It seemed everybody needed them back in the Depression when Dale Carnegie published How To Win Friends and Influence People.  The book appeared in bookstores in November, 1936, and was reprinted 16 times in a few months. By the time the Post ran a story on Dale Carnegie the following August, he had made $125,000 on the book—the equivalent of $2 million today.

Carnegie was as surprised by this success as much as anyone. One person who wasn’t surprised, though, was Margaret Case Harriman, author of “He Sells Hope,” the Post article. As she saw it:

The secret of the book’s success seems fairly simple. Every man or woman who buys it is instantly handed, for the sum of $1.96, the information that he, or she, is potentially as powerful, brilliant, rich and successful as anybody in the world, and perhaps a good deal more so than most. Like the beauty doctors and the professors of charm, Dale Carnegie sells people what most of them desperately need. He sells them hope.

But hope didn’t just sell itself, Harriman conceded. She chronicled Carnegie’s long, hard, wandering route to success.

He was born in 1888, in Maryville, Missouri, the second son of a worthy family pursued, to a fantastic degree, by hard luck. His father was a farmer—that is, he would have liked to be a farmer if the One Hundred and Two River had not overflowed every spring and ruined his crops.

Mrs. Carnegie, Dale’s mother, was a devout Methodist who sang hymns at her work, undismayed by the things that happened around her, and who wanted her two sons, Dale and Cliff, to become missionaries.

Young Carnegie proved to be that uniquely American type, the ambitious dreamer. He threw himself into debate and dramatics, seeking any opportunity to get up before an audience and win their attention and admiration. After college and several attempts to become a salesman he developed his own course in public speaking, then wrote a book on the subject. By 1916, Harriman wrote,

"Dictation with one hand; how to influence plant life with the other.""He Sells Hope," Aug. 14, 1937

Dale Carnegie was doing well. He had conducted courses in public speaking at YMCAs throughout the country with such success that he was able to open his own office, and to hire halls around town where ambitious young men were nightly exhorted to “Speak Out,” to “Go In There and Fight,” to “Wham it Across,” and to “Keep Their Hands Out of Their Pockets.”

The book [on public speaking] lacked the bang-up approach, the sly flattery of the reader, that was later to send the sales of How to Win Friends and Influence People up into the hundreds of thousands.

Eventually, Carnegie came to see that Americans had a greater desire than just an ability to speak in public. They wanted to be liked. They wanted to matter to others. His book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, addressed this need.

Carnegie’s success, according to Harriman, was his discovery of some fundamental truths.

(a) “Deep in every man lies the Desire to be Im­portant,” (b) “A man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language,” (c) “The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it,” and (d)—not disclosed in Mr. Carnegie’s works—there is no better way to attract the attention of a care-ridden public than by a wholesale application of comfortable generalities.

She didn’t consider Carnegie to be purposely deceptive, but a well intentioned promoter who stumbled on a concept that was highly marketable, particularly in the challenging Depression years. Carnegie believed that friends and influence were essential to everyday life, which he viewed as—

"A man's name is to him the sweetest sound in the English language."

a grim battle … with people eternally struggling against fearful odds, groping in a vast darkness haunted by specters.

Once he asked a pupil if he was completely happy. The man thought about it briefly, and then said, “Yes.” The answer left Carnegie speechless for half a minute before he unleashed a flood of incredulity upon the happy pupil. Although one of his most frequent counsels to his followers is “Don’t Argue,” Carnegie is a tenacious arguer—always avoiding any appearance of arrogance, however, by adding, “Of course I may be wrong.” The pupil stuck to his statement, and Carnegie, giving in, looked puzzled all evening. He had found one of the few things he couldn’t explain—a contented man. There may have occurred to him the disturbing thought that, if all men were happy, there would be no Dale Carnegie.

It’s hard to say why Harriman took such a cynical view of Carnegie. Thousands of people reported that their lives had been significantly improved by Carnegie’s book and course, and they have remained popular for decades in a country that is continually using up and discarding ideas.

This year, for the book’s 75th anniversary, Dale Carnegie and Associates has produced an updated version, How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age.

As the New York Times notes, this version may be new but not improved. Carnegie’s plainspoken prose has been updated with terms like “relational longevity” and “faith persuasion,” which sounds like an oxymoron.

Carnegie’s basic message survived the skepticism of Ms. Harriman. It will probably survive this revision for the digital age.

Hope or Hype? The Post Critiques Carnegie’s Bestseller The Saturday Evening Post

It hardly seems the best way to handle the problem, but there are no ideal solutions in flood control—only trade-offs. The only alternative was to let the flood lift the river over the Illinois bank to wash away the town of Cairo.

This is not the first time the Engineers sacrificed the planting season of Eastern Missouri to save Cairo, Illinois. When they first employed the Birds Point/New Madrid floodway, back in 1937, they drove 5,000 Missourians from their property to keep the 13,000 residents of Cairo above water. This year, the controlled flood will affect 300 Missouri households to spare 2,800 residents across the river.

Naturally, Missouri farmers are unhappy about this trade-off. Nor are the people of Cairo delighted with their prospects. While they may have been spare this year, their families, homes, and businesses will continue to live with the annual threat of flooding.

Another Illinois town, just 98 miles up the Ohio river, faced a similar challenge. After 135 years of determinedly fighting the river, they finally admitted defeat, as the Post reported in 1940.

Looking down from levee top to ferry at normal river stage.

Fourteen times the river has burst through on Shawneetown in major floods, each usually worse than the last, and the last worst of all, in 1937. It was then that the town, which did not know when it was licked, gave up.

There were disastrous floods in 1832, in 1847, in 1853 and 1858. When another came in 1859, the exasperated town folk started the first levee. In 1867 the river rose to a new high and burst over and through the levee.

Shawneetown responded by enlarging and strengthening its levee, which kept the flood out of town for 15 years.

Then came the three successive floods of 1882, 1883 and 1884, each set­ting a new mark and driving everyone to the hills. This time the Federal Government came to the aid of Shawneetown. At a cost of $200,000, it raised the levee one foot and length­ened it.

The sixty-one-foot mark at top of levee. The Ohio River reached sixty-six feet in 1937.

In 1898 the river topped fifty-five feet for a new record and drowned twenty-six persons, with a huge property loss. The levee was lengthened and strengthened again, but not raised, for never could there be such a flood as 1898′s again.

All was well until the great flood of 1913, when the Ohio topped fifty-nine feet. When Shawnee­town dug out of this, it spent an addi­tional $130,000 on its barrier wall. These were large sums for a town of never more than 2000 persons. Twenty years went by without a repetition, but the wary dwellers by the river re­built the levee in 1933 just to make sure, raising it to sixty-one feet above the low-water mark. At normal river stages the town was almost invisible from passing boats.

Then the long-sleeping Ohio in 1937 vaulted high over all past records to sixty-six feet. This was five feet higher than the top of the levee, but long be­fore the river reached that stage the town had been evacuated and the levee dynamited to prevent the possibility of its sudden collapse. The waters swirled twenty-five feet deep in Main Street and surged twenty-two miles inland to engulf Harrisburg, a town of 12,000.

“How deep was the water in here?” you ask the clerk in the high-ceilinged drugstore.

“About eight or nine feet,” he says, “upstairs!”

The refugees gathered in a Red Cross camp inside the township high school to discuss their future.

They were reminded that the Federal Government and the Red Cross had spent in fifty years more than $600,000 on the levee and for rescue and rehabilitation work here.

The refugees… voted 44 to 1 to surrender to the river.

Government-built new town on the hill. Most of the houses are new; a few have been moved from the old town.

A few residents stubbornly held on, living in the old family homes downtown, but most residents moved to high ground, three miles from the river. They left the houses and commercial buildings to the inevitable flood they knew would sweep them all away.

Today, 1200 people live Shawneetown, Illinois. Down by the river, though, 200 residents live in Old Shawneetown, which still survives, along with its old houses, stores, and its great neo-classical Bank. The great, all-destroying flood that Shawneetown fled to escape never arrived.

Bargaining With The Flood The Saturday Evening Post

Coachman and Horse by J.F. Kernan

Coachman and Horse
J.F. Kernan
November 29, 1930

If you think I’ve been looking for an excuse to show off this beautiful cover, you’re absolutely right. The coachman and horse is one of my favorites (of course, my favorites change from week to week). Between the Post and sister publication, Country Gentleman, artist J.F. Kernan did over fifty covers.

Billboard Painters by Penrhyn Stanlaws

Partygoers
Norman Rockwell
March 9, 1935

There are several covers depicting billboard painters, and I’d forgotten about this one. It was by artist Penrhyn Stanlaws whose covers of elegant ladies, often in interesting hats, graced the Post many times. This particular lady just happens to be several times life size.

Partygoers by Norman Rockwell

Partygoers
Norman Rockwell
March 9, 1935

The milkman started at the crack of dawn, so if you met him on your way home, you were a bona fide party animal. Note the hard-working deliverer of our morning milk is still carrying his flashlight. Rockwell depicted him as a fatherly type, admonishing the young couple for their unseemly hours.

Blacksmith by L.L. Emmert

Blacksmith
L.L. Emmert
March 31, 1917

Since the Country Gentleman magazine folded in the 1970’s, a lot of cover art is all but forgotten. Today we’re remembering the blacksmith at his labors in 1917. What’s a horse to do these days – go to a shoe store?

Fill ‘er Up by McCauley Conner

Fill &rquot;er Up
McCauley Conner
April 3, 1937

I suppose remembering the days when someone pumped your gas makes you officially old, but it’s another job that’s gone by the wayside. I never thought the reason might be gas station attendants like this one, who got distracted by pretty ladies. This could get costly these days!

Soda Jerk by Norman Rockwell

Soda Jerk
Norman Rockwell
August 22, 1953

Yes, there were perks to being soda jerks – like girls. Norman Rockwell got the idea for this cover by listening to his youngest son talk about his experience behind the soda fountain. And, yes, Peter Rockwell was the model, although he wasn’t all that pleased with the resulting painting. “I’m not that goofy-looking,” he said. Well, dad had to give the guy some “character”. See if you can dream up any other extinct professions.

Classic Covers: How Labor Has Changed The Saturday Evening Post

This photograph, by Gus Pasquarella, freezes the catastrophe that took place 295 feet above Lakehurst Air Station, amid the piney flatlands near the Jersey shore.

The time is 7:25 PM, daylight savings time, May 6, 1937. By 7:26, the Hindenburg was lying on the ground, a sagging framework of glowing steel. This single minute was crowded with tragedy, luck, and instinctive heroism.

The explosion was muffled under the mass of the dirigible so that several seconds passed before passenger realized what had happened. Several leapt to their deaths. Others waited while the dirigible slowly lost altitude, then jumped. Many of these survived the fall and began running to safety before the dirigible frame could land on top of them. Others were crushed. And others, too close to the descending inferno, were vaporized by the intense heat. Yet 62 of the 97 people aboard managed to survive the fall and the fire.

The photograph has become an icon of tragedy. Instantly recognizable, it speaks to us of the imminence and awful majesty of unimaginable disaster. It shocked Americans when it was released the following day. The horror it evoked effectively ended commercial travel by dirigible in the US and other nations. (It helped that international airplane service had begun. It was noisy and crowded, but faster and, Americans assumed, safer.)

Images of the flaming airship also had political implications. Hitler had been proud of this massive symbol of German might. The Hindenburg was a valuable tool for propaganda. In its previous ten trips to the United States, it had enabled the German Reich to fly the swastika in stately elegance in the skies over New York, and to defy the American government. Roosevelt had banned the sale of Helium to Germany out of fear it would be used for military purposes. But the German engineers had constructed an airship that used Hydrogen.

But hydrogen is extremely flammable. In a Post article, historian John Toland described how careful the German crew had been:

“The Germans were proud of their precautions.   All matches and lighters had been confiscated when passengers boarded at Frankfort.  As a further safety measure, the three catwalks, including the main one, which ran along the very bottom of the ship from bow to stern, were covered with rubber.  Those treading the narrow ‘sidewalks’ wore sneakers or felt boots to prevent static or sparks.  Crewmen who went topside between the billowing gas cells wore asbestos suits free of buttons or metal.
“And the four 1100-horsepower Diesel engines that drove the ship at a dead air speed of 84 miles an hour required no ignition.  They used a crude oil with a flash point so low that it wouldn’t burn even if a flaming match was tossed into the tank.”

But all the precautions and all the efficiency couldn’t protect the Hindenburg, or its passengers.

While the crash ended any hope for dirigible travel, the photograph produced an even greater effect; it introduced America to modern journalism. They recognized that this photograph conveyed the tragedy better than the best journalists’ efforts.  It was dreadful but it was fascinating, and it raised Americans’ expectations for greater detail and objectivity.

In addition to this photograph there was the recording of radio announcer Herbert Morrison, who was covering the event for radio station WLS in Chicago. His frantic, anguished reporting is often played in synch with motion picture footage shot at the time. However, he was recording the event onto a phonograph record, which the station intended to play the next day for an evening news program.

Toland describes Morrison’s preparations for the Hindenburg’s arrival.

“Inside a little building attached to the west side of the dirigible hanger, Herbert Morrison, an announcer from Station WLS, Chicago, checked over last minute adjustments with his engineer, Charlie Nehlsen.  They were to make a recording of the year’s first transatlantic-flight landing… and Nehlsen had just finished setting up his portable recorder.

“As the Hindenburg floated [into sight], Morrison, a small, lantern-jawed man of about 120 pounds, called out, ‘Charlie, I’m going out for the recording.’  He left the building, which also housed the Navy’s radio station, walked onto the field and began talking into his hand microphone.

“Morrison had just announced that this was Captain Pruss’ first command – though actually it was the tenth time Pruss had captained the Hindenburg on a transatlantic flight.  ‘Passengers are looking out the windows, waving.’  Morrison went on.  ‘The ship is standing still now.’

“There was now a strange quiet.  The Hindenburg’s engines were turning over slowly, silently.  ‘The vast motors,’ Morrison said, ‘are just holding it, just enough to keep it from —’

“He stopped short.  It was exactly 7:25 p.m.

The noise of the explosion was muffled to those directly beneath it, but it was strong enough to knock the whitewash from the ceiling of the room where the engineer was recording Morrison’s report. Nehlsen wiped off the record without stopping it and signaled Morrison to keep talking.

“To Morrison, it looked as though everyone on the ship and most of the ground crew would be killed instantly.  ‘It’s bursting into flames and falling on the mooring mast!’ he shouted desperately.  Tiny figures seemed to be catapulted from the dirigible, and fell.  ‘This is terrible!’  Morrison cried,  ‘This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world!’  His agonized voice trailed off into incoherence.  He turned desperately toward Nehlsen, who was watching from the window.
“The engineer gave the OK signal, ‘Keep going,’ he said in pantomime.
“’Oh, the humanity and all the passengers!’  Morrison broke into sobs.  ‘I told you —- It’s a mass of smoking wreckage!  Honest, I can hardly breathe!’  Again, he looked at Nehlsen; again Nehlsen nodded encouragement.”
“’I’m going to step inside where I can’t see it!’  Morrison said, ‘It’s terrible!  I—I—folks, I’m going to have to stop for a moment because I’ve lost my voice!  This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed!’

“Never had a disaster hit with the impact of the Hindenburg explosion.  Never before had photographers and newsreelmen been present to record a major tragedy, and within hours shocking pictures of the fire were wired all over the world.  By noon the next day, newsreel extras of the catastrophe were being shown in theaters along Broadway.  It was a rare showing which wasn’t punctuated by screams from the audience.

In a more ordered world, the public was protected from the direct impact of news. There were hours of intervening calm, as well as banks of editors who removed  the shock and hysteria from a reporter’s copy. The story would appear the next morning, set in cold type and couched in serious, thoughtful tones.

But Morrison’s report gave America a taste of what modern media — with its immediate and detailed reporting— would bring. It introduced the sound of emotional turmoil, the hysterical frustration of impotently watching a disaster. It was a feeling most Americans experienced on September 11, 2001.

As newspapers, then motion pictures, then television brought viewers closer to the instant and location of catastrophes, we sometimes feel the need, as did Morrison, to “step inside where I cannot see it.”

Read “Terror in the Twilight”[PDF].

“I’m Going To Step Inside Where I Cannot See It” The Saturday Evening Post