Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-22
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

One OF the major tactics of those
who have mastered exactly how to get
along in this difficult world Is simply
| the old art of ballyhoo. One does not
/ have to stand on a street corner, on an
upturned tub, beneath flaring torches,
to practice it.
| In the main such personal ballyhoo
| consists of singing loud song in praise
of ones self, with such little side COM
ments as will permit the listeners to
believe that they, the listeners, are at q
| lesser level. Thus the tub or soap box
| is used, after all, but with so much less
| effort. One does not even go to the
| trouble of finding a box to stand on
but simply elevates himself in the I'M
Outstanding of others.
To let on, subtly or otherwise, that
ones job Is about the best job of the
| sort that any one ever had is the first
part of the lesson and the one most
often practiced by good, bad and indif-
| ferent practitioners. Good clothes, of
course, play part in this; but when
one thinks of all the young idiots run
ming around in fancy suits it is seen
that one must get down deeper than
that.
The second step in this gentle, pervad-
ing art is to tell every one everywhere
little bit better than similar things
owned by other people.
If you have man working for you
whose duty it is to count sheep, say it
not SO plainly, but label him at once an
expert sheep counter" 1t sounds so
much better and quite habbergasts your
rival, whose mind is so modest that he
is content to call his man simply a
sheep counter"
If one purchases q new radio set, it
| is not the best set in its price class, but
| the best of all possible sets. When you
meet friend who recently bought a set
every whit as fine as yours, proceed at
once to praise your set and belittle his.
What have you? Oh, Blahblah. Well,
you have the best of the secondary
sets" That will make him feel nice,
and before he fully RECEIVERS you can go
on to describe the merits of your own
purchase-and the point Is that no mat
ter what the real merits of comparison
are, you paint the picture to suit your
self. If you lay on the colors bit
thick, SO much the better, as then the
poor fellow there suffering from an in
| feriority complex will never be able to
| Scrape away enough to get at the true
picture.
The astute reader will readily see that
1t is just as necessary 20 take the other
down a peg or two as to glorify ones
self; in fact, some opponents of this
art and science devote most of their
time to this branch, feeling, and per-
haps rightly, that If they can keep the
kother on the defensive all the time he
will have no time for examining them.
Thus they carry their own merits by
default, as 1t were, while minimizing
those of every one else.
The saving thing is that most modest
men have pretty good heads, after all:
If sometimes they are made by others to
feel that they are standing still in a
world where every one else is swimming
gayly, they soon perceive that the great
current of life in reality is holding them
all pretty much stationary; only the
blowers are making a great splashing
noise with their arms and legs-and
| mouths.
Modest folk, therefore, will not long
lie awake at nights worrying because
| they seem failures, but will use their
| common sense to convince themselves
that they are not arrant failures at all,
but in reality are pretty successful men
and women, being under no necessity
of whistling to keep their courage up.