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situations needing concentrated attention and study--it is often
difficult to throw all these avenues of attention out of my mind,
and reflections on what I need to say to ALL OF YOU as a Staff, or
to an Assembly at one of the colleges, INto my mind. This is a
more difficult task than finding the actual TIME in which to do
it. So I hope you'll understand, but I do want to write a general
letter of this type monthly, whether I succeed in getting it done
or not.
Right now Mrs. Armstrong and I are at Palm Springs again.
This time I am taking two months (I hope, if no serious emergency
cuts it short) for a sustained milk and lemon-juice fast, in an
effort to get my entire digestive system readjusted, for a complete
physical and mental rejuvenation--and also as a spiritual fast.
Some of the broadcasts I have done during the past few months have
given me confidence that, if I can accomplish this, my most
effective broadcasting years are yet ahead. If successful in this
effort, I hope to be back on the air at least four times a week.
But now to this Saturday Evening Post article--or the
portion that supplied the suggestion for this letter:
In case any of you care to read it, it starts on page 56,
October 28 issue. It is the second of a three-installment series
on Television, U.S.A. As most of you ought to know, Madison
Avenue, New York, is the center of American advertising agencies,
publishers' and Radio-TV representative offices, book publishers.
It is "Advertising Headquarters." Most of the office buildings on
Madison Avenue are loaded with such firms. And, CBS is also
located there. They dominate both TV and radio.
Now one of the functions of my office is to make personal
contacts with radio station managers, and station representatives.
They are a sort of new breed of American business man. Advertising
men, even back in my day, were a distinctive type--slangy, cocky,
usually with good personality. But radio and TV have brought a
still somewhat different breed, tho spawned from the older
advertising type. They are, mostly, comparatively young men--that
is, in 30s, 40s, and 50s--perhaps mostly in latter half of 30s and
40s, and early 50s. As the SEP describes them, they are "young,
polished, educated, soft-spoken, courteous, gentlemanly, and
totally unsentimental. When the boss goes to lunch, his secretary
says, 'Have a good lunch.' Perhaps only such little human gestures
make life bearable in an industry so full of tension and razor-
edged competition. Executives' rises are meteoric, their plunges
sickening. A CBS executive says, 'The pressures here are
unbelievable.' And another, 'We're all ... frightened to death.
The basic instinct is to protect the corporation.'"
Yes, among these people, there is a basic LOYALTY to the
corporation--the Network, the radio or TV station. This is that
ingredient in carnal human nature which the Moffatt Translation
calls "party spirit." You'll find it as one of the FRUITS of the
FLESH--of carnality. Republicans have this against Democrats, and
the Democrats against the Republicans. That's what colleges
generate in both students and players for their foot-ball teams.
This kind of loyalty is based as much on RIVALRY, or FACTIONS--