Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1914 — COURTESY IS HIS GREATEST ASSET [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COURTESY IS HIS GREATEST ASSET

Story of Charles J. Perry, the "Little Father of Park Row/ New York. ♦ REAL ROMANCE OF BUSINESS How Boda Water Boy, by Modesty, Kindliness and Efficiency, Became Most Famous Drug Store Proprietor of Metropolis.

By RICHARD BPILLANE. Where Park row branches off from Broadway, there used to be a gold mine. It was on the first floor of the old Herald building. An Englishman named Richard Hudnut worked it Beneath the Hugnut gold mine the presses of the Herald rumbled. Above, the editors and the printers toiled and moiled. Hudnut’s gold mine was a drug store. The store was oddly shaped because the Herald building stood on an irregular bit of ground. The building was put up in the day before skyscrapers, the day of heavy construction. The floor space of the drug store was broken by the Corinthian columns which supported the upper stories. Hudnut knew his business. z He handled only the best of goods and he charged the highest prices. He was a hard taskmaster. He expected the most faithful of service, and he did not pay very good wages, but he taught sound business to all his employes. A boy applied to Mr .Hudnut on Thanksgiving day In 1868, for work. He got a job behind the soda water counter at five dollars a week. The boy was from Richmond, Va. He was very modest, very bashful and acted as If he considered It a great privilege to work In such an establishment.

Not Like Other Soda Boys. The general run of soda water boys In 1868 were not much different from those of today. Most of them were careless, flippant and slangy. But this one was different. He had a smile for every customer, a courteous word for every caller. The other soda boys and the other clerks laughed at him. They were glad to have him around, because it meant less toll for them. After a while patrons got in the habit of waiting for the bashful boy to serve them with soda, and men who wanted prescriptions filled or wished to buy articles in stock often went to him when they found the prescription clerk or the floor men busy or unsatisfactory. The 1)oy seemed to take a delight in being obliging. He had a smile for incoming patrons, and a smile and a “thank you” for the outgoing ones. For a year he worked behind the soda counter 12 hours a day without an Increase of pay or a word of commendation from his employer. Other boys shirked, but he never did. The more they loafed, the more he tried to do. He had an ambition. -He wanted to be a floor clerk and a pharmacist. The college of pharmacy was in University place in those days. He took the course there, and when he was graduated he was made assistant cashier and then floor cletk. There was one job in the Hudnut establishment that worried the proprietor. He never had been able to get any one to satisfy him as night manager. Lower New York was not the lively' place at night that It is now. bridge was not built. Traffic to Brooklyn was by ferry. Boats ran only once an hour. The men who dropped Into Hudnut's not Infrequent!/ were the worse f<jr wear. Sometimes there'was not a visitor for hours.

Perry Became Night Bose. Mr. Hudnut was thinking of closing the store at night because of the difficulty he had in obtaining a proper manager. Something Impelled him to give the soda boy a trial. That is how it came to pass that Charles J. Perry became the night man at Hudnut's. From the time the boy from Virginia became night boss at Hudnut's the drug store became an institution. The newspaper men found It a very pleasant place to visit The great editors made It their meeting point after the papers were put to press. John Henderson of the Herald, John C. Reid of the Times; Charles A. Dana and William Lafflln of the Sun, the famous Henry J. Raymond and all the big lights of the journalistic world discussed world’s affairs when they met there late at night or early in the morning. They were mighty good customers, and so were the others who came to Hndnut’s because of the* opportunity afforded to chat with or to see the edltorg. Perry was always active. If he was not serving some one he was putting something to rights. He was very orderly, and seemed to have a genius to know what men wanted. Customers, seeing him rearrange goods, would suddenly discover that he was bringing to notice something that they- particularly wanted or desired. Then they would purchase and feel grateful to him for having brought it to their notice. He was just as courteous jqst as kindly, just as obliging la the list hour of his 12-hour trick as he was In the first. He did not growl or grumble if he was kept a few minutes or a half hour over his time. Persons who came In fretful went away with soothed feelings.

No one could be grumpy in his presence. He was a treasure to Hudnut, but Hudnut was awfully slow about showing his appreciation. . Mr. Sweetser Was Pleased. One morning, at nearly eight o’clock, an angry and impatient man came bustling Into the store. He wanted five cents’ worth of .flag root, and he asked in a challenging voice if Perry had the stuff. Perry smiling assured him that he; did. He wrapped up the preparation? handed it and a eheck to the man, smiled, and thanked him. The visitor looked at him in amazement “Where do you come from?" he asked. “How did'you get here?” It was a rough inquiry, but the young man, in his bashful, quiet way, told the gentleman In a few words who he was afid where he'came from, and then the gentleman told him he was mighty glad to meet Mm. “I went over to the drug store in the Astor house to get this thing,” he said, “and I was insulted. The fool in that place told me sneerlngly that they did not sell five cents’ worth of anything. I came over here ready to fight, and you treated me like a gentleman. lam glad to know you, young man.” Then the gentleman gave his card to Perry. The gentleman was Mr. Sweetser of the great firm of Sweetser, Pembroke & Co. He Was one of the greatest merchants- of New York and a millionaire many times over. He felt so good over the treatment he had received In getting that five cents' worth of flag root that he spent 118 on toilet preparations before he left the establishment Next morning he was at Hudnut’s again. He had a pre-

scription written by the famous Doctor Seguin. He presented It challengIngly to young Perry. "Can you fill that?" he asked. "Yes," Perry, replied. ' The drugs called for were very rare, end Mr. Sweetser knew IL Made a Host of Friends. Most ot the drug clerks downtown at that* time took themselves very seriously. They were pompous and self-assured. Men like Sweetser found 4t a pleasure to deal with the kindly, bashful young night clerk at Hudnut’s. What Is more, they went to Hudnut and told him about it, but Hudnut kept this fact to himself. There never was a drug clerk downtown who made so many friends as Charles J. Perry, or who had so many odd experiences, and no man has reason to know more of the value of courtesy. Once he had a man come to him in the early morning and put out a handful of gold. "Isn’t it nice money?” the man asked. "It Is," Perry replied.- . "Take It in your hand," said the man. Perry did so. When Jie expressed his admiration again Perry started to give the gold back. "No, It’s yours; keep IL You have earned every dollar of It for your kindness to me," said the man, and walked out. f?; For 18 years Perry worked for Hudnut The highest pay he ever received there was $29 a week. He had offers innumerable from other druggists. They offered him twice what he was getting from Hudnut, and then, when, he declined that, asked him to name his own price. Business meh, big and little, were not slow to realize what this modest, courteous man was worth In business, and they suggested that he open an establishment for himself, and that they would back him. A hundred such offers were made to him, hut he declined all of them until October 6, 1886. «... Opened His Own Store. Then the New York Sun cams out with- a big, firstrpage story with the heading, "Something Hew Under the Sun. It told how Charles J. Perry, the "Little Father of Park Row,” had opened a drug store of his own "under the Sun." It was one of the most graceful bits of free advertising a New York newspaper ever gave to a kindly, worthy man. And there probably never was another man In New York

who started business under Jutt such ' conditions as did Charles J. Perry. The, moneyed mep associated with him put up the money. -He did not have to invest one cent, but he got a controlling interest in the corporation because of the trade value of his courtesy. That was a queer drug store “under the Bun.” You had to go tip three steps to get into it. Such a thing in New Yofk was unheard of. but it made no difference with Perry’s friends. Betook nearly all the trade of Hudnut with him- The gold mine was moved from the Herald building to the Sun. When the Pulitzer building was built Perry became its first tenant. For some years he conducted one establishment in the Sun building and one in the World. Now he has just the one in the Pulitzer building and pays |25,000 rent for the space he occupies. There Is not another drug store in America like it The business it does Is immense. It does the largest soda business In the world. There are some other places that do as much business within specified hours, but Perry is open all the time. Modest and Kindly as Ever. He has not changed a bit In manner from the day he went into Hudnut's as a soda water boy. He is just as modest just as bashful, just as kindly, just as courteous. No one ever has known him to lose his temper. He is a student —a student of the people. He knows the retail business as few men know it. Once, when he was a boy, he saw a woman carrying a babe in lower Broadway. Perry was strong and vigorous in those days. He asked the privilege of carrying theochild so that the woman, who seemed ailing,

might rest herself. He carried the child from Bowling Green to Vesey street, and he was nearly exhausted when he turned it over to its mother. That taught him a great lesson. Never does a woman enter his establishment now with a child in her arms or a child by her side that he or a clerk does not hurry forward with a chair for her to rest on. It is not oply enact of courtesy and an act of kindness, but a good stroke of business, for be knows, and every good retail merchant knows, that once you get a customer to sit down, he or she feels from that time forward that that store is his or hers. A lot of men have preached that politeness costs nothing and is the soundest of assets. They -ate half wrong and half right Politeness is an asset, but it often entails a sacrifice. '. S The Perry of today works just as hard as the Perry of 1868, He has the same faculty for making friends and holding them. The Hendersons, the Danas, the Reids, the Raymonds have gone, but now and then you will see the Brisbanes, the Wardmans, the Relcks, the young Pulitzers, the Seitzs and the other giants of metropolitan journalism in Perry’s chatting with the doctor. Sticks to Old Customs. He has done more acts of kindness, more acts of charity and more acta of courtesy than probably any other man In all New York. And he has done them all modestly, bashfully. He sticks to old friends and old customs. He occupied the same room in the Astor house for more than a sco/e of years. He has been the first man to vote in his precinct in the. First assembly district in every election for the last 35 years. He would feel miserable if he were not busy or if he were not polite. He will not live uptown because it distresses him to see per- ' sons over-crowded and suffering in the subway and in the “L" trains. One of the strangest things about him is, that although he never wrote an article in his life, and never worked a day on a newspaper, he has one of the finest senses for news of any man in New York. No one knows this better than James Gordon Bennett, for twice Mr. Bennett has offered the editorship of the Herald to this modest, bashful man who has built up a great business on the rock of courtesy. (Copyright, I*K. by the MoClure Nswspa

"I Am Glad to Know You, Young Man."