I WANT TO DO SOMETHING FOR THE HOME TOWN GIRL SO SHE CAN STAY AT HOME AND SHOW HOW AND WHAT SHE IS MADE OF.
PROMOTING THE OCEANLESS ONE PIECE SUIT
Everybody at some time in life feels a call within Him or Her, as the gender may be, to try and Promote something or other, that is to form a Company and sell Stock. We have all bought so much and been stung so often that we want to try the side where the Money comes in, instead of going out.
One-third of the people in the United States promote, while the other two-thirds Provide. There are more commissions paid out to Stock Salesmen than are ever collected by Stock Buyers. So, after living honest for years, the thing naturally becomes monotonous and we feel a hankering to Promote.
Now, I had reached that stage in life where I had thought maybe I would get by clear to the end without Promoting something and sticking my Friends. But the old Bug has bit me; the old Make-it-easy-without-working has got me. So I am now branching out as a Promotor, Throwing the Rope, Chewing Gum, Acting a Fool in the Movies, Robbing Ziegfeld, and Writing for a Living. All these are side lines from now on. I am now a Promotor. A Promotor is a man who would rather stick a Friend than to sell Henry Ford a Synagogue.
Of course my proposition is different. (Did you ever hear one of them pull that Gag before?)
My proposition is of Interest to every Town of any size in America. I am forming Clubs, called Swimming or Bathing Clubs, or any Aquatic name. A great many Towns have been denied the privilege of having these Clubs, heretofore, as they were not situated near any Body of Water. Now I have been to all the prominent Beaches in the East, and this summer have had a chance to study the various Water Resorts of California.
I have paid particular attention to the Habits and procedure of Club Members and their Guests and I think I can do the same for the Non-irrigated Portion of this Country as is being enjoyed by the Tidal Wave region.
I come into your Town and start promoting (we will call it a swimming or Beach Club). I sell memberships for, we will say, the nominal sum of 500 dollars a piece. That makes it high enough to keep out the substantial people who really after all are rather old-fashioned, and allows us to take into our Club some of our most prominent Bootleggers, Oil Magnates, who have worked their way up from the bottom in the last year, and just the people of the Town who do things—in other words, the ones who belong.
We build the Club House (a rather long rambling affair) on some ground which we can get at a nominal figure (as I will explain the value of Citizens like we will have being located in their midst, and what our Club will do for the surrounding Land). Now, the great advantage that my Clubs will have over the present ones in our Beach Cities is that we will build ours right in the heart of the Town, so the Tired Business Man can reach it even for Lunch, whereas in other places they have to go miles to reach a Beach Club. We will have a Uniformed man at the door to meet the Cars, as nothing impresses the newly rich so much as Gold Braid.