UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 

 
 ORIGINALITY AND OTHER ESSAYS
 
 BY WILLIAM H. McMASTERS 
 ORIGINALITY 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 REVOLT 
 
 AN AMERICAN NOVEL 
 
 SOMEWHERE IN ETERNITY 
 
 SHORT STORIES 
 
 JANE ALDEN 
 
 A PLAY
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. McMASTERS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 
 1921
 
 Copyright, 1921, by 
 THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 
 
 The Four Seas Press 
 Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
 
 "PS 
 
 35*5- 
 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 A PHANTASY 
 
 Came a sunbeam to my window, 
 Where a shadow was at play; 
 
 Came a bright and happy sunbeam, 
 And the shadow flew away. 
 
 Came a maiden to the threshold 
 Of my aching heart, one day; 
 Came a fair and winsome maiden, 
 ^ And the heart-ache stole away. 
 
 o 
 
 (M 
 
 z
 
 PREFACE 
 
 One reason why this little volume of essays is 
 turned loose on a defenceless world is because 
 the supply of white paper is not yet exhausted. 
 Also, the author's patience in trying to get them 
 printed in regular publications is quite exhausted. 
 
 The third, and best reason, for its appearance 
 is that American publishers are of the unanimous 
 opinion that there isn't any public demand what 
 soever for a volume of essays from anybody on 
 any subject. Under the circumstances what else 
 is there for me to do, but offer them and hope for 
 the worst? 
 
 THE AUTHOR
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 ON ORIGINALTY . . . . . 1 1 
 
 ON THE IMPENETRABILITY OF IGNORANCE . 19 
 ON STICKING TO THE SUBJECT . . . 25 
 ON THE GENTLE ART OF PADDING . .31 
 ON THE MATTER OF ADVICE . . . 37 
 ON THE CONTRACTING OF HABITS . . 43 
 ON NEW YORK . . . . . 49 
 
 ON WHY NOT YESTERDAY . . . . 57 
 ON THE COMPETENT . . . . .63 
 ON CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE ... 67 
 ON OVER-ENTHUSIASM .... 75 
 ON MEN OF MYSTERY 81 
 
 ON THE BUSY BUSINESS MAN ... 89 
 
 ON DISTRIBUTION 95 
 
 ON FAKE ADVERTISING .... 103 
 
 ON OUIJA BOARDS 109 
 
 ON GOING TO CHURCH . . . .115 
 ON THE ULTIMATE PHOTO-PLAYS . . 121 
 
 ON INTERRUPTIONS 129 
 
 ON WHY NOT WORRY .... 135
 
 ON ORIGINALITY
 
 ON ORIGINALITY 
 
 HPHE word "Originality" is so often misused that 
 I think it only fair to start with a clear pre 
 sentation of my idea of the word. 
 
 Originality, as I understand it, is the capacity 
 of doing something worth while and first. A man 
 who can establish a school of painting as different 
 from all other painting as were Corot's paintings 
 from those of his time, is an originator. A man 
 who can think along lines as trail-blazing as did 
 Carlyle, is an original thinker possesses origin 
 ality. I am sorry for that kind of a man. His 
 very capacity will make him lonesome. 
 
 If you were to walk on your hands, with your 
 feet in the air some afternoon from Thirty-fourth 
 Street to Forty-second, along Fifth Avenue, you 
 would not be doing an original thing. You might 
 think it original because you were the first to do 
 it. But you have my assurance that it has been 
 considered hundreds of times by many people, 
 some of whom were temporarily sober, and been 
 abandoned because they didn't consider it worth 
 while. 
 
 To do merely the unusual, the bizarre, the dif 
 ferent, the first-time thing, is not to accomplish 
 the original. If it isn't worth something to your- 
 
 11
 
 12 ORIGINALITY 
 
 self and to others it is not original in the true 
 sense. So far as I see there isn't anything 
 worthy of the modification of a clean-cut adjec 
 tive that doesn't measure up to a certain standard. 
 
 In my youth I was told that there was always 
 a demand for originality. The man who could 
 think clearly along new lines, the man with real 
 ideas, the man who could devise striking improve 
 ments, write new plays, new stories, (I am not so 
 sure but that new essays were included) could 
 command his own terms. The man who could 
 do any or all these things was to have honors 
 heaped upon him. I believed it. What young 
 man, in or out of school, hasn't swallowed the bait 
 that he sees floating in the silent pool of his young 
 dreams, only to find out that he has been hooked, 
 landed and sold in the fish-market of experience? 
 
 I know that I was first hooked with a worm bait 
 and floundered in the grass so hard that I found 
 my way back into the cool waters more wary 
 for my bleeding gills. The next time I was 
 caught with a fly, but I escaped again by flopping 
 out of the boat. Sport finally gave me up as a 
 bad job and commercialism landed me in a net 
 a painless proceeding, it is true, but with no 
 chance for escape. Into the basket and on with 
 the course that follows the soup. 
 
 Into the net they go, mackerel, shad, salmon, 
 black-bass, pickerel, perch, sharks, flounders, blue
 
 ON ORIGINALITY 13 
 
 fish, tarpon, horn-pouts, jelly-fish, whales, sun- 
 fish, star-fish, minnows and piscatorial youth that 
 Ike Walton never knew or heard of their visions 
 blighted, their hopes blasted, their ideas ravished, 
 their originality gone forever, to supply the greedy 
 table of commercialism. 
 
 Once in the modern field of commercialism, the 
 man with an original idea in his head is notified 
 by some telepathic message that any change from 
 the regular routine means cutting off his income. 
 He becomes an automatic attachment to the hum 
 drum, a sort of a hum-drum-stick as it were. A 
 wife and a family insure his helplessness for his 
 life-time, unless 
 
 Unless! Oh, that saving clause in every writ 
 ten statement. How restful to retrace one's 
 steps and kick over every hurdle taken on the way 
 out. In the case of originality, the ability to differ 
 and differ intelligently, with reasons for the dif 
 ference, the word "unless" marks the bumper at 
 the end of the side track. We will now go back 
 onto the main line. 
 
 All those things I stated about originality being 
 smothered with the de-oxygenized air of com 
 mercialism are true, unless 
 
 Unless the fire of originality is the undying 
 flame of genius, unless it is the ceaseless light 
 that nature gives to some of her favored sons and
 
 14 ORIGINALITY 
 
 daughters and tells them to go forth into the dark 
 places. 
 
 When that light is once turned on in a human 
 brain, all the avarice of business, all the commer 
 cialized powers of the world, all the grinding 
 routine that deadens the faculties of ordinary 
 people, merely makes the light of originality to 
 shine the brighter, for darkness is the greatest 
 background one can have against which to dis 
 play light. 
 
 Originality is intelligent independence. Like 
 all independence it must be fought for and paid 
 for. Why should the possessor of originality 
 complain? Hasn't he something that few pos 
 sess? Isn't it worth more to him than all the 
 country houses, the yachts, the limousines and 
 the bank balances of all the men he knows? If 
 the man with originality doesn't think it worth 
 more than mere wealth, if he complain because 
 it isn't readily saleable like the capacity to lay 
 bricks or chauffeur a motor car, then he is not 
 worthy, and the unworthy do not long retain pos 
 session of originality. 
 
 What if there is only a restricted market for 
 originality! What if most editors are afraid of 
 it, most play producers shy at it, and most pub 
 lishers throw up their hands or run at the sight of 
 it? It can't be helped. These are the commer 
 cialized handlers of routine things.
 
 ON ORIGINALITY 15 
 
 But somewhere, somehow, sometime there will 
 be an editor, a producer, a publisher who under 
 stands. He is a kindred spirit. He is waiting 
 for the one who is original; he has waited long. 
 For his sake, and the sake of all those who will 
 appreciate it Originality should keep up the fight 
 till it wins. 
 
 To do something worth while and first! 
 
 Isn't it worth all the sacrifices, all the rebuffs, 
 all the heartaches, all the lonesome vigils, the 
 disappointments that it costs? 
 
 Maybe Lincoln could tell us. Maybe Grant 
 knows. I am sure that Milton would be glad to 
 set our minds at rest on the question if the wires 
 from Mount Olympus were working. 
 
 Perhaps each of us can answer it in a way most 
 satisfactory to himself. I am sure that I have the 
 right answer in my own mind if only I cared to 
 disclose it.
 
 ON THE IMPENETRABILITY OF IGNORANCE
 
 ON THE IMPENETRABILITY OF IGNORANCE 
 
 "\TC7HEN an intelligent man enters into a dis 
 cussion with a man of total ignorance, he 
 is at a disadvantage because he has to do the 
 thinking for both sides. He is at another dis 
 advantage because he has to express his thoughts 
 in language that the ignorant man will under 
 stand. He is at another disadvantage because he 
 has to treat the ignorant man as an equal and in 
 order to do that he has consciously to lower 
 himself. He can't lift the ignorant man up and 
 in order to be equals in the discussion the intelli 
 gent man must put himself on a plane beneath 
 him. 
 
 Thus we find a man, out of his regular environ 
 ment, fighting with arms that he cannot use to 
 advantage and being forced at all times to furnish 
 arms and ammunition for his adversary. Is it 
 worth the effort? 
 
 To this question, I say "No!" emphatically. I 
 have never seen a discussion between ignorance 
 and intelligence where ignorance didn't come off 
 victorious. It can't be otherwise. The methods 
 are so different, the disadvantages under which 
 the intelligent man must labor, are so overwhelm 
 ing, that no good can possibly come of the contest. 
 
 19
 
 20 ORIGINALITY 
 
 The reason why intelligence cannot compete 
 with ignorance in a friendly discussion can be 
 arrived at by analysis. We all know the capacity, 
 the straightforwardness and the general mental- 
 honesty of an intelligent man. He is intelligent 
 because he thinks. He goes through a mental 
 process, correlates ideas, adds, subtracts and di 
 vides thoughts, striving to arrive at a sane and 
 therefore an intelligent conclusion. 
 
 On the other hand, the ignorant man doesn't 
 think, because he has never been trained to think. 
 His mentality can't get any further than a baby 
 with its blocks, trying to build a house. His ignor 
 ance is impenetrable, in-so-far as immediate men 
 tal activity is possible. 
 
 In addition to his density he usually has several 
 traits that assist materially in making it impos 
 sible to state even your own views without start 
 ing a wrangle and a wrangle is not a discussion. 
 
 The man of ignorance is always positive that 
 he is right, regardless of the subject. He is a 
 mental cheat and therefore suspicious of every 
 body. He can comprehend people as being only 
 of the same frame of mind as himself. If he 
 knew enough to appreciate an honest difference 
 of opinion he wouldn't be ignorant. He is always 
 proud of his ability to interrupt and figures that 
 every interruption counts a point as though he 
 were playing a game of mental slap-jack. Lastly,
 
 IMPENETRABILITY OF IGNORANCE 21 
 
 he knows that he can always say "I don't believe 
 it" at the end of a discussion and from his long 
 experience with other men "who tried to argue 
 with him," he is quite sure that he can exasperate 
 you and make you show your temper before the 
 discussion is finished. 
 
 I feel that ignorant people should be treated 
 kindly, be allowed to come into the front room if 
 their hands and face have been washed, be 
 allowed to tell everybody how much money they 
 have made in selling clothes, or automobiles, in 
 the stock-market, or wherever their ignorance 
 commands the highest market price, but they 
 should not be allowed to enter into discussions in 
 which intelligent analysis may help to illuminate 
 a truth or widen the scope of some public ques 
 tion. 
 
 Feed ignorance with predigested mental food 
 only, otherwise you will have a case of ignorantia 
 dyspepsia on your hands and for that there is no 
 medicinal cure. An operation on the dome is the 
 only hope for the patient. So be on your guard.
 
 ON STICKING TO THE SUBJECT
 
 ON STICKING TO THE SUBJECT 
 
 TF the object of a discussion is to arrive at an 
 
 intelligent conclusion, I maintain that it is 
 necessary to stick to the subject, else the time 
 involved is wasted. 
 
 Nobody will disagree from this abstract prop 
 osition and yet I find it extremely difficult to get 
 people to stick to the subject matter. Evidently 
 the desire to wander far afield is so common as 
 to present a good subject for comment and anal 
 ysis. 
 
 Let us take, for example, any question of public 
 interest and see how two average Commuters 
 would discuss it while making the trip from their 
 home station to the city, any morning. 
 
 "I see that Harding declares for more prepared 
 ness," says Commuter No. 1, by way of opening. 
 
 "So I see," replies Commuter No. 2, "and a fine 
 mess we would be in if we followed his views. 
 We would have another war on our hands in less 
 than six months if we went in for all this prepara 
 tion at this time." 
 
 "Why!" answers No. 1, raising his eyebrows, 
 "I am surprised that anybody can disagree with 
 the President on such a self-evident National 
 need." 
 
 25
 
 26 ORIGINALITY 
 
 "Bryan doesn't agree with him, does he?" asks 
 No. 2. 
 
 "Bryan has never been right on anything," 
 answers No. 1. "Look at 16 to 1. Where would 
 we be today if we had 16 to 1?" 
 
 "It wasn't Bryan's fault that 16 to 1 failed, was 
 it? Didn't Alaska gold and South African gold 
 come in to relieve the stringency?" retorts No. 2. 
 
 "What if it did?" asks No. 1, "Wouldn't these 
 discoveries have been made, anyhow? Somebody 
 is always discovering something. Everybody isn't 
 a Doctor Cook." 
 
 "No! but Dr. Cook cleaned up his little pile on 
 a lecture tour and that was what he was after. 
 Get the public's money is the rule, nowadays. 
 Look at this Dempsey, the new World's Champion. 
 He won't fight. All he does is pose in the movies 
 for the money," avers No. 2. 
 
 "Some people try to deliver the goods. They 
 are not all fakers. There's Speaker of the In 
 dians. He gives the public the best he's got. 
 And it pays, doesn't it?" suggests No. 1. 
 
 "Well! he got all the breaks, didn't he? If the 
 Red Sox were in shape he wouldn't have got any 
 better than runner up," replies No. 2. 
 
 "I don't know about that," answers No. 1. "I 
 always figured that batters are needed to win 
 games and the Indians surely had a fine bunch of 
 swatters."
 
 ON STICKING TO THE SUBJECT 27 
 
 "Swatters are all right, in their way," suggests 
 No. 2, in a heavy voice, "but finesse counts in the 
 end. Otherwise, how is it that Senator Lodge 
 was right on the League of Nations?" 
 
 "He never was right in his life," shouts No. 1. 
 "Why! look at ..." 
 
 The train having now arrived at the terminal 
 and there being no further need of continuing the 
 discussion, the two debaters roll up their morning 
 papers and walk down the aisle of their car, each 
 satisfied that he has vanquished the other in a 
 clear discussion of the question of "preparedness." 
 
 This may appear to many to be an exaggerated 
 example of a discussion among men who meet in 
 everyday intercourse. To others I am afraid that 
 it will appeal as a logical discussion, and that an 
 intelligent conclusion was reached. Such is the 
 hold that mind-wandering has got upon us all 
 that I needs must have a care or in an analysis of 
 this vagary I inadvertently creep into the very 
 error that I am hopeful to correct. 
 
 Therefore I say, without further parley, that in 
 an essay on Sticking to the Subject the safest 
 thing to do, in order to avoid getting away from 
 the subject, is to end the essay before the text is 
 forgotten by the reader. Hence, the end.
 
 ON THE GENTLE ART OP PADDING
 
 ON THE GENTLE ART OF PADDING 
 
 T DO not desire to take away from Business 
 
 Engineers, graft investigators, or Efficiency 
 Experts any of their professional duties in con 
 nection with padded pay rolls, padded voting lists 
 or padded Government war contracts. But there 
 are other spots than these where padding is prac 
 tised to such an extent that it is wasting the time 
 of the public in a manner almost unbelievable. 
 
 I refer to padded novels, padded plays, padded 
 speeches, padded sermons, padded moving picture 
 shows, padded conversations, padded editorials, 
 padded short stories, padded interviews, padded 
 advertisements, padded legislative reports, hear 
 ings, committee meetings and so on, all padded 
 until the meat is lost and only the shell of the nut 
 is ever seen. 
 
 I shall not give examples of padding in all these 
 lines of more or less intense thought. Padded 
 commentaries are even worse than other forms of 
 expression. A few examples will suffice. The 
 others can readily be discerned, after the few are 
 stripped of their superfluity. 
 
 As to novels, I firmly believe that ninety-five 
 novels out of every one hundred that pour from 
 the publishing house binderies in ever-increasing 
 streams could be cut down from fifty per-cent to 
 
 31
 
 32 ORIGINALITY 
 
 ninety per-cent and be greatly improved in the 
 reduction. The shorter the story, the clearer 
 must the plot stand out and a story without a well 
 defined plot is a pretty poor story. I recall a 
 Society Novel (publishers' classification) that I 
 tried to read, quite recently. Its author was 
 strong on the ways in which he could make his 
 characters talk. On three consecutive pages, 
 two of his characters were engaged in talking. 
 
 During this three minute conversation they 
 spoke "fiercely," "surprisedly," "suggestively," 
 "flippantly," "laughingly," "incredulously," "ban- 
 teringly," "querulously," "inadequately," "slow 
 ly," "reservedly," "vehemently," "longingly," 
 "tremulously," "almost venomously," "impetu 
 ously," "with lowered eyes," "blushingly," "with 
 head erect," "as though loath to change the sub 
 ject," "with disdain," "with hauteur," "with deep 
 feeling," "coldly," but when I read " 'Then you 
 can't go?,' asked Herbert, inquiringly," I closed 
 the book. Such stuff isn't writing. It is padding 
 with defenceless words that are wonderful if used 
 rightly. 
 
 Then the movies. I was compelled to take over 
 an hour to see six long reels unwind themselves 
 to tell a story that could have been told in ten 
 minutes, without leaving out one essential that 
 affected in any way the lives or fortunes of the 
 hero and heroine. Fifty minutes of pure non-
 
 ON THE GENTLE ART OF PADDING 33 
 
 essentials in order to get over a fairly good 10- 
 minute story. Think of the time wasted by pro 
 ducer, audience and the general breaking down 
 of brain power on people who, after a while, 
 become so used to this sort of entertainment that 
 a keen, well-conceived plot, filmed at tension 
 speed, can't be followed by their slow-moving 
 brains. It will not be long before the efforts of an 
 intelligent author and a conscientious producer 
 are wasted in trying to give the public something 
 worth-while. 
 
 How many times have you gone to hear a 
 speaker on a subject in which you were interested 
 and been forced to listen to a dozen of "that re 
 minds me" brand of anecdotes, seven interrup 
 tions prefaced with " and I might recall in this 
 connection," four "while it is not directly con 
 nected with our topic, nevertheless, etc.," and at 
 the end of the speech gone home thoroughly 
 convinced that you had wasted your time? 
 
 Is there any need of taking up the other in 
 stances of padding? Not unless I wish to do a 
 little padding on my own account. So I will let 
 you think over the others in your own way. To 
 padders, I suggest cutting out the padding. You 
 will never know the joy of delivering the goods 
 until you do. Headliners don't do it. Nobody 
 pads who isn't ashamed of his true shape. And 
 the truth shall make you free, from padding.
 
 ON THE MATTER OF ADVICE
 
 ON THE MATTER OF ADVICE 
 
 A DVICE is a peculiar commodity. Those who 
 "^ have the capacity to give good advice gen 
 erally have too much sense to waste their time 
 trying to get rid of it. 
 
 I am not referring to "advice of counsel." That 
 is a different kind of advice altogether. It has the 
 redeeming feature of being paid for and when 
 a man pays for something he generally uses it in 
 order to get value for his money. 
 
 Are you one of those innocent souls who are 
 always giving good advice? If so, I hope you 
 cease your activity. 
 
 As I recall the last member of your fraternity 
 whom I met, he was deeply grieved over several 
 business men who had "all gone wrong because 
 they didn't take my advice," as he put it. I have 
 yet to hear him tell me of a solitary instance 
 where a man had taken his advice and achieved 
 something because of it. 
 
 Giving free advice is a sad waste of effort. In 
 the first place, no man will act upon it unless he 
 is already inclined to do so. Secondly, when a 
 man lays his case before you, the idea that^ he is 
 asking your advice is a polite fabrication. He 
 merely is suggesting that he is doing so, while as 
 
 37 
 
 r><
 
 38 ORIGINALITY 
 
 a fact his real object is to acquaint you with his 
 personal activity. He wants to talk to somebody, 
 being a natural gossip or gadder, and he plays 
 upon your propensity for "giving advice" in order 
 to get an audience. 
 
 Just the way a doting father of a three-year-old 
 infant prodigy will wait patiently for hours while 
 another doting father of a four-year-old genius 
 tells "what a vocabulary Emil has developed," 
 simply because he wishes to spread upon the 
 records a conversation that he had that morning 
 with Jonas in which Jonas actually pointed out 
 of the window and said "Oh! Papa, it's going to 
 rain," and only three years old, eight months ago. 
 
 The times when you can actually give a man 
 some real advice and be sure of his taking it and 
 acting upon it are very few. 
 
 My mind now recalls vividly the numerous 
 precious hours I have wasted in listening to hard- 
 luck stories, and advising the tellers of the stories 
 and also of the many times when I have made 
 suggestions to men in their business or vocations 
 out of mere friendliness. In the matter of the 
 hard-luck stories I am unable to instance one case 
 wherein the advisee has paid any attention to my 
 opinion. In the matter of the business men or 
 the professional men on whom I have showered 
 my views, I am able to cite many cases where 
 the advice has been taken, but never once where
 
 ON THE MATTER OF ADVICE 39 
 
 I received so much as a "thank you" for having 
 made the suggestion. 
 
 I presume most men like to pose as the origina 
 tors of every idea upon which they act and which 
 reaches a successful end. They give credit only 
 to somebody else when failure attends the ven 
 ture. Most men can make a better excuse than 
 they can an execution. 
 
 So I came to the conclusion, that if my advice 
 wouldn't be taken by those who needed it most 
 and was stolen by those who could well afford to 
 pay for it, that I would hereafter give advice only 
 to myself and always sell it to others. 
 
 That is why, in this brief discussion of the ques 
 tion, I have sold you whatever advice you 
 may be able to glean from it, knowing full well 
 that you wouldn't take it if you got it for nothing.
 
 ON THE CONTRACTING OF HABITS
 
 ON THE CONTRACTING OP HABITS 
 
 V\7E are being constantly warned against bad 
 habits, told how easy it is to acquire them, 
 how hard it is to break them, but, all summed up, 
 this advice doesn't seem to be the right sort. We 
 all know our bad habits, acknowledge them to 
 ourselves, at least, and would gladly rid ourselves 
 of them. But we don't do so and there is a good 
 reason. Trying not to do something is so lacking 
 in initiative, so nugatory a thing that most of us 
 dismiss the idea almost without a second thought. 
 
 Why not take up with the Conservation plan? 
 Why not turn our habit-making tendencies into 
 assets? It can be done, readily enough, and just 
 so soon as we have acquired enough good habits 
 to occupy our attention, the detrimental ones will 
 have disappeared. Of all kinds of habits, good 
 or bad I am sure there is a limit to the number 
 that any one person can keep. 
 
 I have never smoked at all, so I do not feel free 
 to discuss the habit of smoking, except as a gen 
 eral observer of it. It always seemed to me that 
 an after-dinner cigar or cigarette was a mere 
 waste of time. At least, one might pick up the 
 habit of reading some of the best philosophy, 
 while puffing away at the weed. Any man who 
 will put his mind on Epictetus and try to smoke 
 at the same time should be so well occupied 
 
 43
 
 44 ORIGINALITY 
 
 mentally that his physical demands will become 
 less and less. It is worth the experiment. 
 
 One who has acquired the habit of demanding 
 an appetizer in order to enjoy his dinner and the 
 habit of eating pepsin tablets to settle his dinner 
 after the appetizer has forced him to eat a big one, 
 can well afford to drop the appetizer at one meal 
 and chew every morsel of food very thoroughly 
 before swallowing it. When he finds that his 
 taste is awakened, that he doesn't need to eat so 
 much, that hitherto despised foods take on a 
 pleasantness that was formerly reserved for 
 highly spiced foods, that he doesn't need his pep 
 sin tablet and that he eagerly awaits his next meal 
 in order to test the experiment once more, then 
 that person has made one good habit grow where 
 two bad ones grew before. I know, because I 
 have experienced it. 
 
 These are purely physical habits. When it 
 comes to rearranging the habits of the mind, just 
 think of the countless opportunities before you. 
 
 Instead of jotting down everything in a little 
 memorandum book, as though you were a walk 
 ing card-index system, try to remember an 
 appointment, a name, a date, an amount or a 
 purchase to be made. The very effort of trying 
 to remember it, even if you forget it and can't 
 recollect just what it was, will so stimulate your 
 mind along that particular channel that the next
 
 ON THE CONTRACTING OP HABITS 45 
 
 time you make a mental note it will register and 
 stay registered. Try it for yourself. Don't 
 merely tell somebody else about it. 
 
 The habit of forgetting names, forgetting faces, 
 forgetting anything is sheer carelessness. Make 
 every impression register. You often hear people 
 say "I can't remember names," or "I can't re 
 member faces." You would almost think they 
 were boasting of an accomplishment. They are 
 so reconciled to this bad habit of their mind that 
 they take it as a sign of genius. It is merely a 
 habit and can be corrected by substituting a posi 
 tive brain action in place of a brain inactivity. 
 
 Begin to say "I never forget a face," or "Re 
 membering names is my hobby." Repeat every 
 man's name in full, when you meet him and recall 
 when you saw him last, even if it was only the 
 day before. You will be surprised how your brain 
 responds to this acceleration. It will become a 
 fixed habit of the mind to remember. Once fixed, 
 it need never be lost. 
 
 Why go through the list? Start with a simple 
 foible! Substitute its opposite! Make a begin 
 ning! Furnish your own incentive for the first 
 one! No man thinks unless he thinks for himself. 
 It isn't real thinking, otherwise. All thinking is 
 habit. Thinking right is a good habit. It will 
 never be acquired unless you start. Now is the 
 only time.
 
 ON NEW YORK A CITY IN PROCESS
 
 ON NEW YORK A CITY IN PROCESS 
 
 T AM generally so worked up after a trip to New 
 A York that it takes days for me to return to the 
 normal. Before my return to that state, I feel 
 that a transcript of my impressions, set down in 
 their vividness, may serve a useful purpose. 
 
 It has been the general idea of Americans and 
 the American press to comment ad nauseam upon 
 our biggest city. This has grown even more 
 noticeable, recently. 
 
 Naturally, one carries to New York a craving to 
 see some of the many things that our world- 
 metropolis is supposed to possess. One sees the 
 things, true enough. But of the environment, 
 almost nothing has been said. Honesty would 
 compel anybody, not self-hypnotized, to affirm a 
 disappointment with which that of a blind man, 
 accidentally taken into a movie show by his 
 attendant, will not compare. His is merely neg 
 ative disappointment. New York furnishes a 
 positive one. We are compelled to see the show. 
 
 New York is a six-reel movie, with the film 
 running backwards, sideways, cross-ways, but 
 never in sequence. Nobody seems to be going 
 anywhere, but is in an awful hurry to get there. 
 
 49
 
 60 ORIGINALITY 
 
 The idle rich work harder than the idol wor 
 shipping poor. 
 
 Nothing is finished in New York. Everything 
 is being done over. It is a city in transit rapid, 
 near-rapid and over crowded. 
 
 The buildings are either too big or so small that 
 they would be a joke in any country town's bus 
 iness center. Within two blocks of the new 
 Pennsylvania station there are a dozen buildings 
 so dilapidated and mean-looking that they could 
 remain standing in Boston only if the Historical 
 Society placed bronze tablets upon them and had 
 them put on the itinerary of the seeing Colonial 
 Boston autos. 
 
 The streets are the worst in the world in or 
 out of the war zone. Between 42nd street and 
 the Woolworth Building, on Broadway, there isn't 
 one block out of the sixty where the sidewalk is 
 clear. Pavements are like rugs, in New York. 
 They have to be taken up every few days and 
 sent to the cleaner. 
 
 Dirt, bricks, lumber, stone-piles, contractors' 
 offices, repair gangs, bags of cement, mortar beds, 
 unwashed windows, signs without ceasing, a 
 feverish jumble that is the Great White Way, to 
 which George Cohan's regards must be given. 
 
 And the people who inhabit this city, or infest 
 it rather, because it can't be a habitation, what 
 of them? Do they redeem it? No ! dear readers,
 
 ON NEW YORK A CITY IN PROCESS 51 
 
 they do not. They are so busy trying to redeem 
 the mortgages that the landlords of New York 
 have placed upon their souls that they have no 
 personalty or personality left to redeem the city. 
 It is beyond redemption, so far as they are con 
 cerned. 
 
 In vain does the stranger look for the New 
 Yorker type, the man of the classy magazines. 
 Instead he sees nervous, gaunt-faced men by day, 
 and evening-clothed, dull-eyed, prematurely old 
 men at night, hurrying, hustling, scrambling, 
 rushing, whither nobody knows. 
 
 Search and you search in vain for the society 
 woman, the queens of beauty and culture that the 
 Sunday papers chronicle and our society authors 
 depict so minutely. 
 
 They are not. In their stead you will see 
 shrimps of women, with their wizened little faces 
 painted and powdered, you will see in the noonday 
 glare, fat, vulgar women, over laden with wraps 
 that give them an appearance of casks moving 
 in a pattering way along the board pavements. 
 New York is one endless plank sidewalk. 
 
 And the bright-faced boys of the old Alger 
 books. Where are they? Gone, with the New 
 York of pre-library, pre-Equitable Building, pre- 
 Bus, pre-tunnel days. Their places are taken by 
 boys who cry the names of the evening and morn 
 ing newspapers in foreign tongues. There must
 
 52 ORIGINALITY 
 
 be some ordinance against an American-born boy 
 selling newspapers in New York City. 
 
 The city has gone mad over merchandise, 
 nothing else counts. It is the only thing that can 
 interest a regular New Yorker. Everything in 
 New York is for sale, including the honor of the 
 City itself. To deny it would be considered dis 
 honorable on the part of a New Yorker of the 
 present day. Culture has been swallowed up by 
 barter. 
 
 If a bell boy at any of the best known New York 
 hotels were to page Ralph Waldo Emerson in a 
 loud voice in the breakfast room, the only com 
 ment that it would create would be the remark 
 from one end of the room to the other "I wonder 
 what firm Emerson's buying for?" 
 
 New York is unfinished. But business goes on 
 just the same. Business is continuous. Every 
 thing else in New York is subservient to business. 
 If New York would only stop talking about its side 
 shows, its buildings, its Broadway, its class, its 
 style, its civic pride, and put a sign at every 
 approach: 
 
 BUSINESS GOING ON 
 DURING ALTERATIONS
 
 ON NEW YORK A CITY IN PROCESS 53 
 
 people would know what to expect and many out 
 side visitors would be saved disappointment. 
 They would figure that one must put up with 
 much inconvenience during needed changes and 
 New York surely needs a great many changes 
 some of which have not yet been proposed by the 
 City fathers.
 
 ON WHY NOT YESTERDAY?
 
 ON WHY NOT YESTERDAY? 
 
 two weeks I have been putting off some 
 thing of importance that should be done. 
 This is not the exception that proves the rule. 
 It is the rule itself, and I am determined that this 
 rule must be changed. 
 
 Why didn't I set myself to the task yesterday 
 and do it? It isn't a hard thing to do, once I 
 start it. It is only the starting that troubles and 
 this has been a trouble of mine for so many years 
 that I am trying to analyze my own failure in 
 the hope that a correct analysis may help some 
 body else who is troubled in like manner. 
 
 What I should have done yesterday was easily 
 the most important thing that confronted me and 
 it is just as important today. Therefore, I cannot 
 offer the excuse that something more important 
 intervened. Such an excuse would be unworthy 
 of my desire to be honest with myself. 
 
 The task was not one that should have been 
 set off for a more opportune time. Yesterday 
 was the ideal time. But I did something else. 
 The fact that I can't find nearly as much fault 
 with myself today for my neglect of yesterday as 
 I would have found with myself a few sears ago 
 for a similar neglect is the reason wny I am 
 
 57
 
 58 ORIGINALITY 
 
 analyzing my condition. I am in danger. I must 
 settle, once and for all, upon the reason and make 
 it impossible for similar neglects to occur in the 
 future. 
 
 It was not a matter of routine that was ne 
 glected. I am a slave to doing the routine thing 
 at the routine time in the routine way. Except 
 aft a routine thing is a part of a great routine plan 
 and that the whole plan is affected by a break in 
 the chain, I have wholesome contempt for routine. 
 
 It was an unusual thing, something bigger than 
 a routine thing, that I neglected to do neglected 
 to start. I put off starting it because I have 
 allowed myself to contract the habit of deferring 
 mental effort until an artificial stimulus starts 
 something. I have not forced my habits to keep 
 pace with my thoughts. My will power has habit 
 uated itself to trailing behind my imagination. 
 
 Will somnolence a lethargy of concentration 
 a reticence to keep pace that I set for myself a 
 few years ago, has laid hold upon me. 
 
 I realized suddenly that if I allowed it to over 
 power me I would become one of the self-satisfied 
 hack writers that I have despised secretly as 
 lacking initiative. Therefore, if I do not wish to 
 become a hackenyed writer I must fight it and 
 fight it openly. I must show that I am not afraid 
 of it. Others have conquered it. I shall conquer 
 it by recognizing it as an enemy, putting it on the
 
 WHY NOT YESTERDAY? 59 
 
 defensive and starting at once and continuing 
 until I have finished the task that I have neglected 
 for two weeks. 
 
 Some may wonder what this task may have 
 been that has so roused me to lay my mentality 
 bare before a critical world. Let us have no 
 secrets from each other. The confession of an 
 English opium eater must not be the only open- 
 minded confession in our language. Let this 
 confession of mine be placed upon the records in 
 all its nudity. 
 
 The task I had set for myself was to write a 
 brief essay on mental laziness, known to students 
 aft procrastination and as the task is now finished 
 I take my leave of it, with a profound feeling of 
 relief. I can now return to routine work with a 
 mind at peace with the world.
 
 ON THE COMPETENT
 
 ON THE COMPETENT 
 
 THHE competent must fight without help. No 
 aid societies collect for them no relief Com 
 mittees take cognizance of their needs. 
 
 They can be discouraged, they can be in debt, 
 they can be ready to give up the struggle, but no 
 life-preserver is thrown to them. They must 
 either sink or swim on their own resources. It 
 is one of the essentials of competency that it must 
 take care of itself. 
 
 Stupidity, degeneracy, incapacity, viciousness, 
 all receive their quota of help from every source. 
 The drunken reporter is excused for falling down 
 in his assignments the dope-fiends are cared for 
 by the authorities the stupid men in public life 
 are aided by everyone and in many instances 
 have been known to run along for years, hiding 
 their stupidity, covering up their utter lack of 
 initiative. 
 
 But those who can the competent, the think 
 ers, the men or the women with vision, talent or 
 capacity must fight for every inch of ground, 
 must pay in their heart's blood for every ounce 
 of success. 
 
 And the reason? Why! there isn't any reason 
 for it. It simply is so. Watch a crowd of men 
 
 63
 
 64 ORIGINALITY 
 
 rush to lift up a fallen drunkard from the side 
 walk, see the subscriptions that pour into every 
 request for aid for people unknown to the donors, 
 and then check up the men who have been com 
 pelled to fight discouragement, ill-luck and pov 
 erty even with the talent and the genius of a 
 Mozart, a Michael Angelo or a Tolstoi at their 
 command. 
 
 Competency may be overlooked but it never is 
 a beggar. It is too proud. It is a thing in itself 
 always was and always will be. It stands or 
 falls a complete structure, leaning on nothing, 
 asking nothing but the right to do. 
 
 Competency is. We can say no more.
 
 ON CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE
 
 ON CHAMBERS OP COMMERCE 
 
 A CHAMBER OP COMMERCE is one of the 
 growths of American life that is peculiar in 
 many respects. So far as I am aware, no Cham 
 ber of Commerce ever had anything to do with 
 Commerce. To a great extent a Chamber of 
 Commerce is as free from Commerce as a Board 
 of Trade is from Trade. 
 
 I presume that the first Chamber of Commerce 
 was organized as a joke. Some jocose one said 
 to a few kindred spirits, "Whillikins isn't any too 
 busy, lately. Why not start a Chamber of Com 
 merce and make him President?" 
 
 Like many another careless remark, turned 
 loose to wander forever in the realms of telepathy, 
 this one started on its way. 
 
 "Why not!" says the second Village Jokester, 
 so The Bollweville Chamber of Commerce was 
 organized. Whillikins falls in with the idea as it 
 gives him a title and Mrs. Whilikins jumps at it 
 because it smacks of social advancement. When 
 the organizers find that Whillikins intends to have 
 handsome embossed stationery and an office over 
 the hardware emporium, they decide that it might 
 be a good plan to have a full list of officers. Not 
 
 67
 
 68 ORIGINALITY 
 
 caring to breed jealousy among the organizers, 
 they decide to give them all the same title, so 
 there come into being about thirty Honorary 
 Vice-Presidents, which exhausts the list of all the 
 organizers. That accounts for the big lists of 
 Honorary Vice-Presidents in all Chambers of 
 Commerce. 
 
 It was observed, shortly after the organization 
 of the Bollweville C. of C. that nobody cared to 
 join unles he was given a title, so a Board of 
 Directors came to pass. As the joke, or rather as 
 the Chamber began to grow, it was necessary, in 
 order to keep down the engraving bills, to put all 
 new members on Committees, with permission to 
 tell their friends who were not members. Mean 
 time a Secretary and an Assistant Secretary had 
 duly become planted in permanent quarters in an 
 inside office, these being the paid or reason-why 
 officials of the Chamber. 
 
 Years after the first Chamber of Commerce was 
 organized and most of the Charter members had 
 either died natural deaths or laughed themselves 
 into premature graves at the joke they had per- 
 pertrated on the town, strange business men be 
 gan to come and do business. Not that the 
 Chamber of Commerce had sent for them. Cer 
 tainly not. It is one of the fundamental rules of 
 every well conducted Chamber of Commerce that 
 they will never send for anybody or anything.
 
 ON CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE 69 
 
 Dignity is the basic principle of all C's of C. So 
 the strangers, being a jolly lot, mistook the Cham 
 ber of Commerce for a bunch of highbrows or 
 austere standoffs, and organized a Business Men's 
 Association. 
 
 Everybody was eligible, from the owner of the 
 Hardware Store up to the owner of the White 
 House Lunch, up indicating the hill at the other 
 end of Main Street from the Hardware Store 
 where the White House Lunch nightly was driven 
 by Freeman Bently, Egg and Coffee Specialist. 
 Naturally, the Business Men's Association soon 
 began to assume proportions as you might say. 
 
 More as a narrative, rather than in the form 
 of an essay, we must rapidly chronicle the big 
 dinner of the Business Men's Association at the 
 Bollweville House, the nomination, election to 
 membership, issuing of certificates and mailing 
 of same, all in one evening of John D. Rockefeller, 
 Frank Vanderlip, J. Pierpont Morgan, Henry Ford, 
 Warren G. Harding, William Jennings Bryan and 
 the Governors of all the known states of the 
 Union, with a story of same in the Gazette. Fol 
 low the Executive Meeting of the Chamber of 
 Commerce and the overtures to the officers of the 
 Business Men's Association to consolidate, the 
 real reason being jealousy but the reason given to 
 the press being "Co-operation and the fact that 
 the Chamber has outgrown its old quarters and
 
 70 ORIGINALITY 
 
 is going to build a new building of its own, fitted 
 in every way to its great work." 
 
 Nothing can stop a Chamber of Commerce that 
 has consolidated a few times with other bodies of 
 a like uselessness. It always builds a building 
 and names it after itself. It has become a fixed 
 institution. By holding adverse possession for 
 more than 20 years, it has reached a legal position 
 that is unimpeachable. All the hotairian rights 
 now run with it. In fact it is just as safe and just 
 as permanent a fixture in the public mind as the 
 idea that a Public Service Commission has some 
 thing to do with improving the services of Public 
 Service Corporations. 
 
 Thus we are confronted with determining upon 
 a general definition of a Chamber of Commerce 
 for future reference. The following is submitted, 
 subject of course to the approval of the "Com 
 mittee of 125 on additions to or subtractions from 
 the By-Laws," at the next subsequent meeting 
 thereafter. 
 
 A Chamber of Commerce is an unwieldy body 
 of men who are totally averse to any increase in 
 Commerce, divided into political, social and re 
 ligious cliques and whose main object in life 
 appears to an outsider to consist of welcoming the 
 incoming and speeding the parting President at a 
 dinner that taxes the capacity alike of the diners 
 and the main dining room of the leading Hotel.
 
 ON CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE 71 
 
 One thing can be said for a Chamber of Com 
 merce and nobody will deny it. The bigger it 
 becomes, the better. The idea is this. A small 
 Chamber of Commerce might work untold harm 
 in a Community because it might be taken 
 seriously. But a great, big overgrown Chamber 
 of Commerce can't hurt anybody because "too 
 many people are next," as the slang writers have 
 it, meaning the enjoyment of close mental juxta 
 position. 
 
 So, if you would save your city, join your 
 Chamber of Commerce. The joke is on you, true 
 enough, but what's the harm? The Secretary 
 and his Assistant have to be paid in order to keep 
 all the membership cards up to date so that vis 
 itors can be told that "The Bollweville Chamber 
 of Commerce is now the largest in America east 
 of the Connecticut River."
 
 ON OVER-ENTHUSIASM
 
 ON OVER-ENTHUSIASM 
 
 HPHE tendency to over-enthusiasm has so many 
 forms that I will not attempt to touch except 
 illustratively upon it. From a purely mental 
 standpoint it generally consists of an indiscrimi 
 nate use of adjectives, expletives and modifiers 
 of various kinds. 
 
 I know certain men who go to the wildest ex 
 tremes in their enthusiasm of the moment. If it 
 is an editorial that has attracted their attention, 
 it isn't a mere editorial when they hand it over 
 for your educational benefit, it is "by all odds the 
 finest editorial I have ever read" or the tender is 
 prefaced with some such remark as "I want you 
 to read this editorial. If you don't say it settles 
 the question beyond the shadow of a doubt, I shall 
 be everlastingly surprised." 
 
 With all this preliminary adulation you natur 
 ally expect to find an editorial bristling with 
 points and reeking with research and profundity. 
 But you are surprised to read an ordinary, wishy- 
 washy statement with which you don't agree and 
 as for the question being settled beyond the 
 shadow of a doubt, while you are quite willing to 
 agree that the editorial settles the question pos 
 itively, it settles it contrary to the hopes and 
 
 75
 
 76 ORIGINALITY 
 
 wishes of the editor. In fact it settles in a sort of 
 reverse English, as Willie Hoppe might say. 
 
 The next day you meet your over-enthusiastic 
 friend and this time he is voluntary advance man 
 for a new restaurant that he has discovered in 
 the market district. It is always in the market 
 district or some out of the way spot. You simply 
 must go with him as his guest to this restaurant. 
 "Talk about your roast beef! Wow! Wow! wait 
 till you get a slab of the beef they serve at this 
 place. No style, understand. Plain, like the ser 
 vice at the front in the European War Zone, but 
 clean. Everything is put into the quality of the 
 beef, etc. etc." 
 
 Naturally you yield and follow him. Through 
 a labyrinth of streets, alleys and short cuts. 
 Past sidewalks piled high with fruits and veg 
 etables. Finally, up a long flight of stairs, each 
 one with an overhang of corrugated metal on it 
 that nearly trips you at every step, and then to the 
 restaurant plus. 
 
 Exuding appologia at everything that seems to 
 displease you, Mr. Enthusiasm leads you to a table 
 and flourishes you into the seat. "Roast beef for 
 two," he says to the waitress, and then continues 
 his apology monolog for the surroundings, but 
 dilates upon the treat in viands that is soon to be 
 yours. Comes the beef. (Please note the new 
 style of expression, introduced to show that other
 
 ON OVER-ENTHUSIASM 77 
 
 authors have no copyright on this rhetorical 
 bunk.) Descends the knife. Likewise the fork . . . 
 
 Well ! you should have known better. After the 
 editorial incident you should have been able to 
 guess well ahead that adjectives do not create 
 roasts of beef. This beef that you have tackled 
 is surely meat for repentance. Not con beef, 
 exactly, but scarcely a beef, as Bacon said, of 
 some kinds of books, "to be chewed and digested." 
 
 Sorrowfully you are reminded of the story of a 
 young actor who played a Western town. The 
 show wasn't very well received. In talking with 
 the hotel clerk after the performance the actor 
 said, "They didn't warm up very much, tonight." 
 
 "Didn't?" answered the clerk. "Well! that is 
 a common thing here, lately. Nine times out of 
 ten the press agent is better than the show." 
 
 Over-enthusiasm is fatal to the delivery of the 
 goods. Over-enthusiasm of one's own ability in 
 salesmanship or any line of productivity is sure 
 tc be checked up. 
 
 It starts with a slight exaggeration. Later it 
 becomes a habit. Finally it becomes a fixed rule 
 of conduct and in the end it so dominates one's 
 mode of life that he will spend more time in use 
 less enthusiastic outbursts than he spends in 
 those activities on which his livelihood depends. 
 He consolidates his side show with his big show 
 by moving the main tent into the place where the
 
 78 ORIGINALITY 
 
 tatooed man and the armless wonder should be 
 the main attractions. 
 
 Joking aside, this over-enthusiasm for every 
 thing from a Symphony concert down to the third 
 number of a new movie reel that exploits the utter 
 stupidity of a band of murderers, is a blight upon 
 our civilization. It must be stopped, at once, or 
 language will not pass at its face value at the 
 mint of intelligence. 
 
 "How can it be stopped?" you ask. Well! as 
 a mere suggestion I offer this solution. 
 
 First, stop it yourself. Second, ask your 
 friends to stop it. Third, I will stop it. 
 
 So far as I am concerned I end "over- 
 enthusiasm," right here.
 
 ON MEN OP MYSTERY
 
 ON MEN OF MYSTERY 
 
 T^OR fear that you may be misled by the title 
 of this little etude, I assure you in the opening 
 paragraph, that it is not my intent to lead you 
 into the realms of the occult. But I would, with 
 your kindly indulgence, unburden myself of a life 
 long contempt that I have held for certain people 
 who shroud the commonplace with mystery and 
 who draw a veil of utter secrecy over the beautiful 
 face of lucidity. 
 
 In the vernacular of the burlesque houses I ask 
 "where do they get this stuff?" It surely is a 
 mystery to me, to most everybody else and I am 
 not quite sure but to the mysterious ones, them 
 selves. 
 
 While these Secret Service exemplars generally 
 exercise their talents at all seasons of the year, 
 it is in political contests that they show to the 
 greatest advantage. Whether it is in the election 
 of a Governor, a Mayor, an Alderman or in the 
 settlement of a great question involving liberties 
 of half the human race woman suffrage it 
 matters not to the mysterious ones. They will 
 avoid the direct, speak only in parables and im 
 plore you "not to breath a word of it," while 
 
 81
 
 82 ORIGINALITY 
 
 keeping you thoroughly in the dark as to what 
 it refers. 
 
 I know one of these mystery purveyors who is 
 so saturated with "inside camouflage" that it 
 effects his carriage. He sways his shoulders as 
 he walks, with a sort of Hawaiian dance motion. 
 This is accentuated by covert glances from side to 
 side as a sort of optical accompaniment to his 
 shoulder song. Tripping lightly along on the 
 balls of his feet, he meets an acquaintance, or 
 victim. 
 
 "Hello Ben!" says the victim, "how is Gloss 
 coming out, next Tuesday?" Being interested in 
 politics, he puts a direct question. But does he 
 get a direct answer? He certainly does not. 
 Ben is a "mysterious" person. He hasn't given 
 a direct answer to anybody, anywhere, anytime 
 to any question since he failed to pass the en 
 trance exams to the village High School. 
 
 Acquaintance is waiting for an answer. Ben 
 looks all around the vicinity. He evidently is 
 afraid that he is being shadowed. He grips his 
 victim by the lapels of his coat. He makes as 
 though to speak, changes his mind, takes another 
 survey of the location and drags his prey about 
 ten feet to the left. Indoors or outdoors, the 
 same formula is used. The victim never finds 
 fault. Isn't he going to get the "straight dope" 
 right from headquarters.
 
 ON MEN OF MYSTERY 83 
 
 With his man safely planted, Ben takes yet one 
 more flitting panoramic view of his new field of 
 operations and whispers in a low tone, "What do 
 you hear?" 
 
 Just imagine the disappointment anybody feels 
 after all these maneouvers to receive a question 
 when an answer was expected! But that is about 
 all that these mystery mines yield. They assay 
 about 60 per cent mystery and the rest pure fake. 
 They yield nothing of a real marketable value at 
 the smelter. They have never even been salted 
 with good ore. They are absolutely valueless. 
 
 I have participated as publicity advisor in many 
 campaigns, some of considerable importance. 
 Every one of these campaigns had its army of 
 mysterious ones always on the job. They filled 
 the headquarters with an atmosphere of stealth. 
 Their voices were always pitched in a stage 
 whisper. It was "Sh! sh" here and "Sh! sh" 
 there. They would pop their heads inside the 
 door, take a mental inventory of the room, beckon 
 to me with a backward jerk of the head to indicate 
 that I must see them outside in the corridor. 
 
 Somehow I always hated to offend them and I 
 invariably responded. The sum total of all I ever 
 learned from the entire mystery squad could be 
 contained in the following composite question, 
 thrown at me in a throaty tremolo.
 
 84 ORIGINALITY 
 
 "Did you see the statement that so-and-so had 
 in the Chronicle?" 
 
 Did I see it? Naturally, having worked hours 
 in writing it and having spent more hours with 
 reporters and editors in order to have it appear. 
 But why waste time? I answer "yes", in order 
 to get back to work, and Mr. Scotland Yard looks 
 wise and puts two fingers of his left hand to his 
 lips, as if to caution me against going too far. 
 
 "Nothing else you want to say to me?" he asks. 
 
 "No!" I reply. 
 
 "See you this afternoon then. Don't let any 
 body know that we talked this over," and he 
 disappears. 
 
 You might not believe that these are concrete 
 examples of the way some men behave in politics. 
 But the examples are just as concrete as the 
 heads of the men involved. 
 
 Not one or two, but shoals of them, all mystery 
 and no solution. Over the phone, letters abso 
 lutely meaningless, childish references to the 
 most obvious happenings as though dire happen 
 ings were to follow. 
 
 At first I was unable to understand it. Later 
 it began to dawn upon me. Now I see the light. 
 I shall never be fooled again. These men of mys 
 tery are the men who elect candidates. That is 
 why they have to be mysterious. No candidate 
 can fight out in the open and win. He must be
 
 ON MEN OF MYSTERY 85 
 
 obscured in the shadow of Teutonic Diplomacy 
 or else he is destined to defeat. So the mys 
 terious maurauder who couldn't deliver his own 
 vote. He carries the mystery of the campaign 
 into every successful candidate's office after his 
 inauguration and mysteriously get a fat job and 
 holds it in a most mysterious fashion. 
 
 If you don't believe me, ask any recent Govern 
 or or Mayor what was the reason for appointing 
 any of the men whom he appointed. He will tell 
 you "Sh! sh! I can't give you the real reason, but 
 he did some great inside work for the party." 
 
 You think I am exaggerating the kind of men 
 who are rewarded with political appointments. 
 Ask any one of them, the next time you meet him 
 what time it is? If he doesn't make you step ten 
 paces to the left and whisper it into your ear, with 
 a mysterious wink indicative of profound secrecy, 
 then you may rest assured that he won't last out 
 his term. His health is being undermined with 
 the enormous work of his position. He isn't a 
 regular. One season will see his finish. 
 
 And by the way, now that we have finished this 
 matter, please don't tell anybody else about it! 
 Let's keep it a secret. You know, "Sh! Sh!"
 
 ON THE BUSY BUSINESS MAN
 
 ON THE BUSY BUSINESS MAN 
 
 HPHE President of the largest bank in Boston is 
 the most easily approached of any financial 
 man in the city. The Presidents of numerous 
 dinky little banks and trust companies can't be 
 seen by anybody except after running the gaunt 
 let of two or more secretaries. You can walk 
 right into the office of the most influential man in 
 New England, without the formality of sending in 
 a card or even knocking at a closed door. The 
 door of his office is open, the way is clear, you can 
 see whether he is engaged with somebody else, 
 when common politeness will hold you back. 
 Otherwise you may enter and state your business. 
 The advertising manager of the largest circu 
 lated morning paper in America sits at a desk 
 where anybody can speak to him, without leaving 
 the public business office of the paper. But to 
 see the advertising manager of the scrawniest 
 sheet in Boston requires an official appointment, 
 days in advance. I have often wondered if some 
 of the enormous advertising business that appears 
 in the big papers wasn't business that somebody 
 had really intended placing in the scrawny little 
 paper but had found it impossible to reach the 
 advertising manager and give him the order. 
 
 89
 
 90 ORIGINALITY 
 
 The manager of the store that does the largest 
 retail business of any store in Boston can be seen 
 by anybody who thinks he has business with him, 
 inside of half a minute after leaving the elevator 
 at the office floor, unless he is occupied with 
 somebody else. The fact that you are waiting 
 generally speeds up the interview of the one 
 ahead. The door is open so that the manager's 
 time is not needlessly taken up. But at a little 
 retail store across the street, which does less than 
 one per cent of the big firm's volume of business, 
 you will have to send in a history of your life by 
 a fresh office boy, be interrogated by an equally 
 fresh secretary and be compelled to wait in soli 
 tary confinement for hours before "Mr. Small will 
 see you." 
 
 Having run into this peculiar phase of business 
 life on many occasions, I began to give it more 
 than a cursory thought. Why is it that the really 
 big and successful men are so informal and the 
 little inconsequential men so pompous? The big 
 men never appear so busy that they can't attend 
 to business. But the little men are invariably so 
 "busy" that they make it impossible for one to 
 explain his business in a business-like way and 
 complete it. 
 
 After all, the answer is not complicated. It has 
 nothing to do with the amount of business that 
 any of these men are handling. It is purely a
 
 THE BUSY BUSINESS MAN 91 
 
 psychological problem and requires a psychologi 
 cal answer. 
 
 A big man in business is no different from a big 
 man in any other walk of life. He is a big man 
 and requires no outside evidences to prove it. He 
 is sure of himself. He needs no secretary to tell 
 you he is busy. His position, his own assurance 
 of his bigness tells it to you. He knows you or 
 anybody else will not try to occupy his time, 
 needlessly. But a man of small calibre in bus 
 iness is no different from a small calibre man in 
 any other activity. He is anxious to impress 
 upon the world a capacity that he doesn't possess. 
 So he starts with his secretary. He is afraid to 
 appear not busy to his secretary. That would be 
 fatal. So he is always looking over invoices, bills 
 of lading, market reports or "talking with heads 
 of departments." This latter is generally his last 
 resort. He w r ants the secretary to tell the bus 
 iness world that "Mr. Small is the busiest man in 
 town." 
 
 So you suffer, and wait, and look at your watch, 
 and read your newspaper and count the letters 
 on the door and make up all the words you can 
 spell from PRIVATE OFFICE, and think what you 
 are going to order for lunch, and go to sleep, and 
 look at your watch again and finally see "Mr. 
 Small" and learn only too late that all your time 
 has been wasted. He isn't making any change
 
 92 ORIGINALITY 
 
 until the middle of next year as "his policy has 
 been thoroughly outlined and he never changes 
 his policy" and "if you will see him in six months 
 he will be glad to talk it over with you." 
 
 And the funny part of it is that you, your very 
 self, are surprised when you read in the news 
 paper among "Business troubles" that "The Small 
 Company has gone into the hands of a receiver," 
 a few weeks after the visit when you were told 
 that "our policy is outlined for the next six 
 months." *
 
 ON DISTRIBUTION
 
 ON DISTRIBUTION 
 
 1T\ON'T be alarmed. I am not going to read you 
 a lecture on the Distribution of Wealth or 
 even on the Distribution of Intelligence. They 
 will always be distributed unevenly. But the 
 distribution of merchandise is a question that 
 needs an answer if any economic question does. 
 
 I am of the firm opinion that there is more 
 waste because of the complexity and inefficiency 
 of distribution than in any other economic phase 
 of our existence. 
 
 Let us reduce distribution to a few concrete 
 cases, easily understood and see if we can't offer 
 a few suggestions. 
 
 A manufacturer of ladies' coats in New York 
 City sells a number of his coats to Jones, Smith 
 or Brown in Boston. He sells these coats at 
 $21.50 each. This cost represents the actual 
 value of the cotton, buttons, designing, sewing 
 on the machines, trimmings, linings, labor on all 
 these essentials in their natural and finished 
 states and a profit for everybody as the coats 
 come through the varied processes. 
 
 Delivered into my house from the store, for 
 somebody to wear, there will be nothing more of 
 value added to one of these coats. Even the 
 
 95
 
 96 ORIGINALITY 
 
 name of the store has been sewed into the neck 
 band by the manufacturer. But when that $21.50 
 coat reaches my house, the price to me is $42.50 
 or more, generally an advance of over 100 per cent 
 above the entire cost of receiving the coat onto 
 the floor at Jones', Smith's or Brown's. 
 
 The operator in the factory, asking for a raise 
 of 25 cents a coat for sewing it, the advance of 
 2 cents on the transportation of the coat from 
 New York to Boston on the part of the New 
 Haven or the Boston & Albany road are worthy 
 of front-page news stories, but they don't effect 
 the price of the coat one per cent. 
 
 You have heard a great deal about the United 
 Shoe Machinery Company as a Trust that fed on 
 the heart's blood of the public. Buy a pair of 
 $15 shoes at any retail store in Boston and you 
 are paying into the United Shoe Machinery about 
 20 cents to 25 cents royalty. The entire cost of 
 manufacturing is around $7. The rest goes to 
 the retailer. 
 
 Read some morning in the papers that beef has 
 been jumped $1.00 a hundred pounds in Chicago 
 by the beef-trust always "the trust," although the 
 real name is Swift & Co., Cudahy or Armour. 
 The cost of the beef should thus be 1 cent more 
 per pound to the butcher, when his present stock 
 is exhausted. ' But does he wait until his present 
 stock is gone before he advances his price? He
 
 ON DISTRIBUTION 97 
 
 does not. He does it as soon as he hears the 
 news. 
 
 Does he advance his prices 1 cent a pound, as 
 the packers have done? He does not. He jumps 
 the price several cents and utters terrible things 
 about the heartlessness of "the trust," while in 
 wardly reckoning up the extra profit on your 
 order. 
 
 When the restaurant or hotel-man gets the news, 
 he is at a disadvantage, but only temporarily, 
 nothing keeps him at a disadvantage very long. 
 If it is general news that meat has been advanced 
 in Chicago, it will be all right to jump the prices 
 on the menu. It would be an insult to his patrons 
 to add 1 cent to an order for steak or beef, al 
 though that is the added cost per pound to him 
 and he doesn't serve a pound in an order. So he 
 adds 10 cents to the order or 1000 per cent more 
 than the Chicago packers have added. 
 
 But nobody complains of the restaurant man or 
 the hotel proprietor. The day of the advance in 
 prices at the hotel two intelligent business men 
 sit down to dinner. "What's this?" asks No. 1, 
 "An order of beef gone up from 75 cents to 85 
 cents?" 
 
 "Sure," remarks No. 2, "I read in the morning 
 paper that beef is up a dollar in Chicago." 
 
 "The robbers!" answers No. 1, reconciled. "I 
 wish the Federal Government would get at the
 
 98 ORIGINALITY 
 
 bottom of this Beef Trust. They'll ruin us if we 
 don't look out." 
 
 Please don't understand me as holding blame 
 less the clothing manufacturer, the railroad, the 
 Shoe Machinery Syndicate or the beef packers, 
 but they are no more responsible for the high re 
 tail prices of merchandise than I am. I don't 
 know but that a careful analysis of these few 
 sources that I cite might show that they have 
 reduced the wholesale costs of manufactured 
 products. The point is quite clearly shown that 
 the shifting prices at wholesale are not honestly 
 reflected at retail. 
 
 If the National Biscuit Company reduces its 
 prices 5 percent, the retail price of Uneeda Crack 
 ers stays at 8 cents. But if the Boston & Maine 
 railroad jumps the transportation charge 2 cents 
 a can for a 10-quart can of milk, the price of milk 
 automatically goes up 1 cent a quart all over 
 Boston. 
 
 If the retailers made a net profit that these 
 illustrations indicate, they would all be million 
 aires in short order. But the fact is that most of 
 these excessive charges are wasted. 
 
 Excessive rents, excessive clerk hire, necessi 
 tated by rush hours in stores and markets, a low 
 volume of business per day, when averaged over 
 the entire year, puts a tax of 100 per cent for 
 distribution upon all goods consumed by the
 
 ON DISTRIBUTION 99 
 
 public, whether automobiles, furniture, groceries, 
 clothing, milk or medicine. 
 
 We have not yet reduced retailing to a science. 
 It is in a crude state. It is more heartless than 
 the most cold-blooded trust. It will not be 
 attacked by the newspapers because they are kept 
 alive by the retailers' advertising. Without re 
 tailers' advertising, no big newspaper could live 
 a year. So they point the finger of scorn at the 
 Beef Trust and the Biscuit Trust for advancing 
 prices 5 eer cent, while the big retail advertisers 
 are taking more from the public than all the 
 others put together, and they put absolutely no 
 value into the goods. All they do is distribute 
 them. 
 
 We must learn how to retail our merchandise. 
 The U. S. parcel-post has helped out considerably. 
 But the field of retail distribution is a hard one to 
 center public attention upon, as the great public 
 medium, the newspapers, are tied hands and feet. 
 
 We must explain to the big retailers themselves, 
 the need of concentrated effort along better lines 
 and when the newspapers find out that their ad 
 vertisers are willing to have the entire intelligence 
 of the public centered on the problem of Distribu 
 tion, then we will get somewhere. Otherwise it 
 is to be a slow process.
 
 ON FAKE ADVERTISING
 
 ON FAKE ADVERTISING 
 
 years various organizations have tried to 
 stop advertising that misrepresented the value 
 of the article advertised. These organizations 
 were voluntary organizations and in nearly every 
 instance they produced excellent results. At 
 least they threw a moral scare into the fake 
 advertiser. 
 
 The strange thing about it is that it was nec 
 essary for any body of men to organize to bring 
 about the cessation of fake advertisers. The 
 burden should have been upon the duly chosen 
 officers of the law. But these functioned not. 
 Like the lilies of the fields they toiled not. 
 
 I firmly believe that if somebody offered to sell 
 $10 shoes for $2 that the district Attorney's office 
 in any county would pay no attention to the 
 advertisement. It would remain for some other 
 shoe dealer, in self protection to start proceedings 
 or to see that they were started by somebody. 
 What's the answer? 
 
 The answer lies in the fact that criminal pros 
 ecutions are like all other things they are 
 governed by self interest. Little old self preser 
 vation or selfishness is the dominating factor in 
 nearly everything. 
 
 103
 
 104 ORIGINALITY 
 
 You will say that there have been many cases 
 where fake advertisers have been exposed by 
 officials. This is true, but in nine cases out of 
 ten you will find that if the official on the job took 
 voluntary cognizance of the fake and proceeded 
 against the faker then the publicity was particu 
 larly desirable at that time. 
 
 Fake advertising of merchandise is more easily 
 detected by the public than fake advertising of a 
 financial nature. The latter is hard to detect for 
 the very reason that the most convincing adver 
 tisements get the best results and the faker is not 
 limited to the truth. His object is to sell stocks 
 and sell them quick. So he puts into his adver 
 tising statements all those things that will tend 
 to make the advertisement sound truthful. 
 
 That is why so much fake financial advertising 
 comes and goes without prosecution. By the 
 time the proposition is investigated and found to 
 be a fraud the damage has been done and the 
 promotor has gone to some other field of 
 operation. 
 
 Local advertisers have made the fake advertiser 
 of merchandise practically a thing of the past. 
 The fake financial advertiser is still a menace. 
 He can be eliminated in one way. We offer the 
 remedy. 
 
 Enact a Federal Law, using the post office de 
 partment as the reason for making it National in
 
 ON FAKE ADVERTISING 105 
 
 scope, compelling every advertiser of a financial 
 offering of stocks or bonds of all kinds to file with 
 the United States Treasurer a sworn statement 
 of the actual physical value of the property or 
 business enterprise behind the stock or bond, this 
 report to be filed before any offering can be made 
 to the public. Further, make it a criminal offence 
 for failure to file or for filing false information 
 and a greater offence to sell shares except upon 
 the actual information in the report. 
 
 Somehow or other promoters are more in fear 
 of the Federal government than they are of the 
 local government. If the plan here suggested is 
 put into operation, the sale of stock and bonds 
 will be facilitated and the advertiser of fake stocks 
 and bonds will go out of business in the open. 
 Swindling under cover will go on as before but 
 the saving to the people will run into the tens of 
 millions of dollars annually.
 
 ON OUIJA BOARDS
 
 ON OUIJA BOARDS 
 
 COME people don't believe in Ouija Boards. But 
 then, there are many people, even in this en 
 lightened age, who don't believe in Santa Glaus. 
 Whether you are a believer in Ouija Boards or not 
 you must admit the subject offers possibilities for 
 discussion and we will now proceed to disgust it. 
 
 The Ouija Board as an indoor sport is not new. 
 The present fervor is merely a revival. It had a 
 preliminary run several years ago but didn't seem 
 to get over as strongly as it has in its recent 
 recurrence. It is no longer a toy. It has reached 
 the dignity of a cult. It numbers among its 
 devotees many who are regarded as people of 
 more than average attainments. 
 
 The idea of the Ouija Board as an accelerator 
 of spiritual contact is a good idea. It is so good 
 that it has been copyrighted and is protected by 
 the United States Government. Having just 
 passed an Amendment doing away with distilled 
 spirits for beverage purposes it seems only fair 
 that a paternal government should take on the 
 protection of other spirits that can at will, be 
 drawn from the wood of the Ouija Board. 
 
 The true Ouijarian is a believer. He believes 
 because he has faith. He is able and inordinately 
 
 109
 
 110 ORIGINALITY 
 
 willing to furnish evidence in proof of his conten 
 tion regarding the efficacy of the Ouija Board. 
 Hear ye! Hear ye! 
 
 A friend of mine who Ouija-izes with unflagging 
 zeal at every opportunity proffers the following 
 instance. 
 
 One night she was holding her faithful little 
 Ouija on her knees. Her finger tips were touch 
 ing the tabloid table that tops the board. She 
 asked the Board the direct question, "How old is 
 my father?" Without a moment's hesitation the 
 prow of the planchette began to spin around the 
 Board and spell out the answer. An excited 
 bystander wrote out the answer as follow, "I AM 
 VERY HAPPY." Explaining the answer my 
 friend assured me that her father was dead and 
 that this showed that his spirit couldn't be fooled 
 but that it wanted her to know that he was happy. 
 
 Another Ouija follower gave me an equally con 
 crete example of Ouijaism. He had the lights all 
 out except one. This one had a pink shade over 
 it. He never felt more in tune with the board 
 than on this occasion. Let him tell it full 
 quotes. 
 
 "I felt a mystic influence about me. I was 
 alone except for Ouija. I asked a question out 
 loud. I felt that the answer would come, I be 
 lieved. I said 'Ouija tell me if my love is recipro 
 cated?' I waited for the answer. Little beads
 
 ON OUIJA BOARDS 111 
 
 of perspiration stood out on my forehead. No 
 answer came. I repeated the question whisper 
 ing it, this time, and then waited. Slowly the 
 planchette began to move over the smooth sur 
 face of the board. I thought of those immortal 
 words of Omar, 'The moving finger writes.' I 
 watched the little table. Patiently it began to 
 spell out its message. The letters 'C-H-A-S-S' 
 came out distinctly and then the planchette 
 refused to function further. 
 
 "I knew there was an answer to be found in 
 these letters. I puzzled my brain for hours. 
 Then like a flash, it came to me. The Ouija 
 Board on this occasion was controlled by the 
 spirit of an old friend who had passed into spirit 
 land four years ago. He was a Dutch Comedian 
 and always joked with me in quaint dialect. He 
 wouldn't say 'Yes'. He would speak to me in the 
 same old intimate way as of yore. He would say 
 'Chass' instead of 'Yes'. 
 
 "You can't imagine the joy that came to me 
 with this discovery. Often I had doubted my 
 Ouija Board. But with absolute, scientific, con 
 vincing evidence before me of its marvelous, yes, 
 its supernatural powers, how could I remain any 
 thing but a firm believer in the future?" 
 
 He closed his eyes and his recital at the same 
 time. I was so overcome that I turned my head 
 away. It was nothing short of uncanny. So
 
 112 ORIGINALITY 
 
 simple, so eloquent, so concise, so reasonable. 
 And yet 
 
 As we to return to the editorial department 
 for the nonce or the noncence if you prefer the 
 accusative case stated in the opening round of 
 this bout, there are still those who don't believe 
 in Ouija Boards. How such unbelief can flaunt 
 itself in the face of such evidence as we have here 
 so carefully connoted is something that we cannot 
 understand unless it be on the old Lincolnian 
 maxim that a Board in the lap is worth two boards 
 in the fence. You can't understand a Ouija 
 Board unless you have wood in your head. In 
 other words it is a knotty problem no matter how 
 you view it.
 
 ON GOING TO CHURCH
 
 ON GOING TO CHURCH 
 
 HPHE fact that ten times as many people attend 
 the movies as go to church isn't a fact. It is 
 a lie. What the man who started this mis-state 
 ment on its travels probably meant to say was that 
 the total admissions of all the movie houses in a 
 year would be ten times the number of those who 
 attend all the church services during a year. For 
 the sake of conservatism let us include as church 
 services the Billy Sunday revivals wherever he 
 may be tabernackling. 
 
 But that there are ten times as many people 
 who attend movies as attend churches is, of 
 course, ridiculous. Some regular church goers, 
 once-a-month or so, are frequenters of movies 
 every other day. They go to the movies because 
 they like them. They go to church as a sort of 
 a duty. Let's see if we can't straighten it out. 
 
 Should a man or woman or a child go to church 
 unless there is some pleasure in it? Many will 
 say "yes" and adduce the idea that going to 
 church is a sacred obligation, that this is the only 
 way to keep in touch with the heavenly father 
 etc. etc. Why keeping in touch with the infinite 
 should be so dull and uninteresting that people 
 
 115
 
 116 ORIGINALITY 
 
 shrink from it is something yet to be explained. 
 We can't accept the premise as correct. 
 
 Years ago, when a man went out and got drunk, 
 instead of going to church, the deacons or the 
 ministers used to say that the devil had lured him 
 away. But the churches are not competing with 
 the saloons any more. The saloons are gone 
 forever. 
 
 The movies are not conducted as competitors 
 of the churches. No movie house runs a line on 
 the screen telling people not to go to church. On 
 the contrary every film, if it teaches a lesson at 
 all, teaches the evils of immorality and advises 
 people to be good. While propaganda is not the 
 main offering of the movie houses there is a 
 sprinkling of it in nearly every feature picture. 
 Not a picture that has ever been screened in 
 America ever hinted that drunkenness was desir 
 able, that robbery was justifiable or that murder 
 could be committed with impunity. More effec 
 tively than any minister could hope to tell the 
 story has the honest young lover always won the 
 girl in the story as told at the movie house. 
 People don't go to movies to avoid being mor 
 alized at They love it. But 
 
 They like it doped up in pleasant dress. They 
 like it in sugar coated pill form. They like it 
 with a little rag-time. They don't like it in dull 
 monotone. They don't like it the way their
 
 ON GOING TO CHURCH 117 
 
 grandfather used to be compelled to take it when 
 he was a little boy. They want it as of the year 
 1921, which is three hundred and one years after 
 the Pilgrims laid the corner stone of an American 
 democracy and founded the famous line of Ply 
 mouth Rock hens, who lay the foundation of our 
 breakfast table menu. 
 
 People go to the movies because the movies 
 are up to date. If a movie manager's business 
 falls off he changes his program. He doesn't 
 pray to God for a revival of big audiences. He 
 sends a hurry up call to Jesse Lasky or Goldwyn 
 or D. W. Griffith and says "Give me a line of 
 pictures that the people want to see." And he 
 gets them. 
 
 But the church with a seating capacity of 600 
 will drag along with a Sunday morning audience 
 of 100, patiently waiting for Easter and the Sun 
 day before Christmas or a visit from the Bishop 
 to give it a boost for one day and never do a thing 
 to look into the cause for the poor attendance. 
 The church people can put the blame onto God 
 if they wish to but if he is to be blamed for keep 
 ing people from going to church then he should 
 be given credit for sending them to the movies in 
 droves. Surely if he didn't want them at the 
 movies he wouldn't let them go. You see where 
 such a method of reasoning would lead us. God 
 has no direct bearing on the question. It is a
 
 118 ORIGINALITY 
 
 little problem that we can settle for ourselves, 
 with the brains that God gave us to settle little 
 problems. 
 
 The reason that people go to movies frequently 
 and to church only occasionally is because they 
 like the movies better. A good movie is a treat. 
 A poor sermon is a disgrace. Most churches are 
 poorly conducted, the services are dull, there isn't 
 any pep to the music and the sermons are in 
 keeping with the rest of the show. 
 
 What the churches need is jazz. Wake up the 
 audiences! Retire the out- worn ministers. Give 
 better salaries for better preachers! Hire the 
 best available singers ! Advertise the attractions ! 
 Put on a better show than the movies and the 
 churches will get bigger crowds. People are 
 entitled to an entertainment even when they are 
 being good. They get it at the movies. Until 
 they get it at church they will go to the movies in 
 preference. You can't get around it by prayer. 
 Action is the only solution.
 
 ON THE ULTIMATE PHOTO-PLAYS
 
 ON THE ULTIMATE PHOTO-PLAYS 
 
 '"PHERE have been so many "expert" opinions 
 ventured during the past year that a mere 
 observer of picture-plays must needs move cau 
 tiously in expressing himself on the subject of 
 "what the Public wants." 
 
 As a student of entertainment and a some-time 
 writer of stories, I offer the following analytical 
 comment on the trend of the movies, not merely 
 as something that I am hopeful will be, but some 
 thing that I really believe must be the ultimate 
 picture I mean the dominant, majority-picture 
 of the near future. 
 
 One thing is established beyond all doubt. The 
 motion-picture patrons of today know good pho 
 tography, recognize good acting, laugh at fakes, 
 yawn at dullness and are not thrilled simply 
 because the press agents of the Distributing 
 Agency predict that they will be. After five years 
 of constantly improving pictures the public of 
 nowadays are a pretty wise crowd, and the pro 
 ducers who don't cut their positive prints 
 accordingly will find it out, maybe, when it is too 
 late. 
 
 A while ago the stage was going through the 
 throes of dramatization of novels, parts of the 
 
 121
 
 122 ORIGINALITY 
 
 bible, famous and infamous trials, short stories 
 and well-known advertisements. A prominent 
 dramatist called up a big play-producer, one day, 
 and said "Dave, I've got one of the most brilliant 
 ideas that has struck a New York playright this 
 year. We have dramatized about everything ex 
 cept the New York Public Library, but guess what 
 I am going to dramatize?" 
 
 "Give it up," said Dave. 
 
 "I have decided," said the playright, and his 
 voice shook with supressed emotion, "I have 
 decided to dramatize a play." 
 
 "Good heavens!" shouted the big producer "you 
 don't mean it. The most original thing I've heard 
 in years. I guarantee, without seeing it, to pro 
 duce it." 
 
 I feel that it is about time that the motion pic 
 ture field gets ready to secure its own writers, 
 picturize its own stories, and photograph some 
 photo-plays. Some producers are already feeling 
 their way around the dark rooms. Very soon we 
 shall see screen productions of stories written 
 especially for the screen by men who think in pic 
 tures because they have trained themselves so to 
 think. 
 
 I have written a few novels, a lot of verse, a 
 modicum of sketches, a play or two, an endless 
 raft of short stories, articles, essays and advertise 
 ments without end. Recently, some well-paid-for
 
 ON THE ULTIMATE PHOTO-PLAYS 123 
 
 acceptances of scenarios have put me into the 
 motion picture field. 
 
 I have found that the style of presentation is 
 so entirely different, the original conception of 
 story, of climax, of holding the interest is so dis 
 associated from all other kinds of writing that I 
 am quite convinced the writing of picture-plays 
 is in a class by itself. 
 
 Augustus Thomas sits at his desk and thinks 
 up four situations called acts, into which he puts 
 all his characters and tells his story. 
 
 C. Gardner Sullivan or any of the better photo 
 play dramatists sit at their typewriters and for 
 every one of Mr. Thomas' acts their minds create 
 forty or fifty scenes, interspersed with close-ups, 
 sub-titles and flashes. Instead of conversations 
 they think up scenes that indicate what the con 
 versation would naturally be in the situation 
 shown. Only in cases of any possible doubt do 
 they supply the conversation with sub-titles and 
 quotation marks. 
 
 Many a short story and many a long story find 
 a market because of the cleverness of the author 
 in the use of the written word. But to write 
 scenarios in the hope that clever sub-titles will 
 put the pictures across is a wild dream. 
 
 Quite a few productions fell dismally back onto 
 the shelves because the producers fooled them 
 selves into thinking that a popular story in
 
 124 ORIGINALITY 
 
 magazine form necessarily meant a popular 
 photo-play. Skinner's Dress Suit fitted the clas 
 sic form of Bryant Washburn in a most wonderful 
 way. But it had a dandy story to go with it. 
 The short story could have followed the screen 
 version just as well as the screen play followed 
 the short story. If you don't believe me, just 
 watch the crop of bloomers that will scenario 
 themselves out of the Saturday Evening Post 
 within the next year or two. 
 
 I heard from a producer the other day, and was 
 informed that the firm had decided hereafter to 
 screen only novels that had attained wide popu 
 larity. In view of the decision of a big Western 
 publishing house just made not to produce any 
 more novels except those taken from big screen 
 successes, I am wondering what would happen to 
 any poor author who got between these two firms 
 and waited one refusing to screen his story until 
 it was published as a novel and the other refusing 
 to consider his manuscript as a novel until it had 
 been released all over the country as a successful 
 photo-play. The only course open to him would 
 be to write a story called "Starvation" and leave 
 the manuscript to the Art Museum. 
 
 The best plays ever seen were written by play- 
 rights for production on the stage. The best 
 photo -plays will be written by photo-dramatists 
 who write in scenes, think in picture-climaxes
 
 ON THE ULTIMATE PHOTO-PLAYS 125 
 
 and visualize their thoughts in motion-photo- 
 grapy. 
 
 As to the cleanliness of the subjects, the 
 decency of the photo-play field and its ultimate 
 moral tone, these things always work themselves 
 out automatically. The names that live in drama 
 are all clean names. A man who can't play the 
 Keith Circuit because his act is unfitted for nice 
 audiences will soon find himself without steady 
 work on any circuit. The burlesque houses of 
 today would not produce the burlesque shows of 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 George M. Cohan never wrote an unclean joke, 
 never put over a questionable line in all the shows 
 or sketches he has written. Only a very careless 
 man would suggest that Cohan is not fairly suc 
 cessful as a purveyor of entertainment. 
 
 The ultimate motion-picture plays will be 
 highly specialized, well-acted, clearly photo 
 graphed dramas of movement, subtitled as little 
 as possible, with logical climaxes, well-spaced 
 thrills, clean comedy of situation, consistent plots 
 and satisfactory endings. 
 
 Such plays can only be produced by exper 
 ienced directors, working with equally exper 
 ienced actors, scene builders, camera-men, get 
 ting their inspiration from manuscripts written 
 for the purpose by men and women who think of 
 stories only in terms of photography and whose 
 stage vision is as wide as the wide, wide world.
 
 ON INTERRUPTIONS
 
 ON INTERRUPTIONS 
 
 phase of mentality, or lack of it, that has 
 often been forced upon my attention is the 
 weakness that some people have for interrupting. 
 Butting in might be a better term, but, of course, 
 it would never do to use such a clearly-compre 
 hended expression in what purports to be an 
 essay. So we will after this interruption get 
 back to a given point and start again. 
 
 Interruptions are not confined to any special 
 stratum of society. From meetings of the vestry 
 men of the church, up to, and including barber 
 shops, the weakness is manifested. 
 
 I recall one barber shop to which I am forced 
 to go occasionally for a hair-cut. I have noted 
 that, regardless of how dull may be the shop when 
 I enter it, no sooner am I seated in the chair of 
 the head-barber by "head" I mean "chief or 
 "first" than every barber in the shop discovers 
 that he has something of the utmost importance 
 to say to the man who is supposed to be giving 
 his attention to me. Not another customer in the 
 shop. Not a word had been said or a thing done 
 for the half hour up to the time when I interrupted 
 the peace and quiet of their place of business. 
 
 And yet 
 
 129
 
 130 ORIGINALITY 
 
 My entrance seems to have been a signal for 
 all kinds of activity and all of it must, of necessity, 
 be predicated upon the spoken word and this 
 spoken word is an interchange of language be 
 tween the man working on my hair and his 
 numerous assistants know in the composite as 
 "the help." That, I shall not attempt to explain. 
 
 "When is the towel man coming?" "Will I 
 hone Mr. Seeley's razor?" "Did you notice how 
 cold it was this morning at 5 o'clock?" "Will I 
 go out and get that bay rum now, or wait till 
 later?" and one million other questions are hurled 
 at the occupied chair of otherwise empty barber 
 shops all over the United States, every day. 
 Whether this is part of the course in Italy, the 
 alma mater of our tonsorial system, is something 
 with which I am not familiar. 
 
 That it holds good in all the boot-blacking 
 parlors, every man who ever has his shoes shined 
 will bear me witness. Go into any of Professor 
 Joe's places, anywhere in America. Let every 
 chair be empty. Let the entire force be sound 
 asleep dreaming of Dante or D'Annunzio or The 
 Acropolis, if it is that kind of a shop, and get into 
 a chair, thus indicating that you wish your shoes 
 cleaned. 
 
 Long before the instructor full professorships 
 are conferred only upon the owners has reached 
 that point in his work where you feel it necessary
 
 ON INTERRUPTIONS 131 
 
 to caution him about your sox not needing any 
 paste, every other man in the place is on his feet 
 and asking questions of the one who from time 
 to time pays a little attention to your shoes. 
 
 Does he ignore his countrymen and chide them? 
 Does he speak to them sharply and call their 
 attention to the fact that he is busy with a 
 customer? Forsooth, he does not. In fact, he 
 seems to take an uncanny interest in everything 
 they say. 
 
 With a box of red paste in one hand I'm 
 assuming you wear black shoes and with the 
 other hand in close proximity to the knee of your 
 light trousers or leaning gracefully upon it, he 
 acts as the switchboard of a bunch of overseas 
 jargon that would make the press gallery at the 
 Olympic games think they had been cut off from 
 the world. 
 
 Of course, interruptions are not confined to the 
 higher forms of industry. You get them even in 
 banking circles or in Doctor's offices or at the 
 Somerset Club. No place is immune. 
 
 You wait two hours hi order to have a strictly 
 private interview with some man in an office 
 which proclaims in gilt letters to everybody that 
 it is "private". Do you get a private interview? 
 You do not. 
 
 In the midst of your best sentence something 
 corresponding in your speech to the second para-
 
 132 ORIGINALITY 
 
 graph of Lincoln's address at Gettysburg you 
 are stopped short by a ring of the phone and you 
 learn, with much pleasure, that Mr. So-and-So's 
 limousine is to be laid up for one more day and 
 he will have to get along as best he can with the 
 little old last year's landaulet. He takes five min 
 utes to tell you about the rotten service he's 
 getting at the garage and you sit like a dummy 
 afraid to interrupt him and put the interview back 
 onto the main line where it ought to be. 
 
 I imagine you get me, together with the moral 
 of these few observations, so, without further 
 interruptions, the next subject will be in order.
 
 ON WHY NOT WORRY?
 
 ON WHY NOT WORRY? 
 
 TTHE idea seems to be quite prevalent that 
 mental activity is conductive to ill-health 
 whereas the contrary is the truth. Health comes 
 from an active mind, a mind that is working at 
 concert pitch, sending directions to the heart, and 
 telling that engine to keep busy in the circulation 
 department. 
 
 A wrong conception of mental activity has crept 
 into the minds of many people. For lack of the 
 ability to diagnose many cases, innumerable phy 
 sicians have spread the false propaganda that 
 worry brings about ill-health, that worry is a 
 curse that must be eradicated or else the ill-health 
 will continue and after elaborating on the propo 
 sition they look their patients full in the face and 
 with profound sombreness say "You are worrying 
 too much. That's what is the matter. You must 
 stop worrying and you will be all right." 
 
 Of all the stupid things ever advanced by the 
 medical profession and they have surely put out 
 a full quota of stupidity this is the essence. To 
 intelligent people it is a joke. But to those who 
 still believe that a Doctor's diploma carries with 
 it some magical power, it is a menace. This little 
 paper on the subject will not stop it, but if it saves 
 
 135
 
 136 ORIGINALITY 
 
 only one trusting man or woman from a life of 
 misery or sets some doctor straight it will be doing 
 something. 
 
 Let us go at it, logically, and with a concrete 
 example in mind. 
 
 A woman feels ill. Her stomach is not doing 
 its work or she has a back-ache or she has 
 frequent head-aches. She, naturally, consults 
 her doctor. He prescribes the usual stuff. She 
 takes it. It doesn't work. The aches or the 
 disorders continue. He looks wise at least, he 
 tries to do so. He shakes his head. He becomes 
 deep. Then he pulls the same old dope. Doctors 
 always do the same thing, that is, unless they are 
 "specialists". Then they charge more for doing 
 it. 
 
 "Have you been worrying, of late?" he asks his 
 patient. Has she been worrying? Why, the poor 
 simp, can't he tell, without asking a single ques 
 tion, that she has been worrying about the rent, 
 and the wash-lady, and the new girl and the 
 income tax and her husband's spats and Mildred's 
 new dresses and the gown she is to wear at the 
 Alpha Alpha Club reception and 4279 other things 
 that engage the attention of every intelligent 
 woman who isn't dead from her heels up? Her 
 brain is active, keyed up, she is responsive to heat 
 and cold, she takes an interest in her family and 
 in the life of the neighborhood. Worry? Sure
 
 ON WHY NOT WORRY? 137 
 
 she worries, if the correct definition for worry is 
 the one that the Doctors would make us swallow 
 as though it were a dose of quinine. 
 
 So the poor woman has to say "Yes", in a 
 frightened voice and the Doctor smiles and says, 
 "I thought so. You are neurasthenic. You must 
 stop worrying or you will be a nervous wreck!" 
 
 Get the picture. A sick woman, a big husky 
 Doctor getting paid for telling her to stop wor 
 rying and intimating that every time she uses her 
 brain she is endangering her health. And he 
 expects her to stop thinking just because he says 
 so. 
 
 Does she go home and do what the nice, kind 
 Doctor man tells her? She does not. She tries 
 to think less of her regular duties and the harder 
 she tries the more she thinks. Then comes the 
 terrible thought that she is "worrying", that she 
 is not following the Doctor's instructions. 
 Naturally, she becomes irritated more and more. 
 
 She begins to feel pains that she never knew 
 existed. She begins to experience mental an 
 guish that she never knew before. And she goes 
 to the Doctor again and explains it all to him. 
 Waste of effort. Instead of convincing him, as 
 it should, that he is making a mental wreck out 
 of his patient with his dam fool talk, he accepts 
 her story as a confirmation of his analysis. So 
 he tells her again, not to worry, that it will ruin
 
 138 ORIGINALITY 
 
 her nervous system and she goes home and tries 
 to do the impossible. She tries not to think. 
 She might just as well try not to breathe, perma 
 nently. At least she can stop breathing for short 
 spells, but the brain never stops working and for 
 a Doctor to tell a woman "not to worry" is to 
 tell her "not to think". It can't be done. 
 
 He is false in his premise. Years ago the same 
 profession used to bleed people. They now shoot 
 blood into them. They used to keep the windows 
 of a sick room closed. Now they open every 
 window they can find and give folks oxygen from 
 a tank. They used to laugh at Dentists. Now, 
 every Doctor has his pet dentist to whom he sends 
 his patients. They ought to go to the dentist 
 first. Then they might not need the Doctor. 
 Why multiply examples? Everybody knows that 
 most Doctor's books are out-of-date before the 
 books get to the bindery. Why they waste the 
 fees for having them copyrighted is something I 
 can't understand. 
 
 And their latest fetish is "worry". Being 
 something ascribed to the brain, and therefore 
 hidden, they can go as far as they like. If they 
 analyzed the trouble as gall stones or appendicitis 
 or something that the Mayo brothers could show, 
 iii thirty seconds, was or wasn't so, they wouldn't 
 get away with it at all. But "worry"? Why, 
 they read into it every brain function, and hypno-
 
 ON WHY NOT WORRY? 139 
 
 tize the patient to such an extent that every time 
 she uses her brain she feels that she is weakening 
 her system and, of course, such mental activity 
 can have but one result the worst. 
 
 The solution of this problem is simple. I call 
 upon every "Doctor", every "neurologist", every 
 "psychologist", or what not to tell their patients 
 to do all the worrying they please. Tell them 
 that the word "worry" has crept into the medical 
 language under false pretenses. Tell them the 
 truth, that mental activity only becomes "worry" 
 when some Doctor tells his patient that it is 
 effecting his health and, of course, the health, 
 from that time on, is in danger. 
 
 Let a Doctor tell a man that "walking" is bad 
 for him and the man will be red in the face at the 
 end of a hundred yard walk. Tell the same man 
 that walking is the best thing he can do and he 
 will walk two miles without puffing, even though 
 his heart is organically weak. 
 
 It all comes from the mind. Tell a man that 
 his mental activity is endangering his health and 
 of course his health becomes involved Just be 
 cause it is in his mind all the time thereafter. 
 
 TeD every man or woman that they can do all 
 the worrying they feel like, that it is the best 
 thing they can do, that it is mental activity that 
 stimulates the action of the heart and improves 
 the circulation and they will read into every men-
 
 140 ORIGINALITY 
 
 tal activity some good that is to result in their 
 general health. 
 
 Most people can't rise above the opinion of 
 Doctors. That is why they consult them. Let's 
 have done with this "worry" bunk. It is a danger 
 to the community. It is founded on a false hy 
 pothesis. You can't make a man feel well by 
 telling him that every normal activity is making 
 him ill. Therefore tell him that his activity is 
 conducive to health and see how quick he will 
 respond. 
 
 It is logic. It is psychology. Why not worry?
 
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