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Author: 
 
 Title: 
 
 Joseph Schaffner, 
 
 1848-1918 
 
 Place: 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Date: 
 
 1920 
 
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 Joseph Schaffner, 1848-1918; recollections and 
 impressions of his associates. Chicago, 1920. 
 4 p. 1., 135 p. front, (port.) faoszm. 22f». 
 
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JOSEPH SCHAFFNER 
 
 1848-1918 
 
M 
 
 JOSEPH 
 SCHAFFNER 
 
 1848-1918 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS 
 OF HIS ASSOCIATES 
 
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 "Nature seems to exist for the 
 excellent. The world is upheld 
 by the veracity of good men. 
 They make the earth wholesome. 
 They who lived with them 
 found life glad and nutritious.*" 
 
 — Emerson 
 
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 • • 
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 I • • • 
 
 • • • 
 
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 • ••••••:: ; 
 
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 • • • * 
 
INDEX TO CHAPTERS 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 EARLY DAYS 
 
 THE TREASURES OF HIS MIND 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN-I 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN-II 
 
 THE LETTERS HE WROTE 
 
 INDUSTIOAL RELATIONS 
 
 HIS BELIEF IN HIGHER EDUCATION 
 
 THOUGHTS ON SUCCESS 
 
 TWO TRIBUTES 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 19 
 
 39 
 
 59 
 
 85 
 
 105 
 
 123 
 
 129 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 N this book are set forth some of 
 the things we know about Joseph 
 Schafiher as he disclosed himself 
 in his daily business relations with 
 the men and women of his own organi2;ation. 
 It is one indication of the nature of our 
 association with him that, although we were 
 merely employes, he gently rebuked any ref- 
 erence to himself as "chief'; he said: "I am 
 simply an employe, too/' We worked with 
 him rather than for him. 
 
 Since he left us, we have all wanted to re- 
 member and in some way perpetuate the 
 impressions and memories of our friend and 
 co-worker; so much of what he gave to us is 
 too rich to lose. We have tried here to re- 
 cord some of these things and to present an 
 intimate portrait of the man as he appeared 
 to us from day to day; for to have known 
 Joseph Schaffher is a great and enduring in- 
 spiration. 
 
 [i] 
 
^ 
 
 if 
 
 EARLY DAYS 
 
 ROM the Civil War to the World 
 War, big business was the domi^ 
 nant note in American life. That 
 period marks a great commercial 
 and industrial development. Business ab^ 
 sorbed politics; combinations were forming; 
 production became vast; great fortunes were 
 reared. Success, measured in terms of business 
 achievement, was the great goal of the day. 
 The self-made man who had come from the 
 log cabin or the steerage to business captaincy 
 was the shining example for the youth of the 
 country. It was in this period that Joseph 
 Schaffiier lived. 
 
 The mature years of his life almost exactly 
 lap this business epoch. He became twenty- 
 one years of age about the time the country 
 had ceased to stagger from the effects of the 
 Civil War and his death in 191 8 came only a 
 few months before the end of the World War. 
 
 [3I 
 
\ 
 
 f 
 
 His contribution to this glowing period 
 was an unusual one. He achieved his share 
 of business success and he did more; he took 
 an honorable and creditable part in the times 
 in which he lived and also he projected him^ 
 self into the days beyond his life. 
 
 The idea of how much a business or an 
 industry can serve the community at large 
 and how it can do that to the mutual ad^ 
 vantage of all the people engaged in it seems 
 surely to be the line of development for the 
 next epoch. Joseph Schaffner foresaw the 
 trend and was a pioneer in that field of 
 thought. 
 
 The industry to which he gave his greatest 
 thought and service was hardly beyond the 
 craft stage when he began his career. Before 
 he died it had become one of the large in- 
 dustries of the country, and a great contribu- 
 tion to its character and standards had been 
 made by the firm of which he was a member. 
 
 There was nothing in his early life, his 
 education or his training that seemed espe- 
 
 [4I 
 
 cially to prepare him for this career. He was 
 bom March 23, 1848, in Reedsburg, Ohio, his 
 parents having emigrated to America from 
 Germany. The schooling that he received 
 was typical of the times, consisting of a few 
 years in common school, and his total school- 
 ing was certainly less than equivalent to what 
 is today given in the first eight grades of the 
 public schools. 
 
 He had the experience of many another 
 merchant of receiving his first mercantile 
 training in a country store where he counted 
 and candled eggs and exchanged them for 
 sugar or calico. The great strife or feeUng 
 preceding the Civil War did not reach him; 
 he was too young. But as a boy of fourteen 
 or fifteen years of age he sold articles of food 
 to the soldiers who happened to be near-by, 
 and he recollected it as an unusual experience. 
 He lived for a time in Cleveland and reached 
 Chicago as a young man, barely of age, with 
 the desire to earn some money and contribute 
 to the support of his parents. His endow- 
 
 [5I 
 
I 
 
 ments were the Jewish inheritances of char^ 
 acter and ambition and mental alertness. 
 
 For nearly twenty years the unusual things 
 did not greatly enter into his life. He pro^ 
 gressed in business and prospered. His work 
 was done with vigor and ability but the im^ 
 portant use of his great faculties was deferred. 
 These years, however, even though their 
 description sounds commonplace, inevitably 
 were preparing him for his subsequent 
 career. 
 
 Somewhere in the early years of his Ufe, 
 perhaps from his mother or from his father, 
 possibly from the debates held around the 
 stove of a country general store, possibly 
 from some book or from some person, he re 
 ceived the stimulus to read. As a young man 
 he learned to prefer good literature. His mind 
 had a seemingly natural preference for the 
 best things that had been thought and writ' 
 ten in the world. Early in life he knew and 
 loved Shakespeare; he eagerly read essays 
 and biographies. What he drank in was good; 
 
 16] 
 
 it went into a mind that absorbed and inter^ 
 preted and made it a part of its own life. 
 
 When he was nearly forty years of age, he 
 severed a connection that represented the 
 work of his youth and planned to start to 
 the Northwest on a new business venture. 
 At this critical moment of his life, suddenly 
 and unexpectedly he entered a partnership 
 with men who knew him and understood him 
 and whom he knew and understood, and with 
 that moment began his real career 
 
 There followed a little more than thirty 
 years of association with these men. Into 
 those years they crowded achievements of 
 the most brilliant nature that gave to the 
 clothing industry a dignity and standing 
 which it did not before possess. 
 
 Ideas of business promotion bore abundant 
 fruit. Advertising was introduced into the 
 plan of clothing distribution and applied so 
 effectively that it revolutioni2;ed the promo- 
 tion side of the business. In doing it, there 
 was incidentally made a contribution to the 
 
 [7I 
 
i 
 
 1 
 
 general standards of advertising, the value of 
 which is permanent. 
 
 The interest of educators and students was 
 aroused in the problems of commerce and in- 
 dustry through pri2;es offered for essays on 
 economic subjects. 
 
 An industrial crisis was met and principles 
 of common justice applied to it in such a way 
 that one of the famous labor agreements of 
 America was produced. 
 
 These things were done in the midst of the 
 development of a marvelous business, the suc- 
 cess of which in itself constituted a great 
 achievement for the men engaged in it. 
 
 181 
 
 THE TREASURES OF 
 HIS MIND 
 
 r is because Joseph SchaiSSier filled 
 his mind full of the great thoughts 
 of the world, because he was es- 
 sentially imaginative and almost 
 poetical in his thought, and because he con- 
 stantly showered upon others the things that 
 he himself had gleaned, that we introduce into 
 this recollection of his life a chapter on the 
 treasures of his mind. 
 
 As a rule, the environments of business and 
 its demands do not furnish business men with 
 much opportunity to disclose anything more 
 than their daily judgments and decisions. We 
 are not, ordinarily, accustomed to receiving 
 from business men what we received from 
 Mr. Schaffner, but no one could meet him 
 daily without being impressed with the fact 
 that his mind was filled with treasures and 
 that he was always eager to share them. 
 
 [9I 
 
 , M • ■ ■-■ 
 
What he lacked in the way of a college or 
 university training he had well made up in a 
 remarkable way by his devotion to good 
 literature, and it was this process of training, 
 self imposed, which made him one of the most 
 highly cultivated men one could meet— a re^ 
 specter of intellect, a friend of many men of 
 culture and training. He had an insatiable hun^ 
 ger for the best thoughts of men. 
 
 In his daily business intercourse, he always 
 introduced something apart from business and 
 yet not apart from it. He avoided the shrewd 
 and the crafty processes. He always brought 
 something human, something high and helpful, 
 into the most ordinary business transactions. 
 
 And yet he was first and always a business 
 man. His characteristic was that he directed 
 not only great powers of intellect to business 
 experience and the daily aflfairs of commerce 
 but he also applied everything he thought and 
 felt to the same end. There was nothing in 
 his life or in his experience that seemed to be 
 foreign to business. 
 
 hoi 
 
 Day after day, and many times a day, many 
 of us had such experiences as this: A matter of 
 business was to be laid before him and dis- 
 cussed with him for his advice and approval. 
 He kept in close, active touch with all business 
 matters. He insisted upon clear and brief 
 presentation of subjects. When they were 
 before him he would give them thoughtful 
 attention. His mind seemed to run ahead and 
 to understand what was coming. He weighed 
 everything rapidly but not too hurriedly. His 
 opinions were quickly formed and emphati- 
 cally expressed. Then he might relate some 
 incident of business which had a bearing upon 
 the matter in hand or draw upon the great 
 frind of good things in his mind to give point 
 and emphasis to his comment. 
 
 It was truly remarkable how he could delve 
 into the recesses of his mind and pick out 
 illustrations or incidents or quotations to fit 
 the prosaic mtatters of business, or he might 
 entirely discard business thought and say, "I 
 was reading last evening in Boswell's 'Life of 
 
 [ii] 
 

 H 
 
 1 
 
 Johnson " (or in Matthew Arnold's "Essays,'' 
 or perhaps one of his favorite poems) "an ex- 
 tremely interesting part where he says—'' 
 and then would follow a quotation. 
 
 Sometimes it was: "By the way, have you 
 j-ead— " mentioning some book he was then 
 enjoying. "You must read that; it's just the 
 sort of thing you would enjoy. I'll get a copy 
 of it and send it to your home"; or he would 
 strongly recommend the purchase of this or 
 that work, usually with a keen and accurate 
 perception of the individual taste and perhaps 
 the intellectual needs of the man to whom he 
 was speaking. 
 
 There is probably not one among the men 
 or women who were fortunate enough to be 
 on these terms of personal daily intimacy with 
 him who cannot present a hst of books— 
 gifts from him, or bought at his urgent recom- 
 mendation—and which now grace our own 
 libraries. His influence was an inspiration to 
 the higher life of the intellect; and he exerted 
 this influence daily in business relationships. 
 
 [12] 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 Here are some of the works and authors 
 whom he often quoted or included in his 
 gifts: The "Essays" of Matthew Arnold; 
 Boswell's "Life of Johnson"; Walter Raleigh's 
 "Essays on Samuel Johnson"; "Essays on Shake- 
 speare"; John Morley's "Studies in Liter- 
 ature" and "Life of Gladstone"; Walter 
 Pater's "Essay on Style"; Francis Parkman's 
 works; Symond's "Italian Renaissance"; "Let- 
 ters of Junius"; Prescott's works; Taussig's 
 "Principles of Economics"; Leslie Stephens' 
 "Hours in a Library"; the "Letters of Charles 
 Eliot Norton"; the "Life of John Hay"; the 
 writings of Lafcadio Heam; Anatole France's 
 "The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard"; "Essays on 
 Shakespearean Tragedy," by Bradley. These 
 are only a few books. This list is an indication 
 of the breadth and variety of Mr. Schaffher's 
 reading; he did not recommend a book he did 
 not know personally. 
 
 It must not be supposed that his reference 
 to these and other literary treasures was 
 made in any pedantic way; he was merely one 
 
 I13I 
 
 '1} 
 
tt 
 
 t^ 
 
 lover of books pointing out to others the good 
 things he had found and enjoyed. For his own 
 refreshment he preferred the "old stand-bys''; 
 and his excursions into other fields would usu^ 
 ally bring him back, with renewed relish, to 
 Boswell's "Johnson,'' to Macaulay's "Essays, 
 to Shakespeare, Matthew Arnold's "Essays, 
 Wordsworth's poetry, and Marcus Aurelius. 
 More than once he quoted an incident report^ 
 ed of the poet Tennyson, that, when dying, he 
 said to his attendant, "Brii^ me my Shake^ 
 speare," and then remained quiet, holding the 
 beloved volume in his hands. His own love of 
 Shakespeare made this anecdote very precious 
 to Mr. Schaffner. "What was good for Tenny^ 
 son is good for me," he said. 
 
 He often, half-shyly, would apologize to us 
 for so frequently permitting these matters of 
 the intellectual life to interrupt the orderly 
 process of business; but we now realize what 
 a constant stimulus and inspiration he was in 
 all these matters, and we are spiritually richer 
 for his daily influence. 
 
 I14I 
 
 He had a modesty about his gifts of books 
 that was truly charming. To a man or woman 
 who was desirous of expressing ardent thanks 
 for his thoughtfulness, he would say, "Why, I 
 had a selfish purpose in doing that. In reading 
 a book of that kind you derive good from it 
 and, in turn, you put it back into the business. 
 That is my way of getting more out of you." 
 With such an employer as that, how could 
 anyone do less than give him more? 
 
 That he possessed rare literary gifts of his 
 own in a very large degree was evident to all 
 of his associates, but he modestly and almost 
 emphatically disclaimed them. He had great 
 ability in the use of simple, forceful English 
 and some of his letters, both of a business 
 and a personal character, are worthy to rank 
 among the best letters ever written. 
 
 He had a keen and lively sense of humor. 
 He sometimes said that temperamentally he 
 was perhaps inclined to be melancholy, but 
 this was seldom apparent. Occasional periods 
 of gravity were signs that he had something 
 
 I15I 
 
 
of a serious nature before him or that he was 
 not feeling physically at par, but he loved 
 good stories and told them and listened to 
 them with much satisfaction. His method of 
 giving advice or instruction or making his 
 point in an argument was very often by the 
 medium of a remark or an illustration that 
 brought a laugh. 
 
 His appreciation of his associates was very 
 beautiful. He was constantly referring to the 
 qualities of the men around him. One man 
 he would greet jocularly, "Good morning, 
 talented exponent of our views,'' and he en- 
 joyed the respectful familiarity of the retort, 
 "Hail to you, venerated patron of the arts,'' 
 or some other high-flown term. Of another 
 man he would say, "He is nothing short of a 
 wizard. I don't see how he directs his com- 
 phcated work with such smoothness." Of 
 another, "See that man with the steam engine 
 walk. When I see him moving along like that, 
 I know he is after something and that he will 
 get it." 
 
 Ii6l 
 
 r 
 
 No man ever possessed in a greater degree 
 the ability to inspire. Men naturally became 
 confidential and told him their problems and 
 expressed their hopes; they never departed 
 from his office without feeling a glow of some 
 higher resolve and happiness. It might be some 
 young man in the house who had ambitions 
 to build a home, or some man who possibly 
 had been rather careless about his expense, 
 or a merchant who was troubled about his 
 relations with his partners. But, no matter 
 what the problem was, it would clear away 
 before Mr. Schaffiier's philosophical and in' 
 spirational advice. 
 
 With himiself, Mr. Schaffiier was very se^ 
 vere. He was acutely sensitive, with a sort of 
 a conscience that led to much reflection and 
 constant questioning of self He would tor- 
 ture himself for weeks and spend sleepless 
 nights because he thought that something he 
 had said of someone he respected might have 
 given unintentionally an unfair or unjust im- 
 pression. A soul like his was bound to pos- 
 
 I17I 
 
 •|l 
 
 i< 
 
sess the most acute and remarkable sense of 
 honor. Those around him were constantly 
 trained in the morals of keeping faith and of 
 avoiding sharp and shrewd practice. He used 
 to quote often from his beloved Marcus Au^ 
 relius, "Fear nothing but disgrace/' 
 
 He retained to the end of his life great 
 mental youth and flexibiUty. He gathered 
 young men around him and in the light of 
 their younger vision he constantly re-exam^ 
 ined his own ideas and policies. 
 
 We who were associated with him and 
 privileged to have a share in his activity were 
 constantly made to feel on terms of equality 
 and friendliness. He was an elder brother and 
 wise counselor, an intellectual and spiritual 
 inspiration, to his death. We are beginning 
 to realize our debt to him. 
 
 [i8] 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN-I 
 
 HE springs of Mr. Schaffiier's influ' 
 ence came from the deep sources 
 of spiritual strength — a strong 
 faith in men, his belief in their 
 honesty, his unshakable confidence in the 
 high ideals which he steadily applied to his 
 own business. It is not to be wondered at, 
 therefore, that the profound impression he 
 made upon his closest business associates ex^ 
 tended to the executives of the house, the 
 salesmen, the rank and file of the organi2;ation, 
 to retail merchants and to any man with 
 whom he had business relations. 
 
 When the partners of Hart Schafiher 6? 
 Marx began their association, the industry as 
 a whole had been on a "caveat emptor'' basis 
 and was not highly respected. They could 
 see no reason why the clothing business 
 should not be as respectable as the banking 
 business; and they purposed to make it so. 
 
 IiqI 
 
 
V 
 
 I 
 
 Bad practice in business was courageously 
 fought and efforts made to educate to the 
 dignity of their calling a great body of retail 
 merchants all over the country. For thirty 
 years they encouraged the highest standards 
 of business and held that, if a merchant would 
 prosper, he must make his profits in the ser^ 
 vice of his customers rather than at their 
 expense. As Mr. Schaffner once said, "If we 
 were here only to sell goods and make a lot 
 of money, it would not warrant us in push' 
 ing so hard, because no one has the right to 
 high consideration who has nothing but a 
 material object as a basis for his motives. It 
 is useless for us to say we are not striving to 
 make money, because that is the measure, 
 after all, of success in business; but it is gratis 
 fying at the same time to feel that it is coupled 
 with an ethical principle that puts us on a 
 big, broad, moral foundation. The best evi- 
 dence of this is that people generally ac 
 knowledge we have done much to raise the 
 standard of the clothing industry. I believe 
 
 L20I 
 
 IM' 
 
 
 if we could really appreciate what we have 
 here we should be overflowing with the joy 
 of our activities and grateful that we are con- 
 nected with a business that has given us such 
 opportunities.'" 
 
 In many ways he expressed these high 
 policies to merchants. There are hundreds of 
 retailers throughout the country who would 
 gladly acknowledge the debt they owe him 
 for his encouragement, for his kindly admoni- 
 tions, for the ideals which he constantly held 
 before them. 
 
 Any merchant who disregarded ethical 
 principles was quite certain, sooner or later, 
 to bring down upon himself a wrath that was 
 scathing. It is a tribute to Mr. Schaffner that 
 his most searching and severe methods in such 
 cases seldom aroused resentment. 
 
 We who were in close touch with many 
 of these cases sometimes had moments of anx- 
 iety as to the effects of such severity on the 
 business; but Mr. Schaffner calmly said, "I 
 know Fm right about this and he's wrong. 
 
 [21J 
 
 I 
 
Don't worry about the effect on the business. 
 When you're sure you're right, go ahead." 
 There are merchants today who were pulled 
 out of the mire of disreputable practice by 
 the severe rebukes administered by him. 
 
 In the early days of the business, the can^ 
 cellation of orders was a common practice 
 except among the best merchants and there 
 was almost no attempt to frustrate it. A 
 merchant felt at liberty to buy as much as he 
 pleased and take as little as he pleased. This 
 abuse Mr. SchaflSier attacked with all of his 
 energy. He did not have the idea that, lone^ 
 handed, he could wipe it out at one stroke 
 but he did beUeve that the flagrant cases 
 should be fought to the last ditch and that 
 gradually merchants should be taught that 
 good faith must be a part of every business 
 transaction. 
 
 On one occasion a large retailer, after an 
 order had been accepted, undertook to make 
 an extensive cancellation by mail and did so 
 in an arbitrary and high-handed manner. This 
 
 I22] 
 
 brought a rebuke so thorough, so full of jus- 
 tice, that the man who received it must have 
 had a new view of himself 
 
 Unfortunately the files containing the letter 
 no longer exist but it remains in the memory 
 of the people in the office and certainly it is 
 still in the mind of the man who received it. 
 It was a firm, dignified denunciation of the 
 practice and concluded with the statement 
 that the company had no desire to do busi- 
 ness with a man who did not keep faith and 
 that he was entirely welcome to make his 
 purchases elsewhere in the future. 
 
 There was great interest as to what would 
 follow. In those days, not one business man 
 in a thousand would have predicted any other 
 result than the cancellation of the entire order 
 and the severance of business relations. What 
 happened was that no part of the order was 
 cancelled. The goods were accepted and the 
 account remained on the books as long as the 
 merchant continued in business. The emphasis 
 with which the letter scorned any suggestion 
 
 I23I 
 
 I i 
 
of departure from standards for the sake of 
 business gain was a triumph of moral force. 
 
 When the firm was young, Mr. Schaffher 
 gave personal attention to many details. He 
 answered the important mail, passed upon 
 the credits, checked out-going shipments, and 
 kept closely in touch with all departments. 
 He thus knew personally and intimately many 
 of the men who grew to positions of great 
 responsibility in later years. His understand^ 
 ing of them and their appreciation of him 
 were among the beautiful things of his busi^ 
 ness career. 
 
 In the later years of his life, it was a com^ 
 mon occurrence for him to hail such men as 
 they were passing by and take them into his 
 office for a "talk.'' Those talks were bright 
 spots in the lives of the men who enjoyed 
 them. In the most delicate manner, the ques^ 
 tion of personal relation to the business was 
 discussed, the road to further achievement 
 was inspiringly pointed out, and praise and 
 stimulation were benignantly bestowed. Only 
 
 [24] 
 
 h 
 
 a man who had that relationship with Mr. 
 Schaffiier realized the wonder of it. No one 
 was lost sight of. The office boy of the early 
 days who had become a man of responsibility 
 was held up to others as a shining example. 
 A man who stumbled was given a helping 
 hand. 
 
 It was a great delight to Mr. Schaffner 
 when he discovered that any particular young 
 man was growing in business capacity. That 
 man was at once flooded with encouragement 
 and opportunity. Frequent excursions were 
 made through the house, from floor to floor, 
 to the salesroom, the order department, the 
 back order floor, the shipping-room, and else- 
 where, to chat with the executives or with 
 the rank and file. The return from such tours 
 always meant new thoughts and suggestions 
 about men and methods. He would say, "I 
 was in such and such a department today. 
 That boy up there (mentioning his name) is 
 doing fine work. Keep your eye on him and 
 give him more responsibility.'' And the mat' 
 
 [25I 
 
 * 
 
 
 ..•I 
 
if 
 
 III! 
 
 i 
 
 ter was not dropped with one suggestion; it 
 was always followed up. 
 
 At one time he was about to leave on a 
 vacation. Shortly before train^time, an em" 
 ploye brought him some routine things for 
 his consideration. Mr. Schaffher said, "Who 
 will decide about these things when I am 
 away?'' The employe said, "We shall have 
 to do it to the best of our ability.'' The reply 
 was, "You may start doing it now and keep 
 it up. Follow your best judgment: If you 
 make mistakes, and you probably will, I shall 
 forgive you." 
 
 That was one of his qualities — the throw- 
 ing of responsibility on growing men. An- 
 other trait was his absolute and unfailing 
 support of any man who had made an honest 
 effort to do a task whether or not he was 
 successful. The sign of progressiveness on 
 the part of an employe in undertaking to do 
 things and doing them intelligently was 
 always a great joy to Mr. Schafiher. He did 
 not excuse blundering; on the contrary, he 
 
 I26J 
 
 abhorred it, but honest, well-timed, intelligent 
 effort always received praise from him no 
 matter what the outcome. 
 
 If a salesman encountered a quarrelsome 
 customer, that customer would be lost to the 
 business rather than that the company re- 
 pudiate the salesman. There was never any 
 question as to where a good employe stood 
 if he encountered difficulty in the conscien- 
 tious performance of his work. 
 
 The attitude and relations of Mr. Schaffner 
 to salesmen may perhaps be best indicated by 
 their attitude and relations to him. One of 
 the salesmen expressed what all the salesmen 
 thought: 
 
 "Mr. Schaffner had a particularly keen eth- 
 ical sense in dealing with merchants or with 
 any question of policy which we might have 
 occasion to discuss with him. He simply 
 wanted to know what was the right thing, 
 the fair thing, to do and then he tried to do 
 that. He did make mistakes, sometimes. I re- 
 member on one occasion a number of the 
 
 [27I 
 
 * 
 
' 
 
 salesmen had done something of which he 
 did not approve. It was in a sense a purely 
 personal matter with these salesmen— noth' 
 ing directly connected with business. 
 
 "But Mr. Schaffner always had a fatherly 
 feeling toward 'the boys/ as he always called 
 us; and he took it upon himself in this case 
 to call these men into his ofEce one at a time 
 and admonish them, somewhat severely they 
 felt. He talked very plainly to them; as one 
 of them put it 'he raked me over the coals 
 pretty roughly.' 
 
 "The next day, each of these men was 
 again summoned to Mr. Schaffner's desk, and 
 something to this effect was said: 'I told Mrs. 
 Schaffner last night, after I reached home, 
 what I had said to you yesterday, and she 
 said I was entirely wrong; that in a matter so 
 personal as that you had a right to do as 
 you pleased, and that I had no right to scold 
 you as I did. I believe she's right about it; 
 my motive was good but I was wrong and I 
 want to apologi^ie." 
 
 I28] 
 
 "It was this sense of fairness which en- 
 deared the man to us; it was his acute per- 
 ception of 'the right thing' which everyone 
 liked. It was such a policy in business which 
 did so much to raise the general standard of 
 business ethics not only here among us but 
 generally throughout the clothing trade.'" 
 
 "I never went to Mr. Schafiher to talk 
 about my problems and difficulties as a sales- 
 man," said another member of the selling 
 force, "that I did not come from the inter- 
 view encouraged and made to feel that I was 
 a better man; that I could overcome any ob- 
 stacle. I believe that every man who talked 
 with him had a similar feeling; and many of 
 them have said that a half hour's talk with 
 Mr. Schaffner made them feel a sense of part- 
 nership in the business. 
 
 "The letters written by Mr. Schaffner to 
 'the boys' were also a great inspiration; all of 
 our salesmen will agree with me when I say 
 that many times after a disappointing day, 
 when I felt blue and discouraged, a letter 
 
 [29] 
 
 i;»t! 
 
 -f r li iliftii 
 
I 
 
 from Mr. Schafiher woiild come and it would 
 revive and rejuvenate my spirits and make 
 me feel able to conquer anything. He was a 
 master of inspiration.'" 
 
 By conversation and by his letters— Mr. 
 Schafiher's letters are considered in a chapter 
 by themselves — he stimulated, encouraged, 
 admonished his salesmen. He often said that 
 the best way to get a man to do anything 
 that had to be done was to express belief in 
 his ability to do it. 
 
 In the delicate matter of credit, Mr. Schaff" 
 ner was both strict and liberal. Being himself 
 a man young in spirit he had great faith in 
 young men and older men of youthful ideas. 
 He examined character and integrity more 
 closely than financial resources. He constantly 
 said, "When you find a young man who wants 
 to go into business, don't worry too much 
 about his capital. If he's the right kind of man, 
 give him a chance; he'll make good for you." 
 There are many accounts on the books of 
 the firm today which were refused credit by 
 
 I30J 
 
 other manufacturers but accepted by Mr. 
 Schafiher on his confidence in character and 
 his keen judgment of men. His belief in the 
 "average of honesty" was strong and he often 
 cautioned against too great rigidity. 
 
 "How much would you lose," he some- 
 times said, "if you shipped without question 
 every dollar's worth of goods anybody wants 
 to buy from you?" He often discussed this 
 matter at length and mentioned instance after 
 instance of weak concerns made strong by 
 right treatment. He strove to show to the 
 credit department that it was not a wise 
 policy to scan prospective accounts so closely 
 that every possible chance of loss was elimi- 
 nated. He held that the only way to make 
 volume of business is to trust men of char- 
 acter and guide them in the wise conduct of 
 their business. 
 
 His theories of credit were fully justified; 
 no "credit man" in the world had a larger 
 percentage of "discounters" than he. After a 
 serious talk on this vital subject on one occa^ 
 
 [31 1 
 
r 
 
 sion Mr. Schaffner shot a ray of humor 
 through the discussion by saying, "I some^ 
 times think thit our concern can get along 
 almost as well with a credit man as it could 
 without one/^ 
 
 When a failure occurred which could not 
 be satisfactorily explained, such a merchant 
 did not find it easy to make a settlement. Mr. 
 Schaffner believed that an easy settlement 
 encouraged failures. But if a merchant had 
 been merely unfortunate through circum^ 
 stances over which he had no control, he re^ 
 ceived without question warm support and 
 aid. There are many merchants who are tO' 
 day prosperous because, at the critical time, 
 they received the needed support. One in^ 
 stance of this policy will illustrate many 
 others. 
 
 An old, conservative, retail clothing con^ 
 cern, owned by a man in middle life, a fine 
 type of the gentleman in business, was given 
 a severe blow by a disastrous fire which prac' 
 tically wiped him out. It was found, after this 
 
 I32I 
 
 m 
 
 catastrophe, that the head of the concern, 
 good business man as he was, had made a very 
 serious blunder, as good business men some^ 
 times do. He had allowed some of his insur^ 
 ance to lapse and the loss by fire was a serious 
 one. The problem for this man was a difficult 
 one to meet. How could he resume business 
 with his capital and assets so badly impaired? 
 He came to see Mr. Schaffiier, accompanied 
 by his young junior partner. They came "hop- 
 ing against hope''; the average manufacturing 
 concern would have been sorry for them and 
 would have expressed sympathy and let it go 
 at that; there was nothing in their financial 
 position to recommend them. 
 
 Mr. Schaffner met these downcast men 
 with cheerful optimism and, after a long, 
 friendly talk and counsel, he said to the mer- 
 chant, "You may go to the sales floor and buy 
 as much merchandise as you want, and we 
 will ship it at once. Go back to your home; 
 get your new store ready, and we'll have the 
 goods there for the opening.'' 
 
 I33I 
 
 II 
 
I I 
 
 The result was so unexpected to the mer- 
 chant that, when it fairly dawned on him 
 that his business life was literally being saved, 
 he bowed his head on his hands and burst 
 into tears. The junior partner, a young man 
 of great loyalty to his elder associate, was 
 equally affected. The men were of fine natures 
 and both had been under a great strain and 
 to have this lifted and to feel themselves back 
 in business again, standing before the world 
 as they had always stood, was so great a re- 
 Uef that it could be expressed only by the 
 emotions. 
 
 Mr. Schaffiier, in referring to the matter 
 later, justified his action by saying, "It wasn t 
 that I was sorry for the man— anybody would 
 have been sorry for him; but sympathy is not 
 a good basis for a large credit. I got at the 
 heart of the man; I saw what he was, and I 
 believed in what he could do. I wasn t really 
 taking a very great risk.'' ' 
 
 His judgment was confirmed. The concern, 
 in a new store, with a new stock, stimulated 
 
 I34] 
 
 by the hope of new success, quickly justified 
 the confidence placed in it. 
 
 In these and other ways, Mr. Schaffner 
 spread abroad his beneficent influence upon 
 all with whom he had relations. 
 
 To a man of his conspicuous success, it 
 was inevitable that opportunities for public 
 service should come. There were two things 
 that prevented him firom doing much work 
 of a public nature. One was his absolute 
 passion for the business. He believed that a 
 man could contribute most to his city or his 
 country by achieving results in whatever he 
 undertook. He believed that, in building up 
 a big business which really served, a man 
 rendered a public service more truly than ii 
 he undertook many public functions and neg- 
 lected his business. Even realising that his 
 tremendous ability, applied in any direction, 
 would have had results, we can all now see 
 that it would have been a distinct loss had 
 he diverted his mind from the business to 
 outside enterprises. 
 
 [35I 
 
 III 
 
 III 
 
 ■ I -ifc ■ 
 
I' 
 
 II 
 
 The second thing that prevented him from 
 accepting honors was his great modesty, not 
 that he misunderstood or was unmindful of 
 honest praise. While he abhorred flattery, he 
 liked to feel that the things he did or that 
 the business did were understood and truly 
 valued. Coupled with that, however, was a 
 natural shrinking from being personaUy con^ 
 spicuous. Although he had a fine, commanding 
 voice, nothing could induce him to make a 
 public address. His aversion to doing so 
 amounted almost to an obsession, so that his 
 public appearances were rare. 
 
 There were intimations conveyed to him 
 from time to time that, if he would express a 
 willingness, appointments carrying with them 
 high honor might come to him, but he dis^ 
 couraged all such thoughts. He accepted one 
 bank directorship and was very conscientious 
 in the performance of his duties but found it 
 required more of his energy than he was able 
 to give. He had other opportunities to be" 
 come associated with leading financial institu^ 
 
 I36I 
 
 tions and he was frequently mentioned for 
 high appointments. While he felt it was a 
 fine thing on the part of men who could per" 
 form such duties to render such service, he 
 could not have failed to recogni2;e that a far 
 greater opportunity for service lay in the 
 course that he followed. 
 
 I37I 
 
11 
 
 liii 
 
 THE BUSINESS MAN-II 
 
 mm 
 
 HE progressive character of his 
 mind made it natural that Mr. 
 Schaffher should grasp quickly the 
 possibilities of publicity when ap^ 
 
 plied to business. It was a sign of his calibre 
 that all through his business life he caught the 
 importance of new forces and utilized them 
 before most men were ready to accept them. 
 In the nineties, the education of the public as 
 to the value of goods was for the most part 
 carried on in a crude and desultory way. He 
 foresaw the possibilities of this great force and 
 its application became an activity in which 
 he felt the keenest and liveliest interest. 
 
 The first efforts in publicity aroused some 
 curiosity but more skepticism in the trade. 
 Some of the old-timers smiled indulgently to 
 see a young business house squandering, as 
 they thought, its hard-earned profits in news- 
 paper and maga2;ine space. They said that it 
 
 I39I 
 
ill 
 
 was an expensive way to gratify pride, but 
 it wasn't their money, so they at least would 
 not be the suflferers. 
 
 In talking about the general attitude of the 
 trade at the time of the first eflforts made to 
 educate the consumer, a dean of the advertis- 
 ing fraternity gave this personal observation: 
 
 "Mr. Schaffher was the object of much 
 curiosity and some sympathy when he began 
 advertising. One of his competitors met him 
 one day and mentioned the matter. This com- 
 petitor said if a man wanted to throw money 
 in the lake it was a fine way to go about it. 
 Mr. Schafeer agreed that it cost money, all 
 right. About a year after the same man was 
 encountered again. He said, *I see you are 
 still giving some of your profits to the pub- 
 lishers." Mr. Schaffner admitted the charge 
 and also acknowledged on being pressed that 
 he was not able directly to measure the re- 
 turn from the expenditure. After a few more 
 years, those interested began to show anxiety 
 about the matter. The expenditure had in- 
 
 I40I 
 
 "^ 
 
 f< 
 
 creased year after year and the supposed reck- 
 lessness of the venture began to take on a 
 new aspect. It was beginning to dawn on the 
 industry that a new force was at work; there 
 were unmistakable signs of a new leadership. 
 It took a few years for it to permeate and by 
 the time the effect of advertising on the pub- 
 lic was frilly recogni2;ed in the industry Mr. 
 Schafiher's work had progressed far/' 
 
 In an article by Mr. Schaffher, written at 
 the request of the editor of a leading business 
 m2^a2;ine and published in its issue of Febru- 
 ary, 191 5, he referred to his use of publicity 
 in these words: 
 
 "When I first became associated with my 
 partners, their high ideals of business, their 
 devotion to the work they had undertaken, 
 their ethical sense of obligation to those who 
 bought and wore their goods, their strong 
 purpose to give value, their pride in the qual- 
 ity of their product— these things impressed 
 me as profoundly as they had impressed others. 
 Our national advertising grew out of a desire 
 
 [41] 
 
to tell everybody what these men had done 
 and were doing. The advertising began in a 
 small way; about $5,000 was the extent of our 
 first year's appropriation and that seemed a 
 good deal at that time. We were told very 
 frankly by other manufacturers and by re^ 
 tailers that advertising would not pay us. 
 One of our customers who now owns several 
 very important retail stores could not then be 
 convinced that our advertising would help 
 his sales; he did not beUeve that we could 
 draw people to his store for our goods. It 
 wasn't long after when this man discovered 
 that the public was acquiring a knowledge of 
 our clothes and a belief in their quality. Ad^ 
 vertising increased our volume; volume has 
 enabled us to increase our value^giving, both 
 by lower prices and by putting more quality 
 into the goods. Advertising has been, and is, 
 an economy.**' 
 
 Mr. Schaffner's temperament and his broad 
 knowledge of good literature made him an in^ 
 valuable critic and guide for the men who 
 
 [42] 
 
 wrote "copy.'' His criticism was pointed and 
 always constructive; he had a keen sense of 
 the merits of a well-written phrase or para^ 
 graph and, when he suggested a change in the 
 wording of an advertisement, it was always 
 an improvement. 
 
 He frequently wrote an advertisement him- 
 self and submitted it, in a half-apologetic way, 
 to the members of the staflf and was always 
 genuinely pleased when his work was ap- 
 proved by them. It indicated the fine spirit 
 which he showed toward all of us, that he 
 accepted criticism of his own writing exactly 
 as he gave it to ours. Very often he would 
 take the "copy" for an advertisement and 
 with his own hand re-write a paragraph or 
 change a word here and there, and then say, 
 with a laugh, "Now we have made a very 
 good advertisement." 
 
 He possessed in a very marked degree the 
 fine quality which enables a man to take "the 
 other fellow's" point of view — one of the es- 
 sential qualifications for writing good advep 
 
 [43] 
 
Ill 
 
 If 
 
 i 
 
 tising. He was able thus to express himself 
 quite impartially and in a manner that carried 
 conviction. 
 
 From the first, the advertising employed 
 illustrations to a very large extent. It was 
 determined that the pictures used should be 
 of high character artistically; and he gave 
 close attention to this phase of pubUcity. 
 Although not as expert a critic of art as he 
 was of hterature, he had a keen feeling for 
 artistic things, and was always deeply inter- 
 ested in good composition and fine color 
 effects. He gathered about him in this branch 
 of the advertising work men of much ability, 
 artists of high standing; he led them to feel 
 that they were not debasing their art by mak- 
 ing it serve the ends of business; he listened 
 thoughtfully and patiently to those who were 
 trained to judge of such matters. He had the 
 greatest respect for trained men in any field. 
 His natural sense of artistic values was rapidly 
 developed by the study of art in advertising 
 and his grasp of it grew as years passed. 
 
 [44I 
 
 In illustrations of clothing he did not want 
 the smooth, unwrinkled effects which were 
 then so common on "tailors' style charts.'' 
 He wanted men shown Tvhose faces had char- 
 acter, whose bodies were human and real. 
 He permitted his artists to draw the clothes 
 and the men as they really were. When an 
 artist produced something good, in color or in 
 black and white, no matter how new or ad-, 
 vanced it might seem, it never failed to receive 
 Mr. Schaffner s approval, and in such matters 
 time usually proved that his judgment was 
 correct. 
 
 He was convinced that good advertising 
 would not only increase sales but that it 
 would help to raise the general standards of 
 quality in the merchandise and improve the 
 policies throughout the industry. He believed 
 advertising would eventually make possible 
 large-scale production, thereby reducing costs 
 to the minimum. He once said, when the 
 question of the amount of advertising appro- 
 priation was under discussion, "When we 
 
 I45I 
 
 ■_^->*- 
 

 i 
 
 want to reduce expenses, we increase the ad" 
 vertising appropriation/' 
 
 The first attempts at advertising, however, 
 were not very impressive. It was a new 
 field and he entered it cautiously. He often 
 laughed, in later years, at these small begin- 
 nings; and occasionally, when authorizing an 
 expenditure of many thousands of dollars, 
 would refer to those beginning days when he 
 thought $i,ooo was a large sum to spend. He 
 learned advertising by doing it; his mind 
 grasped its meaning and its fundamental prin- 
 ciples very quickly. He was a "progressive'' 
 advertiser from the first. 
 
 As the general theory and philosophy of 
 advertising grew more clear in his mind, he 
 vigorously sought to encourage advertising of 
 a better type on the part of retail merchants. 
 Under his guidance there was built up a ser- 
 vice which became, as the years passed, one 
 of the phenomena of business. Advertise- 
 ments were prepared under his direction 
 which retail merchants were glad to use as 
 
 [46I 
 
 their own or adapt to their business, and by 
 this means better policies and higher stand- 
 ards of business were encouraged. In this and 
 in other ways, the influence of the man made 
 itself felt throughout the country. He en- 
 couraged his customers constantly to do more 
 as well as better advertising. 
 
 On one occasion, he wrote to a merchant 
 who was inclined to curtail his advertising 
 expenditure on a mistaken idea of economy: 
 "Our idea in advertising has not been to 
 give a testimonial of good will, when business 
 is good, to newspapers that need money, 
 but to increase our sales; and we have con- 
 sequently swelled our advertising whenever 
 the prospects were gloomy. Our policy in bad 
 times has been redoubled efforts. 
 
 "The other theory— of feeling that you can 
 afford to advertise only when you are making 
 a lot of money— places advertising on the 
 basis of charity, pure and simple. If this were 
 so, the great national businesses of today 
 would not exist. But advertising is far from 
 
 U7I 
 
 f » 
 
Ill 
 
 charity. It is an investment on which the first 
 dividend is sometimes deferred but which has 
 its return compounded. 
 
 "If you were a farmer and had some poor 
 land, you would not devote half the care to 
 that land that you regularly devoted to your 
 better land, but would double the amount. 
 When there is a prospect of a poor year, 
 normality will be secured not by neglect but 
 by extra eflForts. 
 
 "There is no system that we know of by 
 which you can discriminate between the peo^ 
 pie who are future customers and the people 
 who are not. If there were, it would certainly 
 revolutionize business.'^ 
 
 He felt strongly that the national advertise 
 ing he directed had created a great good will 
 for the concern and its merchandise; and that 
 retail merchants who sold the clothes ought 
 to utili2;e that asset in their own advertising. 
 He constantly preached that idea to them. 
 
 He said to a merchant: "We have never 
 considered advertising an expense; it has 
 
 [48I 
 
 always proved to be an economy. It has given 
 us immense volume; has kept down our man^ 
 ufecturing costs on that account, as well as 
 our overhead. The same principle applies to 
 the dealer in each community where our 
 goods are sold.'" 
 
 To another merchant he said: "It is some' 
 what difficult for merchants, who have been 
 accustomed to a certain fixed idea as to the 
 amount of profit that one is entitled to in re^ 
 lation to expense, to change their viewpoint, 
 just as some of them hesitate about spending 
 money for advertising because their busi' 
 nesses do not justify more than a certain ex' 
 penditure. But if they make the investment 
 in publicity, even for beyond what the cur^ 
 rent business warrants, the experience of 
 those who have tried it proves that the vol' 
 ume soon overtakes the appropriation and 
 reduces the cost of advertising by the in^ 
 creased profits. It takes some courage to do 
 these things, but one soon becomes bolder as 
 one reali2;es the impetus it gives to business.'' 
 
 [49I 
 
 
B! 
 
 One characteristic of Mr. Schafiher's rek" 
 tion to the advertising was the frequency 
 with which he suggested and approved the 
 preparation of "advertising which did not ad- 
 vertise/' Booklets on "Courage," on "En- 
 thusiasm/' on "Co-operation,'' and on many 
 similar subjects were issued which did not 
 directly advertise clothing; in many cases the 
 only reference to Hart Schafiher 6? Marx in 
 the booklet was the company's imprint on 
 the title page. These booklets were inspira- 
 tional in character and widely read. Mr. 
 Schafiher often said to his advertising men, 
 with a gentle smile, "Don't always try to sell 
 clothes; let this go through without any 
 ^clothes' in it— just be helpful, if we can, in 
 developing better business ideas." 
 
 In one of these booklets he preached a 
 much-needed sermon on dignity in business. 
 He said: 
 
 "The clothing merchant of the present day 
 sustains a relation to his community of con- 
 siderable importance. The clothes a man 
 
 [50I 
 
 wears are to some extent a true index of his 
 character and tastes; but they're also an in- 
 fluence upon his character and tastes; they 
 affect in an unconscious and more or less 
 indirect way his standir^ in the community. 
 This being true, it is easy to see that the 
 clothing man has a duty to his fellow-citi2;ens 
 which ought not to be neglected or treated 
 lightly; and a part of that duty is to maintain 
 his own dignity in the business, to lead his 
 customers to regard clothes and clothes-buy- 
 ing as a matter of importance. When a 
 clothing merchant reaches the point of seeing 
 that dignity in business pays, that his duty 
 as a merchant to his customers is a higher 
 one than merely selling merchandise, that he 
 ought to serve them as well as sell to them, 
 and that his highest service and value to his 
 community is to see that the men in it wear 
 the kind of clothes that are really best for 
 them— when he gets these things once settled 
 in his mind, he generally attains success and 
 with it a high degree of gratification." 
 
 [51I 
 
I 
 
 ll 
 
 I 
 
 :rl 
 
 It was a matter of much pride to Mr. 
 Schaffiier when one of these booklets, with 
 the title "Enthusiasm," not an advertisement 
 but an argument for the value of enthusiasm 
 in business, brought letters from heads of 
 large concerns in other lines of business who 
 had seen the booklet and who asked for fifty 
 or a hundred or more copies, for use among 
 their own employes. 
 
 Every now and then he did a sudden and 
 unexpected thing which for a time brought 
 consternation to the advertising staff, but 
 which proved in the end to be one of those 
 daring master'Strokes of business which 
 seemed intuitive with him. One such expe- 
 rience recurs to us. It arose out of a question 
 of the price at which the clothes were sold 
 at retail. Retailers insisted that they had to 
 sell lower'priced clothes; that many of their 
 customers would not pay more than a certain 
 price for a suit and the figure mentioned was 
 lower than any goods that were being pro- 
 duced by the company. Salesmen too were 
 
 I 52] 
 
 clamoring for a lower-priced suit. They said: 
 "If you will give us a suit to sell at this lower 
 price, we'll capture the whole market." 
 
 The manufacturing chiefs refused to make 
 clothes as low-priced as this demand called 
 for. "It cannot be done," they said, "if we 
 maintain our standards of quality in materials 
 and workmanship." And there the matter 
 stood. Merchants and salesmen were disap' 
 pointed and felt a little rebellious; the mer' 
 chandisers of the business were resolute. 
 Under these conditions was begun the prep- 
 aration of the season's advertising campaign, 
 avoiding as carefully as possible this "low- 
 price" subject. The copy for the campaign 
 was finished and waiting for Mr. Schafiher's 
 final reading and approval when business 
 called him away. He was gone about ten 
 days. Immediately upon his return he called 
 the advertising heads together and said: 
 
 "I have decided on the best way to meet 
 this low-price clamor. We shall put out an 
 advertising campaign at once telling the pub- 
 
 . 
 
■I 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 M 
 
 lie that true economy in buying clothes is in 
 paying $ — '' (naming a price $io above the 
 low price urged by retailers). "Instead of try^ 
 ing to compete with these cheaper goods we 
 shall go in the opposite direction. We shall 
 discard the advertising already prepared and 
 get ready new copy on this new idea/' 
 
 When this was announced and the first 
 of the advertisements appeared, there was 
 great dismay among merchants and salesmen. 
 Nearly all of them thought it was a mistake; 
 some said it was folly. But the event proved 
 that the course was not only sound as a busi- 
 ness pohcy but it was, more than that, a 
 stroke of genius. 
 
 Mr. Schafiher s faith in "common honesty'' 
 was shown by the wording of the guaranty 
 issued by the firm. He wrote as follows to a 
 retailer: 
 
 "A guaranty that is limited by a bill of ex- 
 ceptions is not a guaranty at all, so far as the 
 pubHc is concerned. The guaranty of our 
 clothes is outright and is written in as clear 
 
 l54l 
 
 and decisive terms as we can express them. 
 There are no mental reservations behind it 
 or qualifications of any kind whatsoever. It 
 is impossible to promise perfection in any 
 human product; we are not infallible; we take 
 every precaution to avoid errors; but we do 
 not think it is fair to expect anybody else to 
 pay for our mistakes. Even if our work is per- 
 fect, the man who buys our clothes may not 
 be satisfied; we guarantee and intend to guar- 
 antee his satisfaction; and his idea of what 
 'satisfaction' means decides it, not ours. Sat- 
 isfaction is a mental, not a material, condition. 
 We do not guarantee the goods; we guar- 
 antee satisfaction. A man may wear a gar. 
 ment for a month or two months or even 
 three and get considerable service out of it, 
 yet if a garment does not prove to be what 
 the consumer has a right to expect, it is only 
 fair that his complaint should be given the 
 broadest interpretation and that he should 
 receive his money back. This is the idea that 
 we have expressed in our own guaranty. We 
 
 t55l 
 
! I 
 
 t 
 
 '' '( 
 
 
 i;- 
 
 \' • 
 
 ;! 
 
 I : 
 
 are not trying to do merely legal or technical 
 justice; we want to do *the fair thing'; we 
 should much rather be unfair to ourselves, 
 if necessary, than unfair to the man who 
 thought he was buying satisfaction in our 
 goods and found he was not getting it. Our 
 guaranty explicitly proposes to satisfy the 
 mental attitude of the consumer, even if it 
 has to be done at some expense; but we con^ 
 sider that there is no other way to establish 
 a firm foundation for public confidence.'' 
 
 Mr. Schaffher had so much confidence in 
 the force of advertising that he sometimes 
 expressed extreme views on it. In a letter 
 from Atlantic City, where he was enjoying a 
 rest, he wrote regarding the amount of news- 
 paper space to be used: 
 
 "There is no use in taking too many bites 
 at a cherry; swallow it at one gulp. I know 
 you will come back with figures showing 
 added cost, but what difference does it make 
 if you get your returns so much more fully? 
 Let's do something sensational and forget 
 
 [56I 
 
 about the cost until the returns are in next 
 December. I know you will think I am the 
 victim of the last man I consult. I am always 
 ready to revise any opinion I have, if I find 
 anything better, and that's my present con- 
 viction about the value of big space." 
 
 And again on the same subject a day or 
 two later: 
 
 "You boys are *tight-wads' and that is your 
 strong recommendation for the positions you 
 occupy; but I know you are willing to spend 
 a dollar if you can get back a dollar fifty; and 
 it's on this basis that we must view it." 
 
 There are numerous instances in which 
 Mr. Schaffner's steady optimism as to the 
 value of advertising and his constant encour- 
 agement led a merchant out of difficulty into 
 success. A man with a small amount of capital 
 but with a desire to do a high-class business 
 took a larger store, at greater rental, and put 
 in a large stock of fine merchandise. For sev- 
 eral years he fought an up-hill battle for suc- 
 cess; discouraged, he came many times to talk 
 
 I57] 
 
i: 
 
 J. I 
 
 
 with Mr. Schaffner, who said: "Keep on; 
 you re on the right track; the results of such 
 methods are certain; don t weaken. Do more 
 advertising."" He made the merchant believe 
 in himself. 
 
 His efforts in leading merchants in this 
 direction constitute a great and lasting serv" 
 ice. His feeling was that by making a man 
 subscribe to certain principles you really force 
 him to live up to them and thus make him a 
 better man and merchant. In everything that 
 was sent to merchants there was a note of 
 inspiration. He was happy if he could lead a 
 man to set forth in his advertising a better 
 and stronger policy. He would say frequently: 
 "Now, if I can only get that man to say this 
 over and over again, I shall make him believe 
 in it and Uve up to it, and he will have a 
 better business.'" So he put into many men"s 
 minds certain thoughts and expressions of an 
 ethical and moral nature that had an ines^ 
 timable influence in elevating the standards 
 of the retail clothing business. 
 
 [58I 
 
 THE LETTERS HE WROTE 
 
 IS letters were a literary achieve- 
 ment. In comparison with the 
 average business compositions of 
 the day, they were pearls of great 
 price. He wrote easily and fluently and always 
 his correspondence showed more of a desire 
 to serve and benefit his correspondent than 
 to gain something for himself. 
 
 Hundreds of his letters are today kept and 
 treasured by happy and grateful recipients, 
 not alone for their quality and beauty but for 
 the hope and inspiration which they carried 
 in their lines. It happened often that some 
 man who had received one of these beautiful 
 letters would say, "I don"t suppose you re- 
 member the letter that you wrote me five 
 years ago, but I want to teU you that it was 
 the finest letter I ever received in my life and 
 i have put it where I can preserve it for my 
 self and show it to my children."" 
 
 [59I 
 
 11 
 

 li 
 
 i« i 
 
 \i 
 
 Si 
 
 Lt 
 
 Mr. Schaffiier sensed psychological effects 
 intuitively. He went straight to the core of 
 a subject with unerring accuracy. His reason- 
 ing was clear and direct; illustrations were 
 apt and vivid, and a touch of familiarity was 
 added here and there which had a perfectly 
 winning effect upon the reader. 
 
 The scope of his letters was unlimited. 
 They touched financing, publicity, merchan- 
 dising, management, personal conduct, busi- 
 ness ethics, labor, education and every form 
 of business problem. 
 
 How vividly we can see him at his desk, 
 dictating in his characteristic, vigorous way! 
 He talked rapidly and hesitated only when 
 he wanted a word to express the nicest shade 
 of meaning. Then, once over the point of 
 hesitation, there would follow a flow of 
 words almost too rapid for the stenographer. 
 His vocabulary constantly grew and it was 
 always a delight to him when he found a new 
 word that would add force or meaning to 
 his letters. 
 
 [6ol 
 
 When his indignation was once aroused, he 
 could not wait, but would walk to the desk of 
 the stenographer and pour forth his thoughts 
 with great vehemence. Sometimes it was nec- 
 essary, as a matter of business policy, to ex- 
 tract some of the fire from such letters, but 
 in their original form they were a genius of 
 force which no tempering could improve. 
 
 His letters to merchants always inspired 
 to better things in business; sometimes they 
 praised; sometimes they criticised — often 
 severely; but always the spirit was friendly, 
 appreciative of what he thought was good, 
 and condemning what he thought was bad. 
 
 To one he wrote regarding a fair margin 
 of profit: 
 
 "It isn t always necessary to get big profits 
 in order to be successful. We believe in the 
 reverse plan, and while we know it takes a 
 certain amount of profit to make a business 
 pay, it takes a good deal less profit than people 
 imagine if they handle the problem in the 
 right way.'' 
 
 [6il 
 
 t 
 
1 
 
 I 
 
 Itl 
 
 To another, dealing with this same subject, 
 the margin of profit, he said: 
 
 "The public very soon responds to values. 
 It might be true that few people can tell 
 whether a suit is worth $2, $3 or $5, more 
 or less; but there is a hidden principle that is 
 unerring and that reveals the collective judg- 
 ment of your community; when a policy of 
 this kind is pursued for any length of time, 
 they soon find out where the best values are 
 offered. The good will that you create in this 
 way and that brings new business into your 
 store will much more than offset the slight 
 sacrifice that you make in the reduced prices." 
 
 In another letter to the head of a large 
 concern, he discussed value-giving, service 
 and advertising, and incidentally disclosed his 
 own simple, modest attitude toward the men 
 who, under him, advised and helped him: 
 
 "The question that is vital is the one of 
 giving values and service. When that repu- 
 tation spreads in a community, as we believe 
 yours has spread, you are bound to keep on 
 
 I62I 
 
 growing; in the proportion that you reach 
 out in liberal newspaper advertising, you will 
 get gratifying resulta 
 
 "I did not mean, when I started in, to give 
 you a talk that would separate you from your 
 money in an advertising appropriation, but I 
 am so much wrapped up and committed to 
 this phase of the business that I have to be 
 very carefully censored if my letters are to go 
 out to our customers without some of this 
 dope in them. 
 
 "They are pretty kind to me around here 
 and, after I have started on this topic, they 
 usually allow it to pass, so that, if it comes 
 to you as I have written it, you will reali2;e 
 that, while I have started it on my own re^ 
 sponsibihty, it has been sanctioned by the 
 authorities and it is therefore considered 
 good advice. 
 
 "It seems to me that one thing which 
 manifests itself very conspicuously in business 
 today is the lack of enterprise on the part of 
 most retailers and manufacturers. They are 
 
 I63I 
 
 « 
 
 1 1 ■> 
 1 1- 
 
 If 
 
ff^l 
 
 I 
 
 
 'I 
 
 r 
 
 ii 
 
 too prone to follow the lines of least resist- 
 ance. This does not apply to you or to us 
 but undoubtedly you have observed it in 
 others. It is just such a situation as this that 
 makes an opportunity for progressive men. 
 
 "I hope I have not tired you. I want you 
 to know that my interest in your success is 
 even greater than the prospect of increasing 
 our business with you. I am prompted by 
 selfish motives, of course, but if I did not feel 
 that my own selfishness were coupled with 
 your self-interest, I should not think of mak- 
 ing these suggestions.'' 
 
 Another merchant was a man who showed 
 great accuracy and care in watching his busi- 
 ness and who was a constant source of delight 
 to Mr. Schaffher. While they did not meet 
 often, their friendship was warm and real. 
 Here is an extract firom a letter written to 
 warn against outside enterprises: 
 
 "I talk to you firankly about all things and 
 in the spirit of an adviser and a critic. You 
 cannot afford to make any mistakes after all 
 
 [64] 
 
 ■«^ 
 
 r..w, II i I 
 
 these years, and I cannot afford to let you. 
 You have worked hard and deserve your 
 reward. There is one thing I must say to 
 you, which is that you should not withdraw 
 money from the business to put into outside 
 enterprises, no matter how alluring the pros- 
 pect may be. Either be a merchant or the 
 other thing; you cannot be both. No one 
 ever made a success doing more than one 
 thing; at least, not many people have done 
 so. If they have, it was by accident. I know 
 how sincerely earnest you are, that you are 
 conscientious and scrupulous, but your out- 
 side ventures represent bad judgment. I can- 
 not help but speak out frankly about this and 
 hope it may be the means of checking your 
 tendencies in that direction. What I write 
 to you is not because we are at all apprehen- 
 sive, but because we want you to reali2;e the 
 truth of a general principle. Also because we 
 want to give you the benefit of our best judg- 
 ment, which is to concentrate, to do one 
 thing and one thing only, to strengthen your 
 
 I65J 
 
 
W I'l * 
 
 !' 
 
 ill 
 
 , 
 
 t 
 
 r 
 
 capital and keep on advertising. You have 
 been doing some excellent work. I do not 
 know where I have seen anything that I con^ 
 sider quite as original, and it ought to be 
 correspondingly effective/' 
 
 A bank sent in an inquiry regarding a large 
 account. The inquiry was of such importance 
 that it was answered by Mr. Schaffiier him^ 
 self, and the bank replied asking if the com^ 
 pany had any special arrangements to protect 
 itself with the account in question. Mr. 
 Schaffner was much incensed at the sugges- 
 tion thus conveyed, that while he had been 
 good enough to give some of the information 
 desired, he might have withheld some facts 
 of importance. His answer was a revelation of 
 the man's unalloyed integrity. He wrote: 
 
 "If the ethics of banking justify concealing 
 security, the ethics of our business do not. 
 If we held security and did not mention the 
 fact to you in our reports, it would be noth- 
 ing short of corruption, and we are not at all 
 flattered by your inquiry.'' 
 
 1661 
 
 mmgi 
 
 He was unalterably opposed to mixing 
 business and politics. He felt that, if a man 
 wanted to go into poHtical work for patriotic 
 reasons, it was a fine thing, but in that event 
 he should get out of business. One letter 
 written to a prominent merchant fully reveals 
 his thought on that point: 
 
 "I have just been informed that you prO' 
 pose to enter politics and be a candidate for 
 the state legislature. I was so much affected 
 by it that I could not refrain from expressing 
 to you my thorough disapproval. 
 
 "Perhaps you may say that it is none of 
 my affair and, therefore, my disapproval does 
 not matter to you but, in spite of this, I feel 
 that I owe you a duty which I must be fear- 
 less in expressing and, at the risk of losing 
 even your good opinion, I am going to do my 
 duty. 
 
 "Politics for a business man is a very poor 
 combination. A man who enters politics must 
 expect to devote himself enthusiastically to 
 the cause that he espouses. It is a constant 
 
 [67 1 
 
 
fl 
 
 I i 
 
 \ 
 
 h*^ 
 
 appeal to him and means unremitting, arduous 
 and concentrated effort. It arouses ambition 
 and his pride is involved to such a degree 
 that he stakes ahnost everything and generally 
 comes out, no matter how victorious he may 
 be, disastrously. There are very few poli- 
 ticians who have not had a bitter experience 
 of this kind. 
 
 "It might be all right enough if you had 
 plenty of leisure and plenty of means and 
 wanted to make a sacrifice from patriotic 
 motives but, if you do that and can afford to 
 do that, I should advise you to get out of 
 business, because your business will surely 
 suffer in more than one way. It will suffer 
 by reason of your neglect and it will suffer be- 
 cause of the partisanship that you are bound 
 to espouse. Politics will cost you a lot of 
 money and it will mean lots of heartaches 
 and weariness. It will take you away from 
 your family to a great extent. It will put you 
 in contact with temptations that will strain 
 your manhood to the utmost. 
 
 168] 
 
 "If you are ambitious to be a successful 
 merchant, which I am sure is a very laud- 
 able aim, it seems to me that, since you have 
 started out to make so much of your busi' 
 ness, that in itself ought to give you sufficient 
 activity to arouse the best that is in you. I 
 think any man can well afford to devote him- 
 self to business and find in it compensations 
 that will reward him richly for his devotion. 
 
 "I say this outside of pecuniary considera- 
 tions. But it is not possible for a man to do 
 this and have his mind occupied with politics 
 and all of the many radiations of a political 
 career. I have seen so much of this that I 
 know what I am talking about. I have had 
 occasion to warn a few people and, if they 
 had heeded my warning, they would have 
 been much happier than they are now. One 
 of them did heed it rather late and is better 
 off than if he had paid no attention to it at all. 
 
 "The idea that you will get glory and re- 
 nown out of it, I think, is probably what act- 
 uates you but, instead of that, you will find 
 
 I69I 
 
 :* 
 
J 'J 
 'k' 
 ■ "'•■.' 
 
 !'■' i 
 ii 
 
 humiliation. You must be prepared to stand 
 a good deal of abuse because that is the price 
 you pay for the running and, if you are very 
 sensitive, you cannot get sufficient satisfaction 
 out of the office to recompense you for the 
 chagrin that you will suffer. After you have 
 spent a few years in this life, you will be un- 
 fitted for anything else. You will not be a fit 
 man for a mercantile life because it will not 
 be sufficiently exciting and, in the meantime, 
 your business will suffer. 
 
 "I am writing very frankly to you about 
 this and, as I said before, it may not meet 
 with your approval, but that does not matter 
 to me. I have expressed myself rather mildly. 
 I think if I could have you face to face, I 
 would be more blunt and give you even a 
 stronger reason than I can put into a letter. 
 
 "I am not doing this to hurt your feelings 
 or to say something for the sake of preaching. 
 I am very deeply interested in the welfare of 
 your concern. I feel that it requires the con- 
 centrated efforts of both of you to bring your 
 
 I70I 
 
 
 '"^ 
 
 ^<-^ 
 
 .U^ 
 
 ■y^— or 
 
 -dv 
 
 '^«=*^ 
 
 
INTENTIONAL SECOND EXPOSURE 
 
 f III: 
 
 1'- 
 
 humiliation. You must be prepared to stand 
 a good deal of abuse because that is the price 
 you pay for the running and, if you are very 
 sensitive, you cannot get sufficient satisfaction 
 out of the office to recompense you for the 
 chagrin that you will suffer. After you have 
 spent a few years in this life, you will be un^ 
 fitted for anything else. You will not be a fit 
 man for a mercantile life because it will not 
 be sufficiently exciting and, in the meantime, 
 your business will suffer. 
 
 "I am writing very frankly to you about 
 this and, as I said before, it may not meet 
 with your approval, but that does not matter 
 to me. I have expressed myself rather mildly. 
 I think if I could have you face to face, I 
 would be more blunt and give you even a 
 stronger reason than I can put into a letter. 
 
 "I am not doing this to hurt your feelings 
 or to say something for the sake of preaching. 
 I am very deeply interested in the welfare of 
 your concern. I feel that it requires the con- 
 centrated efforts of both of you to bring your 
 
 [70I 
 
 I 
 
 I ill 
 
 h 
 
 mn0m 
 
 Ur\^>C(^ ^TvX-, /^ ^^^SZ^ 
 
 ' / 
 
 ^/Cj( — y IT --C< 
 
 jLiK.^^.J^ 
 
 ^-^ <=*^ 
 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
hl' 
 
 i; ^ 
 
 N 
 
 business up to a point where it ought to be 
 and where it is not as yet by any means. If 
 you think you can afford to abandon your 
 duty in this way, then your standing as a 
 merchant must suffer and you must be pre^ 
 pared for the effect it will have upon your 
 mercantile standing/' 
 
 Mr. Schaffner's letters to salesmen were 
 most stimulating, strongly supporting, en- 
 couraging to greater effort, and filled with 
 friendly advice. He understood how to make 
 significant use of praise and how to criticise 
 so gently that his reader was not depressed. 
 Many of his letters to salesmen have been 
 preserved. The following is an extract from 
 one such letter, written in 1900: 
 
 "I want to congratulate you on the nice 
 order just received. It's the strongest kind of 
 evidence that you are competent to discharge 
 responsibilities of the most delicate nature. 
 It certainly speaks well for your salesmanship 
 and we are more than ever convinced that 
 you are the right man in the right place.'' 
 
 . [73I 
 
 i\ 
 
 
I III 
 
 Hi 
 
 I, 
 
 h ' 
 
 II 
 
 From another, written in 1 916, we take 
 this: 
 
 "I have been criticising you lately. Now 
 I want to praise you. The work that you 
 have been doing shows what you can do 
 when you get really stirred up and go out on 
 the warpath. Now just keep this up the rest 
 of the season, and you will get some nice 
 letters from me. I know you have some that 
 you have kept for nearly twenty years, and 
 you can add this one to them. It is my tri\y 
 ute of admiration and appreciation of what 
 you can do and your generally fine record 
 during all the years we have been associated 
 together."' 
 
 The kindly mixture of praise and criticism 
 in the following is characteristic: 
 
 "Some of you deserve to be criticised and 
 we do not want to do that. We know how 
 discouraging it is, when one thinks he is try- 
 ing to do his best, and is out on the road 
 away from home, to have faultfinding letters; 
 but really some of you ought to get them, 
 
 I74I 
 
 only I am not very well qualified to fulfill 
 this function. So if you will just take it upon 
 yourselves to do your own criticising, and 
 make your own self-examinations, and look 
 into the inward springs of your salesmanship, 
 you will see where the weakness is. 
 
 "It will certainly do none of you any harm, 
 even those who are deserving of praise. All 
 of us are better off if we set a high standard 
 for our mark and if we are impatient of our 
 own shortcomings. Selfdiscipline backed by 
 determination and an invincible purpose is 
 the most valuable asset any of us can possess.**' 
 
 Here is another example of his helpful and 
 vigorous method: 
 
 "I beHeve, if we could really appreciate 
 what we have here, we should be overflow- 
 ing with the joy of our activities and grateful 
 that we are connected with a business that 
 has given us such opportunities. 
 
 "I do not think many of you realize what 
 it means to be connected with all the fine 
 things that have been developed in our busi- 
 
 I75I 
 
 
I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 •M V 
 
 i 
 
 ness here. Often men come to their daily 
 work with aversion. Many a man comes to 
 his desk in the morning with a feeling of re- 
 vulsion. How much more difficult it is for 
 those who are working under such conditions 
 than it is for us who have so many elevating 
 things to cheer us. 
 
 "The labor situation, which is something 
 that is very seldom referred to, is to a large 
 extent responsible for the high quality of our 
 product, as compared to what it would be 
 under ordinary circumstances. We have now 
 a body of eager and sympathetic workers 
 who are expressing their loyalty by the most 
 devoted co-operation. 
 
 "Now, this is a little bit of self-praise that 
 we can affi^rd to indulge in and to whisper 
 to each other once in a while, just to keep us 
 from being too modest and self-deprecatory. 
 Sometimes, you know, we go to the other 
 extreme, but it is almost as bad to underesti- 
 mate ourselves as to overestimate. We must 
 be conscious of our strength and exult in it.'' 
 
 [76I 
 
 tm 
 
 Enthusiasm was not simply a personal trait 
 of Mr. Schaffiier's character; it was a gospel, 
 which he constantly delivered to his fellow- 
 workers. In a letter to a discouraged salesman 
 he wrote in part as follows: 
 
 "We reali^ that you are working under 
 very unusual conditions and that you are 
 meeting with obstacles that are probably 
 greater than you have ever encountered. We 
 are making due allowance for these condi- 
 tions, and want to tell you that we are sure 
 you are not overlooking anything that will 
 help you to offset the difficulty. We know 
 that if there is any mian who can do this it 
 is yourself, and we feel satisfied that you have 
 done all anybody could do under the cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 "All we ask of you is that you do not be- 
 come discouraged. We know that you are 
 working like a Trojan and doing your duty 
 as you always have done it, and that when 
 you get home you will bring with you all the 
 business there is to be had. We shall try to 
 
 I77] 
 
 .1 
 
•it 
 
 If If t 
 
 
 
 Stir up enthusiasm enough to help balance 
 things a little bit. We know if any goods can 
 be sold down there you are the boy who 
 can do it, and we want you to feel that we 
 have the utmost faith in your loyalty and in 
 your devotion to the business/' 
 
 To the younger executives his correspon- 
 dence was always a delight. From on board 
 the "Imperator" on September 6, 191 3, when 
 it was about to sail for Europe, he wrote: 
 
 "Your rare judgment and enthusiasm are 
 unspeakably cherished by me. We can accom- 
 plish anything we undertake, and whatever 
 we achieve will be in a large measure due to 
 the fine spirit which pervades our organi2;a- 
 tion.'' 
 
 In the same year, from the Grand Hotel at 
 Meran, he wrote: 
 
 "I have tried in my feeble way to tell you 
 what good boys you are and I want you to 
 get this acknowledgment even though you 
 are already convinced of the place you hold 
 in my esteem and ajflfection.'' 
 
 I78I 
 
 ti 
 
 n 
 
 Sometimes he gently chided one of us in a 
 humorous vein. To one of the employes who 
 was slowly recovering from a severe illness, 
 and who expressed his distress at not being 
 able to return to his duties, Mr. Schaffner 
 wrote: 
 
 "Fretting and chafing is a good occupation 
 for a balky horse; at least it is expected, even 
 if it is not very laudable, even in a horse; but 
 a man who has acquitted himself in all the 
 relations of Ufe as you have ought not to 
 make a jackass of himself.'' 
 
 He expressed himself frequently with rare 
 humor. Writing from Aix-les-Bains, while in 
 Europe, of his son, he said: 
 
 "He is a dear, good boy. His great vice 
 over here is running into bookstores. He has 
 been obliged to read some of the best things 
 and, strange to say, has enjoyed them." 
 
 While away in 1908, he received his daily 
 letter from the office and, as an appreciation, 
 wrote this from the Hotel Mirabeau, Aix4es- 
 Bains, on June 7, 1908: 
 
 [79J 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
,il 
 
 III 
 
 i 
 
 \\ J! 
 
 "You people in the ojflSce keep me so well 
 informed about what is going on at home 
 that I feel sure I am almost better posted than 
 when I am on the spot." 
 
 Here is a characteristic letter, written from 
 New York City on April i8, 1912: 
 
 "Just a few minutes before we leave for 
 the boat and I have only time enough to ac 
 knowledge your Twentieth Century letter. 
 It is an unspeakable joy to picture you boys 
 in the organi2;ation with your enthusiasm and 
 loyalty backed by sound judgment. Keep it 
 up and continue to forget yourselves. Be care^ 
 fill to get plenty of rest and once in a while 
 think of something besides business. I look 
 forward, in spite of the disheartening sea 
 tragedy, to a happy time and hope to find 
 you all reahzing your present expectations 
 when I return.'' [The sea tragedy referred to 
 was the sinking of the "Titanic."'] 
 
 A letter to a young employe of the com- 
 pany, written on June 12, 1916, contained 
 this fine, inspiring note: 
 
 [So] 
 
 mmKmumm 
 
 wmmm^ 
 
 "It will be a long time before you will use 
 up what is on the credit side of your account 
 on the ledger of my memory. Certainly there 
 will be a balance too great for you to exhaust 
 during my lifetime." 
 
 To another about to go abroad, he wrote: 
 
 "Here's wishing you a fine voyage and a 
 happy time abroad. I assume you will be on 
 the lookout for interesting art material. Per- 
 haps some inspiration over there will lead to 
 a canvas that will add fresh laurels to your 
 reputation as an artist. 
 
 "You might even find some suggestion that 
 would enhance the art work of the old, re- 
 liable firm of clothiers that you have done so 
 much to make famous. At Algiers be sure to 
 take a good look at the Arab quarters and 
 also the beautiful St. George Hotel that is 
 probably not open now. 
 
 "Well, wherever you are, make the most 
 of your opportunities and be sure that my 
 good wishes are around somewhere. Good 
 luck and safe return." 
 
 [81 1 
 
 It 
 
.! 
 
 U 
 
 T'y 
 
 it 
 
 m 
 
 He was always very particular about the 
 character of the letters that were written by 
 his associates and his example in letter-writ- 
 ing was the standard for the whole office. 
 The maximum of praise to anyone was to be 
 told that his letter was like Mr. Schaffiier's. 
 
 At one time a famous New England house 
 pulDlished a book including the best letters 
 ever written and gave it the title "Selected 
 English Letters/' This book contained such 
 letters as the following: Sir Henry Sidney 
 to his son, Philip Sidney, Dean Swift to 
 Alexander Pope, Dr. Samuel Johnson to the 
 Earl of Chesterfield, Robert Bums to the Earl 
 of Glencaim, Sir Walter Scott to George 
 Crabbe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge to William 
 Godwin, Charles Lamb to William Words- 
 worth, Lord Byron to Thomas Moore, Percy 
 Bysshe Shelley to John Keats, Thomas Carly le 
 to Benjamin DisraeH, Thomas Macaulay to 
 his fether, Abraham Lincoln to Horace Gree- 
 ley, Charlotte Bronte to Robert Southey, 
 John Ruskin to Charles Eliot Norton, James 
 
 [82J 
 
 — -ffc^ .<A 
 
 .? 
 
 Russell Lowell to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich to WiUiam Dean 
 Howells, all of them famous, and the list con- 
 cluded with a letter from Hart Schafiher fe? 
 Marx to one of its customers. The letter was 
 one that had been prepared by a member of 
 the staff in the usual course of business and the 
 fact that the publishers thought it worthy to 
 appear in such association gave Mr. Schaffiier 
 a great deal of pleasure. 
 
 In all his letters, the fine spirit of optimism, 
 of friendliness, of good will, appeared in a 
 generous degree. The sound business judg- 
 ment of the man, his unselfish desire to help 
 "the other fellow/' his feithful readiness to 
 criticise and admonish, all these were strongly 
 characteristic of him. He simply expressed 
 himself 
 
 i 
 
 [83 1 
 
•t 
 
 I! 
 
 INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 
 
 NE of the most enduring and con^ 
 
 structive acts of Mr. Schaffner's 
 
 life is the part he played in estate 
 
 lishing better relations between 
 
 employer and employe. 
 
 The problem of industrial relations con' 
 fronted his company suddenly in the last dec 
 ade of his life; the field was one absolutely 
 new to him but his mind was prepared to 
 grasp it. He had read freely the writings of 
 men who took a broad view of labor proly 
 lems and his own natural desire to apply 
 justice to every problem gave him a fine prep^ 
 aration for the task. He looked quickly into 
 the real situation and his wisdom in the solu^ 
 tion is a striking confirmation of the idea that 
 a broad and Uberal culture coupled with a 
 practical grasp of the great principle of justice 
 and right is really superior to any amount of 
 special training. 
 
 [85 1 
 
 II! 
 
 I n 
 
I 
 , i 
 
 nil 
 
 His partners and he had established an 
 acknowledged leadership in the clothir^ in^ 
 dustry which was tangibly evident in the 
 existence of a great establishment and they 
 did not dream that the company was still to 
 achieve a position of pre-eminence in the his- 
 tory of industrial relations. 
 
 Up to the time of the great clothing strike 
 in Chicago in 1910, Mr. Schafiher had given 
 little thought to the manufacturing phases of 
 the business; his mind had been entirely en- 
 grossed in management and promotion. At 
 that time of life, he had no intention of ac 
 quiring new interests or responsibilities. 
 
 The strike had become so prolonged and 
 spectacular as to attract the attention of the 
 newspapers which, after their manner, had 
 set about to develop the sensational features 
 of the situation. This publicity and the criti- 
 cisms of committees, among the members of 
 which were close personal friends, disturbed 
 him greatly. The clothing business had only 
 recently emerged from the contractors' stage. 
 
 186] 
 
 Under that system, the manufacturer did not 
 make the garments at all but sub-let the manu- 
 facturing to contractors, so that no relations 
 existed between the company and the actual 
 workers. Mr. Schaffher and his partners had 
 departed from that system and had estab- 
 lished what is known as "inside shops.'' An 
 "inside shop" is one where the company 
 employs the workers and directs all the proc- 
 esses itself and becomes the actual employer. 
 That system existed when the strike began. 
 
 The first reports of the strike which came 
 to the company failed to reveal anything of a 
 troublesome or disquieting nature. Indeed, 
 a few days before the strike, accordir^ to his 
 statement before the Federal Industrial Rela^ 
 tions Committee in 1914, Mr. Schaffiier re- 
 marked to a merchant on the satisfactory 
 condition existing in the company's shops. 
 
 During the earlier weeks of the strike, he 
 believed the work of a few agitators whose 
 influence would soon decline was responsible 
 but, as the demonstration continued and the 
 
 I87I 
 
 ^mmmmmmir 
 
k 
 
 
 l-l 
 
 bitterness increased, he was forced to occupy 
 himself with it more and more. He was as^ 
 tonished and offended that his partners and 
 he should be regarded as reactionary em" 
 ployers and held responsible for the situation. 
 It had not occurred to him that there m^ht 
 be abuses in the system which prevailed in 
 the shops. There was no lack of advice from 
 employers experienced in labor disputes. They 
 all warned him of the danger in making any 
 concession to the workers, especially as it 
 might encourage unionism in Chicago. Union- 
 ism, he was told, was the great menace which 
 would jeopardi2;e the institution which had 
 been so successfully built up by his associates 
 and himself in the past years and of which 
 he was so proud. 
 
 Early in the struggles, the company con- 
 sented to arbitrate, but stipulations had been 
 made concerning the reinstatement of em- 
 ployes guilty of violence, which the strikers 
 interpreted to mean the abandonment of their 
 leaders in the strike. 
 
 18S] 
 
 Mr. Schaffner's mind became completely 
 obsessed with the strike and he could think 
 of little else. He endeavored to find some plan 
 which would solve the problem. His sound 
 and cautious business sense, however, would 
 not permit him to adopt some course simply 
 because it made a strong appeal to his gen- 
 erous sentiments without weighing it care- 
 fully as a business proposition. 
 
 He soon caught the concept that "the good 
 will of the employes is a business asset com- 
 parable to the good will of the customer,'' 
 and it shortly became the guiding principle in 
 his thinking on industrial relations. His suc- 
 cess in advertising was such that it was quite 
 natural that the value of good will in general 
 should have been highly appreciated by him. 
 
 He was prepared also to estimate at its 
 true value the approval of public opinion and 
 he could easily see that in the future the pub- 
 lic was likely to become more and more in- 
 terested in the conditions under which the 
 clothing they wore was manufactured. In 
 
 I89I 
 
 
1* 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 his keen-sighted way, he had perceived that 
 people are attracted toward business con- 
 cerns as well as toward individuals who rep- 
 resented to them something worthy, whether 
 on account of its beauty, its virtue, or its good 
 repute. Just as he wished his own name to 
 be associated with what is good and noble, 
 so he wished the name of his company to be 
 well regarded, for business as well as senti- 
 mental reasons. 
 
 The strike was finally settled by an agree- 
 ment to arbitrate but this was only the first 
 step in a movement looking toward the es- 
 tablishment of some system by which strikes 
 would be impossible in the future. 
 
 He had never given much attention to the 
 subject of industrial relations but his natural 
 sense of "doing the right thing'" was a safe 
 guide in the delicate and somewhat intricate 
 negotiations which were then undertaken be- 
 tween the firm and the leaders of the workers. 
 He entered upon the conferences which fol- 
 lowed with characteristic spirit; just as he 
 
 [90I 
 
 ^ 
 
 — •:-«' 
 
 had faith in the high-minded policies of the 
 firm in merchandising and advertising, so now 
 this policy was exercised with reference to 
 
 labor. 
 
 The difficulties which attended the tran- 
 sition from the old system of autocratic con- 
 trol to the new system of agreement were 
 numerous and formidable. These difficulties 
 were to some extent in the attitude of the 
 mind of the men with whom he was dealing. 
 The workers were slow in their adaptation 
 to the new policy proposed, and few of them 
 had much faith in it. 
 
 The greatest single step was taken when 
 the power of discipline was taken away from 
 the shop-foreman. Most of the practical men 
 were positive that the plan would seriously 
 impair the quality of the merchandise; that 
 the foreman, not being able to exercise dis- 
 cipline, would be unable to get good results 
 in the work. Under these circumstances, 
 there was little to depend upon but faith; 
 but his strong belief in the law of compensa- 
 
 [91 1 
 
tion, and his firm confidence in his own sense 
 of justice and in doing the right thing, led 
 him to assert that the compensation would 
 be sure, even though delayed and not clearly 
 discernible then. The results showed how 
 thoroughly correct he was. 
 
 That quality in him which we call idealism 
 had its source in a few fundamental prin- 
 ciples which were firmly established in his 
 mind, and which exerted their force at a time 
 hke that. He quickly grasped the point of 
 view of the workers; he sympathi2;ed with 
 their desire to have something to say about 
 their own labor contribution to the success 
 of the business and the conditions under 
 which they were to work. 
 
 It is imnecessary to recount in detail the 
 long negotiations, the discussions of policy 
 and method which ensued, out of which grew 
 the now celebrated "Hart Schafiher fe? Marx 
 agreement.'' 
 
 The union leaders found themselves deal' 
 ing with men of open-minded spirit, eager to 
 
 I92I 
 
 i 
 
 V,>rV 
 
 1^.. ^■•»^ ■» • 
 
 know and do the right thing; they were thus 
 encouraged to approach the subject in the 
 same attitude and the results were quickly 
 secured. The "agreement'' was a triumph of 
 that spirit. It has been in force ever since it 
 was first entered upon and has proved satis- 
 factory to both parties. It is now revised 
 every three years and renewed willingly by 
 the firm and the workers. 
 
 In a letter addressed to one of the arbi- 
 trators under the agreement, Mr. SchaflFner 
 wrote: "If we go down in history as a path- 
 finder in a great movement, it will be an 
 achievement that will be a richer reward 
 than money can furnish." 
 
 In testifying before the Federal Commis- 
 sion on Industrial Relations at Washington in 
 1914, he thus characterized his own attitude; 
 he said he believed that an employer of labor 
 was a trustee, not only of the stockholders of 
 his company, and of the customers of the 
 house, but also of all those who worked with 
 him and for him. His testimony at that time 
 
 I93I 
 
i 
 
 7 
 
 was given wide publicity, the great news^ 
 papers of the country playing it up in their 
 news columns and many of them referred to 
 it editorially. A typical news article on the 
 subject appeared in the "Chicago Tribune'' on 
 April 9, 1914, with the heading: "Harmony 
 Needed to Avoid Strikes; Joseph Schaffher 
 Explains How Industrial Peace Can Be Ob^ 
 tained/' The despatch under a Washington 
 date line of April 8th was as follows: 
 
 Joseph Schaffner of Hart Schafiher &* Marx, 
 Chicago, today offered the Federal Commission on 
 Industrial Relations the most valuable suggestion it 
 has yet received for settling wage disputes. 
 
 Recoimting his own experiences as an employer 
 of labor, Mr. Schaffner said it was necessary that 
 there be harmony of interests between the employer 
 and the employe to get satisfactory results from the 
 business. 
 
 OflBcials Trustees for All 
 
 He expressed what is regarded as the most en^ 
 lightened view of employment when he said : 
 
 "I believe that the officers of a corporation are 
 trustees of the interests of all connected with the 
 institution. Decisions affecting the interests of any 
 
 I94I 
 
 group should not be made until such interests have 
 the opportunity to present their case. Where there 
 is any doubt as to fairness of any decision or policy 
 there should be a disinterested tribunal to review 
 the decision. 
 
 "In my opinion, the chief cause of hostility and 
 bad feeling between the employer and the employe 
 is the usual lack of any means for determining 
 what is right or wrong— i. e., the lack of common 
 code or disinterested authority whose judgment is 
 respected by both sides. Disputes once settled, even 
 if one side loses, are seldom the cause of trouble; it 
 is the unsettled disputes that are dangerous.'' 
 
 Mr. Schaffner, in speaking of the strike as it af" 
 fected his own concern, said careful study of the 
 situation led him to believe the fundamental cause 
 was that the workers had no satisfactory channel 
 through which minor grievances, petty tyranny, and 
 exactions of minor bosses could be taken up and 
 adjusted amicably. These grievances were allowed 
 to accumulate without any sympathetic action on 
 the part of the employers until finally the walkout 
 occurred. 
 
 Conferences during the strike between represent 
 tatives of the firm and representatives of the em^ 
 ployes resulted in the building up of a republican 
 form of government within the industry in which 
 all interests were represented. 
 
 [95 1 
 
Ill 
 
 I 
 
 If 
 
 ii 
 
 Results of New System 
 
 In speaking of this system the Chicagoan said : 
 
 "A summary of the essentials of the system 
 which has produced such gratifying results in our 
 institution would include : 
 
 "A labor department, responsible for industrial 
 peace and good will of the employes, of necessity 
 fully informed as to their sentiments, their organiza^ 
 tions, and really representing their interests in the 
 councils of the company. 
 
 "A means for the prompt and final settlement of 
 all disputes. 
 
 "A conviction in the minds of the employes 
 that the employer is fair and that all their interests 
 are safeguarded. 
 
 "Constant instruction of the leaders and people 
 in the principles of business equity, thus gradually 
 evolving a code acceptable to all parties in interest, 
 serviceable as a basis for adjustment of all difficulties. 
 
 "The development of efficient representation of 
 the employes. 
 
 "A friendly policy toward the union so long as 
 it is conducted in harmony with the ethical princi^ 
 pies employed in the business and an uncompromis' 
 ing opposition to all attempts to coerce or impose 
 upon the rights of any group or to gain an unfair 
 advantage. 
 
 [96I 
 
 ' 
 
 "A management that guarantees every man full 
 compensation for his efficiency and prevents any 
 one receiving anything he has not earned. 
 
 Restores Smaller Shop Conditions 
 
 "Briefly expressed,'' he continued, "it is simply 
 the natural and healthy relation which usually 
 exists between the small employer and his half do^n 
 workmen, artificially restored, as far as possible, in 
 a large scale business where the real employer is a 
 considerable group of executives managing thou" 
 sands of workers according to certain established 
 principles and policies. 
 
 "I hope that it will become clear to everybody 
 that the successful result of these developments had 
 depended much less upon the formal and external 
 features than upon the spirit with which it has been 
 worked out. I am not able to say how far the suc^ 
 cess is dependent upon the men who have been in^ 
 strumental in developing it but I do know that we 
 have been most fortunate in our personnel. 
 
 "I wish to speak in the highest terms of the ar^ 
 bitrators and the chairman of the trade board, and 
 also of Mr. Hillman, who developed a wonderful 
 influence over people who came in contact with him 
 because of his high ideals, his patience under trying 
 circumtstances, his indomitable feith in the ultimate 
 success of right methods. 
 
 [97 1 
 
 \\i 
 
 < 
 
 'li 
 
 t^i 
 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 
 Will Accept Board's Rulings 
 
 "So long as the unions are working toward the 
 ideal we aim at — i. e., justice toward every interest 
 connected with the institution and the highest eco^ 
 nomic eflSciency, which is the same as saying per^ 
 forming our duty toward everybody inside and 
 outside of the institution, employes, stockholders, 
 customers, and the general public— we wish to see 
 them strong. We are willing that our Board of Ar^ 
 bitration should decide just what justice is and are 
 willing to accept its interpretation. 
 
 "Because there is no guaranty that those who 
 control the unions (which are often not representa^ 
 tive of the members) will hold to this ideal, we do 
 not care to be committed to the 'closed shop.' If 
 such a change should come we would be required 
 to restrict the power of the unions as far as we 
 could.*" 
 
 An editorial relating to the foregoing tes- 
 timony appeared in the "Chicago Tribune" on 
 May 8, 19 14, and, as it is representative of 
 press opinion at that time, it is here repro- 
 duced: 
 
 "The labor press of the United States is making 
 much of the statement recently made by Mr. 
 Schaflfner of Hart Schaffner 6P Marx before the 
 
 [98I 
 
 I 
 
 Federal Commission on Industrial Relations in 
 Washington. The Hart Schaflftier 6? Marx firm has 
 won national prominence by the trade agreement 
 it has made with its 7,000 employes, an agreement 
 which gives both the manufacturers and the work- 
 ers peace with honor. 
 
 "In giving his and his corporation's views on the 
 labor problem, Mr. Schaflfner had said: 'I believe 
 the officers of a corporation are trustees of the in^ 
 terests of all connected with the institution.' The 
 labor papers of the country welcome this statement. 
 They see in this broad-minded utterance of a large 
 employer of labor a proof that a new era in the 
 relationship between capital and labor is at hand, 
 an era in which the himian factor in industry will 
 be taken more and more into consideration. 
 
 "Not only labor people but every citizen who 
 has the peace and welfare of the country at heart 
 wiU find in this broad liberalism of certain employ- 
 ers relief firom the gloom which such stubbornly 
 contested strikes as those of West Virginia, Michi' 
 gan and Colorado have thrown over the nation." 
 
 In the "Century Magazine'' of July, 191 5, 
 
 there appeared an article entitled, "A Way 
 
 to Industrial Peace," by George Creel, in 
 
 which the author fully treated the industrial 
 
 plan which Mr. Schaffner and his partners 
 
 [99I 
 
 »ii 
 
 i 
 
 mr^^-i 
 
'J 
 
 I 
 
 !i 
 
 had fathered and, after giving the details of 
 the machinery, the article went on to say: 
 
 "Doubtless all this may carry an effect of confu^ 
 sion to the average mind, and yet its operation in 
 the conduct of this particular business has become 
 frictionless and even noiseless. During the kst two 
 years, there has not been a shop strike, there has 
 seldom been an appeal from the price committee, 
 the Trade Court considers an increasingly small num^ 
 ber of cases, and since January, 191 3, the Board of 
 Arbitration has not been called upon to hear appeals 
 in more than five or six cases. 
 
 "It is difficult to grasp the idea until one grasps 
 the Schaffner theory of business. As he sees it, the 
 large concern and its employes constitute a small 
 society. Under conditions where the employer does 
 not consider the rights of the employes, this society 
 is a despotism, and under conditions where the 
 workers are given a voice, it is a republic. When 
 the change was made from the monarchical form to 
 the republican form, the original agreement became 
 the constitution, and the Trade Court and the Board 
 of Arbitration were given legislative and judicial 
 powers. What had to be done then was to have 
 laws made and interpreted in such a manner as to 
 give every member of the society full understand' 
 ing of his rights^ his obligations, and his respon^ 
 sibilities. ^ 'f ^ "f ^ ^, 
 
 [100] 
 
 -«ff»»- 
 
 **It must not be assumed that Mr. Schaffner is 
 any amiable philanthropist, weakly willing to lose 
 money and make concessions for the sake of bask^ 
 ing in the warm light that streams from adulatory 
 press notices. He is frankly a product of the com- 
 petitive school, and has not advanced to his present 
 attitude without making many a fight against his 
 own bitter prejudices. Had he been convinced that 
 right was on his side in the 1910 strike, he would 
 have stood by his guns until destroyed. What such 
 a man has to say must carry weight. He declares: 
 
 "'Industrial peace will never come so long as 
 either employer or employe believes that he is being 
 deprived of rights honestly belonging to him. 
 
 " 'Arbitration and conciliation should be applied 
 to all departments of a business, wherever there is 
 a conflict of interest. If nothing more, it insures 
 exhaustive discussion of every matter of importance, 
 gives everybody an opportunity to express his opin- 
 ions, frequently brings to light valuable suggestions, 
 and makes possible a higher degree of co-operation 
 and team-work. It is a method to be employed con- 
 tinuously to secure harmony and satisfaction. 
 
 " 'Patience and self-control are essential in admin- 
 istering a business on this basis. It is human nature 
 to resent interference and to desire unrestricted 
 liberty of action, but these conditions are not nec- 
 essary and are often inimical to true success. Few 
 
 [loil 
 
hi ■ 
 
 . 
 
 • { 
 
 
 men can use unlimited power wisely, and no wise 
 man will dispense with checks which tend to keep 
 him in the right path; certainly he will approve of 
 checks calculated to restrain his agents from arbi- 
 trary and unjust acts to fellow-employes. 
 
 " 'I have found that disputes once settled, even if 
 one side loses, are seldom causes of trouble. It is 
 the unsettled disputes that are dangerous. This fail- 
 ure of adjustment is largely due to the lack of means 
 for determining what is right or wrong, the lack of 
 a common code, and the absence of a disinterested 
 authority whose judgment is respected by both sides. 
 " 'We did not reali^, and we believe the majority 
 of employers do not yet realize, the extent to which 
 the attitude and conduct of their organized em- 
 ployes reflect their own poUcies and conduct. 
 
 " 'In our own business, employing thousands of 
 persons, some of them newly-arrived immigrants, 
 many of them in opposition to the wage system 
 and hostile to employers as a class, we have ob- 
 served astonishing chaiiges in their attitude during 
 the four years under the influence of our labor 
 arrangement. They have come to feel that they can 
 rely upon promises made by the company, and that 
 justice will be done them by a system in which 
 they themselves have a voice; and as a result, they 
 are proud of their own honor, careful of their 
 promises, and equally eager for justice to all." '' 
 
 I 102 J 
 
 V 
 
 Many other articles appeared in such maga" 
 zines as "The Independent," "Survey/' "Out- 
 look," "Nation" and others, explaining to the 
 public the nature of the Hart Schaflfner fe? 
 Marx agreement. 
 
 Mr. Schafiher declared that, when his mind 
 was turned to industrial economics, he was 
 too old to think very far into the fundamen- 
 tal principles of social justice, but his natural 
 instincts made his contribution to industrial 
 history as well as to the welfare of the cloth- 
 ing industry a most notable one. The agree- 
 ment which he and his associates entered 
 upon with their workers was the greatest 
 advance made in industrial history in a gen- 
 eration. 
 
 The details of operation under this agree- 
 ment have been widely published and are 
 pretty generally known to all who are in- 
 terested in such matters. They would be 
 interesting here only as a light on the broad- 
 minded and Hberal attitude of Mr. Schaffner 
 and his partners. 
 
 [103I 
 
II I 
 
 A single incident may be mentioned. It is 
 reported that, when the conference was first 
 in session after the long strike Mr. Schaffher 
 said to those most directly in charge of the 
 matter: "Now, let us not win any brilliant 
 victories.*" The fine temper of the man could 
 not be better shown. 
 
 [104I 
 
 i I 
 
 V 
 
 i 
 
 HIS BELIEF IN HIGHER 
 EDUCATION 
 
 DEEP and sincere admiration for 
 intellectual attainments was an 
 outstanding characteristic of Mr. 
 Schaffiier. The pleasure he gained 
 from reading came as much from a veneration 
 for the inteUect which could accomplish such 
 work as from the manner and matter of the 
 
 work itself. 
 
 He was himself an idealist by nature if not 
 by college training; he had a reverence for 
 learning and put a high value on the trained 
 
 mind. 
 
 But he was always the man of business; 
 and one of the* most remarkable things about 
 him was that nothing he read and nothing 
 he thought seemed foreign to the one thing 
 to which he had set his mind— the building 
 up of the really great business structure which 
 his partners and he were rearing. Business 
 
 [1C5 1 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
i 
 
 meant to him the opportunity to express his 
 ideals and to achieve something more worth 
 while than merely making money, although 
 his desire for profitable results was as keen 
 as any business man's. He held that profit in 
 business was an evidence of the soundness of 
 his ideas. 
 
 Some years ago certain prominent business 
 men were inclined to belittle the value of 
 college and university training; and some of 
 them said very plainly that the standard proc- 
 esses of higher education unfitted men for 
 business life; developed impractical theorists 
 and idealists. 
 
 Mr. Schaffner neither underestimated the 
 value of a college education nor did he over- 
 value it. He firmly believed that the training 
 and development of the mental powers gave 
 men a foundation that should logically be of 
 service to business. It was the old contro- 
 versy between the so-called practical idea in 
 education and the cultural idea. He held the 
 view that the value of a college training 
 
 [io6l 
 
 \ 
 
 depended not so much upon what was put in- 
 to a man's mind as what was brought out of it. 
 
 He would have said, in the words of a 
 modem essayist, "The highest service of the 
 educated man in our democratic society de- 
 mands of him breadth of interest as well as 
 depth of technical research. It requires un- 
 quenched ardor for the best things, spon- 
 taneous delight in the play of mind and 
 character, a many-sided responsibiUty that 
 shall keep a man firom hardening into a mere 
 high-geared, technical machine. It is these 
 qualities that perfect a liberal education and 
 complete a man s usefulness to his generation. 
 Taken by themselves, they fit him primiarily 
 for living rather than for making a living.'' 
 
 That quotation well defines Mr. Schaffner 
 himself He was increasingly convinced that 
 if college men would interest themselves in 
 business, rather than turn from it to the pro- 
 fessions, the training of the college would be 
 of the highest value to the man and to the 
 
 business. 
 
 [107I 
 
 f I 
 
There were no illusions in his mind that 
 college training could be substituted for prac- 
 tical experience or that without college train- 
 ing there could be no deep intellectual life. 
 His own career was evidence to the contrary. 
 He was associated with men, his partners as 
 well as the leading executives of the business, 
 whose natural intellectual endowments be- 
 spoke leadership for them with or without 
 the advantages of higher education. He knew 
 also that to some extent colleges spoiled men 
 for business; that the atmosphere of college 
 life had a tendency to create, false standards 
 and too often to give a tinge of self-importance. 
 On the other hand, he knew that education 
 for years had been used mainly for the pro- 
 fessions; that the law, medicine, ministry, re- 
 quired careful study and preparation, and he 
 felt that, if mental training could be given 
 and knowledge could be imparted that was 
 of value to the professions, data could be 
 accumulated and principles estabUshed and 
 taught concerning business. 
 
 I108I 
 
 M 
 
 It was natural, therefore, that he should con- 
 cern himself with a plan for directing toward 
 business the energies of the trained thinker. 
 
 The idea of the Hart Schaffner 6? Marx 
 pri2;es for economic essays which were pub- 
 licly announced in 1904 must have been in 
 his mind for years. He was anxious to stim- 
 ulate a real interest in business on the part 
 of students and he felt that some invitation 
 from business itself would be effectual and at 
 the same time promote the idea of study, 
 research and investigation in the business 
 world. Out of his thought and plan along 
 these lines came another thing of great public 
 importance and of vital interest to him to the 
 end of his life— the Northwestern University 
 School of Commerce. 
 
 The prizes for economic essays were the 
 first definite expression of his faith in educa- 
 tion as an aid to business. The idea of giving 
 prizes was freely supported by his partners, 
 who contributed annually their share of the 
 necessary funds to carry it on. 
 
 [109I 
 
 ,w 
 
\ 1 
 
 • 'I 
 
 The announcement of the offer of the 
 prizes appeared in 1904 in the Chicago news- 
 papers and created much interest. From the 
 day they were offered, the prizes were never 
 in any way connected with the business ex- 
 cept in the committee announcement which 
 stated simply that they were given "through 
 the generosity of Hart Schaffher fe? Marx/' 
 
 A notable group of men, conspicuous in 
 the economic world, were invited to com- 
 'pose the committee which conducted the 
 essay contests. The chairman of this com- 
 mittee was Professor J. Laurence Laughlin of 
 the University of Chicago. He and the men 
 associated with him were delighted to have 
 a business house enter the educational field 
 in this way and they enthusiastically took up 
 the work. All of the details for the conduct 
 of the prizes, the selection of subjects, the 
 conditions and classes, were handled by the 
 committee. Following is a copy of the first 
 announcement and all of the announcements 
 after that were patterned after this style: 
 
 I no] 
 
 ) I 
 
 Prizes for Economic Essays 
 
 In order to arouse an interest in the study of topics relating 
 to commerce and industry, and to stimulate an examination of 
 the value of college training for business men, a committee 
 composed of 
 
 Prof. J. Laurence Laughlin, University of Chicago, Chairman; 
 
 Prof. J. B. Clark, Columbia University; 
 
 Prof Henry C. Adams, University of Michigan; 
 
 Horace White, Esq., New York City, and 
 
 Hon. Carroll D. Wright, National Commissioner of Labor, 
 
 have been enabled, through the generosity of Messrs. Hart 
 Schaffner 6P Marx, of Chicago, to offer four prises for the best 
 studies on any one of the following subjects: 
 
 1. The causes and extent of the recent industrial progress 
 of Germany. 
 
 2. To what is the recent growth of American competition 
 in the markets of Europe to be attributed ? 
 
 3. The influence of industrial combinations upon the condi' 
 tion of the American laborer. 
 
 4. The economic advantages and disadvantages of present 
 colonial possessions to the mother country. 
 
 5. The causes of the panic of 1893. 
 
 6. What forms of education should be advised for the 
 elevation of wage^earners from a lower to a higher industrial 
 status in the United States ? 
 
 7. What method of education is best suited for men enter' 
 ing upon trade and commerce ? 
 
 [ml 
 
 i! 
 
\i 
 
 til 
 
 < I 
 
 III 
 
 • V 
 
 A First Prize of One Thousand Dollars, and a 
 Second Prizie of Five Hundred Dollars, in Cash, 
 
 are offered for the best studies presented by Class A, composed ex- 
 clusively of all persons who have received the bachelor's degree from 
 an American college since 1 893 ; and 
 
 A First Prize of Three Hundred Dollars, and a Second 
 Prize of One Hundred and Fifty Dollars, in Cash, 
 
 are offered for the best studies presented by Class B, composed of 
 persons who, at the time the papers are sent in, are undergraduates 
 of any American college. No one in Class A may compete in Class B; 
 but any one in Class B may compete in Class A. The CcMTimittee 
 reserves to itself the right to award the two prizes of 1 1,000 and ^500 
 to undergraduates, if the merits of the papers demand it. 
 
 The ownership of the copyright of successful studies will vest in 
 the donors, and it is expected that, without precluding the use of these 
 papers as theses for higher degrees, they will cause them to be issued 
 in some permanent form. 
 
 Competitors are advised that the studies should be thorough, ex- 
 pressed in good English, and not needlessly expanded. They should 
 be inscribed with an assumed name, the year when the bachelor's 
 degree was received, and the institution which conferred the degree, 
 or in which he is studying, and accompanied by a sealed envelope 
 giving the real name and address of the competitor. The papers should 
 be sent on or before June i, 1905, to 
 
 J. Laurence Laughlin, Esq. 
 
 University of Chicagp 
 
 Box 145, Faculty Exchange Chicago, Illinois 
 
 [112] 
 
 After the death of Mr. Carroll D. Wright 
 and Mr. Horace White, their places were 
 taken by Professor Edwin F. Gay and former 
 United States Senator Theodore E. Burton, 
 and the committee so stands today. Subjects 
 are approved; announcements are sent to all 
 colleges and to the leading economists of 
 America; the papers are read and by a proc- 
 ess of elimination come down to the few 
 which are possible winners. The reading 
 entails great work. An idea of the character 
 of the essays and the wide variety of subjects 
 covered can be obtained from the following 
 list of essays which have thus far been pub- 
 lished in book form: 
 
 The Arbitral Determination of Railway Wages, 
 by J. Noble Stockett. 
 
 The Results of Municipal Electric Lighting in 
 Massachusetts, by Edmond Earle Lincoln. 
 
 The Chicago Produce Market, by Edwin G. 
 Nourse. 
 
 Railway Rates and the Canadian Railway Com^ 
 mission, by Duncan A. MacGibbon. 
 
 Railroad Valuation, by Homer Bews Vanderblue. 
 
 1 113] 
 
 iti 
 
 i 
 
 !*r- 
 
II 
 
 1 
 
 d 
 
 
 The Taxation of Land Value, by Yetta Scheftel. 
 The Canadian Iron and Steel Industry, by W. J. 
 A. Donald. 
 
 The Tin-plate Industry, by Donald Earl Dunbar. 
 Means and Methods of Agricultural Education, 
 by Albert H. Leake. 
 
 The Cause and Extent of the Recent Industrial 
 Progress of Germany, by Earl Dean Howard. 
 
 The Causes of the Panic of 1893, by W. Jett 
 Lauck. 
 
 Industrial Education, by Harlow Stafford Person. 
 Federal Regulation of Railroad Rates, by Albert 
 N. Merritt. 
 
 Ship Subsidies, by Walter T. Dunmore. 
 SociaUsm: A Critical Analysis, by Oscar D. 
 Skelton. 
 
 Industrial Accidents and Their Compensation, 
 by Gilbert L. Campbell. 
 
 The Standard of Living Among the Industrial 
 People of America, by Frank Hatch Streightoff. 
 
 The Navigable Rhine, by Edwin J. Clapp. 
 
 Social Value, by Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr. 
 
 History and Organii^ation of Criminal Statistics 
 in the United States, by Louis N. Robinson. 
 
 Freight Classification, by J. F. StrombecL 
 
 [114] 
 
 ! < 
 
 
 Waterways versus Railways, by Harold G. 
 Moulton. 
 
 The Value of Organi2;ed Speculation, by Harrison 
 H. Brace. 
 
 Industrial Education, Its Problems, Methods and 
 Dangers, by Albert H. Leake. 
 
 The U. S. Federal Internal Tax History from 1861 
 to 1871, by Harry E. Smith. 
 
 Conciliation and Arbitration in the Coal Industry 
 of America, by Arthur E. Suffem. 
 
 Welfare as an Economic Quantity, by G. P. 
 Watkins. 
 
 The Meaning and Application of "Fair Valuation" 
 as used by Utility Commissions, by Harleigh N. 
 Hartman. 
 
 A History of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, 
 by Howard Douglas Doziei, 
 
 Mr. Schaffher took the greatest delight in 
 the prize essays. He had hoped at the outset 
 that the number of contestants would be 
 legion but he quickly saw that worth-while 
 productions could come only from long study 
 and careful research and that such studies 
 advanced the cause of commercial education 
 
 I115I 
 
 I U 
 
i 
 
 1 
 
 It 
 
 I J 
 
 i { 
 
 much more than a great quantity of mediocre 
 productions could do. 
 
 He was delighted, too, in the associations 
 which the prize essays created. To Professor 
 Laughlin he was very close, and there was a 
 fine mutual attachment between the educator 
 and the business man. Between Dean Gay of 
 Harvard and Mr. Schaffner there was the 
 deep respect of one ardent man for another. 
 Other members of the committee he met at 
 times or exchanged letters with them. 
 
 He always had great interest in the win- 
 ners of the pri2;es. The first winner in 1904 
 •later became an intimate of Mr. Schaffner and 
 ultimately joined the business to become one 
 of its executives. Others called or wrote; the 
 former received genial welcome, the latter 
 beautiful letters. 
 
 The estabhshment of a School of Com- 
 merce in Chicago was a natural sequence to 
 Mr. Schaffner's thought on the subject of 
 commercial education. One or two such 
 schools existed in the East, notably at the 
 
 I116I 
 
 
 University of Pennsylvania and the College 
 of the City of New York, and the project of 
 a school in Chicago quickly commanded his 
 support. After a preliminary survey, the idea 
 was presented to Northwestern University 
 and arrangements were quickly made. 
 
 He shrank from the thought of becoming 
 the patron of an educational institution; he 
 wanted to get the thing done but wished to 
 be as inconspicuous in it as possible. He in- 
 vited a group of business men of the city to 
 lunch at The Mid-Day Club. At this meet- 
 ing it was decided that the Association of 
 Commerce was the proper body to promote 
 the plan. One of the regular Wednesday 
 meetings of the Ways and Means Committee 
 was given to the subject and a committee 
 was appointed to prepare a plan. The idea of 
 interesting as many business men as possible 
 in the project was adopted and a board of 
 guarantors was organiz^ed and the school was 
 begun. The first guarantors of the school 
 were the following: 
 
I 
 
 
 111 
 
 ; 
 
 
 Alfred L. Baker 
 
 Adolphus C. Bartlett 
 
 Harold Benington 
 
 Jonathan W. Brooks 
 
 Charles L. Brown 
 
 R. S. Buchanan 
 
 Edward B. Butler 
 
 J. Fred Butler 
 
 Fayette S. Cable 
 ames R. Cardwell 
 ohn Alexander Cooper 
 
 Joseph H. DeFrees 
 
 A. Lowes Dickinson 
 
 Herman J. Dirks 
 
 George W. Dixon 
 
 Willnm A. Dyche 
 
 Charles W. Folds 
 
 David R. Forgan 
 
 Edward E. Gore 
 
 Richard C. Hall 
 
 William F. Hypes 
 
 J. Porter Joplin 
 
 William Kendall 
 
 Edward C. Kimbell 
 
 Charles S. Ludlam 
 
 John Lee Mahin 
 
 Charles J. Marr 
 
 Charles A. Marsh 
 
 James Marwick 
 
 Stephen T. Mather 
 
 IiiS] 
 
 L. Wilbur Messer 
 
 E. S. Mills 
 
 S. Roger Mitchell 
 Arthur G. Mitten 
 Luman S. Pickett 
 Ernest Reckitt 
 WiUiam H. Roberts 
 Isadore B. Rosenbach 
 Albert W. Rugg 
 Joseph Schaffner 
 Charles H. Schweppe 
 John W. Scott 
 W. Ernest Seatree 
 EUjah W. Sells 
 A. W. Shaw 
 George W. Sheldon 
 Edward M. Skinner 
 Allen R. Smart 
 Mason B. Starring 
 Joseph E. Sterrett 
 Homer A. Stillwell 
 Seymour Walton 
 Harry A. Wheeler 
 
 F. F. White 
 John E. Wilder 
 
 T. Edward Wilder 
 Orva G. Williams 
 Henry W. Wilmot 
 W. A. Winterbum 
 Arthur Young 
 
 . The school began modestly in 1908 with 
 255 students. Offices and class-rooms were 
 provided in the Northwestern University 
 Building at the comer of Dearborn and Lake 
 Streets. Professor Willard E. Hotchkiss be- 
 came the first dean of the school. He grad- 
 ually assembled a faculty which in the course 
 of time became as strong as any faculty on 
 commercial and industrial teaching in the 
 country. The school showed strength froin 
 the very start and it was only a compara- 
 tively few years until there were 700 or 800 
 students and a constantly growing interest. 
 Meanwhile, the dean of the school came to 
 Mr. Schaffner concerning all of his plans. He 
 received ample moral support in discouraging 
 moments, not to mention the very handsome 
 gift of money which Mr. Schaffiier made to 
 the school and which did a great deal to help 
 it over the rough places in the first ten years 
 of its existence. The enrollment for the school 
 year of 1 920- 1 92 1 has recently been completed. 
 The evening school in the Northwestern 
 
 I119I 
 
m 
 
 I 
 
 i t 
 
 Pli I 
 
 
 >|i 
 
 University Building has 2,446 students and 
 the day school on the campus at Evanston 
 has 255. The contribution which the school 
 is making, not only in the good that it does 
 the students, most of whom have positions 
 in various commercial and industrial concerns 
 in Chicago, but the research work which is 
 undertaken by the faculty of the school, is of 
 a character that promises fine development. 
 
 Mr. Schaffner did not have positive ideas 
 as to the technology of teaching commercial 
 subjects except that he had a strong tendency 
 toward the liberal and cultural as against the 
 narrowly useful. His interest in commercial 
 education seemed to grow out of his desire 
 to have men of education and culture around 
 him in business and his thoughts naturally 
 turned to the means for getting such men to 
 enter business. 
 
 It was characteristic of him that he depre- 
 cated any efforts to pay him honor for what 
 he had done for the cause of commercial 
 education. The faculty and students at the 
 
 [120 J 
 
 Northwestern University School of Com- 
 merce were constantly desirous of showing 
 him their gratitude but on only one or two 
 occasions could he be induced to attend 
 meetings and then only to sit with the audi- 
 ence where he would not be conspicuous. 
 The catalogue of the school once contained 
 a reference to him as its founder and he asked 
 that it be eliminated. Despite this entirely 
 sincere modesty, he is regarded by all persons 
 as the man who gave the school the necessary 
 encouragement and financial support at the 
 start and he is commonly acknowledged as 
 the school's founder. 
 
 One honor he did accept and appreciate. 
 He was elected a trustee of Northwestern 
 University, an institution built on denomina- 
 tional lines and still so much attached to its 
 denominational traditions that the election 
 constituted an unusual and special tribute to 
 Mr. Schaffner's worth and work. 
 
 [ml 
 
 a V » 
 
 1^ 
 
' 
 
 u 
 
 It 
 
 THOUGHTS ON SUCCESS 
 
 N a letter written in 191 5 or 1916, 
 Mr. Schaffner discussed success 
 and commented on the element 
 of circumstance in connection 
 with it. His thoughts were dictated in an 
 off-hand manner, without the remotest idea 
 of their being published, but they so well 
 define the man that certain paragraphs taken 
 disconnectedly are herewith reproduced: 
 
 "To be successful in the real meaning of 
 the word is to aspire to something besides 
 and beyond money. 
 
 "In business, our standing as merchants is 
 measured by financial results. But these are a 
 reward only when they represent qualities 
 that make one's activities useful and honor^ 
 able. 
 
 "Many so-called successful men are pov 
 erty'Stricken in character and live Hves of 
 moral and intellectual penury. 
 
 [ 123 ] 
 
 «*•. 
 
' 
 
 "While there is occasionally a successful 
 man who owes his success ahnost entirely to 
 luck, still even in his case to be able to hold 
 onto his success shows that he has qualities 
 which are unusual. 
 
 "It's harder to keep what one makes some- 
 times than to make it. Lots of people have, 
 after acquiring a fortune, lost it all or most 
 of it through some weakness of judgment. 
 
 "Most men are surprised by their own 
 success when it reaches the dimensions that 
 some have attained. 
 
 "Imagination is one great essential; judg- 
 ment is another. Many men have opportun- 
 ities but do not see them. They start with 
 plenty of enthusiasm but become impatient 
 at the slow progress they make and change 
 for something they think better and so they 
 go on from one thing to another. Others 
 have not enough enterprise to reali2;e that 
 they are in the wrong place and stick to an 
 umpromising position all their lives, often at 
 the cost of happiness. 
 
 [ ^M 1 
 
 M\ 
 
 "The important thing is to know what op- 
 portunity really is when it appears; to be able 
 to analy2;e it, perhaps only intuitively, but to 
 know when there is a chance to make work 
 mean something. 
 
 "Most men in business who come up from 
 boyhood are successful because they have 
 brains, character and industry. They in- 
 spire confidence. Responsibility is gradually 
 handed over to them and, as they acquit 
 themselves creditably, their opportunities en- 
 large. Deserving men imder more appreciative 
 management would do much greater things. 
 Circumstance is a big factor but, after all, the 
 circumstance, in order to materiali:5e, must 
 find the man with judgment enough to real- 
 iz^ his opportunity. 
 
 "The backbone of real success is character, 
 fortitude, courage and judgment. Many an 
 impending failure has been turned into a suc- 
 cess by the courage of those concerned. 
 
 "Confidence is an essential for every man 
 to aspire to; to have people believe in him, 
 
 [ 125 1 
 
 •F' 
 
^ f, 
 
 *i 
 
 « 
 
 .ill 
 
 in what he makes and sells or what he says 
 and does. You will find in talking with men 
 of affairs generally that something in their 
 personality commands respect and confidence 
 and it is that very thing that their employers 
 admired in them at the start. 
 
 "Judgment is one of the greatest factors. 
 You will seldom find a man, no matter if he 
 is educated or not — he may be very ilUter" 
 ate — but if he is signally successful he has 
 judgment; he knows men, and judges and 
 gauges conditions. 
 
 "There are always critical junctures in 
 every business when the judgment and vision 
 of one or sometimes two men decide its fate. 
 But back of it all must be courage.'' 
 
 In the same letter he gave a glimpse of his 
 own business experience which, because it 
 came firom his own pen, is deeply interesting. 
 It is reproduced substantially as written: 
 
 "Before becoming associated with Harry 
 and Max Hart, I was in one position for 
 seventeen years and had gone through a daily 
 
 I 126] 
 
 grind of bookkeeping and credit^makii^. The 
 people I was with were conservative mer^ 
 chants and, while they were very nice to me, 
 they probably did not consider my abiHty 
 anything more than ordinary. After many 
 years of service, I felt that I must resign, 
 although it was with fear and trembHng. I 
 had no idea how I would be able to make a 
 Uving. My family were dependent on my 
 earnings. I went to St. Paul to lay the matter 
 before a relative and it was decided that I 
 should go there and start in the mortgage 
 business. Immediately I announced my resign 
 nation and, so that I could not retrace my 
 steps, I made it publicly known. 
 
 "A few days later I met Harry and Max 
 Hart and asked them what they thought of 
 the step I was taking. They said they had 
 not made up their minds that they were go- 
 ing to let me go. I knew what that meant. 
 I said, 'If you want me to stay, I will stay.' 
 It happened that there was a change then 
 taking place in the firm. My joining them 
 
 [127I 
 
 !• 
 
tl 
 
 '^ 
 
 « 
 
 I! W 
 
 1 1; 
 
 ill 
 
 :| 
 
 would never have occurred to them, how" 
 ever, if I had not been free. They would not 
 have made overtures to me if I had not my^ 
 self withdrawn from the other concern. 
 
 "I mention this to show that a large ele- 
 ment of luck was connected with the whole 
 situation. The feet that, this opportunity ex" 
 isted and was waiting for me and my own 
 determination to sever my connection devel- 
 oped about the same time. Otherwise I might 
 have gone into the mortgage business and 
 made a miserable failure. 
 
 "My own confidence in myself was not 
 nearly as great as my confidence in Harry 
 and Max. They had a nicely established busi- 
 ness. They needed me but I needed them 
 much more. They encouraged and inspired 
 me. When I started to do a little modest ad- 
 vertising, I had no idea where it would lead, 
 certainly never dreaming it would develop as 
 it did. If I had not been associated with men 
 of such eminent merchandising ability there 
 would have been no such results." 
 
 [128] 
 
 TWO TRIBUTES 
 
 N event which brought much 
 gratification to Mr. SchaflFner in 
 the latter year of his life was his 
 association and friendship with 
 John E. WiUiams of Streator, IlUnois. Mr. 
 Williams was the first chairman of the Arbi- 
 tration Board which came into being through 
 Mr. Schaffner s desire to dispense justice to 
 the employes of the company. He was well 
 known in labor circles; he was a man of the 
 finest character and of a remarkable sense of 
 concihation; he was called a "professional 
 conciliator.'^ 
 
 There was a warm mutual attachment be- 
 tween the two men and no one was more 
 deeply moved by the death of Mr. Schafiher 
 than Mr. Williams. At his home in Streator, 
 he sat down in deep sorrow and penned a 
 personal tribute which was so beautifully 
 written and so splendidly expresses Mr. 
 
 [ 129 1 
 
 ) 
 
I I 
 
 ! 
 
 \ 
 
 !l 
 
 II 
 
 Schaffiier as he was understood by his asso- 
 ciates that we are glad to preserve it by re- 
 producing it here: 
 
 "With the passing of Joseph Schaffner, 
 there passed one of the finest souls, one of 
 the most gracious, most chivalrous spirits I 
 have ever known. In him was combined a re- 
 markable capacity for business with an un- 
 usual genius for the gentler arts of life. 
 
 "He was a pioneer in the great movement 
 for industrial peace, a leader among the manu' 
 facturers of our day whose larger and more 
 generous vision enables them to contemplate 
 the coming of an era of fairer relations be- 
 tween employers and employed. Not only 
 did he aspire for the coming of this era, but 
 he labored in practical fashion to bring it 
 about; and the success of the famous labor 
 agreement of Hart Schaffner fe? Marx is in 
 large measure due to his liberal and under- 
 standing spirit, his patience, faith and loyalty. 
 
 "As arbitrator under that agreement, my 
 own faith has many times been confirmed by 
 
 [130] 
 
 his unfaltering confidence, and in more than 
 one critical situation his generous attitude, his 
 unselfish devotion to our common ideal, has 
 helped to support the new industrial experi^ 
 ment and to keep it in safe and successful 
 courses. 
 
 "Joseph Schaffiier was a business man plus. 
 He loved good literature and high thinking. 
 He counted among his friends the greatest 
 souls of history; he communed with them 
 daily in his library and drew firom them in- 
 spiration and serenity; and he carried their 
 aroma into the counting room and spiritual- 
 i2;ed that usually arid atmosphere. No doubt 
 the spirits of Matthew Arnold, John Ruskin, 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other great 
 souls of Hterature had through him their part 
 in humanizing modem business and so mak- 
 ing possible the success of the Hart Schaffner 
 fe? Marx agreement. 
 
 "I do not mourn Joseph Schaffiier. He has 
 added something to my life that cannot pass. 
 The contact with such a soul leaves effects 
 
 ti3il 
 
a 
 
 t ■• 
 
 lUP" 
 
 I 
 
 h 
 
 I 
 
 which are immortal. He lives on in thousands 
 of lives — those associated with him in the 
 counting room, in the work shops, in busi" 
 ness and social life; and all of them have been 
 enriched by knowing him, all of them have 
 had their estimation of human life ennobled 
 by him, and the total wealth of the world 
 has been increased by as much as he has 
 strengthened men's faith in the worth and 
 dignity of human life. 
 
 "I rejoice that Joseph Schaffiier has borne 
 witness to the worth of our common life. I 
 salute him on his passing and bid him, in the 
 words of Browning, 'greet the unseen with 
 a cheer.' Good-bye, Joseph Schafiher, modem 
 business man and perfect gentleman. I thank 
 you for having lived your life among us." 
 
 A few days after Mr. Schaffher s death, his 
 associates sent the following letter to hun- 
 dreds of his personal and business friends to 
 express in a small way their sense of great loss 
 and their resolution to carry on as far as they 
 could his work according to his ideals: 
 
 "It has not been possible until now to 
 write you about Mr. Schaffner. Our depth 
 of feeling has not given us the command of 
 words. He represented so much splendid 
 friendship and such high inspiration to those 
 of us with whom he daily came in contact 
 that we who knew him best are almost dumb 
 when we try to put into words the things 
 we feel and want to say about him. 
 
 "We knew he was very, very ill, and in 
 great sorrow we feared the worst, but a full 
 sense of what it means to be without him 
 came only after he had gone. 
 
 "Tributes to Mr. Schaffner have been paid 
 by men in every walk of life — from university 
 men who rejoice in the stimulation and en- 
 couragement he gave them; from business 
 men who, surveying his work, recogni2;e its 
 genius and power; from representatives of 
 labor who looked upon him as a friend of sym- 
 pathetic understanding. These tributes are so 
 numerous and from so many sources that it 
 is not possible to give them to you. 
 
 1 133 1 
 
 

 !, 
 
 }t 
 
 II 
 
 r I 
 
 '^Those of us who have worked with Mr. 
 Schaffher have, in his passing, accepted a great 
 trust. To us he has given stimulation, en- 
 couragement, hope, praise, ambition, determi- 
 nation and happiness. Whoever talked with 
 him intimately walked out of his office in a 
 glow such as only a man of great intellectual 
 power and remarkable sympathy could impart. 
 
 "We have received much from him. It is 
 now our high resolution to immortalize what 
 he gave us, to carry it into our daily life, to 
 transmit it to our business, to our families and 
 to our friends. Whatever we can do to per- 
 petuate his thought and his spirit will be to 
 aid in the perpetuation of something great 
 and noble. 
 
 "What is the greatest tribute we can pay 
 to his memory? The flowers we send soon 
 wither; the words we speak, however elo- 
 quent, are soon *a part of the silence.' The 
 love we feel for him will continue in our 
 hearts as long as we live; but love is in deeds, 
 not merely in thoughts and words. 
 
 [134I 
 
 "Mr. Schafiher lived for ideals; he helped 
 every man who came under his influence to 
 be a better man— better in business, better in 
 daily living, better in his relations to the pub- 
 lic and to his associates. He was an inspira- 
 tion. He helped to make the clothing business, 
 not only his own business but that of the 
 customers of the house, and even that of com- 
 petitors, cleaner, better, higher in tone. He 
 helped to make the relations between em- 
 ployer and employe better, sweeter, more 
 human. 
 
 "Our duty is to live for and carry on his 
 ideals. We can raise no greater monument to 
 this noble life than to consecrate ourselves, 
 in his .high spirit of brotherhood, to the fur- 
 ther and greater realization of his splendid 
 purposes. 
 
 "To this great enterprise, we now sum- 
 mon every man who ineiw md ioved Joseph 
 Schafiher." 
 
 9 • 1 1 
 
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 [135] 
 
 ^%^ ai^ 'it^ft, |b'.«,'»tk. 
 
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 . m 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 
 
 This book is due on the date indicated below, or at the 
 expiration of a definite period atfter the date of borrowing, as 
 provided by the rules of the Library or by special arrange- 
 ment with the Labrarian in charge. 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
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 C28(lt4l)M100 
 
 
 D254.5 
 
 Schl4 
 
 Schaffner, Joseph, 1848-1918, 
 
 Recollections and impressions of 
 his associates. 
 
 j>^d'Y, S 
 
 'S^c^Jf / Y 
 
 f^S'\ 6(^ 
 
 2lq 
 
 MAR 011994 
 
 COLUMB A UNIVERSITY 
 
 III! 
 
 0032050852 
 
 
 
END OF 
 TITLE