Self Control
Sufficient time would have elapsed between the time he
called and the time when he would have actually seen his man, to have
enabled the latter to anticipate the reason for his call, and also to
formulate a good, logical excuse for saying, "No!"
Suppose, again, he had opened his interview with the street car man something like this: "The University is badly in need of funds and I have come to you to ask your help. You have made lots of money and you owe something to the community in which you have made it. (Which, perhaps, was true.)
If you will give us a million dollars we will place your name on a new Hall that we wish to build." What might have been the result?
In the first place, there would have been no motive suggested that was sufficiently appealing to sway the mind of the street car man. While it may have been true that he "owed something to the community from which he had made a fortune," he probably would not have admitted that fact. In the second place, he would have enjoyed the position of being on the offensive instead of the defensive side of the proposal.
But Dr. Harper, shrewd in the use of Imagination as he was, provided for just such contingencies by the way he stated his case. First, he placed the street car man on the defensive by informing him that it was not certain that he (Dr. Harper) could get the permission of his Board to accept the money and name the Hall after the street car man. In the second place, he intensified the desire of the street car man to have his name on that building because of the thought that his enemy and competitor might get the honor if it got away from him.
Moreover (and this was no accident, either), Dr. Harper had made a powerful appeal to one of the most common of all human weaknesses by showing this street car man how to perpetuate his own name. All of which required a practical application of the Law of Imagination.
Dr. Harper was a Master Salesman. When he asked men for
money he always paved the way for success by planting in the mind of the man
of whom he asked it a good sound reason why the money should be given; a
reason which emphasized some advantage accruing to the man as the result of
the gift.
Often this would take on the form of a business advantage. Again it would take on the nature of an appeal to that part of man's nature which prompts him to wish to perpetuate his name so it will live after him.