Fundamental Techniques In Handling People
1
“IF YOU WANT TO GATHER HONEY, DON’T KICK OVER
THE BEEHIVE.”
Ch 1
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 hideaway. 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
over-stuffed 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 girlfriend 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 anti-social 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 responsibilities 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
lambasted 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
opportunity—the 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 few—no 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.”
So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp
criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.
Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was confronted with a perplexing problem, he
used to lean back and look up at a large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White House and
ask himself, “What would Lincoln do if he were in my shoes? How would he solve this problem?”
