My First Big-League Game

It was about this time, or on one of my Idea Man trips through Chicago, that I saw my first major-league baseball game. Ralph Johnson, manager of The Journal's Chicago office, and I went together.

The Detroit Tigers were playing the Chicago White Sox in an American League game at Comiskey Park. I had seen a number of minor league games. I had played a great deal of baseball as a boy, between ages eleven and eighteen. But it seemed to me that this major-league brand of baseball was the most monotonous and least exciting of all.

Then I began to understand the reason. They were better players. There was no wasted motion. When a shortstop picked up a hot grounder, he didn't get all excited, and wildly wind up before throwing to first. He scooped up the ball as his throwing arm was smoothly moving into throwing position, and effortlessly it was thrown with speed straight to the first baseman. The players were not making as many motions, but actually the ball was traveling faster.

It's the same in all branches of athletics. The novice makes work of it -- goes to unnecessary effort. The champion does it smoothly, with precision.

The same is true with workmen. A greenhorn beginner as a carpenter wastes a lot of motions with his hammer, plane or saw, and quite frequently his hammer misses the nail altogether. The experienced carpenter does it smoothly, effortlessly to all appearances, but he is getting the job done faster.

This particular baseball game really was a monotonous, dull, unexciting game. Even the experienced regular customers were talking about it. We endured the game down to the last half of the ninth inning. The White Sox led, 3 to 1. Detroit was at bat. There were two outs, none on, and one strike on the batter, who happened to be the famous Ty Cobb. We arose trying to get out of the stands before the rush.

A regular dyed-in-the-wool fan, sitting in front of us, turned around and said earnestly, Please take my advice and don't go yet. No baseball game is over until the last out. Ty Cobb hasn't failed to get a hit in any game this year. Don't worry -- he'll get a hit.

Why Ty Cobb was Famous

We sat down again, a little dubiously. Ball one! droned the umpire.

Ball TUH! FOUL ball! Strike TUH! the umpire's drone continued. Ball THREE! This is it! exclaimed the fan in front of us, excitedly. Now watch what happens! Old Ty Cobb won't miss getting that hit!

He didn't! The next pitched ball cracked squarely off Cobb's bat, driven like a bullet straight between left field and center. It was a two-bagger at least -- maybe a triple, if Cobb rounded the bases fast enough!

But Cobb didn't! To our utter amazement, he jogged leisurely to first, sat down on the bag, stretched, and yawned drowsily!

But as soon as the ball was thrown back to the pitcher, he was up and alert, dancing friskily at a dangerous distance off first, beginning a taunting, razzing line of chatter at the pitcher.

Hey YOU PITCHER! Thanks for that two-bagger you handed me! Yea! Thanks for NUTHIN! I didn't want it as a gift! I'd rather STEAL it from ya! Come on, now! I'm goin' a STEAL second. Try and catch me! Ya can't throw straight enough to catch me!

The pitcher whirled and whipped the ball to first. But Ty slid back under the ball safely. Now he razzed the pitcher more than ever, taunting him, telling him he was no good -- he was going to pieces -- daring him to catch Cobb off base.

The pitcher threw a ball and a couple of strikes at the batter, meanwhile whipping the ball a couple more times to first trying vainly to catch Cobb off base.

Then Cobb dashed off and stole second. The batter finally connected. This, too, might have been good for two bases. But the batter was forced to stop on first. Ty Cobb lay down on second, feigning sleep, snoring loudly. But as soon as the ball was again in the pitcher's mitt, he was up and dancing wildly far off second, his torrent of contempt for the pitcher pouring violently from his mouth.

Two or three times the pitcher made a vain attempt to snap the ball to second in time to nail Cobb off base and end the game with the third out. But each time only brought a fresh outburst of contemptuous discouragement from Cobb. This strategy was beginning to have its effect on the pitcher. Before the next batter could get a hit, strike out, or a base on balls, Ty had stolen third. There, again, he sat down and continued taunting the pitcher.

WHY didn't Cobb race, on his own hit, for second, third, or even to stretch his hit into a home run? WHY, when he was on second, and the next batter cracked out a line drive, didn't he race on to round third and score a run? Usually a single drives in a run if a man is on second.

The answer is that the score was 3 to 1 against Detroit. One run was not enough. Had Cobb scored a run on either his own hit, or that of the batter following him, the White Sox probably would have put out the next man, and the game would have ended 3 to 2 for Chicago. Cobb's strategy was to exasperate the pitcher psychologically until he went to pieces so that following batters might succeed in driving in a total of THREE runs needed for a Detroit win. As long as Cobb remained on base, he was allowed to taunt and razz the pitcher.

So he remained on third, shouting ridicule at the pitcher, who now walked a batter, filling the bases. The pitcher now was thoroughly rattled, nervous, his confidence gone.

The next batter drove out a double, scoring all three men on bases. Thus the game ended. Score, Tigers 4, White Sox 3!

This game turned out to be one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime thrills most people never see, though they may attend ball games regularly. It was the topic of conversation of all Chicago next day.

On arriving in Des Moines I learned, to my dismay, that Mr. Boreman had had no thought of firing me, but merely wrote the letter I had received at Lake Charles, Louisiana, in an effort to snap me out of a slump and prod me on to better effort. I gathered the impression that he was genuinely sorry to see me leave The Journal.

Actually, now, having been myself an employer for several years, I think I can better understand. The almost three years I had spent with The Journal had been largely preparatory years, and Mr. Boremen probably figured they had invested quite a little time, instruction, supervision and money toward developing a man who had some slight promise of becoming a really valuable man in the organization some day. And to see me quit and drop out, just as I was beginning to be worth something -- beginning to be able to write articles and advertising copy professionally -- meant the investment was now wasted and a total loss, except for whatever value I had been while there.

While with The Journal my salary had been raised a number of times. The raises had never been large, but they were fairly constant, as frequently as I deserved, and I probably was in line for another raise about the time I resigned. I was then getting $20 a week, which was not a high salary, but with the expense account, travelling most of the time, the salary was mostly clear. There was no room or board to pay out of it.

I must have had another conference with my Uncle Frank Armstrong while in Des Moines this trip, but do not remember his reaction to my latest detour from the main track. But even though it was another sidetrack, nevertheless it was to provide valuable experience and training for the later BIG JOB.

Building a Highway

Leaving Des Moines this time was destined to be leaving it as home forever. I had been born and reared there. But now I was almost twenty-three. Perhaps it was time to fly the home nest.

I arrived, I believe, one evening in South Bend and obtained a room at the YMCA which was to be my home for some three or four months. Next morning I reported to Mr. Spaulding at the Chamber of Commerce.

Actually there had been no need of an Assistant Secretary, so there was no salaried job awaiting me. But, as I had detected on my one interview with him, Mr. Spaulding was a resourceful man, and he did come up with something for me.

The automobile was just beginning to come into its own in America in 1915. Of course most families did not, as yet, own automobiles, but the number was increasing annually. And the cross-country highway idea was just beginning to make its first bit of headway. Of course all roads outside of towns and cities were unpaved. But a great deal of work had been done on the Coast-to-Coast Lincoln Highway (now U.S. 30), and this already had been built -- in the manner they were then built -- routed through South Bend.

This manner of building consisted of doing considerable additional grading, and surfacing of already existing roads. Few if any of the old horse and buggy square corners were straightened out. Surfacing consisted, at best, of a certain amount of graveling -- but few even dreamed, as yet, of paving or hard-surfacing highways between cities.

At this particular time the highway activity centered on getting through the new Dixie Highway, from Canada to the Gulf. As planned by its promoters, this north-south highway was to pass through South Bend. But the right-of-way, and cost of road improvements had to be approved by, and paid by, each township and county. The Federal Government had not, apparently, gotten into the highway business as yet. Nor were there any State highways.

Mr. Spaulding explained to me that they were running into a snag. Although there was a Dixie Highway Association, more or less privately promoted but endorsed, as nearly as I remember the set-up, by civic groups such as Chambers of Commerce, the right-of-way over existing roads or for any new roads, if necessary, had to be voted and approved by a majority of property owners of each township and county along its route. The big obstacle was the northern township of Marshall County, which was next south of St. Joseph County, of which South Bend was County Seat.

In order to hurdle this barrier, and to promote the construction of the new highway generally, Mr. Spaulding had conceived the idea of forming a local Motor Club. It was in no sense like the AAA, or associated automobile clubs of today. Its primary aim and purpose was good roads, and the promotion of this Dixie Highway.

One idea we had was to name or number every country road in St. Joseph County. I am not sure now whether this was Mr. Spaulding's idea or mine. It was very difficult for a farmer to direct anyone unfamiliar with the neighborhood to his farm. He would have to direct one to go about a mile and a quarter in a certain direction to a certain windmill; then turn left to a road where he would see a red barn; then right until he came to a certain cow in a pasture, then to the fourth house on the left -- or some such crazy and incomprehensible direction. Our idea was to name and number country roads like city streets, with road signs plainly designating the name or number of each road.

Mr. Spaulding's idea was for the Chamber of Commerce to sponsor the Motor Club, which I believe we named the St. Joseph County Motor Club, and memberships were to be sold to automobile owners for $2 each, with the more prominent citizens expected to purchase the multiple block of memberships.

How to Swing a Group

When I arrived, Mr. Spaulding had the germ of the idea, but it remained for me to put it over. First, we had to propose the idea to the Chamber's Board of Directors, and win their approval.

One of the first lessons learned in this new school of Chamber of Commerce activity was how to swing a group of hard headed businessmen to vote the way you want them to. Mr. Spaulding had the know-how. It was an interesting experience.

First, he selected three of the more prominent and influential Board members whom he felt sure of winning to the idea. He and I went to these men, and sold them on the Motor Club idea privately. He arranged for one of them to spring to his feet in the Board meeting as soon as Mr. Spaulding had presented the general idea, and enthusiastically endorse it, saying he was most definitely in favor of this idea. The other two men were to follow suit, rising promptly before any other Board members could rise to object, and heartily endorse the idea.

Then, at the Board meeting, after Mr. Spaulding had outlined his proposal for the Motor Club and these three members in rapid-fire succession had generated enthusiasm by their vigorous endorsements, Mr. Spaulding exclaimed that it seemed useless to ask for more discussion -- and brought it to an immediate vote before any member could object.

In this meeting were several multimillionaires. South Bend was home of a number of very prominent industries, including the Studebaker automobile factory, Oliver Chilled Plow Works, L. P. Hardy sales book manufacturers, and many others. It was a new experience to me to see the psychological effect of this strategy on these supposedly hardheaded businessmen. Like all humans, they had the sheep instinct. The impression had been created in the mind of every Board member that every other member, except possibly himself, was enthusiastically in favor of this proposition, and not wishing to be on the losing side, or a lone dissenter, each one voted YES -- it was unanimous!

So the Motor Club became a reality. My commission was to be 25%. I learned later -- too late -- that the proper rate of commission on a thing of that kind should have been 50%. But the whole idea was a new one to all of us. Actually, my work was very successful, but I was only half paid, and was unable to hold body and soul together as they say, on what I was making -- so after a few months I was forced, of necessity, to move on.

But there were some exciting experiences in putting through this Dixie Highway during those few months.

Chapter 7

How to Put Resourcefulness into Practice

As I mentioned, there were no national or state highways in those days, late spring of 1915. These pioneer cross-country highways were privately promoted with the cooperation of civic bodies. They were merely graded and gravelled. A paved highway between cities was as yet unheard of. I do not remember how the funds were provided, but probably by popular subscription from property owners along the right of way. I do remember we had to get all the farmers along the way signed up for it.

The South Bend Chamber of Commerce had endorsed this Dixie Highway project. But the promoters had run into a provoking snag. The farmers of the northern township of Marshall County, next south of St. Joseph County of which South Bend is County Seat, were refusing to sign up. They were stubborn. One little township might block the entire project from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

It was my job, among other things, to sign up these adamant farmers.

For some little time, however, probably the first three or four months at South Bend, my activities were bent on selling memberships in the new St. Joseph County Motor Club. This brought me into close personal contact with some of South Bend's prominent millionaires. I worked fairly closely with Mr. E. Louis Kuhns, a millionaire capitalist. I believe he was Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce.

Several times I went out to the Studebaker works to chat with the sole remaining member of the famous Studebaker Brothers. Mr. J. M. Studebaker was then 84 years of age, hale and hearty, still somewhat active, and arrived at his office precisely at eight every morning. He arrived always with a rose or a carnation in his lapel. Two or three times, on my visits to his office, he removed his carnation from his lapel and stuck it in mine. I remember Mr. Studebaker as a very kindly man, and I always counted it a rare privilege to have been able to spend a while in conversation with him. He and his brothers originally founded the Studebaker Brothers Wagon Works, long before the days of the automobile. But by 1915 they were one of the leading automobile makers.

Also I knew Mr. A. R. Erskine, at that time president of the Studebaker works. I believe Mr. Studebaker was Chairman of the Board.

Mr. L. P. Hardy, head of the L. P. Hardy Company, which I believe was the country's largest sales-book manufacturer, also was very active in Chamber work and I knew him well. The last time I passed through South Bend, driving a new car home from the factory, I looked in the telephone directory and failed to find the L. P. Hardy Company listed. They must have moved elsewhere or gone out of business.

Most of these prominent and wealthy men bought multiple blocks of Motor Club memberships, which sold for $2 each.

Frugality of the Wealthy

The one man reputed to be the wealthiest of all South Bend's multimillionaires at that time was Mr. J. D. Oliver, head of the Oliver Chilled Plow Works. He was reputed to be worth one hundred and ten million dollars.

Here, I thought, was a man who could easily afford to purchase even a few thous and memberships. I began to count my commission in advance. As explained previously, Mr. Spaulding had not been able to create a salary job for me, and I was promoting this Motor Club on a commission basis of 25%.

In order to psychologically build up to my one BIGGEST order of multiple memberships, I had planned first to contact all the other prominent men. I felt it would have a good effect on J. D. Oliver to be able to tell him how many memberships the others had taken. He, I figured, would want to outdo them.

I had a nice talk with Mr. Oliver. He listened to my entire explanation of the purposes of the Motor Club -- the need of better roads -- the benefit that would accrue to the community and every business in South Bend. He listened to the explanation of how generously the other prominent businessmen of South Bend had purchased multiple memberships. He seemed quite interested. My hopes for a BIG commission rose.

Mr. Armstrong, I think this Motor Club is a splendid activity. It will be a fine thing for the community. Yes, you may surely count me in. I want to join!

MAN! Now my hopes soared! That's certainly splendid, Mr. Oliver. How many memberships shall I put you down for?

Just one single membership. Two dollars! came the businesslike reply.

Did you ever have a bucket of ice water thrown in your face at the moment of greatest anticipation?

It was incredible! A man who had $110,000,000 -- and he took one little, tiny, measly membership -- just $2 -- just the poor widow's two mites! But that's what he said.

Maybe, I thought, as I left the Oliver Chilled Plow plant, that's why Mr. Oliver has a hundred and ten million dollars. He holds on to what he gets. I was a dis appointed young man. But I still had a job to do.

Learning to Drive

After selling Motor Club memberships to most of the important businessmen, I went after those running smaller businesses, and even citizens who were employed. I needed to get out into the country and neighboring suburbs.

I suppose the dealers who handled some of the leading automobile makes might have loaned me a car for this civic-betterment work, but they didn't. It remained for the dealer of the smallest, lowest priced of all to offer me the free use of a car.

No -- it wasn't a Model-T Ford. It was a smaller and lower-priced car -- a little baby Saxon. Not many of my readers today will remember the Saxon, and my memory of it is pretty dim, but I believe it was smaller than today's German Volkswagen. I had never before driven a car. This is where I first learned -- with a baby Saxon in South Bend, at age 23.

While I was there Ralph DePalma, then the world's most famous automobile racing driver, came to South Bend with his famous racing car. I don't remember much of the occasion, but I do remember DePalma -- he made quite an impression on me.

Also while I was in South Bend two then famous movie stars came through. They had soared to the top in a serial thriller, The Million Dollar Mystery. It created about the same national sensation in that day that the TV show The $64,000 Question did in 1955. These two actors told me that they had personally made very little money out of it. No one knew how it was going to catch fire with the public before it started, and they were employed on straight salary by contract. It made a big fortune for its owners, not its actors. Then, in an effort to cash in on their popularity, these two actors put all the money they had into promoting the sequel, titled The HUNDRED Million Dollar Mystery.

But, as they should have known, had they been better psychologists, the sequel was a total dud. They lost all they had. A million dollars seemed like an unheard-of amount of money, and those words in the title coupled with the magic word MYSTERY captured the fascination and interest of the American public back in the early silent days. But it was like a child with a new toy. Once the glamor and excitement of the toy wears off, it becomes old stuff. Give the child another toy just like it, only bigger, and he won't be interested.

The star of these serials was James Cruze. The other actor was Sid Bracey.

Cracking the Adamant

It must have been about mid-summer or a little later that the time came when the Dixie Highway project could not be delayed any longer.

The farmers to the south of us, in the north township of Marshall County, were adamant. The road was approved through Marshall County up to this township line, and again as soon as it entered St. Joseph County. This little three- or four-mile strip of road was the only link incomplete along the entire length of the highway from Mobile to Canada.

It was now my job to crack through that human stone wall. I had been quite intrigued in watching the strategy Mr. Spaulding had employed in selling the Motor Club idea, and a job for me, to the Board of Directors of the Chamber.

One morning we received a telegram at the Chamber of Commerce from the Director of the Dixie Highway project in Atlanta, Georgia. It stated tersely that he would be in South Bend in a few days, and unless we had the highway completed through this county south of us, the entire highway would be re-routed by way of Chicago, and South Bend would lose out altogether.

This was the ammunition I needed. This was the signal to spring to action, in high gear! I decided our only chance was to utilize the same principle of psychology Mr. Spaulding had used in putting the Motor Club through with the Chamber directors. But this was tougher. I decided it needed a big show -- a real whoop and hurrah! The only way to break through the obduracy of those farmers was through their emotions. I had learned, as an advertising principle, that you can move people to action easier and quicker through their emotions than through their reason.

I decided we had to appeal to both -- with terrific impact! Hurriedly I called Mr. Hardy and Mr. Kuhns. I told them I planned to stage a big rally that night at the little town of Lapaz, in the very center of this reluctant township. I asked them if they would come down and make an impassioned speech to the farmers in favor of the Dixie Highway. When they had agreed to this, I asked them if they would approve the expense, to be paid by the Chamber of Commerce, of a big brass band to help get out the crowd at Lapaz. Having agreed to speak, they couldn't well refuse to approve the expense of the band. Mr. Spaulding agreed to call other Board members and get the band approved.

Then I arranged for a big platform to be built during the afternoon at Lapaz. These arrangements made, I borrowed my little Saxon car and drove to Plymouth, county seat of Marshall County. There I arranged with the telephone company to put through a general ring on every rural party line in that township, and notify all the people that there was to be a BIG RALLY that night at Lapaz -- with a big brass band and noted speakers from South Bend.

Excitement of this kind was a very rare thing in such rural areas in those days. I knew this would get all the people out. In Plymouth I went first to the hotel, and wrote out the message I wanted the telephone operators to announce over all their telephone lines in that northern township. You may be sure I put all the advertising punch I knew in that message.

This accomplished, I went to the office of the county attorney. I explained my mission, and what the South Bend Chamber was trying to do, and its value to Plymouth and Marshall County. Then I asked him to draw up for me a legal petition for the completion of the road improvements through this northern township, with several sheets attached for signatures. He dictated the legal document and his secretary typed it while I waited.

Armed with this, I drove back to the vicinity of Lapaz. I had previously obtained the names of four leading farmers in this township, thought to be less hostile than most to the new highway.

Now my REAL task began. I had to sell these four men on the project in person, and I didn't dare fail on a one. I was armed also with the telegram from Atlanta received that morning. I had facts and figures on how the new highway would increase the value of their farms, bring more trade to the towns of the community, and in every way benefit the farmers.

The Big Show

With necessity as a prod, I succeeded. One by one these four key farmers were won over. I explained that they would have to appear ENTHUSIASTIC. All four finally agreed to act according to my plan.

Now the stage was all set -- and not a bit too soon -- it was by that time sundown.

The crowd began to arrive. The platform had been erected. The delegation from South Bend arrived, and took its place on the platform. I simply do not remember, now, whether I myself acted as Master of Ceremonies or who, but it seems that this was done by a leading businessman from South Bend.

The band struck up lively tunes, designed to whip up emotional fervor. We got the crowd to singing, laughing, dancing, shouting. It was a real show. Then the men selected as the best public speakers in the South Bend Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Kuhns, gave their stirring impassioned speeches, reading the telegram, telling the farmers it was their last chance -- tonight or never! -- and the advantages to them, their community, and probable increased value of their land that the new highway would bring.

Now, gentlemen, step right on up here and SIGN this petition right now! Who'll be the first? shouted all six feet four of E. Louis Kuhns.

This was the signal. I shoved my number one farmer forward. I want to sign that petition right now! shouted my first farmer.

I'm for it! I want to sign it! shouted out my number two farmer, crowding forward to the platform.

Me, too! barked my third man. This is just what this community has been needing!

Hey! Let me through! roared my number four farmer. We ALL want in on this! Come on, men -- let's ALL sign it!

And they all did. They all crowded forward and signed to put the highway through! Every farmer who had been bitterly opposed was carried away with the emotion of things, and was convinced that everybody else was for it, so he might as well go along, too!

I had negotiated one more experience in learning to apply the fifth law of success -- RESOURCEFULNESS -- in meeting problems and handling obstacles.

The adamant wall was cracked! The Dixie Highway was built -- today known as U.S. 31, now a major paved highway from Canada to the Gulf. And, to my readers who live along U.S. Highway 31, this is the story of how the last link of your highway was put through, and how it finally came into being! Arriving in Danville Broke The two to four months spent in Chamber of Commerce work in South Bend had been valuable experience as part of the groundwork for later accomplishments -- but far from profitable as immediate financial return.

Arriving in Danville Broke

The two to four months spent in Chamber of Commerce work in South Bend had been valuable experience as part of the groundwork for later accomplishments -- but far from profitable as immediate financial return.

It seemed that I was doing as well as could be expected. Many multiple memberships had been sold. But I was running behind financially. I was living in a small room with an alcove bed in the YMCA. I ate mostly either at the Y cafeteria or the coffee shop in the Oliver Hotel, inexpensively. Yet I was running into debt. And the cream -- the multiple memberships sold to leading businessmen and Chamber members -- had all been skimmed off, and it had become a matter of soliciting single memberships at $2 per person. My commission of 25% was not sufficient to keep me going.

Finally the decision had to be made to leave. I should have taken this problem up with Mr. Spaulding, or Mr. Kuhns, but I was too embarrassed to go to them about a personal financial problem. Actually I took the more embarrassing course, as I was to learn later. It is always best to face a problem and solve it. Running away from it is never the solution. I left debts behind in South Bend. Later, when they became very pressing and I was still unable to pay them, I wrote to Mr. Kuhns.

I had by then learned that the standard rate of commission on activities similar to mine in South Bend was 50%. Actually I had been only half paid. I wrote to Mr. Kuhns about this, to see whether the Chamber of Commerce could rectify the mistake and pay me the additional 25% which I actually had earned. He replied that, on investigation, he had confirmed my contention that the commission should have been 50%. But he maintained it was then too late. Had I come to him about it before leaving South Bend, he said, something might have been done to adjust the commission properly. Of course he was a millionaire, and without missing the change he could have paid these small debts and cleared the good name of a barely 23-year-old chap, who had, in this instance, been the victim of an unintentional injustice. But that did not seem to be the way millionaires get to be millionaires!

A year or more before I had come to South Bend, the Chamber had employed an assistant secretary, whose name, I believe, was Vaughn. He had visited South Bend while I was there, was about my age, and I had become acquainted with him. He was now secretary of the Chamber at Danville, Illinois.

Why I took the train from South Bend directly to Danville I do not remember. Apparently I had thought, or Mr. Spaulding had thought, that Vaughn might be able to turn up something for me to do in Danville. And I had to get something else to do immediately! I had barely enough money to get me to Danville.

Arriving in Danville one morning, stone-broke, not even a dime, I went first to call on Vaughn, but he had absolutely nothing for me -- not even any ideas.

I walked back down on the street. I had no money for lunch. I had no money for a place to sleep that night. I was too proud to beg. Actually, that thought didn't even occur to me -- I'm merely stating it now. My experience indicates that no honest man ever begs. I have given to many beggars on the street, and have put many of them to many different tests to see if I could find an honest one. Some had a line that sounded real sincere. But not one ever proved honest. I think the police will tell you there is no such thing as an honest beggar.

Perhaps some are like one I knew of in Vancouver, Washington -- though most are not as successful. This fellow could throw his body into a pitiful-appearing contortion, put a pleading, pity-arousing expression on his face, hold up his hat with some cheap pencils in it from his squatting position on a busy corner, and wring the hearts of passers-by. Then every evening he would get up, limp a few blocks to his Cadillac parked on a back side street, unkink his legs and spine, and gingerly hop into his car and drive home to his wife who wore an expensive mink coat!

King David knew human nature. He said, I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread (Ps. 37:25). No, honest people just never do beg!

Enforced Resourcefulness

Perhaps I should never have come to realize that RESOURCEFULNESS is one of the seven laws of success, or to have acquired any of that ingredient, had circumstances not forced it upon me!

If so, I'm grateful for the dilemma! Here I was, almost 2,000 miles away from my parents, with no place I could call home, just arrived in a strange city, BROKE!

I had to think! -- and think FAST!! One thing came to my mind in this emergency. The surveys of retail business conditions I had made in Richmond, Kentucky, and in Lansing, Michigan, had been sensational in what they had uncovered. They had been of very great value to the merchants of those cities. While I had been in Des Moines, after resigning from the Merchants Trade Journal, Mr. Boreman and I had talked about the idea that there ought to be some way of selling these surveys to merchants so that such investigations might be made everywhere.

But no way to sell the idea had occurred to us. Unfortunately men will not pay money to hire an investigator to find out what's wrong about them -- to discover and show them their faults and mistakes, and to criticize them.

The thought came that Danville was an ideal size city for such a survey. But how could I induce anyone to pay me a fee to unearth the mistakes the local retailers were making?

I've got it! The idea flashed to mind. I'll sell the idea to the local NEWSPAPER. Why, this kind of information I dig up in a survey is just the ammunition the advertising department of the newspaper needs to sell bigger advertising space to the merchants! It's just the information they need to show the merchants how to write their copy -- what individual merchants need to do inside their stores to make their advertising bring in better results! WHY didn't I ever think of this before?

With brisk and confident steps, I walked into the office of the business manager of Danville's daily newspaper. Enthusiastically I told him of the surveys I had made -- the national sensation they had created in The Journal -- the value to the merchants -- and how this information could be used to perhaps double the advertising revenue of his paper.

I'll buy it! exclaimed the business manager without a moment's hesitation. How much is it going to cost?

Caught Flat-footed

He snapped out his decision as if he was afraid I might change my mind about being willing to do the investigation if he delayed.

His answer came so suddenly it caught me flat-footed! The FEE? I hadn't thought of that! I was so bent on solving my dilemma and getting some money into my pocket before lunch time that I had not thought the idea quite that far through. I had no time to think.

Why, I blurted out, Fifty dollars, I guess. Again I had far underestimated the value of my services. As I found out later, I should have said $500, and he would have paid it just as readily! Actually I did later put on a number of surveys for $500 fees. These experiences will be covered in due time.

I had outlined to this newspaperman that I proposed to get at least 100 interviews with consumers, so selected as to be representative of the whole population, even out into the country and neighboring suburban towns; I was to obtain as much information as possible from local banks, the express company, post office, freight houses, etc., as to mail-order business and trading in Chicago stores. All my information was to be typewritten in detail, accurately tabulated and summarized, with separate PRIVATE reports and recommendations for each major local store. The newspaper was to arrange a dinner at which all local retailers were to be invited, and I was to give a talk, revealing what I had found.

So, on blurting out the $50 fee, I added: I'd like a $10 advance right now, the privilege of drawing another $10 during the survey, and the balance when I turn over to you the complete typed report and summary on the night of the dinner. This was to be either the third, or the fourth night.

Actually I had cheated myself out of $450! nevertheless, the predicament was solved. I walked out of his office with ten dollars in my pocket! I ate lunch! And I slept that night at the Y!

It certainly could have been worse! What I really did was to pay $450 to learn another lesson. Experience is a DEAR teacher! But, truly, the laborer is worthy of his hire! This experience helped me to learn that it is not wrong to charge a fair and just price for services or commodities, and that an employer should not underpay employees.

The business manager of that newspaper must have realized, at least after receiving my 40- or 50-page typed report and analysis, that the professional effort and know-how that went into that investigation was worth several times the little fee I had spontaneously blurted out. But, in the business world, business is business! He paid what he agreed. No more!

This world's way is based on selfishness, greed, competition -- GETTING all you can, giving as little as possible -- the profit principle. Our world-girding enterprises of today have been based on the giving, serving principle -- and this way of doing things has built a major-sized organization that has been eminently successful -- serving and benefitting millions worldwide.

A New Job

The merchandising survey was completed, typed, summarized, data tabulated and analyzed in some three or four high-pressure days.

The dinner given by the newspaper for the merchants of Danville was well attended. My report of the investigation, as had been the case at Richmond and Lansing, was something of a bombshell. It really shook up the merchants to learn existing facts about their own businesses and their own town of which they had been totally unaware.

Nevertheless, a young man barely twenty-three is still just a young man to others of senior maturity. I didn't realize it then, but even the brilliancy of this report did not conceal the obvious fact that I was a youngster, and probably in need of a job. I do think, however, that this investigation and the revelations it disclosed gave these businessmen the impression that I was a fairly live young man who would be a valuable employee, because four or five of them tried to employ me. And I was in no position to turn down a job.

I took the job that appeared, at the time, to be most promising. It was with the Benjamin Piano Company, selling pianos. I devoted a month or two in determined effort, and never sold a single piano!

This perfect goose-egg record reminds me of the punch line of old Lightnin' Bill Jones in a play that broke all records on Broadway some 38 or 40 years ago. Old Lightnin' Bill was a likable good-for-nothing old codger who knew all, and had done all.

Yep, he exclaimed at the climax of the show, I was in the bee business once. Drove a swarm of bees clear across the desert, and never lost a bee!

I managed to get pianos in many houses, on trial, and never sold a piano!

I learned something about the piano business. It was not conducted like other businesses. The method was to work through piano teachers. The piano teachers always had prospective customers -- homes where a child was at the age for learning to play the piano. The company had a number of piano teachers working for it in Danville, and over its entire trade territory. The teachers supplied us with the names of prospects they had already approached with the idea of lessons for their children. Then I would call and try to talk the parents into giving the child lessons -- which necessitated the purchase of a piano. I would induce them to let me put a new piano in the home on trial -- without any obligation to buy. Then I would notify the teacher, and she would accidentally happen to be passing by, and drop in for a friendly call -- discover the piano, play it, tell the people it had a wonderful tone, and a perfect action, and highly recommend that they buy it.

Unfair Competition

This seemed like a sure fire method of selling pianos.

There was just one thing wrong with this setup. Competition! I soon found that our competitors also had piano teachers working for them! I knew, of course, that our store paid a commission to their piano teachers if the sale was made. What I didn't know was that our competitors paid a commission to their teachers if they could knock the sale of a Benjamin piano, once it had been moved into a home on trial.

When I called back at a home a few days after placing a trial piano in it, I usually found the woman angry.

Why did you talk me into letting you bring that old tin pan into my home? she would demand. I want you to send your truck and get this out of here at once! Miss Anderson is a music teacher, and she happened to call on us, and she tried out this piano and told us it was no good!

I had been successful selling advertising space, but as a piano salesman I was a total flop. That kind of competition seemed to me so absolutely rotten, foul, and unfair I simply refused flatly to try to combat it. Getting a local music teacher to recommend a good piano, which I knew was worth recommending, and paying her a commission, seemed legitimate. But employing a teacher to go into homes and lie about competitors' pianos was a dishonest method I refused to engage in. Instead I permitted disgust and resentment to discourage me on the entire dirty business. Also I found there was no honesty in pricing pianos. They were usually far overpriced at the start, and the salesman was expected to keep cutting the price until he sold the instrument. This is not necessarily true of the best quality pianos. And I am talking about 1915 practices.

I never believed in price-cutting. A product or a service ought to be fairly and honestly priced in the first place, and then the price maintained.

I have learned that men fall into two classifications, so far as salesmanship is concerned. Some men are born to be salesmen -- others are not. Even the man with the hereditary aptitude for it must learn. But salesmen are of two kinds. One can sell a commodity, the other can sell an idea. I was of this latter type. As a piano salesman I was a square peg in a round hole.

Back Into Advertising

Of course I had been keeping in touch with my uncle, Frank Armstrong, by occasional letter. He realized I had become sidetracked again, and came to my rescue.

About the time it became evident to me, and also to Mr. Benjamin, that I was not headed for an overwhelming success as a piano salesman, I received a letter from Uncle Frank saying he had lined up a temporary job for me, putting on a special Bank Building number for The Northwestern Banker. This publication was a leading sectional bank journal, read by bankers in Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Nebraska.

Without delay I landed back in Des Moines. At that time a large number of banks, especially small country banks, had been erecting new bank buildings -- some were small bank buildings occupied solely by the bank -- some were multiple-story office buildings, with the bank occupying the ground floor.

The magazine had conceived the idea of a special number devoted to the subject of new buildings. I was to sell ads to as many as possible of those banks who had constructed new buildings, showing a picture of the new buildings in the ads.

Newspapers are always working up special issues, with the purpose of selling special one-time advertising space. I did not believe in these special issues -- and I detested them, after this experience, to the point that thereafter I always refused to take part in them.

Actually there was no benefit to be gained by the bank in buying a page or a half-page in this special bank building number, except to enjoy the vanity of seeing a picture of their new building in this trade journal, with the knowledge that most of the other bankers in these five states would see it also. But, that's the way business is done. One of the strongest advertising appeals is vanity. You'll see it constantly on TV commercials, and especially in all the women's magazines and the newspapers, utilized by cosmetics manufacturers, automobile and cigarette companies, and many other industries. Advertising men appeal to human weaknesses a great deal in order to sell goods.

I started with a trip through the southern half of Iowa. I was making very dis appointing headway. The truth is, my heart wasn't really in it, for I realized I was selling nothing more valuable than flattery.

Selling a Sales Manager

One incident occurred on this trip which might contain some interest. At Red Oak, in Southwestern Iowa, was a nationally prominent calendar factory. What idea I had in mind as to how they could profitably use advertising space in a sectional bank journal I do not remember. But I do remember that I called to see the sales manager. He refused to see me.

This only made me determined. Of all people, I felt a sales manager had no right to refuse to see a salesman.

I went to my hotel room, and wrote him a brief and very pointed letter. I reminded him that he sent salesmen all over the United States to call on customers and sell his company's product. Also I reminded him that if his salesmen met with the kind of treatment he accorded me, his factory would soon be covered over with rustimania instead of the beautiful green ivy vines that covered it then. I didn't mind being turned down if what I had to sell did not fit in with his program or prove profitable to use. But I did demand at least a hearing!

I rushed with the letter to the post office, registered it, and mailed it special delivery, to be delivered to and signed by addressee only. I knew the special delivery mail carrier would get in to him.

This strategy got me the interview. As I remember it, I did not sell him any advertising space. But I did have the satisfaction of gaining the interview. That cockiness and conceit that pervaded my personality in those days was full of persistent determination, and a difficult thing for another to turn down.

I guess the lesson that came to mind on Goat Island at Niagara Falls on December 25, 1913, had its effect. Obstacles were things to find a way around, or over, or through, or under. Resourcefulness, coupled with determined drive, remember, are two of the seven laws of success. Where there's a will there's a WAY! I hope some of this will rub off on my readers. Not the egotistic conceit -- but the determination, resourcefulness, and right principles of a true success.

Success Out of Failure

This swing through Southern Iowa was anything but a success.

Clifford DePuy (pronounced DePew), publisher of The Northwestern Banker, was discouraged. I think he was willing to call it quits and write off the expenses and advanced drawing account of my efforts so far as a loss. But again Uncle Frank came to the rescue.

I've always noticed, he said, that salesmen who fail in Southern Iowa usually succeed in the northern part of the state. I don't think you'd better give up yet. My advice, Cliff, is to send Herbert up into Northern and Northwestern Iowa, and see if the results are not different. Mr. DePuy agreed to one more trial.

In the northern half of the state I began to sell ads, and it soon became apparent that we would publish the special bank building number, after all.

Several of the new bank buildings I visited had been constructed by The Lytle Company, of Sioux City. I was especially impressed by the fact that officers of these Lytle-built banks were far more than ordinarily enthusiastic about this company and its methods. They worked on the cost-plus basis. Most bankers told me they considered this the most economical way to build, provided one is certain he is dealing with a fully competent and thoroughly honest contractor. This construction company was headed by Mr. J. A. Raven, and all bankers who had dealt with the company spoke highly of him. I jotted down their comments.

An idea was beginning to perk in my mind. Arriving in Sioux City, I waited outside the Lytle Company office building at noontime until I saw Mr. Raven go out to lunch. I was not ready to see him -- yet! Then I walked in, and from his secretary obtained all his catalogs, circulars, printed matter, and especially photographs or cuts of several of these bank buildings I had visited.

Next I proceeded to a stationery store and procured a large sheet of good quality drawing paper, somewhere near 14 x 26 inches in size. The next three days were spent in my hotel room.

Down in Des Moines, Cliff DePuy was getting grey-haired wondering what had happened to his new salesman. I had nothing to report, until I had completed my idea. I did put on the pressure, but it had to be just right, and it took time.

At the end of three days, I had produced a very forceful complete FOUR-PAGE advertisement, with attractive layout sketched and carefully designed on this large sheet of drawing paper, replete with cuts of several bank buildings. It contained statements from these bankers, which I had jotted down while in their banks, expressing their full satisfaction with Mr. Raven's system of building construction. It even contained the endorsement of The Northwestern Banker, which I felt safe in offering, based on such unanimous approval from so many banks. The ad, of course, invited banks and bankers to write for catalog and a consultation with Mr. Raven with a view to constructing a new bank home for them.

Selling a BIG Ad

At last I was ready to see Mr. Raven. When I walked in and showed him this big layout of a four-page insert, he almost fainted. It happened he was a regular advertiser in The Northwestern Banker -- he ran a tiny sixteenth-of-a-page card every month!

The audacity of trying to jump him from a sixteenth of a page to four full pages seemed incredibly preposterous! Of course, I knew it would. I was prepared for that.

Mr. Raven was a calm, steady, conservative type of man. Why! he exclaimed, we couldn't afford to run an ad anywhere near that big!

On the contrary, Mr. Raven, I rejoined, you can't afford not to run it. Now let me read this ad to you. I want you to HEAR it, before you decide. Here! You hold this layout, and see with your eyes where each bit of text matter will be printed, among these big headlines and pictures of banks you've built.

Of course, he wanted to hear it. But he was convinced he didn't want to buy it.

One thing I had learned at the Merchants Trade Journal was the effective method of selling advertising copy. There must be a well-designed and very attractive dummy, or layout, with the headlines sketched in, the pictures or illustrations showing, and boxes or horizontal lines showing where the smaller text matter will be printed. The idea was to let the prospective advertiser hold and look at this attractive dummy, while I held and read the typed text matter, putting into it all the emphasis where it belonged, and the proper tone of enthusiasm and drive.

This layout was very attractive -- Mr. Raven had to admit that! The ad certainly sounded convincing! He admitted that! Running in this special number, devoted to new bank buildings, it ought to have a terrific impact. He couldn't get around that!

Yes, he said, that's all true enough. But -- FOUR PAGES! Why, that's unheard of! We can't afford anything like that!

Yes, I agreed, remembering John R. Patterson's sales strategy, it is certainly UNHEARD OF! The bankers of these five states have never seen anything as audacious, as important looking, as a FOUR PAGE AD! And that's the very reason you can afford it, Mr. Raven! Now look! This entire four-page ad is going to cost only $160. The very smallest country bank jobs you get run around $8,000, and your bigger jobs into the hundreds of thousands. You construct on a 10% fee basis for yourself. Your profit on just one tiny little $8,000 country bank building is $800. If this big ad results in bringing you only one little $8,000 job, it will have paid you, won't it?

Well, yes, I suppose it would, he replied thoughtfully. I never thought of advertising in that way, I guess.

And, be honest, now, I pursued. How many new construction jobs do you think you really ought to get as a result of a dominating ad like that?

Why, I should think it ought to bring us several new jobs, he admitted. Mr. Armstrong, I guess you've shown me a new and more effective way to advertise. But I, myself could never have designed and written an ad like that. Yes, I think that ad will really pay! All right, we'll run it, and see what happens!

Paying for Vanity

Leaving the Lytle Company office, I literally ran back to the Hotel Martin, and from my room called Cliff DePuy in Des Moines.

Where have you been? What in the world's happened to you? he demanded on hearing my voice. Have you sold any space yet?

Have I! I exclaimed. I've spent the past three days writing up an entire FOUR PAGE insert for this special number, and I sold it to Mr. Raven of the Lytle Company!

WHAT! he gasped, unbelievingly. Say that again! I learned later that Cliff forgot momentarily that he was a grown man, all 6 feet 3 of him, and all 28 or 30 years of him, as his age was at that time, and that he jumped up and down for glee like a little boy, and then took off a half holiday and ran out to tell every banker in the city that we were running a whole FOUR PAGE ad in the next issue! Never had anything that big been heard of!

Before describing the result of that ad, I must recount, here, an incident that occurred at this same time while I was in Sioux City.

Mr. Raven told me he knew where I could sell a full page to a bank. He grinned as he explained. Up in Royal, Iowa, a little town of perhaps less than 500 population about 80 miles northeast of Sioux City, he had built two small bank buildings. On completion of the first one, the bank across the street called him in. The president said he had watched the Lytle Company's work, had checked up on them and was convinced of their reliability and honesty, and had decided to employ them to build a new building for his bank.

Now, can you tell me how much that little new building across the street cost? he asked.

Mr. Raven said it had cost $8,000. (Remember, this was 1915. The same building would cost immensely more today.)

Well, Mr. Raven, we want you to draw up plans right away to build a $16,000 bank for us.

It was going to take an entire day to go to Royal and back, on the slow branch line railroads in that country. But I decided a sure-fire page ad was worth it.

I arrived in Royal and went immediately to this larger bank. I had a full page ad designed, with a picture of the building, which I had obtained from Mr. Raven. Also I had a layout of another full page with a picture of the smaller bank across the street, which I managed carelessly to permit this banker to see.

Well, that ad looks nice, commented this bank president, but Mr. Armstrong there's no reason for us to advertise in the Northwestern Banker. We have nothing to sell to other banks.

This was only too true. Today my conscience would not let me sell such an ad. There was only one reason for him to buy it -- VANITY. And, perhaps, spite, or competitive spirit to prevent his competitor across the street from getting it. But I was prepared with the answer.

Well, I said, in that case, I suppose I'll have to see the bank across the street. You see, this is an EXCLUSIVE proposition. Just one ad is sold in each town. If you take it, the other bank can't run their ad. If they do, then you can't. And it really is too bad -- for now I suppose all your fellow bankers you know and meet at the group meetings and state conventions will see the picture of that little bank across the street, and they won't even know that you have a building twice as big and fine.

I emphasize, I would refuse to use such a sales appeal to vanity and jealousy today. It was almost pitiful, when he asked, like a whipped dog, How much did you say this page is going to cost? as he reached for a pen and signed the one time space contract without another word.

Yes, I learned that there is jealousy and a spirit of competition among dignified and conservative bankers, just as there is between other humans.

Result-Getting Ads

After this Sioux City episode, I worked my way, selling a few page and half-page ads to banks which had constructed new buildings along the way, on over to Charles City, Iowa. In Charles City was another company which ran regular but small ads in the Northwestern Banker, The Fisher Company, manufacturers of bank fixtures and interiors.

They worked to some extent with the Lytle Company, since they installed most of the interior of a bank, including the cages and counters.

Here, again, I took a couple days or so, first getting their catalog, with illustrations of many of their interiors of banks, and designed and wrote a double-page spread for them. By the same method used with Mr. Raven, this double spread was sold to Mr. Fisher.

Both this two-page ad, and the Lytle Company four-page ad produced unexpected results, and each sold a number of new jobs.

Before the next issue of the trade paper went to press, I called again at both Sioux City and Charles City, and each company signed up on a yearly basis, the Lytle Company for a full page or more each issue, and the Fisher Company for a half page or more each issue.

Actually, through the following seven years each company never used less than this minimum space, but many, many times the Lytle Company used double pages, and the Fisher Company full pages, and, I believe, a few more double page ads. These ads, which I continued to write for them over a span of the next seven years, proved very profitable to them, and expanded their businesses.

For a few months I continued to work around in Iowa, using the procedure of selling advertising space for ads I had already written before calling on prospective advertisers.

Developing a Business

By this process a temporary one-month special-issue job was converted into not only a steady job, but a developing and growing business of my own.

I had taken this special issue job on a commission basis, with a drawing account of, I believe, $40 per week, as an advance from the publication to cover expenses. This drawing account was deducted from commissions earned. The commission basis, common for all publications of this class, was 40%.

In other words, publishers of bank journals and similar publications had found that it actually cost them 40% of the sell space, regardless of the method used in paying -- whether salary and expense, commission, or what.

Clifford DePuy had, at that time, been the publisher of the Northwestern Banker only a comparatively short time -- possibly two or three years. His father had been editor and publisher before him. But when the elder DePuy had died suddenly, the entire responsibility came crushing down on Cliff's shoulders. His father had been most highly respected by the bankers of the Central Northwest, and very popular personally.

Clifford DePuy had been attending an art school or something of the kind. He had not established any great reputation as a success. But now he held a serious and a frank conference at the bank which held the publication's account.

Actually he and the elder DePuy's family were shocked to learn the magazine had been left heavily in debt. But on condition Cliff would make a real fight to save the publication, the bank offered to back him as long as his efforts remained promising for the future. He agreed to roll up both sleeves, plunge into the business, do everything in his power to preserve the publication. The bankers of the Northwest had a real love for this journal. They didn't want to see it suspend publication. Although Cliff was inexperienced in this field, they agreed to back him.

I recount this experience here because it is one that frequently occurs and it illustrates a principle. The sudden plunging of heavy responsibility on one often brings him to an awakening, provides heretofore lacking incentive, arouses dormant abilities. This new responsibility suddenly descending on Clifford DePuy stirred him to intensive and dynamic action, and brought out dormant qualities and abilities. In a few short years he had developed the publication into a very profitable enterprise with adequate reserves. Later he expanded, purchasing other publications. He became a successful publisher.

Cliff and I had a business relationship together for the next seven years. He was tall, about six feet three as I remember, aggressive -- a human dynamo. I respected his abilities, and I'm sure he respected mine. Later, in Chicago, he periodically came in, once or twice a year, and we would spend a couple or three days calling on prospective advertisers together. We flattered ourselves in those days that we were an unbeatable team. We both worked at a terrific pace, and we fancied prospective advertisers found us almost impossible to turn down. I think we did pack quite a persuasive wallop at that!

After a month or two of soliciting advertising accounts for the Northwestern Banker over the state of Iowa, it seemed advis able for me to go in to Chicago.

Chapter 8

Becoming a Publishers' Representative

IT WAS now the fall of 1915. By this time I had a considerable amount of valuable experience behind me.

I had reached the age when most students had graduated from college -- twenty-three. All this time I had continued my studies, delving into many subjects, including philosophy and psychology, but my major, of course, had been journalism, advertising, selling, and merchandising, along with business management. This study had been combined with intensive field experience in contacts and dealings with businessmen over most of the United States, discussing business methods and problems with them.

Practical vs. Theoretical Education

This education was far more practical than theoretical classroom instruction out of textbooks usually written by professors utterly lacking in practical experience. Nevertheless, I frequently wondered, in those days, how my education would stack up with that of most college graduates. Later I was to find out.

You will remember, as recounted in the earlier part of this autobiography, that at age eighteen I had faced, and answered, the question of going to college. I had chosen the advertising profession. There were no worthwhile courses available in advertising in the colleges and universities at that time.

On the advice of my uncle, Frank Armstrong, leading advertising man in Iowa, I had decided on a course of self-study combined with active experience. I had, except for deviations from my goal, chosen the jobs that would provide the training I needed for the future, rather than the jobs which paid the most.

Then I purchased books, and borrowed books from public libraries, beside subscribing to the trade journals in the advertising field, Printers Ink, and Advertising Selling. I read a great deal of Elbert Hubbard's writings, and continually studied and analyzed the best advertisements in newspapers and leading magazines. Also, I read a great deal in certain general magazines, such as the Quality Group of those days, especially World's Work. I confined my reading in magazines to informative and thought-provoking articles, resisting fiction almost altogether. Fiction is the lazy man's reading. Like the movies, and today's TV programs, it is merely a ready-made daydream, inducing habits of mind-drifting.

These years of self-assigned study enforced mental activity, contacts with successful men in many varied fields, coupled with the practical experience that had been mine, had produced an education and training superior to the average college education.

As president of a liberal arts college with three campuses on two continents today, I can say that this intensive education from the university of hard knocks and practical experience in application has made possible a college offering today's students a sound and practical education acquiring the true values! And supplying the MISSING DIMENSION in education.

Moving to Chicago

My work on the one issue special bank building number of the Northwestern Banker had been converted into a regular job as advertising solicitor, on a 40% commission basis, with a drawing account.

Right here I hope I may interject a success principle of which the vast majority seem totally unaware. Here was a temporary job, doing a special one month edition of a small class journal. But it offered larger opportunities. Those greater possibilities were visualized, and acted upon! The temporary job was turned into a steady job as advertising solicitor for one sectional bank journal. And it led from these to establishing a successful business as Publishers' Representative in Chicago.

This is the quality, rare among people (but why should it be?), called VISION. This job on one sectional journal later was developed into a business as publishers' representative for nine bank magazines. Most men are never able to see any possibilities of expanding their present jobs. They do merely what they are told -- what someone higher up thought out and laid before them. Or they use deceit to jerk the rug out from under the man above them.

The Bible says that if we do only what we are commanded -- what is expected of us -- we are unprofitable servants to be cast out into outer darkness.

Most people go to one extreme or the other. While the big majority never think beyond their present jobs -- never think out ways to do the job better, or to develop or expand their own job into something bigger, or to be preparing themselves for the better jobs ahead and promotions to them, a minority go to the opposite extreme. They are always trying to do the job ahead -- or the boss's job -- without adequate ability, preparation or experience, and only throw monkey wrenches into the gears, causing damage, lacking wisdom and judgment.

Most men never seem to realize how the application of some of these principles makes all the difference between employee and employer; between mediocrity or failure and success.

Back to the story. I had now developed the opportunity into a job. But the field in Iowa was too limited. The nation's advertising headquarters centered in two cities -- New York and Chicago. After a month or two of developing a few accounts in Iowa, chief of which had been the Lytle Company and the Fisher Company, I moved into Chicago.

I made my home at the old Hotel Del Prado, a southside residential hotel on the Midway, adjacent to the University of Chicago. The one personal friend I had in Chicago at the time was Ralph G. Johnson, manager of the Merchant's Trade Journal's Chicago office, and I moved into the Del Prado because he lived there.

The old Del Prado has long since been torn down, and a new skyscraper Del Prado erected over on the lake shore. The old one was a sprawling three or four-story frame building, well maintained as a first class residential hotel. Most cities have residential hotels, and I learned that they are a most satisfactory type of residence for single people, whether young or old.

Very soon I came to know most of the residents of the Del Prado. The hotel provided a weekly Wednesday night dance for all guests. The dining room was cleared to provide the dance floor. There were spacious lobbies and lounge rooms. There was a sort of unwritten law among guests which dictated that if one desired social contact, he would find almost any of the other guests receptive and friendly; or, if he preferred privacy, or to sit alone in the lobby, no one would intrude.

I lived at the Del Prado almost two years -- until a certain Iowa girl came to Chicago to become my wife. This privilege of living in a large metropolitan residential hotel was one of the cultural and valued experiences of all those formative years. It supplied one of those social-cultural influences which many college students receive by residence in a fraternity house -- but without some of the evils of frat life.

I soon observed that the most popular girl at the Wednesday night dances -- or chatting in the lobbies at any other time -- was Miss Lucy Cunningham. Miss Lucy, as everybody called her, was a white-haired maiden lady in her seventies. She was especially popular with all the single young men. A few University of Chicago co-eds lived at the Del Prado with their mothers. But often these attractive and intelligent young co-eds were forced to play the role of wallflowers during a dance, while Miss Lucy was always in demand!

She was a charming conversationalist, witty, intelligent, well educated. We fellows spent many an exhilarating evening hour chatting with her in one of the lobby rooms -- usually three or four young men around Miss Lucy. That was long before cigarette smoking became habitual with the female sex. In those days it was not generally accepted as being nice for a lady to smoke. Prostitutes smoked, but not nice women. Miss Lucy, however, was a nice woman who was a little ahead of her time. She was nice all right, but she dared to do what she wanted. Miss Lucy smoked cigarettes! Whenever another guest walked past the grouping of sofas and lounge chairs where we were sitting with her, she would casually hand her cigarette over to one of the fellows, who would hold it until the way was clear again. Probably not many, except a number of the young men residents, ever knew her addiction to smoking.

I didn't like to see her smoke. It has always seemed disgusting to me to see any woman smoke. But, remember, I was young then, and fancied I was quite broad-minded about such things. I was not naive. No one is wholly good or bad, and I liked Miss Lucy for the things that were good about her.

Besides, I myself smoked in those days. You'll remember how I swore off chewing tobacco at age 5. But I had taken up pipe smoking during those long and frantic night hours at Wiggins, Mississippi, as an aid to staying awake while I worked over the books. I had smoked, moderately, ever since. However, I will say that I was never a heavy smoker. Never more than one cigar a day, or three or four cigarettes in a day. That's the reason I did not have the battle many men have had in breaking the habit, when I saw that it had to be broken. My battles with myself were in other directions.

An Office of My Own

The first time in my life I had an office of my own was in Chicago. On arriving there from Iowa, now representing the Northwestern Banker, I opened an office in the Advertising Building, at 123 West Madison Street, in the heart of Chicago's Loop. This location was only a half block off South LaSalle Street, which is the Wall Street of Chicago. Most of the great banks and investment houses (of Chicago) are located on this street.

The Advertising Building was occupied solely by advertising agencies, publishing firms, publishers' representatives, or those of allied lines in the advertising field. The Ad Club, a division of the Chicago Association of Commerce, had its club rooms there.

The name of this tall but slender skyscraper has been changed at least twice since then. Not many would remember it as the Advertising Building today.

Actually, I did not quite open an office, as yet. The fourth floor of this building consisted of one large general room, with a tier of private offices forming an L around the far side and the rear of the floor. This large general room was filled with a number of desks. At first, I rented merely desk space in this open room. It was about two years before my business expanded to the point where I required, and was able to afford, a private office; and then I rented one on that same floor. Altogether I maintained office facilities on that same floor for seven years.

At the entrance of this desk-space room was a telephone switchboard and a receptionist. She served all tenants on that floor, taking telephone messages when tenants were out. Through this entire seven years of my tenancy there, the same alert, quick-thinking receptionist remained at that switchboard. Her name was Olive Graham. She had an astonishingly remarkable faculty. She could remember every telephone number that had been given to her for days, and precisely when the call had come in.

On one occasion, a man attempted to alibi his failure to call me by claiming that he had called, and left his telephone number for me to call. I took his telephone and called our switchboard -- Randolph 2-100.

Olive, I said, Mr. Blank says he called me three days ago, when I was out, and left his number, Blank 8-693, for me to call.

No, Mr. Armstrong, replied Olive promptly. No Mr. Blank called three days ago, and no one left the number Blank 8-693.

That was positive proof. Olive was never mistaken. Mr. Blank was forced to admit he had not made the call. How that girl could carry hundreds of telephone numbers in her mind I could never understand. I never knew her to miss.

Advertising Tractors to Bankers

Some little time after setting up my own headquarters in Chicago, I had what might appear to be a most absurd brainstorm. Those on our present staff and our architects well know that these brainstorms have a way of continuing, even today.

They may seem ridiculous or absurd at first thought. But more often than not they have proven to be very practical and worthwhile ideas. You see, while I was touring the country as the Idea Man for the Merchants Trade Journal, my job was to look for IDEAS -- practical ideas -- ideas that had been put to work, and had proven successful. That experience taught me the value of IDEAS.

In the aptitude tests given prospective employees by one large corporation, one of the questions was: Do you ever daydream? 99 out of 100 applicants, if they were putting down the answers they supposed the company wanted, rather than the actual truth, would most surely have answered No! Actually, the company was looking for men who do daydream in a certain manner. Not the kind of daydreaming that lets the mind stagnate and drift without thinking -- but the kind of thinking daydreaming that utilizes imagination -- that thinks up IDEAS, and then mentally puts them to every test to see whether they will work!

To climb the ladder of ultimate success in accomplishment, one must exercise VISION, and, supplementary to it, IMAGINATION -- the kind of active, practical THINKING that produces sound and workable IDEAS! The college in which I was trained taught me these things. The average college education, however, fails to inculcate anything of this nature.

This brainstorm -- or IDEA -- was the selling of large advertising space in the BANK journals to farm tractor manufacturers. Certainly no one had ever heard of such an apparently preposterous idea before. But it worked, and it paid the farm tractor industry in a big way -- and, incidentally, it put me above the $50,000- a-year income class (in terms of today's dollar) while still a youth in my twenties.

However, that idea required time to develop. At first, my work in Chicago confined me primarily to the solicitation of advertising from banks and investment houses which had not previously used space in the Northwestern Banker. Although I was required to call on, and render any desired service to the financial institutions which were already advertising in the Northwestern Banker, I received no commission from any of this, but only on such new accounts as I developed myself.

This journal was already carrying the advertising of many of Chicago's large banks and bond houses. But there were still others.

What a Correspondent Bank Is

One might wonder why the larger Chicago banks should carry advertising in journals read only by other bankers. The answer is that these larger banks in Chicago and New York do have something to sell to other banks.

They are, in a sense, bankers' banks. Virtually every bank in Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska kept a goodly sum of money on deposit in at least one Chicago bank. This was a system used by banks to facilitate the clearing of checks.

Have you ever wondered how checks you send to people in other states are cleared?

Suppose, for example, you live in Ft. Dodge, Iowa. You owe a bill to a concern in Muncie, Indiana. You mail the Muncie firm a check on your local Ft. Dodge bank. The Muncie firm deposits the check in its local bank in Muncie. The Muncie bank either pays the Muncie firm the amount, thus cashing your check, or it credits the amount to the firm's account in the bank.

But, now, how is that bank in Muncie, Indiana, going to get the amount of the check from YOU? When you wrote out your check, drawn on your Ft. Dodge bank, you represented that YOU had that amount of money on deposit in the bank in Ft. Dodge. The check is merely an order for your bank in Ft. Dodge to pay to the firm in Muncie, Indiana, the amount of your money written on the check. Now when a bank over in Muncie, Indiana, PAYS this amount of money to this Muncie firm, the Muncie bank must have a way to collect YOUR money from your bank in Ft. Dodge. How?

Banking procedures have undergone some change, and today the Federal Reserve system is used by member banks to a great extent in the clearing of checks, and the correspondent system to a lesser degree.

But in those days it was done primarily through this correspondent system. Most banks scattered over such states as Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin have a Chicago Correspondent. That is, they keep a sum of money on deposit in a Chicago bank, for the very purpose of clearing checks. So the Muncie bank has a Chicago Correspondent. Also the Ft. Dodge bank has a Chicago Correspondent, although it may be a different Chicago bank.

Here is how the system works. The Muncie bank sends your check to its Chicago Correspondent bank. On receipt of your check, this Chicago bank credits the amount of your check to the account of the Muncie bank. Now the Muncie bank has been reimbursed for cashing your check. If your check was for the amount of $100, it has $100 added to the amount it has on deposit in the Chicago bank. Now this Chicago bank must be reimbursed. Through the Chicago Clearing House system, it sends your check to the Chicago bank which is the correspondent of your Ft. Dodge bank, which has an adequate amount of money on deposit with its Chicago Correspondent bank. This bank in Chicago thereupon debits the account of your Ft. Dodge bank $100. In plainer words, it takes the $100 out of the money on deposit by your Ft. Dodge bank, which is paid through the Chicago Clearing House system to the other Chicago bank which is the Correspondent of the Muncie bank. And finally, the Chicago Correspondent of the Ft. Dodge bank sends your check back to your bank in Ft. Dodge, notifying your bank that it has taken this $100 out of the money they had on deposit. Your bank stamps your check paid, taking your $100 which it had on deposit, thus reimbursing itself for the $100 which its Chicago Correspondent took out of its money on deposit there. And at the end of the month you receive a statement from your bank showing they have deducted this $100 from your balance on deposit, and enclosing the canceled check.

This is all not so complicated as it probably sounds. I have taken space to explain it so simply that a little child can understand it. But I thought it might be interesting to my readers, most of whom probably never had any understanding of how checks are cleared from one part of the country to another.

Attending Bankers' Conventions

My work now brought me into contact with many of the nation's leading bankers. Solicitation among Chicago's larger banks and security firms made it necessary to cultivate personal acquaintance with those officers directly connected with the correspondent accounts. This often included one of the vice presidents, and in some instances the presidents.

Certain phases of the banking business are not generally known by the public. One of these is the personal acquaintances and contacts maintained among men of the banking fraternity.

Each state has its state Bankers' Association, with its annual Bankers' Convention. These state conventions are well attended by presidents, vice presidents, cashiers, and even some assistant cashiers, especially those whose jobs are connected with the correspondent business. Each state is divided into groups, and each group holds its annual group meeting.

Then on the national level, there is the national A.B.A. (American Bankers' Association) convention each year, well attended by presidents and top-ranking vice presidents of the nation's largest banks.

At these annual conclaves, bankers, so dignified and formal at home and before customers in their own banks, really let down their hair, as the saying goes. They familiarly call each other by their first names.

To a large extent, this correspondent business between banks is conducted on a personal acquaintance basis. Although there were two outstanding national magazines in the banking field, these localized sectional bank journals maintained a personal contact and hold on their banker subscribers that was not possible for a national magazine.

There were seven principal sectional or regional journals, all published by men of outstanding personality. These publishers attended most of the group meetings, and all of the state and national conventions. They mixed personally with the bankers of their districts -- who were the readers of their publications. The most eagerly read pages of these monthly journals were the personal gossip pages. All these sectional journals published a great deal of personal news about individual bankers in their districts. The bankers of each section, who knew most of the other bankers personally, were naturally eager to read any personal news items about bankers they knew -- and about themselves!

Since I was now the advertising representative of perhaps the leading one of these sectional bank journals, I began to attend several of the state bankers' conventions, and most of the A.B.A. (American Bankers' Association) conventions.

In this manner I began to form personal acquaintance with hundreds of prominent bankers -- another important factor in my education which had some influence in preparing me for the real job ahead.

In Chicago were many manufacturers of products sold to banks. Of course I solicited advertising from these.

The Tractor Brainstorm

I do not remember just how this IDEA came to mind about selling large-space advertising to the manufacturers of farm tractors. But in some manner, through personal contacts with scores of small-city and country bankers, I had come to realize that tractors, in those days, were sold for cash -- there were no easy-payment plans, or financing terms offered. The farmers were forced to borrow the money from their bankers in order to purchase tractors. My conversations with bankers had indicated that bankers were not, as yet, sold on the idea of the farm tractor.

So, in order to get all the FACTS, I made an extensive survey. That experience in conducting the surveys at Richmond, Kentucky, and Lansing, Michigan, had shown the value of fact-finding by survey, obtaining information from a representative portion, based on the law of average.

This farm tractor survey was made primarily by mail through questionnaires. These questionnaires were sent to a thous and or more bankers, and a representative number of farmers, and a third questionnaire to scattered local dealers who sold tractors. Simultaneously, I went out on a personal tour of several states, personally interviewing bankers, tractor dealers, and farmers.

This survey unearthed some startling facts, which tractor manufacturers had never realized about their business.

The officers of the average bank in the Northwestern Banker territory owned eight farms. Many had come into this farm ownership through foreclosure of mortgages. Of course they did not farm, themselves. These bankers either employed managers to operate them, or rented them out. Multiplying our circulation by eight, I learned that I had a farm-owner circulation to sell at a lower cost per page per thous and circulation than the farm papers.

But the principal reason farm tractor manufacturers needed to buy advertising space in a banking journal was to win the favor of bankers so that they would readily loan money to their farmer customers for the purchase of tractors. The bankers were proving a very serious sales-resistance factor. Whenever a farmer would come into a bank to borrow money for the purchase of a tractor, the banker, calling him by his first name, would ask:

What do you want the money for, John? And when he learned John was about to buy a tractor, he discouraged John. At first, when I presented these facts to tractor manufacturers, they scoffed.

Why, Mr. Armstrong, they would object, if the bank they do business with refuses the loan, the farmers simply go across the street to another bank and borrow it there.

Apparently, I replied, you do not realize the personal relationship between country bankers and their farmer customers. The country banker is a sort of 'father confessor' to his farmer customers. They come to him with their problems -- ask his advice. Do you suppose these bankers are so stupid that they would turn down a loan in such a manner that their farmer customer would be offended, and go to a competitive bank? I have interviewed scores of bankers on this point. The banker who feels his farmer customer ought not to spend the money for a tractor doesn't refuse the loan -- he merely talks the farmer out of wanting it. He will talk to farmer John something like this:

'Well, John, my advice would be to go a little slow before you go into debt to buy that tractor. As you know, John, I own eight farms myself. And I'm not at all sold on the practicality of tractor farming. In my opinion, the tractor hasn't arrived yet. It's still in the experimental stage. Now I know, John, that tractor salesman has probably put up a pretty slick argument. Of course he's interested in getting a big fat commission for himself. But I'm interested in your welfare, John. Now, of course, if you decide to let that salesman talk you into it, we'll loan you the money, but my advice is, don't do it! You raise your own feed for your horses. But you'll have to BUY gasoline to feed the tractor. I don't think it would pay.'

In soliciting the advertising of tractor manufacturers, I soon found that their advertising managers could not buy it, because they were given a definite appropriation for definite fields -- the farm journals, and the farm dealer trade papers. They had no appropriation for bank magazines, and they lacked authority to change company policies.

It became necessary for me to go direct to the presidents of factories in the tractor industry.

This, again, was an experience that afforded personal contacts with several multimillionaires. Among them was the president of J. I. Case, Mr. Wallis; Mr. Brantingham of the Emerson-Brantingham Company; George N. Peak, president of Moline Plow Works, who later became prominent in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.R.A.; Gen. Johnson, vice president of John Deere Company, also later head of one of President Roosevelt's N.R.A. activities.

Representing Nine Magazines

My one biggest obstacle in this farm tractor field -- and also in soliciting manufacturers of items sold to banks -- was the limitation of our circulation to one five-state region. These big advertisers in the Chicago district advertised on a national basis.

Also, because of this, I encountered stiff opposition from the advertising agencies. Advertising agencies serve the advertiser, who is their client, but they are not paid by their clients. They are paid by the publishers, on the basis of a 15% agency commission on all billings.

The Agency position was this: It took just as much time, and effort, for them to prepare a page ad for our little sectional bank journal with some 2,000 circulation and an advertising rate of $40 per page, as for a page ad in the Saturday Evening Post with a page rate, in those days, of $5,000 (much higher, in later years!). The Agency would make only $6 for its work on a page for us, compared to $750 for the same amount of effort for a page in the Post.

I began to realize that I could sell big-space advertising much easier for a large national circulation than for one small sectional journal.

This brought about another brainstorm. Although there were two leading national magazines in the banking field, they did not provide a sufficiently complete national coverage. The seven leading sectional journals completely dominated their respective fields. The only possible complete national circulation in the banking field could come only by using these nine -- the seven leading sectional journals, and the two national magazines.

But there was still a major difficulty. These various bank magazines had various page sizes. Agencies usually send ads out in plate form -- already set to type. The necessity of making plates of so many sizes would discourage agencies.

So, about a year or a year and a half after moving to Chicago, I had worked out a proposition to set myself up as an independent publishers' representative in the bank field.

These publications, by whatever methods, had found it cost them 40% to get business. I proposed to represent all nine magazines, and myself to finance all solicitation, and send them advertising at a reduction to them of 25% in cost of obtaining business. In other words, I was to have exclusive representation, on a 30% commission basis, but the magazines were to pay me the entire year's commission in advance on all 12-time yearly contracts, upon receipt of signed contract from the advertiser. They were all to adopt a standard magazine page size.

But there arose one overpowering obstacle in my path. Clifford DePuy, about this time, had acquired a second of these seven leading sectional bank journals -- the old St. Louis Banker, the name of which he changed to the Midcontinent Banker. He objected in loudest tones to my representation of any other publications. I had been his exclusive Chicago representative, and he was determined to keep it that way.

I, on the other hand, had become determined to expand my field. I maintained that I could send Cliff a great deal more business as the representative of a complete national circulation. He didn't think so. We really clashed on this issue.

But, before this issue was finally settled, I had met a certain very attractive young lady out in Iowa.

I think the time has come to relate a different phase of these life experiences -- my dating girls, and the romantic side of life from the beginning up to the time of marriage.

Chapter 9

How I Met My Wife

IN the chronicle of experiences that provided the training for the activities of later years, none exceeded in import the dating experiences that culminated in marriage -- at least none exceeded the marriage experience.

If it be true, as it definitely appears now in retrospect, that the Eternal God knew He would call me to the important activity now in progress with progressively increasing power of impact, and that this early training of formative years had some measure of unseen and unrealized divine guidance, then it is true, also, that the selection of my wife and life partner was providential.

It was through her, years later, that circumstances impelled my conversion and induction into the Great Commission. This commission, from its beginning had been a team activity commission in which Mrs. Armstrong shared equally -- even though it may not have been evident to many.

No phase of any man's life is more important, or has greater bearing on his future success or failure, than the romantic experiences and their culmination in marriage. The same is true, conversely, in the lives of girls who have reached the dating age.

Few young people, today, realize the seriousness of this phase of life. Proper dating has become virtually a lost art in America. Young people today, it seems, do not know how to date. Most have little or no conception of the nature of true love, or the meaning and responsibility of marriage. They are men and women physically, but they are still children emotionally.

Let me repeat, here, that I was born of solid old Quaker stock. I was brought up from childhood to believe that marriage was for LIFE, and divorce was a thing unheard of in our family. Marriage was regarded seriously, and as something not to be considered by a young man until he had acquired his education and preparatory experience, and was established financially and in position to support a wife and family.

Consequently, in my dating of girls prior to age 24, there was no thought of marriage, except indirectly.

My Dating System

And, by indirectly, I mean this: I had a system. I was conceited enough to think it a pretty good system. I was aware that I did not really know what love is. But I had the conception that it was a mysterious thing that might hit a young man when he wasn't looking. He might suddenly fall for a girl. Once this happened, so I surmised, the poor victim lost his mental equilibrium. He was hooked and unable to help himself, or if the girl be the wrong one, to recognize that fact.

I was, in other words, afraid I might be caught off guard and helplessly plunged into a binding lifelong marriage with the wrong girl. I had heard that love was blind. If I should fall in love with the wrong girl, I would probably be totally blinded to the fact she was the wrong one. My life would be ruined! That is, so I then supposed.

My system was born out of fear of this possibility. I didn't want to get serious, or think of marriage, before I was advanced enough to support a family. But, if this love bug should stab a hypo love potion into me prematurely, I wanted to have insurance against being bound to the wrong one.

Therefore my system was this: I would generally avoid even dating a girl unless she appeared, so far as I could then see, to be at least eligible if I lost my head and fell for her. Next, on my first date, one thing was always uppermost in my mind -- to coldly analyze that girl from the point of view of what kind of a wife and mother she would make, if I lost my head over her. If she definitely didn't measure up, I firmly avoided any second date with her. If I were not quite sure one way or the other, I would allow myself a second date -- if she appeared sufficiently interesting. If a girl passed my analytical test, then immediately I put all thought of marriage out of mind, but she remained on the list of girls who were eligible for dates -- IF I desired them.

As a result of this system I did date girls I felt were well above the average. I enjoyed a scintillating conversation. If a girl was unable to carry on her part of such an intellectual conversation, or was lacking in any mental depth and brilliancy, she didn't interest me enough for another date.

My First Date

I suppose most little boys, around age 4 or 5, pick out some girl they call their girl friend. This is, of course, quite cute and amusing to parents and other adults. I mentioned, earlier, a little girl who took part in some church play with me, at age 5.

Then, around nine or ten years of age, a Sunday school chum and I picked out a girl whom we mutually called our girl -- only she never knew it. We were too young and too shy to tell her.

I kissed a girl for the first time when I was twelve. Some of us kids in the neighborhood were playing post office. I think I secretly considered that girl to be my girl friend, though I'm sure she didn't know it. I do remember her name.

I also remember the name of this Sunday school girl I secretly shared with the other boy. But I will refrain from mentioning it, for the other boy finally did start going with her when he became old enough, and wound up marrying her -- and I have heard that she moved to Pasadena.

But my first real date came when I was a freshman in high school. It was with a neighbor girl who also was a freshman at North High, in Des Moines. The occasion was some high school event that took place in the evening. I remember I was very self-conscious being on a street car alone with a girl.

WHY is it that so many teen-age boys are bashful in the presence of girls their age, while girls seem never to be the least bit embarrassed?

I did continue to go with this girl, off and on, for some seven or eight years, but never was it going steady as so many young people do today, and it was never serious. Never once did I kiss her.

Once, when I was probably twenty-two or twenty-three, on a date with her in Des Moines, I did start to slip an arm around her. Promptly she took my arm and placed it back where it belonged. But not because she was a prude.

I wish you wouldn't, Herbert, she said simply. At least unless you are serious. You're the only fellow I've ever gone with that hasn't necked with me. I'd like to keep this one slate clean. It has really meant something to me.

I wasn't serious, so my arm stayed home the rest of the evening.

Necking Experiences

When I first dated this girl, at about age fifteen, and for some years after that, I never necked with any girl. Only we didn't call it necking then -- it was loving up, and back in my mother's day it was spooning. I don't know what they called it in Abraham Lincoln's day, or back in the days of Adam and Eve. But it's been going on all these millenniums and centuries, no matter what any passing generation may call it. It speaks its own universal language. But, in this autobiography, I shall use the terminology of the present day, for reasons of clarity.

So far as I know, during the earlier years of my dating experience this thing of necking was not practiced in the promiscuous way it is today.

I dated a number of girls I regarded as unusual, and considerably above the average. One was the daughter of the president of an insurance company. She was my mother's original preference, and I think that at the time Mother would have been pleased had I married her. But neither of us held the slightest romantic interest for the other. She was an artist and sculptress. I admired and respected her, however, and, enjoyed an occasional date with her. Then there was another girl, a neighbor in Des Moines, who excelled as an artist. In fact, this girl excelled in just about everything she did. I dated her frequently in Chicago, as I passed through on those Idea Man trips, while she was a student at the Chicago Art Institute. Actually, both of these girls were studying at the Art Institute. There was another girl in Rock Island, Illinois, with whom I became acquainted through the above-mentioned two girls, a member of one of the oldest and most prominent Rock Island families.

But, along about age 21, it seemed that the necking pattern was being ushered in. In those years I wanted to be modern and to keep up with the times. I began to think that perhaps I was being considered a little behind the times, and decided that perhaps I ought to start necking a little -- at least after a second or third date. I don't think many indulged in it on the first date, in those days.

At that time I was dating a girl in Des Moines who was a special buddy of a girl who was going steady with a chum of mine. The four of us double-dated frequently. So I began the popular pastime of necking. Only it was then called loving-up. The girl didn't object. Her father was dead. Her stepfather was an automobile dealer, and frequently, on our dates, we were taken riding in their car with her stepfather and her mother. We necked openly in the back seat. Her parents seemed to think nothing of it.

Then one night on their semi-secluded front porch, she became especially serious. She began to tell me how much money her father had left her, and she felt we ought to begin to plan what to do with it.

This came like an electric shock. I realized she was seriously taking marriage for granted. Such a thought had never entered my mind. I told her so. This stabbed her right in her heart. But if you're not serious, and thinking of marriage, what on earth have you been 'loving-up' with me for? she asked.

I explained that she was the first girl I had ever necked with -- that I had come to believe I was being considered old-fashioned by the girls -- that it had seemed to me that it was being done generally, and that girls expected it. I did it because I supposed it was the thing I was supposed to do.

At this she burst into tears and ran into the house. This sudden turn of affairs shocked and hurt me deeply. I knew I had hurt her, and that made me feel like a cad. Next day I called on the telephone to apologize. Her mother answered.

My daughter has told me all about it, accused the mother with icy scorn. She never wants to see you again! She hung up the receiver.

So my first experience in necking came to an unhappy and semi-tragic end. I hope this girl later became really in love with the right man for her, and found a happy marriage. She was a fine girl and deserved it. But I have never heard from or about her since.

Truth About Necking

I have wished very much that I could have known, in those days, what I am able today to teach the class in Principles of Living at Ambassador College. For had I realized the TRUTH about this practice called necking, that very fine girl would have been spared the humiliation of confessing love for one who was not in love with her.

But I didn't know such truths in those days. My standards were those of the other young people my age in the world -- that is, the standards of those young people who had ideals and good intentions -- but based on the way that seemed right to us humans.

It was totally against my code of morals to insult a girl -- which, according to those human standards meant carrying necking beyond the point of decency. That I never did in my life. I felt I knew where to draw the line. And I was always careful to observe that human-reasoned line.

But all young people are not that careful. What I did not then know is that even any necking at all -- harmless as it is supposed to be -- is the very first phase of the four phases of sexual intercourse! In very plain and frank language, necking belongs IN MARRIAGE as a definite PART of the marriage relationship. Humans usually reverse what is right. They indulge in this preliminary act of sexual arousal prior to marriage as a part of dating -- and then dispense with it after marriage, thus often ruining and breaking up marriages!

I didn't realize, then, how many countless acts of fornication, and premarital pregnancies, are caused by this supposed harmless and popular custom of necking. The new morality has replaced the strong convictions some of us had about where to draw the line.

I Meet Two Pretty Girls

Up until 1917 I had never thought really seriously of any girl. I liked the company of girls. In my vanity I fancied that I had been dating the real cream-of-the-crop -- girls considerably superior to the average. But during these years I was still going to school -- in the way I had decided was best for me -- acquiring knowledge of my chosen field, gaining experience, preparing myself to make BIG MONEY later.

In my foolish conceit of those days, I was cocksure that I was headed for outstanding success. But I had certain ideals and convictions, and one of them was that a young man ought not to think of marriage until he was prepared to assume the responsibilities of marriage -- especially that of supporting a wife! The idea of my wife having to get a job to help earn the living would have crushed my spirit -- would have been the supreme disgrace!

In January, 1917, I was in Des Moines on one of my regular trips to Iowa, renewing contracts and soliciting new ones. My mother had written that her twin sister, my Aunt Emma Morrow, was stricken with pneumonia, and asked me to visit her on this trip. So I took the short side-trip to the Morrow farm, 30 miles southeast of Des Moines, and a short mile north of the crossroads town called Motor, which consisted only of a store, schoolhouse, church, and two or three houses.

I found my aunt considerably improved, and convalescing. During the afternoon a girl from Motor, two years younger than I, came to see my aunt. She was introduced to me as a cousin -- but only a third cousin. Immediately I was impressed. She was pretty, and seemed to be an unusually nice girl. Her name was Bertha Dillon, and her father owned the store at Motor. He was my mother's first cousin.

I was enjoying a conversation with her, when, about 4:30 in the afternoon, her older sister, Loma -- just my age -- came bounding in. That's not an exaggeration. I hadn't seen such fresh, joyous, zip and go in a long time. She literally exuded energy, sparkle, good cheer, the friendly warmth of a sincere, outgoing personality.

Now I was much more impressed! She was even prettier than her sister. There was something different about her -- something wholesome that I liked. She was the school teacher at Motor.

Where, I asked myself inwardly, could I have been all my life, never to have run across these two cousins before? At that time, although these girls were rather distant cousins, I thought of them only as cousins.

This was about the middle of the week. My cousin, Bert Morrow (he was a first cousin), just one year my junior lacking a day, drove me over to the little town of Beech to take the evening train to Des Moines. My aunt's nurse was returning to Des Moines on the same train. Loma rode along with us in the Model T to Beech. I learned that she was planning to go to Des Moines Saturday morning to do some shopping.

Why, I asked, don't you bring Bertha with you, and meet me at noon for lunch, and we'll take in a movie in the afternoon?

It was a date. Only, when I met her Saturday noon, she had not brought her sister. I had preferred to meet Loma alone, but I had felt that propriety demanded that I ask both girls.

I took her to luncheon at Des Moines' nicest place at that time -- the Harris-Emery department store Tea Room. It was one of the finest department store tea rooms in the nation.

I was really enjoying this date. She didn't know it then, but Loma was being intensively analyzed. No thought of marriage, you understand -- just routine, as I always did on a first date. She seemed to be a girl of sound-minded good sense and high ideals. She had superior intelligence. There was a mental depth most girls lacked. I was well aware that she was utterly lacking in sophistication. She was not, in fact, completely city broke. There was none of the haughty social veneer -- none of the acquired artificial mannerisms of the eastern finishing school products or the social debutante. Indeed, I perceived she was a bit naive. She was completely sincere in trusting and believing in people. She had not seen or learned much of the rottenness and evils of this world. She had that innocent, completely unspoiled freshness of a breath of spring.

Also, from the instant when she first came bounding in at my aunt's farm, I had noticed she was almost something of a tom-boy -- active, very alert. Whatever she did, she did quickly. I learned later that her brothers dubbed her with two nicknames -- She-bang and Cyclone! She was full of fun, yet serious -- with the unspoiled wholesomeness of an Iowa country girl. And, most important of all, strength of character!

I observed quickly that although she was alert and active-minded, hers was not one of those flighty surface minds, active but shallow. She was able to discuss serious and deep things intelligently. She was very much an extrovert, but not a shallow, gossipy chatterbox.

Although I noticed, and became immediately well aware of these qualities, no thought of falling in love, or of marriage, entered my mind. I thought of her only as a cousin. Perhaps I had so disciplined my mind in regard to marriage that it automatically avoided such thoughts. But I did want to see more of her -- definitely!

She Rated a Second Date!

After the luncheon conversation, which must have lasted more than an hour and a half, we went to a movie. I remember nothing whatever about the movie -- I do remember holding a soft, warm hand.

I always stayed at the Brown Hotel in those days -- a residential hotel on the edge of the business district. After the movie, we walked over to the hotel lobby. I ran up to my room, picked up a package of family pictures I happened to have in my suitcase, returned to the lobby and showed the pictures to her.

I remember that among them was a Cousins' Letter I had initiated. Ever since I could remember from earliest childhood, my father's generation had kept a family letter circulating. It made the rounds, perhaps once in nine months or a year, from coast to coast. Some of the Armstrong family were in New Jersey and Atlantic coast locations. Some were in Ohio and Indiana, some in Iowa, Colorado, and some in California. Each time it came around, my father removed his letter which now had gone the rounds, wrote and inserted a new one. I had organized a Cousins' Letter of our younger generation. It made about two rounds, and apparently died a natural death. But this big packet of letters had just finished its first round, and I remember showing it to my new-found cousin. She however, was a third cousin on my mother's side of the family. This circular family letter only included the Armstrong cousins.

Then I took her to her evening train to return home. I have mentioned my system of analyzing girls on the first date. Loma had been duly analyzed. She passed the test with a perfect grade. She rated a second date!

In fact, the more I thought about it, she rated it without delay! I lived in Chicago. If I were to have another date with this very attractive young lady any time soon, I decided it had to be next day!

Accordingly I hopped the morning train, called my cousin Bert Morrow to drive over to Beech after me, and, to everybody's surprise, here I was to see my aunt again! I don't remember, now, how I maneuvered to get Loma up to my aunt's, but I do remember spending considerable time with her there. And she remembers a walk out on the country road in the deep snow.

I also remember holding her hand again -- much to the dislike of my uncle and aunt. After I left, they began to warn her against me.

Now Loma, they admonished, you'd better let Herbert alone. He reads those magazines written by that awful Elbert Hubbard, and he's probably an atheist. He probably doesn't ever go to church anymore!

But I had asked Loma to write, and she said she would. So now the dating was continued by mail. I must have had her a great deal on my mind, for I wrote to her almost every day, and received several letters a week in return.

A year and a half before, I had felt that the Iowa territory was rather dead for new business for the Northwestern Banker. There was more business to be had in Chicago. But now, of a sudden, Iowa seemed to become very desirable territory again, requiring more frequent visits from me.

The next Iowa trip seems to have been some time in February. On a later Iowa trip in May or June, we had a double date in Des Moines with Loma's number one girl chum and her fiancé. At an amusement park, we took a roller coaster ride -- Loma's first in her life -- and also her last! She was so frightened that she unconsciously had a firm, almost death-like iron grip on my trousers just above the knee as we came to a stop -- much to her embarrassment and the glee of her chum and fiancé! She was such a modest person that this was terribly mortifying!

But I am getting ahead of the story. As we continued the acquaintance by correspondence, we exchanged ideas on many subjects. I wanted to know what she was interested in -- what she believed -- what her ideas were. She seemed to have high ideals, and I discovered that she was seriously concerned about religious truth -- more so than I. I had virtually no interest in religion.

Business seemed to require my presence in Iowa again in early April, and then the first week in May.

I Fell

In our correspondence, we had exchanged ideas and ideals on such subjects as necking. Of course I had never, as yet, made any advances toward her in this direction -- except for holding her hand a few times. Her letters said she didn't believe in necking. I would not have been a normal young man if I had not determined to put her to the test on that.

It was about the 7th or 8th of May that she met me again in Des Moines. During the afternoon, we went out to one of the spacious parks where wild flowers could be picked.

As we were sitting, or leaning on our elbows on the ground, opportunity came for me to slip an arm around her shoulders, and, leaning over her, plant a healthy kiss on her lips. She didn't resist.

Sitting back up, I grinned and asked, Now are you angry with me? Uh-huh, she smiled.

I wasn't quite sure what to think, now, after she had expressed such dis approval of anything of this sort in her letters. But it was not just a frivolous kiss to her, as I was soon to learn.

We returned to the apartment of my uncle Frank Armstrong and his family. I was taking a midnight sleeper for Sioux City, and she was to remain at my uncle's for the night.

When it came time for me to leave for my train, Loma came out into the corridor of the apartment building to say good-night. Suddenly, impulsively, she reached her arms around my neck and planted a good earnest kiss on my lips!

This, I suddenly realized, was serious. In a daze, I left. I couldn't sleep that night for hours. Nothing had ever hit me like this before. That had not been any ordinary necking kiss! I knew that was, as they say today, FOR REAL! It came on impulse straight from the heart. She had kissed me because she really meant it! It produced an emotional upheaval inside me -- a totally new experience. Through the mental daze I began to realize this was LOVE.

I hasten to add, however, that this emotional thrill I experienced was produced because of the circumstances leading to it. No one should suppose that being really in love must hit one with the kind of emotional wallop I experienced.

In Sioux City next morning, the first thing I did was to call on a doctor whom I knew. I asked him if there was any reason why third cousins ought not marry.

He only laughed. None whatsoever, he said. Third cousins are no cousins at all, so far as marriage is concerned.

Returning to Des Moines a few days later, I went back down to Motor. It was the night of May 13th. We walked down the roadside, past the old Quaker Church building and graveyard. I told Loma that I knew, now, that I was in love with her.

Tragedy Threatens!

This seemed to come like a shock to her. Apparently she had not thought of it in just this way before, but now, suddenly, it dawned on her that if we were married it meant living in Chicago, in more cultural and, as she supposed, sophisticated surroundings than she had known. This sudden realization frightened her.

She stammered that she was not sure. That statement fell on me like a ton of bricks! I had never doubted, in my confident conceit, that if and when I ever did fall in love it would be mutual. Now, suddenly, came the realization that I might be faced with tragedy! But I knew the right answer. I wish more young people, falling for one who is not in love with them, could know this right answer. Most young fellows, it seems, would start pleading with the girl to marry them, anyway. That is definitely not the right answer.

In that case, Loma, I said regretfully, soberly, but firmly, I don't want to ever see you again -- that is, not unless, or until you find that you, too, are in love. I certainly wouldn't ask you to marry me if you don't love me. It would only wreck both our lives -- and I love you too much to ruin your life.

We were walking back to her home, which was on the second floor over the store. We sat down for a while on the steps of the store.

It was momentarily difficult to understand, now, why she had kissed me as she did that night outside the door of my uncle's apartment. Was I merely receiving just retribution for causing the first girl I had ever necked to fall in love, when I didn't love her?

I asked Loma for an explanation. She explained, then, how the sudden thought of marriage had frightened her. She and I had lived in two different worlds. I had been city born and city reared. I had travelled a great deal. I was worldly wise. I knew the world and was a part of it. I lived in one of the world's largest and most metropolitan cities. She was a country girl. How would she be able to act and live in the sophistication of a city like Chicago?

Loma, I said seriously, you're a real diamond. Maybe you haven't had the exterior polish of an eastern finishing school applied. Most of those girls have outer polish, but no qualities underneath. It's mostly a lot of put-on and make-believe. It isn't real. But you are REAL, Loma, and you have the QUALITY of good character all the way through. I can see to putting on what polish you'll need. I don't want, and never could love, a lot of pretense and empty-headed sophistication! You have the real qualities for a good wife and the mother of my children. It's YOU I love, and I know now I can never love anyone else. Don't worry about the lack of social training and sophistication. That stuff can be bought a dime a dozen! It's trash! I don't want it! All I want YOU to decide is whether you're in love with me, as I am with you.

Then, rising, I said finally, Just one thing I want you to promise me. As soon as you're SURE, in your own mind, whether you're in love -- either way -- I want you to telegraph me just one word -- 'YES' or 'NO' -- and I'll understand.

She promised. I walked away toward my aunt's house, a mile down the road. There was no good-night kiss.

Chapter 10

Marriage Plans Complicated By War

I HAD no intention of returning to the store at the crossroads town called Motor. But next morning my Aunt Emma Morrow found it necessary to do some shopping, and asked me if I would drive her in their Model T Ford.

How my aunt maneuvered me into the upstairs rooms I do not remember. But I distinctly remember sitting on the bed in a bedroom, my aunt in front of me on a chair, and Loma Dillon sitting beside me, with the box of old family pictures on her lap.

The Unspoken Answer

As we were looking over the family pictures, my Aunt Emma told us that my Uncle George had courted her and that they became engaged to be married in those same upstairs rooms, over the store. Then suddenly, when my aunt and Bertha had their eyes on a picture, Loma leaned over and whispered in my ear that she had something to tell me, a big secret. I got the message and squeezed her hand, but neither of us gave the others any idea of what had happened under their very eyes.

Not a word was spoken at the moment. But of course Loma and I knew I had received the unspoken answer. She was now sure. And the following morning, waiting at the depot for the train to take me to Des Moines, we agreed we were engaged to be married.

Actually, I had never proposed -- that is, in so many words. We simply KNEW -- and verbally agreed that we were engaged.

The Cloud of War

But even the happiness of knowing we were in love and engaged to be married was clouded by the war. The United States had been drawn into World War I, declaring war on Germany April 6, just five weeks and four days before we were engaged. It had left my future gravely in doubt.

Immediately after the declaration of war, or as soon as the call went out for voluntary enlistments for the Officers' Training Camp at Ft. Sheridan, Illinois, I had applied for entrance.

The Army did not have a fraction of the needed number of commissioned officers. It was impossible for West Point to graduate the required number quickly. To meet the emergency, Officers' Training Camps were set up immediately at various locations. Intensive rush training had to be given to qualified applicants in time to provide officers to train draftees and volunteer soldiers in the large cantonments all over the country as soon as they could be built.

To qualify for admission to an Officers' Training Camp, a candidate was required to be a college graduate or its equivalent. Lacking a degree, the equivalent had to be testified to by three men of known prominence. I was very glad to be able to obtain a letter from Arthur Reynolds, President of Chicago's largest bank, the Continental Commercial National (now the Continental-Illinois National), saying he had been personally acquainted with me for several years (I knew him when he was President of the Des Moines National before he went to Chicago) and considered that I had acquired considerably more than the equivalent of a college education. I obtained similar letters from an official of Halsey-Stuart Company, prominent investment bankers, and from my friend Ralph G. Johnson, manager of the Chicago office of The Merchants Trade Journal.

Immediately I purchased an army officers' military manual and began to study. Also I enrolled in a drill class organized for preliminary training of officer candidates at one of the armories. But as an army officer I was certainly a greenhorn as evidenced by a snapshot I had of Ralph Johnson and me patriotically trying to salute in front of the Hotel Del Prado, where we both lived. I had not yet learned that a soldier must keep his heels together.

Attempting to Be an Army Officer

I successfully passed the physical examination, and received notice that I had been accepted for admission, with orders to report at Ft. Sheridan on a definite date, which I do not now remember.

Then a few days before I was to enter camp, a second notice came. It advised me that in the last minute rush the Army had received six times as many applications as it could accept, and consequently first choice had been given to those with previous military experience, and secondly, to the taller men. I was only average height for those days. The notice expressed great appreciation by the government for my patriotism, but regretfully notified me that I could not now be accepted. However, I was advised that I might apply for enlistment in the second session after graduation of the first, some three months later.

Immediately I applied for entrance into the second Officers' Training Camp. Again I was accepted, and notified to report on a definite date. But again, at the last minute, an overflow of applications by men of previous military experience or taller men crowded me out.

I applied for admission in the Quartermasters' Corps, feeling that if I could not enter the army as an officer, I could serve better in its business department than as a private. But here again the rush of men enlisting was too great, and this department was already filled to capacity.

Well, I said in some dis appointment, I've tried. Now I'm going to let them throw a rope around my neck in the draft and come and get me.

Meanwhile, as related above, Loma and I became engaged on May 15th.

The Marriage Problem of Every War

And immediately we faced the age-old problem that always has confronted engaged couples in time of war. Many of my readers also faced this same problem, either in World War I, World War II, the Korean war or the war in Vietnam. Those of you who have will understand.

I felt that our marriage should be postponed until after the war, as most men feel at such times. Loma wanted to be married before I donned a uniform -- as girls in love usually do.

Our arguments will bring back memories to those of you who also found yourselves in love in time of war.

Suppose, I argued -- as perhaps millions of men have argued -- I should be seriously wounded, and come home crippled for life. I wouldn't want you to be tied for life to a dis abled man. And then you'd never be free to marry another.

I would never want to marry anyone else, she countered. And if you should come home crippled or dis abled, then more than ever I would want to be your wife to help you. But if we were not already married, you'd be too proud to marry me then -- you'd think I was marrying you out of pity, and you'd refuse. So I want to be your wife before you go into the army.

Yes, but I might even be killed in action, and then you'd be a widow. I would rather leave you still single and free to marry someone else.

If you should be killed, came her immediate answer, then I would want to be your widow. And as for falling in love with anyone else, you look here, Herbert Armstrong! Do you think you could fall in love with some other girl?

No of course not! I replied. Around and around we went. As fast as I could think of another reason for waiting until after the war, she countered with a ready answer. We simply could not agree.

Finally, Tell you what I'll do, I concluded. I will take our problem to the chairman of my draft board. He is a college professor, Prof. J. Paul Goode of the University of Chicago.

Finally she agreed to this. One of my strongest arguments against pre-war marriage had been the fact that thousands were getting married to escape the draft. At the outset of World War I, married men were not being drafted. Those who married to escape the draft became contemptuously referred to as slackers. I did not want to be called a slacker. I was sure that Dr. Goode would advise me not to marry prior to war service.

Accordingly, as soon as I returned to Chicago, I sought and obtained an interview with Dr. Goode. He listened attentively, asked questions, got all the facts. Then he surprised me by advising me to marry Miss Dillon at once.

It is, of course, difficult to remember many details and dates of such events after forty-one years. But a letter to my mother (then in Weiser, Idaho, partially reproduced in this volume), brings much vividly to memory.

This letter was written Friday night, July 20th. The first drawings of draft numbers, to determine by lot which men would be called to camp first, had taken place in Washington, D. C. that morning. My registration number was 1858. It was one of the earliest numbers drawn. I wrote that I figured I would be among the first 80,000 men drafted in the entire country. And since an army of some four million was actually put into service, it was apparent that I would be called to training camp on the very first group.

It appeared, however, that due to delays in building and equipping the training camps the first contingent would not be sent to camp before October 1st.

I had been out to Motor, Iowa, visiting Loma on this trip and now was on my way back to Chicago. However, on getting this news of my early draft, I stated in this letter: This is Friday night, so I am going back to Motor early in the morning, to spend Saturday and Sunday with Loma. It's getting harder to remain away from her, someway, and I can't return to Chicago now without another visit. Loma still wants to be married before I go (into service). I have put up every possible objection to it I could think of, and they are numerous, but she brushes them all aside, says she has considered them all and still wants to (be married first).

We Set the Date

Next morning Loma and her father met me at the depot with their Ford car. I had given her, by long distance telephone, the news of the draft. For the first time she was not beautiful. She was sobbing. Leaning her head on my shoulder, her tears dripping down my chest, she sobbed that she wanted to be married before I went to camp.

What man is strong enough to resist a woman's tears? My Aunt Emma had been on her side. Professor Goode had been on her side. And her tears were on her side. I was unanimously outvoted -- for this swung even me over on her side -- and I acquiesced, as I suppose men have done in such circumstances ever since Adam and Eve.

We decided to be married as soon as possible. She needed a week to make all preparations to come to Chicago. I needed a week to locate a place for us to live. It was now July 21st. My twenty-fifth birthday was the 31st. We decided she was to be the finest birthday present of my life.

Sunday night I caught the sleeper in Des Moines for Chicago. Loma spent a busy week sewing and preparing. The minister's wife gave a shower for her, attended by nearly everyone in the neighborhood. Mrs. Gertie Shoemaker, mother of one of her first grade little girls, Irene, worked steadily with Loma, sewing, all that week. She is still one of Mrs. Armstrong's best friends, whom she visits whenever she is in Iowa -- and that little first-grade daughter of Mrs. Shoemaker is today herself the mother of a fifteen-year-old daughter, Mary Kay.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, I had succeeded in renting a nicely furnished apartment for six weeks from a family going away on vacation. It was located on the North side on Wilson Avenue, between the Evanston L line and the lake.

The Wedding Day

On Monday, July 30th, Loma, accompanied by her father and stepmother (her own mother had died when she was twelve), did her final shopping in Des Moines, and boarded the night sleeper for Chicago. We had arranged for her to leave the train at suburban Englewood station, and I was to meet her there.

She would never let me forget that I was ten or fifteen minutes late in arriving. Never having been in so large a city before, she was frightened. She telephoned my office, but I was on an L train en route to meet her.

I was imbued with the advertising man's flare for first impressions. In those days I felt very proud of Chicago. I always enjoyed showing visitors the BIGGEST or the LARGEST of everything -- the largest stockyards in the world, the largest store, the largest theatre (until New York built bigger). I wanted my bride's first glimpse of Chicago's Loop to be the impressive Grant Park view, overlooking Michigan Boulevard. So I took her on an L train over to the Illinois Central commuter train in Jackson Park, thence to the I. C. commuter station in downtown Grant Park.

We walked through Chicago's Loop, up to my office, where by this time I was sharing a private office with another tenant; then a block north on Clark Street to the County Building and the Marriage License Bureau, where we obtained our marriage license.

We had lunch at the then most famous Chinese restaurant in Chicago, King Joy Lo's. We went back out to Jackson Park on the South Side, took some camera pictures, then to the Hotel Del Prado where I had lived for nearly two years. I asked Miss Lucy Cunningham, the 70-year-old most popular girl in residence at the Del Prado, to accompany us as a witness to the marriage ceremony. She took Loma to her room for a little relaxing rest and freshening up. Then we three walked a short distance to the residence of Dr. Gilkey, pastor of the Hyde Park Baptist Church. I much admired his preaching.

I had made arrangements beforehand for the wedding at the home of Dr. Gilkey. He had been unexpectedly called out of the city. But his father-in-law, a Dr. Brown, pastor of the Oak Park Baptist Church, was on hand to perform the ceremony. Dr. Brown was a very handsome and distinguished appearing elderly man. Mrs. Gilkey was the second witness.

And so, in what I have always felt was the nicest simple little wedding ceremony I have ever seen, with only five people present, we were married for the remainder of our natural lives, and I placed the wedding ring on her finger and kissed my own darling wife.

I myself have since officiated at so many weddings I have long since lost count of the number -- some of them somewhat more elaborate, with many guests -- some as plain and simple as our own. But somehow I have always felt there is no nicer wedding than a plain, simple ceremony without ostentation of formal dress, with only the minister and two witnesses present.

I think it is usually the brides' mothers who engineer the lavish weddings.

In any event, we were married, not as so many deluded people are today, till divorce do us part, but till DEATH do us part.

The Unrecognized Call

Our first home together seemed to us to be a very lovely apartment. Of course we were to have it only six weeks, but it was nice while it lasted. It had to substitute for a honeymoon. The beach was only about two blocks down Wilson Avenue. We spent many hours there.

One night my wife had a dream so vivid and impressive it overwhelmed and shook her tremendously. It was so realistic it seemed more like a vision. For two or three days afterward everything else seemed unreal -- as if in a daze -- and only this extraordinary dream seemed real.

In her dream she and I were crossing the wide intersection, only a block or two from our apartment, where Broadway diagonally crosses Sheridan Road. Suddenly there appeared an awesome sight in the sky above. It was a dazzling spectacle -- the sky filled with a gigantic solid mass of brilliant stars, shaped like a huge banner. The stars began to quiver and separate, finally vanishing. She called my attention to the vanishing stars, when another huge grouping of flashing stars appeared, then quivering, separating, and vanishing like the first.

As she and I, in her dream, looked upward at the vanishing stars, three large white birds suddenly appeared in the sky between us and the vanishing stars. These great white birds flew directly toward us. As they descended nearer, she perceived that they were angels.

Then, my wife wrote a day or two after the dream, in a letter to my mother which I have just run across among old family pictures, it dawned on me that Christ was coming, and I was so happy I was just crying for joy. Then suddenly I thought of Herbert and was rather worried.

She knew I had evidenced very little religious interest, although we had attended a corner church two or three times.

Then it seemed that, from among these angels in her dream, that, Christ descended from among them and stood directly in front of us. At first I was a little doubtful and afraid of how He would receive us, because I remembered we had neglected our Bible study and had our minds too much on things apart from His interests. But as we went up to Him, He put His arms around both of us, and we were so happy! I thought people all over the world had seen Him come. As far as we could see, people were just swarming into the streets at this broad intersection. Some were glad and some were afraid.

Then it seemed He had changed into an angel. I was terribly dis appointed at first, until he told me Christ was really coming in a very short time.

At that time, we had been going quite regularly to motion-picture theatres. She asked the angel if this were wrong. He replied Christ had important work for us to do, preparing for His coming -- there would be no time for movies. (Those were the days of the silent pictures.) Then the angel and the whole spectacle seemed to vanish, and she awakened, shaken and wondering!

In the morning, she told me of her dream. I was embarrassed. I didn't want to think about it, yet I was afraid to totally dismiss it. I thought of a logical way to evade it myself, and still solve it.

Why don't you tell it to the minister of the church up on the corner, I casually suggested, and ask him whether it means anything.

With that, I managed to put it out of my mind. Let me say here that in about 99,999 times out of 100,000, when people think GOD is speaking to them in a dream or vision in this day and age, it is pure imagination, or some form of self-hypnotism or self-deception. I have only come to believe that this dream was a bonafide call from God in the light of subsequent events.

Do not hastily ascribe a dream to God. True, the Bible shows that God has spoken to His own chosen servants by this means of communication -- primarily in the Old Testament, and before the writing of the Bible was completed. But most dreams mean nothing. And false prophets have misled people by telling false dreams, representing their dreams to be the Word of God (Jeremiah 23, where God says, I am against prophets who recount lying dreams, leading my people astray with their lies and their empty pretensions, though I never sent them, never commissioned them -- verse 32, Moffatt translation).

Certainly I did not ascribe this dream to God. It made me feel a little uncomfortable at the time, and I was anxious to forget it -- which I did for some years. I was twenty-five at the time. God left me to my own ways for five more years. But when I was age thirty, He began to deal with me in no uncertain terms, and from that time every business or money-making venture I attempted was turned into utter defeat.

The Draft Classification

Upon return of the people from whom we rented the apartment, we stayed on in the bedroom we had occupied a few days. A friend of theirs, a desk clerk at Hotel Sherman, was looking for temporary tenants on a similar basis. His wife and children were to be gone a month. He kept one room for himself, and rented the rest of the apartment to us for the month. Then we moved to a single bedroom of an apartment occupied by a Mrs. Brookhart in the same general North Side neighborhood, where we had dining room and kitchen privileges at times when Mrs. Brookhart was not using them. By this time we knew that we were to become parents.

It was about this time, probably late September, that the draft boards had their questionnaires ready for filling out. The questionnaire included a question as to marriage status, whether there were children or a pregnancy; and also a question regarding religious affiliation. I wrote down Quaker, but realizing the Quakers were being granted exemption as conscientious objectors, I wrote in the words: I do not ask for exemption because of Church affiliation.

I was still expecting to go to army camp as soon as the camps were ready. But no call came, and a few weeks later I received my draft classification card. Dr. Goode had personally marked it Class IV, Noncombatant, probably because he remembered I had married on his personal advice, with no intention of evading the draft.

I have mentioned that I sold advertising space by first writing the copy and selling that. Always these ads were carefully gone over with my wife before submitting them to prospective advertisers. The surveys made were discussed and planned with her active participation. From the time of marriage, we have always been partners in whatever was my work.

I remember her saying, not many days after we were married: They say a wife either makes or breaks her husband. Well, you just watch me make mine! But do not receive the impression that she wore the trousers in our family. She was a woman of purpose, of ideas, vision, depth of mind, resourcefulness and great initiative. But the responsibility of being head of the family was mine, and I have assumed it.

An Emergency Call

About one o'clock one afternoon a telephone call came from my wife. It was a desperate emergency call. She was sobbing so that she could hardly talk. Something terrible has happened, she said between sobs. Hurry! Come home quickly!

What's happened? I asked. She couldn't tell me, over the telephone. Just hurry home -- quick! Oh, it's terrible! HURRY!

I ran full speed to the elevator, and out to the street below, where I hailed a cab. No time to take the L train. I asked the cab driver to rush full speed to our address.

Dashing up the stairs two steps at a time, I ran into our apartment and took my sobbing wife in my arms.

What on earth is it? I demanded. Then she told me, still sobbing. She had lost faith in two women!

Those women told dirty stories! She had been introduced to an elderly woman by the people of the second apartment we had occupied after marriage. She had seemed such a kindly, nice old lady. My wife had gone to visit with her several times.

On this particular day, this lady was entertaining my wife and one other woman at luncheon. These two women began to tell dirty stories and laugh at them. Mrs. Armstrong was shocked. She had never heard that kind of language come from the mouth of a woman before. She was horrified! Manners or no manners, she suddenly excused herself, and ran from the woman's apartment. She continued running all the way to our apartment and immediately called me.

I looked at my innocent, naive, trusting little wife incredulously!

Is that all! I exploded, almost speechless. Look here, Loma! Do you mean to tell me you called me away from an important business conference, and caused me to waste cab fare all the way out here, for nothing more serious than that?

My sweet, trusting little wife was so broken up at having to lose faith in people that I found it necessary to remain with her the rest of the day. We took a long walk out Sheridan Road, and probably then went to a movie to get her mind off of it.

The disillusionment she experienced in Chicago caused her a great deal of suffering. She learned that many if not most people in a great metropolitan city become hard, suspicious, selfish, more mechanical than human.

Chapter 11

Our First Child

FOR SOME four months after our wedding day we lived on the North Side of Chicago, near the lake. During that brief period we had occupied two furnished apartments and one furnished room.

About Thanksgiving time, 1917, we moved into a single room on the South Side. We sub-rented this room from Charley and Viva Hyle in their apartment some short distance south of 63rd Street.

Charley Hyle worked on the night shift at an automobile assembly plant. My wife and Viva became good friends. Actually, although we rented only the one bedroom with kitchen and dining room privilege, we shared the entire apartment with them -- living room, as well as dining room and kitchen.

By this time we knew we were going to become parents. Our first baby was due the latter part of May.

Our First Child Born

It probably was the affirmative checkmark on the pregnancy question on my draft-board questionnaire which caused the Board chairman, Professor J. Paul Goode, to give me a Class 4, noncombatant, draft classification.

We lived with the Hyles until very shortly before the time for our baby to be born.

In January, 1918, my wife accompanied me on a business trip to Des Moines. We both wanted our baby to be born in Des Moines. Mrs. Armstrong had formed an intense aversion to the artificial and mechanical city of Chicago.

Arriving in Des Moines, my wife found that her girl chum's mother was in the hospital, having just given birth to her tenth child. The modern method of hospital delivery with anesthesia was just then becoming the vogue. This particular mother recommended it to my wife, and also her doctor, a woman obstetrical physician, Dr. Georgia Stuart.

Mrs. Armstrong preferred a woman doctor, and I did not oppose. Consequently, a visit was made to Dr. Stuart's office for a check-up and instruction, and she was retained.

Our baby was due to be born about May 25th. We made our next trip to Des Moines well ahead of time -- so we supposed -- arriving on Sunday, May 5. On Monday we went to the doctor's office for a check-up. I needed to take a week's business trip to Sioux City and other points.

You are in splendid condition, Dr. Stuart assured my wife. There is every reason to expect the baby to go the full time, and I believe it is perfectly safe for Mr. Armstrong to be away for the remainder of this week.

My wife's sister, Bertha Dillon, came to stay with her in our apartment in The Brown, a residential hotel where we always stayed when in Des Moines. I left that day for Sioux City.

About two o'clock Thursday morning Mrs. Armstrong knew the baby was about to be born. Two weeks prematurely, she called Dr. Stuart on the telephone, and the doctor told her to get dressed and she would drive past the hotel and take her to the hospital at once.

In those days women wore high-top laced shoes, and in the excitement of the emergency, much frightened due to the fact I was away and this was her first childbirth experience, Mrs. Armstrong was too nervous to lace up her shoes, and her sister had a frightful time trying to get those high-tops laced up!

Finally they made it and were ready to leave. Bertha sent a telegram to me telling me to race to Des Moines on the first train.

This trip I was staying at the West Hotel in Sioux City. For some reason I slept a little late that Thursday morning. Coming down for breakfast around eight, I looked in my box at the desk, and the clerk handed me the telegram, which had arrived there at 3:30 a.m.

Quick! I exclaimed, when does the next train leave for Des Moines?

The only train all day to Des Moines left about 15 minutes ago, was the terrifying answer.

I was outraged! Look at this telegram! I thundered at the hotel clerk. It arrived here at 3:30 a.m., in plenty of time for me to have caught that train. WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME OR SEND IT TO MY ROOM?

Well, I suppose the night clerk didn't want to disturb you, was the nonconcerned and exasperating answer.

I could not have been more angry! NOW LOOK! I said sharply, There's got to be some way to get to Des Moines before that train tomorrow morning!

Well, said the hotel clerk, there is a train leaving for Council Bluffs and Omaha in about thirty minutes, but I don't know whether you could make any connection from there to Des Moines.

In that thirty minutes my bags were packed, and I had boarded that Council Bluffs train. At the depot I learned that if we were on time at Council Bluffs, there was a chance to race across town in a taxi and catch a train on the Rock Island line due in Des Moines about six o'clock that very evening.

Quickly I scribbled off a telegram to my sister-in-law giving the train number, and requesting her to wire me on the train, at some town along the way, the news of my wife's condition.

A Father Suffers Birth Pangs

Nervously I kept inquiring at every train-stop for a telegram. There was no telegram. The suspense was building up. It was becoming almost unendurable.

We did arrive at Council Bluffs on time. The taxi made the mad dash across town. The taxi driver thought I might take three minutes to try to get a long-distance telephone call through. There had not been time to try to get Bertha by telephone at Sioux City -- I just barely caught that train. The cab driver stopped in front of the telephone office. I raced in and tried to make the connection with Des Moines. The three minutes ran out on me before they got the call through.

I just caught the Rock Island train for Des Moines on the run.

But the train didn't seem to run -- it seemed to slow down to a slow walk.

WHY didn't that train go a little faster? It didn't seem in any hurry. It made all the stops.

Time dragged. My nerves raced. The suspense built up. I don't think we arrived in Des Moines at six that same night. I think it was at six several nights later. At least so it seemed to me.

After an eternity of anxious suspense, before the train came to a full stop, I was the first passenger off at Des Moines. I ran full speed to a telephone at the newsstand in the depot.

A nurse at the Methodist Hospital said sweetly, You have a fine new seven-pound-nine-ounce daughter.

I didn't even hear that. I don't care a hang about that, I snapped back, HOW'S MY WIFE? All day long I had lived through the agonizing hours not knowing whether my wife had lived through it.

You see, this was my first experience at becoming a father. I didn't know yet, then, that the doctors will tell you they've never lost a father yet.

Oh, said the sweet little nurse's provokingly slow voice, she's just FINE! At last I could relax a little, as I raced to a cab and asked him to drive full speed to the hospital.

Babies Don't Stop Breathing

Stepping briskly into my wife's private hospital room, I was greatly relieved to see her smiling happily, reaching her arms toward me. I kissed her, and almost immediately a nurse brought in our little daughter, Beverly Lucile. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen! I was a very proud father.

Mrs. Armstrong has always had a penchant for naming babies. She has named dozens -- perhaps scores of them -- wherever and whenever other mothers would allow her to name their babies. Of course she had Beverly named long before she was born. Had she been a boy, my wife had decided to name him Herbert Junior. But by the time our first son was born, more than ten years later, we had both changed our minds about the name Junior.

Just as the baby was born, my wife, only partially under the ether, asked:

What is it, girl or boy? It's a girl, answered Dr. Stuart. Girl! Beverly! said Mrs. Armstrong with emphasis in her semi-anesthetized stupor.

After ten days the doctor released her from the hospital, and our little family of three and Bertha resumed life at The Brown. There was a small balcony off our apartment. The baby was laid on the bed, and we sat down out on the balcony.

We heard a slight sound from the baby. Quick! exclaimed my young wife in nervous anxiety, see if the baby's still breathing!

I had to rush inside to reassure her that babies just don't stop breathing for no reason at all.

Whenever the baby made a sound, Mrs. Armstrong was sure she was choking to death. When she did not make a sound, my wife was sure she had smothered to death.

In our apartment was a small kitchenette. The baby's first bath away from the hospital was quite an experience. Mrs. Armstrong's first experience! She was so afraid the baby would take cold, she turned on the stove until the kitchenette room was so hot the baby screamed. The young mother didn't know why the baby screamed -- became frightened, supposing something terrible was wrong with the baby. Both sweat and tears rolled down my wife's face. She was afraid for any air to touch the baby, so she hurried frantically with the bath! When the baby cried and even screamed because of the excess heat and lack of oxygen, her young mother, not knowing what caused the baby's discomfort, burst out crying, too -- but with determination she finished the bath! Many young mothers have many things to learn, the same as young fathers!

The Flu Epidemic

It was now after the 20th of May, 1918. The flu epidemic had struck the United States, during the very crisis of the war. People were dying all over the nation, and especially in the larger cities.

We decided against taking our baby back into the congestion of Chicago. Instead we rented a house in Indianola, Iowa, 18 miles south of Des Moines, where there were fewer people to come in contact with and less danger of being exposed to the new influenza disease. The house we rented was close to the Simpson College campus.

Leaving my wife and baby with her sister Bertha, I returned alone to Chicago to look after my business. At the railroad depots boxed caskets were being loaded on the baggage cars of most trains -- bodies of influenza victims. We had not wanted to risk exposing our new baby by a train ride to Chicago. In Chicago I saw people in the congested Loop traffic wearing cloth masks over their mouths and noses to prevent breathing a flu germ.

After some three months we decided the family could not remain apart any longer -- nor could I afford the frequent trips to Iowa to be part time with my family, so I brought my wife and baby daughter back to Chicago. This time we rented a room with a family named Bland, who had an apartment on the South Side, south of 63rd Street, not far from the Hyles, who had moved away by this time.

I began to concentrate more and more on developing the farm tractor business for The Northwestern Banker. As mentioned in a previous chapter, Clifford DePuy, publisher of The Northwestern Banker, had purchased the old St. Louis Banker at St. Louis, and changed its name to the Mid-Continent Banker.

He appointed a former acquaintance of mine, R. Fullerton Place, as Editor and manager of the Mid-Continent Banker. Some years before, when I was 18 years of age and a solicitor in the want-ad department of the Des Moines Daily Capital, Mr. Place had been Sports Editor of the Capital. We always called him by his youthful nickname, Rube Place.

Also I mentioned, in an earlier chapter, that after this farm tractor brainstorm hit me, I had made extensive surveys to gather facts and information not possessed by tractor manufacturers about their distribution problems.

With this information accurately tabulated and analyzed, I was able to approach the manufacturers in the tractor industry with facts they themselves did not know about their own selling and distribution problems.

I found that bankers invariably discouraged their farmer customers from buying tractors. The readers of my magazines -- the country bankers -- were talking thousands of farmers out of buying tractors after local dealers had talked them into it. Our readers provided a major sales resistance.

It was, therefore, important to the tractor industry to sell the bankers on modern mechanized farm methods.

Doing Business With Millionaires

It became necessary to do business direct with the presidents of these great corporations. Thus, once again, I was thrown into business contact with important millionaire executives. These contacts were important in the early training for the job I was destined to be called to later.

I soon learned, however, that it was difficult to induce the head of a great corporation with national distribution to advertise in one small bank journal covering only five states -- or, after the purchase of the Mid-Continent Banker, even the two small localized sectional journals. They were accustomed to doing business in a big way -- of national scope.

I think I must have caught some of their vision. Later, when the media of radio and the printing press were opened to me in the big Commission, it seemed natural that my thinking was constantly along lines of expansion -- first from Lane County, Oregon, to the Portland area; then the entire Pacific Northwest; then California and the entire coast; then national; then, finally as of today, WORLDWIDE! I think my readers will be quick to grasp how these years of business training provided the necessary foundation for the great Work of today.

Of course all these farm tractor manufacturers placed all their advertising through advertising agencies. In the agencies, even more than in the offices of tractor corporation presidents, I was tremendously handicapped by representing only a small sectional circulation. They, by contrast, bought space on a national basis.

The New Brainstorm

This situation inspired the new brainstorm, also previously mentioned in this autobiography. There were seven leading sectional bank journals, and two national magazines with more scattered banker circulations. It required all nine of them to cover the entire nation with an intensive national circulation.

I compared my situation to that of actors in show business. An actor in a theatre on Broadway gets paid for one performance each night, but to play before many thousands of people he must act the part all over again night after night. But a movie actor in Hollywood, I reasoned, acted the part just once, and it was seen in hundreds and hundreds of theatres. The Hollywood stars were paid in hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, while the Broadway actors were paid in hundreds of dollars. The movie star received multiple compensation for the one effort.

I saw that it would be far easier for me to sell a national circulation for a string of nine magazines on the one effort. In other words, it would be easier to make nine commissions on the one solicitation, than one commission.

Immediately this idea met emphatic and determined resistance from Clifford DePuy. I was his Chicago representative, and he was not going to share my services with anyone else!

I told Cliff I was absolutely certain I could send him more business under the new setup, at only 30% commission, than I could as his exclusive representative at 40%. He believed that I could not get as much business for his magazines sharing my time with seven others as I could devoting all my time to his magazines alone. It was like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

We were both strong willed. It came to a climax one night in the offices of the Mid-Continent Banker in St. Louis. I had been in St. Louis soliciting business. Mr. DePuy was there. I needed to draw an expense check as advance commission in order to have train fare to return home in Chicago.

O.K., said Cliff, agree to give up this fantastic idea of representing seven other journals, and remain exclusively my representative, and I'll give you the check.

He had me over a barrel -- so he thought! Actually, his ultimatum was entirely fair and reasonable, from his point of view. But I couldn't see it that way. To me it meant more business than ever for him, and at 25% reduction in cost of getting it. I felt he ought to help get me established in it.

Round and round we went. Neither would give in. Mr. Place tried to cause me to give in. He quoted Scripture. The Bible says, 'To him that hath shall be given; and to him that hath not shall be taken away, even what he hath.' In this case Cliff hath, and you hath not! You'll simply have to give in, Herbert, or you have no way to get back to Chicago.

I'll never give in! I retorted with increased determination and set jaw. I'll start to WALK back to Chicago before I'll give up this new plan. If you won't advance me expense money, I might as well leave the office and start walking. I'll find a way to get home and develop this string of bank journals!

When Cliff saw how determined I was, on the showdown, he was not willing to let me start walking all the way to Chicago. He gave me the needed expense money.

I will say, however, that I did my best to make it a good investment, and succeeded. I did send him a great deal more advertising under the nine-magazine, national-circulation setup than I could have done otherwise -- and at lower commission.

In those days I worked sporadically in streaks. I seemed to have my off days and my on days. When I was on, I was red hot, and, as I fancied, at least, very brilliant. But on the off days it seemed I couldn't sell anything. I became very uncomfortably aware of this great fault, and I tried to fight it, but it took me years to overcome it. But I did overcome it eventually.

Actually, during these next few years, I did not work more than four or five days a month. But, with the nine magazines and a national circulation, the commission on a half-page, or a full-page contract for one year was rather large. I did not need to have too many of the brilliant days to make a good year's income.

From memory, my income for that year 1918 was approximately $7,300; for 1919 approximately $8,700; and for 1920 over $11,000. When you consider what a dollar in those days was worth, those were very good incomes by today's standards.

The Curtis Opportunity

Not very many knew of that fault of working in spurts on my on days. The business contacts didn't, because I only called on them on the good days. On those days I was supremely self-confident, and consequently effective.

Soon I knew and was known by almost every advertising agency in Chicago. Representing the nine leading bank journals -- having virtually a monopoly representation in the banking field -- now with an intensified national circulation to offer, enhanced my prestige greatly with the agencies. They came to know me as a publishers' representative who knew his stuff. Also, they had learned, by the latter part of 1918, that I was absolutely honest in statements about bank journals -- whether those I represented, or competitive journals.

Since bank journal circulations were very small, even though extremely high in class, the page rates were comparatively low. Agencies made very small commissions from business placed in bank journals. Having confidence in my knowledge and honesty, most Chicago agencies came to rely almost altogether on my advice relative to any space used in the banking journals.

At that time the biggest organization in the publishing field was the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia, publishers of The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies' Home Journal, and The Country Gentleman. They were regarded as the most aggressive people in the publishing business. It was a matter of great prestige to be on their staff.

Along about this time the Curtis organization was looking for a brilliant and promising young cub solicitor who showed promise of developing into a high executive position. They inquired of space-buyers and contact men in most of the leading advertising agencies for recommendations of the most promising man in the field soliciting the agencies. I was one of the top two recommended by the Chicago agencies, and was called to the Curtis Chicago office, where their western manager offered me the opportunity to join the Curtis staff.

It was a very flattering opportunity. However, I wanted to be SURE, before making a change. By this time I had finally learned the lesson of sticking with a thing, and not shifting around. I went to Arthur Reynolds, President of the Continental Commercial National Bank -- Chicago's largest bank, and second largest national bank in America -- for advice.

He pushed a button on his desk. Immediately a secretary appeared.

Bring me our file on the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia, he said. The file was quickly produced. He scanned over it quickly. I noticed that the material in it was red-pencil marked, so as to call to his attention quickly the most vital information.

I'm going to advise you to remain where you are, he concluded within a few moments. The Curtis people are a big prestige organization. But you'd be just a cub with them, starting near the bottom. It would be years before you'd be noticed by any of the men at the top. Some of these big companies take good care of their men, others pay small salaries. The Curtis people do not have to pay big salaries for the job or office held. With them you'd be a little frog in a big puddle. Where you are, you are a big frog in a little puddle. You have your own business. You have developed it so as to bring yourself into constant contact with big and important men. In my judgment this is better training for your future success than anything you would get with the Curtis organization. It is flattering, of course, that the advertising agencies have rated you one of the two most promising and effective young advertising solicitors in Chicago. Take this as encouragement to drive yourself on to greater accomplishment. But I think you are doing well right where you are.

I took his advice. The Curtis offer was turned down. An Irate Competitor

An incident occurred about this time which illustrates the confidence that had been built up in the advertising agencies of Chicago.

One day the space buyer of the Critchfield agency called me on the telephone.

There's a Mr. Chazen here, he said (the name has been changed for obvious reasons). He says he is publisher of three bankers' magazines, one circulating in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin; one in Nebraska, and one in Kansas and Oklahoma. Is it any good?

It was not. It was a fake. I told him the truth. No, it's a plain fake. He really has a good circulation in Nebraska, but that is all. He puts a different cover with a different name on a very few copies and calls it by the name of his supposed Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin paper; then he puts still a different cover with another name on a few copies, supposed to be a magazine circulating in Kansas and Oklahoma. I have survey reports from every bank in Illinois and Wisconsin. His supposed magazine for these states has exactly four subscribers in Wisconsin, and 17 in Illinois. That's all.

Thanks, Armstrong, said the Critchfield space buyer. It took this irate publisher about 12 minutes to hotfoot it across the Loop to my office.

Armstrong, he shouted as he burst in the door, what kind of a game are you playing, anyway? It seems you've got all the agencies in Chicago hypnotized so that no one else can get any business here without your approval. All right! I'll pay! What's your price? What have I got to pay you to lay off, and recommend my three magazines?

Sit down, and cool off, Mr. Chazen, I said. Sure I've got a price. The price is simply whatever it is going to cost you to build an honest circulation for those two fake papers of yours, and join the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and prove your circulation by an ABC audit. Then I'll recommend your magazines for nothing.

Why, Why! he puffed and stammered, that's outrageous! That's IMPOSSIBLE! Do you know what that would cost me?

Sure I know. But it's the price of being HONEST! It's an OUTRAGE! he kept shouting, as he stomped out of my office.

There was another occasion when an agency had a client who needed all the banker circulation he could get in Minnesota. In addition to the Northwestern Banker, I recommended a Minneapolis bank journal that had a good strong circulation in Minnesota. Its publisher came to see me and thank me. He had a good honest circulation in Minnesota, and where it fit a marketing problem I was glad to recommend it.

Our New Apartment

We were still living in our little three-room apartment at Blands when the World War I ended, November 11, 1918.

We shall never forget that day. We had Beverly with us at my office. Chicago's Loop went crazy -- berserk! We joined in tearing thick telephone directories into thin strips and throwing them out our fourth story window. Everyone was doing it. It was like snow falling all over the Loop. I got out in the throng for a while -- managed to elbow my way for some two blocks -- then fought my way through the jam back to the office. Every whistle and siren was going -- every car honking full blast!

About that time I learned of a new apartment building being built out in Maywood, third suburban town west of Chicago. I was beginning to get some of the tractor advertising for my nine magazines, and we felt that at last we could lease a full apartment. I leased this one, on the third floor, from the architect's blueprints, about the time the foundation was being laid. The apartment was on Fifth Street, a block or two north of the Northwestern railroad tracks.

It was going to be several months before the apartment building would be ready for occupancy. Nevertheless, in January we rented an old house on Second Street in Maywood, a few blocks from the new apartment building. My wife's father had decided to come to Chicago, and he bought furniture for the house. Her younger brother, Walter, had been released from the Navy and he and Bertha also lived with us in this place.

We lived there some six months. Beverly learned to walk there. The elder of my wife's younger brothers, Gilbert, returned from the trenches in France, discharged from the Army; and so, with his two sons back from the war, my wife's father shipped his furniture and moved back to Iowa.

We then moved for a few weeks into the hotel in Maywood. Maywood was a totally different type suburb in those days than it is today. It has grown immensely and has become a big factory town.

The frame hotel caught on fire while we stayed there, an incident of great excitement. In one room a couple of excited guests threw the mirror off the dresser out the window, breaking it into many fragments and then they carefully carried down the stairs the dresser itself.

We soon found a furnished house on Fourth Street we could rent until our apartment was finished. While living in this house, shortly prior to occupying the new apartment, my mother came to visit us, and remained until we had moved into our apartment.

All the while business was improving. We felt able to furnish our new apartment, and engaged one of Marshall Field's decorators to work with us in the furnishings for the apartment. What we selected was of the very best. Our own apartment -- the first that was our very own since marriage -- seemed a joy indeed.

We had moved into the furnished house in early December, 1919, and into our apartment in April, 1920.

By this time we were expecting our second child. My wife was having difficulties. Within a week or two after moving into our new apartment, and only a few days after my mother had returned to Salem, Oregon, Mrs. Armstrong was stricken with toxemia eclampsia, with urinalysis showing 40% albumin, and rushed to a hospital. We were told that there was only one doctor in the world who could save her in her serious condition -- and this specialist was called in. She survived, and our second daughter, Dorothy Jane, was born in a Des Moines hospital on July 7, 1920.

There was one lasting ill-effect from this critical illness -- the treatment that was administered ruined my wife's beautiful golden hair -- the most beautiful I had ever seen -- and in a comparatively short time she was white-haired.

The world-famous obstetrical specialist brought in on my wife's case in Chicago, her Des Moines doctor, and my wife's uncle who was a captain in the Medical Corps in the Army, all told us that another pregnancy would mean the certain death of my wife and of the baby. Although we did not know why at the time, we learned much later we were of the opposite Rh blood factor.

Chapter 12

Depression Strikes!

SHORTLY after our second daughter, Dorothy, was born, I persuaded my younger brother, Russell, then twenty, to come back to Chicago and join me in the advertising business. He had been employed in an office job with the Portland Gas Coke Company in Portland, Oregon.

My Brother's Experience

I gave him what instruction and coaching I could, and sent him out calling on prospects to sell advertising space for our magazines. But after several days -- or perhaps two or three weeks -- he didn't seem to be doing so well. I knew he had not had any of this kind of experience. So I decided to take him on a call with me, to observe the manner in which I talked with prospective advertisers. I decided that we should call together on someone I had never met before.

The J. I. Case tractor account had just switched to a new agency I had never contacted. I decided to make the call on the space buyer of this agency. It was one of my on days, and about 10:30 in the morning.

I wanted to set a good example for Russell, to show him how it was done. We went together to the agency office. Briskly, and with dignity I stepped up to the receptionist.

Tell Mr. Blank that Mr. Armstrong is here to see him, I said in a positive tone. I had found that this approach usually got me right in on my man.

The space buyer came out to the reception office, holding my card which I had sent in by the receptionist.

What bank journals do you represent? he asked. The nine largest -- all of them that are worth using, I replied snappily and positively, and in a tone of authority.

Well! he exclaimed, come in! In his office I immediately launched into the situation my surveys had disclosed, slapping down on his desk a pile of hundreds of questionnaires from bankers and tractor dealers, and taking out of my briefcase the typed tabulations and summaries of the surveys.

He was tremendously impressed. Mr. Armstrong, he said after we had covered the material in the surveys, I wonder if you could prepare for me a statement of the combined circulations, page sizes, rates, et cetera, of your publications.

I have it right here -- already prepared for you, I said, handing the statement to him.

He asked me to prepare for him some other statement. I reached into the briefcase and handed it to him. He asked if I would send over to him sample copies of each of my magazines. I reached in the briefcase, and handed them to him.

Well, he said finally, that just about covers everything. Now tell me, Mr. Armstrong -- I see you know this problem thoroughly, and you know your own publications. Just what do you advise for this J. I. Case account -- which magazines, and how much space ought they to use to accomplish their objective with the bankers?

They should use nothing but full pages, I said, speaking authoritatively, and they should use all nine publications for a concentrated national circulation, because the J. I. Case distribution is national; and they should use it every issue on a year-around basis because they have an educational problem which is going to require constant educational-type copy over an extended period of time. You've got to change the attitude of bankers in regard to mechanized power farming. That's a big order. It can only be done with big space, and it's going to take time. And here I have for you the data and arguments you should incorporate into the advertising copy to convince the bankers. These are the facts that will convince them if you present them in important-size space and keep it up month after month.

I handed him the typed statement of facts, data and arguments which my surveys and personal interviews with bankers had indicated would be most effective in changing banker attitudes toward tractors.

He thanked me, and Russell and I left. Record-Breaking Contract

Out in the hall, on the way to the elevator, I asked Russell: Do you think we will remain on the J. I. Case list, for renewal contracts for another year?

Boy! exclaimed Russell, will we! Why, I think he will do just what you recommended. Why, you had him literally eating right out of your hand.

Well, did that experience help you, Russ? I was completely surprised at his answer. No! It certainly didn't! Instead, it showed me why I haven't been landing any contracts. Look, Herb! I'm only twenty years old. They think of me as just a kid. You are twenty-eight. You've been in this for years, and you've had experience I haven't had. You have all the facts right on your tongue tip. You speak with assurance and authority. You know your stuff, and men you talk to know that you know your stuff. They have confidence in you immediately. But I don't have all this knowledge yet, and I don't appear as mature, and I can't talk as confidently.

I was dis appointed. To try to help my brother, I had really keyed myself up to put on a good show for him on this call. It boomeranged. It reacted in reverse. It discouraged him. And I didn't know what to do about it. What he had said was true. It would take him years to gain maturity of appearance, and the knowledge of all these merchandising and distribution problems, just as it had taken me years to acquire this knowledge and maturity.

That same afternoon the space buyer in the agency we had called on that morning called me on the telephone.

Hello, Mr. Armstrong. I have some good news for you. I didn't tell you this morning, but while you were here, the president and advertising manager of the J. I. Case Company were here in the office of our president, making up the lists for the next year. I took all your data list.

Splendid! I replied, but how much space? I was already carrying the J. I. Case account, with half-page space in only three magazines.

Full page, he replied. Splendid! But how many magazines? Oh, as if he had not thought to tell me, all nine of them.

Splendid! But how many months? I was having to drag it out of him.

Fifteen months, he replied. We will start with the October numbers, using October, November and December of this year, and then the entire calendar year next year, making a total of 15 pages in each magazine.

Wow! It was the biggest advertising contract ever sold for bank journals, so far as I knew. And so far as I know, it probably is still the record today. By this time advertising rates on all my magazines had gone up considerably. My commission on this order was probably around $3,500 -- a good fee for about one hour's consultation that morning!

For some little time longer I tried to keep Russell on the job, not soliciting tractor accounts, but smaller-space advertising. But he was just too young. He procured a job with one of my clients, a burglar alarm manufacturer, selling their burglar alarm system to banks. He traveled for some months in northern Illinois and in Wisconsin, gaining some valuable experience, getting together Board meetings in banks to present his product to them. But, although he did better on this, his youth proved too great a handicap, and finally he returned to Portland, Oregon, and to his job with the Gas company.

Depression Strikes

In January, 1920, the well-known statistician Roger Babson was the speaker at one of our Association of Commerce luncheons then being held each Wednesday in the Cameo Room of the Morrison Hotel. Through the Advertising Club, a division of Chicago Association of Commerce, I had been a member of the Association for some years.

We were then at the very height of a wave of postwar prosperity.

Gentlemen, said Mr. Babson, we are about to enter the worst business depression that our generation has ever experienced. I advise you all to set your houses in order. I advise against any further plans of expansion until this depression has passed over.

Seated at tables in that large room were leading bankers and business executives of Chicago. I glanced around. I saw amused smirks animate the faces of many prominent men.

Through the next few months of 1920 business activity continued its boom upswing.

In the summer of that year I attended the American bankers Association national convention in Washington, D.C. While passing the White House one day, I was stopped at the driveway for a large limousine emerging from the White House to pass. In the rear seat was President Woodrow Wilson. He smiled and waved his hand to the two or three of us who happened to be passing at the moment.

Mr. Wilson was the fourth President I had seen in person. At age five or six, when we lived in Marshalltown, Iowa, held in my father's arms, I saw President William McKinley. He was making a rear platform address from his private train. The event was so vividly stamped in my memory that I remember it distinctly, even though I was scarcely out of babyhood at the time.

I saw and heard President Theodore Roosevelt several times, both during his administration and afterward. I sat within about fifteen feet of him at an Association of Commerce banquet in the ballroom of Hotel LaSalle in Chicago. I saw President Taft, when he made a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. But since seeing and waving back to President Wilson that day in 1920, I have not seen a single President in person -- though of course, since television, most of us have seen every President many times; and I had seen all presidents since Wilson in newsreels.

A highlight of that 1920 convention trip to Washington, D.C. was a long conversation I had, lasting more than an hour, with John McHugh, in the lobby of the Willard Hotel. Mr. McHugh was then president of the Mechanics and Metals National Bank of New York. Later, through consolidations of this bank and others into the gigantic Chase National Bank, Mr. McHugh was elevated to a position two levels higher than the president of the largest bank on earth, with the title Chairman of the Executive Committee.

But one might ask: What price Glory? in the business world, after all. A very few years ago I stopped in at the Wall Street offices of the Chase National Bank, and asked for information as to the latter days of John McHugh.

Who? Never heard of him! was the only reply I could get from those of today's staff that I questioned. Had he been a glamour-boy movie star instead of a world-famous banker, his name might have lived after him more effectively.

I was really puzzled about one thing. John McHugh was the very epitome of a quiet, cultured, dignified gentleman. He was extremely courteous, kindly, polite. Naturally he had many friends and many who posed as friends. How could a soft-spoken and kindly gentleman like John McHugh turn down a conniving, scheming, professing friend who might come to him for a large undeserved loan?

Didn't friends and acquaintances take advantage of such a gentle soul? I asked one of my bank journal publishers.

He laughed. Oh, no, he explained. Don't worry about the wrong kind taking advantage of John McHugh's friendliness. His judgment is very keen, else he would never have risen to such high level in the banking world. Nobody puts anything over on him. He simply remains gracious and friendly, and explains that loans of this type are handled by such and such officer. He then offers to introduce the would-be borrower, expressing confidence he will be well taken care of. He always is. Such procedure is the signal to the other officer to turn the man down. The would-be borrower friend, of course, becomes angry and furious at this other officer -- but not at Mr. McHugh, who still retains the friendships.

Before the end of 1920, Roger Babson's predicted depression did strike -- with sudden and intense fury. By January, 1921, we had reached and passed its lowest ebb.

Thermometers on the Wall

At this time Roger Babson once again was the guest speaker in the Morrison Hotel Cameo Room Association of Commerce luncheon.

Well, gentlemen, he said, you will remember that a year ago I warned you that within one year we would be in the throes of the worst depression our generation has ever seen. I noticed many of you smiling unbelievingly then. Well, that year has rolled around, and here I am again, and here is the depression with me.

Chicago business leaders were not smiling now. Mr. Babson then proceeded to explain why he knew what was coming and business executives did not.

It is now mid-winter, he said. If I want to know what the temperature is, now, in this room, I go to the wall and look at the thermometer. If I want to know what it has been, up to now, and the existing trend as of the moment, I look at a recording thermometer. But if I want to know what the temperature in this room is going to be, an hour from now, I go to the source which determines future temperatures -- I go down to the boiler-room and see what is happening down there. You gentlemen looked at bank clearings, indexes of business activity, stock car loadings, stockmarket quotations -- you looked at the thermometers on the wall; I looked at THE WAY people as a whole were dealing with one another. I looked to the SOURCE which determines future conditions. I have found that that source may be defined in terms of 'RIGHTEOUSNESS.' When 51% or more of the whole people are reasonably 'righteous' in their dealings with one another, we are heading into increasing prosperity. When 51% of the people become 'unrighteous' in their business dealings with their fellows, then we are headed for BAD TIMES ECONOMICALLY!

I have never forgotten Mr. Babson's explanation. I hope my readers today may remember and profit by it, too.

I paid with the loss of my business to learn the lesson! Every one of my big-space advertisers in the tractor and similar industries went into economic failure in that flash depression of late 1920. It wiped out my business and source of income -- literally!

I was not a quitter. I had learned, now, not to give up. But I had not learned that a dead horse is DEAD! For two years I stayed on in Chicago vainly attempting to revive a dead business.

Chapter 13

Business Disintegrates

THE NEXT two years -- from late 1920 until December, 1922 -- were discouraging years. A few nationally known business executives, unable to take the reverses of the depression, sank to despondency and committed suicide. One of these was the president of one of the large automobile manufacturing concerns whom I had known personally.

I had been knocked down, stunned, made groggy -- but not knocked out. Desperately I clung on, hoping to climb back on top.

Conference with Millionaires

One morning -- it must have been about February, 1921 -- a telephone call came from the secretary of the National Implement and Vehicle Association. An important meeting of the Board of Directors of the association was in progress. Mr. Wallis (I do not now remember his initials), president of the J. I. Case Plow Works, my biggest client, was chairman of this board. He had asked the secretary to call me and ask if I could run over immediately to their meeting, being held across the Loop in the Union League Club.

I told him I would be right over. I raced down to a clothes-pressing shop and shoe shining parlor, a half block down West Madison Street from my office, ducked into a dressing room and had my suit pressed and shoes shined while I waited -- a rush job. Then I caught a taxi and hurried to the Union League Club.

Being ushered into the private room where the Board meeting was being held, I shook hands with Mr. Wallis, and in turn was introduced to six other millionaire presidents of large farm implement manufacturers. I remember there was Mr. Brantingham, president of Emerson-Brantingham, among the others. The magnetism of the powerful personalities of these seven big business heads surcharged the atmosphere of the room. It was the first time I had ever been in the presence of so many big men at once. I was deeply impressed. But they were not in a happy mood. They were a deeply concerned group of men. The depression was ruining their businesses. They faced ruin.

Advising Clients to Cancel

Mr. Armstrong, said Mr. Wallis, you know, of course, the extent to which this depression has hit the farm tractor industry. This meeting has been called in the interests of this entire industry. The industry cannot survive unless we can find some way to stimulate sales in this depression. We have to find some way to induce farmers to buy tractors -- and they have quit buying them.

Now what we want to ask you is this: can you -- will you bring pressure on the editors of bank journals of this nation, whom you represent, to write strong and vigorous editorials urging bankers to advise the farmers to resume buying tractors. Can your editor show the bankers WHY they ought to bring pressure on farmers to buy tractors, and save this great industry?

It was a crucial moment in my life. Here were seven heads of great corporations. They represented the entire great farm tractor and farm implement industry. And they were appealing to me to devise an idea, and take an action that would save this vast industry of American Big Business from bankruptcy!

What an appeal to my egotism! What a temptation to think of personal importance!

But I did know the FACTS! And when this test came, I had to be honest with these men. It was no time for a grandstand play for personal glory, or for pretense. I knew the FACTS -- hard, cold stern FACTS -- and I had to be honest! Even though I knew it meant cancellation of what tractor advertising had not already been cancelled.

Of course the implication was that, if I could induce our editors to undertake a campaign to pressure bankers into inducing farmers to purchase tractors in this depression, an unheard-of volume of big-space advertising would be handed me on a platter!

I was well aware of that. I was well aware that I had it in my power to ignore FACTS I had gathered, and start such a campaign in America's leading bank magazines. These men didn't know what I knew. But it would be misrepresentation -- and deliberate dishonesty.

I was ambitious to make money. But not by falsification or dishonesty! I was sincere!

No, gentlemen, I replied without hesitation. I cannot do it! I have been constantly in touch with the bankers in regard to the farm tractor situation. Let me tell you what the country bankers know. They know that corn which normally has been selling for $1.12 per bushel has dropped down to 18 cents per bushel. I have one client now whose business has skyrocketed since the depression -- the Gordon-Van Tyne Company of Davenport, Iowa. They make, as you know, prefabricated structures for temporary grain storage. Everywhere farmers are buying these, and storing their grain for a rise in the market -- after the depression is over.

Bankers know that one tractor replaces six horses. Tractors have to be fed gasoline, which is expensive right now. Horses are fed on 18-cent corn and oats and hay that have skidded likewise in price. Country bankers know their farmer customers would think they were fools to recommend buying tractors and feeding them on high-priced gasoline, when they have their horses being fed on grain they can't sell.

The next day I received a cancellation of my last remaining tractor account -- J. I. Case. But I still had my honesty and self-respect.

A Child's Menu

In early May, 1921, it was necessary to take a business trip to Iowa. It was decided that I should take our eldest daughter Beverly, then almost three, for a visit with her Auntie Bert as she called her Aunt Bertha, while I transacted business in Iowa.

In a lower berth on the sleeper that night, as I was undressing her to put on her sleeping garment, Beverly stood up, and discovered she could reach up and touch the shiny top of the berth.

See, Daddy, she exclaimed, I'm a BIG girl now. I can touch the ceiling.

Next morning we were having breakfast in the dining room of the Hotel Savory. When the waitress brought me a menu, Beverly, in the highchair they had brought her, demanded a menu also. Laughingly the waitress gave her one. She looked up and down the menu with a studious expression -- it might have been upside-down. And then, with great feminine dignity, in a very ladylike voice, Beverly gave the waitress her order.

I think I will have, she said, pertly, some ice cream, some string beans, and some candy.

Later, when her younger sister Dorothy became about the same age, she ordered a dinner.

I want some ice cream, popcorn and some chewing gum, she ordered.

I never did quite agree with the modernistic psychologists who say we should always give children whatever they want -- that they instinctively know what is best for them.

Our children and grandchildren, of course, like all others, have on occasion gotten off some cute sayings. One time my wife was putting on Dorothy's little Dr. Denton sleepers to put her to bed. It seems they were made of wool, and they scratched her skin.

Mother, she said seriously, nobody but just me and God and Jesus knows what a fix I'm in!

Recuperating in Iowa

Things in my business went from bad to worse. It was discouraging -- frustrating. I was taking the biggest beating of my life -- but hung stubbornly on. Finally, about July, 1922, it became necessary to give up our apartment. My income had gone too low to support my family, and at that time we decided that Mrs. Armstrong and the girls should go to her father's farm in Iowa, to lessen the expenses.

I rented a single room about a block away in Maywood, furnishing it with some of our very fine furniture, and the rest of the furniture was put in storage. We had a Knabe piano I had purchased new on contract, but it went back to the store when we could no longer keep up the payments. All the rest of the furniture had been bought for cash.

From this time I entered upon perhaps the blackest and most discouraging three months of my life. It was a mistake to try to face this uphill treadmill climb alone without my wife and family. If ever I needed my wife it was then.

I began palling around with two other young men who were advertising representatives of magazines. One of them was in process of separating from and divorcing his wife. The wife of the other was away for the summer and fall. We began to haunt nightclubs -- then called cabarets. Often we would hang around these places of sorrowful, moaning, screeching, wailing music -- if you could call such dirges music -- until 1 or 2 a.m. We began to drink -- not at all even a fraction of the volume of an alcoholic -- but too much for efficiency. My mental attitude became one of frustration.

Finally, I got two or three weeks behind with the room rent on my single room, and I felt too humiliated to go back. I went to a northside second-rate hotel -- then to another. Finally I could not even keep this up.

I reached the end of the rope in Chicago in October, 1922. I was lonesome for my wife and children. At last I, too, had to seek refuge on my father-in-law's farm in Iowa, where we would have no cost of living. I do not remember now, but I probably traveled this time in a day coach.

My father-in-law was finishing up corn shucking and I did the best I could to help him -- but I was inexperienced, and unable to keep up with him.

Through that fall and winter, I spent most of the time in resting, and recuperating in morale from the crushing defeat of losing my business because my Big-Business clients had lost theirs. That winter, beside the warm fire of burning oak logs, I read through three or four books of fiction -- about the only fiction reading of my entire life. I did what I could to help on the farm, but that wasn't much, and my wife, of course, did the cooking, and housework.

My First College Activity

At this time my wife's younger brother, Walter, was a freshman in Simpson College in Indianola. Along in November he came to me with a proposition.

Herb, he said, I've decided to go in for the college oratorical contest, if you'll help me.

A short time before had been the first day of basketball practice. Walter had been the star basketball player in Simpson Academy, which he had attended instead of High School. His greatest ambition had been to make the Simpson varsity basketball team, and to be chosen on the Des Moines Register's all-state team.

On opening day of basketball practice, he was the first one into the gym with a basketball suit. When the coach and other players came on the floor, the coach had frowned and walked over to Walter.

Dillon, he said, what are you doing here? We won't need you. We have all the material we need this year. Go to the showers and get into your street clothes.

This was open humiliation before all the candidates for the squad. Being rejected without a chance to even try out for the team was unfair, unjust, and discriminatory. He couldn't understand it. He was MAD! Later he found the reason. The coach's salary at that time was being paid by a certain fraternity, and only frat members were given consideration for the team.

Now here's the way I figure, he said to me. In oratory, anyone can compete. They can't throw me off because I don't belong to a frat. Now you are a professional writer. If you will help me write my oration -- and it is allowable to have help -- and work with me on delivery, I think I have a chance. The two best orators Simpson ever had are a Junior and a Senior -- both members of that frat. If you can beat them, it will be sweet revenge. Will you help me?

Well, Walt, I replied, I don't know a thing about college oratorical contests. I never saw one. I have never read the script of a college oration. I don't even know what they are like. But if you will bring me copies of a few sample orations, I'll sure help you if I can.

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