THE YEARS went by I was becoming more and more involved with another of my clients, Taft Broadcasting Company. We took the company public in the summer of 1959 and followed that with the listing of the company shares on the New York Stock Exchange. I was named secretary of the company and later served on its board. I liked everything about this client. Little did I know that I would one day be part of it. Much more on this shortly.
AS I LOOK back after so many years, I truly believe that I learned more from my clients and the matters I handled for them than they ever learned from me. Let me give you a few examples.
The first story concerns a company called Rainbow Crafts and its founder Joe McVicker. Rainbow Crafts owned and manufactured Play-Doh, the incredibly successful children’s molding compound. Joe McVicker was a very impressive fellow, and he and I became good friends. I once asked him how he had come up with Play-Doh, and the story he told absolutely amazed me. Joe’s brother-in-law ran a company, Kutol Products, that made wallpaper cleaner; Joe was also involved in this business. Most of those under fifty reading this book probably don’t know what wallpaper cleaner was; it was a spongy-type substance containing a cleaning agent that was used to brighten dirty or dusty wallpaper. Joe’s sister ran a nursery school in the Washington, D. C., area, and she observed that if the wallpaper cleaner made by Kutol didn’t have a cleaning agent in it, it would make a wonderful thing for the children in her nursery school to play with. Joe—and I assume his brother-in-law—figured out how to remove any harsh or toxic substances from the wallpaper cleaner and—it became Play-Doh! I’m sure it wasn’t as simple as it sounds but many great ideas look simple in retrospect. As a kid I helped my mother and dad more than once clean the wallpaper using wallpaper cleaner. If I had only known the potential for the stuff I was holding in my hands! What I learned from Joe’s story is that the essence of entrepreneurship—at least the American variety—is “think outside the box” (my friend W. R. Howell, former CEO of J. C. Penney, calls it “thinking the unthinkable”) and always try to envision the greatest possible potential no matter how mundane the beginning may be.
Joe McVicker obviously was the classic example of American entrepreneurship at its best. Having said that, I want to say a word about the finest entrepreneur and business builder I think I have ever known—my good friend Dick Farmer of the Cintas Corporation. Dick’s grandfather was actually a circus clown. In his off time he apparently was a “rag picker” who gathered up rags, cleaned them, and sold them. His son, Dick’s father, took this humble beginning and started Cintas, a company that laundered and cleaned uniforms used by companies of all sorts. It was this company that Dick joined right out of Miami University. Through his personality, intelligence, and drive, he has built Cintas into a dominant force in the industry and one of the most respected corporations in the country. He also happens to be the greatest salesman I think I have ever met. I know it’s an old joke to describe someone as a person who could “sell ice cubes to Eskimos,” but I honestly think Dick could do it.
I am proud to say that Dick and I share the same alma mater—Miami University. Dick and his charming wife, Joyce, are among Miami University’s major benefactors, and the business school, the Farmer School of Business, is named for Dick—as it should be.
THE SECOND STORY makes me smile every time I think of it—and I think you will see why. I represented a young man who was brilliant and hard driving, but he was one of the most unpleasant people I have ever known. He was constantly criticizing my work and berating me for not accomplishing more on his behalf. I always fought back and argued, and we had some pretty strong sessions. One day he called me and was particularly irate about something. I was suffering from some kind of bug that had settled in my throat and, during the ugly telephone conversation, I suddenly became unable to speak a single word or make any sound whatever! He would carry on and then pause waiting for a response, but I made none because I was unable to even utter a squawk. Finally, after several attempts to provoke me he finally said, “I guess you’re just tired of arguing with me, aren’t you?” Again I could say nothing. He said that he was sorry for the way he had dealt with me and hoped that I would continue to be his lawyer. Again no response. Finally, he said, “You must be really angry with me; we’ll talk tomorrow.” And he hung up. It is amazing, but I never had trouble with him again because he thought that I was so angry as to be speechless, and he decided to calm down. I never explained to him the reason for my complete silence, but, again, I learned something from the experience: When a situation becomes excessively unpleasant, it sometimes proves that the less said the better.
A YOUNG GERMAN immigrant named Ewald Pawsat came to the United States and settled first in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and then in Maysville, Kentucky. He started a bicycle repair shop and called it Wald. Over the years, he built the company into the largest supplier of bicycle parts made in the United States, selling to all the big bicycle manufacturers. Our firm represented Mr. Pawsat, and I was asked to work on his estate plan. After many meetings, his will was finally ready for signature. I met him at his office in Maysville to take care of the signing. But before that, I told him that I wanted to be sure that he had disclosed all matters of significance regarding his holdings, because if he had not I could not be sure that the will was what it should be. Mr. Pawsat by this time was in his seventies and was a man of enormous integrity. He said to me, “Well, there is one thing that I have not told you about.” When I asked what he meant, he explained that he was keeping some cash in the safe in his office that he had not mentioned to me. I assumed he was talking about a few thousand dollars. So I said, “Well, I don’t see that as a problem—how much are we talking about?” He paused and said, “Around $300,000.” This was in the mid-1960s! I swallowed hard and said, “Sir, I really think that’s too much money to be keeping in your safe. You should have it working for you at a bank or whatever.” At this point his voice got stronger and he said, “Let me explain something to you, young man. There was a time during the Great Depression that the banks closed and I was unable to raise enough cash to pay my employees, and that lasted for a whole two-week pay period. That was the most embarrassing thing that I had ever experienced, and I vowed that I would never let it happen again. That $300,000 is the amount I would need to meet a payday, and there is nothing that you or anybody else can say to make me take it out of that safe.”
That comment has never really left my mind. Another lesson learned: Those who went through the Great Depression, including my own father, never really recovered from it in terms of their trust in the stability of our system. It led that generation to be watchful and careful and probably led to building more great businesses and organizations than anyone will ever know.
PERHAPS THE STRANGEST matter that I ever was involved in as a lawyer was being caught up in the great Northeastern blackout of 1965. Our firm represented the First National Bank of Cincinnati. One of its senior loan officers, Rolf Brooks, received a subpoena to appear before a grand jury at the District Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York at Foley Square in downtown Manhattan. I don’t remember the purpose of the subpoena, but one never takes that sort of thing lightly. I do remember Rolf being concerned and anxious to appear and testify. We flew to New York on the night before we were to appear at the District Attorney’s office. Midway into the flight the pilot came on the intercom and said that we had an emergency, namely that there was a massive blackout covering the whole New York City area and that, of course, all of the airports were closed. He said we would land in Philadelphia, and the airline would arrange bus transportation to the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. We got off the plane and onto the bus and began the journey to Manhattan. But first I called the old Statler Hotel in New York City, where we had room reservations, and asked them to please hold our rooms, that we were on our way. Somewhat surprisingly they
