So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.
Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was confronted with a perplexing problem, he used to lean back and look up at a large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White House and ask himself, What would Lincoln do if he were in my shoes[6]? How would he solve this problem?
The next time we are tempted to admonish somebody, lets pull a five-dollar bill out of our pocket, look at Lincolns picture on the bill, and ask, How would Lincoln handle this problem if he had it?
Mark Twain lost his temper occasionally and wrote letters that turned the paper brown[7]. For example, he once wrote to a man who had aroused his ire: The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only to speak and I will see that you get it. On another occasion he wrote to an editor about a proofreaders attempts to improve my spelling and punctuation. He ordered: Set the matter according to my copy hereafter and see that the proofreader retains his suggestions in the mush of his decayed brain.
The writing of these stinging letters made Mark Twain feel better. They allowed him to blow off steam, and the letters didnt do any real harm, because Marks wife secretly lifted them out of the mail. They were never sent.
Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it. But why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others yes, and a lot less dangerous. Dont complain about the snow on your neighbors roof, said Confucius, when your own doorstep is unclean.[8]
When I was still young and trying hard to impress people, I wrote a foolish letter to Richard Harding Davis, an author who once loomed large on the literary horizon of America. I was preparing a magazine article about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his method of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from someone with this notation at the bottom: Dictated but not read. I was quite impressed. I felt that the writer must be very big and busy and important. I wasnt the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my short note with the words: Dictated but not read.
He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply returned it to me with this scribbled across the bottom: Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners[9]. True, I had blundered, and perhaps I deserved this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I resented it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still persisted in my mind I am ashamed to admit was the hurt he had given me.
If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism no matter how certain we are that it is justified.
When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.
Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, he said, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
A great man shows his greatness, said Carlyle, by the way he treats little men.
Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine Flight Operations, at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.
Hoovers first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplanes fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.
Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.
You can imagine Hoovers anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didnt scold the mechanic; he didnt even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the mans shoulder and said, To show you Im sure that youll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow.
Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. You would expect me to say dont. But I will not. I am merely going to say, Before you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism, Father Forgets. It originally appeared as an editorial in the Peoples Home Journal. We are reprinting it here with the authors permission, as condensed in the Readers Digest:
Father Forgets is one of those little pieces which dashed off in a moment of sincere feeling strikes an echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perennial reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, Father Forgets has been reproduced, writes the author, W. Livingston Larned, in hundreds of magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages. I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been on the air on countless occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a little piece seems mysteriously to click. This one certainly did.
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, Goodbye, Daddy! and I frowned, and said in reply, Hold your shoulders back![10]
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. What is it you want? I snapped.
You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. 1 will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: He is nothing but a boy a little boy!
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mothers arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.
Instead of condemning people, lets try to understand them. Lets try to figure out why they do what they do. Thats a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all.
As Dr. Johnson said: God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.
Why should you and I?
Questions1) What happened in New York on May 7, 1931?
2) Where did the criminal hide himself?
3) How did the police commissioner characterize Two Gun Crowley?
4) How did Crowley regard himself?
5) Why did Crowley kill the policeman when he was coming back from the necking party?
6) What punishment was Crowley sentenced to? What were Crowleys last words?
7) Do notorious criminals such as Two Gun Crowley, Al Capone, and Dutch Schultz evaluate themselves right?