File #2314: "CAC_CC_039_1_1_30_0010.pdf"
Text
Box 1, Folder 30, Item 10-- Photocopy of the Oklahoma Post article, "Commercialism" by Mrs.
John A. Logan (undated)
[preprinted text]
Oklahoma Post-Sunday
Commercialism By Mrs. John A. Logan
The most serious danger hanging over everything in the United States today is commercialism. It
so permeates everything that one can not enjoy anything. Avarciousness is apparently the one
dominating principle. Many parents are deliberately planning to extort from their children some
kind of compensation for what they do for them in the way of education or starting them in life.
Not a few try to make their children who are minors support themselves and contribute to that of
their family. Girls and boys in their teens work hard and religiously carry home their wages
every pay day, accepting from their parents the pittance they allow them to spend for themselves.
Scores of children try all sorts of schemes to extract from their parents money, not infrequently
demand for bargaining for reward for behaving themselves properly, or for promising to abstain
from different forms of vice. Foolish parents in innumerable cases agree to pay the children if
they will not smoke, drink, gamble, or indulge in the many things which are destined to be fatal
to them morally, mentally and physically; thereby cultivating a commercial spirt on a wrong
basis. It would be far better to train them to do things or refrain from evil and vicious habits upon
principle. It is hardly probably that children who are hired to do right will acquire likely to
follow their inclinations when the monetary reward is cut off. They put no stress upon the
acquisition of moral courage or the formation of character, but in their imaginations pend over
and over again the money they are to receive for good behavior, and when it ceases they consider
themselves defrauded and they have no respect for the virtues they have been hired to practice.
The old time friendships which prompted men to lay down their lives for their friends is almost
non-existent. For services formerly rendered gratuitously by one friend to another are today
given on the basis of a percent commission, according to the importance of the service. Few are
allowed to be under obligations beyond the "closing of the deal" or end of the interview, the
labors of a friend in countless cases being nothing more than a talk with the party who must be
seen in the interest of your friend. Advice is the most expensive luxury in which one can indulge,
notwithstanding it may be prove to be ill or useless. In ever household domestic service has to
be twice paid for if one has things well done. First you agree to pay certain wages for the
performance of specified duties: you give board and room to the employe and in a brief time you
discover that you are expected to give fees, presents of all kinds, if they daily perform their
duties satisfactorily or are asked to do any extra thing. Somebody is at fault for the introduction
of this kind fo graft. Recently a lady invited a few friends to dinner. The menu was arranged but
eh mistress and the cook. It was very simple and really little more than the mistress of the
kitchen cooked every day; the only difference being int eh quantity necessary for the increased
number of person at the table. The cook, an artist in her profession, was delighted to hav end
opportunity to display her art, but informed the mistress she must have five dollars extra for
cooking the dinner, saying it was customary now for "the regular cook in a family to have extra
for cooking luncheons and dinners for company," because that was the price paid for outside
cooks who came into a house to cook for such occasions. The butler informed the mistress he
must hav two dollars extra "to serve the diner for company," making a total of seven dollars
demanded by household servants employed by the month and each paid regularly an exorbitant
price for their work. in the average hotel the fees to waiters, bell boys, elevator boys, maids and
porters are simply outrageous. If you ask for a pitcher of water the boy will stand and stare at you
until you give him a fee, and if it is less than a quarter of a dollar he never thinks fo expressing
his thanks. All these things are commercial propositions and make one's life a burden.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and holidays are all occasions to be dreaded because
of the commercialism which enters into the pleasures which might otherwise be enjoyed. Behind
all movements for the advancement of civilization and Christianity there is commercialism in its
worst form. Voluntary service in any good cause is rare. Person may pose as volunteers, but
before they have done much they betray their greed and the need of money to secure their
continuation in the field. Great schemes are presented daily for the evangelization of the whole
world, but it is soon found they are dependent upon the amount of money that can be praised to
further them.All sorts of athletics and sports for the amusement and development of the race
must be backed by commercialism, and if the commercial side is not well managed, the club,
league or association fails, though there may have been the most skillful actors on the list of
members, A story is going the rounds of an unsophisticated young woman who was invited to
luncheon and subsequently inveigled not playing bridge, and being a novice was victimized one
the extent of two hundred dollars. And nothing so much money told her husband, a man of the
world, the whole truth about the affair and begged him to get her out of her trouble, which he
immediately proceeded to do, by sending his check to his wife's hostess fo rate amount , plus five
dollars, to pay for the luncheon his wife had eaten; thereby putting a proper construction upon
her host's hospitality. Wedding presents are sometimes embarrassing because the recipients later
discover they will be expected to reciprocate in a brief time, on account of approaching nuptials
fo the donors. In every relation of life the mainspring of every movement is commercialism. And
the sooner one recognizes this fact and ceases to expect gratuities of any kind, and makes it a
rule to pay the commissions in cash or its equivalent for every service rendered them and the
interest accruing upon every obligation, the happier they will be and the less frequently they will
be disappointed.
[/preprinted text]
John A. Logan (undated)
[preprinted text]
Oklahoma Post-Sunday
Commercialism By Mrs. John A. Logan
The most serious danger hanging over everything in the United States today is commercialism. It
so permeates everything that one can not enjoy anything. Avarciousness is apparently the one
dominating principle. Many parents are deliberately planning to extort from their children some
kind of compensation for what they do for them in the way of education or starting them in life.
Not a few try to make their children who are minors support themselves and contribute to that of
their family. Girls and boys in their teens work hard and religiously carry home their wages
every pay day, accepting from their parents the pittance they allow them to spend for themselves.
Scores of children try all sorts of schemes to extract from their parents money, not infrequently
demand for bargaining for reward for behaving themselves properly, or for promising to abstain
from different forms of vice. Foolish parents in innumerable cases agree to pay the children if
they will not smoke, drink, gamble, or indulge in the many things which are destined to be fatal
to them morally, mentally and physically; thereby cultivating a commercial spirt on a wrong
basis. It would be far better to train them to do things or refrain from evil and vicious habits upon
principle. It is hardly probably that children who are hired to do right will acquire likely to
follow their inclinations when the monetary reward is cut off. They put no stress upon the
acquisition of moral courage or the formation of character, but in their imaginations pend over
and over again the money they are to receive for good behavior, and when it ceases they consider
themselves defrauded and they have no respect for the virtues they have been hired to practice.
The old time friendships which prompted men to lay down their lives for their friends is almost
non-existent. For services formerly rendered gratuitously by one friend to another are today
given on the basis of a percent commission, according to the importance of the service. Few are
allowed to be under obligations beyond the "closing of the deal" or end of the interview, the
labors of a friend in countless cases being nothing more than a talk with the party who must be
seen in the interest of your friend. Advice is the most expensive luxury in which one can indulge,
notwithstanding it may be prove to be ill or useless. In ever household domestic service has to
be twice paid for if one has things well done. First you agree to pay certain wages for the
performance of specified duties: you give board and room to the employe and in a brief time you
discover that you are expected to give fees, presents of all kinds, if they daily perform their
duties satisfactorily or are asked to do any extra thing. Somebody is at fault for the introduction
of this kind fo graft. Recently a lady invited a few friends to dinner. The menu was arranged but
eh mistress and the cook. It was very simple and really little more than the mistress of the
kitchen cooked every day; the only difference being int eh quantity necessary for the increased
number of person at the table. The cook, an artist in her profession, was delighted to hav end
opportunity to display her art, but informed the mistress she must have five dollars extra for
cooking the dinner, saying it was customary now for "the regular cook in a family to have extra
for cooking luncheons and dinners for company," because that was the price paid for outside
cooks who came into a house to cook for such occasions. The butler informed the mistress he
must hav two dollars extra "to serve the diner for company," making a total of seven dollars
demanded by household servants employed by the month and each paid regularly an exorbitant
price for their work. in the average hotel the fees to waiters, bell boys, elevator boys, maids and
porters are simply outrageous. If you ask for a pitcher of water the boy will stand and stare at you
until you give him a fee, and if it is less than a quarter of a dollar he never thinks fo expressing
his thanks. All these things are commercial propositions and make one's life a burden.
Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and holidays are all occasions to be dreaded because
of the commercialism which enters into the pleasures which might otherwise be enjoyed. Behind
all movements for the advancement of civilization and Christianity there is commercialism in its
worst form. Voluntary service in any good cause is rare. Person may pose as volunteers, but
before they have done much they betray their greed and the need of money to secure their
continuation in the field. Great schemes are presented daily for the evangelization of the whole
world, but it is soon found they are dependent upon the amount of money that can be praised to
further them.All sorts of athletics and sports for the amusement and development of the race
must be backed by commercialism, and if the commercial side is not well managed, the club,
league or association fails, though there may have been the most skillful actors on the list of
members, A story is going the rounds of an unsophisticated young woman who was invited to
luncheon and subsequently inveigled not playing bridge, and being a novice was victimized one
the extent of two hundred dollars. And nothing so much money told her husband, a man of the
world, the whole truth about the affair and begged him to get her out of her trouble, which he
immediately proceeded to do, by sending his check to his wife's hostess fo rate amount , plus five
dollars, to pay for the luncheon his wife had eaten; thereby putting a proper construction upon
her host's hospitality. Wedding presents are sometimes embarrassing because the recipients later
discover they will be expected to reciprocate in a brief time, on account of approaching nuptials
fo the donors. In every relation of life the mainspring of every movement is commercialism. And
the sooner one recognizes this fact and ceases to expect gratuities of any kind, and makes it a
rule to pay the commissions in cash or its equivalent for every service rendered them and the
interest accruing upon every obligation, the happier they will be and the less frequently they will
be disappointed.
[/preprinted text]