The Ghost in the White House / Some suggestions as to how a hundred million people (who are supposed in a vague, helpless way to haunt the white house) can make themselves felt with a president, how they can back him up, express themselves to him, be expressed by him, and get what they want

by Gerald Stanley Lee

But these men and their whole idea are going by. We are getting down to the quick, to the personal and the human, to the sense all good workers have of listening and being listened to and of not being overridden. Big business after this is going to be big in proportion as it makes people feel—employees and customers both, that they are listened to, that they are being dealt with as individual human beings and not as fractions of individuals, or as part of some big vague bloodless lump of humanity.

Studying one's customers so as to make them want to trade with one is here to stay.

To speak of studying with the best expert skill in the country one's employees so as to make them want to work, as humanity, is not quite bright. It is not humanity. It is business.

Making people trade with one instead of making them want to trade with one is recognized as second-rate business. So is making people work for one instead of making them want to work. The business man who depends for his business, on customers, or on workers who want to get away and are going to the first minute they can, naturally goes under first.

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VI

THE PUT-THROUGH CLAN PUTS THROUGH

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§ 1. What.

We are a people who think in action. Our way of making other nations think and of thinking ourselves is to do things.