How to Win Friends & Influence People (1981) PDF

HOW TO WIN FRIE,NDS & INFLIJENCE, PEOPLE The Only ook You l{eed B to Lead You to Success  The More You Get Out of This Book, the More You’ll Get Out of life! In order to get the most out of this book: a. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the princi...

HOW TO WIN FRIE,NDS & INFLIJENCE, PEOPLE The Only ook You l{eed B to Lead You to Success  The More You Get Out of This Book, the More You’ll Get Out of life! In order to get the most out of this book: a. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations. b. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one. c. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion. d. Underscore each important idea. e. Review this book each month. f. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this vol­ ume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems. g. Make a lively game out o f your learning by offering some friend a dim e or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles. h. Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what im­ provement, what lessons you have learned for the future. i. Keep notes in the back o f this book showing how and when you have applied these principles. Books by Dale Carnegie How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job (Revised Edition) How to Stop Worrying and Start Living How to W in Friends and Influence People The Quick and Easy W ay to Effective Speaking Published by POCKET BOOKS How to Win Friends & Influence People m m. DALE CARNEGIE Editorial Consultant: Dorothy Carnegie Editorial Assistance: Arthur R. Pell, Ph.D. G Gallery Books New York London Toronto Sydney  Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 1936 by Dale Carnegie Copyright renewed © 1964 by Donna Dale Carnegie and Dorothy Carnegie Revised edition copyright © 1981 by Donna Dale Carnegie and Dorothy Carnegie Originally published in hardcover in 1981 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avnue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN: 0-671-02703-4 First Pocket/Gallery trade paperback printing November 1998 40 39 38 GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Saes at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected] Cover design by Tom McKeveny Printed in the U.S.A. This Book Is Dedicated to a Man Who D oesn ’t Need to Read' It— My Cherished Friend HOM ER CROY  Contents Preface to 1981 Edition by Dorothy Carnegie xi How This Book Was Written—and Why by Dale Carnegie xv Nine Suggestions on How to Get th e Most O ut of This Book xxiii PART ONE Fundamental Techniques in Handling People 1 “If You Want to Gather Honey, D on’t Kick Over the Beehive” 3 2 T he Big Secret o f Dealing with People 17 3 “H e Who Can D o This Has the Whole World with Him. H e Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way” 30 PART TWO Six Ways to Make People Like You 1 D o This and You’ll Be Welcome Anywhere 51 2 A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression 63 3 If You Don’t Do This, You Are Headed for Trouble 71 4 An Easy Way to Become a Good Conversationalist 80 5 How to Interest People 89 6 How to Make People Like You Instantly 94 PART THREE How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking 1 You Can’t Win an Argument 109 2 A Sure Way of Making Enemies— and How to Avoid It 116 3 If You’re Wrong, Admit It 127 4 A Drop of Honey 135 5 The Secret of Socrates 144 6 The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints 150 7 How to Get Cooperation 155 8 A Formula That Will Work W onders for You 161 9 W hat Everybody Wants 167 10 An Appeal That Everybody Likes 175 11 The Movies D o It. TV Does It. Why Don’t You Do It? 181 12 W hen Nothing Else Works, Try This 186 PART FOUR Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment 1 If You Must Find Fault, This Is the Way to Begin 193 2 How to Criticize— and Not Be H ated for It 199 3 Talk About Your Own Mistakes First 203 4 No One Likes to Take O rders 208 5 Let the O ther Person Save Face 211 6 How to Spur People O n to Success 215 7 Give a D og a Good N am e 221 8 Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct 226 9 Making People Glad to D o What You W ant 231 A Shortcut to Distinction by Lowell Thomas 237 The Dale Carnegie Courses 249 Other Books 251 My Experiences in Applying the Principles Taught in This Book 253 Index 255  Preface to 1981 Edition How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1937 in an edition of only five thousand copies. Neither Dale Carnegie nor the publishers, Simon and Schuster, anticipated more than this modest sale. To their amazement, the book became an overnight sensation, and edition after edition rolled off the presses to keep up with the increasing public demand. How to Win Friends and Influence People took its place in publishing history as one of the all-time international best-sellers. It touched a nerve and filled a human need that was more than a faddish phenomenon of post-Depression days, as evidenced by its contin­ ued and uninterrupted sales into the eighties, almost half a cen­ tury later. Dale Carnegie used to say that it was easier to make a million dollars than to put a phrase into the English language. How to Win Friends and Influence People became such a phrase: quoted, paraphrased, parodied; used in innumerable contexts, from politi­ cal cartoons to novels. The book itself was translated into almost every known written language. Each generation has discovered it anew and has found it relevant. xi  How to W in F riends and I nfluence People Which brings us to the logical question: Why revise a book that has proven and continues to prove its vigorous and universal ap­ peal? Why tamper with success? To answer that, we must realize that Dale Carnegie himself was a tireless reviser o f his own work during his lifetime. How to W in Friends and Influence People was written to be used as a textbook for his courses in Effective Speaking and Human Relations and is still used in those courses today. Until his death in 1955 he constantly improved and revised th e course itself to make it applicable to the evolving needs o f an ever­ growing public. No one was more sensitive to th e changing currents of present-day life than D ale Carnegie. H e constantly improved and refined his methods o f teaching; he updated his book on effective speaking several times. Had he lived longer, he himself would have revised How to Win Friends and Influ­ ence People to better reflect the changes that have taken place in the world since th e thirties. Many of the names of prominent people in the book, well known at the time o f first publication, are no longer recognized by many of today’s readers. Certain examples and phrases seem as quaint and dated in our social climate as those in a Victorian novel. The important message and overall impact of the book is weakened to that extent. Our purpose, therefore, in this revision is to clarify and strengthen the book for a modem reader without tampering with the content. We have not “changed” How to Win Friends and Influence People except to make a few excisions and add a few more contemporary examples. The brash, breezy Carnegie style is intact—even the thirties slang is still there. Dale Carnegie wrote as he spoke, in an intensively exuberant, colloquial, conversa­ tional manner. So his voice still speaks as forcefully as ever, in th e book and in his work. Thousands of people all over the world are being trained in Carnegie courses in increasing numbers each year. And other thousands are reading and studying How to Win xii  P r e f a c e to 1 9 8 1 E d i t i o n Friends and Influence People and being inspired to use its principles to b etter their lives. To all of them we offer this revision in the spirit of the honing and polishing of a finely made tool. D orothy C a r n e g ie (m r s. D ale C a r n e g ie ) xiii  How This Book Was Written—and Why by Dale Carnegie D u r in g the f ir s t t h i r t y -f iv e years of the t w e n t ie t h cen- tury, the publishing houses of America printed more than a fifth of a million different books. Most of them were deadly dull, and many were financial failures. “Many,” did I say? The president of one of th e largest publishing houses in the world confessed to me that his company, after seventy-five years of publishing experience, still lost money on seven out of every eight books it published. Why, then, did I have the temerity to write another book? And, after I had written it, why should you bother to read it? Fair questions, both; and I’ll try to answer them. I have, since 1912, been conducting educational courses for business and professional men and women in New York. At first, I conducted courses in public speaking only—courses designed to train adults, by actual experience, to think on their feet and ex­ press their ideas with more clarity, more effectiveness and more poise, both in business interviews and before groups. But gradually, as the seasons passed, I realized that as sorely as these adults needed training in effective speaking, they needed  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople still more training in the fine art of getting along with people in everyday business and social contacts. I also gradually realized that I was sorely in need of such train­ ing myself. As I look back across the years, I am appalled at my own frequent lack of finesse and understanding. How I wish a book such as this had been placed in my hands twenty years ago! What a priceless boon it would have been. Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. Research done a few years ago under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad­ vancement of Teaching uncovered a most important and signifi­ cant fact—a fact later confirmed by additional studies made at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. These investigations re­ vealed that even in such technical lines as engineering, about 15 percent of one’s financial success is due to one’s technical knowl­ edge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering— to personality and the ability to lead people. For many years, I conducted courses each season at the Engi­ neers’ Club of Philadelphia, and also courses for the New York chapter of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. A total of probably more than fifteen hundred engineers have passed through my classes. They came to me because they had finally realized, after years of observation and experience, that the highest-paid personnel in engineering are frequently not those who know the most about engineering. One can, for example, hire mere technical ability in engineering, accountancy, architecture or any other profession at nominal salaries. But the person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power. In the heyday of his activity, John D. Rockefeller said that “the ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability,” said John D., “than for any other under the sun.” Wouldn’t you suppose that every college in the land would  How T h i s Book Was W r i t t e n — and W h y conduct courses to develop the highest-priced ability under the sun? But if there is just one practical, commonsense course of that kind given for adults in even one college in the land, it has escaped my attention up to the present writing. The University of Chicago and the United Y.M.C.A. Schools conducted a survey to determine what adults want to study. That survey cost $25,000 and took two years. The last part of the survey was made in Meriden, Connecticut. It had been chosen as a typi­ cal American town. Every adult in Meriden was interviewed and requested to answer 156 questions— questions such as “What is your business or profession? Your education? How do you spend your spare time? W hat is your income? Your hobbies? Your ambi­ tions? Your problems? What subjects are you most interested in studying?,” and so on. That survey revealed that health is the prime interest of adults—and that their second interest is people: how to understand and get along with people; how to make people like you; and how to win others to your way of thinking. So the committee conducting this survey resolved to conduct such a course for adults in Meriden. They searched diligently for a practical textbook on the subject and found—not one. Finally they approached one of the world’s outstanding authorities on adult education and asked him if he knew of any book that met the needs of this group. “No,” he replied, “I know what those adults want. But the book they need has never been written.” I knew from experience that this statement was true, for I myself had been searching for years to discover a practical, work­ ing handbook on human relations. Since no such book existed, I have tried to write one for use in my own courses. And here it is. I hope you like it. In preparation for this book, I read everything that I could find on the subject—everything from newspaper columns, magazine articles, records of the family courts, the writings of the old philos­ ophers and the new psychologists. In addition, I hired a trained researcher to spend one and a half years in various libraries read­ ing everything I had missed, plowing through erudite tomes on psychology, poring over hundreds of magazine articles, searching xvii  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople through countless biographies, trying to ascertain how the great leaders of all ages had dealt with people. We read their biograph­ ies. We read the life stories of all great leaders from Julius Caesar to Thomas Edison. I recall that we read over one hundred bio­ graphies of Theodore Roosevelt alone. We were determined to spare no time, no expense, to discover every practical idea that anyone had ever used throughout the ages for winning friends and influencing people. I personally interviewed scores of successful people, some of them world-famous—inventors like Marconi and Edison; political leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt and James Farley; business leaders like Owen D. Young; movie stars like Clark Gable and Mary Pickford; and explorers like Martin Johnson—and tried to discover the techniques they used in human relations. From all this material, I prepared a short talk. I called it “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” I say “short.” It was short in the beginning, but it soon expanded to a lecture that consumed one hour and thirty minutes. For years, I gave this talk each season to the adults in the Carnegie Institute courses in New York. I gave the talk and urged the listeners to go out and test it in their business and social contacts, and then come back to class and speak about their experiences and the results they had achieved. What an interesting assignment! These men and women, hungry for self-improvement, were fascinated by the idea of work­ ing in a new kind of laboratory—the first and only laboratory of human relationships for adults that had ever existed. This book wasn’t written in the usual sense of the word. It grew as a child grows. It grew and developed out of that laboratory, out of the experiences of thousands of adults. Years ago, we started with a set of rules printed on a card no larger than a postcard. The next season we printed a larger card, then a leaflet, then a series of booklets, each one expanding in size and scope. After fifteen years of experiment and research came this book. The rules we have set down here are not mere theories or guesswork. They work like magic. Incredible as it sounds, I have x vi i i  H o w This Book Was W r i t t e n — an d Why seen the application of these principles literally revolutionize the lives of many people. To illustrate: A man with 314 employees joined one o f these courses. For years, he had driven and criticized and condemned his employees without stint or discretion. Kindness, words of ap­ preciation and encouragement were alien to his lips. After study­ ing the principles discussed in this book, this employer sharply altered his philosophy of life. His organization is now inspired with a new loyalty, a new enthusiasm, a new spirit of teamwork. Three hundred and fourteen enemies have been turned into 314 friends. As he proudly said in a speech before the class: “When I used to walk through my establishment, no one greeted me. My employees actually looked the other way when they saw me approaching. But now they are all my friends and even the janitor calls me by my first name.” This employer gained more profit; more leisure and—what is infinitely more important—he found far more happiness in his business and in his home. Countless numbers of salespeople have sharply increased their sales by the use of these principles. Many have opened up new accounts—accounts that they had formerly solicited in vain. Exec­ utives have been given increased authority, increased pay. One executive reported a large increase in salary because he applied these truths. Another, an executive in the Philadelphia Gas Works Company, was slated for demotion when he was sixty-five because of his belligerence, because of his inability to lead people skillfully. This training not only saved him from the demotion but brought him a promotion with increased pay. On innumerable occasions, spouses attending the banquet given at the end of the course have told me that their homes have been much happier since their husbands or wives started this training. People are frequently astonished at the new results they achieve. It all seems like magic. In some cases, in their enthusi­ asm, they have telephoned me at my home on Sundays because they couldn’t wait forty-eight hours to report their achievements at the regular session of the course. xix  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople One man was so stirred by a talk on these principles that he sat far into the night discussing them with other members of the class. At three o’clock in the morning, the others went home. But he was so shaken by a realization of his own mistakes, so inspired by the vista of a new and richer world opening before him, that he was unable to sleep. He didn’t sleep that night or the next day or the next night. Who was he? A naive, untrained individual ready to gush over any new theory that came along? No. Far from it. He was a sophisticated, blas6 dealer in art, very much the man about town, who spoke three languages fluently and was a graduate of two European universities. While writing this chapter, I received a letter from a German of the old school, an aristocrat whose forebears had served for generations as professional army officers under the Hohenzollems. His letter, written from a transatlantic steamer, telling about the application of these principles, rose almost to a religious fervor. Another man—an old New Yorker, a Harvard graduate, a wealthy man, the owner of a large carpet factory—declared he had learned more in fourteen weeks through this system of train­ ing about the fine art of influencing people than he had learned about the same subject during his four years in college. Absurd? Laughable? Fantastic? Of course, you are privileged to dismiss this statement with whatever adjective you wish. I am merely reporting, without comment, a declaration made by a conservative and eminently successful Harvard graduate in a public address to approximately six hundred people at the Yale Club in New York on the evening of Thursday, February 23, 1933. “Compared to what we ought to be,” said the famous Professor William James of Harvard, “compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.” Those powers which you “habitually fail to use”! The sole pur­ XX  How T h i s Book W a s W r i t te n— a n d W h y pose of this book is to help you discover, develop and profit by those dormant and unused assets. “Education,” said Dr. John G. Hibben, former president of Princeton University, “is the ability to meet life’s situations.” If by the time you have finished reading the first three chapters of this book—if you aren’t then a little better equipped to m eet life’s situations, then I shall consider this book to be a total failure so far as you are concerned. For “the great aim of education,” said Herbert Spencer, “is not knowledge but action.” And this is an action book. D ale C a r n e g ie , 1936 xxi  Nine Suggestions to Get the Most Out of This Book 1. If you wish to get the most out of this book, there is one indispensable requirement, one essential infinitely more important than any rule or technique. Unless you have this one fundamental requisite, a thousand rules on how to study will avail little. And if you do have this cardinal endowment, then you can achieve wonders without reading any suggestions for getting the most out of a book. What is this magic requirement? Just this: a deep, driving desire to leam, a vigorous determination to increase your ability to deal with people. How can you develop such an urge? By constantly reminding yourself how important these principles are to you. Picture to yourself how their mastery will aid you in leading a richer, fuller, happier and more fulfilling life. Say to yourself over and over: “My popularity, my happiness and sense of worth depend to no small extent upon my skill in dealing with people.” 2. Read each chapter rapidly at first to get a bird’s-eye view of it. You will probably be tempted then to rush on to the next one. But don’t—unless you are reading merely for entertainment. But  How to W in F r i e n d s and I nfluence P eople if you are reading because you want to increase your skill in human relations, then go back and reread each chapter thor­ oughly. In the long run, this will mean saving time and getting results. 3. Stop frequently in your reading to think over what you are reading. Ask yourself just how and when you can apply each suggestion. 4. Read with a crayon, pencil, pen, magic marker or highlighter in your hand. When you come across a suggestion that you feel you can use, draw a line beside it. If it is a four-star suggestion, then underscore every sentence or highlight it, or mark it with Marking and underscoring a book makes it more interest­ ing and far easier to review rapidly. 5. I knew a woman who had been office manager for a large insurance concern for fifteen years. Every month, she read all the insurance contracts her company had issued that month. Yes, she read many of the same contracts over month after month, year after year. Why? Because experience had taught her that that was the only way she could keep their provisions clearly in mind. I once spent almost two years writing a book on public speaking and yet I found I had to keep going back over it from time to time in order to remember what I had written in my own book. The rapidity with which we forget is astonishing. So, if you want to get a real, lasting benefit out of this book, don’t imagine that skimming through it once will suffice. After reading it thoroughly, you ought to spend a few hours reviewing it every month. Keep it on your desk in front of you every day. Glance through it often. Keep constantly impressing yourself with the rich possibilities for improvement that still lie in the offing. Remember that the use of these principles can be made habitual only by a constant and vigorous campaign of review and applica­ tion. There is no other way. 6. Bernard Shaw once remarked: “If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.” Shaw was right. Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these xxi v  N i n e S u gg es t io n s to Get the M o s t Ou t o f T h i s Book rules at every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind. You will probably find it difficult to apply these suggestions all the time. I know because I wrote the book, and yet frequently I found it difficult to apply everything I advocated. For example, when you are displeased, it is much easier to criticize and con­ demn than it is to try to understand the other person’s viewpoint; it is frequently easier to find fault than to find praise; it is more natural to talk about what you want than to talk about what the other person wants; and so on. So, as you read this book, remem­ ber that you are not merely trying to acquire information. You are attempting to form new habits. Ah yes, you are attempting a new way of life. That will require time and persistence and daily application. So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working hand­ book on human relations; and whenever you are confronted with some specific problem—such as handling a child, winning your spouse to your way of thinking, or satisfying an irritated cus­ tomer—hesitate about doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually wrong. Instead, turn to these pages and review the paragraphs you have underscored. Then try these new ways and watch them achieve magic for you. 7. Offer your spouse, your child or some business associate a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating a certain principle. Make a lively game out of mastering these rules. 8. The president of an important Wall Street bank once de­ scribed, in a talk before one of my classes, a highly efficient system he used for self-improvement. This man had little formal school­ ing; yet he had become one of the most important financiers in America, and he confessed that he owed most of his success to the constant application of his homemade system. This is what he does. I’ll put it in his own words as accurately as I can remember. “For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I had during the day. My family never made any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knew that I devoted a part of each Saturday evening to the illuminating process of  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I went off by myself, opened my engagement book, and thought over all the intemews, discussions and meetings that had taken place during the week. I asked myself: “ ‘What mistakes did I make that time?’ “ W hat did I do that was right— and in what way could I have improved my performance?’ “ ‘What lessons can I learn from that experience?’ “I often found that this weekly review made me very unhappy. I was frequently astonished at my own blunders. O f course, as the years passed, these blunders became less frequent. Sometimes I was inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analysis, self-education, continued year after year, did more for me than any other one thing I have ever attempted. “It helped me improve my ability to make decisions—and it aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.” Why not use a similar system to check up on your application of the principles discussed in this book? If you do, two things will result. First, you will find yourself engaged in an educational process that is both intriguing and priceless. Second, you will find that your ability to meet and deal with people will grow enormously. 9. You will find at the end of this book several blank pages on which you should record your triumphs in the application of these principles. Be specific. Give names, dates, results. Keeping such a record will inspire you to greater efforts; and how fascinating these entries will be when you chance upon them some evening years from now! In order to get the most out of this book: a. Develop a deep, driving desire to master the principles of human relations. b. Read each chapter twice before going on to the next one.  N i n e S u g g e s t i o n s to Get t he M o s t Out o f T h i s Book c. As you read, stop frequently to ask yourself how you can apply each suggestion. d. Underscore each important idea. e. Review this book each month. f. Apply these principles at every opportunity. Use this vol­ ume as a working handbook to help you solve your daily problems. g. Make a lively game out of your learning by offering some friend a dime or a dollar every time he or she catches you violating one of these principles. h. Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future. i. Keep notes in the back of this book showing how and when you have applied these principles. xxvii  Part O ne tt m §' m m m m b m n Fundamental Techniques in Handling People  1 " s m m s i i “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive” O n M ay 7 ,1 9 3 1 , t h e m o st s e n s a t io n a l m a n h u n t N e w Yo r k C it y had ever known had come to its climax. After weeks of search, “Two Gun” Crowley—the killer, the gunman who didn’t smoke or drink—was at bay, trapped in his sweetheart’s apartment on West End Avenue. One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his top-floor hideaway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop killer,” with tear gas. Then they mounted their machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of New York’s fine residential areas rever­ berated with the crack of pistol fire and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an overstuffed chair, fired inces- sandy at the police. Ten thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it had ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New York. When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mul- rooney declared that the two-gun desperado was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. “He will kill,” said the Commissioner, “at the drop of a feather.” 3  How to W in F r i e n d s a nd I n f l u e n c e P eople But how did “Two Gun” Crowley regard himself? We know, because while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a letter addressed “To whom it may concern.” And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In his letter Crowley said: “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a land one— one that would do nobody any harm.” A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party with his girl friend on a country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the car and said: “Let me see your license.” Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the po­ liceman down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the officer’s revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one— one that would do nobody any harm.” Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, “This is what I get for killing people”? No, he said: “This is what I get for de­ fending myself.” The point of the story is this: “Two Gun” Crowley didn’t blame himself for anything. Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to this: “I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.” That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious Pub­ lic Enemy—the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chi­ cago. Capone didn’t condemn himself. H e actually regarded himself as a public benefactor—an unappreciated and misunder­ stood public benefactor. And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gang­ ster bullets in Newark. D utch Schultz, one of New York’s most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor. And he believed it. 4  F u nd a me n ta l Techni ques i n Han dl i ng People I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York’s infamous Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he declared that “few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most o f them attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts even to them­ selves, consequently stoutly maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all.” If Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison walls don’t blame them­ selves for anything—what about the people with whom you and I come in contact? John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed: “I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations with­ out fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.” Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder through this old world for a third of a century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be. Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment. B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effec­ tively than an wimal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment. Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, “As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation.” S  How to Wi n F riends and I nfluence P eople The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize em­ ployees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned. George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordina­ tor for an engineering company. One of his responsibilities is to see that employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove the hats. He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he re­ minded the men in a pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The result was increased compliance with the regulation with no resentment or emotional upset. You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a thousand pages of history. Take, for example, the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft— a quarrel that split the Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War and altered the flow of history. Let’s review the facts quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of the White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was elected President. Then Theo­ dore Roosevelt went off to Africa to shoot lions. When he re­ turned, he exploded. He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. In the election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican party carried only two states—Vermont and Utah. The most disas­ trous defeat the party had ever known. Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame himself? Of course not. With tears in his eyes, Taft said: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.” 6  Fu nd ame nt al T echn iqu es in H a n d l i n g People Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The point I am trying to make is that all of Theodore Roosevelt’s criticism didn’t persuade Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft strive to justify himself and to reiter­ ate with tears in his eyes: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.” Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever hap­ pened before in American public life. H ere are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome—oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. D id Secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court—and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars. Fall was condemned viciously—condemned as few men in pub­ lic life have ever been. D id he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public speech that President Harding’s death had been due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him. W hen Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed: “What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband never be­ trayed anyone. This whole house full of gold would not tem pt my husband to do wrong. H e is the one who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified.” 7  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P e o p l e There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like that. So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let’s remember Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley and Albert Fall. Let’s realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like the gende Taft, will say: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.” On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall bedroom of a cheap lodging house directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, where John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln’s long body lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was too short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur’s famous painting The Horse Fair hung above the bed, and a dismal gas jet flickered yellow light. As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said, “There lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen.” What was the secret of Lincoln’s success in dealing with people? I studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for ten years and devoted all of three years to writing and rewriting a book entitled Lincoln the Unknown. I believe I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study of Lincoln’s personality and home life as it is possible for any being to make. I made a special study of Lincoln’s method of dealing with people. Did he indulge in criticism? Oh, yes. As a young man in the Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on the country roads where they were sure to be found. One of these letters aroused resentments that burned for a lifetime. Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in Spring­ field, Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly in letters pub­ lished in the newspapers. But he did this just once too often. In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by the name of James Shields. Lincoln lampooned him through 8  F u n d a m e n t a l T e ch n i q u e s in H a n d l i n g People an anonymous letter published in the Springfield Journal. The town roared with laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation. He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel. Lincoln didn’t want to fight. He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn’t get out of it and save his honor. He was given the choice of weapons. Since he had very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the appointed day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River, prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped the duel. That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln’s life. It taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people. Never again did he write an insulting letter. Never again did he ridicule anyone. And from that time on, he almost never criticized anybody for anything. Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a new gen­ eral at the head of the Army of the Potomac, and each one in turn—McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade—blundered tragically and drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. H alf the nation savagely condemned these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” held his peace. One of his favorite quotations was “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” And when Mrs. Lincoln and others spoke harshly of the south­ ern people, Lincoln replied: “D on’t criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.” Yet if any man ever had occasion to criticize, surely it was Lincoln. Let’s take just one illustration: The Batde of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee began to retreat southward while storm clouds deluged the country with rain. When Lee reached the Potomac with his defeated army, he found a swollen, impassable river in front of him, and a victorious Union Army behind him. Lee was in a trap. He couldn’t escape. Lincoln 9  How to W in F r i e n d s and I n f l u e n c e P eople saw that. Here was a golden, heaven-sent opportunity—the oppor­ tunity to capture Lee’s army and end the war immediately. So, with a surge of high hope, Lincoln ordered Meade not to call a council of war but to attack Lee immediately. Lincoln telegraphed his orders and then sent a special messenger to Meade demanding immediate action. And what did General Meade do? He did the very opposite of what he was told to do. He called a council of war in direct violation of Lincoln’s orders. He hesitated. He procrastinated. He telegraphed all manner of excuses. He refused point-blank to at­ tack Lee. Finally the waters receded and Lee escaped over the Potomac with his forces. Lincoln was furious. “W hat does this mean?” Lincoln cried to his son Robert. “Great God! What does this mean? We had them within our grasp, and had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours; yet nothing that I could say or do could make the army move. Under the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated Lee. If I had gone up there, I could have whipped him myself.” In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote Meade this letter. And remember, at this period of his life Lincoln was extremely conservative and restrained in his phraseology. So this letter coming from Lincoln in 1863 was tantamount to the sever­ est rebuke. My dear General, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the mis­ fortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few—no more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can 10  F u n d a m e n t a l Techniques i n Ha nd l in g Pe op l e now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it. What do you suppose Meade did when he read the letter? Meade never saw that letter. Lincoln never mailed it. It was found among his papers after his death. My guess is—and this is only a guess—that after writing that letter, Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself, “Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit here in the quiet of the White House and order Meade to attack; but if I had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much blood as Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been pierced with the screams and shrieks of the wounded and dying, maybe I wouldn’t be so anxious to attack either. If I had Meade’s timid temperament, perhaps I would have done just what he had done. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge now. If I send this letter, it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify himself. It will make him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings, impair all his further usefulness as a commander, and perhaps force him to resign from the army.” So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility. Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was con­ fronted with a perplexing problem, he used to lean back and look up at a large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White House and ask himself, “W hat would Lincoln do if he were in my shoes? How would he solve this problem?” The next time we are tempted to admonish somebody, let’s pull a five-dollar bill out of our pocket, look at Lincoln’s picture on the bill, and ask, “How would Lincoln handle this problem if he had it?” Mark Twain lost his temper occasionally and wrote letters that turned the paper brown. For example, he once wrote to a man who had aroused his ire: “The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only to speak and I will see that you get it.” On another 11  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople occasion he wrote to an editor about a proofreader’s attempts to “improve my spelling and punctuation.” He ordered: “Set the matter according to my copy hereafter and see that the proof­ reader retains his suggestions in the mush of his decayed brain.” The writing of these stinging letters made Mark Twain feel better. They allowed him to blow off steam, and the letters didn’t do any real harm, because Mark Twain’s wife secretly lifted them out of the mail. They were never sent. Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor o f it. But why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others—yes, and a lot less dangerous. “D on’t complain about the snow on your neigh­ bor’s roof,” said Confucius, “when your own doorstep is unclean.” When I was still young and trying hard to impress people, I wrote a foolish letter to Richard Harding Davis, an author who once loomed large on the literary horizon of America. I was pre­ paring a magazine article about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his method of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from someone with this notation at the bottom: “Dictated but not read.” I was quite impressed. I felt that the writer must be very big and busy and important. I wasn’t the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my short note with the words: “Dictated but not read.” He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply returned it to me with this scribbled across the bottom: “Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners.” True, I had blundered, and perhaps I deserved this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I resented it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still persisted in my mind—I am ashamed to admit—was the hurt he had given me. If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us in­ 12  Fu n d a me n t a l T e c hn i q ue s in H a n d l i n g People dulge in a little stinging criticism—no m atter how certain we are that it is justified. When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. W e are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide. Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambas­ sador to France. The secret of his success? “I will speak ill of no man,” he said, “... and speak all the good I know of everybody.” Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. “A great man shows his greatness,” said Carlyle, “by the way he treats little men.” Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt. Hoover’s first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane’s fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propel­ ler plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline. Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused th e loss of three lives as well. You can imagine Hoover’s anger. One could anticipate the 13  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn’t scold the mechanic; he didn’t even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man’s shoulder and said, “To show you I’m sure that you’ll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.” Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. You would expect me to say “don’t.” But I will not. I am merely going to say, “Before you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism, ‘Father Forgets.’ ” It originally appeared as an editorial in the People’s Home Journal. We are reprinting it here with the author’s permission, as condensed in the Readers Digest: “Father Forgets” is one of those little pieces which—dashed off in a moment of sincere feeling—strikes an echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perennial reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, “Father Forgets” has been reproduced, writes the author, W. Livingston Lamed, “in hundreds o f magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages. I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been ‘on the air’ on countless occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a little piece seems mysteriously to ‘click.’ This one certainly did.” FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Lamed Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to 1 4  F u n d a m e n t a l T e ch n iq u es in H a n d l i n g People task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!” Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive—and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of h urt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. “What is it you want?” I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding—this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spon­ taneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing 1 5  How to W in F r i e n d s and I nfluence P eople else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep say­ ing as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy—a little boy!” I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your m other’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.” As Dr. Johnson said: “God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.” Why should you and I? P rinciple 1 Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. 16  2 m m ® & w t i The Big Secret of Dealing with People There is o n l y o n e w a y u n d e r h i g h h e a v e n t o g e t a n y b o d y t o do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it. Remember, there is no other way. Of course, you can make someone want to give you his watch by sticking a revolver in his ribs. You can make your employees give you cooperation—until your back is turned—by threatening to fire them. You can make a child do what you want it to do by a whip or a threat. But these crude methods have sharply undesirable repercussions. The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want. What do you want? Sigmund Freud said that everything you and I do springs from two motives: the sex urge and the desire to be great. John Dewey, one of America’s most profound philosophers, phrased it a bit differently. Dr. Dewey said that the deepest urge in human nature is “the desire to be important.” Remember that phrase: “the desire to be important.” It is significant. You are going to hear a lot about it in this book. 17  How to Wi n F riends and I nfluence P eople What do you want? Not many things, but the few things that you do wish, you crave with an insistence that will not be denied. Some of the things most people want include: 1. Health and the preservation of life. 2. Food. 3. Sleep. 4. Money and the things money will buy. 5. Life in the hereafter. 6. Sexual gratification. 7. The well-being of our children. 8. A feeling of importance. Almost all these wants are usually gratified—all except one. But there is one longing—almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire for food or sleep—which is seldom gratified. It is what Freud calls “the desire to be great.” It is what Dewey calls the “desire to be important.” Lincoln once began a letter saying: “Everybody likes a compli­ ment.” William James said: “The deepest principle in human na­ ture is the craving to be appreciated.” He didn’t speak, mind you, of the “wish” or the “desire” or the “longing” to be appreciated. He said the “craving” to be appreciated. Here is a gnawing and unfaltering human hunger, and the rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in the palm of his or her hand and “even the undertaker will be sorry when he dies.” The desire for a feeling of importance is one of the chief distin­ guishing differences between mankind and the animals. To illus­ trate: When I was a farm boy out in Missouri, my father bred fine Duroc-Jersey hogs and pedigreed white-faced cattle. We used to exhibit our hogs and white-faced cattle at the country fairs and livestock shows throughout the Middle West. We won first prizes by the score. My father pinned his blue ribbons on a sheet of white muslin, and when friends or visitors came to the house, he 18  F u n d a m e n t a l Techniques i n Handl ing Peo pl e would get out the long sheet of muslin. He would hold one end and I would hold the other while he exhibited the blue ribbons. The hogs didn’t care about the ribbons they had won. But Father did. These prizes gave him a feeling of importance. If our ancestors hadn’t had this flaming urge for a feeling of importance, civilization would have been impossible. Without it, we should have been just about like animals. It was this desire for a feeling of importance that led an unedu­ cated, poverty-stricken grocery clerk to study some law books he found in the bottom of a barrel of household plunder that he had bought for fifty cents. You have probably heard o f this grocery clerk. His name was Lincoln. It was this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dick­ ens to write his immortal novels. This desire inspired Sir Christo­ pher Wren to design his symphonies in stone. This desire made Rockefeller amass millions that he never spent! And this same desire made the richest family in your town build a house far too large for its requirements. This desire makes you want to wear the latest styles, drive the latest cars, and talk about your brilliant children. It is this desire that lures many boys and girls into joining gangs and engaging in criminal activities. The average young criminal, according to E. P. Mulrooney, onetime police commissioner of New York, is filled with ego, and his first request after arrest is for those lurid newspapers that make him out a hero. The dis­ agreeable prospect o f serving time seems remote so long as he can gloat over his likeness sharing space with pictures of sports figures, movie and TV stars and politicians. If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are. That determines your character. That is the most significant thing about you. For example, John D. Rockefel­ ler got his feeling o f importance by giving money to erect a mod­ em hospital in Peking, China, to care for millions of poor people whom he had never seen and never would see. Dillinger, on the other hand, got his feeling of importance by being a bandit, a bank robber and killer. When the FB I agents were hunting him, 1 9  How to W in F riend s and I nfluence P eople he dashed into a farmhouse up in Minnesota and said, “I’m Dil- linger!” He was proud of the fact that he was Public Enemy Number One. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m Dillinger!” he said. Yes, the one significant difference between Dillinger and Rocke­ feller is how they got their feeling of importance. History sparkles with amusing examples of famous people strug­ gling for a feeling of importance. Even George Washington wanted to be called “His Mightiness, the President of the United States”; and Columbus pleaded for the title “Admiral o f the Ocean and Viceroy of India.” Catherine the Great refused to open letters that were not addressed to “Her Imperial Majesty”; and Mrs. Lincoln, in the White House, turned upon Mrs. Grant like a tigress and shouted, “How dare you be seated in my presence until I invite you!” Our millionaires helped finance Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the Antarctic in 1928 with the understanding that ranges of icy mountains would be named after them; and Victor Hugo aspired to have nothing less than the city of Paris renamed in his honor. Even Shakespeare, mightiest of the mighty, tried to add luster to his name by procuring a coat of arms for his family. People sometimes became invalids in order to win sympathy and attention, and get a feeling of importance. For example, take Mrs. McKinley. She got a feeling of importance by forcing her husband, the President of the United States, to neglect important affairs of state while he reclined on the bed beside her for hours at a time, his arm about her, soothing her to sleep. She fed her gnawing desire for attention by insisting that he remain with her while she was having her teeth fixed, and once created a stormy scene when he had to leave her alone with the dentist while he kept an appointment with John Hay, his secretary of state. The writer Mary Roberts Rinehart once told me o f a bright, vigorous young woman who became an invalid in order to get a feeling of importance. “One day,” said Mrs. Rinehart, “this woman had been obliged to face something, her age perhaps. The lonely 20  F u n d a m e n t a l Techn iq ues in H a n dl i n g People years were stretching ahead and there was little left for her to anticipate. “She took to her bed; and for ten years her old mother traveled to the third floor and back, carrying trays, nursing her. Then one day the old mother, weary with service, lay down and died. For some weeks, the invalid languished; then she got up, put on her clothing, and resumed living again.” Some authorities declare that people may actually go insane in order to find, in the dreamland of insanity, the feeling of impor­ tance that has been denied them in the harsh world of reality. There are more patients suffering from mental diseases in the United States than from all other diseases combined. What is the cause of insanity? Nobody can answer such a sweeping question, but we know that certain diseases, such as syphilis, break down and destroy the brain cells and result in insanity. In fact, about one-half of all mental diseases can be attributed to such physical causes as brain lesions, alcohol, toxins and injuries. But the other half—and this is the appalling part of the story—the other half of the people who go insane apparently have nothing organically wrong with their brain cells. In post-mortem examinations, when their brain tissues are studied under the highest-powered microscopes, these tissues are found to be apparently just as healthy as yours and mine. Why do these people go insane? I put that question to the head physician of one of our most important psychiatric hospitals. This doctor, who has received the highest honors and the most coveted awards for his knowledge of this subject, told me frankly that he didn’t know why people went insane. Nobody knows for sure. But he did say that many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality. Then he told me this story: “I have a patient right now whose marriage proved to be a tragedy. She wanted love, sexual gratification, children and social prestige, but life blasted all her hopes. Her husband didn’t love 2 1  How to W in F r i e n d s and I nfluence P eople her. He refused even to eat with her and forced her to serve his meals in his room upstairs. She had no children, no social stand­ ing. She went insane; and, in her imagination, she divorced her husband and resumed her maiden name. She now believes she has married into English aristocracy, and she insists on being called Lady Smith. “And as for children, she imagines now that she has had a new child every night. Each time I call on her she says: ‘Doctor, I had a baby last night.’ ” Life once wrecked all her dream ships on the sharp rocks of reality; but in the sunny, fantasy isles of insanity, all her barken- tines race into port with canvas billowing and winds singing through the masts. Tragic? Oh, I don’t know. Her physician said to me: “If I could stretch out my hand and restore her sanity, I wouldn’t do it. She’s much happier as she is.” If some people are so hungry for a feeling of importance that they actually go insane to get it, imagine what miracle you and I can achieve by giving people honest appreciation this side of insanity. One of the first people in American business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year (when there was no income tax and a person earning fifty dollars a week was considered well off) was Charles Schwab. H e had been picked by Andrew Carnegie to become the first president of the newly formed United States Steel Company in 1921, when Schwab was only thirty-eight years old. (Schwab later left U.S. Steel to take over the then troubled Bethlehem Steel Company, and he rebuilt it into one of the most profitable companies in America.) Why did Andrew Carnegie pay a million dollars a year, or more than three thousand dollars a day, to Charles Schwab? Why? Be­ cause Schwab was a genius? No. Because he knew more about the manufacture of steel than other people? Nonsense. Charles Schwab told me himself that he had many men working for him who knew more about the manufacture of steel than he did. Schwab says that he was paid this salary largely because of his 22  F u n d a m e n t a l T e c h n i q u e s in H a n d l i n g People ability to deal with people. I asked him how he did it. H ere is his secret set down in his own words—words that ought to be cast in eternal bronze and hung in every home and school, every shop and office in the land—words that children ought to memo­ rize instead of wasting their time memorizing the conjugation of Latin verbs or the amount o f the annual rainfall in Brazil—words that will all but transform your life and mine if we will only live them: “I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people,” said Schwab, “the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. “There is nothing else that so ldlls the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approba­ tion and lavish in my praise.” That is what Schwab did. But what do average people do? The exact opposite. If they don’t like a thing, they bawl out their subordinates; if they do like it, they say nothing. As the old couplet says: “Once I did bad and that I heard ever/Twice I did good, but that I heard never.” “In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great people in various parts of th e world,” Schwab declared, “I have yet to find the person, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and p u t forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.” That he said, frankly, was one of the outstanding reasons for the phenomenal success of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie praised his associates publicly as well as privately. Carnegie wanted to praise his assistants even on his tombstone. He wrote an epitaph for himself which read: “Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.” Sincere appreciation was one of the secrets of the first John D. Rockefeller’s success in handling men. For example, when one of his partners, Edward T. Bedford, lost a million dollars for the firm 2 3  How t o W i n F r i e n d s a nd I n f l u e n c e P eople by a bad buy in South America, John D. might have criticized; but he knew Bedford had done his best—and the incident was closed. So Rockefeller found something to praise; he congratulated Bed­ ford because he had been able to save 60 percent of the money he had invested. “That’s splendid,” said Rockefeller. “We don’t always do as well as that upstairs.” I have among my clippings a story that I know never happened, but it illustrates a truth, so I’ll repeat it: According to this silly story, a farm woman, at the end o f a heavy day’s work, set before her menfolks a heaping pile of hay. And when they indignantly demanded whether she had gone crazy, she replied: “Why, how did I know you’d notice? I’ve been cooking for you men for the last twenty years and in all that time I ain’t heard no word to let me know you wasn’t just eating hay.” When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was “lack of appreciation.” And I’d bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them. A member of one of our classes told of a request made by his wife. She and a group of other women in her church were in­ volved in a self-improvement program. She asked her husband to help her by listing six things he believed she could do to help her become a better wife. He reported to the class: “I was surprised by such a request. Frankly, it would have been easy for me to list six things I would like to change about h er—my heavens, she could have listed a thousand things she would like to change about me—but I didn’t. I said to her, ‘Let me think about it and give you an answer in the morning.’ “The next morning I got up very early and called the florist and had them send six red roses to my wife with a note saying: ‘I can’t think of six things I would like to change about you. I love you the way you are.’ “When I arrived at home that evening, who do you think greeted me at the door? That’s right. My wife! She was almost in 24  Fu n da me n ta l T ec hni qu es in H a n d l i n g People tears. Needless to say, I was extremely glad I had not criticized her as she had requested. “The following Sunday at church, after she had reported the results of her assignment, several women with whom she had been studying came up to me and said, ‘That was the most consid­ erate thing I have ever heard.’ It was then I realized the power of appreciation.” Florenz Ziegfeld, the most spectacular producer who ever daz­ zled Broadway, gained his reputation by his subtle ability to “glo­ rify the American girl.” Time after time, he took drab little creatures that no one ever looked at twice and transformed them on the stage into glamorous visions of mystery and seduction. Knowing the value of appreciation and confidence, he made women feel beautiful by the sheer power of his gallantry and consideration. He was practical: he raised the salary of chorus girls from thirty dollars a week to as high as one hundred and seventy-five. And he was also chivalrous; on opening night at the Follies, he sent telegrams to the stars in the cast, and he deluged every chorus girl in the show with American Beauty roses. I once succumbed to the fad of fasting and went for six days and nights without eating. It wasn’t difficult. I was less hungry at the end of the sixth day than I was at the end of the second. Yet I know, as you know, people who would think they had committed a crime if they let their families or employees go for six days without food; but they will let them go for six days, and six weeks, and sometimes sixty years without giving them the hearty appreci­ ation that they crave almost as much as they crave food. When Alfred Lunt, one of the great actors of his time, played the leading role in Reunion in Vienna, he said, “There is nothing I need so much as nourishment for my self-esteem.” We nourish the bodies of our children and friends and employ­ ees, but how seldom do we nourish their self-esteem? We provide them with roast beef and potatoes to build energy, but we neglect to give them kind words of appreciation that would sing in their memories for years like the music of the morning stars. Paul Harvey, in one o f his radio broadcasts, “The Rest of the 2 5  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople Story,” told how showing sincere appreciation can change a person’s life. He reported that years ago a teacher in Detroit asked Stevie Morris to help her find a mouse that was lost in the classroom. You see, she appreciated the fact that nature had given Stevie something no one else in the room had. Nature had given Stevie a remark­ able pair of ears to compensate for his blind eyes. But this was really the first time Stevie had been shown appreciation for those talented ears. Now, years later, he says that this act of appreciation was the beginning of a new life. You see, from that time on he developed his gift of hearing and went on to become, under the stage name of Stevie Wonder, one of the great pop singers and songwriters of the seventies.” Some readers are saying right now as they read these lines: “Oh, phooey! Flattery! Bear oil! I’ve tried that stuff. It doesn’t work—not with intelligent people.” Of course flattery seldom works with discerning people. It is shallow, selfish and insincere. It ought to fail and it usually does. True, some people are so hungry, so thirsty, for appreciation that they will swallow anything, just as a starving man will eat grass and fishworms. Even Queen Victoria was susceptible to flattery. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli confessed that he put it on thick in dealing with the Queen. To use his exact words, he said he “spread it on with a trowel.” But Disraeli was one of the most polished, deft and adroit men who ever ruled the far-flung British Empire. He was a genius in his line. What would work for him wouldn’t neces­ sarily work for you and me. In the long run, flattery will do you more harm than good. Flattery is counterfeit, and like counterfeit money, it will eventually get you into trouble if you pass it to someone else. The difference between appreciation and flattery? That is sim­ ple. One is sincere and the other insincere. One comes from the "Paul Aurandt, Paul Harvey’s The Rest o f the Story (New York: Doubleday, 1977). Edited and compiled by Lynne Harvey. Copyright © by Paulynne, Inc. 2 6  Fu n d a me n t a l Tech ni qu es in H a n d l i n g People heart out; the other from the teeth out. One is unselfish; the other selfish. One is universally admired; the other universally con­ demned. I recently saw a bust of Mexican hero General Alvaro Obregon in the Chapultepec palace in Mexico City. Below the bust are carved these wise words from General Obregon’s philosophy: “Don’t be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.” No! No! No! I am not suggesting flattery! Far from it. I’m talking about a new way of life. Let me repeat. I am talking about a new way o f life. King George V had a set of six maxims displayed on the walls of his study at Buckingham Palace. One of these maxims said: “Teach me neither to proffer nor receive cheap praise.” That’s all flattery is— cheap praise. I once read a definition of flattery that may be worth repeating: “Flattery is telling the other person pre­ cisely what he thinks about himself.” “Use what language you will,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “you can never say anything but what you are.” If all we had to do was flatter, everybody would catch on and we should all be experts in human relations. When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite prob­ lem, we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about ourselves. Now, if we stop thinking about ourselves for a while and begin to think of the other person’s good points, we won’t have to resort to flattery so cheap and false that it can be spotted almost before it is out of the mouth. One of the most neglected virtues of our daily existence is appreciation. Somehow, we neglect to praise our son or daughter when he or she brings home a good report card, and we fail to encourage our children when they first succeed in baking a cake or building a birdhouse. Nothing pleases children more than this land of parental interest and approval. The next time you enjoy filet mignon at the club, send word to the chef that it was excellently prepared, and when a tired salesperson shows you unusual courtesy, please mention it. 2 7  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople Every minister, lecturer and public speaker knows the discour­ agement of pouring himself or herself out to an audience and not receiving a single ripple of appreciative comment. What applies to professionals applies doubly to workers in offices, shops and factories and our families and friends. In our interpersonal rela­ tions we should never forget that all our associates are human beings and hunger for appreciation. It is the legal tender that all souls enjoy. Try leaving a friendly trail of little sparks of gratitude on your daily trips. You will be surprised how they will set small flames of friendship that will be rose beacons on your next visit. Pamela Dunham of New Fairfield, Connecticut, had among her responsibilities on her job the supervision of a janitor who was doing a very poor job. The other employees would jeer at him and litter the hallways to show him what a bad job he was doing. It was so bad, productive time was being lost in the shop. Without success, Pam tried various ways to motivate this person. She noticed that occasionally he did a particularly good piece of work. She made a point to praise him for it in front of the other people. Each day the job he did all around got better, and pretty soon he started doing all his work efficiently. Now he does an excellent job and other people give him appreciation and recogni­ tion. Honest appreciation got results where criticism and ridi­ cule failed. Hurting people not only does not change them, it is never called for. There is an old saying that I have cut out and pasted on my mirror where I cannot help but see it every day: I shall pass this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. Emerson said: “Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.” If that was true of Emerson, isn’t it likely to be a thousand 2 8  F u n d a m e n t a l Techniques in Han dl i ng People times more true of you and me? Let’s cease thinking of our ac­ complishments, our wants. Let’s try to figure out the other per­ son’s good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise,” and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime— repeat them years after you have forgotten them. P rin ciple 2 Give honest and sincere appreciation.  3 m m « m m m “He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way” I O FT E N WENT FISH IN G UP IN M A IN E DURING THE SUM M ER. PE R - sonally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn’t bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: “Wouldn’t you like to have that?” Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people? That is what Lloyd George, Great Britain’s Prime Minister dur­ ing World War I, did. When someone asked him how he managed to stay in power after the other wartime leaders—Wilson, Orlando and Clemenceau—had been forgotten, he replied that if his stay­ ing on top might be attributed to any one thing, it would be to his having learned that it was necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absured. Of course, you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want. 30  F u nd a m e n t a l T echn iqu es in H a n d l i n g People So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it. Remember that tomorrow when you are trying to get somebody to do something. If, for example, you don’t want your children to smoke, don’t preach at them, and don’t talk about what you want; but show them that cigarettes may keep them from making the basketball team or winning the hundred-yard dash. This is a good thing to remember regardless of whether you are dealing with children or calves or chimpanzees. For example: one day Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son tried to get a calf into the bam. But they made the common mistake of thinking only of what they wanted: Emerson pushed and his son pulled. But the calf was doing just what they were doing; he was thinking only of what he wanted; so he stiffened his legs and stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. The Irish housemaid saw their predicament. She couldn’t write essays and books; but, on this occasion at least, she had more horse sense, or calf sense, than Emerson had. She thought of what the calf wanted; so she put her maternal finger in the calf s mouth and let the calf suck her finger as she gently led him into the bam. Every act you have ever performed since the day you were bom was performed because you wanted something. How about the time you gave a large contribution to the Red Cross? Yes, that is no exception to the rule. You gave the Red Cross the donation because you wanted to lend a helping hand; you wanted to do a beautiful, unselfish, divine act. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least o f these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” If you hadn’t wanted that feeling more than you wanted your money, you would not have made the contribution. O f course, you might have made the contribution because you were ashamed to refuse or because a customer asked you to do it. But one thing is certain. You made the contribution because you wanted something. Harry A. Overstreet in his illuminating book Influencing Human Behavior said: “Action springs out of what we fundamentally 3 1  How to W in F riends and I nfluence P eople desire... and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in th e home, in the school, in politics, is: First, arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.” Andrew Carnegie, the poverty-stricken Scotch lad who started to work at two cents an hour and finally gave away $365 million, learned early in life that the only way to influence people is to talk in terms of what the other person wants. H e attended school only four years; yet he learned how to handle people. To illustrate: His sister-in-law was worried sick over her two boys. They were at Yale, and they were so busy with their own affairs that they neglected to write home and paid no attention whatever to their mother’s frantic letters. Then Carnegie offered to wager a hundred dollars that he could get an answer by return mail, without even asking for it. Someone called his bet; so he wrote his nephews a chatty letter, mentioning casually in a postscript that he was sending each one a five-dollar bill. He neglected, however, to enclose the money. Back came replies by return mail thanking “Dear Uncle An­ drew” for his kind note and—you can finish the sentence yourself. Another example of persuading comes from Stan Novak of Cleveland, Ohio, a participant in our course. Stan came home from work one evening to find his youngest son, Tim, kicking and screaming on the living room floor. He was to start kindergarten the next day and was protesting that he would not go. Stan’s normal reaction would have been to banish the child to his room and tell him he’d just better make up his mind to go. He had no choice. But tonight, recognizing that this would not really help Tim start kindergarten in the best frame of mind, Stan sat down and thought, "If I were Tim, why would I be excited about going to kindergarten?” He and his wife made a fist of all the fun things Tim would do such as finger painting, singing songs, making new friends. Then they put them into action. “We all started finger- painting on the kitchen table— my wife, Lil, my other son Bob, 3 2  F u n d a m e n t a l T echn iqu es in H a n d l i n g People and myself, all having fun. Soon Tim was peeping around the comer. Next he was begging to participate. ‘Oh, no! You have to go to kindergarten first to learn how to finger-paint.’ With all the enthusiasm I could muster I went through the list talking in terms he could understand—telling him all the fun he would have in kindergarten. The next morning, I thought I was the first one up. I went downstairs and found Tim sitting sound asleep in the living room chair. "What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘I’m waiting to go to kindergarten. I don’t want to be late.’ The enthusiasm of our entire family had aroused in Tim an eager want that no amount of discussion or threat could have possibly accomplished.” Tomorrow you may want to persuade somebody to do some­ thing. Before you speak, pause and ask yourself: “How can I make this person want to do it?” That question will stop us from rushing into a situation heed­ lessly, with futile chatter about our desires. At one time I rented the grand ballroom of a certain New York hotel for twenty nights in each season in order to hold a series of lectures. At the beginning of one season, I was suddenly informed that I should have to pay almost three times as much rent as formerly. This news reached me after the tickets had been printed and distributed and all announcements had been made. Naturally, I didn’t want to pay the increase, but what was the use of talking to the hotel about what I wanted? They were inter­ ested only in what they wanted. So a couple of days later I went to see the manager. “I was a bit shocked when I got your letter,” I said, “but I don’t blame you at all. If I had been in your position, I should probably have written a similar letter myself. Your duty as the manager of the hotel is to make all the profit possible. If you don’t do that, you will be fired and you ought to be fired. Now, let’s take a piece of paper and write down the advantages and the disadvantages that will accrue to you, if you insist on this increase in rent.” Then I took a letterhead and ran a line through the center and 3 3  How to W in F r i e n d s and I nfluence P eople headed one column “Advantages” and the other column “Disadvantages.” I wrote down under the head “Advantages” these words: “Ball­ room free.” Then I went on to say: “You will have the advantage of having the ballroom free to rent for dances and conventions. That is a big advantage, for affairs like that will pay you much more than you can get for a series of lectures. If I tie your ball­ room up for twenty nights during the course of the season, it is sure to mean a loss of some very profitable business to you. “Now, let’s consider the disadvantages. First, instead of increas­ ing your income from me, you are going to decrease it. In fact, you are going to wipe it out because I cannot pay the rent you are asking. I shall be forced to hold these lectures at some other place. “There’s another disadvantage to you also. These lectures attract crowds of educated and cultured people to your hotel. That is good advertising for you, isn’t it? In fact, if you spent five thousand dollars advertising in the newspapers, you couldn’t bring as many people to look at your hotel as I can bring by these lectures. That is worth a lot to a hotel, isn’t it?” As I talked, I wrote these two “disadvantages” under the proper heading, and handed the sheet of paper to the manager, saying: “I wish you would carefully consider both the advantages and disadvantages that are going to accrue to you and then give me your final decision.” I received a letter the next day, informing me that my rent would be increased only 50 percent instead of 300 percent. Mind you, I got this reduction without saying a word about what I wanted. I talked all the time about what the other person wanted and how he could get it. Suppose I had done the human, natural thing; suppose I had stormed into his office and said, “What do you mean by raising my rent three hundred percent when you know the tickets have been printed and the announcements made? Three hundred per­ cent! Ridiculous! Absurd! I won’t pay it!” What would have happened then? An argument would have begun to steam and boil and sputter—and you know how argu­ 34  F u n d a m e n t a l Techni ques in Handling Pe op l e ments end. Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in. Here is one of the best bits of advice ever given about the fine art of human relationships. “If there is any one secret of success,” said Henry Ford, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” That is so good, I want to repeat it: "If there is any one secret o f success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point o f view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” That is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time. An example? Look at the letters that come across your desk tomorrow morning, and you will find that most of them violate this important canon of common sense. Take this one, a letter written by the head of the radio department of an advertising agency with offices scattered across the continent. This letter was sent to the managers of local radio stations throughout the coun­ try. (I have set down, in brackets, my reactions to each paragraph.) Mr. John Blank, Blankville, Indiana Dear Mr. Blank: The-------- company desires to retain its position in adver­ tising agency leadership in the radio field. [Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortgage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed the eight-f