The Ghost in the White House - Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who - are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white - house) can mak

Gerald Stanley Lee

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• Publié par: cicor
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's The Ghost in the White House, by Gerald Stanley Lee This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Ghost in the White House Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can mak Author: Gerald Stanley Lee Release Date: August 4, 2007 [EBook #22241] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOST IN THE WHITE HOUSE *** Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE GHOST IN THE WHITE HOUSE SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW A HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE (WHO ARE SUPPOSED IN A VAGUE, HELPLESS WAY TO HAUNT THE WHITE HOUSE) CAN MAKE THEMSELVES FELT WITH A PRESIDENT—HOW THEY CAN BACK HIM UP—EXPRESS THEMSELVES TO HIM, BE EXPRESSED BY HIM, AND GET WHAT THEY WANT By GERALD STANLEY LEE Author of "Crowds" and "Inspired Millionaires" "The White House is haunted by a vague helpless abstraction,—by a kind of ghost of the nation, called The People" NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. 681 FIFTH AVENUE COPYRIGHT , 1920 BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY All Rights Reserved First printing May, 1920 Printed in the United States of America TO JENNETTE LEE Transcriber's Note: Chapter XXII in Book II was printed without a title. CONTENTS BOOK I WHAT THE PEOPLE EXPECT OF THE PEOPLE I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. 3 GIST 4 THE LONESOMEST J OB ON EARTH 6 THE PRESIDENT AND THE GHOST 12 REAL FOLKS AND THE GHOST 16 THE GHOST RECEIVES AN INVITATION 20 WHAT A BODY FOR THE GHOST WOULD BE LIKE 25 THE GHOST GETS DOWN TO BUSINESS 27 THREE RIGHTS OF MAN IN A DEMOCRACY—THE RIGHT TO THINK 32 THE RIGHT TO BE WAITED ON 36 THE RIGHT TO WHISPER 39 THE RIGHT TO WHISPER TOGETHER 41 THE RIGHT TO TRUST SOMEBODY 46 THE RIGHT TO VOTE ALL DAY 48 THE SKILLED CONSUMER 51 SAMPLE DEMOCRACIES 54 THE TOWN PENDULUM 58 THE NATIONAL LISTENING MACHINE 62 HOW THE NATIONAL LISTENING MACHINE WILL WORK 64 MAKING A RIGHT START 66 UP TO THE PEOPLE 68 THE WAY FOR A NATION TO SPEAK UP BOOK II WHAT EACH MAN EXPECTS OF HIMSELF I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. 75 G. S. L. TO HIMSELF 78 IF I WERE A NATION 81 WHAT THE MAHOGANY DESK IS GOING TO DO 85 RULES FOR BEING LIED TO 87 GETTING ONE MAN RIGHT 89 GETTING FIFTY MEN RIGHT 91 ENGINEERS IN FOLKS 92 THE GREAT NEW PROFESSION 97 GETTING PEOPLE TO NOTICE FACTS 100 THE FOOL KILLERS 102 THE WHISPERERS 103 MR. DOOLEY, J UDGE GARY AND MR. GOMPERS 108 FOOLING ONSESELF IN POLITICS 112 SWEARING OFF FROM ONESELF IN TIME 117 TECHNIQUE FOR NOT BEING FOOLED BY ONESELF 120 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LETTER 124 THE MAN FIFTY THREE THOUSAND POST OFFICES FAILED ON 126 CAUSES OF BEING FOOLED ABOUT ONESELF XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. LOCO-MINDEDNESS FLAT-THINKING. THINKING IN ME FLAT LOST-MINDEDNESS SELF DISCIPLINE BY PROXY MACHINE MINDEDNESS NEW BRAIN TRACKS IN BUSINESS 128 131 133 137 139 142 143 BOOK III TECHNIQUE FOR A NATION'S GETTING ITS WAY I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. BIG IN LITTLE CONSCIOUS CONTROL OF BRAIN TRACKS WHAT IS CALLED THINKING LIVING DOWN CELLAR IN ONE'S OWN MIND BEING HELPED UP THE CELLAR STAIRS REFLECTIONS ON THE STAIRS HELPING OTHER PEOPLE UP THE CELLAR STAIRS HELPING A NATION UP THE CELLAR STAIRS TECHNIQUE FOR LABOR IN GETTING ITS WAY TECHNIQUE FOR CAPITAL IN GETTING ITS WAY PHILANDERING AND ALEXANDERING THE FACTORY THAT LAY AWAKE ALL NIGHT LISTENING TO J IM THE NEW COMPANY THE FIFTY-CENT DOLLAR THE BUSINESS MAN, THE PROFESSIONAL MAN AND THE NEWS-MAN W. J. THE LOOK-UP CLUB LOOKS UP PROPAGANDY PEOPLE THE SKILLED CONSUMERS OF PUBLICITY THE 147 149 151 156 160 166 169 173 175 179 183 185 191 196 198 200 ARTIST 203 205 207 211 213 BOOK IV THE TECHNIQUE OF A NATION'S GETTING ITS WAY I. II. III. IV. V. VI. FOURTH OF J ULY ALL THE YEAR ROUND THE VISION AND THE BODY THE CALL OF A HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE THE CALL OF A WORLD MISSOURI A VICTORY LOAN ADVERTISEMENT 217 219 222 227 232 236 BOOK V THE TECHNIQUE OF A NATION'S BEING BORN AGAIN I. II. III. IV. RECONSTRUCTION NATIONAL BIOLOGY THE AIR LINE LEAGUE THE LOOK-UP CLUB LOOKS UP (1) For Instance (2) Why The Look-Up Club Looks Up V. THE TRY-OUT CLUB TRIES OUT (1) I + You = We (2) The Engineer at Work (3) The Engineer and the Game (4) The American Business Sport VI. THE PUT-THROUGH CLAN PUTS THROUGH (1) What (2) How (3) Psycho-Analysis (4) Psycho-Analysis for a Town (5) To-Morrow (6) Who (7) The Town Fireplace (8) The Sign on the World 243 245 247 250 250 255 257 257 260 262 264 270 270 272 273 276 280 281 286 288 BOOK VI WHAT THE PEOPLE EXPECT OF THE PRESIDENT I. II. III. IV. V. THE BIG BROTHER OF THE PEOPLE THE MAN WHO CARRIES THE BUNCH OF KEYS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S TEMPERAMENT THE PRESIDENT'S RELIGION THE RED FLAG AND THE WHITE HOUSE THE 293 300 NATION 302 306 309 INTRODUCTION THE MOTION BEFORE THE HOUSE This is a book a hundred million people would write if they had time. I am nominating in this book—in the presence of the people, the next President of the United States. The name is left blank. I am nominating a man not a name. I am presenting a program and a sketch of what the next President will be I am presenting a program and a sketch of what the next President will be like, of what he will be like as a fellow human being, and I leave the details —his name, the color of his eyes and the party he belongs to, to be filled in by people later. Here is his program, his faith in the people, his vision for the people and his vision for himself. No one has ever nominated a President in a book before. I do it because a book can be more quiet, more sensible and thoughtful, more direct and human, and closer to the hearts of the people, than a convention can. A book can be more public too—can be attended by more people than a convention. Only a few thousand people can get into a convention. A hundred million can get into a book. All in the same two hours, by twenty million lamps thousands of miles apart, the people can crowd into a book. So in this book, as I have said, I am merely acting as the secretary or employee of the hundred million people. I am writing a book a hundred million people would write if they could, expressing for them the kind of President for the next four years of our nation—the most colossal four years of the world, the people have ordered in their hearts. We are weary of politicians' politicians. We want ours. Politicians may not be so bad but during the war they do not seem to us to have done as well as most people. In the dead-earnest of the war, with our Liberty Loan and Red Cross and Council of Defense, and our dollar a year men we have half taken over the government ourselves and we feel no longer awed by the regular political practitioners or government tinkerers. They are not all alike, of course, but we have turned our national glass on them and have come to see through them—at least the worst ones and many thousands of them —all these busy little worms of public diplomacy building their faint vague little coral islands of bluff and unbelief far far away from us, out in the great ocean of their nothingness all by themselves. Unless the more common run of our typical politicians see through themselves before the conventions come, and see that the people see through them, and see it quick, their days are numbered. Instead of patronizing us and whispering to one another behind their hands about us, their time has come now—in picking out the next President to begin gazing up to the countenance of the people, to begin listening to the people's prayer to God. The people are a new people since the war. Out of the crash of empires, out of threats in every man's door-yard the people are praying to God. And they are voting to God, too. The sooner the two great political parties reckon with this, the sooner they push around behind themselves out of sight all the funny little would-be Presidents, and all the little shan't-be politicians running around like ants under the high heaven of the faith of a great people picking up tidbits they dare to believe—and put forward instead a live believing hot and cold dare to believe—and put forward instead a live believing hot and cold human being, a man who will give up being President for what he believes, the sooner they will find themselves with a President on their hands that can be elected. Whichever party it is that does this, and does it first and does it best, will be the one that will be underwritten by the people. The people of this country are to-day in a religious mood toward the great coming political conventions and the questions and the men that will come up in them. We are on the whole, in spite of the low estimate the majority of politicians have of us, straight-minded and free-hearted people, shrewd, masterful and devout, praying with one hand and keeping from being fooled with the other and we want our public men to have courage and vision for themselves and for us. We give notice that thousands of our most complacently puttering, most quibbly and fuddly politicians are going to be taken out by the people, lifted up by the people, and dropped kindly but firmly over the edge of the world. This nation is facing the most colossal, most serious and godlike moment any nation has ever faced, and it does not propose in the presence of forty nations, in the presence of its own conscience, its own grim appalling hope, to be trifled with. So far as any one can see with the naked eye the quickest and surest way to get past the politicians, to remind the politicians of the real spirit of the people, to loom up the face