THE greatest event in my career occurred a year before I was born. My father selected for me a Scotch mother. She typified in a high degree the thrift and caution, the intelligence, ambition, and energy of her race. Boys, they say, gain most of their qualities from their mothers. Certainly I inherited from mine conspicuous conservatism. The lack of that quality has wrecked more advertising men, more business men, than anything else I know. That fact will be emphasized again and again in this boo

FATHER owned a newspaper in a prosperous lumbering city. The people had money to spend, so advertisers flocked there. We smile now as we remember the ads. of those days, but we smile at the hoopskirts, too. Most of the advertisements were paid for in trade. Our home became a warchousc of advertised merchandise. I remember that at one time we had six pianos and six sewing-machines in stock. One of the products which father advertised was Vinegar Bitters. I afterward learned its history. A vinegar

UP TO my graduation from high school my ambition was the ministry. I was an earnest Bible student. The greatest game we had in our house was repeating Bible verses. We took turns, as in a spelling bee, going around the circle, until all dropped out save one. I was always that one. I had memorized more verses than anyone I met. Often the minister dropped in, but he was no competitor of mine in a Bible competition. I knew several times as many verses. At the age of seven I was writing sermons and

THAT contact with Mr. Bissell led to frequent contacts. Soon we entered the cold-weather season when my duties became heavy. “I hear you are working hard,” Mr. Bissell said to me one day. I replied, “I should work hard, for I have so many easy months.”’ He insisted on the details, and he learned that I was leaving my office at two o'clock in the morning and appearing again at eight. Like all big men whom I have known, he was a tremendous worker. He had always done the average work of three men.

NOW I approach a tragic epoch in my life. I was close to my limits in Grand Rapids. The offer from Lord & Thomas gave me wider recognition. Ambition surged within me, because of my mother’s blood. I became anxious to go higher. But I had built a new home in Grand Rapids. All the friends I knew were about me. There I enjoyed prestige. I knew that in a larger field I would have to sacrifice the things that I loved most. I suppose I was right in my desires, according to general standards. Ambition

DESPITE my success, there came a time with Swift & Company when my advertising appeal lost all its persuasiveness. Cottolene cut prices. One of our largest fields was with bakers. They knew Cotosuet to be identical with Cottolene, and they refused to pay a higher price. Swift & Company's business had been founded and developed on competition. They met any price that was offered. So they could not conceive of a product of theirs demanding a price above market. I had fixed a price on Cotosuet one-

NOW I come to a class of advertising of which I no longer approve. Thirty yearsago, medicine advertising offered the ad.-writer his greatest opportunity. It formed the supreme test of his skill. Medicines were worthless merchandise until a demand was created. They could not well be inventoried on the druggists’ shelves at even one cent a bottle. Everything depended on the advertising. The test of an ad.-writer in medicine advertising was as severe as in mail-order advertising today. He was shown

MY YEARS in Racine gave me unique experi-ence in advertising proprietaries, and brought me wide reputation. My methods were new. Testimonials had been almost universal in those lines. I published none. Reckless claims were common. My ads. said in effect, "Try this cough remedy; watch the benefits it brings. It cannot harm, for no opiates are in it. If it succeeds, the cough will stop. If it fails, it is free. Your own druggist signs the warrant.” The appeal was overwhelming, almost resistless. E

I SPENT five years with Liquozone—five strenuous years. I traveled from office to office, here and abroad. Every country presented new problems. One night in Paris I called in a famous doctor. He told me I was a nervous wreck. He said, “The only thing that can save you is to go home and rest.” “I have no home,” I said. *‘I live in a hotel. This hotel is very much like it. I might as well stay here.” But he insisted. Then I thought of a fruit farm on Spring Lake, Michigan, which I had so often pl

I WROTE my first advertisements on auto-mobiles in 1899. They referred to a steam car made in Milwaukee. My book on the car was entitled The Sport of Kings. The model I owned was the first motor car in Racine. My first day of ownership cost me $300, through the scaring of hack horses and other forms of damage. I was chauffeur and garage man. It required thirty minutes to start the car, which we had to count on in catching a train. And on more than that. Starting was a small problem when compared

IT WAS also my lot to pioneer tire advertising. Tires had bcen advertised somewhat since bicycle days, but with scarcely more than a name. The Goodyear Company had for many years been customers of our agency. I believe that their expenditure never exceeded $40,000 per year. Nobody suspected that tires could be popularized. One day it occurred to us that we could increase our advertising business by increasing accounts on our books. Thereafter that became our dominant principle. Along those lines

WE ORGANIZED in our agency an ad-visory board over which I presided. We announced that anyone could bring there advertising problems, in person or by letter, and receive without obligation the advice of the best men in our agency. Some sixteen able advertising men sat around the table. They offered an inviting opportunity to advertisers, existing or prospective. Some hundreds of men with dubious prospects came there and we advised nineteen in twenty of them not to proceed. The men who hesitated

ONE of my greatest successes came about through advertising Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice. And it came about in this way. Mr. H. P. Crowell, the president of The Quaker Oats Company, was a friend of an old associate of mine. That associate urged Mr. Crowell to learn what I could do to help him. So one day Mr. Crowell called me to his office and said something like this: ““We have our long-established advertising connections, and they are satisfactory. But we have many lines not advertised. If you

THE greatest success of my career so far has been made on Pepsodent Tooth Paste. Its promoter has been associated with me for twenty-two years. We have made millions together in advertising enterprises. When I went with Lord & Thomas he was quite despondent. He offered me a large salary to idle and wait for him to find some mutual opportunity. He became involved in irrigation projects in Tucson, Arizona. There the nights are long and lonesomeness omnipotent. So he courted the acquaintance of the

MOST of my advertising accounts were de-veloped along the lines here described. To go into details would be monotonous. But all my life I have done a certain percentage of mail-order advertising. It is not profitable from an agency standpoint. It is dificult and time-consuming, and it seldom runs to large amounts. But it is educational. It keeps one on his mettle. It fixes one’s viewpoint on cost and result. The ad.-writer learns more from mail-order advertising than from any other form. So far

NOW let me try to summarize the reasons for my success for the benefit of those who will follow. By success Imean the partsI played in developing great advertising enterprises, most of which continue. Advertising men are expected to do that. In advertising we serve three interests, all of them allied but distinct. First comes the publisher who pays us our commissions. He pays to the agency an average of 15 per cent on the amount of the advertising. That is paid for expected service. The best ser

THROUGH a book I wrote my name has become connected with “Scientific Advertising.” That is, advertising based on fixed principles and done according to fundamental laws. I learned those principles through thirty-six years of traced advertising. Through conducting campaigns on some hundreds of different lines. Through comparing on some lines, by keyed returns, thousands of pieces of copy. Always, since I sent out my first thousand letters to the time when $5,000,000 yearly was being spent on my c

THE day before Christmas, in the year I made my initial success in selling carpet sweepers by letters, Mr. M. R. Bissell, president of the company, called me to his office. He said: “I have some advice to give you. You have many of the qualifications which make for success, including the selling instinct. You are too good a man to work for me. You shall start out for yourself, as Idid.” He told me something of his history. How he had refused every salary offer, every safe anchorage, and struggle

AS THIS is a record of success in my par-ticular line of endeavor, and an urge to others, it may be well to set down something about my private life, my idiosyncrasies, habits, and desires as these are related to what I have gained by success. I have always been an addict to work. I love work as other men love play. It is both my occupation and my recreation. As a boy, the necessity for self-support after school hours kept me from the playgrounds. As a man, my desire to learn all that I could ab