The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [409]
Studs glanced aside to prevent himself from smiling. He was sure that it was a sucker proposition, but then, there was one born every minute, and if there were enough chumps in the world, well, maybe, fifty, sixty dollars a week.
“Our proposition is this. We have a new sanitary paper cup. Now there are in Chicago hundreds and thousands of industrial establishments, stores, offices and the like that are backward and unsanitary, because they use the medieval method of letting employees drink from one drinking glass, or even a tin cup. These are old-fashioned, backward, stone-age methods, unmodern, unscientific, and they help to spread disease. Nobody likes to use another person’s, a stranger’s, drinking glass, and particularly not some rusty old tin cup that scores drink out of. Throughout this city there are people who spread diseases through drinking cups and glasses. That’s one of your principal selling points. It constitutes an irrefutable argument, and if you are clever it will gain you a high percentage of sales. The man who refuses to listen to it, who refuses to substitute our sanitary paper drinking cup for the old-fashioned, antiquated, disease-ridden drinking glass or tin cup, that man is backward, and he is risking the health of countless people.” The man pointed his index finger at Studs and glared until Studs felt like reminding him that he wasn’t making anyone drink out of a rusty tin cup. “A sanitary drinking cup, such as ours, is first of all scientific, and this is the age of science, the era of hygiene. Also, it is an aid to efficiency in a store, office, or factory. Why? Because it ministers to the better health of all concerned, and this makes for that increased efficiency. How does it achieve the purpose? Ha, proving that argument is like knocking over a straw man! If people are well, if they have less fear of disease, they work more efficiently because their psychology, their psychological attitude, is the right one. If there is a diseased employee in an office using an unsanitary medieval drinking glass or cup, the baneful, the dangerous, the mortal, results can be incalculable. That person can infect a valued member of the office force, and require him or her to remain out of work. A new person must be temporarily employed. The new person does not know the work, and must be broken in. There is resultant inefficiency. Inefficiency means demoralization and there is a contagious spread of inefficiency. The employer himself is not immune to disease, and probably, in some instances, uses the same backward drinking glass or cup that his employees use. He can become infected with a contagious disease, and can carry it home to his wife and children. They can become sick, even die. You see the point? In selling you stress it, only make it more concrete than I have done. Pick out someone working in an office, the secretary, concrete, you know, and speak of some specific disease like consumption.” Studs nodded courteously, thinking that this guy was a new one to him. And he could see himself stringing out a line like this guy’s. “Now as to our cups, we have an unusual offer of five hundred paper cups for a dollar, and with any order of twenty-five hundred or more cups, we will give as a premium an attractive glass container that is not only useful but also decorative in an office, store or factory. Now, isn’t it worth a dollar to insure efficiency in your office and home? That’s our argument to the buyer. Here is our proposition to the salesman. You buy the cups for fifty cents, and a cardboard carrier box goes with it, free. You sell them for a dollar and make your own delivery. We assign you a territory which is large enough, and has sufficient potential sales in it, to insure you a good living income, fifty, sixty, even a hundred dollars a week.”
Studs tried to think of something to say that would permit him an easy exit.