The Meaning of Profits

"Profit, to the average businessman or accountant, is that part of business income which remains (if any) after all the expenses of the business have been met. These expenses include such things as wages, raw materials, supplies, light, rent, heat and interest on debt. While this definition is correct as far as it goes, it is not a good definition because it is incomplete. It somehow leaves the impression that profit is something left over for which no work is done, or that profit is an extra income not necessary for the smooth operation of the business."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

The Miracle Of Productivity

"America's steady increase in productivity, constantly raising our standards of living, is far better able to improve our personal well-being and the well-being of our country than any program for redistributing our wealth. During the past 50 years, the American economy has far outstripped that of other nations where the redistribution of existing wealth has been substituted for the creation of new wealth."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954

Do We Sell That?

"This really is a perfectly logical question for just about anyone to ask. After all, Standard Oil Company does market more than two thousand products…many of them highly specialized in nature and sold to a very limited market. Even many of us who work for the company do not have the opportunity to get acquainted with all of the products Stanard makes and sells. "Do we sell that?" We hope this booklet will answer the question more fully...particularly in regard to the products which we all use or come in contact with in our everyday life."

no publication information

Our Company And Our Community

"Every once in a while you're likely to see an "ad" in your newspaper extolling the virtues of relocating a business in Florida or Atlanta, Ga., or New Orleans, La., or some other place far removed from where you live and work. Perhaps upon spotting such an ad, you might possibly wonder, "Why would a city or state that far away spend a lot of money to advertise in our newspaper?" Well, the answer isn't suprising as all. Not when you begin to understand what high stakes are involved."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

The "Buck" Stops Here

"Former President Truman used to have a phrase that described pretty accurately the position of the man at the head of a business. "The buck stops here," the President used to say, pointing at his own desk. What he meant was that others could pass along the burden for a decision made, or to-be-made, but the man at the top had nowhere else to pass it. The "buck" stopped there."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

Business And Politics Do Mix

"Just suppose, for a moment, that you were running for political office. What would you think if you found a couple of vice presidents of your corporation out campaigning for you? Crazy? Not at all. In fact, it's happening more and more. And here's why: Members of the top management of an increasing number of corporatiaons are realizing that they have political responsibilities. This represents a big change from the typical businessman's attitude of the past 30 years or so. The slogan "business and politics don't mix" had virtually become an article of faith. All that has changed now, and the background of the change is worth looking at."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

More Mileage To You

"Modern gasoline is a miracle of petroleum chemistry. Except for its appearance and price, it is vastly different from a gasoline of 1930, for example. In modern cars designed to utilize it, today's gasoline will develop at least 60 per cent more economy or 30 per cent more power than could 1930 gasoline in 1930 engines. Today, thanks to unceasing research by America's oil companies, the gasoline you can get at your service station approaches in quailty and octane rating the fighter-plane fuel of World War II. And thanks to unceasing technical progress and healthy competition, for your patronage, the price of gasoline today, in terms of the work it can do for you, is less than it was in 1930, even though gasoline taxes have risen about 130 per cent and the average cost of everything else you buy (cost of living) has risen more than 65 per cent."

American Petroleum Institute, no date

Now Is Your Chance...To Live

"You're a good driver - as nine out of ten Americans are, these days. It is after sunset, and you're still a long way from home. It's time to turn on your lights. You will, as soon as you get over the next hill. As soon as you pass those two cars ahead. What clucks their drivers are! The farmer in the dusty pick-up truck trundling along in the lead; the timid old couple in the jalopy following him, afraid to pass. You've been trailing them for miles with no chance to get by. In the straightaways, oncoming traffic. On the curves, white lines. But it is late, and the kids are starting to whine, You're about willing to edge over just a few feet of white line, if you can only get going. And now you see your chance coming up. Ahead, a straight hill, with one lone red car just starting down it toward you. By your experienced eye for speeds and distances, you see that the red car will pass your blockers one-third of the way down the slope. And if the rest of the hill is still clear, you'll have space and time to zoom past those two and haul back to your own lane, yards short of the crest. Get ready, then. Gun your trusty engine to make sure she'll respond, as always, with her surger of power. Edge up close behind the jalopy. Now the red car is nearly here. Now it is here...now it's passing! Now, Now, NOW is your chance! Your chance to...what?"

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

How To Be An Expert Driver

"Nearly everyone who has been driving for some years likes to think he is an expert driver. Actual tests, however, show that most drivers tend to overrate their driving ability. Yet anyone who wants to master a skill like golf, tennis, or tap dancing is glad to learn from the professionals. Driving has its professionals, too. The men who drive trucks, buses, taxicabs, ambulances, and police and racing cars for a living are among the world's best drivers. They are on the road day and night under all sorts of weather and traffic conditions; they drive many thousands of miles each year; and they have to be good or they can't keep their jobs. Constant practice enables the best of them to handle an automobile amazingly well and cover hundreds of thousands of miles without accident or collision. This booklet is based on interviews with these professionals."

Birk & Co. Inc., 1954

Better Roads Ahead

"America is soon to be cross-laced with a gleaming 40,000-mile network of new superhighways - the kind you dream about after a hard day behind the wheel - and you and every other American will benefit by it. The new "interstate highways system," recently authorized by Congress and the President, with its fast, safe, well-designed roads, will save time, money and lives for motorists...for the man who drives to work every day, the housewife who goes shopping, or the family setting out on a long vacation trip or running over to Grandma's for Sunday dinner. The highways will open up new residential and industrial areas. Thousands of jobs will be created in constructing the roads, supplying materials for them, serving the people who'll use them. The nation's economy will get an unprecedented shot in the arm as industries expand to handle this biggest public works project in history."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

What To Do If You Have An Auto Accident

"According to the grim averages of the road, you stand a one-in-seven chance of meeting with an auto accident some time this year. Fortunately the same statistics say it's likely to be a minor scrape, but the smallest injury you can figure to get away with is a case of writer's cramp. Filling in forms and asking and answering questions is a serious business. Though you may think you're fully insured, damage claims - including unjustified ones - could strip you of everything you own or tie up your income for life. And even if you're an innocent victim you can put yourself in the wrong by what you do or fail to do. It makes sense to learn the ropes before you find yourself dangling from them. Then, if the need ever arises, you'll be able to practice the basic rules of post-accident protection: Keep cool, and know what you're doing."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

How To Drive And Stay Alive

"The chances are that you are a good driver. Most people are. They know the rules of the road. They drive with care. They respect the rights of others. But many good drivers are killed or injured every year by the heedless, thoughtless, reckless or ignorant actions of a comparatively few drivers who precipitate highway accidents of every imaginable kind. Mixed with the good drivers on any highway are a few who will be drunk with alcohol, drunk with a wish for power, angry, resentful, worried, perhaps, ill or handicapped by poor vision, or just simply immature and irresponsible. What can you do about them? How can you identify them? Most important of all, how can you protect yourself against them?"

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Road Safety

"Most of us have our own pet ideas about what causes these accidents. Some blame them on "those wild hot-rod kids." Others say, "The roads are no good, and there aren't enough of them." Many blame accidents on ignorant drivers, drunken drivers, people with bad eyesight or poor reflexes who should never have been given licenses, or people who either don't know or ignore the rules of the road. All of these factors do cause accidents, and, to that degree, we are all partly right. But we can't wage one-man campaigns against those other fellows. On the other hand, we can do something about ourselves. The best place to begin cutting the terrible toll of automobile accidents is right behind our own steering wheels."

Birk & Co., Inc., 1957

The Life You Save...

"Speed is the cause of more than 50% of all fatal auto accidents. Driving 50 miles an hour at night is as fast as you can go safely and not over-drive your headlights. This crack-up, which was due to excessive speed, cost the lives of 8 people."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Travel A La Car

"Four questions make a sort of framework for vacation planning - How long can you stay away? How far can you drive in the time you've allowed yourself? How much money do you want to spend? What do you like to do? Most people, when asked to define a vacation, would call it a chance to leave home for a time to enjoy sports, to loaf, eat, sleep and relax. But this by no means ends the list. One of the best reasons for traveling by car is the opportunity it affords for doing so many other things, worthwhile for both grown-ups and children, on the way to the major vacation goal."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954

Your Deadliest Enemy...

"Joe and Bill have been driving buses for over twenty years on the same route, using identical equipment. Joe has a perfect safety record, but Bill's record shows at least one or two accidents each year - unavoidable accidents. John works for a towel supply house. His pal Eddie works as a bread salesman. They have earned the name of the two "unluckiest" guys in the world through their frequent mishaps. Helen and Joan, her next door neighbor, have been driving cars for over five years. They follow traffic rules and pride themselves on being good drivers. Yet Helen is constantly having to justify her accidents, while Joan has never had one. Some people may be "shot with luck" in avoiding accidents, but more often than not there are well hidden psychological reasons why some have accidents and others have none."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Don't Let The Goblins Get You!

"Of course you don't believe in goblins, or elves, or any of the wicked sprites that filled our ancestors with superstitious fear. But, when you read or hear about some of the strange ways in which people get hurt, it's enough to make you wonder whether there may not be supernatural "things" hovering about that cause us to commit foolish acts. Why does your wife occasionally drop a cup or burn her fingers on a stove she uses three times a day? Why does an experienced workman suddenly get his fingers nipped in a machine that he has been operating for many years without an accident? Why does an otherwise sensible, grown man or woman suddenly decide to go whizzing over the center line on the highway and attempt to pass another car on a hill or a "blind" curve? Why? Why? Why?"

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

Our Progress In The Years Ahead

"America's progress in the years ahead depends on the American thinking of today. This is an extremely important point, because progress, or lack of it, at any given time depends on what is happening in the minds of men and women at some previous time. Thus, the long range prospects of our nation depend, not on the older folks, but on the thinking of the younger people who will be at the helm 10 years, 20 years, 30, 40, 50 years hence. One of the best ways to insure future progress is to keep clearly in mind the things which have been responsible for our past progress. It is important that we do not forget. When we do forget, there is a temptation to indulge in wishful thinking - to build imaginative Utopias on the basis of things as we might like them to be, instead of facing the real human situation and reckoning with things as they are."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

Who Gets What?

"In 1908, when I was a logger in the Pacific Northwest, I came in contact with the Industrial Workers of the World - the short-lived but potent radical movement that swept the country following the turn of the century. One day, "Big Hill" Haywood, its leader and chief exponent, rolled into our logging camp. We called a half holiday and Bill delivered a wild, emotion-building speech. If what Bill Haywood told those lumbermen was true, any man who did not become a socialist of some color - pale, pink or red - was too yellow to become anything."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

You Can't Hold Back The Tide

"I view with some alarm the rapid disappearance of one of America's most precious natural resources - our native supply of plain, old-fashioned common sense. What has happened to it, recently?"

Good Reading Rack Service, 1954

How's Your Savvy Quotient?

"Remember the I.Q. tests you used to have to take in school? They measured a factor that was very closely connected to your ability to get all A's, or make the honor roll, or go on to college. But once you got out of school and into the business world, you soon found that the best jobs do not always go to the Ph.D.'s and the Phi Beta Kappas. There are other factors besides your intelligence quotient which are helping you along to greater success on the job, or holding you back. One of the most significant of these factors is what is called your S.Q., or "savvy" quotient. Webster defines "savvy" as comprehension, practical wisdom, skill in gaining one's ends. The Book of Proverbs in the Bible contains 31 chapters showing the necessity for wisdom and understanding. "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

Reduce And Stay Reduced

"Overweight is the most important nutritional problem in America today. If you are overweight, there is no other single thing you can do that will pay better dividends in appearance, health, and longevity than to reduce properly. Of the more than 168,000,000 living Americans, it has been estimated that some 60,000,000 will die of the diseases of arteriosclerosis - hardening of the arteries. In this connection the only advice the medical profession can offer you with confidence at the present time is to reduce and stay reduced."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

How To Improve Your Score

"Four or five years ago, golf champion Ben Hogan caused a great furor by admitting to reporters that he had a secret something that he did on every stroke. This, he said, was the key to all his success. Instantly, there was a hubbub in the press. - articles by experts, interviews with rival pros, guessing by columnists...A million plain, ordinary dubs clamored for Hogan's Secret, so they could break 100 for the first time in their lives. ... What is it? ... It is the secret of knowing how to learn."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

Practice As You Mean To Play

"At a sports banquet in St. Louis a number of years ago, I sat between "Dizzy" Dean and an all-American football player from a southern university, Paul Moss. "Ol' Diz" was in rare form, so I had to address my talking to the football hero. Paul Moss was a big, handsome fellow, and very modest. His greatest claim to fame was an uncanny ability to snag and hold a forward pass. Playing that year with the now defunct St. Louis professional team, he had made many a catch that had seemed impossible. So during the evening I popped a question at him. "Paul," I asked, "what's the secret of your ability to catch forward passes? I have seen you take them off your shoe-tops, high over your head, far to the right or the left, and no matter how hard they were thrown. If it isn't a professional secret, I surely would like to know how you do it." He waited so long to reply, that I was beginning to think he had not heard me, but I guess he was only thinking. "Well," he finally drawled, "I guess it's because I always practice as I mean to play."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

The Secret Of Getting Things Done

"You may sometimes grumble about the advantages other people seem to have - in appearance, in money, in that elusive asset we call a "pleasing personality," or in social connections - but you cannot accuse Father Time of being partial to any man. Every morning he hands out to all of us 1,440 brand-new, unused minutes, ours to waste, or to put to work according to our own personal inclinations. It makes no difference who we are, or what we do. Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief - everybody gets the same allotment of time - not a second more, not a second less. And nobody has the right to say what you shall do with your portion. But time is rationed, and you can't go back to get an additional supply."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1959

Are You A Knocker Or A Booster?

"Mary is earning the largest pay check in her entire career as a secretary in a new plant that located in her little town just three years ago. She is one of more than 20 million working women who last year earned in excess of $39 billion, a record so far above earnings of previous years that any comparison would be meaningless. Mary is proud of her well-paying job with this plant that blends so gracefully with the countryside. From the broad windows that flank her desk she can see the many improvements...a solid prosperity that began when the plant became an active member of her community - the new school, the new park, the new homes, the many new automobiles that now line the streets. And she often thinks gratefully of the wonderful things that have happened to Jim, her husband, since the plant started operations. For Jim owns a small filling station - too small now, with so much new business coming his way. He has built a new and larger one, in a much better location, and its Grand Opening is only a short time away."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

Honesty: The Only Policy

"Honesty is the best policy" is an old adage. Actually, honesty is not exactly a "policy," but a moral code we develop. Our parents from the time we were kids and our religious leaders pointed out the virtues over and over again of being honest. To our associates, always! To ourselves, above all!"

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

The Importance Of The Four I's

"A great national heritage was born on that fateful night of April 1775, when Paul Revere rode to "spread the alarm through every Middlesex village and farm." Riding tenaciously with him on the wings of the wind were the four "I's" that add up to the unity of purpose that has inspired everything we have ever aspired to and everything we have ever accomplished."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

The Secret Of Dealing With People

"The late John Wanamaker 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 the century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred no man criticizes himself for anything, no matter how wrong he may be. Criticsm of others is futile because it puts a man on the defensive, and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a man's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses his resentment."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

That Something Extra

"Tom, Dick, and Harry were among a number of eager young fellows, who read the "job opportunities" advertisement which a certain large manufacturing company in the Midwest had run in the local newspaper. They applied for jobs with the company and each was interviewed and hired. Tom was assigned to the research department. Dick went to work on the production line. And Harry became a sales trainee. Tom was a firm believer in what Elbert Hubbard was fond of saying: "Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do." So Tom decided to put in "that something extra" from his very first day on the job. He did some of the little tasks no one else in the laboratory seemed to have the time to do. Things like washing up an storing beakers and flasks, wiping up the work tables, sweeping the floor at the end of the day, and other routine chores."

A Help-Your-Self Booklet, 1960

Where To Take Your Troubles

"Everyone has problems. When they're tough, critical and seemingly impossible to solve, these problems become "troubles." Joe is worried frantic because his marriage is heading for the rocks, his wife threatening to leave him. The man working next to him is over his head in debt and the finance company is about to repossess the family refrigerator. Elsewhere in the plant, Bill is facing a battle with his landlord, Mary must find a home for her aged mother, Sam must decide whether to send his runaway son to a mental institution... Like drowning men, they all desperately need help. Where should they go? Not to a bartender, a well-intentioned neighbor, the corner druggist of amateur counselors. Many of us grope around for that helping hand, make mistakes, sometimes give up in despair. But there's a wide variety of resources right in your community where you can get just the kind of practical advice and constructive aid that will ease your burden and probably wipe out your "hopeless" mess. Here in your hand is a guide to the competent, reliable agencies and individuals you can call upon for help."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956