and the desperate men and women behind prison walls
don’t blame themselves for anything – what about the
people with whom you and I come in contact?
John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his
name, once confessed: “I learned thirty years ago that it
is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my
own limitations without fretting over the fact that God
has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.”
Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally
had to blunder through this old world for a third of a
century before it even began to dawn upon me that
ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize
themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it
may be.
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive
and usually makes him strive to justify himself.
Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s
precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and
arouses resentment.
B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved
through his experiments that an animal rewarded for
good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain
what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished
for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that
the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not
make lasting changes and often incur resentment.
Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, “As
much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation,”
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize
employees, family members and friends, and still
not correct the situation that has been condemned.
George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety
coordinator for an engineering company, One of his re-sponsibilities
is to see that employees wear their hard
hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He reported
that whenever he came across workers who were
not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of
authority of the regulation and that they must comply.
As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often
after he left, the workers would remove the hats.
He decided to try a different approach. The next time
he found some of the workers not wearing their hard hat,
he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit
properly. Then he reminded the men in a pleasant tone
of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from
injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job.
The result was increased compliance with the regulation
with no resentment or emotional upset.
You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling
on a thousand pages of history, Take, for example,
the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and
President Taft – a quarrel that split the Republican
party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and
wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War
and altered the flow of history. Let’s review the facts
quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of the
White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was
elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off to
Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded.
He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure
the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull
Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. In the
election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican
party carried only two states – Vermont and
Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever
known.
Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President
Taft blame himself? Of course not, With tears in his
eyes, Taft said: “I don’t see how I could have done any
differently from what I have.”
Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don’t
know, and I don’t care. The point I am trying to make is
that all of Theodore Roosevelt’s criticism didn’t persuade
Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft strive
to justify himself and to reiterate with tears in his eyes:
“I don’t see how I could have done any differently from
what I have.”
Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the
newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s.
It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men,
nothing like it had ever happened before in American
public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert
B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s cabinet,
was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves
at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome – oil reserves that
had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did
secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He
handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward
L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave
Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of
one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed
manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines
into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent
wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves.
These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of
guns and bayonets, rushed into court – and blew the lid
off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that
it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire
nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party,
and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.
Fall was condemned viciously – condemned as few
men in public life have ever been. Did he repent?
Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public
speech that President Harding’s death had been due to
mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed
him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her
chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed:
“What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband
never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold
would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one
who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified.”
There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers,
blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like that.
So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone
tomorrow, let’s remember Al Capone, “Two Gun”
Crowley and Albert Fall. Let’s realize that criticisms are
like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s
realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn
will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn
us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: “I
don’t see how I could have done any differently from
what I have.”
On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln
lay dying in a hall bedroom of a cheap lodging house
directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, where
John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln’s long body
lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was
too short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur’s
famous painting The Horse Fair hung above the
bed, and a dismal gas jet flickered yellow light.
As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said,
“There lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world
has ever seen.”
What was the secret of Lincoln’s success in dealing
with people? I studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for
ten years and devoted all of three years to writing and
rewriting a book entitled Lincoln the Unknown. I believe
I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study of
Lincoln’s personality and home life as it is possible for
any being to make. I made a special study of Lincoln’s
method of dealing with people. Did he indulge in criticism?
Oh, yes. As a young man in the Pigeon Creek
Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote
letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these
letters on the country roads where they were sure to be
found. One of these letters aroused resentments that
burned for a lifetime.
Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in
Springfield, Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly
in letters published in the newspapers. But he did this
just once too often.
In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious
politician by the name of James Shields. Lincoln lamned
him through an anonymous letter published in
Springfield Journal. The town roared with laughter.
Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.
He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse,
started after Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel.
Lincoln didn’t want to fight. He was opposed to dueling,
but he couldn’t get out of it and save his honor. He was
given the choice of weapons. Since he had very long
arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in
sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the
appointed day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the
Mississippi River, prepared to fight to the death; but, at
the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped
the duel.