks which has
made possible the phenomenal success which the institution has enjoyed
during the past few years, another proof of the fact that every institution—
and Emerson was speaking of great institutions when he said it—“is the
lengthened shadow of one man.”
Banks have almost a peculiar problem. Money is a mighty power, and to
the average person there is something very awesome about the place where
it is kept. Mr. Stephen Leacock is not the only man who ever went into a
bank with a funny little guilty feeling even when he had money in it. When
one is in this frame of mind it takes very little on the part of the clerk to
make him believe that he has been treated rudely. Bank clerks are
notoriously haughty, but the fault is often as much in the person on the
outside as in the one on the inside of the bars, especially when he has come
in to draw out money which he knows he should not, such as his savings
bank account, for instance. The other day a young man went into a savings
bank to draw out all of his money for a purpose which he knew was
extravagant although he had persuaded himself that it was not. Throughout
the whole time he was in the bank he was treated with perfect courtesy, but
in spite of it he came out growling about “the dirty look the paying teller
gave him!”
It is not only in the first contact that civility is important. Eternal
vigilance is the price of success as well as of liberty. Another incident from
the banking business illustrates this. Several years ago a bank which had
been steadily losing customers called in a publicity expert to build up trade
for them. The man organized a splendid campaign and things started off
with a flourish. People began to come in most gratifying numbers. But they
did not stay. An investigation conducted by the publicity man disclosed the
fact that they had been driven away by negligent and discourteous service.
He went to the president of the bank and told him that he was wasting
money building up advertising so long as his bank maintained its present
attitude toward the public. The president was a man of practical sense.
There was a general clearing up, those who were past reform were
discharged and those who stayed were given careful training in what good

breeding meant and there was no more trouble. Advertising will bring in a
customer but it takes courtesy to keep him.
Business, like nearly everything else, is easier to tear down than to build
up, and one of the most devastating instruments of destruction is
discourtesy. A contact which has taken years to build can be broken off by
one snippy letter, one pert answer, or one discourteous response over the
telephone. Even collection letters, no matter how long overdue the accounts
are, bring in more returns when they are written with tact and diplomacy
than when these two qualities are omitted. If you insult a man who owes
you money he feels that the only way he can get even is not to pay you, and
in most cases, he can justify himself for not doing it.
Within the organization itself a courteous attitude on the part of the men
in positions of authority toward those beneath them is of immense
importance. Sap rises from the bottom, and a business has arrived at the
point of stagnation when the men at the top refuse to listen to or help those
around them. It is, as a rule, however, not the veteran in commercial affairs
but the fledgling who causes most trouble by his bad manners. Young men,
especially young men who have been fortunate in securing material
advantages, too many times look upon the world as an accident placed here
for their personal enjoyment. It never takes long in business to relieve their
minds of this delusion, but they sometimes accomplish a tremendous
amount of damage before it happens. For a pert, know-it-all manner
coupled with the inefficiency which is almost inseparable from a total lack
of experience is not likely to make personal contacts pleasant. Every young
man worth his salt believes that he can reform the world, but every old man
who has lived in it knows that it cannot be done. Somewhere half way
between they meet and say, “We'll keep working at it just the same,” and
then business begins to pick up. But reaching the meeting ground takes
tolerance and patience and infinite politeness from both sides.
“It is the grossest sort of incivility,” the quotation is not exact, for we do
not remember the source, “to be contemptuous of any kind of knowledge.”
And herein lies the difficulty between the hard-headed business man of
twenty years' experience and the youngster upon whose diploma the ink has
not yet dried. “Ignorance,” declares a man who has spent his life in trying to
draw capital and labor together and has succeeded in hundreds of factories,

“is the cause of all trouble.” And a lack of understanding, which is a form of
ignorance, is the cause of nearly all discourtesy.
So long as there is discourtesy in the world there must be protection
against it, and the best, cheapest, and easiest means of protection is courtesy
itself. Boats which are in constant danger of being run into, such as the tug
and ferry boats in a busy harbor, are fitted out with buffers or fenders which
are as much a part of their equipment as the smokestack, and in many cases,
as necessary. Ocean liners carry fenders to be thrown over the side when
there is need for them, but this naturally is not as often as in more crowded
waters. A single boat on a deserted sea with nothing but sea-gulls and flying
fish in sight cannot damage any one besides herself. But the moment she
enters a harbor she has to take into account every other vessel in it from the
Aquitania to the flat-bottomed row-boat with only one man in it. It is a
remarkable fact that most of the boats that are injured or sunk by collision
are damaged by vessels much smaller than themselves. Most of these
accidents (this statement is given on the authority of an able seaman) could
have been prevented by the use of a fender thrown over the side at the
proper moment. Politeness is like this. It is the finest shock absorber in the
world, as essential from an economic point of view as it is pleasant from a
social one. In business there is no royal isolation. We are all ferry boats. We
need our shock absorbers every minute of the day.
No boat has a right to run into another, but they do it just the same, and a
shock absorber is worth all the curses the captain and the crew can
pronounce, however righteous their indignation toward the offending
vessel. Sometimes politeness is better than justice.
Most of the causes of irritation during the course of a business day are
too petty to bother about. Many of them could be ignored and a good many
more could be laughed at. A sense of humor and a sense of proportion
would do away with ninety per cent of all the wrangling in the world. Some
one has said, and not without truth, that a highly developed sense of humor
would have prevented the World War. Too many people use sledge-
hammers when tack hammers would do just as well. They belong in the
same company with William Jay whose immortal epitaph bears these
words:

Here lies the body of William Jay
Who died maintaining his right of way.
He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong.

Courtesy is restful. A nervous frenzy of energy throughout the day leaves
one at sunset as exhausted as a punctured balloon. The fussy little fellow
who fancies himself rushed to death, who has no time to talk with anybody,
who cannot be polite to his stenographer and his messenger boys because
he is in such a terrible hurry, is dissipating his energy into something that
does not matter and using up the vitality which should go into his work. He
is very like the engine which President Lincoln was so fond of telling about
which used so much steam in blowing its whistle that every time it did it it
had to stop.
The Orientals manage things better than we do. “We tried hurrying two
thousand years ago,” a banker in Constantinople said to a tired American
business man, “and found that it did not pay. So we gave it up.” There is
always time to be polite, and though it sounds like a contradiction, there
will be more time to spare if one devotes a part of his day to courtesy.
But there is danger in too much courtesy. Every virtue becomes a vice if
it is carried too far, and frank rudeness is better than servility or hypocrisy.
Commercial greed, there is no other name for it, leads a firm to adopt some
such idiotic motto as “the customer is always right.” No organization could
ever live up to such a policy, and the principle back of it is undemocratic,
un-American, unsound and untrue. The customer is not always right and the
employer in a big (or little) concern who places girls (department stores are
the chief sinners in this) on the front line of approach with any such
instructions is a menace to self-respecting business. America does not want
a serving class with a “king-can-do-no-wrong” attitude toward the public.
Business is service, not servility, and courtesy works both ways. There is no
more sense in business proclaiming that the customer is always right than
there would be in a customer declaring that business is always right, and no
more truth.
No good business man will argue with a customer, or anybody else, not
only because it is bad policy to do so, but because his self-respect will not

allow it. He will give and require from his employees courteous treatment
toward his customers, and when doubt arises he will give them (the
customers) the benefit of it. And he will always remember that he is dealing
with an intelligent human being. The customer has a right to expect a firm
to supply him with reliable commodities and to do it pleasantly, but he has
no right to expect it to prostrate itself at his feet in order to retain his trade,
however large that trade may be.
Too little has been said about courtesy on the part of the customer and the
public—that great headless mass of unrelated particles. Business is service,
we say, and the master is the public, the hardest one in the world to serve.
Each one of us speaks with more or less pitying contempt of the public,
forgetting that we ourselves are the public and that the sum total of the good
breeding, intelligence, and character of the public can be no greater than
that of the individuals who make it up.
“Sid,” of the American Magazine, says that he once asked the manager of
a circus which group of his employees he had most trouble keeping. Quite
unexpectedly the man replied, “The attendants. They get ‘sucker-sore’ and
after that they are no good.” This is how it happens. The wild man from
Borneo is placed in a cage with a placard attached bearing in big letters the
legend “The Wild Man from Borneo.” An old farmer comes to the circus,
looks at the wild man from Borneo in his cage, reads the placard, looks at
the attendant, “Is this the wild man from Borneo?” he asks. No human
being can stand an unlimited amount of this sort of thing, and the attendant,
after he has explained some hundred thousand or so times that this really is
the wild man from Borneo begins to lose his zest for it and to answer
snappishly and sarcastically. An infinite supply of courtesy would, of
course, be a priceless asset to him, but does not this work both ways? What
right have people to bother other people with perfectly foolish and imbecile
questions? Is there any one who cannot sympathize with a “sucker-sore”
attendant? And with the people who are stationed about for the purpose of
answering questions almost anywhere? There are not many of us who at one
time and another have not had the feeling that we were on the wrong train
even after we had asked the man who sold us the ticket, the man who
punched it at the gate, the guard who was standing near the entrance, and
the guard who was standing near the train, the porter, the conductor, and the
news-butcher if it was the right one and have had an affirmative answer

from every one of them. How many times can a man be expected to answer
such a question with a smile? For those who are exposed to “suckers” the
best advice is to be as gentle with them as possible, to grit your teeth and
hold your temper even when the ninety-thousandth man comes through to
ask if this is the right train. For the “suckers” themselves there are only two
words of advice. They include all the rest: Stop it.
It is impossible to tell what the value of courtesy is. Perhaps some day
the people who have learned to measure our minds will be able to tell us
just what a smile is worth. Maybe they can tell us also what Spring is worth,
and what happiness is worth. Meanwhile we do not know. We only know
that they are infinitely precious.

Top

III
PUTTING COURTESY INTO BUSINESS

We talk a great deal about gentlemen and about democracy and a good
many other words which describe noble conceptions without a very clear
idea of what they mean. The biggest mistake we make is in thinking of
them as something stationary like a monument carved in granite or a stone
set upon a hill, when the truth is that they are living ideas subject to the
change and growth of all living things. No man has ever yet become a
perfect gentleman because as his mind has developed his conception of
what a gentleman is has enlarged, just as no country has ever become a
perfect democracy because each new idea of freedom has led to broader
ideas of freedom. It is very much like walking through a tunnel. At first
there is only darkness, and then a tiny pin point of light ahead which grows
wider and wider as one advances toward it until, finally, he stands out in the
open with the world before him. There is no end to life, and none to human
development, at least none that can be conceived of by the finite mind of
man.
There are hundreds of definitions of a gentleman, none of them
altogether satisfactory. Cardinal Newman says it is almost enough to say
that he is one who never gives pain. “They be the men,” runs an old
chronicle, “whom their race and bloud, or at the least, their virtues, do make
noble and knowne.” Barrow declares that they are the men lifted above the
vulgar crowd by two qualities: courage and courtesy. The Century
Dictionary, which is as good an authority as any, says, “A gentleman is a
man of good breeding, courtesy, and kindness; hence, a man distinguished
for fine sense of honor, strict regard for his obligations, and consideration
for the rights and feelings of others.” And this is a good enough working
standard for anybody. The Dictionary is careful to make—and this is
important—a gentleman not one who conforms to an outward and
conventional standard, but one who follows an inward and personal ideal.

Of late days there has been a great deal of attention paid to making
gentlemen of business men and putting courtesy into all the ramifications of
business. Without doubt the chief reason for it is the fact that business men
themselves have discovered that it pays. One restaurant frankly adopted the
motto, “Courtesy Pays,” and had it all fixed up with gilt letters and framed
and hung it near the front door, and a number of other places have exactly
the same policy for exactly the same reason though they do not all proclaim
the fact so boldly. It is not the loftiest motive in the world but it is an
intelligent one, and it is better for a man to be polite because he hopes to
win success that way than for him not to be polite at all.
Human conduct, even at its best, is not always inspired by the highest
possible motives. Not even the religions which men have followed have
been able to accomplish this. Most of them have held out the hope of
heavenly reward in payment for goodness here on earth and countless
millions of men (and women, too, for that matter) have kept in the straight
and narrow path because they were afraid to step out of it. It may be that
they were, intrinsically, no better men than the ones who trod the primrose
path to the everlasting bonfire, but they were much easier to live with. And
the man who is courteous, who is a gentleman, whatever his motives, is a
more agreeable citizen than the one who is not.
Now how—this is our problem—does one go about making a gentleman?
Environment plays, comparatively speaking, a very small part. “The
appellation of gentleman,” this is from a gentleman of the Seventeenth
Century, “is not to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior
in them.” It is extremely doubtful if courtesy can be taught by rule. It is
more a matter of atmosphere, and an instinct “for the better side of things
and the cleaner surfaces of life.” And yet, heredity, training, and
environment all enter into the process.
It is a polite and pleasant fiction that courtesy is innate and not acquired,
and we hear a great deal about the “born lady” and the “born gentleman.”
They are both myths. Babies are not polite, and the “king upon 'is throne
with 'is crown upon 'is 'ead” has had, if he is a gentleman, life-long training
in the art of being one. There is still in existence a very interesting outline
which was given by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to their oldest son,
the Prince of Wales, on his seventeenth birthday. It contained a careful

summary of what was expected of him as a Christian gentleman and
included such items as dress, appearance, deportment, relations with other
people, and ability to acquit himself well in whatever company he happened
to be thrown.
The King and Queen, although they were probably unaware of the fact,
were acting upon the advice of an authority on good manners at court a
number of years before their time. “Indeed,” says the old manuscript, “from
seven to seventeen young gentlemen commonly are carefully enough
brought up: but from seventeen to seven-and-twenty (the most dangerous
time of all a man's life, and the most slippery to stay well in) they have
commonly the rein of all license in their own hand, and specially such as do
live in the court.” If we bring the sentence up to date, and it is as true now
as it was then, we may substitute “business” for “court.” Business men as
well as courtiers find the ages between seventeen and seven-and-twenty
“the most slippery to stay well in” for it is during these years that they are
establishing themselves in the commercial world. As a general thing, but it
is wise to remember that there is no rule to which there are not exceptions,
by the time a man is twenty-seven his habits are formed and it is too late to
acquire new ones.
Most children undergo a painstaking and more or less painful course of
instruction in good manners and know by the time they are men and women
what should be done whether they do it or not. Our social code is not a
complicated one, and there is no excuse except for the youngsters who have
just growed up like Topsy or have been brought up by jerks like Pip. It is,
without doubt, easier to be polite among people who are naturally courteous
than among those who snap and snarl at one another, but it is a mistake to
place too much emphasis on this part of it. Too many men—business men,
at that—have come up out of the mire for us to be able to offer elaborate
apologies for those who have stayed in it. The background is of minor
importance. A cockroach is a cockroach anywhere you put him.
It is easy to envy the men who have had superior advantages, and many a
man feels that if he had another's chance he, too, might have become a great
gentleman. It is an idle speculation. His own opportunities are the only ones
any man can attend to, and if he is sensible he will take quick advantage of
those that come, not in dreams, but in reality, and will remember what a

very sagacious English statesman said about matters of even graver import:
“It makes no difference where you are going. You've got to start from where
you are.”
The lack of early training is a handicap but not a formidable one,
especially to a business man. As the Spaniards say, there is little curiosity
about the pedigree of a good man. And no man needs to be ashamed of his
origin. The president of a firm would naturally be interested in the ancestry
of a young man who came to ask him for the hand of his daughter, but if the
man has come to sell a bill of goods he does not care a snap. In discussions
of the social evil it is often said that every child has a right to be well born,
but Robert Louis Stevenson saw more deeply and spoke more truly when he
said, “We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know it; blessed those
who remember.”
The finest Gentleman the world has ever seen was born some two
thousand years ago to the wife of a carpenter in Bethlehem and spent most
of His time among fishermen, tax-collectors, cripples, lepers, and outcasts
of various sorts; and yet in the entire record of His short and troubled life
there is not one mention of an ungraceful or an ungainly action. He was
careful to observe even the trivialities of social life. Mary and Martha were
quarreling before dinner. He quieted them with a few gracious words. The
people at the marriage feast at Cana were worried because they had only
water to drink. He touched it and gave them wine. The multitude who came
to hear Him were tired, footsore, and hungry. He asked them to be seated
and gave them food. He dined with the Pharisees, He talked with the
women of Samaria, He comforted Mary Magdalen, and He washed the feet
of His disciples. He was beset and harassed by a thousand rude and
unmannerly questions, but not once did He return an impatient answer.
Surely these things are godlike and divine whatever one may believe about
the relation of Jesus Christ to God, the Father.
It has been said that every man should choose a gentleman for his father.
He should also choose a gentleman for his employer. Unfortunately he often
has no more option in the one than he has in the other. Very few of us get
exactly what we want. But however this may be, a gentleman at the head of
a concern is a priceless asset. The atmosphere of most business houses is
determined by the man at the top. His character filters down through the

ranks. If he is a rough-and-tumble sort of person the office is likely to be
that kind of place; if he is quiet and mannerly the chances are that the office
will be quiet and mannerly. If he is a gentleman everybody in the place will
know it and will feel the effects of it. “I am always glad John was with Mr.
Blank his first year in business,” said a mother speaking of her son. Mr.
Blank was a man who had a life-long reputation for being as straight as a
shingle and as clean as a hound's tooth, every inch a gentleman.
“How do you account for the fact that you have come to place so much
emphasis on courtesy?” a business man was asked one day as he sat in his
upholstered office with great windows opening out on the New York harbor.
He thought for a moment, and his mind went back to the little Georgia
village where he was born and brought up. “My father was a gentleman,” he
answered. “I remember when I was a boy he used to be careful about such
trifles as this: ‘Now, Jim,’ he would say, ‘when you stop on the sidewalk
don't stop in the middle of it. Stand aside so you won't be in anybody's
way.’ And even now,” the man smiled, “I never stop on the sidewalk
without stepping to one side so as to be out of the way.”
The life of a young person is plastic, easy to take impressions, strong to
retain them. And the “old man” or the “governor,” whether he is father,
friend, or employer, or all three, has infinitely more influence than either he
or the young man realizes. At the same time it is perfectly true that young
people do not believe what older ones tell them about life. They have to try
it out for themselves. One generation does not begin where the other left
off. Each one of us begins at the beginning, and the world, with all that it
holds, is as wonderful (though slightly different, to be sure) and as new to
the child who is born into it to-day as it was to Adam on the first morning
after it was created.
It is almost tragic that so many young men take the tenor of their lives
from that of their employers, especially if the latter have been successful.
This places a terrific responsibility upon the employer which does not,
however, shift it from the employee. His part in business or in life—and this
is true of all of us—is what he makes it, great or small. And the most
important thing is for him to have a personal ideal of what he thinks best
and hold to it. He cannot get it from the outside.

“Courtesy is not one of the company's rules,” wrote the manager of a
large organization which has been very successful in handling men and
making money. “It is a tradition, an instinct. It is an attribute of the general
tone, of the dominating influence of the management in all its relations. It is
a part of the general tone, the honor, the integrity of the company. For three
generations it has been looked upon as an inheritance to be preserved and
kept irreproachable. Employees are drawn into this influence by the very
simple process of their own development. Those who find themselves in
harmony with the character of the company or who deliberately put
themselves in tune, progress. Those who do not, cannot, for long, do
congenial or acceptable service.” This is the statement from the manager of
a firm that is widely known for courteous dealing. Their standard is now
established. It is a part of the atmosphere, and their chief problem is to get
men who will fit into it.
An employer does not judge a man on an abstract basis. He takes him
because he thinks he will be useful to his business. This is why most places
like to get men when they are young. They are easier to train.
Every one likes good material to work with, and employers are no
exception. They take the best they can find, and the higher the standard of
the firm the greater the care expended in choosing the employees.
“Whenever we find a good man,” said the manager of a big trust company,
“we take him on. We may not have a place for him at the time but we keep
him until we find one.”
Except during times of stress such as that brought about by the war when
the soldiers were at the front, no business house hires people
indiscriminately. They know, as the Chinese have it, that rotten wood
cannot be carved. “It is our opinion,” we quote from another manager, “that
courtesy cannot be pounded into a person who lacks proper social basis. In
other words, there are some people who would be boorish under any
circumstances. Our first and chief step toward courtesy is to exercise care in
selecting our employees. We weigh carefully each applicant for a sales
position and try to visualize his probable deportment as our representative,
and unless he gives promise of being a fit representative we do not employ
him.”

But it is not enough to take a man into a business organization. Every
newcomer must be broken in. Sometimes this is done by means of formal
training, sometimes it consists merely of giving him an idea of what is
expected of him and letting him work out his own salvation. Granting that
he is already familiar with the work in a general way, and that he is
intelligent and resourceful, he ought to be able to adapt himself without a
great deal of instruction from above. All of this depends upon the kind of
work which is to be done.
Nearly every employer exercises more caution in selecting the man who
is to meet the public than any other. It is through him that the all-important
first impression is made, and a man who is rude or discourteous, or who, for
any reason, rubs people the wrong way, simply will not do. He may have
many virtues but unless they are apparent they are for the time being of
little service.
Most salesmen have to go to school. Their work consists largely of the
study of one of the most difficult subjects in the catalogue: human
psychology. They must know why men do what they do and how to make
them do what they, the salesmen, want them to do. They must be able to
handle the most delicate situations courteously and without friction. It takes
the tact of a diplomat, the nerve of a trapeze performer, the physical
strength of a prize fighter, the optimism of William J. Bryan or of
Pollyanna, and the wisdom of Solomon. Not many men are born with this
combination of qualities.
The best training schools base their teaching on character and common
sense. One very remarkable organization, which has at its head an
astonishingly buoyant and optimistic—and, it is hardly necessary to add,
successful—man, teaches that character is nine-tenths of success in
salesmanship and technique is only one-tenth. They study technique and
character along with it, in a scientific way, like the students in a biological
laboratory who examine specimens. Their prospects are their subjects, and
while they do not actually bring them into the consultation room, they hold
experience meetings and tell the stories of their successful and unsuccessful
contacts. The meetings are held at the end of the day, when the men are all
tired and many of them are depressed and discouraged. They are opened
with songs, “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Old Black Joe,” “Sweet Adeline,”

and the other good old familiar favorites that make one think of home and
mother and school days and happiness. One or two catchy popular songs are
introduced, and the men sing or hum or whistle or divide into groups and do
all three with all their might. It is irresistible. Fifteen or twenty minutes of it
can wipe out the sourest memory of the day's business, and trivial irritations
sink to their proper place in the scheme of things. The little speeches follow,
and the men clap and cheer for the ones who have done good work and try
to make an intelligent diagnosis of the cases of the ones who have not.
When the leader talks he sometimes recounts his early experiences—he,
like most good salesmanagers, was once on the road himself—and if he is
in an inspirational mood, gives a sound talk on the principle back of the
golden rule. The spirit of coöperation throughout the institution is amazing
and the morale is something any group of workers might well envy them.
Most business houses recognize their responsibilities toward the young
people that they hire. Well-organized concerns build up from within. The
heads of the departments are for the most part men who have received their
training in the institution, and they take as much pains in selecting their
office boys as they do in selecting any other group, for it is in them that
they see the future heads and assistant heads of the departments. In hiring
office boys “cleanness, good manners, good physique, mental agility, and
good habits are primary requisites,” according to Mr. J. Ogden Armour in
the American Magazine.
In one of the oldest banks in New York each boy who enters is given a
few days' intensive training by a gentleman chosen for the purpose. The
instructor stresses the fundamentals of character and, above all things,
common sense. Courtesy is rarely discussed as a separate quality but simple
instructions are given about not going in front of a person when there is
room to go around him, not pushing into an elevator ahead of every one
else, not speaking to a man at a desk until he has signified that he is ready,
and about sustaining quiet and orderly behavior everywhere. The
atmosphere in the bank is the kind that encourages gentlemanly conduct and
the new boys either fall in with it or else get out and go somewhere else.
It takes more patience on the part of the youngsters in the financial
district than it does in most other places, for the men there work under high
tension and are often cross, worried, nervous, and irritable, and as a result

are, many times, without intending it, unjust. The discipline is severe, and
the boy would not be human if he did not resent it. But the youngster who is
quick to fly off the handle will find himself sadly handicapped, however
brilliant he may be, in the race with boys who can keep their tempers in the
face of an injury.
Three boys out of the hundreds who have passed through the training
school in the bank of which we were speaking have been discharged for
acts of discourtesy. One flipped a rubber clip across a platform and hit one
of the officials in the eye, one refused to stay after hours to finish some
work he had neglected during the day, and one was impertinent. All three
could have stayed if each had used a little common sense, and all three
could have stayed if each act had not been a fair indication of his general
attitude toward his work.
One of the most difficult organizations to manage and one against which
the charge of discourtesy is frequently brought is the department store. Yet a
distinguished Englishwoman visiting here—it takes a woman to judge these
things—said, “I had always been told that people in New York were in such
a hurry that, although well-meaning enough, they were inclined to appear
somewhat rude to strangers. I have found it to be just the reverse. During
my first strolls in the streets, in the shops, and elsewhere, I have found
everybody most courteous. Your stores, I may say, are the finest I have ever
seen, not excepting those of Paris. Their displays are remarkable. Their
spaciousness impressed me greatly. Even at a crowded time it was not
difficult to move about. In London, where our shops are mostly cramped
and old-fashioned, it would be impossible for such large numbers of people
to find admittance.”
The tribute is a very nice one. For a long time the department stores have
realized the difficulties under which they labor and have been making
efforts to overcome them. They have formed associations by which they
study each other's methods, and most of them have very highly organized
systems of training and management. One big department store carries on
courtesy drives. Talks are given, posters are exhibited, and prizes are
offered for the most courteous clerks in the store. “We know that it is not
fair to give prizes,” the personnel manager says, “because it is impossible to
tell really which clerks are the most courteous, but it stimulates interest and

effort throughout the organization and the effects last after the drive is
over.”
One big department store which is favorably known among a large
clientèle for courteous handling of customers depends upon its atmosphere
to an enormous extent, but it realizes that atmosphere does not come by
chance, that it has to be created. They have arranged it so that each clerk
has time to serve each customer who enters without the nervous hurry
which is the cause of so much rudeness. The salesclerks who come into the
institution are given two weeks' training in the mechanical end of their
work, the ways of recording sales, methods of approach, and so on, as well
as in the spirit of coöperation and service. By the time the clerk is placed
behind the counter he or she can conduct a sale courteously and with
despatch, but there is never a time when the head of the department is not
ready and willing to be consulted about extraordinary situations which may
arise.
It is during the rush seasons such as the three or four weeks which
precede Christmas that courtesy is put to the severest test, and the store
described in the paragraph above bears up under it nobly. It did not wait
until Christmas to begin teaching courtesy. It had tried to make it a habit,
but last year several weeks before the holidays it issued a bulletin to its
employees to remind them of certain things that would make the Christmas
shopping less nerve-racking. The first paragraph was headed HEALTH. It
ran as follows:
“If you want to be really merry at Christmas time, it will be well to bear
in mind during this busy month at least these few ‘health savers’:
“Every night try to get eight good hours of sleep.
“All day try to keep an even temper and a ready smile.
“Remember that five minutes lost in the morning means additional
pressure all day long.
“Try to make your extra effort a steady one—not allowing yourself to get
excited and rushed so that you make careless mistakes.

“Try to eat regularly three good nourishing meals, relaxing completely
while you are at the table and for a little while afterward.
“Breathe deeply, and as often as you can, good fresh air—it cures
weariness.
“And don't forget that a brisk walk, a sensible dinner, an hour's
relaxation, and then a hot bath before retiring, make a refreshing end for
one business day and a splendid preparation for the next.”
There were six other paragraphs in the bulletin. One asked the salesclerks
to take the greatest care in complying with a customer's request to send gift
purchases without the price tags. Another asked them to pay strictest
attention to getting the right addresses, and most of the others were taken up
with suggestions for ways to avoid congestion by using a bank of elevators
somewhat less conveniently located than the others, by limiting their
personal telephone calls to those which were absolutely necessary, and so
on. In both tone and content the bulletin was an excellent one. It first
considered the employees and then the customers. There was no
condescension in the way it was written and there was no “bunk” about
what was in it. But the bulletin was only a small part of an effort that never
stops.
The purpose of the store is, to quote from its own statement, “to render
honest, prompt, courteous and complete service to customers” and the
qualities by which they measure their employees are as follows:

Health Accuracy
Loyalty Thoroughness
Coöperation
Initiative Responsibility
Industry Knowledge

Courtesy is not included in the list but it is unnecessary. If these qualities
are developed courtesy will come of its own accord. It is worth noting that
health comes first in the list. To a business man, or indeed to any other, it is
one of the most precious possessions in the world, and is the best of
backgrounds upon which to embroider the flower of courtesy.

Every employer who has had any experience knows the value of a
contented workman, and does what he can to make and keep him so by
paying him adequate wages, and providing comfortable, sanitary, and
pleasant working conditions. Contentment is, however, more an attitude of
mind than a result of external circumstances. Happiness is who, not where,
you are. We do not mean by this that a workman should be wholly satisfied
and without ambition or that he should face the world with a permanent
grin, but that he should to the best of his ability follow that wonderful motto
of Roosevelt's, “Do what you can where you are with what you have.” No
man can control circumstances; not even the braggart Napoleon, who
declared that he made circumstances, could control them to the end; and no
man can shape them to suit exactly his own purposes, but every man can
meet them bravely as a gentleman should.
Most big business concerns supply rest rooms, eating places, recreation
camps, and all manner of comforts for their employees, and most of them
maintain welfare departments. No business house under heaven could take
the place of a home, but where the home influence is bad the best
counterfoil is a wholesome atmosphere in which to work. Recently an
institution advertising for help, instead of asking what the applicant could
do for it, pictured and described what it could do for the applicant. The
result was that they got a high-class group of people to make their selection
from, and their attitude was one which invited the newcomers to do their
best.
Factory owners are paying a good deal of attention to the appearance of
their buildings. Many of them have moved out into the country so as to
provide more healthful surroundings for work. Numbers of modern factory
buildings are very beautiful to look at, trim white buildings set in close-cut
lawns with tennis courts and swimming pools not far away, red brick
buildings covered with ivy, sand-colored ones with roses climbing over
them, and others like the one famous for its thousand windows, rather more
comfortable than lovely. In our big cities there are office buildings that look
like cathedrals, railroad stations that look like temples, and traffic bridges
that look (from a distance) like fairy arches leading into the land of dreams.
They are not all like this. We wish they were. But it is to the credit of the
American business man that he has put at least a part of his life and work
into the building of beautiful things. The influence which comes from them

is, like nearly all potent influences, an unconscious one, but it makes for
happiness and contentment.
The problem of keeping the employees contented is somewhat different
in every place. House organs, picnics, dances, recreation parks, sanitariums
in the country and so on can be utilized by “big business,” but the spirit
which animates them is the same as that which makes the grocery man at
Hicksville Centre give his delivery boy an afternoon off when the baseball
team comes to town. The spirit of courtesy is everywhere the same, but it
must be kept in mind that the end of business is production, production
takes work, and that play is introduced in order that the work may be better.
This is true whether we are looking at the matter from the point of view of
the employer or of the employee. What is to the interest of one—this is
gaining slow but sure recognition—is to the interest of the other.
Certain kinds of mechanical work are very trying because of their
monotony. The work must be done, however, and in well-ordered places it
is arranged so that the worker has brief periods of rest at regular intervals or
so that he is shifted from one kind of activity to another. It is poor economy
to wear out men. In the old days before the power of steam or electricity
had been discovered, boats were propelled by slaves who were kept below
decks chained to their seats, and watched by an overseer who forced them
to continue rowing long after they had reached the point of exhaustion. The
galley slave sat always on the same side of the boat and after a few years
his body became so twisted and warped that he was no good for anything
else, and pretty soon was not even good for that. Then he was thrown into
the discard—most of them died before they got this far along—and the
owner of the boat had to look out for more men. Something like this
happens to the soul of a man who is bound to dreary, monotonous work
without relief or any outlet for growth. It is deadening to him, to his work,
and to his employer. The far-sighted employer knows it. The masters of
slaves learned it many years ago. The chain which binds the servant to the
master binds the master to the servant. And the fastening is as secure at one
end as it is at the other.
Too strict supervision—slave-driving—is fatal to courtesy. The places
which have intricate spy systems to watch their employees are the ones
where there is most rudeness and trickery. The clerk who is hectored,

nagged, spied upon, suspected and scolded by some hireling brought in for
that purpose or by the head of the firm himself cannot be expected to give
“a smile with every purchase and a thank you for every goodbye.” The
training of employees never stops, but it is something that should be placed
very largely in their own hands. After a certain point supervision should be
unnecessary.
Most places hate to discharge a man. Labor turnover is too expensive.
Most of them try to place their men in the positions for which they are best
suited. It is easier to take a round peg out of a square hole and put it into a
round one than it is to send out for another assortment of pegs. Men are
transferred from sales departments to accounting departments, are taken off
the road and brought into the home office, and are shifted about in various
ways until they fit. If a man shows that “he has it in him” he is given every
chance to succeed. “There is only one thing we drop a man for right off,”
says an employment manager in a place which has in its service several
thousand people of both sexes, “and that is for saying something out of the
way to one of our girls.”
This same manager tells the story of a boy he hired and put into a
department which had been so badly managed that there were a number of
loose ends to be tied up. The boy threw himself into his work, cleared up
things, and found himself in a “soft snap” without a great deal to do. He
happened not to be the kind of person who can be satisfied with a soft snap,
and he became so restive and unhappy that he was recommended for
discharge. This brought him back to the head of the employment bureau.
He, instead of throwing the young man out, asked that he be given a second
trial in a department where the loose ends could not be cleaned up. It was a
place where there was always plenty of work to do, and the young man has
been happy and has been doing satisfactory work ever since.
The house in which this happened is always generous toward the
mistakes of its employees if the mistakes do not occur too persistently and
too frequently. In one instance a boy made three successive errors in figures
in as many days. He was slated for discharge but sent first before the
employment manager. As they talked the latter noticed that the boy leaned
forward with a strained expression on his face. Thinking perhaps he was
slightly deaf, he lowered his voice, but the boy understood every word he

said. Then he noticed that there was a tiny red ridge across his nose as if he
were accustomed to wearing glasses, although he did not have them on, and
when he asked about it he discovered that the boy had broken his glasses a
few days before, and that he had not had them fixed because he did not
have money enough.
“Why didn't you tell us about it?” the employment manager asked.
“It was not your fault that I broke them,” the boy replied. “It was up to
me,” an independent answer which in itself indicates how much worth
while it was to keep him.
The manager gave him money enough to have the glasses mended, the
next day the boy was back at work, and there was no more trouble.
An employee in the same organization unintentionally did something
which hurt the president of the firm a great deal. But when he went to him
and apologized (it takes a man to admit that he is wrong and apologize for
it) the president sent him back to his desk, “It's all right, boy,” he said, “I
know you care. That's enough.”
In a big department store in New England there was a girl a few years
back with an alert mind, an assertive personality, and a tremendous fund of
energy. She was in the habit of giving constructive suggestions to the heads
of the departments in which she worked, and because of her youth and
manner, they resented it. “I took her into my office,” the manager said. “I'm
the only one she can be impertinent to there and I don't mind it. It is a bad
manifestation of a good quality, and in time the disagreeable part of it will
wear off. She will make an excellent business woman.”
“If a man finds fault with a boy without explaining the cause to him,” we
are quoting here from an executive in a highly successful Middle Western
firm, “I won't fire the boy, I fire the man. We have not a square inch of
space in this organization for the man who criticizes a subordinate without
telling him how to do better.” Unless the plan of management is big enough
to include every one from the oldest saint to the youngest sinner it is no
good. Business built on oppression and cut-throat competition, whether the
competition is between employer and employee or between rival firms, is

war, and war, industrial or political, is still what General Sherman called it
some years ago.
We hold no brief for paternalism. We have no patience with it. All that we
want is a spirit of fairness and coöperation which will give every man a
chance to make good on his own account. This spirit inevitably flowers into
courtesy. In every place courtesy should be, of course, so thoroughly a part
of the surroundings that it is accepted like air or sunshine without comment.
But it is not, and never has been except in old civilizations where manners
have ripened and mellowed under the beneficent influence of time. Our
traditions here—speaking of the country as a whole—are still in the
making, but we have at least got far enough along to realize that it is not
only worth while to do things that are good, but, as an old author has it, to
do them with a good grace. It cannot be accomplished overnight. Courtesy
is not like a fungous growth springing up in a few hours in the decayed
parts of a tree; it is like that within the tree itself which gives lustre to the
leaves and a beautiful surface to the whole. It takes time to develop it—time
and patience—but it is worth waiting for.

Top

IV
PERSONALITY

All that makes a man who he is and not someone else is called
personality. It is the sum total of his qualities, a thing inborn, but including
besides such externals as dress, manner, and appearance. It is either a
tremendous asset or a terrific liability, and so important that certain schools
which purport to teach success in business declare that it is everything.
Which is just as foolish as saying that it is nothing.
One of these success-before-you-wake-to-morrow-morning schools of
business instruction dismisses the fact which has remained true through
three thousand years of change, namely, that there is no short cut to success,
as a myth, and even goes so far as to say that it is almost impossible to
achieve success to-day by working for it. E. H. Harriman they give as an
example of a man who did no work but won success by smoking cigars
while other men built railroads for him, quoting a joking remark of his to
prove a serious point, when, as a matter of fact, Mr. Harriman was one of
the large number of American business men who have literally worked
themselves to death. Foch said that he won the war by smoking his pipe, but
does any one believe that the great commander won the war by not
working? What he meant was that he won the war by thinking, and the
worn face, which seemed almost twice as old when the conflict was over,
showed how hard that work was.
It is so impossible for a false doctrine to stand on its own feet that the
spread-eagle advertisement of this school contradicts itself long before it
gets to the “Sign here and mail to-day” coupon. “The first time you try to
swim,” shouts the advertisement, “for instance, you sink; and the first time
you try to ride a bicycle you fall off. But the ability to do these things was
born in you. And shortly you can both swim and ride. Then you wonder
why you could not always do these things. They seem so absurdly simple.”
It may be that there are people who have learned to swim and to ride a
bicycle by sitting in a chair and cultivating certain inherent qualities but we

have never heard of them. Everybody that we ever knew worked and
worked hard swimming and riding before they learned. The only way to
learn to do a job is to do it, and the only way to succeed is to work. Any
school or any person who says that “the most important thing for you to do
is not to work, but first to find the short road to success. After that you may
safely work all you like—but as a matter of fact, you won't have to work
very hard,” is a liar and a menace to the country and to business.
But the value of personality is not to be under-estimated. “Nature,” says
Thackeray somewhere in “The Virginians,” “has written a letter of credit
upon some men's faces, which is honored almost wherever presented. Harry
Warrington's [Harry Warrington was the hero who brought about this
observation] countenance was so stamped in his youth. His eyes were so
bright, his cheeks so red and healthy, his look so frank and open, that almost
all who beheld him, nay, even those who cheated him, trusted him.” It was
the “letter of credit” stamped upon the face of Roosevelt, pledge of the
character which lay behind it, which made him the idol of the American
people.
Personality is hard to analyze and harder still to acquire. The usual advice
given to one who is trying to cultivate a pleasing manner and address is “Be
natural,” but this cannot be taken too literally. Most of us find it perfectly
natural to be cross and disagreeable under trying circumstances. It would be
natural for a man to cry out profane words when a woman grinds down on
his corn but it would not be polite. It was natural for Uriah Heep to wriggle
like an eel, but that did not make it any the less detestable. It was natural,
considering the past history of Germany and the system under which he was
educated, for the Kaiser to want to be lord of the world, but that did not
make it any the less horrible.
Another bromidic piece of advice is “Be perfectly frank and sincere.” But
this, too, has its limits. Some people pride themselves on saying exactly
what they think. Usually they are brutal, insensitive, wholly incapable of
sympathetic understanding of any one else, and cursed, besides, with a
colossal vanity. A man may determine to tell nothing but the truth, but this
does not make it necessary for him to tell the whole truth, especially when it
will hurt the feelings or the reputation of some one else. No man has a right

to impose his opinions and prejudices, his sufferings and agonies, on other
people. It is the part of a coward to whine.
And yet a man must be himself, must be natural and sincere. Roosevelt
could no more have adopted the academic manner of Wilson than Wilson
could have adopted the boyish manner of Roosevelt. Lincoln could no more
have adopted the courtly grace of Washington than Washington could have
adopted the rugged simplicity of Lincoln. Nor would such transformations
be desirable even if they were possible. The world would be a very dreary
place if we were all cut by the same pattern.
A number of years ago in an upstate town in New York there was a shoe
store which had been built up by the engaging personality of the man who
owned it. He had worked his way up from a tiny shoe shop in New Jersey
where, as a boy, he made shoes by hand before there were factories for the
purpose, and he had always kept in close touch with the business even after
he owned a large establishment and had a number of men working under
him. He stayed in the shop, greeted his customers as they came in, and
many times waited on them himself.
When he retired from active business he sold out to a man exactly his
opposite in temperament, as good a man, so far as character went, as
himself, but very quiet and taciturn. A woman who had always patronized
the shop and was a friend of them both came to him soon after the transfer
was made and said, “Now, Mr. Tillis, the reason this place has prospered so
is on account of the personality of Mr. Kilbourne. His shoes are good but
people can get good shoes at other places. They come here because of Mr.
Kilbourne. They like him, and if you are not careful they will stop coming
now that he is gone. You've got to smile and show them you are glad to see
them.”
Mr. Tillis felt that the woman was telling the truth. He decided that he
would stay in the shop and greet each customer with a gladsome smile and
make himself generally pleasant and agreeable. The next day he was fitting
a shoe on a woman who was also an old customer and a friend of both men.
He was smiling in his best manner and congratulating himself that he was
doing very well when the woman abruptly took her foot off the stand.
“What are you laughing at?” she demanded.

Some years later he told Mr. Kilbourne about it. “I decided then that there
was no use in me trying to be you. You had been yourself, and I made up
my mind that I'd be myself.”
And that is, after all, the only rule that can be given. Be yourself, but be
very sure that it is your best self.
It is personality which permits one man to do a thing that another would
be shot for. What is charming in this man is disgusting in that. What is a
smile with one becomes a smirk with another. What makes one succeed will
cause another to fail. It is personality that opens the doors of opportunity. It
cannot, alone, keep them open, but it is worth a good deal to get inside.
We were interested to observe the methods used by three young men who
were looking for jobs, not one of whom would probably have succeeded if
he had used the tactics of either of the others.
The first wanted to talk with the biggest executive in a large organization.
He had fought his way through the ranks until he had got as far as the man's
secretary. “Mr. So-and-So does not see people who want jobs,” said that
young lady.
“I don't want a job,” he prevaricated mildly, “I want to talk to him.”
The girl let him in.
“Mr. So-and-So,” he said, “I don't want a job. I want advice.”
His manner was so ingenuous and charming, his earnestness so glowing,
that the man at the desk listened while he talked, and then talked a while
himself, and ended by giving the young man the position (as well as the
advice) that he wanted. But if he had been less attractive personally and the
older man had been shrewd enough to see through the ruse (or perhaps he
did see through it but made the proper discount for it) or had been opposed
to trick methods, the scheme might not have worked so well.
The most universal weakness of intellect lies in the part of the brain
which listens to flattery. Very few people like compliments laid on with a
trowel, but no man can resist the honest admiration of another if it seems

sincere. And since it is the sort of thing that one likes almost above all else
he often takes the false coin for the true.
The second young man met the rebuff so familiar to young men looking
for their first job, “We want men with experience.”
“That's what everybody says,” the boy answered, “but what I want to
know is how we are going to get that experience if you don't give us a
chance.”
The older man sympathized, but had no place for the other and told him
so.
“What would you do if you were I?” the young man asked as he turned to
leave. The other grinned. “Why, I'd work for a firm for a week for nothing,”
he said, “and show them that they could not get along without me.”
The boy stopped. “All right,” he said, “let me work for you a week.”
The older man had not expected this but he gave the youngster a chance
and he made good.
The third young man had reached the point of desperation. He had been
out of a job several weeks. He had been trying to get one all that time and
had not succeeded. He walked into the employment bureau of a certain
concern and said, “I want a job. I want a good job. Not some dinky little
place filing letters or picking up chips. If you've got an executive position
where there is plenty of work and plenty of responsibility, I want it.” They
asked him a few questions about what he had been doing and a few more
about what he thought he could do, and ended by giving him a desk and an
office.
It would be foolish to advise any one to follow any of these plans. Each
man must work out his own method, all the better if it is an original one.
Most business men like a simple approach without any flourishes. “It is
astonishing,” says one man whose income runs to six figures, “how many
things one can get just by asking for them.” The best reporter in America
says that he has always found the direct method of approach better than any
other. None is infallible but this has the highest percentage of success.

So far as personal appearance is concerned—and this is one of the most
important elements in the fashioning of personality—the greatest variations
are not due to intrinsic differences in character, nor to differences of feature
or form, but to the use and disuse of the bathtub. More sharp than the
distinction between labor and capital or between socialism and despotism is
that between the people who bathe daily and those who go to the tub only
on Saturday night or less often. The people with whom personal cleanliness
is a habit find dirt, grime, and sweat revolting. To them “the great
unwashed” are repulsive.
“When you teach a man to bathe,” says John Leitch in his book on
“Industrial Democracy,” “you do more than merely teach him to cleanse his
body. You introduce him to a new kind of life and create in him a desire for
better living.”
The month before he began his wonderful work at Tuskegee, Booker
Washington spent visiting the Negro families in the part of Alabama where
he was to teach. “One of the saddest things I saw during the month of travel
which I have described,” he writes in his autobiography, “was a young man,
who had attended some high school, sitting down in a one-room cabin, with
grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and
garden, engaged in studying a French grammar.”
Farther on he writes, “It has been interesting to note the effect that the
use of the tooth-brush has had in bringing about a higher degree of
civilization among the students. With few exceptions, I have noticed that, if
we can get a student to the point where, when the first or second tooth-
brush disappears, he of his own motion buys another, I have not been
disappointed in the future of that individual. Absolute cleanliness of the
body has been insisted upon from the first.”
Cleanliness is an attribute of civilization. We find it amusing to read that
three or four hundred years ago bathing for pleasure was unknown, that
when soap was first invented it was used only for washing clothes, and that
even so late as the Seventeenth Century an author compiling a book of rules
for the gentleman of that day advises him to wash his hands every day and
his face almost as often! In the monasteries bathing was permitted only to
invalids and the very old. Perfume was used copiously, and filth and squalor

abounded. This even in royal circles. Among the common people conditions
were unspeakable.
To-day a gentleman bathes and shaves every day. He keeps his hair
brushed, his finger nails immaculate (or as clean as the kind of work which
he does permits), his linen is always clean and his shoes are polished. He is
not over-fastidious about his clothes, but he has respect enough for himself
as well as for the people among whom he lives to want to present as
agreeable an appearance as possible. “Dress,” wrote Lord Chesterfield to
his son, “is a very foolish thing, and yet it is a very foolish thing for a man
not to be well-dressed, according to his rank and way of life.... The
difference in this case between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop
values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, and at the
same time knows he must not neglect it.”
It is a cheap device for a man to trick himself out with lodge pins and
fraternity symbols, rings, and badges in the hope that they will open doors
for him. Highly ornamental jewelry of any kind is inappropriate. Not many
men can offset a heavy gold watch chain stretched full length across their
bosoms, not many can live down a turquoise ring set with pearls, and very
few can bear the handicap of a bright gold front tooth. Artists, alone, may
gratify their taste for velvet jackets, Tam-o'-Shanters, and Windsor ties, but
the privilege is denied business men. Eccentricity of dress usually indicates
eccentricity of temper, and we do not want temperamental business men. It
is hard enough to get along with authors and artists and musicians. The
business man who is wise wears conventional clothes of substantial
material in conservative colors. Good sense and good taste demand it.
The time has passed when uncouthness of dress and manner can be taken
as a pledge of honesty and good faith. The President of the United States to-
day is a well-dressed, well-groomed man, and no one thinks any the less of
him for it. Men no longer regard creased trousers, nicely tied cravats, well-
chosen collars, and harmonious color combinations as signs of sissiness,
snobbishness, or weak-mindedness.
Formal dinners and other ceremonious functions require evening dress. It
is the custom, as the Orientals say; and for the sake of other people present
if not for his own, a man should undergo the discomfort, if he finds it a

discomfort, and many men do, of conforming to it. Holiday attire gives a
happy note of festivity which might otherwise be lacking. It is quite
possible to point to a number of men who have succeeded in business who
were wholly indifferent to matters of dress. But it does not prove anything.
Men rise by their strength, not by their weakness. Some men wait until after
they have become rich or famous to become negligent of their personal
appearance. But it is well to remember that “if Socrates and Aristippus have
done aught against custom or good manner, let not a man think he can do
the same: for they obtained this license by their great and excellent good
parts.”
A well-dressed man is so comfortably dressed that he is not conscious of
his clothes and so inconspicuously dressed that no one else is conscious of
them.
In a good many instances it is not his own dress which bothers a business
man so much as it is that of some one else—his stenographer, for instance.
Men do not have quite so much opportunity to make themselves ridiculous
as women. Their conventions of dress are stricter, and, as a rule, they can
express their love of color and ornamentation only in their choice of ties
and socks. Girls have practically no restrictions except what happens to be
the style at the moment, and a young girl untrained in selecting and
combining colors and lines, and making money for the first time in her life,
is more likely than not to make herself look more like a Christmas tree than
a lily of the field.
The big department stores which employ hundreds of girls to meet and
serve their customers have settled the problem for themselves by requiring
the girls to wear uniforms. The uniform is very simple; often a certain color
during working hours is prescribed, but the girls are permitted to choose
their own styles. Other places have women who look after the welfare of
the girls and prevent them from laying themselves open to
misunderstanding by the way they dress. Large organizations can afford to
have a special person to take care of such matters, but in a small office the
problem is different.
Of course, a man can always dismiss a girl who dresses foolishly or
carelessly, but this is sneaking away from a problem instead of facing it.

High-class offices have comparatively little trouble this way. In the first
place, they do not attract the frivolous, light-headed, or “tough” girls; in the
second place, if such girls come, the atmosphere in which they work either
makes them conform to the standards of the office or leave and go
somewhere else. If a girl in his office dresses in a way that he considers
inappropriate, a man may tactfully suggest that something simpler would be
more dignified and more in keeping with business ideals and traditions. But,
oh, he must be careful! On no subject is one so sensitive as on his personal
appearance, and women, perhaps, more so than men.
There is a limit to how far an employer should go in dictating the manner
of his employees' dress. When the head of a big Western department store
declared that he would discharge all the girls who bobbed their hair, most of
us felt that he had gone a bit too far, even while we saw the logic of his
position. While it is the only sensible way in the world for a woman to wear
her hair the majority of people have not yet come to think so. To the
average person, especially to Mrs. Grundy, who is really the most valuable
customer a department store has, the impression given by bobbed hair is
one of frivolity or eccentricity. The impression given the customer as she
enters a store is a most important item; the head of the store knew it, and
therefore he placed the ban on bobbed hair. Whichever side we take in this
particular case this is true: The business woman should give, like the
business man, an impression of dependability, and she cannot do it if her
appearance is abnormal, or if her mind is divided between how she is
looking and what she is doing.
It is almost funny that we let the faults and mannerisms of other people
affect us to such an extent. They are nothing to us, and yet a man can work
himself into a perfect frenzy of temper merely by looking at or talking to
another who has a fidgety way of moving about, a dainty manner of using
his hands, or a general demean—or that is delicate and ladylike. Men like
what the magazines call “a red-blooded, two-fisted, he-man.” But the world
is big enough to accommodate us all whether the blood in our veins is red
or blue, and it is perfectly silly for a man to throw himself into a rage over
some harmless creature who happens to exasperate him simply because he
is alive.

It is an altogether different matter when it is a question of one man taking
liberties with another. Most people object to the physical nearness of others.
It is the thing that makes the New York subways during the rush hours such
a horror. It is not pleasant to have a person so near that his breath is against
your face, and there are not many men who enjoy being slapped on the
back, punched in the ribs, or held fast by a buttonhole or a coat lapel. A safe
rule is never to touch another person. He may resent it.
The garrulous or impertinent talker is almost as objectionable as the hail-
fellow-well-met, slap-on-the-back fellow. Charles Dickens has a record of
this kind of American in the book which he wrote after his visit in this
country: “Every button in his clothes said, ‘Eh, what's that? Did you speak?
Say that again, will you?’ He was always wide awake, always restless;
always thirsting for answers; perpetually seeking and never finding....
“I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear of the
wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and where I bought it,
and when, and what fur it was, and what it weighed, and what it cost. Then
he took notice of my watch, and asked me what that cost, and whether it
was a French watch, and where I got it, and how I got it, and whether I
bought it or had it given me, and how it went and where the keyhole was,
and when I wound it, every night or every morning, and whether I ever
forgot to wind it at all, and if I did, what then? Where I had been to last, and
where I was going next, and where I was going after that, and had I seen the
President, and what did he say, and what did I say, and what did he say
when I had said that? Eh? Lor' now! Do tell!”
This sort of curiosity is harmless enough, but exasperating, and so
childish that one hates to rebuke the person who is asking the foolish
questions. There is another kind which is perhaps worse—the man who asks
intrusive questions about how much salary another is getting, how old he is
(men are as sensitive on this subject as women) and so on and on. It is
perfectly legitimate to refuse to answer any question to which one does not
wish to reply. Every man has a right to mental privacy even when he is
denied, as he is in so many modern offices, any other kind of privacy.
A loud or boisterous person is objectionable. Many times this is through
carelessness, but sometimes, as when a man recounts the story of his dinner

with Mr. Brown, who is a national figure, in a voice so loud that all the
people in the car or room or whatever place he happens to be in, can hear
him, it is deliberate. The careless person is the one who discusses
personalities aloud in elevators, on the train, and in all manner of public
places. Exchanging gossip is a pretty low form of indoor sport and
exchanging it aloud so that everybody can hear makes it worse than ever.
Names should never be mentioned in a conversation in a place where
strangers can overhear, especially if the connection is an unpleasant one.
Private opinions should never be aired in public places (except from a
platform).
The highly argumentative or aggressive person is another common type
of nuisance. He usually raises his voice, thus drowning out the possibility of
interruption, and talks with so much noise and so many vigorous gestures
that he seems to try to make up for his lack of intellect by an excess of
tumult. Arguments have never yet convinced anybody of the truth, and it is
a very unpleasant method to try. Most arguments are about religion or
politics and even if they were settled nothing would be accomplished. In the
Middle Ages men used to debate about the number of angels that could
stand on the point of a pin. Hours and hours were wasted and learned
scholars were brought into the discussion, which was carried forward as
seriously as if it were a debate between the merits of the Republican and
Democratic parties. Suppose they had settled it. Would it have mattered?
One of the most offensive public plagues is the man who leaves a trail of
untidiness behind him. No book of etiquette, not even a book of business
etiquette, could counsel eating on the streets in spite of the historic and
inspiring example of Mr. Benjamin Franklin walking down the streets of
Philadelphia with a loaf of bread under each arm while he munched from a
third which he held in his hand. One can forgive a man, however, if he,
feeling the need of nourishment, eats a bar of chocolate if he takes great
care to put the wrappings somewhere out of the way. No man with any civic
pride will scatter peanut hulls, cigarette boxes, chocolate wrappings, raisin
boxes, and other debris along the streets, in the cars, on the stairs, and even
on the floors of office buildings. Garbage cans and waste-baskets were
made to take care of these things.

Tidiness is worth more to a business man than most of them realize. In
the first place it gives a favorable impression to a person coming in from
the outside, and, in the second place, it helps those on the inside to keep
things straight. Folders for correspondence, card indexes, memorandum
files and other similar devices are essential to the orderly transaction of
business.
Keeping ashes and scraps of paper off the floor may seem trifles, but
such trifles go far toward making the atmosphere, which is another word for
personality, of an office. Some men have secretaries who take care of their
desks and papers and supervise the janitor who cleans the floors and
windows, but those who do not, find that they can manage better when they
have a place to put things and put them there.
Nothing has more to do with making a gentleman than a courteous and
considerate attitude toward women. In business a man should show
practically the same deference toward a woman that he does in society. Any
man can be polite to a woman he is anxious to please, the girl he loves, for
instance, but it takes a gentleman to be polite to every woman, especially to
those who work for him, those over whom he exercises authority.
It is unnecessary for a man to rise every time one of the girls in his office
enters his private audience room, but he should always rise to receive a
visitor, whether it is a man or woman, and should ask the visitor to be
seated before he sits down himself. In witheringly hot weather a man may
go without his coat even if his entire office force consists of girls, but he
should never receive a guest in his shirt sleeves. He should listen
deferentially to what the visitor has to say, but if she becomes too voluble or
threatens to stay too long or if there is other business waiting for him, he
may (if he can) cut short her conversation. When she is ready to go he
should rise and conduct her to the door or to the elevator, as the case may
be, and ring the bell for her. He cannot, of course, do this if his visitors are
frequent, if their calls are about matters of trifling importance, or if he is
working under high pressure.
We once had an English visitor here in America who thought our
manners were outrageously bad, but there was one point on which we won
a perfect score. “Any lady,” he said, “may travel alone, from one end of the

United States to the other, and be certain of the most courteous and
considerate treatment everywhere. Nor did I ever once, on any occasion,
anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the
slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention.” Conditions have
changed since then. Women had not left their homes to go into offices and
factories, but unless we can hold to the standard described by the
Englishman, the change has not been for the better, for any of the people
concerned.
Since the Victorian era our ideas of what constitutes an act of rudeness
have been modified. Then it would have been unthinkable that a woman
should remain standing in a coach while men were seated. Now it is
possible for a man to keep his place while a woman swings from a strap and
defend himself on the grounds that he has worked harder during the day
than she (how he knows is more than we can say), and that he has just as
much right (which is certainly true) as any one else. Yet it is a gracious and
a chivalrous act for a man to offer a woman his place on a car, and it is very
gratifying to see that hundreds of them, even in the cities, where life goes at
its swiftest pace and people live always in a hurry, surrender their seats in
favor of the women who, like themselves, are going to work. Old people,
afflicted people, men and women who are carrying children in their arms,
and other people who obviously need to sit down are nearly always given
precedence over the rest of us. This is, of course, as it should be.
But the heart of what constitutes courtesy has not changed and never will.
It is exactly what it was on that day nearly four hundred years ago when Sir
Philip Sidney, mortally wounded on the field of Zutphen, gave his last drop
of water to the dying soldier who lay near him and said, “Thy need is
greater than mine.”

Top

V
TABLE MANNERS

In the old books of etiquette in the chapter on table manners the authors
used to state that it was not polite to butter your bread with your thumb, to
rub your greasy fingers on the bread you were about to eat, or to rise from
the table with a toothpick in your mouth like a bird that is about to build her
nest. We have never seen any one butter his bread with his thumb, but——
There are in the United States nearly five million people who can neither
read nor write. We have no statistics but we venture to say there are as
many who eat with their knives. There are people among us—and they are
not all immigrants in the slum districts or Negroes in the poorer sections of
the South—who do not know what a napkin is, who think the proper way to
eat an egg is to hold it in the hand like a piece of candy, and bite it, the egg
having previously been fried on both sides until it is as stiff and as hard as a
piece of bristol board, who would not recognize a salad if they saw one, and
who have never heard of after-dinner coffee.
Very few of them are people of wealth, but an astonishing number of
successful business men were born into such conditions. They had no
training in how to handle a knife and fork and they probably never read a
book of etiquette, but they had one faculty, which is highly developed in
nearly every person who lifts himself above the crowd, and that is
observation.
In addition to this a young man is very fortunate, especially if his way of
life is cast among people whose manners are different from those to which
he has been accustomed, if he has a friend whom he can consult, not only
about table manners but about matters of graver import as well. And he
should not be embarrassed to ask questions. The disgrace, if disgrace it
could be called, lies only in ignorance.
A number of years ago a young man who was the prospective heir to a
fortune—this charming story is in Charles Dickens's wonderful novel,

“Great Expectations”—went up to London for the express purpose of
learning to be a gentleman. It fell about that almost as soon as he arrived he
was thrown into the company of a delightful youth who had already
attained the minor graces of polite society. Very much in earnest about what
he had set out to do, and blessed besides with a goodish bit of common
sense, he explained his situation to Herbert, for that was the other boy's
name, mentioned the fact that he had been brought up by a blacksmith in a
country place, that he knew practically nothing of the ways of politeness,
and that he would take it as a great kindness if Herbert would give him a
hint whenever he saw him at a loss or going wrong.
“‘With pleasure,’ said he, ‘though I venture to prophesy that you'll want
very few hints.’”
They went in to dinner together, a regular feast of a dinner it seemed to
the ex-blacksmith's apprentice, and after a while began to talk about the
benefactress who, they believed, had made it possible.
“‘Let me introduce the topic,’ began Herbert, who had been watching
Pip's table manners for some little time, ‘by mentioning that in London it is
not the custom to put the knife in the mouth—for fear of accidents—and
that while the fork is reserved for that use it is not put further in than
necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do as other
people do. Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand but under. This
has two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the
object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters on the
part of the right elbow.’
“He offered these suggestions (said Pip) in such a lively way, that we
both laughed and I scarcely blushed.”
The conversation and the dinner continued and the friendship grew
apace. Presently Herbert broke off to observe that “society as a body does
not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to
turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose.”
“I had been doing this,” Pip confessed, “in an excess of attention to his
recital. I thanked him, and apologized. He said, ‘Not at all,’ and resumed.”

This was written many years ago but neither in life nor in literature is
there a more beautiful example of perfect courtesy than that given by
Herbert Pocket when he took the blacksmith's boy in hand and began his
education in the art of being a gentleman. Not only was he at perfect ease
himself but—and this is the important point—he put the blacksmith's boy at
ease.
It is worth remarking, by way of parenthesis, that Herbert's father was a
gentleman. “It is a principle of his,” declared the boy, “that no man who
was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began, a true
gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of the wood;
and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself.”
The American table service is not complicated. Any intelligent person
who knows the points covered by Herbert Pocket, who knows that one
should not cut up all of his meat at the same time but mouthful by mouthful
as he needs it, that it is not customary to butter a whole slice of bread at
once nor to plaster cheese over the entire upper surface of a cracker, can by
a dint of watching how other people do it find his way without
embarrassment through even the most elaborate array of table implements.
The easiest way to acquire good table manners (or good manners of any
other kind, as far as that goes) is to form the habit of observing how the
people who manage these things most gracefully go about it. It is best to
begin early. To use one of David Harum's expressive maxims, “Ev'ry hoss
c'n do a thing better 'n' spryer if he's ben broke to it as a colt.”
Eating should be, and, as a matter of fact, is, when one follows his usual
custom, an unconscious process like the mechanical part of reading or
writing. It is only when he is trying to be a bit more formal or fastidious
than is habitual with him that a man gets tangled, so to speak, in the tines of
his fork.
Cooking is one of the fine arts. Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and
millionaires have always paid tribute to it as such—and so is dining. Like a
great many other arts it was first developed among royal circles, and there
was a time when the king resented the idea of a commoner being able to
dine with grace and elegance. Since then it has become democratized, and
now there are no restrictions except those which a man places about

himself. And there is no earthly (or heavenly) reason why a man should not
eat in the way which society has established as correct, and a good many
reasons why he should.
Physicians—and this is the strongest argument we know—might advance
their plea on the grounds of good health. In this case we find, as we do in a
number of others, that what good manners declares should be done is
heartily endorsed at the same time by good sense. It is only among people
of blunted sensibilities that nice table manners count for nothing; for

There's no reproach among swine, d'you see,
For being a bit of a swine.

Among business men it is often perplexing to know whom and when to
invite. Generally speaking, the older man or the man with the superior
position takes the initiative, but there are an infinite number of exceptions.
Generally speaking, also, the man who is resident in a place entertains the
one who is visiting, but there are infinite exceptions to this as well,
especially in the case of traveling salesman. All courtesy is mutual, and it is
almost obligatory upon the salesman who has been entertained to return the
courtesy in kind. Such invitations should be tendered after a transaction is
completed rather than before. The burden of table courtesy falls upon the
man who is selling rather than the one who is buying, probably because he
is the one to whom the obvious profit accrues.
Social affairs among the wives of business men which grow out of the
business relations of their husbands follow the same rules as almost any
other social affairs. Nearly always it is the wife of the man with the higher
position who issues the first invitation, and it is permissible for her to invite
a woman whom she does not know personally if she is the wife of a
business friend of her husband.
The biggest hindrance to the establishment of good manners among
business men is the everlasting hurry in which they (and all the rest of us)
live. There must first of all be leisure, not perhaps to the extent advocated
by a delightful literary gentleman of having three hours for lunch every day,
but time enough to sit down and relax. Thousands of business men dash out
to lunch—bad manners are at their worst in the middle of the day—as if
they were stopping off at a railroad junction with twenty minutes to catch a
train and had used ten of them checking baggage. And they do not always
do it because they are in a hurry. They have so thoroughly developed the
habit of living in a frenzied rush that even when they have time to spare
they cannot slow down.
Pleasant surroundings are desirable. It is much easier to dine in a quiet
spacious room where the linen is white and the china is thin, the silver is
genuine silver, and the service is irreproachable, than in a crowded

restaurant where thick dishes rattle down on white-tiled tables from the
steaming arms of the flurried waitress, where there is no linen, but only
flimsy paper napkins (which either go fluttering to the floor or else form
themselves into damp wads on the table), where the patrons eat ravenously
and untidily, and where the atmosphere is dense with the fumes of soup and
cigarettes. But luxury in eating is expensive and most of us must, perforce,
go to the white-tiled places. And the art of dining is not a question of what
one has to eat—it may be beans or truffles—or where one eats it—from a
tin bucket or a mahogany table—it all depends upon how; and the man who
can eat in a “hash-house,” an “arm-chair joint,” a “beanerie,” a cafeteria, a
three-minute doughnut stand or any of the other quick-lunch places in as
mannerly a way as if he were dining in a hotel de luxe has, we think, a
pretty fair claim to the title of gentleman.
The responsibility for a dinner lies with the host. If his guest has had the
same social training that he has or is accustomed to better things he will
have comparatively little trouble. All he can do is to give him the best
within his means without apology. We like to present ourselves in the best
possible light (it is only human) and for this reason often carry our friends
to places we cannot afford. This imposes upon them the necessity of
returning the dinner in kind, and the vicious circle swings around, each
person in it grinding his teeth with rage but not able to find his way out.
Entertaining is all right so long as it is a useful adjunct to business, but
when it becomes a burden in itself it is time to call a halt.
Smoking during and immediately after a meal is very pleasing to the man
who likes tobacco, but if he has a guest (man or woman) who objects to the
smell of it he must wait until later. On the other hand if his guest likes to
smoke and he does not he should insist upon his doing so. It is a trifling
thing but politeness consists largely of yielding gracefully in trifles.
Old-fashioned gentlemen held it discourteous to mention money at table,
but in this degenerate age no subject is taboo except those that would be
taboo in any decent society. Obviously when men meet to talk over business
they cannot leave money out of the discussion. In a number of firms the
executives have lunch together, meeting in a group for perhaps the only
time during the day. It helps immeasurably to coördinate effort, but it
sometimes fails to make the lunch hour the restful break in the middle of

the day which it should be. It is generally much more fun and of much more
benefit to swap fish stories and hunting yarns than to go over the details of
the work in the publicity department or to formulate the plans for handling
the Smith and Smith proposition. Momentous questions should be thrust
aside until later, and the talk should be—well, talk, not arguing, quarreling,
or scandal-mongering. The subject does not greatly matter except that it
should be something in which all of the people at the table are interested.
Whistler was once asked what he would do if he were out at dinner and the
conversation turned to the Mexican War, and some one asked him the date
of a certain battle. “Do?” he replied. “Why, I would refuse to associate with
people who could talk of such things at dinner!”
Polite society has always placed a high value on table manners, but it is
only recently that they have come to play so large a part in business. Some
one has said that you cannot mix business and friendship. It would be
nearer the truth to say that you cannot separate them. More and more it is
becoming the habit to transact affairs over the table, and a very pleasant
thing it is, too. Aside from the coziness and warmth which comes from
breaking bread together one is free from the interruptions and noise of the
office, and many a commercial acquaintance has ripened into a friend and
many a business connection has been cemented into something stronger
through the genial influence of something good to eat and drink. It is, of
course, a mistake to depend too much upon one's social gifts. They are very
pleasant and helpful but the work of the world is done in offices, not on golf
links or in dining rooms. We have little patience with the man who sets his
nose to the grindstone and does not take it away until death comes in
between, but we have just as little with the man who has never touched the
grindstone.
Stories go the rounds of executives who choose their subordinates by
asking them out to lunch and watching the way they eat. One man always
calls for celery and judges his applicant by what he does with it. If he eats
only the tender parts the executive decides that he is extravagant, at least
with other people's money, but if he eats the whole stalk, green leaves and
all, he feels sure that he has before him a man of economy, common sense,
and good judgment! The story does not say what happens when the young
man refuses celery altogether. Another uses cherry pie as his standard and
judges the young man by what he does with the pits. There are three ways

to dispose of them. They may be lowered from the mouth with the spoon,
they may be allowed to drop unaided, or they may be swallowed. The last
course is not recommended. The first is the only one that will land a job.
But tests like this work both ways and one is rather inclined to congratulate
the young men who were turned down than those who were accepted.
All this aside, an employer does want to know something about the table
manners of an employee who is to meet and dine with his customers. An
excellent salesman may be able to convince a man of good breeding and
wide social training if he tucks his napkin into his bosom, drinks his soup
with a noise, and eats his meat with his knife, but the chances are against it.
A man who is interested heart and soul in one thing will think in terms of
it, will have it constantly in his mind and on the tip of his tongue. But the
man of one subject, whatever that subject may be, is a bore. It is right that a
man should live in his work, but he must also live outside of it. One of the
most tragic chapters in the history of American life is the one which tells of
the millions and millions of men who became so immersed in business
affairs that they lost sight of everything else. The four walls of the narrow
house which in the end closes around us all could not more completely have
cut them off from the light of day. It is a long procession and it has not
ended—that line of men passing single file like convicts down the long gray
vaults of business, business, business, with never a thought for the stars or
the moon or books or trees or flowers or music or life or love—nothing but
what casts a shadow over that dismal corridor.

These are dead men with no thought
Of things that are not sold or bought.

*****

In their bodies there is breath,
But their souls are steeped in death.

It is not a cheerful picture to contemplate (and it seems a good long way
away from table manners), but the men who form it are more to be pitied
than blamed. They are blind.

Top

VI
TELEPHONES AND FRONT DOORS

“If the outside of a place is not all right,” says a man who spends the
greater part of his time visiting business houses and talking with business
men, “the chances are that it is not worth while to go inside.”
There are three ways of getting inside: by letter (which has a chapter to
itself), by the front door, and by telephone. And there are more complaints
against the telephone way than either or both the others, which is perfectly
natural, since it is the most difficult to manage. In the first place, it requires
good behavior from three people at the same time, and that is a good deal to
expect. Secondly, they cannot see one another—they are like blind people
talking together—and no one of them can do his part unless the other two
do theirs. In the third place, the instrument is a lifeless thing, and when
something goes wrong with it it rouses the helpless fury inspired by all
inanimate objects which interfere with our comfort—like intermittent alarm
clocks, collar buttons that roll under the furniture, and flivvers that go dead
without reason in the middle of country roads. In each case whatever one
does has no effect. The alarm clock continues to ring (unless one gets out of
bed to shut it off, which is worse than letting it ring), the collar button
remains hid in the darkest part of the room, the flivver remains stuck in the
muddiest part of the road, and the telephone is worst of all, for the source of
the trouble is usually several miles away and there is no means of getting at
it.
The telephone is a nuisance—no one denies it—but it is a necessity also
—no one denies that, either—and one of the greatest conveniences in an
age of great conveniences. Some of the disagreeable features connected
with it cannot be done away with but must be accepted with as much
tranquility as we can master, like the terrific noise which an aëroplane
makes or the trail of smoke and cinders which a railway train leaves behind.
The one who is calling, for instance, cannot know that he is the tenth or
eleventh person who has called the man at the other end of the wire in rapid

succession, that his desk is piled high with correspondence which must be
looked over, signed, and sent out before noon, that the advertising
department is waiting for him to O. K. their plans for a campaign which
should have been launched the week before, that an important visitor is
sitting in the library growing more impatient every minute, and that his
temper has been filed down to the quick by an assortment of petty worries.
(Of course, no office should be run like this, but it sometimes happens in
the best of them.)
Some one has said that we are all like islands shouting at each other
across a sea of misunderstanding, and this was long before telephones were
thought of. It is hard enough to make other people understand what we
mean, even with the help of facial expression and gestures, and over the
wire the difficulty is increased a hundred fold. For telephoning rests upon a
delicate adjustment between human beings by means of a mechanical
apparatus, and it takes clear thinking, patience, and courtesy to bring it
about.
The telephone company began its career some few years ago unhampered
by the traditions to which the earlier corporations were slave, the old
“public be damned” idea. Their arbitrary methods had brought them to
grief, and the new concern, with a commendable regard for the lessons
taught by the experience of others, inaugurated a policy of usefulness,
service, and courtesy. The inside history of the telephone is one of constant
watchfulness, careful management, and continuous improvement; and every
improvement has meant better service to the public. (We are not trying to
advertise the telephone company. We realize that it has been guilty, like
every other business, of manifold sins.)
Even the fact that there is a telephone girl instead of a telephone boy is
due to the alertness and good business sense of the company. To put a boy
before a switchboard and expect him not to pull it apart to see how it was
made; or to place him in a position to entertain himself by connecting the
wrong parties and listening to the impolite names they called each other and
expect him not to do it, would be expecting the laws of nature to reverse
themselves. The telephone company tried it—for a while. They discovered,
besides, that a boy will not “take” what a girl will. It makes no difference
what goes wrong with a connection, the subscriber blames the operator

when many times the operator, especially the one he is talking to, has had
nothing to do with it. The girls have learned to hold their tempers (not
always, but most of the time), but when boys had charge of the
switchboards and the man at the end of the wire yelled, “You cut me off!”
and the youngster had not, he denied it hotly: “You're a liar! I didn't!” The
subscriber would not stand for this, angry words flew back and forth, and
more than once the indignant young operator located the subscriber (not a
very difficult thing for him to do) and went around to settle things in
person. Words were not always the only weapons used.
If this had continued the telephone would never have become a public
utility. People would have looked upon it as an ingenious device but not of
universal practical value. As it is, good salesmanship and efficient service
first elevated a plaything to a luxury and then reduced the luxury to a
necessity. And it was possible not only because the mechanism itself is a
miraculous thing but because it has had back of it an intelligent human
organization working together as a unit.
We say this deliberately, knowing that the reader will think of the times
when the trouble he has had in getting the number he wanted has made him
think there was not a thimbleful of intelligence among all of the people
associated with the entire telephone company. But considering the body of
employees as a whole the standard of courteous and competent service is
extraordinarily high. The public is impatient and prone to remember bad
connections instead of good ones. It is ignorant also and has very small
conception of what a girl at central is doing. And it is quick to blame her for
faults of its own.
One of the worst features of telephone service is the fact that when one is
angry or exasperated he seldom quarrels with the right person. Some time
ago a man was waked in the middle of the night by the ringing of the
telephone bell. He got out of bed to answer it and discovered that the man
was trying to get another number. He went back to bed and to sleep. The
telephone bell rang again, and again he got out of bed to answer it. It was
the same man trying to get the same number. He went to bed and back to
sleep. The telephone bell rang the third time, he got out of bed again and
answered it again and found that it was still the same man trying to get the
same number! “I wasn't very polite the third time,” he confessed when he

told about it. But the poor fellow at the other end of the wire probably had
just as touching a story to tell, for unless it had been very important for him
to get the number he would hardly have been so persistent. The girl at the
switchboard may have had a story of her own, but what it was is one of
those things which, as Lord Dundreary used to say, nobody can find out.
The girls who enter the service of the New York Telephone Company
(and the same thing is true in the other branches of the telephone service,
especially in big cities where there are large groups to work with) are
carefully selected by an employment bureau and sent to a school where they
are thoroughly grounded in the mechanical part of their work and the ideals
for which the company stands. They are not placed on a regular
switchboard until they have proved themselves efficient on the dummy
switchboard, and then it is with instructions to be courteous though the
heavens fall (though they do not express it exactly that way). “It is the best
place in the world to learn self-control,” one of the operators declares, and
any one who has ever watched them at work will add, “Concentration,
also.” One of the most remarkable sights in New York is a central exchange
where a hundred or more girls are working at lightning speed, undisturbed
by the low murmur around them, intent only on the switchboard in front of
them, making something like five hundred connections a minute.
They are a wonderfully level-headed group, these telephone girls,
wonderfully unlike their clinging-vine Victorian grandmothers. They do not
know how to cling. If a man telephones that he has been shot, the girl who
receives the call does not faint. She sends him a doctor instead and takes the
next call almost without the loss of a second. If a woman wants a policeman
to get some burglars out of the house, she sends her one; if some one
telephones that a house is burning, she calls out the fire department—and
goes straight on with her work. Now and then something spectacular
happens to bring the splendid courage of the girls at the switchboards to the
attention of the public, such as the magnificent service they gave from the
exchange located a few feet from Wall Street on the day of the explosion,
but ordinarily it passes, like most of the other good things in life, without
comment.
The New York Telephone Company tries to keep its girls healthy and
happy. At regular intervals they are given rest periods. Attractive rooms are

prepared for them, tastefully furnished, well-lighted, and filled with
comfortable chairs, good books, and magazines. Substantial meals are
supplied in the middle of the day at a nominal charge. Special
entertainments are planned from time to time, and best of all, the play time
is kept absolutely distinct from the work time, a condition which makes for
happiness as well as usefulness.
The girls are not perfect, they are not infallible. And they are only a third
part of a telephone call. They work under difficulties at a task which is not
an easy one, and their efficiency does not rest with them alone but with the
people whom they serve as well.
A telephone call begins with the subscriber. Very few people understand
the intricate system of cable and dynamos, vacuum tubes, coil racks,
storage batteries, transmitters and generators which enable them to talk
from a distance, and a good many could not understand them even if they
were explained. Fortunately it is not necessary that they should. The
subscriber's part is very simple.
He should first make sure that he is calling the right number. In New
York City alone, forty-eight thousand wrong numbers are asked for every
day by subscribers who have not consulted the telephone directory first, or
who have unconsciously transposed the digits in a number. For example, a
number such as 6454 can easily be changed to 6544. The telephone
directory is a safe guide, much more so than an old letter or bill head or an
uncertain memory. Information may be called if the number is not in the
directory, but one should be definite even with her. She cannot supply the
number of Mr. What-you-may-call-it or of Mr. Thing-um-a-bob or of Mr.
Smith who lives down near the railroad station, and she cannot give the
telephone number of a house which has no telephone in it. She has no right
to answer irrelevant questions; is, in fact, prohibited from doing so. Her
business is to furnish numbers and she cannot do it efficiently if she is
expected also to explain why a cat has whiskers, how to preserve string
beans by drying them, what time it is, what time the train leaves for
Wakefield, or what kind of connection can be made at Jones's Junction.
In calling a number the name of the exchange should be given first. The
number itself should be called with a slight pause between the hundreds and

the tens, thus, “Watkins—pause—five, nine—pause—hundred” for
“Watkins 5900” or “Murray Hill—pause—four, two—pause—six, three”
for “Murray Hill 4263.” The reason for this is that the switchboard before
which the operator sits is honeycombed with tiny holes arranged in sections
of one hundred each. Each section is numbered and each of the holes within
it is the termination of a subscriber's line. In locating “Watkins 5900” the
girl first finds the section labelled “59” and then the “00” hole in that
section, and if the “59” is given first she has found it by the time the
subscriber has finished calling the number.
The number should be pronounced slowly and distinctly.
When the operator repeats it the subscriber should acknowledge it, and if
she repeats it incorrectly, should stop her and give her the number again.
And he should always remember, however difficult it may be to make her
understand, that he is talking to a girl, a human being, and that the chances
are ten to one that the poor connection is not her fault.
To recall the operator in case the wrong person is connected it is only
necessary to move the receiver hook slowly up and down. She may not be
able to attend to the recall at once but jiggling the hook angrily up and
down will not get her any sooner. In fact, the more furious the subscriber
becomes the less the girl knows about it, for the tiny signal light fails to
register except when the hook is moved slowly; or if the switchboard is one
where the operator is signalled by a little disk which falls over a blank
space the disk fails to move down but remains quivering almost
imperceptibly in its usual position.
After he has placed a call a man should wait at the telephone or near it
until the connection is made. Too many men have a way of giving their
secretaries a number to send through and then wandering off somewhere
out of sight so that when the person is finally connected he has to wait
several minutes while the secretary locates the man who started the call. It
is the acme of discourtesy to keep any one waiting in this manner. It implies
that your time is much more valuable than his, which may be true, but it is
hardly gracious to shout it in so brazen a fashion.
It has been estimated that in New York City alone, more than a full
business year is lost over the telephone every day between sunrise and

sunset. There are 3,800,000 completed connections made every day. Out of
each hundred, six show a delay of a minute or more before the person called
answers. In each day this amounts to a delay of 228,000 connections. Two
hundred and twenty-eight thousand minutes (and sometimes the delay
amounts to much more than a minute) is the equivalent of 475 days of eight
hours each, or as the gentleman who compiled these interesting statistics
has it, a business year and a third with all the Sundays and holidays intact.
In the course of a year it amounts to more than all the business days that
have elapsed since Columbus discovered America!
It may be argued that we would be better off if we lost more than a year
every day and did all our work at more leisurely pace. This may be, but the
time to rest is not when the telephone bell is ringing.
The telephone on a business man's desk should always be facing him and
it should not be tricked out with any of the patent devices except those
sanctioned by the company. Most of them lessen instead of increase
efficiency. A woman in her home where calls are infrequent may hide her
telephone behind a lacquered screen or cover it with pink taffeta ruffles, but
in a business office it is best to make no attempts to beautify it. It is when it
is unadorned that the ugly little instrument gives its best service.
There should always be a pad and pencil at hand so that the message (if
there is one) can be taken down without delay. The person at the other end
probably has not time (and certainly has not inclination) to wait until you
have fumbled through the papers on your desk and the rubbish in the
drawers to locate something to write on and something to write with.
“Hello” is a useless and obsolescent form of response in business offices.
The name of the firm, of the department, or of the man himself, or of all
three, according to circumstances, should be given. When there is a private
operator to take care of the calls she answers with the name of the firm,
Blank and Blank. If the person at the other end of the wire says, “I want the
Advertising department,” she connects them and the man there answers
with “Advertising department.” The other then may ask for the manager, in
which case the manager answers with his name. It is easy to grow impatient
under all these relays, but a complicated connection involving half a dozen
people before the right one is reached can be accomplished in less than a

minute if each person sends it straight through without stopping to
exchange a number of “Helloes” like a group of Swiss yodelers, or to ask a
lot of unnecessary questions.
It is not necessary to scream over the telephone. The mouth should be
held close to the transmitter and the words should be spoken carefully. In an
open office where there are no partitions between the desks one should take
especial pains to keep his voice modulated. One person angrily spluttering
over the telephone can paralyze the work of all the people within a radius of
fifty feet. If it were a necessary evil we could make ourselves grow
accustomed to it. But it is not. And there is already enough unavoidable
wear and tear during the course of a business day without adding this.
“Hello, what do you want?” is no way to answer a call. No decent person
would speak even to a beggar at his door in this way and the visitor over the
telephone, whoever he is, is entitled to a cordial greeting. The voice with the
smile wins.
An amusing story is told of a man in Washington who was waked one
evening about eleven o'clock by the telephone bell. At first he swore that he
would not answer it but his wife insisted that it might be something very
important, and finally, outraged and angry, he blundered through the dark
across the room and into the hall, jerked down the receiver and yelled,
“Hello!” His wife, who was listening tensely for whatever ill news might be
forthcoming, was perfectly amazed to hear him saying in the next breath, in
the most dulcet tones he had ever used, “Oh, how do you do, I'm so glad
you called. Oh, delightful. Charmed. I'm sure she will be, too. Thank you.
Yes, indeed. So good of you. Good-bye.” It was the wife of the President of
the United States asking him and his wife to dinner at the White House.
If the person calling is given the wrong department he should be
courteously transferred to the right one. Courteously, and not with a
brusque, “You've got the wrong party” or “I'm not the man you want” but
with “Just a minute, please, and I'll give you Mr. Miller.”
The time when people are rudest over the telephone is when some one
breaks in on the wire. It might be just as well to remember that people do
not interrupt intentionally, and the intruder is probably as disconcerted as
the man he has interrupted. If he had inadvertently opened the wrong door

in a business office the man inside would not have yelled, “Get out of here,”
but over the telephone he will shriek, “Get off the wire” in a tone he would
hardly use to drive the cow out of a cabbage patch.
In an effort to secure better manners among their subscribers the
telephone company has asked them to try to visualize the person at the other
end of the wire and to imagine that they are talking face to face. Many
times a man will say things over the telephone—rude, profane, angry,
insulting things, which he would not dream of saying if he were actually
before the man he is talking to. And to make it worse he is often so angry
that he does not give the other a chance to explain his side of it, at least not
until he has said all that he has to say, and even then he not infrequently
slams the receiver down on the hook as soon as he has finished!
Listening on a wire passes over from the field of courtesy into that of
ethics. On party lines in the country it is not considered a heinous offense to
eavesdrop over the telephone, but the conversation there is for the most part
harmless neighborhood gossip and it does not matter greatly who hears it.
In business it is different. But it is practically impossible for any one except
the operator to overhear a conversation except by accident, and it is a
misdemeanor punishable by law for her to give a message to any one other
than the person for whom it was intended.
In every office there should be a large enough mechanical equipment
manned by an efficient staff to take care of the telephone traffic without
delay. “The line is busy” given in answer to a call three or four times will
send the person who is calling to some other place to have his wants looked
after.
Few places appreciate the tremendous volume of business that comes in
by way of telephone or the possibilities which it offers to increase business
opportunities. They are as short-sighted as the department store which, a
good many years ago, when telephones were new, had them installed but
took them out after a few weeks because the clerks were kept so busy
taking orders over them that they did not have time to attend to the
customers who came into the store!
Another important vantage point which, like the telephone, suffers from
neglect is the reception desk. Millions of dollars' worth of business is lost

every year and perfect sandstorms and cyclones of animosity are generated
because business men have not yet learned the great value of having the
right kind of person to receive visitors. To the strangers who come—and
among the idlers and swindlers and beggars who assail every successful
business house are potential good friends and customers—this person
represents the firm,—is, for the time being, the firm itself.
It is very childish for a man to turn away from a reception desk because
he does not like the manner of the person behind it, but business men,
sensible ones at that, do it every day. Pleasant connections of years'
standing are sometimes broken off and valuable business propositions are
carried to rival concerns because of indifferent or insolent treatment at the
front door. Only a short time ago an advertising agency lost a contract for
which it had been working two years on account of the way the girl at the
door received the man who came to place it. He dropped in without
previous appointment and was met by a blonde young lady with highly
tinted cheeks who tilted herself forward on the heels of her French pumps
and pertly inquired what he wanted. He told her. “Mr. Hunt isn't in.” “When
will he be back?” “I don't know,” and she swung around on the impossible
heels. The man deliberated a moment and then swung around on his heels
(which were very flat and sensible) and carried the contract to another
agency. Instances of this kind might be multiplied. Some business men
would have persisted until they got what they wanted from the young lady.
Others would have angrily reported her to the head of her office, but the
majority would have acted as this man did.
Most men (and women), whether they are in business or not, do not
underestimate their own importance and they like to feel that the rest of the
world does not either. They do not like to be kept waiting; they like to be
received with a nice deference, not haughtily; they do not like to be sent to
the wrong department; and they love (and so do we all) talking to important
people. Realizing this, banks and trust companies and other big
organizations have had to appoint nearly as many vice-presidents as there
were second-lieutenants during the war to take care of their self-important
visitors. Even those whose time is not worth ten cents (a number of them
are women) like to be treated as if it were worth a great deal. It is, for the
most part, an innocent desire which does no one any special harm, and any
business that sets out to serve the public (and there is no other kind) has to

take into account all the caprices of human vanity. We cannot get away
from it. Benjamin Franklin placed humility among the virtues he wished to
cultivate, but after a time declared it impossible. “For,” he said, “if I
overcame pride I would be proud of my humility.”
Courtesy is the first requirement of the business host or hostess and after
that, intelligence. Some business houses make the mistake of putting back
of the reception desk a girl who has proved herself too dull-witted to serve
anywhere else. The smiling idiot with which this country (and others) so
abounds may be harmless and even useful if she is kept busy behind the
lines, but, placed out where she is a buffer between the house and the
outside world, she is a positive affliction. She may be pleasant enough, but
the caller who comes for information and can get nothing but a smile will
go away feeling about as cheerful as if he had stuck his hand into a jar of
honey when he was a mile or so away from soap, water, and towel.
A litter of office boys sprawling untidily over the desks and chairs in the
reception room is as bad, and a snappy young lady of the “Now see here,
kid” variety is worse.
The position is not an easy one, especially in places where there is a
constant influx of miscellaneous callers, and it is hardly fair to ask a young
girl to fill it. In England they use elderly men and in a number of offices
over here, too. Their age and manner automatically protect them (and
incidentally their firms) from many undesirables that a boy or girl in the
same position would have considerable difficulty in handling. And they
lend the place an air of dignity and reserve quite impossible with a
youngster.
In some offices, especially in those where large amounts of money are
stored or handled, there are door men in uniform and often plain clothes
huskies near the entrances to protect the people (and the money) on the
inside from cranks and crooks and criminals. In others, a physician's office,
for instance, or any small office where the people who are likely to come
are of the gentler sort, a young girl with a pleasing manner will do just as
well as and perhaps better than any one else. In big companies where there
are many departments, it is customary to maintain a regular bureau of
information to which the caller who is not sure whom or what he wants is

first directed, but the majority of businesses have only one person who is
delegated to receive the people who come and either direct them to the
person they want to see or turn them aside.
Most of them must be turned aside. If the stage managers in New York
interviewed all the girls who want to see them, they would have no time left
for anything else, and the same thing is true of nearly every man who is
prominent in business or in some other way. (Charlie Chaplin received
73,000 letters during the first three days he was in England. Suppose he had
personally read each of them!) Hundreds of people must be turned away,
but every person who approaches a firm either to get something from it or
to give something to it has a right to attention. Men are in business to work,
not to entertain, and they must protect themselves. But the people who are
turned away must be turned away courteously, and the business house
which has found some one who can do it has cause to rise and give thanks.

Top

VII
TRAVELING AND SELLING

The etiquette of traveling includes very few points not covered by the
general laws of good behavior. Keeping one's place in line before the ticket
window, having money ready and moving aside as quickly as possible
instead of lingering to converse with the ticket-seller about train schedules
and divers other interesting subjects are primary rules. It is permissible to
make sure that the train is the right one before getting on it, but it is
unnecessary to do it more than half a dozen times. When the sign over the
gate says “Train for Bellevue” it probably is the train for Bellevue, and
when the guard at the gate repeats that it is the train for Bellevue the
chances are that he is telling the truth.
An experienced traveler usually carries very little baggage. A lot of
suitcases and grips are bothersome, not only to the one who has charge of
them, but also to those who are cramped into small quarters because of
them. A traveler may make himself as comfortable as he likes so long as it
is not at the expense of the other passengers. If they object to an open
window the window must stay down. Lounging over a seat is bad form,
especially if there is some one else in it. So is prowling from one end of the
car to the other. Besides, it makes some people nervous. Snoring is impolite
and so is talking in one's sleep, but they are beyond remedy. Talking with
the person in the berth above or below is not, however, and is much more
disturbing than the noise of the train. Forgetting the number of one's berth
and blundering into the wrong place is a serious breach of good manners in
a sleeping car, and it is extremely severe on timid persons who have gone to
bed with visions before their minds of the man who was murdered in lower
ten and the woman who brought her husband's corpse from Florida in the
same berth with her.
Among men, “picking up” acquaintances on a train or boat is allowable if
it comes about in a natural way, but there are men who object to it. Many
business men do not discontinue their work because they are traveling.

Portable typewriters, secretaries, the telegraph and other means of swift
communication have made it possible for them to accomplish almost as
much as if they were in the office back home. Such men do not like to be
interrupted, and if a garrulous or an intrusive person approaches it is within
the bounds of courtesy to turn him aside. Generally, however, there is a
comradery of the road, a sort of good fellowship among voyagers which lets
down ordinary bars, and the men who like to rest as they travel find it
highly diverting and interesting to talk with other men from various parts of
the country. This holds true in hotels, especially in the commercial hotels,
where traveling men foregather to meet their customers and transact their
business, and in hotels in small places where the possibilities for
amusement are limited and the people have to depend on one another for
entertainment. But there are limits. No man should ever thrust himself upon
another and it is almost an iron clad rule that he should never “pick up”
women acquaintances when traveling. It is permissible to talk with them,
but not to annoy them with personal attentions nor to place them under
obligation by paying their bills. If a man and a woman who are traveling on
the same train fall into conversation and go into the dining car together,
each one should pay his or her own check, or if he insists upon paying at the
table she should insist upon settling afterwards. In hotels also this is
essentially true.
Hotels are judged more by the people who come to them than by
anything else. The guests indicate the quality of the service, and for this
reason, most hotels prefer that they be gentlemen. There is an atmosphere
about a first-class hotel that frightens away second-rate people. Most places
have standards and many a man has been turned away even when there was
an empty room because the management did not like his looks.
Tipping is one of the most vexatious petty problems with which a traveler
is confronted. It is an undemocratic custom which every sensible man
deplores but sees no way around. Waiters, porters, and other functionaries
who are in positions to receive tips draw very small salaries, if any. They
depend upon the generosity of the public they serve. The system may be all
wrong (we believe it is) but it means bread and butter to those who live by
it, and it is only just, as matters are now arranged, for the traveler to pay. It
is foolish to tip extravagantly or to tip every pirate who performs even the

most trifling service, but a small fee, especially if the service has been
good, is a courtesy not to be forgotten.
Tipping originally grew out of kindness. The knight who had received
special attention at the hands of his squire expressed his gratitude by a
special reward. The word “gratuity” itself indicates that the little gift was
once simply a spontaneous act of thoughtfulness. It has degenerated into a
perfunctory habit, but it should not be so. Excellent service deserves a
recompense just as slip-shod service does not. And no one has a right to
spoil a waiter (or any one else) by tipping him for inefficient work. In hotels
and restaurants the standard fee is ten per cent of the bill.
Regular travelling of any kind even under favorable circumstances is a
great wear and tear on the disposition. Commuters who go in and out of
town every day are a notoriously hag-ridden lot, and the men who go on the
road are not much better. But there is one enormous difference. It is the
privilege of the commuter to growl as much as he likes about the
discomforts of the road and the stupidity of the men who make up the time
tables, but travelling men—we are speaking of salesmen especially—can
never indulge in the luxury of a grouch. One of the biggest parts of his job
is to keep cheerful all the time and that in itself is no small task. (Try it and
see.) A farmer can wear a frown as heavy as a summer thunder cloud and
the potatoes will grow just the same; a mechanic can swear at the
automobile he is putting into shape (a very impolite thing to do even when
there is no one but the machine to hear), and the bolts and screws will hold
just as fast; a lawyer can knit his brows over his brief case and come to his
solution just as quickly as if he sat grinning at it, but the salesman must
smile, smile, smile. The season may be dull, the crops may be bad, there
may be strikes, lockouts, depressions and deflations, unemployment—it
makes no difference—he must keep cheerful. It is the courtesy of
salesmanship, and it is this quality more than any other that makes selling a
young man's job—we do not mean in years, but in spirit—an old one could
not stand it.
In the good old days when the country was young and everybody, from
all accounts we can gather, was happy, salesmen in the present sense of the
term were almost unknown. There were peddlers, characters as picturesque
as gipsies, who travelled about the country preying chiefly on the farmers.

Often they spent the night—hotel accommodations were few and houses
were far apart—and entertained the family with lively tales of life on the
road. Next morning they gave the children trifling presents, swindled the
farmer out of several dollars and made themselves generally agreeable. The
farmer took it all in good part and looked forward with pleasure to the next
visit. The peddlers came in pairs then, like snakes, but they were for the
most part welcome and there was genuine regret when they became things
of the past like top-buggies and Prince Albert coats.
After the peddler came the drummer, a rough, noisy chap, as his name
indicates, harmless enough, but economically not much more significant
than the peddler. He stayed in the business district where he was tolerated
with good-natured indulgence. He was less objectionable than the man who
followed him, the agent. He was (and is) a house-to-house and office-to-
office canvasser and a general nuisance. He sold everything from books to
life insurance, from patent potato peelers to opera glasses. He still survives,
but not in large numbers, for his work, like that of the peddler and the
drummer, has been swallowed up by the salesman.
The rewards which modern salesmanship holds out to those who succeed
at it are so large that the field has attracted all kinds of men, highly efficient
ones who love the game for its own sake, grossly incompetent ones who,
having failed at something else, have decided to try this, and adventurers
who believe they see in it a chance to get rich quick. The teachers of
salesmanship tell us that we are all selling something, even when there is no
visible product. The worker, according to them, is selling his services just as
the salesman is selling goods. It may be true, but we all could not (and it is
a blessing) go out and sell things in the ordinary sense in which we use the
word. Some of us have to be producers. But the salesman's work is
important. We do not discredit it.
Salesmanship is built on faith. A man must believe in his product and
then must make other people believe in it as firmly as he does. So devoted
are some salesmen to their work that it is difficult to tell whether they
consider their calling a trade, a profession, a science, or a religion.
Sometimes it is all four. Sometimes it goes beyond them and becomes a
kind of mesmerism in which the salesman uses a sort of hypnotic process
(which is simply the result of being over-anxious to sell) to persuade the

prospect that he cannot wait another day before buying the particular article
that the salesman is distributing. The article may be stocks and bonds, wash
cloths, soap, or hair nets. It makes no difference, but he must be filled with
enthusiasm and must be able to pass it along. And this very virtue which is
the foundation of successful salesmanship is likely to lead the salesman into
gross rudeness. For the man who is selling is so eager and so earnest that he
forgets that the man who is buying may have his own ideas on the subject.
The first step in salesmanship is to acquire a thorough knowledge of the
product. The next is to gain access to the man who is to buy it. This is not
always easy. Business men have been annoyed so much by agents that they
have had to erect barriers, in many instances almost impenetrable ones. It is
especially difficult in big cities where the pressure is heavy, but most worth
while business men have learned the value of contact with the world outside
and are willing to give almost any man an interview if he can show a valid
reason why he should have it. Whether he gets a second interview or not
depends upon how he handled the first one.
There are many ways of getting into an office. A salesman usually stands
a much better chance if he writes ahead for an appointment. It is much more
courteous to ask a man when he wants to see you than to drop in on him
casually and trust to luck that the time is not inopportune. Some salesmen
are afraid to write because they think the knowledge of what they have to
sell will prejudice the prospect against it. At the same time they feel that if
they can only get a chance to talk to him a few minutes they can over-ride
the prejudice. A salesman may come into an office without letting the man
know what his purpose is (though it is best to begin with cards on the table)
but he will not come in (unless he is a crook) under false pretenses.
The friends of a salesman can sometimes be very useful to him in
presenting him to valuable prospects, and when they feel that the meeting
will result in mutual benefit they are glad to do it. Sometimes the friend will
give a letter or a card of introduction. Sometimes he will telephone or speak
for an appointment. It is best when these come unsolicited, though it is
permissible to ask for them. No man should depend upon the help of his
friends. A salesman should be able to stand on his own feet, and if he and
his product together do not form a strong enough combination to break

down all obstructions there is something wrong with one or the other of
them.
The best card of admission at the door of a business office is a pleasing
personal appearance coupled with a calm and assured manner. This is a
universal standard of measuring a man's character and calibre. Until we
have heard him speak we judge him by the way he looks. It is a dangerous
practice, as the proverb warns us, but the percentage of hits is high enough
to make us continue to use it.
A favorite device with a certain cheap type of salesman is to give his
name to the girl at the entrance desk and ask her to tell Mr. Brown that Mr.
Green has sent Mr. Smith to call. The Mr. Green is entirely fictitious, but
since Mr. Brown has several business acquaintances of that name, he
interrupts his work and comes out to see Mr. Smith and discovers that he is
a life insurance agent who thinks that if he can once get inside he can “put it
across.” Most business men have no use for such practices and rarely allow
the salesmen who employ them to stay in their offices any longer than it
takes to get them out. Besides, the salesman places himself under a
handicap to begin with. He will find it pretty hard to convince the man in
the office that he is not dishonest about his goods just as he is about
himself. He is the greatest enemy of his profession. And he makes the work
of every one else engaged in it infinitely harder. It is something every
business and profession has to fight against—the dishonest grafter who is
using it as a means of swindling society.
Most salesmen give their names at the entrance desk instead of
presenting their cards. Psychologists and experience have taught them that
the card is distracting and that even if the interview is granted it is harder to
get the attention of the other man if he has a card to twiddle between his
fingers. It is more conventional to send in a card (a good card is a letter of
introduction in itself) but if the salesman finds it a handicap, however
slight, he should by all means dispense with it. If the card is cheap or flashy
or offensive in any way it arouses prejudice against the man who bears it
before he has had a chance to present his case in person. The business card
may be the same as the personal card, simply a bit of pasteboard bearing the
name and perhaps the address, or it may be larger than the ordinary personal

card and bear the name of the firm for which the salesman is working, and
in addition, if it is a very simple design, the trademark of the firm.
Whether to rise when a caller enters and shake hands is a question to be
settled by each person according to the way he likes best. It is certainly
more gracious to rise and ask him to be seated before resuming one's own
place. But promiscuous handshaking is an American habit which Europeans
as a rule frown upon and in which a number of Americans do not indulge,
for they like the grasp of their hand to mean something more than a careless
greeting and reserve it for their friends. In any case, the caller should not be
the first to extend his hand.
If a man is accustomed to see a great number of people he will find it too
much of a strain on his vitality to shake hands with them all. Roosevelt used
to surprise strangers with the laxness of his grasp, but the Colonel had
learned to conserve his strength in small things so that he might give it to
great ones. The President of the United States has more than once in the
course of the history of our country come to the end of the day with his
hands bleeding from the number of times people have pressed it during the
day. Now the President ought to be willing to give his life for his country,
but he ought not to be required to give it in this way. It probably meant a
great deal to each one of the people in the throng to be able to say, “I once
shook hands with the President,” but how much more it would have meant
if each one of them could have said, “One day I helped my President,” even
if the help was so small an act of thoughtfulness as forbearing to shake his
hand.
But to get back to salesmen: Some of them have a way, especially the
over-zealous ones, of getting as close to the prospect as is physically
possible. They place their papers or their brief cases on the desk before
which the prospect is sitting, hitch their chairs up as close as they can, and
talk with their breath in his face. No one likes this and it is only a rude and
thoughtless salesman who is guilty of it. One man who had been vexed by it
over and over again had the visitor's chair nailed to the floor in his office
some little distance from his own. And he never had a caller who didn't try
to move it nearer to him!

For years it has been the habit for business men to receive their callers at
their desks, but lately there has been a turning away from this. The desk is
usually littered with papers and letters which the caller can hardly help
reading, and there are constant interruptions from the telephone and the
other members of the office. For these reasons a number of business men
are going out to see their callers instead of bringing them in to see them, a
practice which is much more cordial than the other if one can afford the
time for it. One big business house abolished its large reception room and
built in a number of smaller ones instead. In this way each visitor has
privacy and there is a feeling of hospitality and coziness about the little
room which the bigger one failed to give. Each room was fitted up with
comfortable chairs, books, and magazines so that if the caller had to wait he
would have the means of entertaining himself.
Once a man agrees to see a salesman or other visitor he should give, in so
far as it is possible, his full attention to him. It is better to refuse an
audience altogether than to give it grudgingly. A prominent man cannot
possibly see all of the people, salesmen and whatnot, who want to talk with
him or he would have no time left to keep himself prominent. A busy man
has to protect himself against the cranks and idlers who try to gain access to
him, and most men have to have devices by which they can rid themselves
of objectionable or tiresome callers. One man who has a constant stream of
visitors has only one chair in his office, and he sits in it. Another never
allows a visitor to enter his office, but goes to the outer reception room and
stands while he talks. One man stands up as a signal that the interview is at
an end. Another begins to fumble with the papers on his desk, and the
salesman does not live who is not familiar with the man who must hurry out
to lunch or who has only five minutes to catch a train. One man has his
secretary or his office boy interrupt him after a visitor has been in as much
as ten minutes, to tell him that Mr. So-and-So is waiting outside. Another
rises to his feet and walks slowly toward the door, the salesman following,
until he has maneuvered him out. If the salesman is a man of sense none of
these devices will be necessary. He knows that a courteous and prompt
departure helps his cause much more than an annoying persistence, and the
man who stays after his prospect's mind has lost every interest except to get
him out of the way is lacking in one of the fundamentals of social good
manners as well as business good manners. Rarely, perhaps never, does he

succeed. For the successful salesman is the one who can put himself into his
prospect's place and let him know that he has made a study of his needs and
is there to help him.
Carefully prepared approaches and memorized speeches are worth much
to the beginner, but an agility in adapting himself is much more important.
Ludendorff failed to get to Paris because his original plan was upset and he
could not think quickly enough to rally the German army and attack from a
different angle. Most salesmen have to talk to men who are continually
interrupted to attend to something else. And most business men know what
they want, or think they do, and when they ask a direct question they want a
direct answer. Many a young salesman has ruined himself so far as his
career was concerned because he went out with instructions to keep the
interview in his hands and every time the man he was “selling” asked a
question he passed airily over it and kept stubbornly on the road he had
mapped out for himself. The salesman cannot think in theoretical terms; he
must think concretely and from the point of view of the man he is trying to
convince. As one very excellent salesman has put it, he must get the
prospect's own story and tell it to him in different words, and if he can
actually show him a way to decrease expenses or to increase output he will
win not only his attention, but his heart as well.
The salesman must be absorbed in his commodity, but not to the
exclusion of the man he is trying to “sell.” A beginner of this type went into
a man's office some time ago and rattled off a speech he had memorized
about some charts. The man listened until he came to the end—the boy was
talking so rapidly and excitedly that it would have been hard to interrupt
him except by shouting at him—and then quietly told him that he had not
been able to understand a word of what he had said. “You have not been
talking to me,” he explained. “You have been talking at me.”
Another salesman of the same general kind went into the office of a busy
lawyer one morning recently in a building which happened to be owned by
the lawyer.
“I am going to give you some books,” he announced.
The lawyer asked him what they were, but the salesman refused to be
diverted before he had led up to the dramatic moment in his carefully

planned speech at which he thought it best to mention the name of the
books. He went through the whole of his canvass and then thrust a paper
under the lawyer's face with “Sign here” above the dotted line.
“I thought you were going to give them to me,” the lawyer said.
The salesman began to explain that of course he could not give him the
books outright and so on and on and on—everybody has heard this part of
his speech. The lawyer laughed and the salesman lost his temper. Very
angry, he started out of the room. Near the door which opened into the hall
was another door which opened into a closet that contained a shelf which
was a little more than five feet high. The salesman opened this door by
mistake and struck his head smartly against the shelf. This made him
angrier than ever. He jerked the other door open and slammed it behind him
with a crash that nearly broke the glass out. This was more than the lawyer
could stand. He sprang up and started in pursuit of the salesman, who by
this time was on his way into another office in the same building. The
lawyer asked him where he was going. The salesman told him.
“Not in my building,” the lawyer said. “I can't have the men who have
offices here disturbed by people who act like this. Now go on,” he added
kindly but firmly, “and let's forget that you ever came here.”
And the salesman went.
Salesmanship is service, and the man who persuades another to buy
something he knows he does not want, does not need, and cannot use, is a
scoundrel. “Good salesmanship,” and this is the only sort that any self-
respecting man will engage in, “is selling goods that won't come back to
customers that will.” It is cumulative in its effect, and the man who sells
another something that really fills a want wins his eternal gratitude and
friendship. He tells his friends about it, they come to the same salesman and
the product begins almost to sell itself. But it takes patience and courtesy to
bring it up to this point.
Some salesmen kill a territory on their first trip. Bad manners can do it
very easily. Sometimes they make themselves so objectionable that the
customer will buy to get rid of them, especially if the purchase does not
involve more than a dollar or two. Sometimes they carry the customer along

so smoothly with plausible arguments that they persuade him to buy
something that he knows he does not want. It is all right so long as the
salesman is present, but discontent follows in his trail. Sometimes—stocks
and bonds salesmen are guilty here—they wheedle the customer into
buying more than he can afford, beginning on the premise that since their
stocks are good (and the men who sell fraudulent ones use the same
methods) a man should if he has a hundred dollars buy a hundred dollars'
worth, if he has a million he should buy a million dollars' worth, if he has a
home he must mortgage it, if he has an automobile he must sell it. No good
salesman works like this. People are very gullible and it takes little
argument to persuade them to invest nearly all they have in something that
will make them rich in a hurry, but the fact that they are foolish is not quite
sufficient justification for fooling them. Even if the stocks and bonds are all
the salesman believes and represents them to be, no man has a right to risk
his home or his happiness for them. A worth while salesman leaves his
customer satisfied and comes back a year later and finds him still satisfied.
And this sort of customer is the best advertisement and the best friend any
business can have.
Bad salesmen create violent prejudices against the firms they represent.
For the average customer, like the average man, judges the whole of a thing
by the part that he sees. To most of us the word Chinaman calls up the
picture of the laundryman around the corner in spite of the fact that there
are some three hundred million Chinamen in the world engaged in other
occupations. Salesmen who are consumed with their own importance do
their firms more harm than good. They usually are men in positions too big
for them (they may not be very big at that) and are for the most part of not
much more real consequence than the gnat which sat on the tip of the bull's
horn and cried, “See what a dust I raise!” Glum and sullen salesmen—there
are not many of them—are of little genuine value to their firms. It is not
true that when you weep you weep alone. Gloomy moods are as contagious
as pleasant ones, and a happy man radiates happiness.
It is not easy to look pleasant when one's nerves are bruised from
miscellaneous contacts with all sorts of people, but it is an actual fact that
assuming the gestures of a mood will often induce the mood itself. The man
who forces himself to look cheerful (we are not talking about the one who
takes on an idiotic grin) may find himself after a while beginning to feel

cheerful. After he has greeted the elevator boy with a smile (it may be a
very crooked one) and the hotel clerk and the waitress and the bootblack
and the paper boy he is likely to find that the smile has straightened out into
a genuine one. It does not always work—it is like counting to a hundred
when one is angry—but it is worth trying.
Salesmen find their greatest difficulties among people of little education.
It is the people with fewest ideas that cling to them most tenaciously.
Scholars and scientists and business men who have learned to employ
scientific methods are constantly watching for something new. They
welcome new discoveries and new ideas, but the man in the backwoods of
ignorance has a fence around the limits of his mind and it is hard for
anything to get inside it. He is open to conviction, but like the Scotsman, he
would like to see the person who could “convict” him. It is hard work to get
a new idea into the mind of a man who is encased in a shell of ignorance or
prejudice, but the salesman is worse than bad-mannered who lets another
man, whoever he is, know that he thinks his religion is no good, that his
political party is rotten, that his country is not worth a cancelled postage
stamp, and that the people of his race are “frogs,” “square-heads,” “dagos,”
“wops,” or “kikes.”
Salesmen who are themselves courteous usually meet with courtesy. The
people who move graciously through life find comparatively little rudeness
in the world. And a good salesman is courteous to all men alike. With him
overalls command as much respect as broadcloth. It pays—not only in
money, but in other things that are worth more.
A salesman should be especially careful of his attitude toward the
representatives of rival houses and their products. His eagerness to advance
his own cause should never lead him into belittling them. He need not go
out of his way to praise them nor should he speak of them insincerely in
glowing terms; but an honest word of commendation shows that he is not
afraid of his rivals in spite of the fact that they too have excellent goods,
and when it is impossible to speak well of them it is best to stay silent.
It is not hard to see why business men spend so much time and effort in
selecting their salesmen. They know that one who is ill-mannered or
offensive in any way indicates either a lack of breeding or a lack of

judgment on the part of the parent concern. And one is about as bad as the
other.

Top

VIII
THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

Half the business letters which are written should never be written at all,
and of the other half so many are incomplete or incoherent that a transaction
which could be finished and filed away in two letters frequently requires six
or eight.
A good letter is the result of clear thinking and careful planning. In the
case of the sales-letter it sometimes takes several weeks to write one, but
for ordinary correspondence a few minutes is usually all that is necessary.
The length of time does not matter—it is the sort of letter which is produced
at the end of it.
Books of commercial correspondence give a number of rules and
standards by which a letter can be measured. But all rules of thumb are
dangerous, and there are only two items which are essential. The others are
valuable only as they contribute to them. The letter must succeed in getting
its idea across and it must build up good will for its firm. And the best one
is the one which accomplishes this most courteously and most completely
in the briefest space of time (and paper).
There should be a reason back of every letter if it is only to say “Thank
you” to a customer. Too much of our national energy goes up in waste
effort, in aimless advertising, worthless salesmanship, ineffective letter
writing, and in a thousand and one other ways. A lot of it is hammered out
on the typewriters transcribing perfectly useless letters to paper which
might really be worth something if it were given over to a different purpose.
A good letter never attracts the mind of the reader to itself as a thing apart
from its contents. Last year a publishing house sent out a hundred test
letters advertising one of their books. Three answers came back, none of
them ordering the book, but all three praising the letter. One was from a
teacher of commercial English who declared that he was going to use it as a
model in his classes, and the other two congratulated the firm on having so

excellent a correspondent. The physical make-up of the letter was attractive,
it was written by a college graduate and couched in clear, correct, and
colorful English. And yet it was no good. No letter and no advertisement is
any good which calls attention to itself instead of the message it is trying to
deliver.
There is not much room for individuality in the make-up of a letter.
Custom has standardized it, and startling variations from the conventional
format indicates freakishness rather than originality. They are like that
astonishing gentleman who walks up Fifth Avenue on the coldest mornings
in the year, bareheaded, coatless, sockless, clad in white flannels and tennis
slippers. He attracts attention, but he makes us shiver.
Plain white paper of good quality is always in good taste. Certain dull-
tinted papers are not bad, but gaudy colors, flashy designs, and ornate letter
heads are taboo in all high types of business. Simple headings giving
explicit and useful information are best. The name and address of the firm
(and “New York” or “Chicago” is not sufficient in spite of the fact that a
good many places go into no more detail than this), the cable address if it
has one, the telephone number and the trademark if it is an inconspicuous
one (there is a difference between conspicuous and distinctive) are all that
any business house needs.
Hotels are often pictured on their own stationery in a way that is anything
but modest, but there is a very good reason for it. The first thing most
people want to know about a hotel is what sort of looking place it is. All
right, here you are. Some factories, especially those that are proud of their
appearance, carry their own picture on their stationery. There is nothing to
say against it, but one of the most beautiful factories in America has on its
letter head only the name of the firm, the address, and a small trademark
engraved in black. Sometimes a picture, in a sales letter, for instance,
supplements the written matter in a most effective way. And whenever any
kind of device is really helpful it should by all means be used, subject only
to the limits of good taste.
It is more practical in business to use standard size envelopes. If window
envelopes are used the window should be clear, the paper white or nearly
so, and the typewritten address a good honest black. The enclosure should

fit snugly and should be placed so that the address is in plain view without
having to be jiggled around in the envelope first. A letter passes through the
hands of several postal clerks before it reaches the person to whom it is
addressed, and if each one of them has to stop to play with it awhile an
appreciable amount of time is lost, not to mention the strain it puts on their
respective tempers. The paper of which an envelope is made should always
be opaque enough to conceal the contents of the letter.
Practically all business letters are typewritten. Occasionally a “Help
Wanted” advertisement requests that the answer be in the applicant's own
handwriting, but even this is rare. In most places the typing is taken care of
by girls who have been trained for the purpose, but most young girls just
entering business are highly irresponsible, and it is necessary for the men
and women who dictate the letters to know what constitutes a pleasing
make-up so that they can point out the flaws and give suggestions for doing
away with them.
The letter should be arranged symmetrically on the page with ample
margins all around. Nothing but experience in copying her own notes will
teach a stenographer to estimate them correctly so that she will not have to
rewrite badly placed letters. It is a little point, but an important one.
Each subject considered in a letter should be treated in a separate
paragraph, and each paragraph should be set off from the others by a wider
space than that between the lines, double space between the paragraphs
when there is single space between the lines, triple space between the
paragraphs when there is a double space between the lines, and so on.
A business letter should handle only one subject. Two letters should be
dispatched if two subjects are to be covered. This enables the house
receiving the letter to file it so that it can be found when it is needed.
When a letter is addressed to an individual it is better to begin “Dear Mr.
Brown” or “My dear Mr. Brown” than “Dear Sir” or “My dear Sir.”
“Gentlemen” or “Ladies” is sometime used in salutation when a letter is
addressed to a group. “Dear Friend” is permissible in general letters sent out
to persons of both sexes. Honorary titles should be used in the address when
they take the place of “Mr.,” such titles as Reverend, Doctor, Honorable

(abbreviated to Rev., Dr., Hon.,) and the like. Titles should not be dropped
except in the case of personal letters.
Special care should be taken with the outside address. State abbreviations
should be used sparingly when there is a chance of confusion as in the case
of Ga., Va., La., and Pa. “City” is not sufficient and should never be used.
Nor should the name of the state ever be omitted even when the letter is
addressed to some other point in the same state, as from New York to
Brooklyn. And postage should be complete. A letter on which there is two
cents due has placed itself under a pretty severe handicap before it is
opened.
It is astonishing how many letters go out every day unsigned, lacking
enclosures, carrying the wrong addresses, bearing insufficient postage, and
showing other evidences of carelessness and thoughtlessness. In a town in
New England last year one of the specialty shops received at Christmas
time twenty different lots of money—money orders, stamps, and cash—by
mail, not one of which bore the slightest clue to the identity of the sender.
Countless times during the year this happens in every mail order house.
The initials of the dictator and of the stenographer in the lower left-hand
corner of a letter serve not only to identify the carbon, but often to place the
letter itself if it has gone out without signature. The signature should be
legible, or if the one who writes it enjoys making flourishes he may do so if
he will have the name neatly typed either just below the name or just above
it. It should be written in ink (black or blue ink), not in pencil or colored
crayon, and it should be blotted before the page is folded. The dictator
himself should sign the letter whenever possible. “Dictated but not read”
bears the mark of discourtesy and sometimes brings back a letter with
“Received but not read” written across it. When it is necessary to leave the
office before signing his letters, a business man should deputize his
stenographer to do it, in which case she writes his name in full with her
initials just below it. A better plan is to have another person take care of the
entire letter, beginning it something like, “Since Mr. Blake is away from the
office to-day he has asked me to let you know——”
The complimentary close to a business letter should be “Yours truly,”
“Yours sincerely” or something of the kind, and not “Yours cordially,”

“Yours faithfully” or “Yours gratefully” unless the circumstances warrant it.
In writing a letter as a part of a large organization one should use “We”
instead of “I.” A firm acts collectively, no one except the president has a
right to the pronoun of the first person, and he (if he is wise) seldom avails
himself of it. If the matter is so near personal as to make “We” somewhat
ridiculous “I” should, of course, be used instead. But one should be
consistent. If “I” is used at the beginning it should be continued throughout.
Similarly a letter should be addressed to a firm rather than to a person,
for if the person happens to be absent some one else can then take charge of
it. But the address should also include the name of the addressee (whenever
possible) or “Advertising Manager,” “Personnel Manager” or whatever the
designation of his position may be. The name may be placed in the lower
left-hand corner of the letter “Attention Mr. Green” or “Attention
Advertising Manager,” and it may also be placed just above the salutation
inside the letter. Sometimes the subject of the letter is indicated in the same
way, Re Montana shipment, Re Smythe manuscript, etc. These lines may be
typed in red or in capital letters so as to catch the attention of the reader at
once. If a letter is more than two pages long this line is often added to the
succeeding pages, a very convenient device, for letters are sometimes
misplaced in the files and this helps to locate them.
A business letter should never be longer than necessary. If three lines are
enough it is absurd to use more, especially if the letter is going to a firm
which handles a big correspondence. Some one has said with more truth
than exaggeration that no man south of Fourteenth Street in New York reads
a letter more than three lines long. But there is danger that the too brief
letter will sound brusque. Mail order houses which serve the small towns
and the rural districts say that, all other things being equal, it is the long
sales letter which brings in the best results. Farmers have more leisure and
they are quite willing to read long letters if (and this if is worth taking note
of) they are interesting.
All unnecessary words and all stilted phrases should be stripped from a
letter. “Replying to your esteemed favor,” “Yours of the 11th inst. to hand,
contents noted,” “Yours of the 24th ult. received. In reply would say,”
“Awaiting a favorable reply,” “We beg to remain” are dead weights. “Prox”

might be added to the list, and “In reply to same.” “Per diem” and other
Latin expressions should likewise be thrown into the discard. “As per our
agreement of the 17th” should give place to “According to our agreement of
the 17th,” and, wherever possible, simplified expression should be
employed. Legal phraseology should be restricted to the profession to
which it belongs. Wills, deeds, and other documents likely to be haled into
court need “whereas's” and “wherefores” and “said's” and “same's” without
end, but ordinary business letters do not. It is perfectly possible to express
oneself clearly in the language of conversation (which is also the language
of business) without burying the meaning in tiresome verbiage. And yet
reputable business houses every day send out letters which are almost
ridiculous because of the stiff and pompous way they are written.
The following letter was sent recently by one of the oldest furniture
houses in America:
Dear Madam:
Herewith please find receipt for full payment of your bill. Please accept
our thanks for same.
Relative to the commission due Mrs. Robinson would say that if she will
call at our office at her convenience we shall be glad to pay same to her.
Thanking you for past favors, we beg to remain,
Yours very truly,
Contrast that with this:
Dear Mrs. Brown:
We are returning herewith your receipted bill. Thank you very much.
If you will have Mrs. Robinson call at our office at her convenience we
shall take pleasure in paying her the commission due her.
Yours very truly,
Here is another letter so typical of the kind that carelessness produces:
Dear Sir:

I have your letter of the 27th inst. and I have forwarded it to Mr. Stubbs
and will see him in a few days and talk the matter over.
I remain
Yours sincerely,
Would it not have been just as easy to write:
Dear Mr. Thompson:
Thank you for your letter of the 27th. I have forwarded it to Mr. Stubbs
and will see him in a few days to talk the matter over.
Your sincerely,
In the preparation of this volume a letter of inquiry was sent out to a
number of representative business houses all over the country. It was a
pleasure to read the excellent replies that came in response to it. One letter
reached its destination in the midst of a strike, but the publicity manager of
the firm sent a cordial answer, which began:
Your very courteous letter to Mr. Jennings came at a time when his mind
is pretty well occupied with thoughts concerning the employment situation
in our various plants.
We shall endeavor, therefore, to give you such information as comes to
mind with regard to matters undertaken by the company which have
contributed to the standard of courtesy which exists in the departments here.
We select another at random:
It pleases us very much to know that our company has been described to
you as one which practises courtesy in business. We should like nothing
better than to have all our employees live up to the reputation credited to
them by Mr. Haight.
As for our methods of obtaining it——
Contrast these two excellent beginnings with (and this one is authentic,
too):

In reply to yours of the 6th inst. relative to what part courtesy plays in
business and office management would say that it is very important.
Routine letters must be standardized—a house must conserve its own
time as well as that of its customers—but a routine letter must never be
used unless it adequately covers the situation. There is no excuse for a poor
routine letter, for there is plenty of time to think it out, and there is no
excuse for sending a routine letter when it does not thoroughly answer the
correspondent's question. The man who is answering a letter must put
himself in the place of the one who wrote it.
This is a fair sample of what happens when a letter is written by a person
who either has no imagination at all, or does not use what he has.
A woman who had just moved to New York lost the key to her apartment
and wrote to her landlord for another. This answer came:
Replying to your letter, will say am sorry but it is not the custom of the
landlord to furnish more than one key for an apartment. Should the tenant
lose or misplace the key it is up to them to replace same.
The woman felt a justifiable sense of irritation. She was new to the city
and thought she was taking the most direct method of replacing “same.”
Perhaps she should have known better, but she did not. Buying a key is not
so simple as buying a box of matches and to a newcomer it is a matter of
some little difficulty. She was at least entitled to a bit more information and
to more courteous treatment than is shown in the letter signed by his
landlordly hand. She went to see him and found him most suave and polite
(which was his habit face to face with a woman). He explained the heavy
expense of furnishing careless tenants with new keys (which she understood
perfectly to begin with) and was most apologetic when he discovered that
she had intended all the time to pay for it. It would have been just as easy
for him in the beginning to write:
I am sorry that I cannot send you a key, but we have had so many similar
requests that we have had to discontinue complying with them.
You will find an excellent locksmith at 45 West 119 St. His telephone
number is Main 3480.

Or:
I am sending you the key herewith. There is a nominal charge for it
which will be added to your bill at the end of the month. I hope it will reach
you safely. It is a nuisance to be without one.
Imagination is indispensable to good letter writing, but it is going rather
far when one sends thanks in advance for a favor which he expects to be
conferred. Even those who take pleasure in granting favors like to feel that
they do so of their own free will. It takes away the pleasure of doing it when
some one asks a favor and then assumes the thing done. Royalty alone are
so highly privileged as to have simply to voice their wishes to have them
complied with, and royalty has gone out of fashion.
At one point in their journey all the travellers in “Pilgrim's Progress”
exchanged burdens, but they did not go far before each one begged to have
back his original load. That is what would happen if the man who dictates a
letter were to exchange places with his stenographer. Each would then
appreciate the position of the other, and if they were once in a while to
make the transfer in their minds (imagination in business again) they would
come nearer the sympathetic understanding that is the basis of good
teamwork.
The responsibility for a letter is divided between them, and it is important
that the circumstances under which it is written should be favorable. The
girl should be placed in a comfortable position so that she can hear without
difficulty. The dictator should not smoke whether she objects to it or not. He
should have in mind what he wants to say before he begins speaking, and
then he should pronounce his words evenly and distinctly. He should not
bang on the desk with his fist, flourish his arms in the air, talk in rhetorical
rushes with long pauses between the phrases, or raise his voice to a
thunderous pitch and then let it sink to a cooing murmur. These things have
not the slightest effect on the typewritten page, and they make it very hard
for the girl to take correct notes. No one should write a letter while he is
angry, or if he writes it (and it is sometimes a relief to write a scorching
letter) he should not mail it.
It is said that Roosevelt used to write very angry letters to people who
deserved them, drawing liberally upon his very expressive supply of

abusive words for the occasion. Each time his secretary quietly stopped the
letter. Each time the Colonel came in the day after and asked if the letter
had been sent. Each time the secretary said, “No, that one did not get off.”
And each time the Colonel exclaimed, “Good! We won't send it!” It came to
be a regular part of the day's routine.
Inexperienced dictators will find it good practice to have their
stenographers read back their letters so they can recast awkward sentences
and make other improvements. It can usually be discontinued after a while,
for dictating, like nearly everything else, becomes easier with habit.
A considerate man will show special forbearance in breaking in a new
girl. Different voices are hard to grow accustomed to, and a girl who is
perfectly capable of taking dictation from one man will find it very difficult
to follow another until she has grown used to the sound of his voice. It is
like learning a foreign language. The pupil understands his teacher, but he
does not understand any one else until he has got “the hang of it.”
The training of a good stenographer does not end when she leaves school.
She should be able not only to take down and transcribe notes neatly and
correctly. She should be able to spell and punctuate correctly and to make
the minor changes in phrasing and diction that so often can make a good
letter of a poor one. The most fatal disease that can overtake a stenographer
(or any one else) is the habit of slavishly following a routine.
“Many young fellows,” this is from Henry Ford, “especially those
employed in offices, fall into a routine way of doing their work that
eventually makes it become like a treadmill. They do not get a broad view
of the entire business. Sometimes that is the fault of the employer, but that
does not excuse the young man. Those who command attention are the ones
who are actually pushing the boss.... It pays to be ahead of your immediate
job, and to do more than that for which you are paid. A mere clock watcher
never gets anywhere. Forget the clock and become absorbed in your job.
Learn to love it.”
The position of secretary is a responsible one. Frequently she knows
almost as much about his business as her employer himself (and sometimes
even more). He depends upon her quite as much as she depends upon him,
though in a somewhat different way. It takes personal effort together with

native ability to raise any one to a position of importance, but personal
effort often needs supplementing, and many business houses have taken
special measures to help their employees to become good correspondents.
In some places there are supervisors who give talks and discuss the actual
letters, good ones and bad, which have been written. They go over the
carbons and hold conferences with the correspondents who need help. In
other places courtesy campaigns for a higher standard of correspondence
are held, while in others the matter is placed in the hands of the heads of the
various departments, acting on the assumption that these heads are men of
experience and ability or they would never have attained the position they
hold.
The president of a bank which has branches in London and Paris and
other big foreign cities used every now and then to stop the boy who was
carrying a basket of carbons to the file clerk and look them over. If he found
a letter he did not like, or one that he did like a great deal, he sent for the
person who wrote it and talked with him. It was not necessary for him to go
over the letters often. The fact that the people in the office knew that it was
likely to happen kept them on the alert and nearly every letter that left the
organization was better because the person who wrote it knew that the man
at the head was interested in it and that there was a strong chance that he
might see it.
What is effective in one place may not be so in another. Each house must
work out its own system. But one thing must be understood in the
beginning, and that is that the spirit of courtesy must first abide in the home
office before the people who work there can hope to send it out through the
mail.
Roughly speaking there are eight types of business letters which nearly
every business man at one time or another has to write or to consider.
The first is the letter of application. The applicant should state simply his
qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an appeal to
sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should not demand a
certain salary, though he may state what salary he would like, and he should
not say “Salary no object.” It would probably not be true. There are
comparatively few people with whom money is no object. If it is the first

time the applicant has ever tried for a position he should say so; if not, he
should give his reason for leaving his last place. It should not be a long
letter. A direct statement of the essential facts (age, education, experiences,
etc.) is all that is necessary.
Many times the letter of application is accompanied by, or calls for, a
letter of recommendation.
No man should allow himself to recommend another for qualities which
he knows he does not possess. If he is asked for a recommendation he
should speak as favorably of the person under consideration as he honestly
can, and if his opinion of him is disapproving he should give it with
reservations.
At one time during the cleaning up of Panama there was considerable
talk about displacing General Gorgas and a committee waited on Roosevelt
to suggest another man for the job. He listened and then asked them to get a
letter about him from Dr. William H. Welsh of Johns Hopkins. Dr. Welsh
wrote a letter praising the man very highly, but ended by saying that while it
was true that he would be a good man for the place, he did not think he
would be as good as the one they already had—General Gorgas. The
Colonel acted upon the letter confident (because he had great faith in Dr.
Welsh) that he was taking the wise course, which subsequent events proved
it to be. “Would to heaven,” he said, “that every one would write such
honest letters of recommendation!”
The general letter of recommendation beginning “To whom it may
concern” is rarely given now. It has little weight. Usually a man waits until
he has applied for a position and then gives the name of his reference, the
person to whom he is applying writes to the one to whom he has been
referred, and the entire correspondence is carried on between these two. In
this way the letter of recommendation can be sincere, something almost
impossible in the open letter. It is needless to add that all such
correspondence should be confidential.
The letter of introduction is, in a measure, a letter of recommendation.
The one who writes it stands sponsor for the one who bears it. It should
make no extravagant claims for the one who is introduced. He should
simply be given a chance to make good on his own responsibility. But it

should give the reason for the presentation and suggest a way of following
it up that will result in mutual pleasure or benefit. It should be in an
unsealed envelope and the envelope should bear, in addition to the address,
the words, “Introducing Mr. Blank” on the lower left-hand corner. This does
away with an embarrassing moment when the letter is presented in person
and enables the host to greet his guest by name and ask him to be seated
while he reads it.
Letters of introduction should not be given promiscuously. Some men
permit themselves to be persuaded into giving letters of introduction to
people who are absolute nuisances (it is hard to refuse any one who asks for
this sort of letter, but often kindest for all concerned) and then they send in
secret another letter explaining how the first one came about. This really
throws the burden on the person who least of all ought to bear it, the
innocent man whom the first one wanted to meet. No letter of presentation
is justified unless there is good reason behind it, such, as for instance, in the
following:
This is Mr. Franklin B. Nesbitt. He has been in Texas for several months
studying economic conditions, and I believe can give you some valuable
information which has resulted from his research there. He is a man upon
whom you can rely. I have known him for years, and I am sure that
whatever he tells you will be trustworthy.
It is a common practice for a business man to give his personal card with
“Introducing Mr. Mills” or “Introducing Mr. Mills of Howard and Powell
Motor Co.” written across it to a man whom he wishes to introduce to
another. This enables him to get an interview. What he does with it rests
entirely with him.
Sales letters are a highly specialized group given over, for the most part,
to experts. Their most common fault is overstatement or patronizing. The
advertisements inserted in trade papers and the letters sent out to the “trade”
are often so condescendingly written that they infuriate the men to whom
they are addressed. It is safer to assume that the man you are writing to is an
intelligent human being. It is better to overestimate his mentality than to
underestimate it, and it is better to “talk” to him in the letter than to “write”
to him.

Sales letters are, as a rule, general, not personal, and yet the best ones
have the personal touch. The letter is a silent salesman whose function is to
anticipate the needs of its customers and offer to supply them. In this as in
any other kind of salesmanship it is the spirit which counts for most, and the
spirit of genuine helpfulness (mutual helpfulness) gives pulling power to
almost any letter. The one which presents a special offer on special terms
specially arranged for the benefit of the customer wins out almost every
time, provided, of course, that the offer is worth presenting. There is no use
in declaring that all of the benefit is to the subscriber. It would be very
foolish if it were actually true. Once a man went into a haberdashery to buy
a coat. The shop owner unctuously declared that he was not making a cent
of profit, was selling it for less than it cost him, and so on and on. The man
walked out. “I'll go somewhere where they have sense enough to make a
profit,” he said.
A sales letter should never be sent out to a large group of people without
first having been tried out on a smaller one. In this way the letter can be
tested and improvements made before the whole campaign is launched. The
results in the small group are a pretty fair indication of what they will be in
the large one, and a tremendous amount of time and money can be saved by
studying the letter carefully to see where it has failed before sending it out
to make an even bigger failure.
On the face of things it seems that an order letter would be an easy one to
write, but the mail order houses have another story to tell. Order blanks
should be used wherever possible. They have been carefully made and have
blank spaces for the filling in of answers to the questions that are asked. In
an order letter one should state exactly what he wants, how he wants it sent,
and how he intends to pay for it. If the order consists of several items, each
one should be listed separately. If they are ordered from a catalogue they
should be identified with the catalogue description by mention of their
names, their numbers and prices. One should state whether he is sending
check, money, stamps, or money order, but he should not say “Enclosed
please find.”
The commonest form of letter of acknowledgment is sent in answer to an
order letter. If there is to be the least delay in filling the order the letter
acknowledging it should say so and should give the reason for it, but even

when the order is filled promptly (if it is a large or a comparatively large
one) the letter of acknowledgment should be sent. Then if anything goes
wrong it is easier to trace than when the customer has no record except the
copy of his order letter. The letter of acknowledgment should simply thank
the customer and assure him of prompt and efficient service.
Complaints should be acknowledged immediately. If there is to be a
delay while an investigation is made, the letter of acknowledgment should
simply state the fact and beg indulgence until it is finished. Complaints
should always receive careful and courteous attention. Most of them are
justified, and even those that are not had something to begin on.
The letter of complaint should never be written hastily or angrily. It
should go directly to the root of the trouble and should state as nearly as
possible when and where and how it came about. One should be especially
careful about placing the blame or charging to an individual what was really
the fault of an unfortunate train of circumstances. The tone should never be
sharp, no matter how just the complaint. “Please” goes further than “Now,
see here.”
Collection letters are hardest to write. They should appeal to a man's
sense of honor first of all. It is a cheap (and ineffective) method to beg him
to pay because you need the money, and rarely brings any reaction except
rousing in his mind a contempt for you. The first letter in a series (and the
series often includes as many as six or eight) should be simply a reminder.
Drastic measures should not be taken until they are necessary, and at no
time should the letters become abrupt or insulting. In the first place, it is
ungentlemanly to write such letters, in the second it antagonizes the debtor,
and if he gets angry enough he feels that it is hardly an obligation to pay the
money; that it will “serve 'em right” if he does not do it.
Advertising is a sort of letter writing. Each advertisement is a letter set
before the public or some part of the public in the hope that it will be
answered by the right person. It enters into an over-crowded field and if it is
to attract attention it must be vivid, unusual, and convincing. Increasingly—
and there is cause to be thankful for this—exaggerated statements are being
forced to disappear. In the first place the ballyhoo advertisers have shouted
the public deaf. They no longer believe. In the second place advertisers

themselves have waked to the menace of the irresponsible and dishonest
people who are advertising and are taking legal measures to safeguard the
honor of the profession.
One of the most successful advertisers of modern times was a man who
carried the idea of service into everything he did. For a while he had charge
of soliciting advertising for automobile trucks for a certain magazine.
Instead of going at it blindly he made a careful study of the map of the
United States and marked off the areas where automobile trucks were used,
where they could be used, and where they should be used, and sent it to the
manufacturers along with a statement of the circulation of the magazine and
the advantages of reaching the public through it. The result was that the
magazine got more advertising from the manufacturers than it could
possibly handle. It is very gratifying to know that this man succeeded
extraordinarily as an advertiser, for not once during his long career did he
ever try to “put one over” on the public or on anybody else.
No advertisement should be impertinent or importunate. During the war
there was a splendid poster bearing a picture of Uncle Sam looking straight
into your eyes and pointing his finger straight into your face as he said,
“Young man, your country needs you!” The poster was excellent from
every point of view, but since the war, real estate companies, barber shops,
restaurants and whatnot have used posters bearing the pictures of men
pointing their fingers straight at you saying, “There is a home at Blankville
for you,” “Watch out to use Baker's Best,” and “You're next!” After all,
Uncle Sam is the only person who has a right to point his finger at you in
any such manner and say, “I need you.” And besides, there is the moral side
of it. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, but the dividing line between it and
dishonesty is not always clear. And the law cannot every time prosecute the
offender, for there is a kind of cleverness that enables a man to pilfer the
ideas of another and recast them just sufficiently to “get by.” It would be
very stupid for a man not to profit by the experience of other men, but there
is a vast difference between intelligent adaptation of ideas and stealing
them. This is more a question of morals than of manners, for the crime—
and it is a crime—is usually deliberate, while most breaches of manners are
unintentional and due to either carelessness or ignorance.

House memoranda are letters among the various people who are working
there. They should be brief, above all things, and clear, but never at the
sacrifice of courtesy. Titles should not be dropped and nicknames should
not be used although initials may be. Memoranda should never be personal
unless they are sent confidentially. An open memorandum should never
contain anything that cannot be read by every one without reflecting
unfavorably upon any one. And it is wise to keep in mind—no matter what
you are writing—that the written record is permanent.

Top

IX
MORALS AND MANNERS

It has become a habit of late years for people to argue at great length
about right and wrong, and what with complexes and psycho-analysis and
what with this and that, they have almost come to the conclusion that there
is no right and wrong. Man, so they have decided, is a frail and tender being
completely at the mercy of the traits he has inherited from his ancestors and
those he has acquired from his neighbors. What he does is simply the result
of the combination of circumstances that have made him what he is. There
is some truth in it, of course, but what there is is no bigger than a mustard
seed, and all the volumes that have been written about it, all the sermons
that have been preached upon it, and all the miles of space that have been
devoted to it in the newspapers and magazines have not served to increase
it. Most of us never give any one else credit for our achievements and there
is no more reason for giving them blame for our failures. A gentleman is
“lord of his own actions.” He balances his own account, and whether there
is a debit or a credit is a matter squarely up to him.
The pivot upon which all right-thinking conduct involving relations with
other people turns is the Golden Rule, “Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them.” It is to the moral what the sun is
to the physical world, and just as we have never made full use of the heat
and light which we derive from the sun but could not live without that
which we do use, so we have never realized more than a small part of the
possibilities of the Golden Rule, but at the same time could not get along
together in the world without the meagre part of it that we do make use of.
The principle is older than the Christian Era, older than the sequoias of
California, older than the Pyramids, older than Chinese civilization. It is the
most precious abstract truth that man has yet discovered. It contains the
germ of all that has been said and written about human brotherhood and all
that has been done toward making it an accomplished fact. And if to-
morrow it were to vanish from the earth we should miss it almost, if not
quite, as much as we should the sun if it were to go hurtling off into space

so far away that we could neither see nor feel it. In the one case there would
be no life at all on earth, in the other there would be none worth living.
The Golden Rule amounts to no more than putting yourself into another
person's place. It is not always easy to do. Half of the people in the United
States have very little idea of what the lives of the other half are like and
have no special interest in knowing.
“What,” we asked the manager of a bookshop which caters to a large
high-grade clientèle, “do you find your greatest trouble?”
“Lack of imagination on the part of our customers,” he answered
promptly, “a total inability to put themselves into our place, to realize that
we have our lives to live just as they have theirs. If we haven't a book in
stock they want to know why. If we don't drop everything to attend to them
they want to know why. If anything goes wrong they want to know why, but
they won't listen to explanations and won't accept them when they do. They
simply can't see our side of it. And they make such unreasonable demands.
Why, last year during the Christmas rush when the shop was fairly jammed
to the door and we were all in a perfect frenzy trying to wait on them all, a
man called up to know if his wife was here!”
It is not always easy to see life, or even a small section of life, from
another person's point of view. A man very often thinks housework
practically no work at all (the drudgery of it he has never realized because
he has never had to do it) and a woman very often underestimates the wear
and tear and strain of working in an office and getting a living out of it in
competition with hundreds of other men. Marie Antoinette had no
conception of what it meant when the French people cried for bread. It
seemed impossible to her that a person could actually be hungry. “Why,
give them cake!” she exclaimed. It may be pretty hard for a man who is
making $10,000 a year to sympathize with the stenographer he hires for
$600 or $700 a year, or for her to see his side of things. But it is not
impossible.
Very few of us could honestly go as far as the novelist who recently
advocated the motto: “My neighbor is perfect” or the governor who set
aside a day for the people in his state to put it into practice. We happen to
know that our neighbors are, like ourselves, astonishing compounds of vice

and virtue in whom any number of improvements might be made. It is not
necessary to think them perfect, only to remember that each one of us, each
one of them, is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other
words, that every man has a right to a square deal.
In the ancient world there were four cardinal virtues: justice, prudence,
temperance, and discretion. In the modern world of business there are only
two. Others may follow, but these two must come first. Justice, we mean,
and kindness. No man was ever really a gentleman who was not just and
kind, and we think it would be almost impossible for one who is, whatever
his minor shortcomings may be, not to be a gentleman. Just to his
employees (or to his employer), to his customers, to his friends, to himself,
and this justice always tempered with kindness, the one quality giving the
firmness necessary in dealing with people, the other the gentleness which is
no less necessary.
In the first place, and this is one of the corner stones of justice, industrial
life must be made safe for the worker. And it is a job in which he has as
large a part as the man who hires him. Under present conditions one
workman out of every eight is injured during the year and the accident is as
often his fault as it is that of his employer. In some instances efficient safety
devices are not provided, in others they are not made use of.
Special kinds of work, such as that in which the laborer is exposed to
poisonous fumes, to sand blasts, dangerous chemicals or mineral dusts,
need special protective devices and men with sense enough to use them.
The employer cannot do his share unless the worker does his, and the
worker is too quick to take a chance. The apprentice is usually cautious
enough, but the old hand grows unwary. Ninety-nine times he thrusts his
arm in among belts whirling at lightning speed and escapes, but the
hundredth time the arm is caught and mangled. And there is nothing to
blame but his own carelessness.

WHO AM I?

I am more powerful than the combined armies of the world.
I have destroyed more men than all the wars of the nations.

I am more deadly than bullets, and I have wrecked more homes than the
mightiest of siege guns.
I steal, in the United States, alone, over $300,000,000 each year.
I spare no one, and I find my victims among the rich and poor alike, the
young and old, the strong and weak. Widows and orphans know me.
I loom up to such proportions that I cast my shadow over every field of
labor, from the turning of the grindstone to the moving of every railroad
train.
I massacre thousands upon thousands of wage earners a year.
I lurk in unseen places and do most of my work silently. You are warned
against me but you heed not.
I am relentless.
I am everywhere—in the house, on the streets, in the factory, at the
railroad crossings, and on the sea.
I bring sickness, degradation and death, and yet few seek to avoid me.
I destroy, crush or maim; I give nothing but take all.
I am your worst enemy.

I AM CARELESSNESS

Any kind of carelessness which results in injury (or is likely to result in
it), whether the injury is mental or physical, is criminal. No plea can justify
building a theatre which cannot stand a snowstorm, a school which cannot
give a maximum of safety to the children who are in it, a factory which
does not provide comfortable working conditions for the people employed
there, or allowing any unsafe building or part of a building to stand.
There is a factory (this story is true) which places the lives of the
majority of its employees in jeopardy twice a day. There are two sets of
elevators, one at the front of the building for the executives and their
secretaries and visitors, one at the rear for the rank and file of the

employees. Since there are several hundred of the latter the advantages of
the division are too obvious to need discussion. We have no quarrel with it.
But the apparatus upon which the elevators in the rear run is so old and so
rotten and so rusty that there is constant danger of its breaking down. Three
times already there have been serious accidents. The men who are hired to
operate the cars rarely stay more than a week or so. Protests have been sent
in but nothing has been done. The management knows what the conditions
are but they have never stopped to realize the horror of it. It is not that they
value a few dollars more than they do human life, but that they simply do
not stop to think or to imagine what it would be like to have to ride in the
ramshackle elevator themselves. In the offices of this factory there is an
atmosphere of courtesy and good breeding far beyond the ordinary—in
justice to the people there it must be said that they do not know the
conditions in the rear, but the management does. And the management is
polite in most of its dealings, both with its employees and outside, but
polish laid over a cancerous growth like this is not courtesy.
There are three essentials for good work: good lighting (it must be
remembered that a light that is too glaring is as bad as one that is too dim),
fresh air (air that is hot and damp or dry and dusty is not fresh), and
cleanliness (clean workrooms—and workers—clean drinking water with
individual drinking cups, and in places where the work is unusually dirty,
plenty of clean water for bathing purposes.)
In the matter of salaries—economically one of the most important
questions in the world—the employer should pay, not as little, but as much
as he can afford. No man has a right to hire a girl (or a boy either) at less
than a living wage and expect her to live on it. The pitiless publicity which
was given the evil of hiring girls at starvation wages some years ago (in
particular through the short stories of O. Henry, “the little shop-girl's
knight” which, according to Colonel Roosevelt, suggested all the reforms
which he undertook in behalf of the working girls of New York) did much
in the way of reform, but there is much yet to be done.
Money has been called the root of all evil. It is not money, but greed.
Greed and thoughtlessness. Sir James Barrie says stupidity and jealousy, but
both these might be included under thoughtlessness. Men who are generous
almost to a fault when a case of individual need is brought before them will

hire girls at less than any one could exist on in decency. When they meet
these same girls in the hall or when they come directly into contact with
them in their work they may be polite enough, but their politeness is not
worth a tinker's curse. Justice must come first. Only if the employer pays a
fair day's wage can he expect a fair day's work. “Even then,” he protests, “I
can't get it.” And this is, unfortunately, in large measure true. As Kipling
said some few years ago, and it still holds,

From forge and farm and mine and bench
Deck, altar, outpost lone—
Mill, school, battalion, counter, trench,
Rail, senate, sheepfold, throne—
Creation's cry goes up on high
From age to cheated age:
“Send us the men who do the work
For which they draw the wage.”

“I can't even get them here on time,” the employer's wail continues. The
employee may respond that the employer is not there, but this has nothing
to do with it. Most people are paid to get to their work at a certain hour.
They have a daily appointment with their business at a specified time. It is
wise and honorable to keep it. Tardiness is a habit, and, like most others,
considerably harder to break than to form, but punctuality also is a habit,
not quite so easy to establish as tardiness because it is based on strength
while the other is based on weakness. Most of us hate to get up in the
morning, but it is good discipline for the soul, and we have the words of
poets as well as of business men that

Early to bed and early to rise
Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Time is one of the most valuable of commodities. More people are
discharged for coming in late than for any other reason, not excepting (we
believe this no exaggeration) “lay-offs” during dull seasons. Slipping out
before the regular time and soldiering on the job fall into the same
classification with tardiness. Such practices the employee too often looks
upon as a smart way of getting around authority, blithely ignoring the fact
which has so many times been called to our attention: that what a man does

to a job is not half so important as what the job does to him. The material
loss which comes from it is the least of its harms.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but he is duller yet if he tries
to mix them. Intense concentration during working hours followed by
complete rest is the only way to make a contented workman, and it is the
happy workman (just as it is the happy warrior), in spite of all that is said
about divine discontent, who counts for most both to himself and to his
community. There is a gladness about earnest eager work which is hard to
find in anything else. “I know what pleasure is,” declared Robert Louis
Stevenson, “because I have done good work.”
Gossiping, idling, smoking, writing personal letters during working hours
(these usually on the firm's stationery), and a thousand and one other petty
acts of dishonesty are ruinous, not so much to the house which tolerates
them (because it cannot help itself) as to the person who commits them.
Telephones are the cause of a good deal of disturbance during business
hours in places where employees spend an appreciable amount of time on
personal calls. In some organizations they are prohibited altogether; but in
most they are allowed if not carried to excess. It is not business people who
need education in this so much as their friends who have never been in
business and seem unable to realize that personal calls are not only
annoying, but time-killing and distracting.
Part of the unrest and unhappiness among employees is due to the fact
that vast numbers of them are working not at what they want to do but at
what they have to do, marking time until they can get something better. It is
very commendable for a man to be constantly watching out to improve
himself, but it does not in the meanwhile excuse him from doing his best at
the job for which he is drawing pay. It is dishonest. It is unsportsmanlike. It
is unmanly.
The question of salary is, from whatever angle it is approached, a delicate
one. “My experience is,” observed David Harum, “that most men's hearts is
located ruther closter to their britchis pockets than they are to their vest
pockets.” It is a tender subject, and one that causes more trouble than
almost any other in the world. Employees who are trusted with the payroll
should not divulge figures and employees who are on the payroll should not

discuss and compare salaries. Jones cannot understand why Brown gets
more than he does when he knows that Brown's work is not so good, Brown
cannot see why Smith gets as much as he does when he is out two or three
days in the week, and Smith cannot see why he has not been made an
executive after all the years he has worked in the place. There are many
sides to the matter of salary adjustment and they all have to be taken into
consideration. And the petty jealousies that employees arouse by matching
salaries against one another only serve to make a complex problem more
difficult.
There is only one base upon which a man should rest his plea for an
increase in salary, and that is good work. The fact that he has a family
dependent upon him, that he is ill or hard up may be ample reason for
giving him financial help or offering him a loan, but it is no reason why his
salary should be increased unless his work deserves it. Paternalism is more
unfair than most systems of reward, and the man who comes whimpering
with a tale of hard luck is usually (but not always) not worth coddling.
Years of experience, even though they stretch out to three score and ten, are
not in themselves sufficient argument for promotion. Sometimes the mere
fact that a man has been content to stay in one place year after year shows
that he has too little initiative to rise in that particular kind of work and is
too timid to try something else.
Another big cause of trouble among men working in the same
organization is rigid class distinction. When a man hires others to work for
him he invites discontent; when he hires them to work with him there may
be dissatisfaction, but the chances of it are lessened. A business well knit
together is like any other group, an army or a football team, bound into a
unit to achieve a result. At its best each person in it feels a responsibility
toward each one of the others; each realizes that who a man is is not half so
important as what he does, and that

... the game is more than the player of the game
And the ship is more than the crew,

or, as another poet with a Kiplingesque turn of mind and phrase has it,

It is not the guns or armament

Or the money they can pay.
It's the close coöperation
That makes them win the day.
It is not the individual
Or the army as a whole,
But the everlastin' team work
Of every blooming soul.
Each man is directly responsible to his immediate superior. He should
never, unless the circumstances are unusual, go over his head and he should
never do so without letting him know. It should be impossible, and is, in a
well-organized house, for men coming from the outside to appeal over a
member of a firm. Responsible men should be placed in the contact
positions and their responsibility should be respected. Salesmen are warned
not to bother with the little fellow but to go straight to the head of a firm.
Like most general advice, it is dangerous to put into universal practice. The
heads of most firms have men to take care of visitors, and in a good many
instances, the salesman helps his cause by going to the proper subordinate
in the first place. It is all very well to go to the head of a firm but to do it at
the expense of the dignity of one of the smaller executives is doubtful
business policy and doubtful ethics.
“Passing the buck” is a gentle vice practised in certain loosely hung
together concerns. It is a strong temptation to shift the accountability for a
mistake to the shoulders of the person on the step below, but it is to be
remembered that temptations, like obstacles, are things to be overcome. The
“buck,” as has been pointed out, always passes down and not up, a fact
which makes a detestable practice all the more odious. One of the first laws
of knighthood was to defend the weak and to protect the poor and helpless;
it still holds, though knighthood has passed out of existence; and the
creature (he is not even good red herring) who blames some one else for a
fault of his, or allows him to take the blame, is beneath contempt.
When a mistake has been made and the responsibility fixed on the right
person the penalty may be inflicted. If it is a scolding or a “bawling out” it
should be done quietly. Good managers do not shout their reprimands. They
do not need to. The reproof for a fault is a matter between the offender and
the “boss.” No one else has any concern with it, and there is no reason why

the instinct for gossip or the appetite for malicious reports on the part of the
other employees should be satisfied. The world would be happier and
business would be infinitely more harmonious if each person in it could
realize that his chief aim in life should be to mind his own business or, at
least, to let other people's alone.
Private secretaries and other people in more or less confidential positions
are many times tempted to give away secret information, not so much for
the benefit of the person to whom it is given as to show how much they
themselves are trusted. Nearly every one who holds a responsible business
position receives items of information which are best not repeated, and if
common sense does not teach him what should be kept private and what
should be told, nothing will. It should not be necessary for the superior to
preface each of his remarks with, “Now, this must go no further.”
Matters concerning salaries should always be confidential, and so should
personal items such as health reports, character references, and so on, credit
reports, blacklists, and other information of a similar nature. It is compiled
for a definite purpose and for the use of a limited group of people. It is
unethical to use it in any other way.
The reason for dismissing a person from a business organization should
be kept private, especially if it is something that reflects unfavorably on his
character. But the reason should always be given to the employee himself.
He may not listen, and most of the men who have had experience in hiring
and firing say that he will not, but that is his own responsibility. The
employer has no right to let him go without letting him know why. And the
employee should listen—it may not be his fault but he should check up
honestly with himself and find out. The same thing that lost him this place
may lose him another, and a good many times all that he can get out of
being discharged is a purification of soul. It is a pity if he misses that.
Discharging a person is a serious matter, serious from both sides, and it is
not a thing to be done lightly. Most houses try to obviate it in so far as
possible by hiring only the kind of people they want to keep. “Our efforts
toward efficiency” (we quote from one manager who is typical of
thousands) “begin at the front door. We try to eliminate the unfit there. We
do not employ any one who happens to come along. We try by means of an

interview and references and psychological tests to get the very highest type
of employee.” No human test is perfect, however, and there are times, even
in the best regulated houses, when it becomes necessary to dismiss persons
who have shown themselves unfit.
It is not always a disgrace to be discharged and it is not always a step
downward. It may be because of business depression or it may be because
the man is a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes it is the only experience
that will reduce a man's, especially a young man's, idea of his own
importance to something like normal proportions, the only one that will
clear his mind of the delusion that he is himself the only person who is
keeping off the rocks the business for which he is working, in which case it
is one of the best things that could have happened to him.
A roll call of famous or successful men who were fired would take up
several reams of paper, and it is a pretty rash personnel manager (not to say
brutal and unfair) who will throw a man out like a rotten potato and declare
that he is absolutely no good. Besides, he does not know. All that he can be
sure of is that the man was not qualified for the job he was holding. And he
should think twice before giving a man a bad name even if he feels certain
that he deserves it. At the same time he must protect himself and other
business men from incompetent, weak, or vicious employees. If after his
dismissal a man sends back to his former employer for a recommendation,
the recommendation should be as favorable as possible without sacrificing
the truth.
When a man breaks his connection with a business house, whether he
does so voluntarily or involuntarily, his departure should be pleasant, or at
the least dignified. It is childish to take advantage of the fact that you are
going away to tell all of the people you have grudges against how you feel
about them, and it is worse than a mere breach of good manners to abuse
the house that has asked you to leave. If it has done some one else an
injustice, talk about that all you please, but on your own account be silent.
Even if the fault has been altogether with the house it does not help to call it
names. Self-respect should come to the rescue here. This is the time when it
is right to be too proud to fight.

For a long time it has been held bad ethics for the members of one trade
or profession to speak disparagingly of their competitors, and we have
grown accustomed to say that you can judge a man by the way he speaks of
his rivals. This has limits, however, and in some instances a mistaken idea
of loyalty to one's calling has led to the glossing over of certain evils which
could have been cured much earlier if they had been made public. It is all
very well to be generous and courteous toward one's competitors but the
finest courtesy in any business consists of doing whatever tends to elevate
the standard of that business.
Every man likes his business to be well thought of, and most businesses
have organized for the promotion of a high standard of ethics as well as for
the development of more efficient methods. Notable among these, to
mention one of the most recent ones, is the Advertisers' Association. There
was a time when the whole profession was menaced by the swindlers who
were exploiting fraudulent schemes by means of advertising in magazines
and newspapers, but to-day no reputable periodical will accept an
advertisement without investigating its source and most of them will back
up the guarantee of the advertiser that his goods are what he represents
them to be with a guarantee of their own. No publication which intends to
keep alive can afford a reputation of dishonesty, and the efforts of the
publishers toward cleaning up have been seconded by the association to
such an extent that any person or corporation that issues a deceptive
advertisement, whether or not there was intent to deceive, will be
prosecuted and punished.
There was a time when a man could do almost anything within the law in
a commercial transaction and excuse himself by saying “business is
business.” Happily this is no longer true. Business men have not grown
perfect but they have raised their standards of business morality as high as
their standards of personal morality. They have learned that business and
life are one, that our lives cannot—and this has a number of disadvantages
—be separated into compartments like so many tightly corked bottles on a
shelf. We have only one vessel and whatever goes into it colors what is
already there. And it is significant to remember that muddy water poured
into clean water will make it muddy, but that clean water poured into
muddy water will not make it clean. It takes very little ink in a pail of milk

to color the whole of it, but it takes an enormous amount of milk to have
any effect on a bottle of ink.
Business men have also learned that the only way to build a business that
will last is to lay its foundation on the Golden Rule, and many a man who
might otherwise sidetrack the principles of integrity holds by them for this
reason. “Honesty,” declared one of the most insufferable prigs America ever
produced, “is the best policy.” He was right. Prigs usually are. It is only
because they are so sure of it themselves that they irritate us.
It is a fact, in spite of the difficulty Diogenes had when he took up his
lantern and set out to find an honest man, that most people like to pay their
way as they go, and the business men who recognize this are the ones who
come out on top. They do not say that the customer is always right nor that
he is perfect, but they assume that he is honest and trust him until he has
proved himself otherwise. The biggest mail order house in America never
questions a check. As soon as an order is received they fill it and attend to
the check afterward. Their percentage of loss is extraordinarily small.
Distrust begets distrust, and the perversity of human nature is such that even
an honest man will be tempted to cheat if he knows another suspects him of
it. The converse is equally true. There are, of course, exceptions. But the
only rule in the world to which there are no exceptions is that there is no
rule that holds good under all conditions.

PART II

Top

X
“BIG BUSINESS”

In the preceding pages we have looked over the field of etiquette in
business in a general way, and have come to the only conclusion possible,
namely, that the basis of courtesy in business is common sense, and that
whatever rules may be given must not be followed slavishly, but must
simply be used as guide posts. In the pages which follow we shall go into
detail and watch courtesy at work among certain groups and individuals.
Let us take, for example, a big concern which employs a thousand or
more people. We shall begin with the president.
President of a Big Organization. Here is a man who bears a heavy
responsibility. He has not only his own welfare to look after but that of the
men and women who work with (we like this word better than for) him. His
first duty is to them. How can he best perform it?
It is a matter of fact that few men rise to such positions who are not
innately courteous. It is one of the qualities which enable them to rise. For
this reason we shall take it for granted that the president needs no
instructions. Already he has learned the great value of courtesy. But this
does not protect him always from discourtesy in other people.
Every man who holds a high position in a big organization is besieged
with visitors, but no one so much as the president. He is a target for cranks
and idlers and freaks as well as for earnest business men who want to help
him or to get help from him. Thousands during the course of a year come to
call on him. If he saw them all he would have to turn over the presidency to
some one else and devote himself to entertaining visitors. Many of those
who come ask for him when he is not at all the man they want to see, but
they have been taught in the schools of salesmanship or they have read in a
magazine that it never pays to bother with the little fellow, but that they
should go straight to the top.

Every minute of the time of the president of a big company is valuable
(all time is valuable, as far as that goes), and it must be protected from the
people who have no right to infringe upon it.
You would think that the vice-presidents and the managers and the
various executives would be his best protection. They are not. It is the
person who is placed at the front door to receive visitors. We shall consider
him next.
The Man at the Door. As a matter of fact, this person is usually a girl,
many times a very young and irresponsible one, because great numbers of
business men have not yet realized the importance of the position. A well-
poised girl or a woman who has had wide experience in handling people
can fill the place quite as efficiently as a man, and a great deal more so if
the man has not been chosen because he has the quick sympathy and ready
tact so necessary in taking care of the needs of a miscellaneous assortment
of callers.
In the house we are observing the person at the door is a young man who
began as a messenger boy, and who, because he did what he was asked to
do cheerfully instead of sullenly, with a “Certainly, sir,” and a smile instead
of a “That's Bob's business” and a frown, was made manager of the
messengers, and then first assistant of the man at the door, and later, when
that man was given another position, was promoted to his place. The job
commands a good salary and offers chances of promotion. The young man
likes it.
A visitor comes, a young salesman, let us say, who has had little
experience. This is only the second or third time he has tried to storm the
doors of big business. He asks at once for the president. He does not give
his card because the school where he learned his trade cautioned him
against doing so. (He is perfectly correct, and he would have been equally
correct if he had given it. The more formal style is to send in the card.) The
man at the door sees at once what kind of man he has to deal with.
“The president is busy,” he answers—a safe remark always, because if he
is not he should be; “maybe I can do something for you.”

The salesman explains that he has an attachment to increase efficiency of
typewriters. He would like to show the president how it works.
“Oh, you don't want Mr. President,” the host answers. “You want Mr.
Jones. He attends to all such things for us. Will you be seated here in the
reception room,” motioning toward the door which is at one side of his
desk, “while I find out if he is busy?”
This concern is very conservative about buying new attachments and new
machinery of any kind, but it is ever on the alert to discover means of
increasing its output and saving its manpower. Almost any new idea is
worth a demonstration.
If the man at the desk has an intelligent messenger boy—and he should
have—he sends him in to Mr. Jones. The boy finds Mr. Jones busy. He will
be free in about fifteen minutes and then will be glad to see the salesman.
The man reports to the visitor and asks if he cares to wait. He does. The
host offers him a magazine and asks him to make himself comfortable while
he goes back to his desk to attend to the next visitor.
This one also wants to see the president.
“The president is in conference just now,” the young man replies.
“Perhaps there is something I can do for you in the meanwhile if you will
tell me what you want.”
“It's none of your business,” he answers rudely. “I want the president.”
The chances are against a man of this sort. He may be a person the
president wants to see, but the odds are ten to one that he is not.
“I'm sorry but you cannot possibly see him now. He is busy.”
“When will he be free?”
“It is hard to tell. These conferences sometimes last an hour or two, and I
am sure he will not see you even then unless you tell him why you want to
see him. He is a very busy man.”
The visitor sputters around a few minutes and it develops that he is
selling insurance. The young man knows that the president will not see him

under any circumstances. He is already heavily insured, as every wise man
should be, and he cannot be bothered with agents who are trying to sell him
larger policies.
“I'm sorry,” the young man repeats, “but I am sure there is no use in
letting him waste your time. He is already carrying a heavy policy and he
positively refuses to talk insurance with anyone, no matter who it is.”
This should be enough for the salesman. What the young man says is
true. It would be a waste of his time as well as the president's. He does not
care half so much for the salesman's time—there is no reason why he
should—but notice how tactfully he tells him that the head of the
organization has no time to spend with him.
There is a certain rough type of salesman (we use the word salesman here
in the broadest sense, as the salesmen themselves use it, to cover all the
people who are trying to convince some one else that what they have is
worth while whether it is an idea or a washing machine or a packet of
drawings)—there is a certain rough type of salesman who tries to bluster his
way through. He never lasts long as a salesman, though unfortunately he
survives a good many years in various kinds of business. Even he must not
be turned away rudely.
“I'm sorry,” the young man says to a person of this sort, “but the
president has given positive orders that he must not be disturbed this
morning. He is engaged in a very important transaction.”
The next man who approaches the door has an authentic claim on the
president. It would be as great a calamity to turn him away as it would be to
let some of the others in. He presents his card and says that he has an
appointment. A truly courteous man, whenever possible, arranges an
appointment beforehand. The young man takes the card, waves toward the
reception room, and asks him to be seated while he finds out if the president
is busy. He telephones to the secretary of the president, tells him who is
calling, and asks if the president is ready to see him. If the answer is
affirmative he asks if he will see him in his office or out in the reception
room. It is much easier to get rid of a visitor from the entrance hall or
reception room than from an inside office. If he says that he will see him in
the reception room the girl reports to the visitor that he will come in a few

minutes, offers him a magazine, and asks him to make himself at home. If
the president says that he will see the visitor in his office the young man
sends one of the messenger boys to usher him through the building.
Now it may be that this man had no appointment with the president, but
that he has used it as a pretext to break through. In this case, the secretary
answers, after consulting his schedule, that the president has never heard of
such a person and has no such appointment. A man of this sort is not worth
a minute's consideration. He has shown himself dishonest at the outset with
a petty contemptible dishonesty, and the temptation is to pitch him out on
his head. But the young man says quietly:
“His secretary says that the president has no appointment with you. I am
afraid you have come to the wrong place. It must be some other Mr.
Beacon.”
There is a note of finality in his voice which convinces the visitor that
there is no use in going further.
The next visitor is a woman who has come to have lunch with a friend of
hers who works in the accounting department.
“It is fifteen minutes before time for lunch,” the young man answers. “I
can call her now, of course, but if you would rather not disturb her, I'll tell
her that you will wait for her in the reception room until she comes for
you.”
The woman thanks him and agrees that it will be much better not to
disturb her. The young man offers her a chair and a magazine and invites
her to make herself comfortable.
It grows monotonous in the telling for him to ask each of the visitors
exactly the same questions (never exactly the same, of course) in the same
cordial tone of voice and to tell them to make themselves comfortable in
exactly the same way, but the means of attaining success in such a place lies
in the fact that he greets each visitor as if he were the only one he had to
attend to, and that he is, for the time being, at least, completely at the
visitor's service. It is not so much what the young man says as the way he
says it. “Good morning” can be spoken in such a way that it is an insult.

The Girl at the Telephone. It is nerve-racking to stand at the door to
receive callers, but it is much more so to sit at the switchboard and receive
messages. The only point of contact is through the voice, but it is
remarkable how much of one's personality the voice expresses. If you are
tired your voice shows it; if you are cross your voice tells it; if you are
worried, your voice betrays it. It is possible for one (everyone) to cultivate a
pleasing voice. The telephone companies have learned this, and there is no
part of her equipment upon which they spend more time and effort than on
the voice of the telephone girl. It is interesting to know that their very
excellent motto, “The voice with the smile wins” did not spring into being
without thought. On the early bulletins this clumsy phrase was printed: “A
smiling voice facilitates service.”
The girl at the telephone, even though she receives a thousand calls a day,
must answer each one pleasantly and patiently. Some people call without a
very clear idea of what they want, and the fact that business houses have so
many different names for exactly the same job often makes it difficult for
them to locate the person they are asking for, even when they are fairly sure
who it is they want.
“May I speak to your personnel manager?” comes the query over the
wire to a girl who has never heard of a personnel manager.
“I'm sorry, I did not quite hear you.”
The person at the other end repeats the word and the girl is sure she had it
right the first time.
“We have no personnel manager here. Maybe there is some one else who
would do. If you will tell me what you want——”
“I want a job.”
“Just a minute, please, I'll connect you with our employment manager.”
Advertising engineers, executive secretaries, and many others are old
jobs masquerading under new names.
More business men complain of the girl at the telephone than of any
other person in business. She must, under the handicap of distance,

accomplish exactly what the man at the door does, and must do it as
efficiently and as courteously.
No matter how angry the one who is calling becomes, no matter how
profane he may be, no matter what he says, she must not answer back, and
she must not slam the receiver down while he is talking. Perfect poise, an
even temper, patience, and a pleasant voice under control—if she has these,
and a vast number of the telephone girls have, she need not worry about the
rules of courtesy. They will take care of themselves.
The numbers that a girl in a business office has to call frequently she
should have on a pad or card near the switchboard so that she will not have
to look them up. Many business men ask the girl at the board to give them
Blank and Blank or Smith and Smith instead of giving her the numbers of
the two concerns. She then has to look them up, quite a difficult task when
one has the headpiece on and calls coming in and going out every minute.
To stop to look up one number often delays several, and it is a duty which
should never devolve upon the girl whose business it is to send the calls
through. The man who is calling, or his secretary, if he has one, or a person
near the switchboard stationed there for the purpose should look up the
numbers and give them to the operator.
An efficient girl at the telephone sends numbers through as quickly as is
humanly possible, but even then she is often scolded by nervous and
harassed men who expect more than can really be done.
Mr. Hunter has called Main 6785. It is busy. He waits. Hours pass. At
least it seems so to him, and he grows impatient.
“What's the matter with that number, Miss Fisher?”
“I'm still trying, Mr. Hunter. I'll call you when they answer.”
The line continues busy. Mr. Hunter looks over the papers on his desk.
His nervousness increases. He takes down the receiver again and asks what
the trouble is. He does not get the number any more quickly this way, but it
would be hard to convince him that he does not. The girl says quietly again
that she is still trying. He clings to the receiver and in a few minutes she
answers triumphantly, “Here they are,” and the connection is made.

The telephone girl in a big concern (or a little one) is constantly annoyed
with people who have the wrong number. When it happens ten or twelve
times in the course of a day—fortunately it is not usually so often—it is
hard for her to keep a grip on her temper and answer pleasantly, “This is not
the number you want,” but the snappish answer always makes a bad
situation worse, and the loss of temper which causes it drains the energy of
the person who makes it. It is not merely the voice with the smile that wins;
it is the disposition and temperament to which such a voice is the index.
The Secretary. The next in the line of defense is the president's secretary.
To him (and we use the masculine pronoun although this position, like a
good many others, is often held by women even in the biggest
organizations, where the responsibility attached to it is by no means small)
—to him the president turns over the details of his day's work. He arranges
the president's schedule and reminds him of the things he has forgotten and
the things he is likely to forget. He receives all of his visitors by telephone
first and many times disposes of their wants without having to connect them
with the president at all. He receives many of the callers who are admitted
by the man at the door and in the same way often takes care of them
without disturbing the president. He knows more about the petty routine of
the job than the president himself. He is accurate. He is responsible. He is
patient. He is courteous.
In order that he may be all these things it is necessary for the president to
keep him well informed as to what he is doing and where he is going and
what he is planning so that he can give intelligent answers to the people
who come, so that he can keep things running smoothly when the president
is away, so that he can answer without delay when the president asks
whether he has a luncheon engagement on Thursday, and what he did with
the memorandum from the circulation manager, and who is handling the
shipping sheets.
Men who have their minds on larger matters cannot keep all the details of
their jobs in mind, but it is significant to know that most successful business
men know with more than a fair degree of accuracy what these details
amount to. Some secretaries feel very superior to the men who employ them
because they can remember the date on which the representatives of the
Gettem Company called and the employers cannot. The author knows a

chauffeur who drives for a famous New York surgeon who thinks himself a
much better man than the surgeon because he can remember the numbers of
the houses where his patients and his friends live and the surgeon cannot.
The author also knows a messenger boy who thinks himself a much bigger
man than one of the most successful brokers in Wall Street because the
broker sometimes gives him the same message twice within fifteen minutes,
the second time after it has already been delivered.
The secretary comes to the office every morning neatly clad and on time.
The hour at which his employer comes in has nothing to do with him. There
is a definite time at which he is expected to be at his desk. He is there.
He opens the letters on his desk—and those addressed to the president
come first to him—and sorts them, throwing aside the worthless advertising
matter, saving that which may be of some interest, marking the letters that
are to be referred to various other members of the house, and placing them
in the memorandum basket, piling into one heap those that he cannot
answer without first consulting the president, and into another those which
must be answered by the president personally. Intimately personal letters
often come mixed in with the rest of the mail. No man wants a secretary
whom he cannot trust even with letters of this sort, but almost any secretary
worth having will feel a certain amount of delicacy in opening them unless
he is requested to do so. When these letters are from people who write often
the secretary grows to recognize the handwriting from the outside of the
envelope, and therefore does not need to open them. In other cases it is
sometimes possible to distinguish a personal from a business letter. These
should be handled according to the wishes of the man to whom they are
directed. Many business men turn practically everything—even the
settlement of their family affairs—over to their secretaries. It is a personal
matter, and the secretary's part in it is to carry out the wishes of his
employer.
By the time the mail is sorted the president has come in.
He rings for his secretary, telephones for him, sends a messenger for him,
or else goes to his desk himself and asks him to come in and take dictation.
There is no special courtesy or discourtesy in any of these methods. It
depends on how far apart the desks are, how busy he is, and a number of

other things. He does not yell for his secretary to come in. He manages to
get him there quietly. It is not necessary for him to rise when the secretary
enters (even if the secretary is a woman) though he may do so (and it is a
very gracious thing, especially if the secretary is a woman) but he should
greet him (or her) with a pleasant “Good-morning.”
The secretary takes his place in the comfortable chair that has been
provided for him, with notebook and pencil in hand and at least one pencil
in reserve. He waits for the president to begin, and listens closely so that he
may transcribe as rapidly as he speaks. If he fails to understand he waits
until they come to the end of a sentence before asking his employer to
repeat. It is much better to do so then than to depend on puzzling it out later
or coming back and asking him after he has forgotten what was said.
Telephone interruptions and others may come during the dictation but the
secretary waits until he is dismissed or until the pile of letters has
disappeared.
When the president has finished it is the secretary's time to begin talking.
He consults him about the various letters upon which he needs his advice
and makes notations in shorthand on them. He reports on the various calls
that have come in and the house memoranda. A good secretary reads and
digests these before turning them over to his employer, and in most cases
gives the gist of the memorandum instead of the memorandum itself. It
saves time.
The president's secretary usually has a secretary of his own, a woman, let
us say, or a girl whose preliminary training has been good and whose record
for the year and a half she has been with the company has been excellent.
She comes to her desk on time every morning as fresh as a daisy and as
inconspicuous. The relation that she bears to the president's secretary is
much the same as the relation that he bears to the president. She gets the
letters that are addressed to him and sorts them in the same way that he does
those of the president. On days when he is absent she takes care of all of his
work, in so far as she is able, as well as her own.
Her employer is considerate of her always. He does not make a practice
of taking ten or fifteen minutes of her lunch hour or five or ten minutes

overtime at the close of the day, but when there is a good reason why he
should ask her to remain he does so, asking courteously if she would mind
staying. If she is genuinely interested in her work—and this young lady is—
she will stay, but if she has an even better reason why she should go she
explains briefly that it is impossible to stay. He never imposes heavier
burdens upon her than she can bear, but he does not hesitate to ask her to do
whatever needs to be done, and he does it with a “Please” and a “Thank
you,” and not with a “See, here” and a “Say, listen to me, now.” She is a
very pretty and attractive girl, but the man she is working for is a
gentleman. To him she is his secretary, and if he were ever in danger of
forgetting it she would be quick to remind him. She does not go around
with a chip on her shoulder all the time, and she talks freely with the
various men around the office just as she does with the women and girls,
but it is in an impersonal way. She never permits intimate attentions from
her immediate employer or any one else.
Executives. “Executive” is a large, loose word which rolls smoothly off
the tongue of far too many business men to-day. Office boys begin to think
in terms of it before they are out of knee trousers. “I could hold down the
job,” said a youngster who had hurt his hand and whose business was to
carry a bag of mail from a suburban factory into New York, “if I could get
some one to carry the bag.” “I can do the work,” say smart young men in
the “infant twenties” (and many others—there is no age limit), “but I must
have a man to look after the details.”
The way to an executive position is through details. Work, plain hard
work, is the foundation of every enduring job, and the executive who thinks
he can do without it has a sharp reckoning day ahead. In most places the
executives have worked their way up slowly, and at no time along the way
have they had that large contempt for small jobs which characterizes so
many young men in business. They have been perfectly willing to do
whatever came to hand.
But after all this is said, the fact remains that an executive is successful
not so much because of his own ability as because of his power to recognize
ability in other men. He is—and this is true of every executive from the
president down—the servant of his people in much the same way that the
President of the United States is the servant of the American people. This

means that he must be readily accessible to them, and must listen as
courteously to them as if they were important visitors from across the sea or
somewhere else.
Many executives—and this was true especially during the war—have
surrounded themselves with a tangle of red tape which has to be unwound
every time an employee (or any one else) wants to get near enough to ask a
question. This is absurd. Sensible men destroy elaborate plans of
management and find they get along better without them. The Baldwin
Locomotive Works, which has a hundred years of solid reputation behind it,
has no management plans. “There is about the place an atmosphere of work,
and work without frills or feathers,” and this is essentially true of every
business that is built to last. Look at the organizations which, because of
war conditions, rose into a prosperity they had never enjoyed before. Most
of them have collapsed, and the little men who rose with them (so many of
them and so much too small for their jobs) have collapsed with them.
In the big reliable concerns, and the small ones, too, the high executives
are easily approached, especially by the members of the organization. In
many of the open offices—and open offices have done much to create a
feeling of comradeship among workers—the desk of the general manager is
out on the floor with the desks of the rank and file of the employees with
nothing to distinguish it from theirs except the fact that there is a bigger
man behind it. A real man does not need a lot of elaborate decorations. They
annoy him.
There are two sides to this, however. Visitors from the outside are not the
only ones who are likely to waste the time of other people, and a busy man
has to protect himself from indoor nuisances as well as those that drift in
from the outside. Some do it by means of secretaries, but a good executive
needs no barrier at all between himself and his own men. They learn soon
enough—we are speaking now of a good executive, remember—that there
is no use in going to him unless there is some definite reason why they
should, and that the more briefly and directly they present their problem the
more likely they are to have it settled.
When an executive receives a caller (or when any man in a business
house receives a caller) he should receive him and not merely tolerate him.

A young advertising man who began several years ago had two very
interesting experiences with two gruff executives in two different
companies. Both consented to see him, both kept on writing at their desks
after he entered and gave him scant attention throughout the interview.
Apparently they were both successful business men. Certainly they both
held positions that would indicate it. Yet both of them a few years later
came to the young advertising man at different times looking for jobs.
Needless to say neither found a place with him, not because he held a
grudge against them, but simply because he knew what kind of men they
were and that they could not help in the kind of business he was trying to
build.
From the beginning of the interview the host should do all he can to
make his visitor comfortable. You see a lot in certain magazines about
setting the visitor at a disadvantage by giving him an awkward chair,
making him face the light and grilling him with questions. It is pure
nonsense.
It is very gracious for a man to rise to greet a caller and extend his hand,
especially if the caller is young and ill at ease. It is imperative if it is an old
man or a woman. He should ask the visitor to be seated before he sits down
himself.
“Well, young man, what can I do for you?” is hardly a polite way of
opening an interview. The host should wait with a cordially receptive air
until his guest begins, unless he is in a great hurry. Then he frankly tells the
caller so and asks him to make his business brief.
Interruptions come even in the midst of conversations with important
visitors, but no visitor is so important as to permit neglect of one's
employees. These should be met courteously and dispatched quickly. The
host must always ask the pardon of the guest before turning to the telephone
or to a messenger, and if the guest is an employee the rule is the same.
At the conclusion of the interview the host rises and shakes hands with
the departing visitor but does not necessarily go with him (or her) to the
door or the elevator, as the case may be. This is an additional courtesy in
which a busy man cannot always indulge. The essential part of every
interview is that the visitor shall state what he wants, that the host shall give

the best answer in his power, and then the sooner the visitor departs the
better for all concerned.
The Rank and File. This is the largest group in every business. It is the
one that fluctuates most. It is the one from which the discards are made. It is
the one from which officers are chosen. It is the one in which the real
growth of a business takes place. And by the same token it is the one,
generally speaking, where there is most discourtesy. Promotion depends
upon the possession of this quality much more than people realize. Many a
man with actual ability to hold a high position is not given an opportunity to
do so because the men who employ him realize that he would antagonize
those who worked under him.
There are among the body of employees in every concern (even the very
best) discontented members. In most cases, indeed, in nearly all cases
except where there is a chronic grudge against life which is not affected by
external circumstances, these are weeded out, and those with habitual
grudges are weeded out along with the others or else are kept in minor
places. Perhaps it would be more nearly correct to say they keep themselves
there. Sometimes a subordinate feels that he is unfairly treated by his
immediate superior. He wishes to go to the man above him in authority. Is it
right for him to do so?
It is an unwritten law that each worker shall be loyal to the head of his
department. Suppose the head does not deserve it?
There are three courses open to the worker. He can leave the job and find
another in a different organization. He can go to the head of the department
and state the case to him. If this should fail he may appeal to the man above
him, but he should never go over the head of his own immediate superior
without first telling him that he intends to do it.
This is an important rule. It holds whether one has a grievance to present
or a suggestion. Constructive plans should first be talked over with one's
immediate superior, and with his approval carried to the next man, or he
may carry them himself. If this superior is the sort of man with whom you
are constantly at loggerheads, you had much better get out and get a place
somewhere else. And if you find that continually you are in hot water with

the men who have authority over you, you may be very sure that the fault is
not altogether theirs.
Subordinates usually have an idea that the heads of their departments
leave all of the work to them. Well, as a matter of fact, they do leave a large
part of it. If they did not they would have no excuse for having
subordinates. The reward of good work is more work. This is less of a
hardship than it sounds. Sir James Barrie once quoted Dr. Johnson's
statement that doubtless the Lord could have made a better fruit than the
strawberry, but that he doubtless never did, and added to it that He
doubtless could have created something that was more fun than hard work,
but that He doubtless never did.
The subway guards in New York City say that the rush which comes just
before five o'clock (the closing time of most of the business houses) is as
great as the one which comes just after. They call the persons in the former
rush the clock watchers. They have left work about fifteen minutes early,
and to-morrow morning—business experience has taught this—they will
come in fifteen minutes late. For the most part these are the discontented
workers who spend “60 per cent of their time in doing their job, and 40 per
cent in doing the boss.”
It has always been considered a breach of good manners to pull out one's
watch and look at it in company. It is true in the office as well as in the
drawing room. The clock watchers are impolite. It has also been considered
a breach of good manners to hold a guest against his will against the
conventional hour for his departure. The employers who habitually keep
their employees after closing hours are equally impolite. It is a question of
honor, too. Time is money, and the time grafters, whether employers or
employees, are dishonest.
When one employee goes over to the desk of another it is not necessary
for the second to rise. The first should wait until the one at the desk looks
up before speaking unless he is so absorbed in his work that he does not
glance up after a minute or two. Then he should interrupt with “I beg your
pardon.” It makes no difference if one of the employees is a woman and the
other is a man. Work at an office can be seriously impeded if every time one
person goes to the desk of another the other rises. So many times the whole

conversation covers less time than it takes to get out of one's chair and sit
back down again. In some places subordinates are required to stand when a
superior speaks to them, but as a general thing it is not necessary. In such
houses it is correct to play the game according to the general standard and
to act according to the rules set down by the men who are in charge of
affairs.
There is no person so wretched or so poor or so miserable but that he can
find other people who are more wretched, poorer, or more miserable. At the
same time there is no person so superior, so wealthy, or gifted but that he
can find other people who are more superior, more wealthy, and more
gifted. It is a part of good manners to recognize superiority when one finds
it. Youngsters entering business can sit at the feet of the older men in the
same business and learn a great deal. Knowledge did not enter the world
with the present generation any more than it will depart from it when the
present generation dies. It is just as well for young people to realize this.
Age has much to teach them. Experience has much to teach them, and so
have men and women of extraordinary ability. “I have never met a man,”
says a teacher of business men, “from whom I could not learn something.”
All of us are born with the capacity to learn. It is those who develop it who
amount to something.
Petty quarrels should be disregarded and grudges should be forgotten.
This piece of advice is needed more by women in business than by men.
Men have learned—it has taken them several thousand years—to fight and
shake hands. They have a happy way of forgetting their squabbles—this is a
general truth—after a little while, and two men who were yesterday abusing
one another with hot and angry words are to-day walking together down the
hall smiling and talking as gently as you please.
The Office Boy. If the office boy in a big business house where much of
the work is done at a white-hot tension—the office boy in a busy Wall
Street office during the peak of the day's rush, for example—could write his
intimate impressions they would make good reading.
The temper of the great American business man is an uncertain quantity.
Famous for good humor and generosity as a general thing, he is, for all that,
at his worst moments the terror of the office boy's life. Nervous, worried,

tired, and exasperated, he is likely to “take it out” on the office boy if there
is no one else at hand. There is no defense for such conduct—even the man
who is guilty would not, the next day in his calmer moments, defend it.
Meantime, what shall the office boy do?
A hot, tired man with papers fluttering over his desk, his telephone
ringing, and three men waiting in line to talk to him about serious problems
connected with the business, yells, “What do you want?” when the office
boy comes to answer the bell.
“You rang for me,” the boy answers.
“I rang half an hour ago,” the man snaps.
In reality he rang two minutes before. Shall the office boy remind him of
this?
Not if he values his job!
Of course it is unjust, but one of the first laws of discipline is to learn to
be composed in the face of injustice, and the first law of courtesy for the
office boy (and other employees would do just as well to follow) is: Don't
be too harsh with the boss!
It is said that the grizzly bear, who is a very strict mother, often spanks
her cubs when she herself has done something foolish. Julia Ellen Rogers
tells a story of an explorer who came suddenly upon a bear with two cubs.
He was so frightened that he stood still for a minute or two before he could
decide which way to run. Meantime the bear, fully as frightened as he,
turned and fled, spanking the two cubs at every jump in spite of the fact that
each was already going as fast as its legs could carry it. “It was so
unexpected,” continues Miss Rogers, “and so funny to see those little bears
look around reproachfully at their angry parent every time they felt the
weight of her paw, helping them to hurry, that the man sat down and
laughed until he cried.”
It was not funny to the cubs.
Cases in which the office boy is maltreated are exceptional, though cases
in which he is misunderstood are not. Most office boys have not one boss

but many. There should always be one person from whom they receive their
general orders and to whom they go with their troubles. (A youngster
should have very few troubles to report. It is usually the worthless ones who
report.)
In most places the several office boys are stationed at a certain point, a
desk or a table, with one of their number more or less in charge. The rule is
that one person be always at the desk.
All right. Six office boys. Five out on errands. One at the desk. The bell
rings. The boy keeps his place. The bell rings again. The boy keeps his
place. The bell rings a third time, long and insistently, but the youngster,
with a steadfastness worthy of the boy who stood on the burning deck, still
keeps his place.
A second later an angry official bounces out and wants to know what on
earth is the matter and declares that he will report the desk to the manager.
Meanwhile one of the missing five has returned, and the youngster who had
held the place so long under fire takes the message from the man and
delivers it.
If the boy should see an opening—and most business men except those
funny little executives puffed up with their own importance are ready
enough to listen—he may explain how it happened, but if he has to enter a
shouting contest it is best to stay silent.
The law of business courtesy—no matter how far away from this a
discussion goes it always swings back—is the Golden Rule. The
subordinate who feels himself neglected by the men in positions above him
might check himself by honestly asking himself how he appears to those
beneath him. It is interesting to know that the one who complains most is
usually the one who is haughtiest when he enters into conversation with the
employees, who, he thinks, are not quite worth his notice. He feels blighted
because the president does not stop to say “Good-morning” in the hall, but
it is beneath his dignity to say “Good-morning” to the girl who collects his
mail or “Good-night” to the janitor who comes to dust his desk when the
day's work is over. The means of attaining courtesy—and if you have it
yourself you will find it in other people—is by watching your own actions.

Teach no one but yourself. Worry about no one's behavior but your own.
That is job enough for any one.

Top

XI
IN A DEPARTMENT STORE

Let us now see courtesy at work in a big department store.
Mr. Hopkins has taken a morning off to do a little shopping before he
goes away on his summer vacation. He wants to buy two shirts, a trunk, a
toy for his baby, and a present for his wife. He is not sure what he wants for
the wife and baby.
Mr. Hopkins does not like to shop. He remembers his last expedition. A
haberdashery had sent him a cordial letter asking him to open an account.
He did so, but one morning later when he went in to buy a waistcoat the
rude and inefficient service he met disgusted him so that he has not been
back since. He knew exactly what he wanted and asked for it. “Oh, no,”
answered the smart young clerk. “You don't want that. People have not been
wearing waistcoats like that for years. This is what you want,” and he
exhibited a different style altogether. It happened that Mr. Hopkins knew
better than the clerk what he wanted, and the fact that people had not been
wearing waistcoats like it made no difference to him. As a matter of fact,
the only reason the clerk made the remark was that he did not have them in
stock, and thought perhaps he could sell by substituting.
There are other haberdasheries where the service is distinctly good, but
Mr. Hopkins decides to go to a department store instead. Haberdasheries,
however excellent, do not carry toys for one's baby nor presents for one's
wife.
Helpem's store has been warmly recommended. He will go there. It is his
first visit.
When he enters the door he is bewildered by an array of women's scarfs
and gloves and perfume bottles, handkerchiefs and parasols, handbags,
petticoats, knick-knacks, and whatnot. He almost loses courage and begins
backing toward the door when he catches sight of a man in uniform

standing near the entrance. He sees that this man is directing the tides of
shoppers that are surging in, and approaches him.
“Where can I find the trunks?”
“Third floor. Elevator in the rear,” the man answers briefly (but not
gruffly). People who have to answer thousands of questions must be brief.
As he passes down the aisle Mr. Hopkins, who is very observant, notices
that all of the girls—most of the clerks are girls—are dressed in a pleasant
gray. This gives an agreeable uniform tone to a large establishment which
would break up into jarring patches of color if each clerk were allowed to
wear whatever color happened to strike her fancy. Good idea, Mr. Hopkins
thinks, very necessary where there are many, many clerks.
He does not have much trouble getting the trunk. He knows pretty well
what he wants, and the obliging salesman convinces him that the trunk will
probably last forever by assuring him that an elephant could dance a jig on
it and never make a dent. He asks Mr. Hopkins if he wants his name on it.
Mr. Hopkins had not thought of it, but he does. No, upon second thought, he
will have only his initials stenciled on in dull red, W. H. H. The trunk will
be delivered in the afternoon and he goes away well satisfied.
The shirts are somewhat more difficult. He is attached to a certain kind of
collar and he likes madras shirts with little black stripes or figures in them.
The man shows him white ones and wide striped ones and colored ones
with the right collar, and he almost decides that the place does not keep
madras shirts with little black figures in them, when he suddenly realizes
that he was so intent on getting the collar that he forgot to say anything
about the material or color. He begins again, tells the clerk exactly what he
wants, and in a few minutes the proper shirts are before him and he is
happy. While the clerk is folding them, he asks about ties. It is a good thing.
Mr. Hopkins remembers that he has forgotten ties. They have great bargains
in ties. He drifts over to the counter and presently has three lovely ones.
One is red, and Mr. Hopkins resolves to be more careful than he was with
the last red one. His wife burned it. He must keep this hidden.
The ties remind him that he needs a bathrobe. An agreeable clerk sells
him a dull figured bathrobe, comfortable and light for summer and

guaranteed to wash, and tells him that a pajama sale is in progress about
four counters away.
When he has bought six pairs of pajamas he begins to think of the baby's
present. Toys are on the top floor. The girl there—a wise department store
always chooses carefully for this place—is very helpful. She asks about the
baby, how old he is, what toys he has, what toys he has asked for, and so on.
Mr. Hopkins tells her, and after showing him several ingenious mechanical
contrivances, she suggests a train with a real track to run on. Mr. Hopkins is
delighted. The girl asks if the youngster likes to read. He does not, but he
likes to be read to. “Why don't you take him a book?” and in a few minutes
he has the “Just-So Stories” tucked under his arm. As he leaves the girl
smiles, “Come back to see us,” she says.
All the clerks have said this. The clerk who sold the shirts said, while
they stood waiting for the change, that he could depend on them. They
would not shrink and the colors would not run. “We are here in the city,” he
continued (the store was in New York), “but we have our regular customers
just as if we were in a small town. We don't try to make just one sale and
get by with it. We want you to come back.”
The girl at the toy counter tells Mr. Hopkins that there is a woman
downstairs who will help him select something for his wife. He goes back
to the man in uniform to locate her and finds her in a secluded booth on the
first floor. She asks several questions about whether he would like china or
silver, furniture or linen, but Mr. Hopkins wants to give his wife something
personal—something she can use or wear. He has been married several
years but not long enough to know that this is a dangerous thing to do, but
the woman is wise. She suggests a silk parasol, a kimono, or a dozen
handkerchiefs.
Such a service as this is not possible except in very large shops, but in
most places clerks are quick to respond with suggestions for gifts. There is a
pleasure about buying them and selling them that does not go with ordinary
transactions.
When he buys a parasol the clerk suggests that they have a very large
assortment of handbags, but Mr. Hopkins's day's work is done, and the clerk
does not insist. None of the clerks in a good department store is insistent.

They offer suggestions and stand ready to serve, but they do not try to
impose their ideas or their goods upon the customers. Mr. Hopkins leaves
well satisfied with himself and his purchases. He will come back.
The trunk is delivered in the afternoon, not by the regular wagon, but by
an express company. It is a busy season. Mr. Hopkins is still further
delighted. These people keep their promises. And as he tips the man who
brought it up—he had to climb three flights of stairs—the man gives him a
card. “Here's one of the boss's cards,” he says, “in case you want any
hauling done.” Without doubt the man has been instructed by the boss to
distribute his cards, but he does it with such a grace that it seems to be on
his own initiative.
It rarely happens that a business man or woman can shop in the leisurely
manner described above. Most of their shopping has to be done during the
half hour after lunch or during a frantic few minutes snatched at the
beginning or the end of the day's work. One morning Mr. Hopkins had to
leave home without a collar because he forgot to send the dirty ones to the
laundry (his wife was away that week) and dashed into a little shop to get
one on the way to the office. He would have felt like murdering a clerk who
wanted to show him something nice in the way of gloves or mufflers, and
he would have had a hard time to restrain himself from violence if the clerk
had started in on a eulogy of a new shipment of English tweeds.
An intelligent clerk can usually tell when his customer is in a tearing
hurry. It is an unpropitious time to make suggestions. The clerk must see
things from the customer's point of view. It is permissible to suggest
something else in place of the thing he has asked for but it is not good
manners to make fun of it or to insist upon a substitute. Recently a woman
wanted to buy a rug for her automobile. She knew just what she wanted, but
the bright young clerk insisted that she wanted something else. She finally
bought the rug, but it was in spite of the clerk rather than because of him.
Too many salesmen kill their sales by thinking and talking only of their
product. The customer is not half so interested in that as he is in himself.
Good salesmanship relates the product to the customer, and does it in such a
way that the customer is hardly aware of how it is done.

Top

XII
A WHILE WITH A TRAVELING MAN

In a Big City. We will suppose that our traveling man has his
headquarters in some big city—New York, Chicago, San Francisco, it does
not matter—and that he has several calls to make before he goes out on the
road.
There are two kinds of salesmen, those who make only one sale to a
customer and those who sell something that has to be renewed periodically.
The first sell pianos, real estate, encyclopedias, and so on; the second sell
raw materials and supplies. The salesman whom we are to follow is in the
second group.
He has—and so have most men who do this kind of selling—a regular
routine that he follows, adding new names to the list and deleting old ones
as seems expedient. At this particular time he has several old customers to
visit and one or two new prospects to investigate before he leaves town.
It is unnecessary for him to make arrangements beforehand to gain access
to the old customers. They know him and they are always glad to see him.
But if there is a chance that the customer may be out of town, or if it is
during a busy season, he telephones ahead to make sure. He prefers
indefinite to definite appointments, especially if he has to see two or three
people during the course of a morning or an afternoon; that is, he would
rather have an appointment to come some time between ten and eleven or
between three and four than to have one for exactly half past ten or a
quarter of three. It is impossible to tell how long interviews will last.
Sometimes when the salesman counts on staying an hour he is through in
five minutes and sometimes when he thinks he can arrange things in fifteen
minutes he finds himself strung up for half a day.
The new prospects—there are three on this particular morning—he
handles in different ways. To one he has a note of introduction from a
mutual friend. To another he has written a letter stating why he wishes to

call and asking when it will be convenient for him to do so. The third,
whom he knows by reputation as a “hard customer” (in the slang sense of
the word) who will have nothing to do with salesmen of any sort, he decides
to approach directly, trusting to his own presence to get past the girl at the
front door and whomsoever else stands between him and the man he wants
to see. He does not write, because he knows that the man would tear up the
letter and he does not telephone, because he knows that the man would not
promise to see him and that if he were to call after such a telephone
conversation his chances for success would be lessened.
Our salesman is careful with his appearance. He bathes and shaves every
morning and takes special care that his linen is clean and that his shoes are
polished. He does not ornament himself with a lot of jewelry, and the
material of which his suit is made is plain. He presents, if you should see
him on the street, the appearance of a clean, solid, healthy, progressive
American citizen. He is poised but he is not aggressive. He is persistent but
he is not obstinate.
The best public speakers, it is said, never get over a sinking feeling of
fear during the few minutes just before time for them to speak. It vanishes
as soon as they get to their feet or a very few minutes afterward, and,
strange as it may seem, it is this very fear that gives them their power on the
platform. The fact that they have the dreadful feeling nerves them to
strenuous effort, and it is this effort that makes the orator. In the same way
the best salesmen are those who never get over the fear that perhaps they
have not thought out the best way to handle the situation ahead of them.
They forget the fear as they begin to talk to the prospect, but the fact that it
is subconsciously present makes the difference between the real salesman
and the “dub.”
Did you ever get to the door of a house you were about to enter and then
turn and walk around the block before you rang the bell? Did you ever walk
around the block six or eight times? So have we. Especially on those
Wednesday and Sunday evenings when we used to go calling. There are not
many salesmen who have not had this experience and who have not, upon
hearing that a prospect they dreaded was out, turned away from the door
with a prayer of deep thanksgiving. All of which is by way of saying that
selling is not an easy job.

The salesman whose career we are following for a short time always has
that little feeling of nervousness before an interview. It is deeper than ever
when he approaches the “hard customer,” and it is not lessened in the least
degree when he finds a painted and marceled flapper at the door who looks
at him without a word. (Incidentally, she likes his looks.)
He takes out his card and asks her to give it to Mr. Green and say that he
is calling.
“He won't see you,” the girl says.
“Will you tell him, please, that I am here, all the same? Wait a minute.”
He takes the card and scribbles on it, “I want only five minutes of your
time,” and hands it to the girl again.
She carries it away and presently returns saying that Mr. Green is busy
and cannot see him.
“I knew he wouldn't,” she adds.
“He must be very busy,” the salesman says. “When shall I be most likely
to find him free?”
“He's no busier now than usual,” the girl responds. “He's smoking a cigar
and looking out the window.”
“Will you tell him, please, that I am coming back to-morrow at the same
time?”
The girl sees that he is very much in earnest. She respects him for his
quiet persistence and because he has not tried to “kid” her. She would most
likely have joined in heartily if he had, but he would never have got past
her.
She goes back into the office and returns with word that the salesman
may come in if he will not take more than five minutes. He thanks the girl
and goes into the office where the “hard customer” is seated. He does not
rise, he does not say “Good morning,” and he does not take the cigar out of
his mouth, but this does not disconcert the salesman. He wastes no time in
preliminaries, but after a brief greeting, plunges at once into his proposition,

stating the essential points clearly and in terms of this man's business. He
knows what the customer needs pretty accurately for he has taken the
trouble to find out. He is not broadcasting. He is using line radio, and
everything he says is directed against a single mark. The prospect is
interested. He puts the cigar aside. The salesman concludes.
“I'm sorry,” he says, “but my five minutes are up. Will you let me come
back some day when you are not so busy and tell you more about it?”
“Sit where you are,” the other says, and begins firing questions.
Half an hour later the salesman pockets the order he wanted and makes
ready to depart, feeling that he has found another friend. The “hard
customer” is ashamed of his gruff reception and apologizes for it. “I've been
so bothered with agents and drummers and traveling men that I've promised
myself never to see another one as long as I live,” he says.
“I can well understand that,” the salesman answers. “It is one of the
hardest things we are up against, the fact that there are so many four-
flushers out trying to sell things.”
He goes next to see the man with whom he has made an appointment by
mail and finds that he has been called out of town on business. He talks
with his secretary, who expresses a polite regret that they were unable to
locate him in time to tell him that his visit would be of no use. He asks if
there is some one else who can take charge of the matter, but the girl replies
that all such things have to come before Mr. Thompson. He will not be back
until next week, and by that time the salesman will be out on the road.
“I'll have another representative of our house, Mr. Hamilton, call,” he
says. “He will write to find out when it will be convenient for him to
come.”
The third man on his list is the one to whom he has the letter of
introduction. This is one of his best prospects. That is why he took such
pains to arm himself with the letter. He has no trouble getting inside. The
man is very busy but he thrusts it completely aside for the moment. He does
not have to say “Be brief.” Our salesman has been in the game long enough
to know that he must not be anything else.

“Frankly,” he says at the end of the talk, “I am not interested. I have no
doubt that what you say is true. In fact, I have heard of your firm before and
know that its reputation is good. But I buy my material, and have for years,
from Hicks and Hicks.”
“It is a good reliable concern,” the salesman responds, “and there is no
reason why you should desert them. They depend upon you as much as you
do upon them. But if they happen to be short of something you want in a
hurry, please remember that our product is as good as theirs. You can
depend upon it with as much certainty.”
“Thank you, I will,” the prospect answers and the interview is over.
Did the salesman act wisely? Would he have gained anything by proving
that his house was superior to Hicks and Hicks? Not if the customer was
worth having. This salesman never forgets that his part of the job is to build
up business for his own firm, and not to tear down business for other firms.
As it stands, he has in this case established a feeling of good will for the
house he represents, and has placed it in such a light that if the rival concern
should be afflicted with a strike or a fire or any of a hundred or two
disasters which might lessen or suspend its output, the customer will
probably turn to the salesman's house. And if Hicks and Hicks should sell
out or go into bankruptcy the salesman will have won for his own house a
steady customer of great value.
In the Sleeping Car. The wise traveling man—and our salesman is wise—
always engages sleeping accommodations on the train in advance. This time
he has the lower berth in No. 9.
When he comes in to take his seat he finds that a woman has the upper
berth in the same compartment. He is reading a newspaper and she is
reading a magazine. He says nothing until toward evening, and then he
offers to exchange places with her. She thanks him cordially, explains that
she was late in securing a berth and that this was all she could get. She is
very grateful and the transfer is made.
He goes into the smoking car and meets there several men who are
talking together. He joins them and the conversation runs along pleasantly
enough until one of the number begins to retail dirty stories. Some of the

others try to switch him off to another subject but he is wound up and
nothing short of a sledge hammer will stop him until he has run down. Our
salesman has a healthy loathing for this sort of thing. He has a good fund of
stories himself—most traveling men have—and in the course of his
journeyings he has heard many of the kind that the foul-minded man in the
smoking car is retailing with such delight. He never retells stories of that
nature, and he never, when he can avoid it, listens to them. He knows that
he cannot stop the man, but after a little while he gets up quietly and leaves.
Another man follows him and the two stand on the rear platform of the train
until time to go to bed.
Men who are traveling together often converse without knowing one
another's names, and it is correct that they should. Only a prig refuses to
speak to a man on a train or a boat because he does not know his name.
Opening conversation with a stranger is not always easy, and should be
avoided unless it comes about in a natural way. The stranger may not want
to converse. It is correct for a man who wishes to talk to another first to
introduce himself. “My name is Hammond,” he says, and the man to whom
he says it responds by holding out his hand (this is the more gracious way,
but he may omit this part of it, if he likes) and pronouncing his own name.
The same rule holds when the travelers are women.
Our salesman goes to bed early.
Two men have the compartment across from his. They seem very much
interested in each other, for they continue to talk after they have gone to
bed. In order to make themselves heard they have almost to scream, and the
raucous sound of their voices is much more disturbing than the sound of the
wheels grinding against the rails. It is hard to sleep on a train even under
favorable circumstances. Our salesman has a strenuous day ahead of him—
most of his days are strenuous—and the noise is keeping him awake.
He could throw on his bathrobe, climb down and remonstrate with the
two men across the way. It would be correct for him to do so, but it would
hardly be expedient. People who are thoughtless enough to be noisy late at
night are often rude enough to be very unpleasant when any one interferes.
The salesman has no real authority over them, but the porter on duty at
night is supposed to see that a certain amount of peace and quiet is

maintained. The salesman rings the bell, and when the porter appears, asks
him if he would mind begging the two men across the aisle to lower their
voices. The porter has had years of experience. He has developed a soft,
pleasant way of asking people to be quiet, and in a few minutes the car is
still except for the inevitable sound of the train and the snoring of an old
lady near the end of the car. This last cannot be helped. It must be endured,
and our salesman composes himself into a deep slumber.
Dressing and undressing in a sleeping car are among the most difficult
operations to perform gracefully. There are no rules. Most men prefer
staying in their berths to making the attempt in the crowded dressing rooms.
Some divide the process between the two, but no gentleman ever goes
streaking down the aisle half-dressed. He is either fully clothed or else he is
wrapped in a bathrobe or a dressing gown.
When our salesman comes in to breakfast the next morning there is only
one vacant place, a seat opposite a young woman at a table for two. He
crosses over and sits down, first asking if he may do so. In well-managed
dining cars and restaurants, the seating is taken care of by the head waiter.
He never places a person at a table with some one else without asking
permission of the one who is already seated. It is never permissible for a
stranger to go to a table that is already taken if there is a vacant one
available. The young lady bows and smiles. She has already sent in her
order. They talk during the meal quite as if they had been introduced and
had met by appointment instead of by accident. She does not introduce
herself, nor does he introduce himself. When she has finished she asks the
waiter for her bill. She pays it herself—our salesman has too much delicacy
to offer to do so—and tips the waiter. Then with a nod and a smile she is
gone.
This salesman is a chivalrous traveler. Whenever there is an opportunity
to render a service to a woman (or to any one else) he takes pleasure in
doing it. He does not place women under financial obligation to him,
however, and he is careful not to annoy them with attentions. He has many
times found a taxi for a woman traveling alone or with children when they
have had the same destination; he has helped women decipher time tables;
he has carried bundles and suitcases and baskets and boxes for old ladies
who have not yet learned in all their long, long lives that the way to travel is

with as little, instead of with as much, baggage as possible; and he has
helped young mothers establish themselves comfortably in place with their
children. But he has never—and he has been traveling a good many years
now—thrust himself upon a woman and he has never embarrassed one by
his attentions.
He does not “treat” the men whom he meets by accident during his
travels. They often go in to meals together but each one settles his own bill,
and when they come to the end of the journey they are without obligations
toward one another. It is much pleasanter so.
The salesman does not, as a rule, tip the porter until he leaves the train,
and the amount that he gives then is according to what the porter has done
for him. If he has been in the car a good many hours and if he has had to
ask the porter for many things, such as bringing ice water at night, silencing
objectionable travelers, bringing pillows and tables during the day, not to
mention polishing his shoes and brushing his coat every morning, he is
much more generous than if he had been on the car only a few hours and
had not asked for any special service. Unless the trip is long he never gives
more than a dollar. Twenty-five cents is the minimum.
By Automobile. From an economic point of view this problem has come
to be almost as large as the railroad problem, and the part the automobile,
including trucks and taxis, plays in business is growing larger and larger
every year.
Motorists have a code of their own. They—when they do as they should
—drive to the right in the United States, to the left in certain other
countries. They take up no more of the road than is necessary, and they
observe local traffic regulations scrupulously, not only because they will be
fined if they do not but because it is impolite in Rome to do other than the
Romans do. They hold out their hands to indicate that they are about to turn,
they slow down at crossings, and they sound their horns as a warning signal
but never for any other reason.
It is often necessary for a man who is trying to sell a piece of property to
take out to look at it the man who thinks he will buy it. Needless to say, it is
the former who pays for the trip. Other business trips are arranged by
groups, the benefit or pleasure which is to result to be shared among them.

Under such conditions it is wise (and polite) for them to divide expenses.
These matters should be arranged ahead of time. If one is to furnish the
machine, and one the gasoline, and another is to pay for the lunch, it should
be understood at the outset.
In a Small Town. The salesman is now completely out of the metropolitan
district. He is in a small town like hundreds of others over the United
States. The hotel is very good in itself, but compared with the one in the
city, which he has just left, it is inconvenient. He has better judgment than
to remind the people of this. Instead, when he is talking to them—and he
likes to talk with the people in the towns he is serving—he talks about what
they have rather than what they have not and about what they can do in the
future rather than what they have failed to do in the past. It is in this way
that he discovers how he can best be useful to them.
He likes to work at the quick pace set by the big cities but he knows it
will not do here. He goes around to see Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter is glad to see
him, but he has had a bad year. The crops have not been good, the banks
have not been generous, his wife has been sick, and one of his children has
broken a leg. The salesman listens sympathetically to this tale of woe, leads
the conversation away from the bad year behind to the good year ahead, and
in a little while they are eagerly discussing plans for business in the next
month or so. The salesman shows how he can help, and convinces Mr.
Carter that the best time to begin is right now and gets an order for supplies
from him. It has taken the better part of the morning, and Mr. Carter asks
him to go home with him to lunch. The salesman would prefer going back
to the hotel, but he knows that it will give Mr. Carter great pleasure to have
him—his invitation is unmistakably hearty—so he accepts.
Before he came the salesman had discovered, through consulting the
directories and by talking with friends of his who knew the town, who were
worth going to see and who were not. Mr. Carter he had learned was
immensely worth while and that is why he was willing to spend so much
time with him. No salesman can afford to stop and talk with everybody who
can give him the inside story of why business is no good. This salesman
always finds out as much as possible about a man before he goes to see
him. He never leaps blindly ahead when there is any way to get a gleam of
light first.

Once in South Carolina he was anxious to get a large order from a
wealthy old man who, he felt sure, would be a regular customer if he could
once be persuaded to buy. The old man paid no attention to what he was
saying until he mentioned the picture of a hunting dog that hung above the
desk. The old man's eyes kindled. This was his hobby and he forgot all
about business while he talked about hunting, and ended by asking the
salesman to go home with him and spend the night. The salesman accepted
gladly, and the next morning they went rabbit hunting instead of going back
to the office. The salesman was out of practice in handling a gun but it was
great fun, and the upshot of it all was that he “landed” the order he wanted.
This method is pleasant but wasteful. The salesman never uses it except
as a last resource.
Much of the success of this salesman (and of the others who are
successful) lies in the fact that he can put himself so completely into the
place of the man he is trying to sell. He talks in terms of that man's work,
and he tries to sell only where he believes the sale will result in mutual
satisfaction. He never says anything about serving humanity, but his life is
shaped around this idea, which is, when all is said and done, the biggest
idea that any of us can lay ourselves out to follow.
He is working for a firm that he knows is honest—no self-respecting man
will work for any other kind—and he wants its financial rating to stand
solid. He does not sell to every man who wants to buy. He investigates his
credit first, and if there is to be a delay while the investigation is under way
he frankly tells the man so, and assures him that it is for his protection as
well as for that of the house that is selling the goods. “It is a form we go
through with every new customer,” he says. “If we did not we'd find
ourselves swamped with men who would not pay. And that would work
hardship on those who do.” Every business man knows that this is the only
way in which reliable business can be carried on. And it is reliable business
that we are interested in.

Top

XIII
TABLES FOR TWO OR MORE

A young banker from Smithville is in New York. It is his first trip.
You would like him if you could see him. Tall, sun-burned, clean-cut,
well-dressed, thoroughly alive and interested in everything. He is a bit
confused by the city but he is determined to learn everything that it has to
teach him. He does not hesitate to ask questions but he likes to find out
without, whenever possible.
He goes into the dining room of the great hotel where he is staying, and
for the first time in his life is confronted with an array of silver on both
sides of his plate. At home he always has a knife, fork, and spoon laid
together at the right of his plate, by which you can see that he has not lived
among people who place much emphasis on having food daintily or
correctly served. He is not exactly prepared for this. When he left
Smithville he was thinking more of his business connections than of what
he was going to eat, and how. He is embarrassed because, like every sanely
balanced person, he likes to do things as they should be done, and not just
blunder through them. There is no one he can ask except the waiter, and the
waiter seems such a superior person that he is afraid to ask him (though it
would have been perfectly correct for him to do so). He gets through the
meal the best way he can and finds that when the ice cream is brought the
only thing he has left to eat it with is a slender fork with a long handle and
three very tiny prongs. He knows that he has tripped up somewhere along
the line, but he asks the waiter to bring him a spoon (he should have asked
for a fork) and goes ahead.
The next day he is invited out to dinner with a man who has all of his life
been accustomed to first-class hotels and restaurants and the dining tables
of wealthy and cultured people. He is somewhat older than our young
banker and he has had a great deal of experience in entertaining men who
have come into the city from small towns. He is thoughtful, sympathetic, an

excellent host. He leads the way into the dining room (though they stand
together in such a way that it seems that neither is leading) and chooses a
table. This nearly always means accepting the one the head waiter indicates,
though it is quite correct for the host to suggest the table he would like to
have.
“Does this suit you?” he asks the young banker before they sit down.
It suits him exactly. He says as much.
“Now, what will you have to eat?”
The waiter has given him a menu card, containing, so it seems to the
young man, a million things that he might have. A dinner served in courses
was something beyond his knowledge until the night before, and the dinner
then was table d'hôte instead of à la carte. He flounders through the card
and is about ready to thrust it aside and say, “Just bring me some ham and
eggs” when his host sees his predicament.
“Blue Points are usually good at this time of the year,” he says. “Shall we
try them?”
The young man has not the remotest idea what Blue Points are but he
thinks it will be very delightful to try them.
“What kind of soup do you like?” the host continues when the waiter has
departed. “I see they have vegetable soup and consommé.”
The young man clutches at the familiar straw. He will have vegetable
soup.
Throughout the meal the host makes comments and suggestions and
guides his guest through to the end, and does it so graciously that the young
man from Smithville is not aware that he is doing it, and feels that it is all
due to his own quick observation that he is getting along so well. No
business man is a perfect host until he can accomplish this.
Our young man knows already that one should sit up at a table and not
lean forward or lounge back, that he should not take large mouthfuls and
that he should not snap at his food, that he should eat without noise and
with great cleanliness. He knows that his napkin should be unfolded (it

should be unfolded once and not spread out) and laid across his lap, not
tucked into his collar or the top of his vest. He knows that he should not eat
with his knife.
He has never seen a finger bowl before but he has heard of them, so that
when one is placed before him he knows that he should dip the ends of his
fingers into it and dry them on his napkin. He has also heard that toothpicks
are never used by gentlemen, at least in public, and he is not surprised when
he does not see them.
He has read somewhere that when a knife or a fork is dropped to the floor
he should not pick it up himself but should allow the waiter to do so, and
that the waiter should be allowed to clear away the damage when something
is upset on the table. He knows that long apologies are out of order
anywhere, and he is not likely to say anything more than “Excuse me” or “I
beg your pardon” if he should by a clumsy movement break a glass or
overturn a plate of soup.
But he does not know about the various knives and forks or about how
courses are arranged, and he does not know about tips.
It is correct for him to explain to his host, just as Pip did when he was
dining for the first time with Herbert Pocket, that he is unused to such
things and beg him to give him a few hints as they go along. But it is less
embarrassing to consult a book of etiquette about fundamentals and to pick
up the other knowledge by close observation.
He discovers—our young friend uses both methods—that knives are laid
at the right of the plate in the order in which they are to be used, beginning
at the outside, and that the spoons are laid just beyond the knives in the
same order. The butter knife (which rarely appears at dinner time) is usually
laid across the little bread plate at the left of the dinner plate. Forks are
placed at the left of the plate in the order in which they are to be used,
except the oyster fork, which is laid across the knives or else is brought in
with the oysters. The steel knife is for cutting meats. The flat fork with the
short prongs is for salads. Salads are always eaten with a fork. It is
sometimes not very easy to do, but it is the only correct way.

This is the general standard, but there are deviations from it. Nothing but
experience in dining—and a great deal of it—will teach one to know always
what fork or what knife or what spoon to use when the table service is
highly elaborate. The best policy for a stranger under such conditions is that
of watchful and unobtrusive waiting.
The dinners that business men choose for themselves are rarely divided
into numerous courses. Often they have only two: meat and vegetables, and
dessert. The regular order for a six-course dinner is: first, an appetizer such
as oyster cocktail, grapefruit, strawberries, or something of the sort,
followed by soup, fish, meat and vegetables, salad, dessert, cheese and
crackers. One or more of the courses is often omitted.
The rule for tipping is universally the same: Ten per cent of the bill.

Suppose the cases had been reversed and the man from the city had been
in Smithville to take dinner with the young banker.
He is not accustomed to seeing all of the food put on the table at one
time, nor to having to use the same fork throughout the meal. But he is a
gentleman. He adapts himself to their standard so readily that not one of the
people at the table could tell but that he had always lived that way.
The young banker is a gentleman, too. When his friends from the city
come to visit him he gives them the best he has and does not apologize for
it. He does not begin by saying, “I know you are used to having better
things than this but I suppose you can stand it for one meal.” He simply
ushers his guest into the dining room as cordially and with as little
affectation as if he were the paying teller of the Smithville bank. No one
need ever apologize when he has done or given his best.
It is interesting to know that the standard of our young banker is growing
higher and higher all the time. He likes to know how the people who have
had time to make an art of dining do it and to adapt his ways to theirs
whenever he can.

It is a grave mistake for a business man to feel that he must entertain
another to the standard to which the second is accustomed. A poor man who

finds himself under the necessity of entertaining a rich one should not feel
that he must do it on a grand scale if he has been so entertained by a rich
one. Aside from the moral question involved the great game of bluff is too
silly and vulgar a one for grown men to play.
But business men play it and their wives join in. Suppose Mrs. Davis,
whose husband is an assistant of Mr. Burke, wishes to invite Mrs. Burke to
her home to dinner. She and Mr. Davis have been formally entertained in
the other home, and the dinner they had there was superintended by a butler
and carefully manipulated by two maids. Now Mrs. Davis has no maid, her
china is very simple, and the food that she and her husband have, even
when they entertain their friends, is plain and wholesome. Should she, for
the great occasion, hire more beautiful china and engage servants? Should
she draw on the savings bank for more delicate viands?
To begin with, Mr. Burke knows exactly what salary Mr. Davis gets. He
knows whether it will warrant such expenditure. Will it make him feel like
placing more responsibility on his assistant's shoulders to see him living
beyond his means? Is it not, after all, much better for people to meet face to
face instead of hiding themselves behind masks? The masks are not pretty,
and in most cases deceive only the persons who wear them.
Men who are friends in business often like their wives to be friends as
well. It is many times possible to bring about a meeting at the home of a
common friend, but when this is not convenient, one of the women may
invite the other. If the invitation is to dinner, it is not correct for Mr.
Gardner to invite Mrs. Shandon even if he knows her and his wife does not.
The invitation should go from Mrs. Gardner and should be addressed to Mr.
and Mrs. Shandon. If the invitation is for tea, Mrs. Gardner simply invites
Mrs. Shandon, and the nature of the invitation depends upon whether the
affair is formal or informal.
As to which of two women should proffer the first invitation there might
be some discussion. Usually it is the wife of the man whose position is
superior, if they both work for the same concern. It frequently happens that
a man whose position in business is high is married to a woman whose
social standing is not of corresponding importance. Perhaps such a man has

a subordinate whose wife is a social leader. In this case which of the women
should extend the first invitation?
Most women of eminent social rank realize and appreciate the fact
thoroughly. The social leader knows that the other woman might be
embarrassed and hesitant about inviting her to her home. If she does
apprehend this it is only gracious for her to extend the first invitation
herself.
In small towns the rule is for the old residents to call upon the new, and
the wife of a business man who has recently established himself in a
community must wait until the women who live there have called upon her
before she begins to entertain them.
In large cities where it is impossible to know everyone this rule is
practically disregarded, and business men invite one another and ask their
wives to do the same according to the way convenience and chance make
most natural. Women whose husbands are longest in the employ of a firm,
or whose husbands hold high positions, as a rule call first on the wives of
newcomers or subordinates.
It all comes to the same thing whether it is in a city or a small town or the
country. Those who are already established in the neighborhood or the
business extend the right hand of welcome and good fellowship to those
who are not.
In order to bring their employees together socially most big houses now
give various entertainments such as picnics, parties, dances, and banquets.
They are in no way different from other entertainments of the same kind so
far as the etiquette of behavior is concerned. Formal dances and banquets in
the evening require evening dress just the same, except with that very
enormous group (to which most of us belong) who do not own evening
dress. This does not mean that evening parties must be foregone by this
group or that they should hire gala attire for the occasion, but simply that
the men wear their business suits and the girls their “Sunday” dresses. It is
just as correct, it is just as much fun, and it is infinitely wiser than giving a
dollar down and a dollar a week for a décolleté gown or a swallow-tail
outfit.

Top

XIV
LADIES FIRST?

Most girls who are in business are there to earn a living.
It is true that an increasing number of wealthy girls who are under no
necessity to work but who want a definite place in the economic life of the
world are entering business every year, but the great army of workers is
made up of those who enter business because they are driven into it (driven,
many of them, while they are yet very young), because it is the only way in
which they can have their own money, or because it is the only way in
which they can raise their standard of living.
The majority of business girls come from the homes of parents in
moderate circumstances. They have had advantages—a high-school or a
college diploma, a certificate from a business school, travel, specialized
training—and all these they have added to their business capital. In many
instances the opportunities they have had have not been brilliant, but every
opportunity, however small, carries with it the responsibility to make the
best of it. Upon these girls, since they outnumber the others and because
they have had advantages (a high-school education is an enormous
advantage if you are looking at it from the point of view of a person who
wanted one but was not able to get it), rests the responsibility of setting the
pace for others. And the standard of behavior for the business girl, whether
she be rich or poor or in between, is the same.
The wealthy girls who enter business deliberately are usually followed by
the same sensible impulse that started them on their careers, and, as a rule,
they conduct themselves with dignity and modesty. The wealthy girls who,
through a turn of fortune have been forced into work and have gone
unwillingly, are another matter. “The rudest girls we have,” is the testimony
of most people who have to deal with them. Conventional social charm and
poise they may have but they are without that finer sense of courtesy which
makes them accept whatever fate gives them and make the best of it. The

fading splendor of the days of plenty envelops them like a cloud—
remember that we are speaking of the unwilling ones—they lose themselves
in self-pity, and the great fun that comes from good work they miss entirely.
Many of the poor girls in business have never known anything but
poverty, and their lives have been cast among people who have never
known anything else. They have had no home training in the art of behavior
(for the people at home did not know how to give it to them). No one has
ever told them how to dress or act but there have never been lacking those
to condemn them when they dressed foolishly or acted indiscreetly. “The
silly little things,” they say (and oh, how superior they are when they say
it). Employers agree, for, after all, it is true, and the silly little things hold
their jobs until they are married, until they are fired, or (and this happens
frequently) until they wake up, and then they are promoted to something
better. We cannot expect girls like these, who have grown up without
contact with the gentler side of life, to begin with a high standard of
behavior, but we can (and do) expect them, once they have been brought
into touch with better things, to raise their standard. It is no disgrace for a
girl to begin in ignorance and squalor; the disgrace lies in staying there.
First of all, the dress of the business girl. Most of the ill-breeding in the
world is due to ignorance. Ignorance of the laws of beauty and taste causes
one to make a display of finery, and over-dressing is a mark of vulgarity
whether one can afford it or not.
The girl does not live—we believe this is right—who does not love pretty
clothes. But the average girl does not have money to spend lavishly for
them. Her salary, as a rule, is not princely, and there are often financial as
well as moral obligations to the people at home. She cannot have Sunday
clothes and everyday clothes. She must combine the two with the emphasis
on the latter.
A few years ago it was almost impossible to accomplish this, but
manufacturers have recognized her needs and are now making clothes
especially for her—plain dresses in bright colors and dark dresses with a
happy bit of trimming here and there, neat enough to pass the censorship of
the strictest employer, pretty enough to please the most exacting young girl.

A woman is no longer thought eccentric if she wears low heels. The
modern flapper is too sensible for such nonsense as French heels for
standing all day behind the counter. Manufacturers have discovered this
also, and are making shoes with low heels and broad toes quite as pleasing
as the French monstrosities and infinitely more comfortable.
A business girl—or any girl, for that matter—should take pains with her
hands and her hair. Coiffures that might be appropriate in a ball room are
out of place in an office, and heavily jeweled hands, whether the jewels are
real or imitation, are grotesquely unsuited to office work. (So are dirty
ones.)
Hair that is glossy and tidy, hands that are clean and capable, dress that is
trim and inconspicuous—add to these intelligence, willingness, good health,
and good manners and there is not much left to be desired.
Certain positions expose girls to the temptation of dress more than others.
She, for instance, who all day handles lovely garments or she who all day
poses before long mirrors in exquisite gowns that other women are to wear
—can one expect these girls to go merrily home at night to a hall bedroom
with a one-burner gas jet and a mournful array of old furniture? They have a
problem that the girl in a glue factory or a fish cannery does not have to
meet—at least not in so concrete a form. At the same time they have an
opportunity that these other girls do not have, and it rests with them
whether the opportunity or the temptation gets the upper hand.
Positions in which girls are thrown into close contact with men expose
them to temptation of another sort. It is in its most acute form when it
brings a poor girl into more or less intimate association with a rich man.
Once, a very long time ago, a king married a beggar maid and they lived
happily ever after. People have not stopped writing and talking about it yet,
although it is many centuries since it happened. It is true that once in a very
great while a girl marries her father's chauffeur or her brother's valet and
finds later that she has acted wisely; but these are rare exceptions to the
general rule, for the result usually is unhappiness. Such marriages are
always the occasion for big headlines in the paper, usually a double set of
them, for, in most instances, the divorce follows within a year or so.

It is a dangerous thing for a girl to receive attentions indiscriminately
from men, especially those who drift across her horizon from the great
world outside. It is dangerous (is it necessary to add that it is incorrect?) for
a manicurist to accept presents from the millionaire whose hands she looks
after. It is unwise for any girl to accept expensive gifts from a man who is
not her fiancé.
There are exceptions to this rule, as indeed to every other. At Christmas
or at the time a ceremony or an anniversary employers sometimes give their
secretaries or another trusted employee a beautiful gift, and it is within the
bounds of propriety for the employee to accept it. Often when he has been
away from the office for several weeks a man presents his secretary a gift to
express his gratitude for the capable way in which she has managed affairs
in his absence, and this gift the secretary is privileged to accept. Gifts are
seldom presented except where the association has been a long and highly
satisfactory one.
But the girl who goes to the theatre with a man about whom she knows
nothing except that he has the price of the tickets is running a serious risk.
She is violating one of the most rigid principles of etiquette and she is
skating perilously out beyond the line marked off by common sense. Nearly
every man can, and does, if he is the right sort, present credentials before
asking a girl if he may call or if he may escort her to a place of amusement.
There are instances in romantic stories and in real life where a man and a
maid have met without the help of a third party and have entered upon a
charming friendship. They are rare, rarer in fact than in fiction. It is banal to
say that a girl can usually tell. But she can, and if she has any doubt (and
this is true of all her relations with men) she should have no doubt. She
should stop where she is.
Where men and girls work together in the same building or in buildings
near one another they often go to the same restaurant for lunch. It is natural
that they should sometimes sit together at the same tables. It is correct for a
man to sit at a table where there are already only girls (if the girls are
willing), but it is not correct for a girl to sit at a table where there are
already only men (however willing the men may be). In these mixed groups
each person pays for his or her own lunch. It is not even necessary for the
man, or the men, as the case may be, to offer to do so, and it is a distinct

breach of the rules of etiquette for a girl to allow a man to pay for her lunch
under such circumstances.
The only time when it is correct for a man and a girl who are associated
together in business to have lunch, with him the host and her the guest, is
when the engagement is made ahead of time as for any other social affair.
On such an occasion he should be as attentive as he would in any other
circumstances, taking care of her wraps and placing her chair if the waiter is
not at hand to do it, suggesting dishes he thinks perhaps she will like, and
making himself as generally useful and agreeable as it is possible for him to
be. A point about which considerable breath is wasted is whether a man
should enter a restaurant with the girl following or whether he should allow
her to lead the way. It makes no material difference one way or the other,
but usually he permits her to go ahead and follows closely enough behind to
open the doors for her and to receive whatever instructions the head waiter
has to offer.
If a man should enter a restaurant and find a girl whom he knows already
seated he may join her if he thinks he will be not unwelcome, but this does
not make it incumbent upon him to pay for her lunch. He may offer to do it,
but it is a matter that rests with the girl. If she does not care to develop his
acquaintance she should not permit it, but if the two are good friends or if
she feels that he is a man she would like to know, she may give him her
check to settle along with his own. A girl is herself the best judge of what to
do under such conditions, and if common sense does not show her the way
out etiquette will not help.
Women in business sometimes bring up perplexing questions and create
awkward situations. Suppose a man has asked a girl several times to a
business-social lunch and she has accepted every time. It seems that she
should, as a man would in the same position, make some return. If she
works for a house where there is a dining room in which checks do not have
to be settled at the end of every meal she may do so without the slightest
difficulty, but if she is compelled to take him to a place where the check
must be given to the waiter or paid at the desk before they leave, she must
look out for a different way of managing things. Business luncheons are
usually paid for by the firm in whose interests they are brought about, and if
the girl works for an organization where there are several men employed

she may ask one of them to take her friend out to lunch. Then, even if she is
not present, her social duty is done. The easiest way out of such a
predicament, it is superfluous to say, is never to get into it.
A girl who enters business presumably accepts the same conditions that
men have to meet. She has no right to expect special favors because she is a
woman. She does get a certain amount of consideration, as indeed she
should, but she is very foolish and childish if she feels resentful when a
busy man fails to hold open a door for her to pass through, when he rushes
into his office ahead of her, or when he cuts short an interview when she
has said only half of what she had on her mind.
Much is said about the man who keeps his seat on a train while a woman
stands. His defense rests upon two arguments, first, that his need is greater
than hers (which is not true) and, second, that she does not appreciate it
even when he does give it to her (which is not true either). Unfortunately,
there are as many rude women in the world—and this statement is not made
carelessly—as there are rude men, and in almost half the cases where a man
rises to give a woman his place the woman sits down without even a glance
toward her benefactor, as if the act, which is no small sacrifice on the part
of a tired man, were not worth noticing. Every act of civility or
thoughtfulness should be rewarded with at least a “Thank you” and a good
hearty one at that.
Old people, cripples, and invalids rarely fail to secure seats, however
crowded a car may be. A man seldom offers his place to another man unless
it is evident that the other, because of age, infirmity, or extreme fatigue is
greatly in need of it. Well-bred girls resign their seats to old men, but if they
refuse to accept, the girls do not insist. At a reunion of Confederate veterans
several years ago a girl rose from her place on a street car to allow a feeble
old man to sit down. He gripped the strap fiercely.
“I ain't dead yet,” he responded sturdily.
One of the chief petty complaints brought against women is that they do
not keep their places in line. Some of them appear to have neither
conscience nor compunction about dashing up to a ticket window ahead of
twenty or thirty people who are waiting for their turn. Men would do the
same thing (so men themselves say) but they know very well that the other

men in the line would make them regret it in short order. Two or three
minutes is all one can save by such methods and it is not worth it. Even if it
were more it would still not be worth it.
When a woman breaks into a line it is quite permissible for the person
behind her (whoever he or she may be) to say, “I beg your pardon, I was
here first.” This should be enough. Sometimes there is an almost desperate
reason why one should get to a window. Many times everybody in the line
has the same desperate reason for being in a hurry, but now and then in
individual cases it is allowable for a woman (or a man) to ask for another
person's place. But only if there is a most urgent reason for it. Much of
courtesy is made up of petty sacrifices, and most of the great sacrifices are
only a larger form of courtesy. It all comes back to Sir Philip Sidney's
principle of “Thy need is greater than mine,” but it is only extraordinary
circumstances which warrant one's saying, “My need is greater than thine.”
Since the beginning of time, and before (if there was any before) women
have done their share of the work of the world. Formerly their part of it
centered in the home but now that machinery has taken it out of the home
they have come out of the home too, to stand in the fields and factories of
industry by the side of their fathers and husbands and brothers. Because
they have recently been thrown into closer association in their hours of
work than ever before there has sprung up a certain amount of strife
between men and women, and a great deal is said about how superior men
are to women and how superior women are to men. It is pure nonsense. If
all the men in the world were put on one side of a scale and all the women
on the other, the scale would probably stand perfectly still.
The woman in business should never forget that she is a woman but she
must remember that above all things she is a citizen, and that she herself has
value and her work has value only as they contribute to her community and
her community as it contributes to her country. Courtesy is one of her
strongest allies, this quality which, alone, can do nothing, but, united to the
solid virtues that make character, can move mountains.
We have said a good deal as we came along about courtesy toward
oneself and other people, but perhaps the most valuable of all courtesies in
business is politeness toward one's job. It is desirable for every woman to

be pretty, well-dressed, and well-groomed, but it is much more desirable for
the woman in business to be able to do capable and efficient work. She may
be ornamental but she must be useful, and while she is at the office her
chief concern should be with her job and not with herself. The end of
business is accomplishment, and courtesy is valuable because it is a means
of making accomplishment easy and pleasant. It is this that gives us the
grace to accept whatever comes, if not gladly, at least bravely.
It is a poor workman who quarrels with his tools (or with his job), so the
proverb says, and there are two lines of Mr. Kipling's that might be added.
He was speaking of a king, but in a democracy we are all kings:

The wisest thing, we suppose, that a king can do for his land
Is the work that lies under his nose, with the tools that lie
under his hand.

And the lines are just as true when “girl” is substituted for “king” and the
pronouns are changed accordingly.
Top

THE END

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF
BUSINESS ETIQUETTE ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law
means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the
Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States
without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a
registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook,
except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying
royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge
anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg
eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do
practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by
U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any
other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you
agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License
available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing
Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work,
you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the
terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright)
agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement,
you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy
of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to
be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on
or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can
do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying
with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a
lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you
follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to
Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual
work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are

located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are
removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg
mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing
Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for
keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can
easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you
share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a
constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the
laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work.
The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status
of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied
or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with
this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in
the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country
where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from
texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice
indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the
work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without
paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a
work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on
the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs
1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the
permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply
with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed
by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project
Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the
copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License
terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any
other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently
displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or
immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the
official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no
additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of
exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work
in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format
must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph
1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing,
copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply
with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to
or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days
following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to
prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly
marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about
donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You
must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all
access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution
of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in
this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project

Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works
not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and
the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or
damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that
damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except
for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to
you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you
discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you
can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund.
If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to

you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work
electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you
may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the
problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in
paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or
limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable
to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum
disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity
or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause
to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b)
alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg
work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project
Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic
works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including
obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the

efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of
life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance
they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring
that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for
generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for
Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations
can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)
(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of
Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541.
Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s
laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516,
Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment

including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are
particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States.
Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort,
much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these
requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not
received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have
not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against
accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us
with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the
United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods
and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including
checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg
electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with
anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg
eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions,
all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a

copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in
compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how
to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation,
how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email
newsletter to hear about new eBooks.