Fred High: editor and publisher

              FRED HIGH 
Editor and Publisher


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MAKING SERVICE PAY



The Golden Rule of Life, Business Success, Social Advancement and Permanent Prosperity Presented in a Series of Booklets, Magazine and Newspaper Articles, Talks, Lectures and Addresses





THE MESSAGE AND THE MESSENGER



BY MAYNARD LEE DAGGY




Fred High personifies the philosophy that is now set forth by many business clubs much after the form of the Rotary Club in its motto:  
He profits most who serves best.
  As an editor and investigator he has delved into the arts and sciences, investigated great business concerns, analyzed professions, and has found that it always pays generous dividends when, as the Kiwanians say, 
We Build
 on this law and this philosophy.




Fred High is no mere theorist.  He does not chase rainbows.  Facts constitute the substance of his message—facts gathered from actual observation, demonstrated by personal experience, and vitalized by the deepest sympathy.




After his graduation from college he went upon the platform for a number of seasons.  He traveled over much of the United States and Canada.




Then we find him in a newspaper office, working as manager of the Waynesburg, Pa., Daily Times.  It was in the sanctorum of this newspaper that he was found when the call for national journalistic effort came.  Then followed the eight years in his own office in Chicago, where he edited and published his own magazine, 
The Platform,
 a forceful and purposeful publication.  It was through this magazine and its championship of the small towns and the rural community activity that much of the present community interest was awakened.  At that time the word 
community
 was almost unknown as a practical sociological and business factor.




Besides publishing his magazine Fred High published a number of books.  
Prison Problems
 went through four editions, and although now out of print, is even yet used in a number of schools and colleges as a reference and text book on this subject.




Fred High has been a pamphleteer of the old schools.  In 1913 he joined forces with Montaville Flowers in a campaign to awaken the American public to the dangers of the Japanese immigration as an economic, social and international problem.  A campaign of education was conducted from 
The Platform
 office, from which tens of thousands of little booklets, 
Do Americans Know?
 written by Mr. Flowers, were distributed through this country and Canada.  This question at that time, owing to the organized and stupendous propaganda conducted by various selfish agencies, was so unpopular that in making this fight they jeopardized their reputations and business standing.




Recent events and the action of Congress is an evidence of their foresight.  Five decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States have since used in detail, often verbatim, the arguments used in that campaign by Montaville Flowers and Fred High.




When the World War came on, Mr. High sold his magazine and took a position as a Department Editor of The Billboard, the world's greatest amusement magazine, where he remained for nearly six years.  He resigned from this position in January, 1923, to devote his time to promoting greater community and better business activities, in which field he has proven his worth as a great national leader.





AN INTERNATIONAL PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN



March 1st, 1923, found Fred High at Jacksonville as speaker for the Kiwanis Club, (Ladies' Night,) then on Saturday April 14th he was there for the National Convention of Cloverleaf Life and Casualty Association, as banquet speaker.  Sunday evening, Franklin, (Union Church Meeting.)  Monday Evening, Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.  The week of May 14th to 19th, Community Co-operation Week under Auspices Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce.  Spoke 19 times in Jacksonville and Morgan County.  Week of November 5th he was again engaged by the Chamber of Commerce for a series of conferences with business men and city officials.  Spoke 5 times, making in all 29 stated addresses given in Jacksonville and Morgan County.




Out of these visits have grown an International publicity campaign that has been of inestimable value to Jacksonville and Morgan County.  The Rotarian for October published a feature article about this great activity, the editor wrote 
I have no hesitancy in saying that this is one of the most helpful and constructive articles we have ever carried.
  The Dearborn Independent, October 11th, had a feature story.  The Associated Press took it up and carried a story.  The National Community Magazine and The Community Leader carried stories.  The Press of Illinois gave it generous review.  The Patent Inside featured this story which was printed in hundreds of papers in this country and Canada and the work has only begun, and last but not least, The Saturday Evening Post of November 24th, devoted almost a half page to Jacksonville and its activity, of which The Jacksonville Daily Courier editorially said:  
Such publicity is of inestimable value to our city.




Mayor Crabtree of Jacksonville has been swamped with invitations to visit other cities and tell them how Jacksonville did it.  He recently went to Halifax, Nova Scotia, as guest of the city, to tell them how Jacksonville has been working out her problem, making a journey of 4000 miles for that purpose.




The Chamber of Commerce engaged Fred High to write a twenty-eight page booklet about Jacksonville which he did.  10,000 copies of these have been printed and if you are interested in reading this wonderful story you can get a copy by addressing Harold Welch, Secretary, Chamber of Commerce, Jacksonville, Ill.




Speaking of the work at Jacksonville, the Saturday Evening Post editorially declared:  
It is said that five years ago a telegraph company declined an official telegram proffered by the Mayor of Jacksonville, Illinois, on the ground that the city's credit was not good for the sixty cents which was the cost of the message.  Political mismanagement, free spending and free borrowing had put the town flat on its back.  Recently the same town carried through a drive for $200,000 for a new hotel; it has just spent $10,000 on a public swimming pool, and has been chosen as the site for the home office of a company doing a national business of some two million dollars.  There is no miracle here, though the case of Jacksonville is exceptional in the extremity of its circumstances and in the hearty accord with which its citizens worked to bring about a cure.  The case, however, does—or should—possess some interest for the country at large, in view of the developing tendency of neighborhoods generally to regard public credit as a bottomless 
purse.





A Few Banquet and Convention Engagements



Iowa, Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky State Hardware Dealers Conventions.




Michigan and Wisconsin Rexall Druggists State Conventions.




Southern Iowa and Cook County Lumber Dealers Conventions.




Illinois and Eastern Iowa District Kiwanis Conventions (3 years.)




Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas District Kiwanis Convention.




Indiana Chiropractic Convention, Ross College (3 years.)




Michigan Optometrist State Convention.




Michigan Credit Men's State Convention.




Michigan Independent Oil Men's Association State Convention.




Lake County, Indiana, Teachers' Institute (2 years.)




Illinois Plumbers State Convention.




Elkhart County, Indiana, Bankers Convention.




Minnesota Dry Goods Merchants State Convention.




Iowa Funeral Directors State Convention.




Illinois Secretaries Chambers of Commerce State Convention.






THE WAY THIS PHILOSOPHY IS RECEIVED




Dollars Come Rolling Into Town Because There is Some One Back of Each Dollar With Real Effort.





Fred High's lecture, 
Making Service Pay
 has been given a great many times before such organizations as Chambers of Commerce, Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs and Merchants Associations and is really his one great theme.  It is his religion and expresses his philosophy of life.  That it is appreciated by those who hear it can be best illustrated by a single example as set forth in the story of its reception at Michigan City.




In December he spoke for the Welfare Club of the Haskell-Barker Car Co., where three thousand men are employed in the great car works.  Then on June 3rd he was again in Michigan City, but this time for the Rotary Club.  The following letter from W. K. Greenebaum, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the entertainment committee of the Rotary Club, stated:  
Among the many speakers I have heard I know of none who have thrilled our members and appealed to them more than Fred High did, and I can assure you that Rotary of Michigan City in its future activities will feel the impulse of his address.




The Michigan City News said:  
Fred High's address was brimful of sound philosophy and was delivered in such a humorous style that he kept the members of Rotary almost in a constant uproar of laughter.




June 25th found him back there where he spoke for the employees of the Angsten-Cox Co., the Bromwell Brush and Wire Co., and the Perfection Cooler Co.  He then visited Michigan City where he was one of the speakers at the state convention of Secretaries of the various Chambers of Commerce throughout Indiana who hold their annual gathering in this city.




He was again drafted and this time he visited the great state penitentiary that is located there and talked for the 900 prisoners who gathered in the chapel where they laughed and cried, were stirred and inspired by the same wonderful story that had already been heard by so many people in this little Atlantic City of the Midwest.




P. S.—Since the above was written he has talked for the annual meeting of foremen and superintendents at the Haskel-Barker Car Company, and on March 19, he opened the drive for the Chamber of Commerce.  Michigan City has secured 28 factories, turned her sand dunes into a state park, converted her lake front into a permanent all-year resort, built a $1,000,000 hotel, 600 cottages and already has twenty-one state and national conventions booked for 1924.  The week of February 11th was devoted to a special campaign and conference under Fred High's direction.  For further facts write W. K. Greenebaum, Secretary, Chamber of Commerce, Michigan City, Ind.




FRED HIGH'S VISIT HELPED COMMUNITY



The address of Fred High, delivered here Thursday evening was one of the most worth while which has been heard in the city for sometime.  Mr. High is a man of wide experience, and the plain facts he gave his audience here were sound, wholesome and authoritative.  The local Chamber of Commerce deserves great credit for bringing such a speaker to Jacksonville.  Those who heard Mr. High could hardly help thinking more deeply of the great civic problems and their respect for the ideal of service to others were certainly greatly increased.—


Jacksonville, Ill., Daily Journal.





CHAMBER OF COMMERCE FORUM HEARS REMARKABLE LECTURE



The large audience at the Chamber of Commerce Forum was certainly delighted with Fred High's address on 
Making Service Pay,
 and in his hour and three-quarters of bristling facts and well-directed humor, he drew frequently upon his own experience as a salesman, a writer, an editor and a student of business problems.  At the conclusion, his hearers arose to their feet and applauded for several minutes—in all probability the most enthusiastic demonstration ever given an orator in a similar gathering here.  The address was Mr. High's second of the day.  At noon he was the guest of the Rotary and Kiwanis clubs at a luncheon at the Ludington Hotel, where he talked to the clubs on the possibilities of real service by civic organizations to their communities.—


Escanaba, Mich., Daily Press.





COMMERCIAL CLUBS AND BANKERS HEAR TWO GREAT ADDRESSES



A luncheon meeting attended by 180 men—members of the Kiwanis and Rotary clubs and the Chamber of Commerce—in the Hotel Elkhart today noon, was kept in an almost continuous roar of laughter when Fred High of Chicago, who has been heard in Elkhart on several previous occasions, gave a talk that could best be described by a flock of adjectives such as 
clever,
 
humorous
 and 
amusing,
 but with all 
stimulative,
 
instructive
 and 
revealing.
  His talk was full of clever illustrations, euphonious wordings and 
sublime
 satire.
Mr. High was secured to speak at this meeting through the courtesy of the Elkhart Bankers' association, which organization brought him to Elkhart for an address at its meeting tonight.—
Elkhart, Ind. Truth




BUSINESS PEOPLE HEAR SERVICE TALK



Fred High of the Retail Merchants Institute, Chicago, was the feature of the evening.  Mr. High took as his topic, 
Making Service Pay.

It would seem that Mr. High personifies the philosophy set forth by many business clubs after the form of the Rotary club motto:  
He profits most who serves best.
The speaker told vividly many incidents that have proven 
service pays.
  His address was a rapid fire assortment of clean fun and shots of wit and humor.  Then, after the laughter had died out, Mr. High would return to the preaching of 
service.
  He brought many chuckles from the gathering last evening, but at the same time, he put over a strong plea for service, preaching synopsis sermons that stuck in the minds of his hearers.Mr. High closed his address amidst the greatest ovation ever accorded a speaker in Monroe.—

Monroe, Mich. Evening News, Jan. 19th, 1923.




FRED HIGH A COMMUNITY DOCTOR



A two-column article in The Jacksonville (Ill.) Journal gives a fine showing for Michigan City, where Fred High spent a week recently.  A two-column article in The Michigan City Dispatch speaks glowingly of the result of that work.
I do not believe there is a city of from five to fifty thousand thousand inhabitants in America which he could not help to grow into a bigger and better city.  He seems to have a knack of digesting figures and finding the very heart of each civic difficulty.  Moreover, he seems to be able to turn the calcium light of publicity upon each community he serves until all the world knows of that town and what it stands for.  By the time he has been able to fix all the communities which are waiting for him, one will be able to trace his trail by hitting the High spots of the towns worth while.—

The Billboard, March 15, 1924.





FRED HIGH SAYS PEOPLE NEED AWAKENING



Mr. High's address was the outstanding feature of the annual meeting of the local business men's organization and concluded the evening's program.  Talking for over an hour, holding his audience spell-bound, frequently breaking it into a noisy pandemonium of laughter, there wasn't a person in the room, which included ladies, that did not figure he or she had gained a million dollars worth of common sense that could be applied to practically every day life.—


The Pekin, Ill., Daily Times, April 30, 1924.






Quincyans are Stirred to Laugh and to Work at Kiwanis Birthday Party



Quincy Kiwanians with several hundred guests dined, cheered, sang and laughed for three and a-half hours Monday evening.  The entire company, Kiwanians and guests, had their appetites fully satisfied, their desire for the humorous completely appeased, and their zeal for unselfish service strengthened.  It was a happy anniversary that Kiwanis celebrated at the Congregational Church, and everybody enjoyed himself and herself to the utmost at the merry birthday party.
Fred High was introduced as the principal speaker of the evening.  He has originality, fluency, wit and punch, which help him to put over a message that impresses itself upon the mind and lingers in the memory.  High is a member of the Kiwanis Club, and has caught the true Kiwanis spirit of vigorous and unselfish service.  His theme was 
Making Service Pay.
  This is the special brand of philosophy which he expounds eloquently from end to end of the country.  In his rapid fire manner he piles illustration upon illustration and experience upon experience to prove his theory that 
Service Pays.
  At times High was sympathetic in his stories and almost evangelistic in his religion.  At others he was in the rarest good humor, bringing laugh upon laugh to his large and hearty audience.  It was as effective an appeal to service for the benefit of the company and for one's own inner salvation that ever has been delivered in Quincy.  Kiwanis made more friends than ever Monday night.  People know more than ever what it stands for and what it hopes to accomplish in this community.—


The Quincy, Ill., Daily Tribune, January 16th, 1923.





ILLINOIS LUMBER MERCHANTS' ASSOCIATION



431 South Dearborn Street Chicago, May 1, 1922.




American Community Association.  430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.




Gentlemen:  I have never undertaken to say a good word for a convention speaker with the same enthusiasm that I have for Fred High.  I have been conducting business men's conventions for over twenty years, and never before have I secured a speaker who hit the men where they live quite so effectively as Mr. High did at our convention.




He has a delightful personality, is cultured, thoroughly informed, absolutely unaffected and a genuine orator who gets his message across.  I have seen him take a tired audience and within two minutes he had them sitting up straight, applauding, giving strict attention and forgetting the time, their trains and everything else, save what he was saying.  After one such meeting our business men attending just made a rush for the speaker's table to ask if it would be possible to get him for a date at their various home towns.




I say that when a group of business men do this after a strenuous day of technical work, as they did at our recent convention, then you can rest assured that the speaker has delivered the goods.




GEORGE WILSON JONES, Mgr., Illinois Lumber Merchants Association.





High's Appeal To Service Had A Good Effect
Busy Quincy Man Says He Can't Avoid Any Kind of Service Now.

It is not every speaker who can boast of immediate results from his public addresses.  Sometimes the efforts seem futile, but every once in a while comes an evidence of practical, definite results which brings the very encouragement which a speaker prizes most.


Fred High spoke hard and earnestly on 
Service Pays
 Monday evening at the Kiwanis banquet.

A banker of Quincy, on the board of one of the city's charitable institutions, was appealed to Tuesday morning to attend a meeting of the board this week.  He was about to give an excuse of too much work, etc., but he didn't.  He simply answered, 
After last night's address I simply can't turn down any call to service that comes to me.  I'll be there!

Fred High ought to feel encouraged.—


The Quincy Daily Herald, Jan. 16, 1923.



AD LEAGUE HEARS EDITOR



Seldom have speakers before the Ad-Sell league received so warm a welcome and commanded such hearty laughter as greeted Fred High, who addressed 400 members of that organization last night at Hotel Fontenelle.—


Omaha, Neb., Bee.





A Greater Community and Better Business Institute



CORPUS CHRISTI CHAMBER OF COMMERCE City Hall Building Corpus Christi, Texas




June 20, 1924.




The Community Development Association, Room 1004, 115 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois.




Gentlemen:




The shouting and the tumult dies
—and in the quiet that succeeds the excitement of our strenuous week's campaign, I want to write and thank you for the work that Fred High did here.




I believe our mayor, Dr. P. G. Lovenskiold, expressed the sentiment of everybody when he said:  
The Greater Community and Better Business Institute is the greatest thing that has ever come to Corpus Christi.
  Mr. Henry Baldwin, President of our Chamber of Commerce, has stated repeatedly that 
our trip to Taft and Gregory alone was worth all the effort and expense of the campaign.  Our board of directors are all satisfied that it was a piece of sound good business to have him come here.




He accomplished several things here.  He entertained our people and gave them something to think about in his numerous addresses.  But he did more than that—the week's campaign had the effect of a community revival.  I believe everybody here has a larger vision of community service.  I know that the visits we made to the outlying towns and communities have already resulted in much good.  It is the ambition of this Chamber to promote the interests of this whole section.  We have risen above any policy of selfish isolation.  We know that what benefits towns lying about us benefits us, and we are working to create such an inter-city harmony and understanding as will enable us to carry on the big work we have undertaken.  Our efforts are meeting with success, and, in the main, with understanding on the part of the surrounding towns.  I regard Fred High's work here as the most important and fundamental step we could have taken in the development of this program.




Many times the expense, many times the effort put in on this week's work would have been a small investment in proportion to the good it accomplished.  Fred flung himself without reservation into a campaign so strenuous that when some of our officers saw the program they said that I was going to work him to death; and he carried on this work in our interest to a point of physical exhaustion that strikes my conscience as I look back upon it.  To me, this was somewhat a matter of course, because I knew his work of old; but to many of our people it was an occasion of wonder how he stood the gaff.  He won the confidence and the love of our people in an unusual degree, and we have reason to be thankful for his coming, and he has reason to be proud of the results achieved here.




On behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and the people of Corpus Christi, I want to extend heartfelt thanks and appreciation for all he did.




RALPH BRADFORD, Manager.






Engagements made by The Community Development Association
115 S. Dearborn Street CHICAGO