The San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 83, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 11, 1926 Page: 30 of 98
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PART FOUR—
THE POTTERS
PROLOGUE.
WHEN Mamie and Red Finished their honeymoon fighting
imaginary pirates in Key Largo they came North leaving
Potter to pursue his profession—that of selling dry lots to
wet customers and vice versa. . . . Selling is not new stuff to
Bill as we know for we have had echoes of his activities in the
’West where many a cornfed mother of Nebraska Las been in-
veigled through Bill’s mellifluous persiflage into purchasing
eight volume sets of the Wonder Picture Encyclopedia for
Children. With this training to sustain him. Bill should be well
able to take care of himself among the rabid reaWors along Bis-
cayne Bav.
SCENE ONE
The weekly luncheon of the sales force of the Key Largo
Development—every mother s son a go-getter. Bill as one of the
..goingest of the getters is sitting on the edge of his chair snapping
every Strav crumb of inspiration. . . . The waiters are clearing
the dishes with customary pandemonium as the sales manager
rises and looks down upon the sea of hungry faces.
” * SALES MANAGER: (Rapping for order) Well fellows. I
' think it would start us off right and give the proper spirit to the
'meeting right off the bat if we have the old Key Largo Song.
Waddye say?
SALESMEN: (Singing dutifully
Yes Sir that's Key Largo
No Sir no embargo
Yes Sir that's Key Largo—wo
Hey. hey you from Fargo
Load up all your cargo
And come to Key Largo now.
We declare
It's a bear
Simply oozing with sunshine and air
' (You tell ’em)
Yes Sir that’s Key Largo
No Sir no embargo
Yes Sir. that's Key Largo—wow !
SALES MANAGER: Well boys we’re here today to talk
• things over and exchange ideas. Of course what we want are
I good ideas and if 1 do say so myself my ideas are as good as
J. anyone's and maybe a little better so perhaps I had better carry
on. All those in favor say "Aye.” The “Ayes’’ have jt. As I
was saying. I think perhaps we have been paying too much at-
y tention to the commercial and financial arguments in dealing with
’ buyers and not enough with the artistic and aesthetic and poetic
’ arguments which I feel will be more successful for influencing
7 the emotions of the buyers if you know what I mean. We hate
> been trying to appeal too much to their heads and not to their
: hearts if you know what I mean. I think we should talk more
about the romance of our proposition and the glamor having a
home where the sun is a benediction and the moon is a balm. 1
think we should say to them that they should come here as to a
story book island where the sea like a sleepy wanderer done
with great deeds sighs among the tree shades—a lonely friendly
• sea that glimmers on the frontier of romance—a sea out of Moby
Dick and an island out of Robinson Crusoe.
Bill: (Repeating half to himself) . . . where the sun is a
benediction and the moon is a balm . . . That s hot stuff.
SALES MANAGER: I’d like to have some expression from
the sales force. I d like to know what ideas if any some of you
fellow* have along this line. W ilson what have you got to say ?
WILSON: (el matter of fact lad who has nothing much to
say about it but being a good real estate salesman has plenty of
words at his disposal just the same) Seems to me we're going to
get off on the wrong foot with this glamor and poetry and stuff.
l*believe in giving them cold liard facts. Or at least if they ain t
facts they ought to sound like facts. Of course it's pretty hard
to tell these days just what is facts but if you use your imagina-
tion you can always find some and that s the only kind of imagina-
Kathleen Norris Censures Woman Who Can’t Live on Income
IN a recent issue of a popular maga-
aine an anonymous woman writes
•••as absorbingly interesting article
called “Living on the Ragged Edge.'
Ever since I read it a few days ago I
have been wondering wbat sort of a
person the writer is.
Sbe says she is a college graduate
and she sounds intelligent as far as
fine phrasing and a cultured outlook
upon life go but she must Is. curious-
ly ■■developed in some ways.
. Women have been doing amazing
things sin<-v the beginning of time: our
A Baby in Your Home
many married coupka yearn for
t. that tnoueanda of copies of a
hook y Dr H Will Elder* are be-
buiet without twl to child leaa
Any family interest'd in over-
g gftCtX ©midi t in* of nature mat hinder
'ha <ift of «hildreu should write for
thin free book today It describe* a
frtf"— treatment bis. 1 < ■ t
K ' • * w< ndel ful
fc' hau Tnar ' eloUh * IU
* country in relieving
yUttT woman who w'nt* ’.*> Hvt »
3rc9AjS2*<| happy life with Huie <>ne>
her should consider it h* r fire*
to know whet Mterlltonc 1 - *. • d why
ahouid be wonderful an aid to her
iMteaC this Utile book which is m
•fcwiUW* Charge or uhhc&uon in a plain
It enfold* tacts that m< at
have had explained to
£ /them. Bend NO Money NO übhga
r tloMk Simply name and addrea* t l»r.
H Win Vlderr l»7e BalUn«er Bid<
0U Joseph.
6
- American women especially have been
i courageous and daring for three bun-
; dred years. They have conquered the
' frontiers borne children settled to
[ form new cities backed and nursed
। and cheered their men in war in the
immediate past. And now in th.
present all barriers go do ' 4 before
s them they fill the professions they
. build bridges and design office build-
. ings they are creeping into that last
sacred stronghold politics.
. But here is one an intelligent and
r educated woman too who is downed
♦ by the simplest and most obvious
I problem of all. She can't live within
I uer income!
What is 1 ir blood her training and
i her schooling worth if she collapses
{the instant she touches reality? One
wonders what she would do if she
had to accompany an exploring hus-
band into the wilderness make a home
and a living for a houseful of father-
less children cross the plains iu a
covered wagon or establish a field
hospital by light of bursting bombs?
PITIES WRITER.
Reading her article 1 can think of
■a hundred women I personally know
I । who solve every few months prob-
\ lems as hard as her one problem and
J who carry year out and year in bur
* ! dens far heavier than any she has
.r ever known.
~ This is her situation. She has a
■ good husband who is doing well in a
r law firm and two children; she does
>r
a some lucrative work outside the home
* herself. They are buying a city
r bouse with help from bis mother they
have three servants when in the city
• and two when she and the children
it are down in the .country in a small
7 farmhouse that seems an economical
* eolstipo of the hot weather problem
it The husband's pride Buffers deep
* hurt because his wife works and he
h has to borrow from his mother; he
speaks of the “bitterness of failure”
tion Eni. in favor of. The only moonshine glamor my customers
are interested in comes in bottles and you don’t have to pull no ;
song and dance to sell ’em on the glamor and romance that’s in i
that. W hat they want to know is not whether there is benedic-
tion and balm in this proposition but are they going to get a turn- i
over and if so how soon and how much profit. That’s all I got ।
to say. Thank you (Sits down solidly to scattering applause.) i
SALES MANAGER: (Dryly) You said quite enough. Now ।
I'd like to hear from one of our new men. We haven’t heard i
from him yet. Maybe he’s got some good ideas. Somebody in i
this gang is bound to have it might just as well be him. Besides
he's young and you know what they say: “Out of the mouths of
babes.” Will you stand up. Mr. Potter and tell us what you think :
if possible? 1
The weekly luncheon of the sales force of the Key Largo Development—every mother’s son a go-getter. Bit I as one of the goingest of the getters is sitting on the
e of his chair snapping up every stray crumb of inspir ation.
BILL POTTER: (Rising to hearty applause) 1 don't think
I've got very much to say. (Applause.) But I agree with our
sales manager very much. (Another round of applause led this
time by the sales manager.) Seems to me that when he said we
ought to touch on the poetry side of our proposition he struck an
important keynote if you know what I mean. I’ve just had some
very interesting experience in selling where sentiment was every-
thing and I often found that all my other arguments for buying
my proposition were wasted. I could always bring the prospects
round by reciting a nifty piece of poetry to them—something
about heave* or home or mother or maybe all three.
“Thinking of you that's all that I do
All the day long all the night through
Sitting here thinking and thinking of you.”
if you know what I mean. Something like that. Now it seems
to me that if we had a salesroom fitted up very artistically with
pictures and rose colored lamps nice deep overstuffed furniture
and we had an orchestra off in the corner somewhere playing
swell tunes like “To a Wild Rose” or “The End of a Perfect
Day” and we got our prospects all sitting deep there in the
shadows soaking up this swell music we could just sort of ease
in and out among ’em very soft and stealthy like and by the
time they came out of their trance they'd wake up and find their
hands full of signed contracts and receipts for first payments
down. (Applause.) If you know what I mean. (Hearty ap-
plause—it’s quite evident they do know just exactly what he
i
Wife With $BOOO to Spend Is Simply Trying to Play in $16000 Class Writer >
Says After Analyzing Too-heavy Expenses in Household Where
Ends Can’t Be Made to Meet. ;
■ ♦
of the discomfort of knowing there is
‘not one dollar's leeway.”
As for the wife the words she uses
about her own life are; “dead broko
is our perpetual economic status.”
She speaks of the past few years as
“thoroughly unhappy years—years of
misery. Bills that mount beyond in-
come—last moment frantic borrowing
—dull nagging inaistent hurt.”
WHERE TROUBLE LIES.
This woman foresees only "miser-
able years ahead living with a good
income on the ragged edge of debt
never really letting debts pile up yet
never knowing from month to month
whether or not we can meet our bills.
“Expenses” site laments “for con-
certs books theater and travel are
practically nil. We have no money
to spend on the expression of affec-
tion we rarely give each other pres-
ents. Life grows drab and one's
partner the drabbest part of it. The
lack of a bank balance is the essence
of negation.”
She doesn*t say what her income is
but it cannot be leas than *BOOO.
Three servants in the biggest city
' would acebunt for *lBOO of that food
for six or seven persons would surely
mean *2OOO more at an average of a
scant *4*l a week rent of the two
' houses low as the country rent and
1 low as the taxes and insurance and in-
-1 terest on the town bouse may be
। would certainly total *l2OO.
There are five thousand gone al-
> ready with everything else to come
• out of the three remaining. School-
> ing clothing dentist and doctor car-
fares eoal lights laundry and clean-
THE SAN ANTONIO LIGHT
er telephone all the hundred items i
these big outstanding obligations do I
not include—surely these would come i
to |250 per month more.
LOW ESTIMATES.
And these are low estimates $4O a
week for six or seven persons' meals
is moderate and I know no house-
owner in New York whose taxes and
insurance and interest run as low as
$lOO a month to say nothing of the
country house.
However call it $BOOO. I wonder
in a city of six millions of people
how many have half that? How
many have one-quarter of that? In
a world of hungry anxious strug-
gling underpaid and overburdened
men and women what name ought to
be given to the wellbred intelligent
educated college woman who can voice
a complaint like this? Would it be
“slacker?”
She has $B6OO and she wants to
shine in the $lOOOO class. If she
had $16000 she would move her out-
lay and her ideals up to $50000. She
prefers to strain and pretend and
worry and owe rather than to stand
frankly before the world as what she
is—just a little bit poorer than she
pretends to be.
JOINING THE HEKI).
’.Not poor—oh. no! But just a little
bit |>oorer. She. this woman for
whose training in economics and
ethics and ideals and judgment some
good father and mother paid has
joined the herd—the silly herd that
rushes along breathlessly after the
next richest
She could live like a queen on $4OOO
means.) I could think of some more things to say but they're all
along the same line. So you can just imagine I said them and let
it go at that. Thank you very much.
(Sits down to tumultuous applause. The proposition of hav-
ing a symphonic sales room is discussed pro and con and finally
carried. Bill is quite overjoyed with his success and is congratu-
lated roundly by the rest of the force. The meeting closes with
another song sung by the salesmen ablaut themselves. ... It is
naturally a big success but we will spare you the lyric since Sun-
day even at its best is a hard day.)
SCENE TWO
The Symphonic 'Sales Salon has flowered and bloomed even
as visualized by Bill Potter who may even now be seen doing
his stuff in its perfumed gloom ... in some occult manner he
and his fellow salesmen have lured a flock of prospects into the
place and seated them in deep roomy chairs from which their en-
chanted ears may be seen to protrude in quivering ecstatic rows
... the walls are lined with huge relief maps of the development
on which play pink-and-amber lights. A miniature fairyland for
little dreams still in rompers.
BILL: (to' orchestra leader) I have a prospect over here in
the corner who I think would fall if you played the right thing
just about now.
LEADER: And what do you think would be the right thing
just about now? Toreador from Carmen?
BILL: (properly ignoring puerile sarcasm) Something with
water in it and moonlight and the sound of the surf on the beach
and fairies dancing on the sand.
LEADER: (Looking at Bill anxiously) You’re feeling alright
aren’t you? You want to be careful now about walking about in
the sun without your hat.
BILL: (Tartly) Listen Buddy. Maybe you’re a humorist —
you’re certainly not much of a musician but if you don’t care to
do what you’re told we'll have no trouble getting some other Bozo
to stand up here and make faces at an orchestra for a few hours
every evening. Make up your mind. Snappy.
LEADER: (Visualizing long hot summer ahead) Alright
alright don’t get mad about it. How about the water of Min-
netonka ?
BILL: Fine—Light on the Minnetonka and heavy on the
a year. She could manage with a lit-
tle skill on $2OOO. Even then her
income would be above the average!
One woman I know is raising five
children on less than $lBOO a year
right in this same city and they
are being educated and wisely fed
and they have a sunshiny if crowd-
ed home too.
What has the writer of this article
done to show that if she had ten
times her present income she could
do any better with it?
The woman I mention of the
$lBOO income has shown something
for she is happy and not bitter life
is interesting rather than drab and
negative to her and she doesn't owe
one penny.
THINKS HER COWARD.
Nowadays when one may have so
much for nothing or for little when
public libraries and public concerts
and lectures abound when daily
papers and radio and free schooling
offer enormous advantages to those
on limited incomes when telephones
and gas stoves and electric lights and
prepared foods lift the real drudgery
from the kitchen—what a coward a
woman must be to write like that.
How odd it would sound to a starved
hunted shivering mother of Russia —
thia talk of j>overty on $BOOO a year.
Does she think—the writer of this
article—that friends on a $12000
basis are just a little nicer folk than
the friends one may have on $5000?
Does she care for the sort of friend
to whom an unfashionable address
would prove an insurmountable bar?
Her attitude puzzles one. I would
guarantee that this woman can be
t
pretty stiff in her criticisms of the
poorer classes with their shocking j
stupidity and waste. I would con- <
fidcntly predict that if she goes to 8
England some day and visits some r
of the great folk of London in their t
simple shabby rooms in simple shabby *
neighborhoods she will return to '
America admiring them audibly audi-4.
bly wishing that we money-mad Amer-1
icans had half their courage and 1
their good taste.
DIFFERENT AT HOME.
But to take an old-fashioned house
in a quiet by-street to manage her
own kitchen —as gentlewomen have
bad to do since gentlewomen first
were—to train her boy and girl at
least in part herself to entertain
simply and honestly to take her pleas'
urcs in friendships books music and
walks to put one quarter of that
income into the bank every year for
future trips and extravagances no
thia she will not do.
When it is the cheap pension the
Italian casetta that costs “nothing' |
the deliciously droll little place in
Clovelly where "we were just mem-
bers of the family” how satisfying
it is.
But when it in merely living aim-
ply at home somehow the glamor de
parts from it completely and we must
do as the Joneses do.
• She says that her experience is typi-
cal her problem “average rather than |
unique.” Well it may be so. But
somehow one expects better things of ■
the modern American college woman.
One expects her to bring a certain
sanity a certain sense of spiritual j
values to her solution of life's little
SUNDAY APRIL 11 1926.
By J. P. McEVOY
water. (1 he violins and cellos begin moaning and sobbing and the
soft rhythmic swishing and throbbing of the drums and saxes
weave a spell over the audience. Bill glides back to his prospect
and begins to murmur into his ear softly musically hypnotically.)
BILL: That’s beautiful music stranger. It's low and sweet
and as soothing as the sob of a surf on a moonlight beach.
PROSPECT: (Entranced) It’s purty alright.
BILL: (Crooning) The sea is always like that on the shores
Largo and the moon at night is a dream of peace. Your
days there will be long with happiness and your nights will be
sweet with content. Come to Key Largo where the sun goes dowe
on pirate ghosts and the winds of adventure tiptoe around n
darkening shore. Here the little harbor yachts twinkle like Art-
flies in a dark meadow and the homebound fishermen lie on
their backs staring at golden skies coming down to kiss silver
seas. (The prospect sways to the sobbing of the violins and the
rhythm of Bill’s honeyed words . . Bill puts the open fountain
pen into his unconscious hand and continues.) Now before it is
too late . . . now before the world has rushed to this magic isle
. . . now before its streets teem with traffic and its beaches
swarm with humanity—now is the time for you to secure a
choice haven in this harbor of happiness. . . . Your name here
and a small deposit which you will never miss and a few dollars
now and then out of your income and you will have for your
very own . . . for your very own (sees prospect swooning and
decides further talk is unnecessary . . . helps him to sign his
name . . . leads him still dizzy into the main office where various
papers are handed him and technical things to do with money are
done with the proper technicalities. . . .The orchestra is still
playing when Bill returns. . . .The leader beckons him.)
LEADER: I saw you land him and I just want to tell you
with all due modesty that you never would have done it if I
wasn’t a swell leader. Did you see the way I muted that cornet
just at the right time? That’s what did it—that and fhe sax obli-
gato there towards the finish. I think you ought to split the com-
mission with me. What do you say ?
BILL: I’d say play Toreador from Carmen for yourself as
a solo.
And That’* That—Until Next Sunday.
Copyrlsbt 192«. King Feature! Syndicate. All rtrhte. Including dramatie and
motion pictures reserved by th® author.
problems one would suppose her to be
possessed of a philosophy that would
suiterscoe the dollar-and-cent values at
least.
HER PROBLEM EASY.
Four persons and $BOOO. Why it’s
too easy. She ought to be able to set-
tle all that before breakfast and have
the rest of the day free.
For what do they teach at colleges
if not that honor and integrity and
character are all involved in this tire-
some question of the budget? Is it
only a joke to owe tradespeople money
to fret a good hubsand with a convic-
tion of failure and shame unnecessar-
ily?
Not to know from month to month
'/T\ P •
BAYErW }
Aspirin
SAY “BAYER ASPIRIN” and INSIST!
Proved safe by millions and prescribed by physicians for
Colds Headache Neuritis Lumbago
Pain Neuralgia Toothache Rheumatism
DOES NOT AFFECT THE HEART
£ * onl y ‘‘Bayer” package
> which contains proven directions.
f Handy “Bayer” boxes of 12 tablets
j 9 Also bottles of 24 and 100—Druggists.
Amiris la U>« trade aut at Bu« Uaautactur: at Maneaeetlceddeeter of Salleyllcacld
; whether or not you can pay your bills
is to remain in a position distinctly
dishonest. You may be very sure that
tho little French lanndryman you keep
waiting the little florist who bothers
1 you so the little druggist who is try-
’ ing to make ends meet have to pay
' their bills.
A foreign-born inarticulate anxious-
. eyed little nobody committed auicide iu
I this city a few years ago;'he was
. bankrupt. He had n delicacy store
patronized at one time by many a
fashionable family; ho also had four
■ children nil with good appetites. After
' the tragedy it was found that the rich
and the great owed him more than
$3OOO for pickles and sandwiches and
1 mustard and oranges.
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The San Antonio Light (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 83, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 11, 1926, newspaper, April 11, 1926; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1593143/m1/30/?rotate=270: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .