A Message To Garcia

"This literary trifle, A Message to Garcia, was written one evening after supper, in a single hour. It was on the Twenty-second of February, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-nine, Washington's Birthday, and we were just going to press with the March Philistine. The thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a trying day, when I had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent villagers to abjure the comatose state and get radioactive. The immediate suggestion, through, came from a little argument over the teacups, when my boy Bert suggested that Rowan was the real hero of the Cuban War. Rowan had gone alone and done the thing - carried the message to Garcia. It came to me like a flash! Yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man who does his work - who carries the message to Garcia."

Good Reading Rack Service, no date

"Where There's A Will"

"Say, darling, do you have a will?" Asked, of her husband, Mrs. Quill. Her husband answered: "Yes and no - "I drew one many years ago, "But that was long before we married, "And since then I have been so harried "In my business, I've neglected "To have my testament perfected. "I want you to have all I own, "So I shall call on Lawyer Bone, "To make a will which, if you please, "Would let you live in style and ease." But Quill lived on, so rushed and busy (His occupation kept him dizzy), He never got around to Bone, And, dying, left his wife alone, With only what the law allowed. So half of what he left, a crowed Of Quill's collaterals have taken, And widow Hannah's half forsaken. One hasn't really much respect For thoughtless men whose grave neglect To change their wills to guard a mate Has left her in the hands of Fate."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1960

Let's Face It Now

"One of the most common sources of difficulty for a widow and her family is not being able to find the husband's legal papers - his will, insurance policies, social security card, army discharge papers, deed to house, deed to cemetery property, etc. Be sure your wife, or some member of the family, knows where you keep these papers. If you change the place, tell someone about it. If the place is a safety deposit box at the bank, be sure someone at home knows where you keep the key. Fill out the bank form giving somebody "right of access" to your box in case of death."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1955

Oil Con-Serves For You

"What is conservation? Not miser-liness. Not hoarding. Not string-saving. Not penny-pinching. Not refusal to use available natural resources. Not refusal to use farm land, farm product, forest products. Not refusal to take iron, coal, oil, etc., out of the ground prudently and for useful purposes. Conservation is not negative!"

Oil Industry Information Committee, no date

A Step In The Wrong Direction

"With competition as the mainspring of our economy, we built a strong country with an unequalled standard of living. Free competition has long been the best spur for plentiful production, and the most reliable watchdog of fair prices. The government has now stepped in to destroy competition - in only one business so far, the business of producing natural gas. But this is one long step in the wrong direction. For if the government can destroy competition in one competitve business, it can destroy it in another - and another."

Natural Gas and Oil Resources Committee, no date

Everyday Law In Everyday Language

"The purpose of this booklet is to help you recognize situations that demand legal advice and those which you can handle yourself by use of common sense plus some knowledge of the law. Do not expect a simple, comprehensive statement of The Law on every point raised in the following pages. You may be reading this booklet in any of forty-eight States, each of which has its own courts with their own views as to the proper answers to these problems. Any honest lawyer will tell you that although he may have known the answer to your question yesterday, he had better check today to make sure that a new decision has not been handed down since he last looked at the point. So, even if we had the space and presumption to state the law of all forty-eight States on the points we are going to cover, and you had the time to pick out your State's answer, the answers might be out-of-date by the time you read this. Therefore, nothing in this booklet is intended as legal advice regarding any concrete legal situation."

Birk & Company, 1952

How The Courts Protect You

"Happily, most Americans pass their entire lifetime without seeing a court in session, except perhaps when they serve as jurors or are called to testify as witnesses. The administration of justice often seems remote and vague. And yet, it is the system of courts, with their hundreds of judges, which has made American democracy work. Without judges and juries to pass on the facts and apply the law, and without the checking of errors by higher courts to which appeals are taken, and without a Supreme Court at Washington, ever mindful of the tendencies of human nature to grasp for power and oppress minorities, our precious liberties would be as chaff in the wind. Equal justice before the law is our cherished ideal. Rich and poor, the alien and the citizen, men and women of every race or creed find our courts open to receive their pleas; and it is commonplace to see the lowly prevail over the mighty as our courts grind out their judgments."

Alumni Offset Inc. & Richard Hall, 1953

You And Your Supreme Court

"Oyez, oyez! All persons having business before the honorable Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God bless the United States and this honorable Court." 

Good Reading Rack Service, 1957

You And The Law

"Whenever you think about "the law," it's probably about the cop on the corner, a private detective on television or some vague sort of trouble. Actually, under the American system of government, "the law" is a set of ground rules to help you play the game of life successfully. It gives you certain rights and privileges in return for certain duties and responsibilities. These ground rules are necessary in a society because we need an umpire to yell "fair" or "foul" when our deeds or desires conflict with those of our neighbors - and vice versa."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1958

Rediscovery Of America

"I have just returned from a 10,000-mile automobile journey of exploration of the United States after an absence of 15 years, revisiting the cities, towns and localities I used to know. I have been living abroad since 1940, and this was like moving into a new world. It was like being given a ringside seat for a close-up of the greatest peaceful social and economic revolution in recorded history. I had never seen an atomatic-energy plant, a Negro major-league baseball player, a jet-aircraft base of guided-missile center, a one-price housing development or a real super-market, married students' quarters in a university or the impact of 60 million cars rolling the highways. I had yet to encounter such new Americana as the luxury motel and a worker-owned factory. I was a stranger to a whole new way of life in a one-story, servantless, do-it-yourself, own-your-own home United States."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1956

A Briton Looks At America

"Realistic Americans understand that they cannot be liked by everybody in the world, and that even those who admire them will not like everything they do. Yet there are times when the criticisms leveled against this nation seem to pass all reasonable bounds. Whatever the United States does or does not do, someone points a finger of blame. In the great postwar time of trial, we appear to have become everybody's scapegoat. Never was this truer than in the present critical days."

Employee Relations Inc., 1957

The Day I Was Proudest To Be An American

"From the day of the United Nations' inception the voices of the famished, the diseased, and the despairing have been heard in its halls, calling for help. How have the nations of the world answered their please? Irene Dunne was deputized to give the United States' response at the U.N. Miss Dunne was a member of the U.S. delegation to the twelfth U.N. General Assembly. It was a new role for her. Usually she's seen on the screen. Her very first movie, Cimarron, won the Motion Picture Academy Award, and she quickly became a Hollywood luminary. What is it like to be a U.S. delegate to the United Nations? After my years in the movies I thought I was used to drama and excitement. But Hollywood has nothing that can approach the United Nations in these spheres. In the past I have greatly enjoyed making people laugh. Some of my favorite films have been comedies. At the United Nations, there is no time for comedy."

Good Reading Rack Service, 1959

The American Dream

"During the Second World War, I met on the train a lieutenant who had just returned from fighting in Italy. He had been in the North African campaign. He had fought in Sicily. He wore the Purple Heart ribbon with his campaign ribbons. I asked him what he thought of America. It was a hard question to ask of a man who had been gone so long, who had been fighting for his country...who had been wounded in action...It was almost an impertinence. He said that after what he had seen in North Africa and in Italy, he appreciated America more than ever." 

McGraw-Hill Book Company Inc., 1951

The Secret Of America's Greatness

"Every thoughtful American has a strong conviction as to what kind of country he wants this to be. He must start by knowing what kind of country it is, and that is not easy amidst the dust storms of current controversy. He must have ideas as to what it is that makes for weakness, and then strive to support the one and overcome the other. America is a great country, a magnificent country. But those are mere words unless we know why. If America is great we must understand what made her so, in order that as individual citizens, we may know what we must do that she may remain great. Our nation must not go on making the staggering sacrifices now being required of us unless we are sure what it is we are seeking to preserve."

Little, Brown & Company, 1953