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xlviii T H E I: R Fl J anuary
Every Businessman in America Should Read This “Advertisement”
AMERICAN STEEL 8: WIRE COMPANY
97 WEST ADAMS STREET
CI-l'lCAGO
Chicago, December 20, 1912
Mr. Elbert Hubbard, ‘
East Aurora, New York.
Dear Sir:
Your favor of the 18th. Wish you could use the Roycroft Salt-Shaker so as to do us good.
I don't know how you can.
You see, friend, we are a raw-product manufacturer. We furnish the wire that is in Stein-
way Pianos.
Also, the horseshoes worn by pretty much all the circus horses, farm horses and what
horses are not displaced by automobiles. People like our horseshoes because we make ’em the
way you make books.
And we make the wire rope in elevators and in ships and mines--the telegraph and tele-
phone wire, and all kinds of electrical wires, from the ignition-wire in your automobile to the
submarine cable.
We stood back of Wright in his aeroplanes, and got his fastenings engineered correctly,
so we sell aeroplane-wire, too.
The springs under mattresses and in upholstery are made from our wire; and brooms are
wound with our wire.
And farms are fenced with our wire-fence, and we are back of the wire wheel for automo-
biles, and pushing hard to get them introduced in place of wooden wheels.
And we make wire nails and tacks, and the shafting for machinery is nothing more nor
less than big round wire.
All these things go into the manufactured goods, and the manufacturers then market them
as do the Steinway People, the electrical people, the automobile people, and such. THEY do
the advertising.
One tells of the luscious tone derived from long experience and carefully designed scales
of pianos.
Another of wonderful endurance and speed and economy of upkeep of its autos.
The telephone-line brags of its immense list of subscribers and its perfect service.
Singer and Metropolitan Life and Woolworth talk of high towers, and quick and safe
elevating. Another tells of fine hours of sleep on its mattresses, and so on.
Where do we come in? We don’t come in. We are the raw product. We are the founda-
tion under the Singer and Metropolitan and Woolworth, that nobody thinks of nor cares about.
Wherein could your splendid, heart-fetching language help us? Beautiful talks don’t go
with the sale of horseshoes, nor rope, nor nails, nor barbed wire.
Your magnificent utterances, that I for years have so admired and read, fit the pianos
and the horses and the fields and farms, and the lovely things that are finished and ready to use,
and which the people must be coaxed to use, or their minds rightly drifted in that direction.
Study our proposition and advise. Sincerely yours,
(Signed) B. B. Ayers,
Adv. Manager
Advice Not Necessary!
SEND norcnom CANDY TO YOUR VALENTINE.