The Book of Business Etiquette | Page 6

to put
up with gross rudeness and the business man began to realize that a
policy of pleasantness was much better than the "treat 'em rough" idea
upon which he had been acting. He deserves no special credit for it. It
was as simple and as obvious a thing as putting up an umbrella when it
is raining.
People knew, long before this enlightened era of ours, that politeness
had value. In one of the oldest books of good manners in the English
language a man with "an eye to the main chance" advised his pupils to
cultivate honesty, gentleness, propriety, and deportment because they
paid. But it has not been until recently that business men as a whole
have realized that courtesy is a practical asset to them. Business cannot
be separated from money and there is no use to try. Men work that they
may live. And the reason they have begun to develop and exploit
courtesy is that they have discovered that it makes for better work and
better living. Success, they have learned, in spite of the conspicuous
wealth of several magnates who got their money by questionable means,
depends upon good will and good will depends upon the square deal
courteously given.
The time is within the memory of living men, and very young men at
that, when the idea of putting courtesy into business dealings sprang up,
but it has taken hold remarkably. When the Hudson Tubes were opened
not quite a decade and a half ago Mr. McAdoo inaugurated what was at
that time an almost revolutionary policy. He took the motto, "The
Public be Pleased," instead of the one made famous by Mr. Vanderbilt,

and posted it all about, had pamphlets distributed, and made a speech
on courtesy in railroad management and elsewhere. Since that time, not
altogether because of the precedent which had been established, but
because people were beginning to realize that with this new element
creeping into business the old régime had to die because it could not
compete with it, there have been all sorts of courtesy campaigns among
railroad and bus companies, and even among post office and banking
employees, to mention only two of the groups notorious for haughty
and arrogant behavior. The effects of a big telephone company have
been so strenuous and so well planned and executed that they are
reserved for discussion in another chapter.
Mr. McAdoo tells a number of charming stories which grew out of the
Hudson Tubes experiment. One day during a political convention when
he was standing in the lobby of a hotel in a certain city a jeweler came
over to him after a slight moment of hesitation, gave him one of his
cards and said, "Mr. McAdoo, I owe you a great debt of gratitude. For
that," he added, pointing to "The Public be Pleased" engraved in small
letters on the card just above his name. "I was in New York the day the
tunnel was opened," he continued, "and I heard your speech, and said to
myself that it might be a pretty good idea to try that in the jewelry trade.
And would you believe it, my profits during the first year were more
than fifty per cent bigger than they were the year before?" And we
venture to add that the jeweler was more than twice as happy and that it
was not altogether because there was more money in his coffers.
Mr. McAdoo is a man with whom courtesy is not merely a policy: it is
a habit as well. He places it next to integrity of character as a
qualification for a business man, and he carries it into every part of his
personal activity, as the statesmen and elevator boys, waiters and
financiers, politicians and stenographers with whom he has come into
contact can testify. "I never have a secretary," he says, "who is not
courteous, no matter what his other qualifications may be." During the
past few years Mr. McAdoo has been placed in a position to be sought
after by all kinds of people, and in nearly every instance he has given
an interview to whoever has asked for it. "I have always felt," we quote
him again, "that a public servant should be as accessible to the public as

possible." Courtesy with him, as with any one else who makes it a habit,
has a cumulative effect. The effect cannot always be traced as in the
case of the jeweler or in the story given below in which money plays a
very negligible part, but it is always there.
On one occasion--this was when he was president of the Hudson
Railroad--Mr. McAdoo was on his way up to the Adirondacks when the
train broke down. It was ill provided for