Publix Opinion (May 16, 1930)

“CONSCIENCE IS ONLY BOSS ~ IN PUBLIX (Continued from Page Six) mean to convey by that that if ‘any of you have a brother and he thinks he likes this business, if he is made of the right stuff, that I would not rather have you open the right door for him than the wrong one,— 3 I am for that, but it stops right _ there. From then on the race a is wide open and nobody is ever going to count the manner in ‘which a fellow’s hair is combed or what church he goes to, or whom he knows, or anything else in the development of this business. Now, with that policy in vogue ' —and I guarantee you that it is— ' TIrepeat again that I want you to _ remember that we have a right ' to ask of you that return confidence and belief: in us, and if we make some mistakes they will be mistakes of judgment and never of intent. ' ‘In thinking of the person who is going to take up the work in ' New England where Mr. Fitzgib' pons is leaving it, we were faced with an interesting problem. This division has more partnerships in it than any division we have on the circuit. In all of the other divisions our partnerships have been pretty much acquired. We have isolated ones here, there and the ' other place, and usually small ones, but that goes for practically every other division in America. In New England our story is different, as you know, and you have a partnership with Maine & New Hampshire, and a partnership with Netoco, we have partnerships with men like Mr. Russell, and up and down the line throughout New England, which are still in existence. ‘Fitzgibbons’ Successor We felt that keenly when we thought of whom we were going to send here to take up Mr. Fitzgibbons’ work first; secondly, your division is spread over seven states; third, your division has _ within itself every type and kind of operation that we have anywhere in the United States. We start with the Metropolitan in Boston, of the highest type of presentation operation that we have. You have a vaudeville theatre in Boston. -You have, -of course, your key cities, like Springfield, Worcester, Hartford and New Haven, and. then you operate in remote places where you use four, five and six pictures a week, and where the dollar you save is the only dollar you make, as contrasted with the Metropolitan where sometimes it is the dollar you spend wisely that brings the dollar you make. We felt that this division required at this time a man who has grown up with us over a sufficiently long period to have thoroughly and completely absorbed all of those experiences that I have just enumerated. The man we are bringing to you 1s a man I know a good many of you know, Martin Mullin. About all of the nice things and the kind ', things that can be justifiably said a about Fitz, from our standpoint in 4 W ¢ 0106-10-00 O-1 0+ 0101-0101 O10 S189 SO S101 O18! e “T can honestly assure you that your organization has no politicians in it. I have no use for them. There isn’t anybody in this company going to promote anybody because of any personal equations or per sonal interests.” O10 Os-©-9O+-@ 1Os-@ +O+-O-10:-S-+8+-O + O:-O-16s-O-28'-O-10'-O 10+ O80 D-O+ © OO-+6+OO + © Or 0+ © Or O86 OO + O10 O0+ 10° O-* ‘ o £0 --@ +0 +-@18-@-9O+-@ + O+OO 1-O81-0 OO O18" OOO | Fitz. the home office, you could merely substitute the name of Mullin where you have the name ofFitz and have all of these statements fit. My four and a half years with |. Mullin has been very typical of my four and a half years with Mullin has been sent for and just told to go here and go there, and no questions were asked. His most recent change I think best characterizes Mullin. I am going to take the liberty of delving a little bit into his private life. Mullen has had a real uphill battle. He has a boy that has not been well, and we in the home office know just exactly what that has taken out of him, and I know of nobody that I have ever met to whom moves have been a greater sacrifice than they have been moving Mullin arouhd and away from his domestic responsibilities. : We finally sent him to Minneapolis where he did a thoroughly remarkable job, a very remarkable job. We sent him into a delicate situation, a business that had grown for 20 odd years with definite traditions, most of which were foreign to our method of doing business, and it took a pretty good tactful gentleman to go up there and take hold of that thing and not kick the skids from underneath it. He not only did not kick the skids from underneath it, but he took all that self-same manpower, including the son of the owner of that business and converted them into real organiza‘tional people, and built a good will in a short time for our company up there which is unmistakable. He co-operated thoroughly with his distribution department there. | Mullin Makes Decision — | Finally in Minneapolis he found the spot that was doing his boy a great deal of good. The doctor up there treated his boy and helped him ‘a lot, and it was a pretty ticklish thing to ask Mullin to leave. I called him on the telephone in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago, and I think I said, ‘How are you?” He said, ‘‘Fine.”’ I said, “You are going to Boston.” And I remember that all he said was, “Wait a minute.” That was to give him a chance to catch his breath on the long distance telephone, and I guess he caught his breath for a minute, and then he said, “O. K.” I cannot tell you quite the emotion I felt because of. the situation I knew about, and |— finally I said, “Now, you better hold that decision until tomorrow morning. Go home and talk it over with you family.’’ But, characteristic of him , he said, “I will make the decision for the family. |. It is all set.” Now, for the benefit of those of you who have not had personal and intimate contact with Mullin, that is the kind of a human being you are getting in New England, and what is most important from your standpoint, is that the same fine representation that you have had in New York through Fitz, the same fine, patient education that Fitz has been giving you, I know will be continued by Mullin, and | there will be the same unstinted and whole-hearted desire to see you grow, that you got from Fitz, you are going to get from Mullin. If you think Fitz has annoyed you with long hours and nightly chas ing, why you have got another one coming. You are going to have an opportunity, I know, to ‘meet Mullin at your theatres at midnight and after midnight and quite early in the morning. “i I have deliberately gone into this description of Mullin because this is such an.important division. It is growing rapidly to the point where the company looks to us for a return at least equal to that which we are now getting out of any division in America. As a matter of fact, the only division in America that returns a greater number of dollars to the company, and should, because of its greater investment, is the division of Chicago and Detroit. Immediately following that division comes the New England; also, immediately following that division from the standpoint of capital invested comes New England. But with PUBLIX OPINION, WEEK OF MAY 1érx, 1930 $ Pee eee eee s8 eso 8r 010s rOr rere r8s “What I, think we have done with you is to express | great confidence in you, great respect for you, and a willingness to be as patient with you as you would chose to have us be. In return for that we ask x the same thing, we ask you to be just exactly as pa tient with us, no more, no less.” 0 -O© °-O102 BO +--+ OO Oe-O 0 O+-O-9 02-2 O0-O-O1-O Oe SO2-OO° S09 OO }°-D-2@e-S-O°-O-2Os-S-$OSO +-O-2O2O° O+-S + O*-S + O*O° O°-S2B:-OO:-O B+ O99-S : ¢ t) 2O2-O 1° © O+-O10+-O+8+-O-10+-S +8-O28--O10:-G 18-00: Oo ) these recent acquisitions, and when you have fully absorbed and are fully realizing all your posSibilities here, your division will undoubtedly take its place right alongside of Chicago and Detroit for returns. | Increased Opportunities To those men who operate immediately under Mullin, and I refer specifically to Messrs. Branton and Cuddy in this instance, I know you will give to him exactly what you have given to Mr. Fitzgibbons, and that you in turn will receive just that from him, and I want you. to know that we are looking forward to you more anxiously than: you are to us for increased opportunities for you. I visualize these next five years—if I come back here and talk with you five years from today, I think I will tell. you a story that is going to be multiplied quite considerably over the story I am telling you today. , Mr. Zukor, at the present mo ment, is in Europe laying the fi-. nancial foundation for a spread of this company’s activities throughout the world. I look forward in a reasonably short time to be able to call you, and you, and you, on the telephone and tell you to pack your bags for Australia, and that with no greater tremor in my voice than when I tell you to go to Carolina from here. And if we do our job right that is not anywhere near as wild a dream as when we said a few years ago that if we did our job right we would be represented everywhere in the United States. The fellows who have popped through for the bigger jobs have invariably been those fellows who learned to honestly take communion with themselves and honestly appraise themselves and honestly have a credit and debit sheet of their own. activities. That is the biggest step forward in any man’s progress. When you have licked yourself 'to the point where you really make up a sum total of yourself and do not jolly yourself, you have made the biggest step forward in advancement, and that is approached only by your ability ‘to teach yourself to think in a calm, organized manner. While I have repeated this and repeated this, and while it is probably the tritest thing I say, I do not ever expect to stop repeating it because I hope each time to face new.men, because I know when I am facing new men our business is growing, that we are not at a standstill, and I want to admonish you tothe fullest, extent on those basic fundamentals. Individual Latitude As I said before, I have no use for overnight geniuses. I cannot help it, because I have seen a lot of them come and go in my time in this business, and I find myself unconsciously drawing within a shell when I meet a miracle worker. All I mean to convey by that is that there is nothing mysterious about this whole thing, and your progress is in the ratio of your willingness to prepare yourself properly and think your way through. While we are trying to stand ‘ardize certain phases of our oper 0@e~@-0 Oe-@-9 Oe-@-2Oe-O-0O2-O-Oe-S-1O-O-1Os-S-B'-B-O*-O-GOB °-O ation, particularly during course of rapid expansion, we standardize and send out from a central source as many standardized helps as is possible, yet I realize that finally the most important thing for us is to be certain that the educational processes leave with each man enough so that he may exercise latitude in his work. While it is true that we do send from the home office so many formulae for theatre operation, conduct of employees, while your pictures are bought for you, while manuals are sent to you jon advertising, while your atten tion is directed by calendars and other devices to this holiday coming and that one coming, and all that sort of thing, and while young men are traveling the country edu cating your front house employees | for you, while all of that is going on, yet I believe that slowly but surely we are equalizing that with the increased latitude that is being given the district managers in contemplation of their district problems. We receive in the home office some 75 or 80 district managers’ letters weekly. These are individual district letters, and are a resume of your district activities. It is interesting to note the different characteristics in each letter, so that I believe that slowly but surely we are not destroying initiative and individualized thinking in our manpower. The very nature of this business makes you a better man for all the additional counsel that you can get. I was very fortunate in my career in this business, fortunate to have got mixed up in a large enterprise very early in my life, and the only credit that I want to take unto myself is that I availed myself of everything that the large organization had to offer me. I never felt that I wrote the ticket on any phase of this business, and I know that everybody’s opinion was very, very important to me. My office door was always open, as it is now, and everybody came into it frequently, and I listened and took advantage of everybody’s experience, and if I get credit for having been a successful showman, that credit is fundamentally because, as I say, I was fortunate in getting into a large enterprise early and taking full advantage of all the fellows in it, to give me everything they had. | Use All Aids | That is very necessary, because the human being does not live who can sit in the projection room and look at a picture and write a complete ticket for it. Another mind and another thought, and another mind and another thought, insures your approach to getting the maximum benefit, and that is how I like to visualize this organization, and that is why we have these words here, ‘‘Know your organization.’’ Because your individuality and your individual approach to your problem can be greatly helped and your individuality given greater expression by your willingness to avail yourself of all of the things that are there for you to utilize. Our company, as a whole, has made great progress in these 18 months. I do not suppose that any of us, in all our experience, have known 18 months of pictures such as have come from the Paramount Studios in this period, and, boys, I want to assure you that it is not an accident. In effect what took place was something like this: Mr. Lasky’s early experiences in the show business, his vaudeville producing and the musical things he used O20 0-0-2861 8+-O-10+S-2O0-O-10 0-10-90 O01 O-10+-O-OOO" “We religiously avoid the cheap, petty claptrap that this business used to be so full of and I believe that the same is true to a greater or less degree, throughout the entire field.” vn : t i i i : i ; i ~D2Oe-O-$ 05-0 O-+Oe-S 0 e-O-2BeGS-2 Oe-G-+O0-O-0OeOB: the j to do as a young man, just came in great stead in the talking picture era, with the net result that he has stepped far ahead on the proposition, and the same kind of organization that we are talking about here, the same kind of thinking, as nearly as it is applicable to a Studio, has pare permeated the The best testimony to that statement is that when amine the list of players, he. ane cessful players on the Paramount program today, what do you find? You find that Paramount hag within its stock company more Successful players than all. of the other companies in the industry combined. Now, someday, just as ‘a little exercise for yourself, add them up, and then add up everybody on everybody else’s program and see the net result. I would be afraid to begin to enumerate them because I know I could not count them, but just as we are trying to give birth to greater opportunities to youth and young men, so exactly has that process been followed through at the studio, and we have been so spoiled in the home office that when:a Paramount picture comes along— I know a year or two ago we used to think in terms of “pretty good Dicture’’—we just do not expect anything but that from | Para: mount, and I know it is a shock when we get a picture now about which there might be some debate as to which house it ought to play. That has taken place there and it is well for you to keep that in front of you because the company as a whole is no better or “worse than any of its component parts. a ee Paramount Changed Plans The distribution department necessarily, with the changing times and circuit development, is changing its plans considerably. They are going to make a very substantial bet this year on the things I have been talking about. They are going to bet that through the studio’s activities and your | proper support of the product, that they can sell this year on a basis of taking a greater chance than ever before in the history of the company. In other words,—~ the company is going to go out almost whole heartedly on percentage this year, almost wholly for its entire program, and you can well realize what that means. There used to be a time, and only recently, when George Schaefer could look at his division in advance and know what the company was going to do in distribution, but next season he has' got’ to look out for an entirely ditferent problem, and he is going to! look to our own theatres to.'a° tre-: mendously increasing degreé for! — support, in establishing it properly in the key centers in which we operate, because unless we do that, he is going to be wrong in his sell-. ing plans, and if ‘he is wrong in: his selling plans, we cannot save it by anything that we might make. off any other product. I can antee that. So, you. hav within the company a. tho co-ordinated program of. pro ure, each link completely and questionably dependent upon other, and if we make a mistake and do not do our job right we are going to tie up a lot of ambitious young fellows in a lot of other departments and I know the boys in the distribution feel just exactly the same toward us, that if they make a mistake and do not see the joint problem of the company, they are going to be very unfair in tying up a lot of us, and» with that thing firmly fixed in our minds, I want to tell you an interesting thing that took place a couple of weeks ago. ae About two weeks ago Messrs. |Shaeffer, Clark, Bill Saal, and my ‘self sat down in George’s office in New York and in less: than two hours we bought all of the product for the entire United States and had our entire schedule for the next year in two hours. It is not so long ago that we spent two weeks on a given town, principally because we had not arrived at that point where we thoroughly (Continued on Page Eleven)