U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [510]
. . . Mr. Moorehouse says please step into his office, he wants to speak with you a minute before the staff confer-ence." Dick got up and stood a second with his lips pursed rocking on the bal s of his feet looking out the window over the ashcolored blocks that stretched in a series of castiron molds east to the chimneys of powerplants, the bridge, the streak of river flashing back steel at the steel-blue sky. Riveters shril y clattered in the new huge con-struction that was jutting up girder by girder at the corner of Fortysecond. They al seemed inside his head like a dentist's dril . He shuddered, belched and hurried along the corridor into the large corner office.
J. W. was staring at the ceiling with his big jowly face as expressionless as a cow's. He turned his pale eyes on Dick without a smile. "Do you realize there are seventy-five mil ion people in this country unwil ing or unable to
-478-go to a physician in time of sickness?" Dick twisted his face into a look of lively interest. He's been talking to Ed Griscolm, he said to himself. "Those are the people the Bingham products have got to serve. He's touched only the fringes of this great potential market.""His business would be to make them feel they're smarter than the big-bugs who go to Battle Creek," said Dick. J. W. frowned thoughtful y.
Ed Griscolm had come in. He was a sal ow long man
with an enthusiastic flash in his eye that flickered on and off like an electriclight sign. He had a way of carrying his arms like a cheerleader about to lead a col ege yel . Dick said
"Hel o" without warmth. "Top of the morning, Dick . . . a bit overhung I see. . . . Too bad, old man, too bad."
"I was just saying, Ed," J. W. went on in his slow even voice, "that our talkingpoints should be first that they haven't scratched the top of their potential market of seventyfive mil ion people and second that a properlycon-ducted campaign can eradicate the prejudice many people feel against proprietary medicines and substitute a feeling of pride in their use."
"It's smart to be thrifty . . . that sort of thing," shouted Ed.
"Selfmedication," said Dick. "Tel them the average sodajerker knows more about medicine today than the family physician did twentyfive years ago."
"They think there's something hick about patent medi-cines," yel ed Ed Griscolm. "We got to put patent medi-cines on Park Avenue.""Proprietary medicines," said J. W. reprovingly.
Dick managed to wipe the smile off his face. "We've got to break the whole idea," he said, "into its component parts."
"Exactly." J. W. picked up a carvedivory papercutter and looked at it in different angles in front of his face.
-479-The office was so silent they could hear the traffic roaring outside and the wind whistling between the steel window-frame and the steel window. Dick and Ed Griscolm held their breath. J. W. began to talk. "The American public has become sophisticated . .
. when I was a boy in Pitts-burgh al we thought of was display advertising, the ap-peal to the eye. Now with the growth of sophistication we must think of the other types of appeal, and the eradi-cation of prejudice. . . . Bingo . . . the name is out of date, it's al wrong. A man would be ashamed to lunch at the Metropolitan Club with a bottle of Bingo at his table . . . that must be the talkingpoint. . . . Yesterday Mr. Bingham seemed inclined to go ahead. He was balk-ing a little at the cost of the campaign. . . ."
"Never mind," screeched Ed Griscolm, "we'l nail the old buzzard's feet down yet."
"I guess he has to be brought around gently just as you were saying last night, J. W.," said Dick in a low bland voice. "They tel me Halsey of Halsey O'Connor's gone to bed with a nervous breakdown tryin' to get old Bingham to make up his mind." Ed Griscolm broke into a tittering laugh.
J. W. got to his feet with a faint smile. When J. W. smiled Dick smiled too. "I think he can be brought to appreciate the advantages connected with the name . . . dignity . . . established connections. . . ." Stil talking J. W. led the way down the hal into the large room with a long oval mahogany table in the middle of it where the whole office was gathered. J. W. went first with his con-siderable bel y waggling a little from side to side as he walked, and Dick and Ed Griscolm, each with an armful of typewritten projects in paleblue covers, fol owed a step behind him. Just as they were settling down after a certain amount of coughing and honking and J. W. was begin-ning about how there were seventy five mil ion people, Ed Griscolm ran out and came back with a neatly drawn chart