PART O N E
Fundamental Techniques
in
Handling People
1
“IF YOU WANT TO GATHER
HONEY, DON’T KICK OVER THE
BEEHIVE”
On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New
York City had ever known had come to its climax. After
weeks of search, “Two Gun” Crowley - the killer, the
gunman who didn’t smoke or drink - was at bay, trapped
in his sweetheart’s apartment on West End Avenue.
One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid
siege to his top-floor hideway. They chopped holes in
the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop
killer,” with teargas. Then they mounted their machine
guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an
hour one of New York’s fine residential areas reverberated
with the crack of pistol fire and the rut-tat-tat of
machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an overstuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand
excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it
ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New
York.
When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner
E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado
was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered
in the history of New York. “He will kill,” said the
Commissioner, “at the drop of a feather.”
But how did “Two Gun” Crowley regard himself? We
know, because while the police were firing into his
apartment, he wrote a letter addressed “To whom it may
concern, ” And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his
wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this letter
Crowley said: “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a
kind one - one that would do nobody any harm.”
A short time before this, Crowley had been having a
necking party with his girl friend on a country road out
on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the
car and said: “Let me see your license.”
Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut
the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the
officer’s revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate
body. And that was the killer who said: “Under my
coat is a weary heart, but a kind one - one that would do
nobody any harm.’
Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he
arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, “This
is what I get for killing people”? No, he said: “This is
what I get for defending myself.”
The point of the story is this: “Two Gun” Crowley
didn’t blame himself for anything.
Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you
think so, listen to this:
“I have spent the best years of my life giving people
the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time,
and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.”
That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious
Public Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who
ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn’t condemn himself.
He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor - an
unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.
And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up
under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of
New York’s most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview
that he was a public benefactor. And he believed
it.
I have had some interesting correspondence with
Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York’s infamous
Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he
declared that “few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard
themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you
and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell
you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the
trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning,
fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts
even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining
that they should never have been imprisoned at all.”
If Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison walls
don’t blame themselves for anything - what about the
people with whom you and I come in contact?
John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his
name, once confessed: “I learned thirty years ago that it
is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my
own limitations without fretting over the fact that God
has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.”
Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally
had to blunder through this old world for a third of a
century before it even began to dawn upon me that
ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize
themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it
may be.
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive
and usually makes him strive to justify himself.
Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s
precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and
arouses resentment.
B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved
through his experiments that an animal rewarded for
good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain
what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished
for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that
the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not
make lasting changes and often incur resentment.
Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, “As
much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation,”
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize
employees, family members and friends, and still
not correct the situation that has been condemned.
George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety
coordinator for an engineering company, One of his re-sponsibilities
is to see that employees wear their hard
hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He reported
that whenever he came across workers who were
not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of
authority of the regulation and that they must comply.
As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove the hats.
He decided to try a different approach. The next time
he found some of the workers not wearing their hard hat,
he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit
properly. Then he reminded the men in a pleasant tone
of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from
injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job.
The result was increased compliance with the regulation
with no resentment or emotional upset.
You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling
on a thousand pages of history, Take, for example,
the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and
President Taft - a quarrel that split the Republican
party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and
wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War
and altered the flow of history. Let’s review the facts
quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of the
White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was
elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off to
Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded.
He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure
the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull
Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. In the
election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican
party carried only two states - Vermont and
Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever
known.
Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President
Taft blame himself? Of course not, With tears in his
eyes, Taft said: “I don’t see how I could have done any
differently from what I have.”
Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don’t
know, and I don’t care. The point I am trying to make is
that all of Theodore Roosevelt’s criticism didn’t persuade
Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft strive
to justify himself and to reiterate with tears in his eyes:
“I don’t see how I could have done any differently from
what I have.”
Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the
newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s.
It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in American
public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert
B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s cabinet,
was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves
at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome - oil reserves that
had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did
secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He
handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward
L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave
Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of
one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed
manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines
into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent
wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves.
These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of
guns and bayonets, rushed into court - and blew the lid
off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that
it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire
nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party,
and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.
Fall was condemned viciously - condemned as few
men in public life have ever been. Did he repent?
Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public
speech that President Harding’s death had been due to
mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed
him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her
chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed:
"What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband
never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold
would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one
who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified.”
There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers,
blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like that.
So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone
tomorrow, let’s remember Al Capone, “Two Gun”
Crowley and Albert Fall. Let’s realize that criticisms are
like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s
realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn
will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn
us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: “I
don’t see how I could have done any differently from
what I have.”
On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall bedroom of a cheap lodging house
directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, where
John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln’s long body
lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was
too short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur’s
famous painting The Horse Fair hung above the
bed, and a dismal gas jet flickered yellow light.
As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said,
“There lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world
has ever seen.”
What was the secret of Lincoln’s success in dealing
with people? I studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for
ten years and devoted all of three years to writing and
rewriting a book entitled Lincoln the Unknown. I believe
I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study of
Lincoln’s personality and home life as it is possible for
any being to make. I made a special study of Lincoln’s
method of dealing with people. Did he indulge in criticism?
Oh, yes. As a young man in the Pigeon Creek
Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote
letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these
letters on the country roads where they were sure to be
found. One of these letters aroused resentments that
burned for a lifetime.
Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in
Springfield, Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly
in letters published in the newspapers. But he did this
just once too often.
In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious
politician by the name of James Shields. Lincoln lamned
him through an anonymous letter published in
Springfield Journal. The town roared with laughter.
Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.
He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse,
started after Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel.
Lincoln didn’t want to fight. He was opposed to dueling,
but he couldn’t get out of it and save his honor. He was
given the choice of weapons. Since he had very long
arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in
sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the
appointed day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the
Mississippi River, prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped
the duel.
That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln’s
life. It taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing
with people. Never again did he write an insulting
letter. Never again did he ridicule anyone. And from that
time on, he almost never criticized anybody for anything.
Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a
new general at the head of the Army of the Potomac, and
each one in turn - McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker,
Meade - blundered tragically and drove Lincoln to pacing
the floor in despair. Half the nation savagely condemned
these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, “with
malice toward none, with charity for all,” held his peace.
One of his favorite quotations was “Judge not, that ye be
not judged.”
And when Mrs. Lincoln and others spoke harshly of
the southern people, Lincoln replied: “Don’t criticize
them; they are just what we would be under similar
circumstances.”
Yet if any man ever had occasion to criticize, surely it
was Lincoln. Let’s take just one illustration:
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first
three days of July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee
began to retreat southward while storm clouds deluged
the country with rain. When Lee reached the Potomac
with his defeated army, he found a swollen, impassable
river in front of him, and a victorious Union Army behind
him. Lee was in a trap. He couldn’t escape. Lincoln
saw that. Here was a golden, heaven-sent opportunitythe opportunity to capture Lee’s army and end the war
immediately. So, with a surge of high hope, Lincoln ordered
Meade not to call a council of war but to attack
Lee immediately. Lincoln telegraphed his orders and
then sent a special messenger to Meade demanding immediate
action.
And what did General Meade do? He did the very
opposite of what he was told to do. He called a council
of war in direct violation of Lincoln’s orders. He hesitated.
He procrastinated. He telegraphed all manner of excuses. He refused point-blank to attack Lee. Finally
the waters receded and Lee escaped over the Potomac
with his forces.
Lincoln was furious, “ What does this mean?” Lincoln
cried to his son Robert. “Great God! What does this
mean? We had them within our grasp, and had only to
stretch forth our hands and they were ours; yet nothing
that I could say or do could make the army move. Under
the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated
Lee. If I had gone up there, I could have whipped
him myself.”
In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote
Meade this letter. And remember, at this period of his
life Lincoln was extremely conservative and restrained
in his phraseology. So this letter coming from Lincoln in
1863 was tantamount to the severest rebuke.
My dear General,
I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune
involved in Lee’s escape. He was within our easy
grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection
With our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is,
the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not
safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so
south of the river, when you can take with you very fewno more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand?
It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that
you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone,
and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.
What do you suppose Meade did when he read the
letter?
Meade never saw that letter. Lincoln never mailed it.
It was found among his papers after his death.
My guess is - and this is only a guess - that after writing
that letter, Lincoln looked out of the window and
said to himself, “Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be
so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit here in the quiet
of the White House and order Meade to attack; but if I
had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much
blood as Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been pierced with the screams and shrieks of
the wounded and dying, maybe I wouldn’t be so anxious
to attack either. If I had Meade’s timid temperament,
perhaps I would have done just what he had done. Anyhow,
it is water under the bridge now. If I send this
letter, it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade
try to justify himself. It will make him condemn me. It
will arouse hard feelings, impair all his further usefulness
as a commander, and perhaps force him to resign
from the army.”