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ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
A BUSINESS WOMAN










ALICE FOOTE IMIACDOUGALL




ALICE

FOOTE MACDOUGALL

THE AUTOBIOGRXPHY OF
A BUSINESS WOMAN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1928




Copyright, 1928,
By ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
All rights reserved
Published February, 1928

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS PUBLICATIONS
ARE PUBLISHED BY
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

PRNTErD IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




TO WOMEN - WHOM I LOVE AND
WOULD HELP -I DEDICATE MY BOOK







Two WAL. Sr estc
NEW YORK
October 13,1927
Vy dear Alices
I have just learned that you are putting on record
your "Twenty Years Hard Labor", which enabled you so happily
to bring up and educate your children and provide amply for
your own and their future comfort.    I feel proud to have
been of some little help in this and extend to you my heartiest congratulations on your exceptional success.
Every one is thrilled by acts of heroism or achievements against great odds, and I am no exception to the rule,
But your life work, with which I have been familiar, challenges my admiration to the utmost.    Yours was the heroism
of a daily struggle in cold blood to make a place for yourself in the business world when that world was none too hospitable to the woman worker. To this discouraging task your
valiant soul brought a courage and.tenacity that accomplished
so much.
Your book will be an encouragement and help to
others similarly situated in showing how intelligent persevering industry reaps its reward.    I rejoice in your
success,
Affectionatelly.J
Mrs* Alice Poote MacDougall
FACSIMILE LETTER FROM MR. GEORGE F. BAKER TO MRS.
MACDOUGA LL




ACKNOWLEDGMENT
IN gratitude and appreciation, I hereby tender my thanks to
Mr. M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Miss Teresa S. Fitzpatrick, and
Mrs. Harry A. Stewart. Without their good advice this
book, I fear, would have little worth.




FOREWORD

IT is futile to ask women -not to go into business,
as futile almost as to insist that water shall not
run downhill. One cannot stop world movements;
and the efforts of women toward emancipationthe natural result of the deadly monotony of their
task on the one hand., a jealousy of man's freedom,
and a total ignorance of man's struggle as well as
of the glory of -their own special opportunity - all
lead to the condition we are facing to-day.
From totally other causes and from an entirely
opposite point of view, life forced me into business.
At forty years of age I was left with thirty-eight
dollars in the bank as capital, and three babies
at home as assets. I had no business training or
experience of any kind, but I determined to find
within myself the ability to support my children.
The following pages tell the story of the twenty
years' hard labor I put in to accomplish my purpose.
If in any way I can indicate the pain of the
struggle, if I can succeed in making women appreciate that there are two sides to the question, one
not altogether rosy, and that, although they will
undoubtedly win, they will be forced to pay a high
price, then I shall have accomplished my purpose.
ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL







CONTENTS
CHAPTER                               PAGE
I CHILDHOOD......   3
II READJUSTMENT....  30
III FRONT STREET AND How IT GREW.    43
IV  COFFEE HOUSES....      112
V  ADVERTISING.... 144
VI ACCIDENTS...... 167
VII MY PHILOSOPHY OF WORK AND RICHES 183







ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL.   Frontispiece
A GROUP OF EARLY FAMILY PICTURES.   26
DONALD MACDOUGALL, GLADYS MACDOUGALL, ALLAN MACDOUGALL... 106
A CORNER OF THE cc LITTLE COFFEE SHOP
IN THE GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL. 118
THE CORTILE...... 132
THE MARKET - FIRENZE.... 140
MRS. MACDOUGALL, HER DAUGHTER, HER
SONS, AND STAFF MANAGERS ON S.S.
CONTE Rosso...... 170
THE PATIO - SEVILLIA: MRS. MACDOUGALL'S NEW COFFEE HOUSE.. 178







ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
A BUSINESS WOMAN







I

CHILDHOOD
I WAS born in the home of my mother's grandfather, Stephen Allen, at Number i North Washington Square, New York, on the second day of
March, 1867. He was known as "Honest Stephen
Allen," and was mayor of the city of New York
from 1821 to 1824. To him and to my father's
father, Homer Foote, and to my own beloved
father, Emerson Foote, I owe whatever I have of
business ability.
The first great affection of my life was born out of
the tender care my Quaker grandmother, Catherine
Maria Leggett Allen, gave me during my first five
years, while my frail mother struggled back to
health after my birth. She all but gave her life
that I might have life.
To-day, as I drive past my birthplace, a vision
of my father rises to my mind. On the night I was
born he wandered, despairing, lonely, through the
Square, praying to God that the young wife whom
he adored might live. In later years, I too
wandered, sometimes in the midst of seething lower
Broadway, when the noon hour carried hundreds




4

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

of light-hearted men and women to laugh and loiter
on the busy thoroughfare, sometimes under the
cold beautiful skies of a wintry night, alone in that
irrevocable aloneness of sorrow, and prayed as did
my father, to the same God, for my own life, for
life to live bravely, forcefully, for my little children.
What is the root of our affection? Is it possible
that even a tiny newborn infant can sense this allpervading guardian love, and cling to it throughout life? I do not know. But to my dainty,
sweet, Quaker grandmother I still cling. She
was the only daughter in a family of eleven children, exquisitely beautiful, petulant, gay, and lovable. She was born to be adored, and she was,
not only by her father, mother, and the ten big
brothers, but by her husband, William Mortimer
Allen, who used laughingly to call her "the
Dragon." Yet in a long, grave illness which came
upon him, with patient devotion did the Dragon
tend him.
This grandmother loved me with imagination.
She was patient when I was impatient, tolerant in
an amused kind of way of my many vagaries, and
always filled with tenderness and understanding
for my woes, whether I wept over the cracked head
of Minnie, my beloved doll, or the passing of faith
in some friend I adored. There were plenty of
times when I was everything a child should not be,
spoiled, erratic, too imaginative.
How delightful those first five years were, and




CHILDHOOD 5
what funny memories creep out of that past!
True to my later anti-suffrage, anti-feminist proclivities, I was then very much of a little girlmother, and wonderful and varied was the life I led
with my many doll children. Minnie, named for
my mother, was a substantial china-headed American lady of wobbly cotton body and fixed and permanent smile. My mother-heart opened wide its
portals of love to her and never did later and
smarter-looking children cause me to forget her
entirely. Of course, when Papa, returning from
Paris, brought Lillie with him, her modish clothes,
beautiful blonde hair, real kid body, and delicate
face, cast Minnie quite into the shade. I did Lillie
the credit to think she wanted to express her
vestheticism, and so I tried to teach her to play the
piano. But she fell off the stool. I can remember
how I howled as her lovely face broke in two. For
long she rested quietly on an attic shelf, where I
tenderly nursed her. But moths invaded her
golden tresses, and Mamma said, "Toots, why on
earth do you want to keep that broken toy? "
Cruel, good-housekeeping Mamma -only a mothy,
broken toy to her; to me, a crippled child in very
fact.
When I was about five, Mamma and I accompanied Papa on one of his many business trips to
Europe. Remembrances of that trip are still
vivid. A breaded chop on board the City of Brussels made me weep tears of homesickness for Jane,




6

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

our cook at home. Arrived in London, all my
affection was given to a little black-and-tan terrier,
Lufra by name, and my loyalty to that horrid little
brute kept two perfectly good maids and one small
pernickety child from seeing the glories of Westminster Abbey. A    mild, gentlemanly verger
assured us that dogs were not allowed. Beseeching looks on the faces of the maids were of no avail.
Small, bad, imperious Me said, "Where I go, goes
my dog." So I dominated, and missed the joy
of that inspiring relic. As a punishment, perhaps,
I contracted whooping cough, and we hurried to
Brighton till it should pass - punishment mitigated by many delights on the resplendent beach
and on the backs of the patient donkeys whose
business it was to carry small travelers.
And it was at this early age that Paris, gay,
beautiful, and alluring, captivated my awakening
senses, and during all the years to come my memory
was filled with dreams of its charm.
Returning with us on the City of Brussels was
Livingstone, the great African explorer. He had
brought with him a little African boy, Calulah.
We used to play together on the deck, and I can
remember a feeling of pity that was always present
in my heart during our games as the big ship
ploughed her way homeward. We talked to each
other in a combination of sound and sign, but
always I was wondering how this black-skinned
little boy really felt, so far away from his mamma




CHILDHOOD

and papa, and my small heart ached for him and
made me a trifle less selfish and exacting in our
games together. What potential sorrows lay before
him! Many times since I have thought of him
and wondered how fate had treated him.
In the early days of my childhood, our home on
Eleventh Street, New York, was quite an ordinary
affair, stereotyped and conventional, and the days
were prim with their well-regulated routine. But
all this passed me by. I lived in Fairyland and in
constant communion with all kinds of wonderful
beings, performing countless amazing deeds which
inevitably made of me a heroine. Occasional interludes, in the form of governesses and parents,
removed me from this Land of Sheer Delight, just
as in later years God led me out of the Land of
Romance to place me in the path of duty. But
in my early days every morning brought the hope
of a new adventure and my imagination made
the dream come true. My real life was lived
with my doll children in the Land of Let's Pretend;
and as I played, mother care, mother responsibility, entered persuasively into my soul, and
made there a safe abiding place against the
advent of my own dear babies.
All my play and toys bore a certain relation to
my expected duties as a woman. Froebel was
gently Froebel-ing in the good old German way, but
his theories, like Charity, had so far remained
at home.




ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

In later years the imagination that propelled
my child mind played a vital part in bringing about
my success. As I used to imagine conditions and
opportunities for my dolls, my dogs, and my cats,
so in later years my customers intrigued me to
further imaginings. When I was five, Minnie, my
doll, needed this or that for her soul or her digestive
salvation. Later, when I was forty-five, Mrs.
Smith quite unconsciously secured the ministrations of my imagination and became a G. C. (grateful customer) in consequence. Wiles and smiles
that I used to subdue the evil spirits and bad
fairies of my infant days worked their spells no less
on importunate creditors in days to come.
Though wonderful and varied was the life I led
with my doll children, "keeping store" interested
me greatly, too. I took care of doll babies and
kept store at one and the same time. It was a
prophecy of what I was to do later in grim earnest.
A mocking bird was the means - or could have
been the means - of indicating to my parents my
particular calling. Papa loved flowers and dogs,
horses and birds, and one of his acquisitions was a
mocking bird. To make the bird comfortable and
happy a large, a very large, cage was made, for
Papa had an expansive nature. He was big in
heart, big in mind and in body, and to him all
things needed bigness. So the cage arrived, and
Dick sang out a sweet content. But to Mamma,
the practical, it presented an appalling problem.




CHILDHOOD

Where should it stand, this mammoth cage? A
table had to be especially built for it, and in the
table was a row of divided drawers to hold the
many necessities of an accomplished seamstress -
spools of cotton, fine and coarse; needles; bits of
lace and muslin for mending. Here, incidentally
and all unwittingly, began the Alice Foote MacDougall Coffee Houses; for day after day I played
store and bought and sold to imaginary customers
the dry goods of the mocking bird's table drawers.
But the greatest delights of all were the afternoon drives with Papa. He fancied trotting
horses and in weather fair or foul we would sally
forth. A long, slow progress up Fifth Avenue,
where the stone pavement was bad for the horses'
feet; a gentle swiftness through the Park, which
was a little difficult, for the police - we did not
say "cops" then - would not allow speeding, and
by that time the mares resented the restraint; and
then, with a tiny click, the faintest sound on my
father's lips, and a loosening of the reins, the horses
settled into their gait, trotting faster and faster.
It is cold, perhaps rainy, and clods of turf from
unpaved avenues fly back into our faces, or perhaps
snow is falling and we see our competitors through
it. Always in our tingling ears is the pounding
of the excited horses' feet, that curious snort
of delight and excitement as a swifter horse
passes us, or we, darting off into space, outdistance him.




Io      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Men were temperate in those days, but a "nip"
of brandy or some other liquor was deemed an
essential after a long day on Wall Street or an afternoon trotting on St. Nicholas Avenue. Papa took
great pride in his wine cellar. He was accustomed
to having wine at dinner always, not so much for
himself as for the many English and French gentlemen who were his constant dinner guests. After
our drive, Commodore Vanderbilt, Frank Work,
Charles Lanier, Mr. Harbeck, or some other gentlemen would return with Papa to our home on Eleventh Street. Then Papa would set out his choicest
wines for their delectation - brandy fifty years
old, filling the room the moment it was uncorked
with a delicious, indescribable aroma, whiskey,
sherry, port, all choice and very old. Conversation
sparkled and the open fire glowed, but not more
warmly than did my father as he thus entertained
his friends.
There was a transportation problem in the city
even then, but it was a different sort from to-day's.
Huge, lumbering, uncouth, uncomfortable busses
bumped and banged over the crude pavements of
New York in those days, the seventies, and my first
approach in one of them to the business district of
New York and my later business haunts was a
journey of wild alarums and excitements when I
was about five.
Grandpa Stephen used to say, "I don't want any
poor grandchildren," and to guard against this he




CHILDHOOD

II

had purchased largely in what is now the lower part
of the city. Consequently Wall and Front Streets
were words familiar to my childish ears. On an
eventful morning in early December in 1872, I
boarded the bus at Eleventh Street to make my
first journey to Wall Street to purchase Christmas
gifts for our many relatives from an importer of
East Indian and Chinese goods, a tenant of one of
Grandpa Stephen's stores.
What wild imaginings, what "blank misgivings
of a creature moving about in worlds not realized "
were mine, as that old bus lumbered and bumped
the long, long journey southward. It was so
bitterly cold that my lamb's-wool coat and turban
did little good. But in spite of cold and discomfort, no more thrilling event ever happened to
explorer than to me on my first journey to Wall
Street. Hobgoblins and gnomes inhabited the
straw covering of the floor and peeped with malicious eyes from corners or jeered in fiendish glee
at my discomfort. And as the driver returned
Grandma's change in a small brown envelope
through a mysterious hole in the roof, I did n't
doubt but that some good fairy would hop out to
put an end to their malicious intentions.
What wonder, then, that when the bus finally let
us down, it was at the door of the very store where
later my husband had his office, and where, following him, I entered the ranks. Chance? I don't
think so; the fairies did it - the good, beneficent




12      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
fairies who all along have helped me until finally
the gnomes have been put to rout.
To-day that lower part of the city is still filled
with romance for me. Not alone do the pungent
odors of coffee and myrrh and frankincense fill
the air after their long journeys from the Indies
and South America, but if you have eyes to see and
ears to hear, gay ladies and gentlemen of Holland
walk happily up and down. It is hard to understand their somewhat uncouth language, but
there they are, in high-heeled shoes, full skirts,
or knickerbockers, wigs, and cocked hats. Even
dear old George will appear once in a while if
only to go to Fraunces' Tavern to bid his officers
farewell.
What a comfort it was in the drear days of 1907 -1908, when I first entered business, to walk on
Maiden Lane surrounded by the gay, enchanting
maidens of those early days and forget the terrible
present!
Crossing Wall Street, at what is called the lower
end, is Front Street. Years ago it fronted the East
River and was a place of gayety and gardens, but
as the city grew and space became precious, the
city was built out into the river, and at present
South Street and not Front Street comes to the
water's edge. Here centre the shipping interests that carry on trade in fruit, in spices, and in
coffee, and here loiter idly at their quays the splendid ships of our South American trade. Naturally,




CHILDHOOD

i3

then, Front Street devotes its entire attention to
the coffee and tea business.
A word about my forbears before I pass these
first five years of my life. For because of my intangible inheritances from them, in traditions, in
ideals, in attitudes of heart and mind, I owe them
a debt of gratitude quite too vast for words to
express.
My great-grandfather, Stephen Allen, in whose
house I was born, was drowned before my birth,
when the Henry Clay burned and sank in 1852 in
the Hudson. New York owes him its first steps
taken in sanitation to rid the city of yellow fever,
and he was first to propose the Croton Aqueduct in
order to ensure the city an adequate and wholesome supply of water. He was one of the original
members of Tammany Hall. His name may still
be found on High Bridge in New York City. In
his pocket he carried a list of rules for conduct in
life, which for years was known as "Stephen Allen's
Pocket Piece." It was found in his pocket when
his body was recovered from the water of the Hudson. As a child I read the wise and humorous
sayings, and unconsciously their truth took root in
my soul.
i. Keep good company, or none.
2. Never be idle; if your hands cannot be usefully
employed attend to the cultivation of your mind.
3. Always speak the truth.
4. Make few promises.




14      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
5. Live up to your engagements.
6. Keep your own secrets, if you have any.
7. When you speak to a person, look him in the face.
8. Good company and good conversation are the
very sinews of virtue.
9. Good character is above all things else. Your
character cannot be essentially injured except by your
own acts.
Io. If anyone speaks evil of you, let your life be so
that none will believe him.
11. Drink no kind of intoxicating liquor.
12. Ever live (misfortune excepted) within your
income.
13. When you retire to bed, think over what you
have been doing during the day.
14. Make no haste to be rich if you would prosper.
Small and steady gains give competency with tranquillity of mind.
i5. Never play at any game of chance.
16. Avoid temptation, through fear you may not
withstand it. Earn money before you spend it.
17. Never run into debt, unless you see plainly a
way to get out again.
18. Never borrow, if you can possibly avoid it.
g19. Do not marry until you are able to support a
wife.
20. Never speak evil of anyone.
21. Be just before you are generous.
22. Keep yourself innocent, if you would be happy.
23. Save when you are young, to spend when you are
old.
24. Read over the above maxims at least once a week.




HIon. Stephen Allen's Pocket Piece,
----0----
AMONC THE VICTIMS
OF Tax
"HENRY CLAY DISASTER,"
(Steamboat destroyed by fire on the Hudson River during the fall
Of 1853), was StephenAllen Alen,  sq. an saed man of the
purest character, formerly MAYOr OF THE CITY OF NEW
YoaK, beloved and esteemed by all who knew him. In
his pocket-book was found a printed slip, apparently cut from a newspaper, of which the following is a true copy. Aj9-Peruse it carefully.
-0 -Keep good company or none. Never be idle.
If your hands cannot be usefully employed, attend to the cultivation of your mind.
Always speak the truth. Make few piromises.
Live up to your engagements.
Keep your own secrets, if you have any.
When you speak to a person, look him inu the face,
Good company and good conversation are the very sinews of virtue.
Good character is above all things else.
Your character cannot be essentially injured except by your own acts
If any one speaks evil of you, let your life be so that none will believe him.
a"-Drink no kind of Intoxicating Liquor.-aa
Ever live (misfortune excepted) within your income.
When you retire to bed, think over what you have been doing during the day.
Make no haste to be rich, if you would prosper.
Small and steady gains give competency with tranquility of mind.
Never play at any game of chance.
Avoid temptation, through fear you may not withstand it.
Earn money before you spend it.
Never run into debt, unless you see plainly a way to get out again.
Never borrow, if you can possibly avoid it.
Do not marry until you are able to support a wife.
Never speak evil of any one. Be just before you are generous.
Keep yourself innocent if you would be happy.
Save when you are young to spend when you are old.
Read ovdr the above maxims, at least, once a week.




16      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
A dusky figure emerges from my memory - the
colored butler who for many years superintended
the great functions held by the Mayor. Special
emphasis was laid upon the New Year's Day reception. Being generous of heart, my great-grandfather had acquired three wives during his triumphal passage through life, and the daughters of
these many marriages graciously presided at his
receptions when the elite of New York called to
pay their respects to the Mayor. Aunt Mary Ann
said it was not worth while dressing for less than
three thousand, and the beautiful old Coleport
punch bowl, large enough for me to drown in, as
well as the huge silver cake baskets and the cutglass decanters, attested to the liberality of my
great-grandpa's housekeeping. All the appurtenances of the table were in keeping, and my soul
craves for the gorgeous tea service that fed the
hosts on those New Year's Days. We are so chaste
and colorless in these things now. Whether or
not there was any connection between the old
colored butler who kept the New Year tradition
by calling each year to remind us of his service
and receive his due reward, I do not know; but
certain it is that a firm of colored men, carrying
on a carpet-cleaning business, used the so-called
Stephen Allen's Pocket Piece as an advertisement.
My father's father, Homer Foote of Springfield,
Massachusetts, was the son of Adonijah Foote, the




CHILDHOOD

I7

master armorer of the Water shops of that city, the
place where the Springfield rifle was developed.
Homer Foote, my grandfather, was apprenticed at
an early age to James Scut Dwight, my greatgrandfather, a hardware merchant in Springfield.
His store was a famous rendezvous. The Boston
and Albany stagecoach started at its door, and
there forgathered many of the most prominent
men of Springfield, the founders of the present
Boston and Albany railway.
Among other visitors to Grandfather Dwight's
store was his beautiful daughter Delia, and the
inevitable resulted. Handsome, gallant Homer
fell promptly in love with Delia and shortly after
married her. I remember hearing with delight
Grandma's story of her first kiss, stolen under the
heavy shadows of iron ana steel rails, and of the
beauty of her fair-haired lover, Homer Foote.
He had a remarkable business capacity and in the
course of time the business of James Dwight was
changed to Homer Foote and Company, under
which name it grew to large proportions and
became the leading hardware concern of all New
England. He became auditor of the Springfield
Institution for Savings and a director of the Pynchon Bank.
Added to his ability as a financier, Homer Foote
had a fine sensitive feeling for the beautiful. As
time brought him prosperity, he built a lovely home
for himself on a little hill rising between Maple and




18     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Central Streets in Springfield. This he named
Fairview. As a child, I remember he led me out
on the verandah to show me the fair view of the
Connecticut Valley, and recited to me, in words I
never forgot: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help."
Music, books, and pictures abounded in his home
and there I first learned to love beauty from the
canvases of great artists. One of my grandfather's
intimate friends was the artist, Chester Harding.
He painted portraits of both my grandfather and
grandmother. One day at a sitting he said,
"Foote, I 'm painting a portrait of Daniel Webster.
I 've got his face all right, but his legs bother me.
You 're about his size and build. Would you mind
letting me paint your legs?" So there hangs
somewhere - I believe in the Boston Athenaeum
- a life-size portrait of the great Defender of
the Constitution gayly disporting himself on my
grandfather's legs.
If Homer Foote was a merchant and a lover of
the arts, he was also a farmer, and long, happy
mornings I spent with him and my father at the
farm, inspecting the garden, the fruit, and the
cattle. My excursions to the farm had elements of
humor, some of which might have ended disastrously for me. Papa had an expansive nature.
Big men, big endeavors, and the splendid bigness
of nature thrilled him. One warm June morning,
his soul responding gloriously to the benign influ



CHILDHOOD

19

ence of nature, he conceived the idea that a sun
bath would do me a world of good. Spreading
some newspapers under and over me, he bade me
lie down in the middle of a strawberry patch. He
fed me with a few luscious berries, departed, and
promptly forgot my existence in the rapture of a
day on the farm. Toward two o'clock I was missed,
and then, with some perturbation, they rushed to
the strawberry patch, to find a rather groggy little
girl verging on sunstroke. I hate to think of what
my mother said to Emerson, or what Grandma
Allen, usually so mild in her Quaker gentleness,
remarked.
Another amusing event. One hot August day,
my grandfather Foote and my father attempted
to have me look through a sunglass at the sun.
Obediently I placed the glass to my eyes, and
bravely looked up. It was as if a fiery iron pierced
my brain. I dropped it, howling with pain. Papa
and Grandpa looked a little sheepish and did not
repeat the experiment. Again there were a few
poignant remarks, which caused them to lead, for
a time, a chastened existence.
My father, Emerson Foote, was his father's
second son, one of ten children. He was born in
Springfield, April 28, 1837. His mother had so
many sisters and brothers that all her children had
ready-made names beforehand; Emerson, Cleveland, and Sandford, as well as Francis, Edward,
Homer, and James, were named for brothers and




20      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
brothers-in-law. Papa's education was as curious
as it was brief, for at fourteen he graduated from
high school and had read six books of Vergil,
Cxesar's Commentaries, and Cicero's Orations, and
had a bowing acquaintance with Horace. In after
years, his business required learning of sorts, and I
never could get over the surprise I felt at his quick
mastery of any subject. Banking, mining, patent
law, each one was attempted as necessity demanded, and his knowledge always proved adequate to his necessity.
He was active in All Soul's Unitarian Church,
holding the treasurership of that organization for
many years. Dorman B. Eaton, to whom we
owe our Civil Service system, Joseph H. Choate,
Peter Cooper, and many other Unitarians were his
intimate friends. But in these early days, before
I was born, Dr. Henry W. Bellows, the minister,
was the object of his affectionate admiration.
With him Papa worked in the founding of what was
then called the Sanitary Commission of the Civil
War, from which the Red Cross developed. My
grandfather, William Mortimer Allen, was living
at the time of the Civil War on Fifth Avenue near
Thirty-eighth or Thirty-ninth Street. I never
tired of hearing my mother tell me stories of the
meetings of the Sanitary Commission held there.
Similar groups, organized by Dr. Bellows, met all
over the city.
Mamma's friends would gather in the afternoon




CHILDHOOD

21

to roll bandages and make dressings. Afterward
the boys of the Seventh Regiment, Company K, of
which Papa and his brother Edward were members, would come in for a waffle supper. Horace
Porter, afterward a general and a well-known diplomat, John M. Wilson, another embryo general, -
both sweethearts of my mother in West Point days
before the war, - came also, and for a time their
hearts were lightened during evenings of homely
pleasures.
Different, however, was the picture she gave me
of the regiments passing down the Avenue for the
front, and the pitiful return when the ranks were
reduced to a handful of tattered and discouraged
men. Each time I pass the Shaw Monument in
Boston, Mamma's description of the splendid
young officers flashes before my eyes. The
sunshine, the courage, the animation as, with
springing step, the most representative of Massachusetts youth passed gayly by. Then the return,
slow and pitiful, of the decimated remainder.
When the Civil War ended, the Union League
Club was another outgrowth of the Sanitary
Commission and for years exerted a powerful
political influence. Papa was a charter member.
During many years the Club was one of the great
pleasures of my father's life, for there he associated
with men of learning, of political importance, as
well as many who represented the world of art and
literature. Papa often spoke of evenings spent




22      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
listening to the animated conversation of Mr.
Depew, of Mr. Choate, of William Winter, and
sometimes of George Smalley, the English correspondent of the Tribune. It is impossible to
remember the almost interminable list of men
travelers, artists, politicians, lawyers, and writers
- who at intervals influenced and enriched my
father's life, but of all, Mr. Gawtry, President of
the Consolidated Gas Company and my adopted
uncle, and Mr. Harris Fahnestock, first President
of the First National Bank, stand out as those who
were most truly loved by my father, and who most
faithfully stood by him as the dark clouds of his
later life gathered.
Never will I forget, never cease to thrill, over the
remembrance of the cutting of the Thanksgiving
cake, in my grandfather Foote's home. Of course
all who are New Englanders will remember the
pomp and glory of Thanksgiving in those days.
The bustle of preparation for days before gradually
increased as the great day approached. Not only
cakes and pies, but beautiful dresses and marvelous
coiffures were prepared. The beautiful old house
was cleaned and made to blaze with a kind of
benevolent sentimentality as, one after another,
members of the family forgathered to take part in
the festivity. And the air was over-fragrant with
delicious odors of turkeys, ducks, geese, and all
kinds of vegetables yielding up their virtues for
the feast.




CHILDHOOD

23

The day arrived. Shades of the departed, where
did you get your digestions? Breakfast was a
mere trifling meal of an hour or so: hot breads of
endless variety, coffee exhilarating by its fragrance,
and literally warming the cockles of one's heart,
for houses were none too warm and November in
New England is a fine month of cold, foretasting
winter. There followed   fried  oysters, chops,
corned-beef hash, and griddle cakes, served with
loads of butter and cream too thick to be poured.
Then a little silence, and the stately walk to
church. Here the festival took on a more solemn
tone, and deep and reverent voices raised hymns of
thanksgiving to God for His goodness throughout
the year. Church over, our hearts were free for
another kind of rejoicing. The meeting of friends,
the interchange of compliments and experiences,
the reawakening of affections dormant throughout
a year.
At last approaches the great hour. Thanksgiving dinner is ready. In full evening dress, though
it is two o'clock only, my grandparents enter the
beautiful blue parlor. The surrounding walls are
rich with the paintings Grandpapa loved so well,
and soft lights reveal the beauty of his wife and
family as, one after another, the children and
grandchildren of Homer and Delia Foote arrive
to greet their parents on this Thanksgiving Day.
Then Grandma seats herself at the piano, and her
gouty fingers once more play the music by which for




24     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
years her children have marched into the dining
room for the great feast. Her children and their
wives or husbands sit at the large table, while the
grandchildren have a table to themselves. Wines
of different kinds appear in due order, as the long
procession of foods marches by in stately dignity.
About five, a little weary, - and let us hope, not
too ill from all the culinary glory, - the family
separates, the women not to appear till the evening
reception, when Grandpapa entertained all the
"sisters and the cousins and the aunts."
The men again meet at seven, and then comes
the great moment, the cutting of the Thanksgiving
cake. Port and sherry alone accompany this rare
and delectable dish, and as the knife separates the
cake into rich golden pieces, it is accompanied
by the singing of my grandfather and his seven
sons. All of them have rich, melodious voices -
tenor, baritone, bass. They sing, unaccompanied,
only the simple melodies of the people, but with a
beautiful feeling for melody and harmony: "Nellie
was a lady," "Old Black Joe," "'Way down upon
the Swanee River." Perched on my father's knee,
I thrilled to the sentiment as well as to the beauty
of the festival. In after years it is still a lovely
memory. About nine, the family - the big family
of all the relatives - began to arrive and more
formal music entertained the guests.
It was truly a day of feasting, and I feel that the
great joy of the music, the element of thankfulness




CHILDHOOD

25

that inspired us, the vast and generous hospitality
that really was a thing of the heart rather than of
purse and prominence, all were a legacy of infinite
value to me.
When my parents were not at the theatre, opera,
or the home of some friend, our evenings were
spent in the middle parlor, a room gleaming in a
deep red setting, where we chatted or read before a
wood fire. Here would gather a few choice friends,
and a stately game of whist - the old whist, not
the hybrid bridge or auction - would progress.
I sat curled up on the sofa one evening, drawing,
and a series of rather remarkable boats resulted.
Queer gull things, never getting quite into the
water, sometimes floating perilously near the moon,
but to the discriminating judgment of my parents,
always alert for the suggestion of any inclination on
my part, here was indicated something to be cultivated. At once began hours of pure delight with a
sweet, gentle soul, Miss Alicia Crocker, who gave
me lessons in drawing and later in water color.
Busily engaged one day drawing the head of a
horse, a certain shape of the cheek baffled me. I
drew and erased, drew and erased, and finally,
exasperated, seized a heavy black pencil. Before
the startled and horrified eyes of my gentle teacher,
I took it with both hands and, bearing with all my
strength, made a straight hard line wide and heavy
enough to all but cut the paper. It was the child
equivalent of saying D-, that most helpful of all




26      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
words! What rest to a tried and weary spirit that
one explosive gives. God, the great psychologist,
probably invented it to help His suffering children,
and it was a stupid prophet who pronounced as
a commandment., "Thou shalt not swear." Of
course, I should have been punished. The more
intelligent teachers of to-day would doubtless have
seen embryonic tendencies of a quite fearful nature
in this outburst. But the patient lady beside me,
after a mild convulsion of shocked surprise, began
the erasing process all over again. The memory is
still vivid, for to my restless nature the sustained
effort was more than taxing, and every time I look
at the amiable face of that horse or speak to the
dear patient lady who taught me, visions of that
room,- the drawing boards, and the half-finished
sketch rise vividly before me. Nothing could have
been more lasting. Did that long, slow erasing
start the self-discipline of after years? I wonder.
In my mother's home, good housekeeping stood
out predominant. You could tell the time of day
by what the maid was doing. If jenny was brushing the fourth step of the front stairs, you could lay
your last dollar that it was ten-thirty A.M.; and as
sure as it was Thursday night, so did we feast on
chicken. Order and method carried to its nth
degree - a little of a strain to irregular Papa and
me, but excellent for the smooth running of the
house. Mamma was a religious woman-, but her
real God was good housekeeping, and system was




A GROUP OF EARLY FAMILY PICTURES
STEPHEN ALLEN               SARAH ROAKE,
STEPHEN ALLEN S WIFE
CATHERINE LEGGETT ALLEN      STEPHEN ALLENWIFE
MARGARET WRIGHT LEGGETT         ADONIJAH FOOTE







CHILDHOOD

27

His handmaiden. Weddings, baptisms, receptions, and dinners were always "of a Thursda',"
as Maria, the maid, would say, because the laundry
was out of the kitchen. I used to wonder what on
earth would happen if any one of us had the temerity to die the latter part of the week. What an
upset to the aforesaid Maria if the funeral, instead
of the washing, had to be done "of a Monda'."
There were elements of humor in my mother's
housekeeping.
Being a good mother, she desired a spherical education for her daughter, so at intervals, even in my
early days, I spent long, delightful afternoons helping Jane, the cook. Possibly they were not altogether delightful for Jane, but to me my adventures
into the realm of home-made pies, roasts, and broils
were sheer delight. I having heard Jane say she
must "draw" the turkey, and being filled with an
honest zeal to assist, Jane's feelings may better be
imagined than described when she saw the aforementioned turkey on a long string, being "drawn"
over the cold stones of the back yard by literal me.
I smile at times, to-day, as "pasteurized,"
"modified," and "acidophilous" milk wagons pass
me by. The method was far more simple when I
was a little girl. Jane, before going to bed, left outside the kitchen door, on the sidewalk, a nice old
milk pail, and the next morning Borden's man
dipped the day's milk, rich in germs if nothing else,
out of an open can into the pail, thereby subjecting
t




28      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
infant me to every contagious disease the world
has ever known. It 's a good germ that knows its
business apparently, for here I am, sixty years old,
having never had any infantile diseases except
measles and whooping cough.
Only once were my ears boxed, and that was
when the excitement of getting ready for my first
opera - Mignon, with lovely Christine Nilsson -
got the better of me and induced an impertinent
answer to a command of my mother's. I remember much hurrying and scurrying to and fro, a
sharp command, an impertinent answer from small
me., a swift cuff on the ear, and the irate voice of
Mamma saying, "There is one thing I won't stand
from my children - impertinence." Those were
the days when children were taught: "Honor thy
father and thy mother."
For punishment, during my father's absence in
Europe, I was forced to sit - a little hard sometimes, according to the degree of my mother's
irritation - on a chair; opposite, on another,
was placed my father's photograph; and I can hear
the awful tones of my mother's voice say, "Look
at your dear father's face.. See how sad he is
because of your naughtiness." For a dreary halfhour there I would sit. First., as I watched Papa's
face it grew sadder and sadder to my infant imagination; gradually tears would fill his eyes and rain
in torrents down his cheeks, and then the black
iniquity of Jonathan Edward's original sin was




CHILDHOOD

29

actually mild compared with the wickedness I
found lodged in my small breast. Reduced to
weeping and bitter lamentation, I was finally released amid wild protestations to be a good little
girl and never be naughty again. The same picture looks from the wall of my bedroom at me
to-day, but now it seems to smile with a tolerant
patience at my more mature iniquity.
Religion? Ah, yes, a very real and practical
religion, Unitarianism. What do I not owe to it?
That faith which, divesting the soul of all its finery,
exposes it bare to the critical investigation of the
brain. It teaches courage to face life, not for fear
of future punishment or hope of ultimate reward,
but believing and teaching that God, Who has dealt
with us so wisely and tenderly here, can be trusted
utterly and entirely in the world to come.




II

READJUSTMENT
I AM always glad to think that my education was,
for the most part, informal, and had not the slightest reference to a future business career. It left
me free and untrammeled to approach my business
problems without the limiting influence of specific
training. For my temperament, this was best.
How simple my childhood was, how untheoretical
my upbringing, it amuses me now to reflect, when
I see present-day parents trying to teach children
how to be happy, how to learn. I was happy. I
learned quickly. I was let alone. Governesses
I had, of course, and schooling, but my little-girlhood was a great simplicity compared to the carefully  worked-out daily  schedules of modern
children. The very fact that I was left free to find
my own tastes, suggests the tempo of the life of
that time. People had leisure. Life was not interpreted in a great deal of motion, a confusing "busyness." It makes me glad I am sixty instead of
twenty, for I cherish the freedom from surveillance
which was mine as a child. But the thought of it
must give a modern educator gooseflesh.




READJUSTMENT

31

My grandfather Allen had an extensive library
where I was turned loose. No one told me that
this or that book was "good for" me. Wide and
free was my selection. I was in England shortly
after the Wonderland Alice issued from the pen of
Lewis Carroll. Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense
also became part of my possessions. Daily I walked
with the Red Queen. Sometimes I swam, like that
other Alice, in my own pool of tears, for I was
emotional even in those early days. And glad I
am, too. Rather a hundred worries than the life
of a clam at high water.
From Smollett to Louisa Alcott, from Shakespeare to Shelley, on through the wide fields of
literature I ranged, until finally Browning, Emerson, George Eliot, and Spencer gave me a philosophy of life. I can imagine living without food.
I cannot imagine living without books.
I realize that the child of to-day is cared for most
meticulously according, let us say, to Hoyle - not
one little bit according to Heart. I wonder if this
is really such an advance over yesterday. My first
ten years were singularly happy and care-free. I
learned much, but not in the way of books, except
that a French governess taught me so well the
beautiful language of France that to-day I spell
better in French than in English. And an old
Irish cook was perhaps my most consistent teacher
during this first decade. But there came a time
when governesses, French and English, Jane the




3'2     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
cook., and John the coachman, were not equal to the
further training of Miss Alice, and so to school I
was sent. New York was a small intimate place at
that time., and there were only three good private
schools. Anna C. Brackett's School for Girls was
my parent's choice. Its very title is indicative
of its policy. Miss Austen had influenced people
to speak of girls as "young ladies." Miss Brackett 's brusqueness dubbed us by the less elegant
title. Those of us who were taught by this marvelous woman still think of ourselves to-day as
"Brackett's girls."
We lived on Eleventh Street, and Miss
Brackett's was on Thirty-ninth. My walk thither
was a triumphal progress. I started at Fifth
Avenue and Eleventh,. and by the time Twentythird Street was reached my bodyguard frequently
numbered six or eight young boys, intent on relieving me of the burden of my books, bestowing upon
me., in the ardor of their youthful affection, sweet
nosegays, of lovely flowers. Of course I did not
know consciously then what fun it was - the jokes,
the laughter, the careless merriment of youth, the
lovely crispness of the winter' s morning, or the
spring days making the young men's fancies more
poignantly loving than was quite good for any of
US. So attractive were these morning walks, indeed, that even on the stormiest days, when slush
and snow made rubbers quite useless and no umbrella would withstand the tempestuous wind, I




READJUSTMENT

33

would steal away and walk that long distance
instead of riding in the slow-moving, ill-smelling
horse car. In those days the floors of cars and
omnibuses were covered with the same kind of
straw my father used for bedding his horses.
Starting off clean, it soon became a sodden mass of
mud and filth. Not an agreeable condition to ride
in for half or three quarters of an hour. To this I
preferred soaking shoes and stockings, and since
my dresses reached to my ankles, these too became
sodden with muddy water. I did not catch cold or
have pneumonia, and when in later years poverty
prevented my using the ordinary safeguards against
exposure, the experiences of my schoolgirl days
stood me in good stead and prevented my yielding
to the traditional ideas wrapped around the prescriptions for good health.
To Anna C. Brackett education meant equipment, as well as knowledge and culture. Equipment to face life on its own terms, and give battle,
without fear or favor, to its joys as well as sorrows.
For to many of us ease is far more soul-destroying
than trouble.
In after years I said to her, "How did you do it?"
and she said, "Well, you see I had a plan." That
was it - a plan, not an experiment. An appreciation of the many and varied calls of life, and a plan
to make girls - not young ladies - fit to grapple
with vicissitudes and capable of enjoying beauty.
There was no namby-pamby coddling of our




34      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
embryo individualities, no palliating of error, no
compromise with truth. Our responsibility was
fixed. We had no marks, no examinations, but
unconsciously we were judged by a jury of our
peers, our classmates, and swift, sure, and unerring
was their verdict. We had to do our lessons well,
or feel their contempt. A far truer standard and
more illuminating and practical than bringing
home A in arithmetic to dear Mamma. And, by
the way, arithmetic was torture to me. All those
vile wall papers and carpets that never did fit, and
the still more terrible "If John had 124 apples, and
he gave Susie 73, how many would he have left?"
Thank heaven, I don't have to do those hateful
miscellaneous exercises to-day. In spite of all
life's discipline, I simply could not stand them.
But I did learn my arithmetic tables, upside
down, inside out, forward, backward, until I knew
them in my sleep and sang them in my waking
hours. You see, life is an arithmetic table, and
the sooner we learn that fact the better fitted we
are for the difficult adjustments it requires of us.
If we learn what two-times-two means at five, our
extravagance is not so apt to drive our husbands to
suicide at forty-five. That is what it is to be educated. To hold our emotions and desires down to
the simple facts of two-times-two. Later we may
realize, with Emerson, that two-times-two equals
five, but that, of course, is another and sweeter story.
My Latin exercises, after they were corrected




READJUSTMENT

35

with the terrible blue and red pencils of stern Miss
Brackett, looked more like Turner's Slave Ship
than the modest effort of a schoolgirl. In a course
in Greek history Lilian Taylor, Bayard Taylor's
daughter, established in our growing souls an
abiding love for the Greek and the Great. One
hated to be small and petty who walked intimately
with Epaminondas, nor could one ever sink in the
maelstrom of a dark despair whose soul had thrilled
to a Madonna of Raphael or a poem of Shelley.
That was education at Miss Brackett's.
Along with school came the daily drill of my
patient mother in training me into ways methodical, orderly, careful, and thrifty. Domestic Science was unknown then, except as every woman
automatically practised it. Not to be a good
housekeeper and seamstress was something of a
disgrace in the eyes of my mother's contemporaries.
"A place for everything and everything in its
place" was one of the most useful lessons ever
taught me. To-day my daughter says, "No one
on earth, Mother, is as orderly as you are. I just
wish you could see other girls' bureau drawers."
I dare say; but I know the old saying of a place
for everything saved me innumerable hours of
"I can't imagine where I put my gloves." Not
only is orderliness an economy; it produces rest.
The age of ten was a turning point toward the
life of the world. Many things happened to me




36      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
then. Not only school was added to my experi-.
ences, but piano lessons as well. They were almost
my undoing, and certainly contributed to a later
neurasthenia. I was taught by a friend of my
father's, M. Rivarde, a famous musician under
whom my father himself had studied. M.
Rivarde was an irascible', temperamental Frenchman whose rages never troubled my father one little
bit., while to me they were torture. From the allpervading love of parents and servants, I suddenly
encountered, alone and unprotected, the rage of a
Latin who knew no self-control., who assumed as a
premise that all children were liars, and who had
not the faintest feeling of patience, understanding,
or sympathy.
Petrified with fear, I went twice weekly to the
den of this roaring lion. As his temper began to
mount., false notes fell from my fear-frozen fingers
like drops of rain in a summer shower. Added to
his bellowings were the sharp taps of his rulerNo, -not on me; it might have been easier - on the
case of the piano, on the marble mantelpiece, on
anything hard, metallic, noisy. And all the time
the vile regular beat of the metronome, tick-tick,
tick-tick. After a lesson I would cry the night
through.
Day after day I struggled with those dreadful
exercises. Even though doctors warned of the
danger to my whole nervous system at that critical
age, Papa was deaf. M. Rivarde was his friend,




READJUSTMENT

37

and therefore not anyone in the world could so
well teach the piano to his daughter. So the
dreary years went on: exercises, scales - scales,
exercises. Never a melody to break the monotony
for eight years. Imagine my feelings after that
time to hear M. Rivarde say, "And bom-by, when
we are finished, we will begin all over again."
And yet I could not quite blame Papa, for so
much pleasure had been his that he could hardly
appreciate anything else connected with his singing maestro. At that time M. Rivarde was quite
the rage. Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise
Cary were his pupils, singing nightly at the Academy of Music, together with Campanini, del
Puente, and Christine Nilsson.
When my fingers had gained sufficient facility, I
played my own accompaniments and soon was
singing with Papa much of the music of the Italian
operas. Then M. Rivarde did scold! What did
he mean, the bete Monsieur Foote, to let a little girl
sing all that high, florid music? Did he want to
ruin her voice? But this time Papa disobeyed M.
Rivarde quite as casually as he had previously
ignored the advice of our physician. So, though I
wept at playing, singing dried my tears. Now, in
retrospect, the agony of the piano still remains
acute and poignant. But as we grow older we
learn to "see life steadily and see it whole," and
always music has been the solace of my saddest
hours.




38      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Then, also when I was ten years old, my brother
Emerson was born, and Mamma had to forgo some
of the pleasure of her intimate association with my
father. To fill this gap, and believing in the great
educational value of the play, Papa took me every
Saturday night to the theatre. Then indeed was
my life enriched.
One's first impressions are so vivid and one's
eyes so uncritical, one's enjoyment so intense, that
I am perhaps prejudiced, but nothing of to-day
seems quite so satisfying, quite so worth while as
the comedies played by the stock companies at
Daly's and Wallack's. Plays interpreting clearly
and without embroidery the low meanness as well
as the lofty peaks to which human nature may
attain, or plays that merely gave one a few hours of
laughing delight. The Schoolfor Scandal, School,
Caste, Shakespeare in infinite variety, all came to
my eager call, answered my insatiable demand for
understanding. There were great actors in those
days: Booth and Barrett, Salvini, John McCullough, Adelaide Neilson, Modjeska, Mary Anderson, while, as I say, the regular stock companies at
Wallack's, Daly's, and the Union Square, gave the
best of modern and classical comedies.
Papa would not go to see Sarah Bernhardt
because of her immorality. How standards vary
with time! Driving up Fifth Avenue one afternoon, Papa took infinite pains to explain to me the
difference between bad and good women - the




READJUSTMENT

39

one rouged and powdered. This was the outward
visible sign of the black iniquity of her heart and
soul, a kind of scarlet letter on lips and cheeks.
When I was very young, girls and boys were kept
in ignorance of the sin of the world, and a kind of
veil of watchful guardian love was drawn around
their growing souls. People did not deem it necessary to parade vice for their benefit. Quite tenderly
and very tactfully, Mamma revealed certain secrets
to me "when it was time," but she wisely left me
greatly to a life of abstract faith in beauty and
purity, knowing full well that life itself would soon
enough reveal the other side to me. It is not so
with our girls and boys to-day. In our desire to
clarify the meaning of life for them, we look
through a glass darkly.
Those years loitered by filled with many delights.
Then came the sinister suspicion of the disaster to
my father's fortune. A disaster as terrible to me
almost as to him, for my father was my first and
perhaps my only great love. Certainly the most
enduring. His beauty, his bonhomie, his charming
personality, his goodness, fascinated me and drew
me to him in a bond so strong, so profound, that
to be with him was the greatest joy.
A second son was born to my parents when I was
fourteen, Harry - my first child, I sometimes
think, for all my mother love found in him its first
expression. Well worthy was he of all love, all
devotion. He inherited many of my father's most




40      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
lovable qualities and much of his charm. Without
any training - apparently my struggle with the
piano was sufficient "practice" for all three of us.
- he played the piano and the guitar most beautifully, while Emerson, my other brother, played
the piano and the banjo. We were quite a noisy
family, what with our voices and our various instruments.
But while the boys were little, Mamma became
more and more engrossed in her household duties,
her sewing, and her reading, and I entered ever
more deeply into the intimacies of my father's life.
He had a genius for finance, and had quickly risen
to eminence among the business men of New York
in the early seventies. Thus he earned a large
fortune, and, being too sure of himself to foresee a
possible disaster, was left penniless when it came.
Terrible days of effort followed. The wolf came
near our highly respectable door, and Papa went
from one mad venture to another in the get-richquick hope, only to be baffled, beaten at every turn.
And 1, his constant companion, shared this misfortune in the blind, uncomprehending way of a
young girl, suffering the tortures of a profound
sorrow over the incomprehensible trouble of my
darling father. Night after night I lay awake,
weeping and worrying, unable fully to understand,
magnifying the danger, powerless to help, impotent
to avert the approaching catastrophe.
My mother grew cold and unsympathetic, Papa's




READJUSTMENT

41

sunny laughter-loving nature changed to quick,
unreasoning irritability, and I, his constant companion, bore the brunt of his carping criticism.
Proud of me as the apple of his eye, his very pride
caused my misery, for, in a perfectly irrational way,
he heaped upon me every form of devotion and
ruined all by the irascible outpourings of his overwrought nerves. I was on a veritable rack. His
upbraiding and criticism tore my soul, while my
heart broke at the thought of what his reverses
meant to him.
Our home became an empty shell. There was
the semblance of comfort, there was the music,
there were the books, but the soul had gone. Cold
contempt had taken the place of love in my mother's
and brother's hearts. The radiant sunshine of my
father's nature had changed to harassed anxiety.
My first great sorrow inundated my soul, and I
wandered bewildered and forlorn.
Once again, as in my infancy, my Quaker grandmother enfolded me within her sheltering love, and
what peace I had at that time came when I went to
her. She died just before the birth of my first
child, but never has she seemed far away. Such
love is true immortality.
Fortunately, there has always been a kind of
India-rubber quality to my nature, and no matter
how hard sorrow pressed me down, back I would
spring to laugh, sing, and dance. The world
always supplies companions for our gayety at least,




42     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
so dances and dinners, parties and partners, arrived at regular intervals to lift the dreary gloom
of my father's home.
Perhaps it were wiser not to dwell on the too
many boys who embroidered my life at this time.
Bobby and Walter, Jack and Paul - I wonder if to
anyone else they ever appeared quite so beautiful
or so noble, so clever or so fascinating as they did to
me. They came and went until finally, when I was
twenty years of age, Allan MacDougall, the man,
my husband, entered.
Fourteen years older than I, ripe in the knowledge of the man of the world, he it was whom God
chose to take me far from the circle of love and
tenderness, of care and protection, and lead me
slowly, painfully, through the dark mazes of dreadful disillusionment, until at the age of forty my life
sentence was pronounced.




III

FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW
WHEN we were married, on June 14, 1888, Allan
was thirty-four - I twenty-one. He was a most
successful business man, one of the coming leaders
of the lower Wall Street district where the coffee
business grew and flourished. Tall, dark, exceedingly handsome, and most popular, the world
seemed to invite him to the best it had to give.
But even then the inherent weakness of his
nature had begun to sow the seeds of disaster, and
little by little complete disintegration followed.
Within a short time a change came, incredible to
me. No longer was there the smile, the alert
address toward the duties of life - rather a slinking, pathetic fear and a slow relinquishment, not
alone of responsibility, but of all happiness and
joy - heartbreaking to watch, and all but unendurable. I tried to take him into my arms as I
would a little child, and love him back to selfrespect and manhood, only to realize that the task
was hopeless.
Scarcely had I married when some dim premonition of my destiny came to me. The contrast was




44  ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
fearful between the loving, sheltered comfort of
my family life and the new, hard, cruel, and unanticipated future. One resolution was born of my
despair - I would face life alone as best I might,
but I would never bring another soul into a world
of torture such as I knew. Yet when my children came, what a joy - what a challenge to live
the best that was in me! You see how very much
better than I God knew of my necessity, and with
what wisdom He placed upon me responsibilities
wherewith to triumph.
Gladys, from the moment of her birth., became
the epitome of all my love and my ambition. I
never allowed a nurse to care for her - never did I
leave her. Of course I thought that dolls would be
to her what mine had been to me. But no., Gladys
had other ideas., and dolls were discarded while her
spirit turned to singing and poetry., wanderings
among books and flowers. Hers was an accurate
soul. One day she said to me, "Is 'well-bred.,'
toast., Mamma?" I can see her., an elfin sprite,
gowned in blue of a summer day's heaven., dancing
down a hill toward our little home in Norfolk,
Connecticut. The sun seemed to love her golden
hair, for it reveled among its curls. The broad
red road crept windingly away behind her, and
the tall trees bent their loving branches over
this darling child of my saddened heart. There
was a kind of dancing to the happiness Gladys
gave me.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 45
Allan - as I write, each one seems dearer than the
rest - Allan was a round-faced, amiable soul from
the very beginning, so amiable, in fact, that I all
but let him starve to death. The summer in which
he was born was one of the most terrible of my life.
The heat was intense and Gladys was ill. I never
knew quite what happened, but she cried and
screamed incessantly unless I held her. No, she
was not a naughty child. Long years after, I
understood. But there, alone and penniless, I
could only minister to her immediate needs, and
in caring for her I quite ignored dear, darling Allan,
who never cried, but lay in his crib, languid yet
always smiling. Then suddenly I realized that he
was getting no nourishment from me, and fortunately a quick change of diet saved him to be the
joy of my life.
He became an exceedingly vigorous little boy,
and I felt that no play would satisfy his active,
inquiring mind. So when he was three years old,
round-faced, red-cheeked, blue-eyed, and goldenhaired, I let him go to a kindergarten. It was the
one bright experience of two dreadful years we
spent in Englewood, New Jersey. Mrs. Willard,
who ran the little school, was one of those rarely
intelligent women one encounters at long intervals
in one's journey through life. Cultivated, witty,
highly developed spiritually, she took the babies
of her kindergarten to her heart, and, no matter
how young, endeavored to teach them games with




46      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
a reason - a purpose that related itself to their
present needs as well as those of later life.
Even at three, Allan had definite ideas of his
own, and he and Mrs. Willard had a battle royal
until my glorious son realized that he was part of
the kindergarten and that the kindergarten was
not a part of him.
A wonderful festival occurred at Christmas when
each child said his little "piece." Gladys recited a
lovely thing of George MacDonald's; Allan, in his
wonderful baby talk that few but I could understand, the following: -
"Who slays de li'n,
Who slays de gi'nt,
Who conquers dem bof however defi'nt?
De li'n Passion, de gi'nt Sin,
He conquers, who conquers wiven.
He can rul'd de worl' who can rul'd his soul,
And keep himself in his own control."
Being much tried by the long effort, the last
line was said very rapidly and became a hopeless
jumble of inarticulate words, but the first lines
stirred all the dramatic in his nature, and I doubt
if Edwin Booth himself could have reped them
with more fiery intensity.
Don came just at the time when my husband's
condition had reached its lowest ebb, and when the
strain of my awakening to the different responsibilities of my life had greatly reduced my own vitality. He was born at four-thirty in the morning,





FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 47
one cold February day, and about half past seven
my angel Allan began the day by showing just how
naughty a naughty child can be. No one but me
could manage him, so I arose, went to his room,
and peace reigned once more in our household.
After that there were so many household tasks to
see about, so many important things to be done,
that I decided it was not really worth while to
return to bed as one usually does. When Don was
three hours old, I assumed the usual routine of life,
and things went on quite as if there had not been
the arrival of a little boy.
The strain of my husband's condition, the
terrible poverty, the bewilderment in my soul, and
the new and utterly unexpected trend of my life,
all occupied me so intensely that I was a poor
mother for my baby, and I think he has never been
so strong as my other children. Calm of soul as
well as love of heart on the mother's part is very
essential to a little child, I think.
Slowly the truth dawned as I discovered our real
situation. Instead of being supported, I must support. Instead of a life of love and tenderness, I must
be the one to give tenderness and ask for it no more.
Long, slow, weary months of disillusionment and
bewilderment ensued, while the process of development went on to equip me for my real life - the
thing, it seems, for which I was born. Dreadful
days of doubt, cynicism, fear, began. I lost all
faith in God and man. The light went out of the




48     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
skies - all that was beautiful in life appeared an
empty delusion. My sole and only companion was
stark, silent, lonely, grim despair.
Once it all but conquered me. We had moved
to Englewood just before Donald was born. I
remember standing in the bow of the ferry boat one
black, cold, midwinter night. The wind howled
and the sleet and rain cut my face. Beside me
stood the grim, silent, unresponsive figure of the
man who was my husband. Slowly I drew nearer
- nearer to the edge, intent upon taking the final
plunge that would end forever my hopeless misery.
And then, before my eyes, appeared two lovely,
smiling faces, my baby boy Allan, my little
daughter Gladys. I drew back, ashamed of my
cowardice, and then and there dedicated myself to
the hard but heavenly task of safeguarding them.
Within my own heart then I shouldered my burden,
faced the unescapable.
During my girlhood money had been easily
obtainable. I was never given an allowance. I
would return from some festivity to find my purse
filled with coins and bills placed there by my indulgent father as a surprise. And for the larger
necessities Papa had accounts everywhere. What
I wanted I bought and charged. Imagine, then,
the bewildering struggle for readjustment. Instead of all the comfortable affluence of my childhood, I was living on a minus sign - and the
inevitable followed.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 49
Three months after the birth of Donald the
sheriff came to the door with a notice of dispossession. I can still feel my throat contract with the
curious terror of that moment. To no one of all
the long line of people on either side of my family
had such disgrace ever come. It was simply a
thing that did not happen to us.
I was upstairs giving my baby a bath when I
heard a rude, heavy voice, asking for me. The
little maid who assisted me answered the bell.
She came upstairs with the message that a man
wished to see me. "Ask the man to tell you what
his errand is," I said to her, so entirely unaware was
I of what could happen. She came back to say I
must come down or he 'd come up. I saw the sly
pleasure of the servant in her mistress's distress.
I went down, of course, and received one of my first
lessons in poverty. I felt so small, so inadequate,
as this ordinary man dictated terms to me. He
said, "Why did n't you come down the first thing?
I could have nailed this notice of dispossession on
your house, but I wanted to save you a little of the
disgrace." He was chewing tobacco, I noticed
with absorbed horror, as he said I had "three days'
grace" in which to meet the rent.
It was three days of hell, rather. I had not a
penny of money and no immediate means of getting any. I could not even reach my parents by
telephone, as our houses had no telephones then.
Englewood is small, righteous, and gossipy, so of




50      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
course the news of our disaster spread. One after
another, the tradespeople called to say that not one
bit of food would be delivered unless I paid in advance. Finally my father, though sorely pressed
himself, came to my rescue, and the demands of the
landlord and all the butchers and bakers and candlestick makers were satisfied.
Gravely, then, I faced facts - cold, hard, pitiless.
No visible income, no equipment for this life of
poverty and self-support; but there were my
three - I could not betray them. In some way I
must adjust myself to life according to the necessities of my little children and of God's demands.
I taught myself new economies. I learned--
how well! - the hard lesson of out-go and in-come.
I not only denied myself every luxury, I deprived
myself of every possible essential, and reduced life
to its lowest terms of the most meagre necessities.
One of the most belittling of many economies was
having to go without tooth paste. To brush my
teeth in the morning with plain water was almost
sickening to me.
I sewed, I sang, I became an amanuensis, for
whatever I could get. I made preserves and
clothes, anything that would bring in a few pennies
here and there until such time as my children were
a little older and I could be free for larger endeavors. I scraped along in this way for several
years until it was more than apparent that the
growing demands of my growing children could not




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 5 1
be met by any work I could do at home. I simply
had to enter business.
Scarcely can I claim the success that eventually
came., for all through my life I have been conscious
of an all-powerful Wisdom guiding me. A stern
and relentless taskmaster is God, but in retrospect
so great is the gain, so well worth while the struggle,
that one rests in a complete and unquestioning
confidence that all suffering represents a far-reaching purpose, which., if pursued bravely and unflinchingly, leads to an all-satisfying end.
On November 23, 1907, I took the definite step
that launched me into business. I went out from
my little apartment, a lone woman with a big fight
ahead of me.
What., precisely, were the conditions of that
fight?
I was forty, and the years had taken their toll.
Hysteria and insomnia racked me day and night.
I had no business training or business knowledge
of any kind. My entire capital was $38- MY
expenses were $25o a month. My assets were
three little children.
Why, then, did I choose business instead of a
salaried position? To begin with, I was not
trained in anythinig that would enable me to hold
even a poorly paid position; and secondly, I believed in grappling with problems, not avoiding
them. If I was successful in business', I could care
adequately for my children. If I was not, they




52      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
would be no worse off than they would be with me
in a minor position, poorly paid. I took my
gamble, for I was always a gambler with Fate,
with chance, with good and bad fortune, using
as currency only my own imagination, the force of
my own temperament, and my determination to
win.
I chose coffee because it was a clean and selfrespecting business. No friend, however much he
might love me, would buy or drink bad coffee.
Therefore I knew I would be free from the stigma
of charity.
My husband and all his family had been identified with the coffee business, but as jobbers, dealing
in green coffee only. At the time of our marriage
there were just two prominent grocers in New York,
Park & Tilford and Acker, Merrall & Condit. The
coffee everyone used, buying it invariably from
one of these two firms, was Java-and-Mocha,
and my parents followed the usual rule. When I
became engaged, my husband roasted small quantities of the rich aromatic coffees of the South and
Central Americas and from that time on my family
would use no other.
It was so rich and delicious in flavor, so economical and satisfying, that even before we were married I begged Allan to go into this branch of the
business and distribute roasted coffee direct to the
consumer. He laughed at the idea, but the conviction remained that here was a means of liveli



FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 53
hood. When necessity demanded some activity
on my part, I decided upon the roasted-coffee
business.
Dealers and jobbers in green coffee have to
specialize in tasting and testing coffee, an intricate
and delicate operation. The Coffee Exchange
standardizes the various coffees under various
classifications, hard and soft drinking, mild, good
and bad roasters, quakery, acid-y, and so forth,
and the unit on which coffee is tested is a pan
sample or a blue-paper sample, blue paper and blue
walls being good backgrounds from which to gain a
true sense of the color, form, and general character
of coffee in the green, as we say.
Years before my actual necessity arose, some
vague premonition of my future must have urged
me to ask my husband for the blue-paper samples
of the three different coffees used in the blend he
made for us. As one humoring a spoiled child, he
brought them home one night, and for years I treasured them, hidden on an out-of-the-way shelf in the
closet. When the crash came, they had grown so
old and so costly as to be quite beyond me in price,
but they served their purpose as an indication of
the grade and type of coffee I wanted. From
them I built my knowledge of coffee. From them
I blended my # 2 Special, and with that blend I
began my business.
Impressions of those first days crowd my memory
in bewildering riot.




54  ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
A gray stormy morning with sleet, snow, and
hail beating into my face, a hasty good-bye to my
three little children., an admonition to a dull
colored woman to "take care of them,'' -that
futile caution, - a swift descent into the foul,
ill-smelling subway; a picture in my mind of a
balance of thirty-eight dollars on the blue stub in a
check book; a vision of the limitless demands of
my family for food, clothing, education, health;
and somewhere in the jumble of things was "I,"
straining, gasping, struggling to meet the emergency.
The first three days passed in a mental fog. A
small room at 129 Front Street was secured at that
spot where I had alighted from the bus on my first
visit to Wall Street when I was a small child of
five. Here too my husband had had an office.
My experience in leasing this office - merely a
dark, ugly room - is typical of business and its
methods. The agent for the building was an ambitious young man. One could hardly blame him
for increasing the rentals where, when, and how he
could. To him the end justified the means, so
with suavity and adroitness he offered me a small
room and gave the rent as twenty-five dollars a
month. In my eager haste to get started I was
ready to accept his offer. And then suddenly I
remembered that only a short while before the same
office had been offered to my husband for twenty.
I talked mildly, gently. Was he sure twenty-five




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 55
dollars was his lowest price? Certainly. It was
and always had been. Then I softly resumed:
"Strange, for surely you remember when you
offered it to my husband about eight months ago for
twenty?" It seemed as if it had suddenly grown
warm, the gentleman flushed so.' He admitted to
a trifling error in accuracy and the office was rented
to me at the lower figure. Of course it was amusing. It is indicative, however, of the tireless vigilance one must always maintain if one is to succeed
in business. It is not unfair discrimination; it is
business. It was n't because I was a woman. He
would have been twice as sharp with a man. In
business everyone is out to grab, to fight, to win.
Either you are the under or the over dog. It is
up to you to be on top.
With the lease signed, paper was printed with
A. F. MacDougall and the address, as letterheads.
You see I did not deem it expedient to proclaim
myself a woman by my full signature. The telephone company moved with unusual speed in
answer to my pleadings and a telephone was installed. My first purchase, a large box or bin in
which to keep coffee, reduced my bank balance to
thirty dollars.
There was much antagonism to me on the Street.
I was a dreadfully ill woman, and the men gave me
"six months." At the end of that time they
expected me to disappear as unexpectedly as I had
arrived, and one could scarcely blame them. I had




56      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
no credit, no health, no knowledge. How could I
but fail?
To make possible my first purchase of coffee, my
dear friend, Mr. J. Noah H. Slee, offered to guarantee me to the amount of $500oo. My second business
day was spent going with Mr. Slee and my three
little samples from office to office to make my
initial purchase of coffee.
I remember the cold, critical expression in the
eyes of the man I first approached, peering at me
with antagonism mixed with curiosity through the
heavy-lensed glasses of nearsighted eyes. It was
wise for me to buy from this firm, for they knew the
grade and style of coffee my husband had blended
for our home use, and when he refused to have anything to do with me, Mr. Slee demurred. Why
should he not sell me? My money was as good as
anybody else's. Why discriminate? But I was
proud. I knew what I was going to do. I was
sure of myself. I drew myself up to my full height
of four feet ten inches and said, "My dear Mr.
Slee, I think my whole business now and forevermore with Mr. So-and-So will be to wish him a very
good morning." Figuratively I had given him a
slap on the face I felt he richly deserved. I still
see his curiosity change to astonishment. I still
hear Mr. Slee say, "What on earth will you do
now?"   I, however, was not so filled as he with
consternation. Then, as always, I relied on myself. And because I believed in the goodness of




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 57
human nature, I quickly turned my footsteps to
the store of W. J. & E. H. Peck. To Mr. Walter
Peck I told my sto 'ry. Kind of heart, impulsive,
generous, he opened his stock to me and for at
least three years all my coffee was bought from him.
Into an out-of-the-way corner of the upper floor
of his building I went, and there,, away from the
trading going on below, I learned tasting and testing, and purchased the coffee I needed for my
growing business. I never felt the necessity of
returning to the nearsighted gentleman. People
without vision are rarely profitable acquaintances.
With only thirty dollars capital I scarcely could
afford a stenographer, and again Mr. Slee helped
me. My third business day was spent in his office
- of the "i-in-i " Oil Company - where the
best stenographers took my dictation. I dictated
and issued five hundred letters to friends and relatives., explaining my trouble and my great necessity,
telling of my plans, and saying, "Will you buy your
coffee from me., and, if you like it, speak of it to
your friends? "
Harry, my brother, gave me the first order of five
pounds;- ten friends ordered ten pounds each.
Thus began my business.
I established for myself basic principles. I
would ask no favors. I would buy nothing until
I could- pay for it. I would never buy anything
until I had to. My office was a dreary place, a
small rectangular room with yellowish walls and




S8      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
dull brown woodwork, back from the street and
without sunlight. In this I placed my coffee bin.
One large packing box served as a desk, another as
a chair. Naturally it more or less scratched my
knees. It was n't comfortable, but it served its
purpose. I bought a few ledgers, sales books, and
so on. Mr. Slee gave me a beautiful Venus pencil
until I could accumulate wealth enough for pen
and ink. My letterheads arrived; my daily programme was arranged.
I always think of the Bab Ballads as applicable
to me in those days: -
Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig!
For I was owner and possessor of this wonderful
business, its stenographer, typist, bookkeeper, shipping and receiving clerk. Errand boy as well. In
the morning I opened my mail, - sometimes I had
all of five letters, - ground, packed, and shipped
what orders I had, wrote up my books, and bought
coffee. In the early afternoon I attended to my
correspondence and sent out my daily hundred
letters, advertising my business. These letters
"pulled," as they say, and to them I attribute my
start. I thanked every person who ordered from
me, told him or her how much direct help the order
was to me, and how honestly I would in return




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 59
attempt to meet their needs in coffee quality.
Seven o'clock and I would start up Wall Street to
deliver three or four orders in the residential quarter of the city. That was hard work. Twenty
pounds weigh always twenty pounds, but when one
is weakened -by that horror, nervous prostration, it
seems a hundred, and my progress up Wall Street
to the subway or elevated was punctuated by stops
to hold on to a railing and catch my breath, or to
rest my hands from the cutting twine.
Another episode, but of a little different character, imprinted itself indelibly on my mind.
Many of our friends lived on Madison Avenue,
and there I used to go, before my business life, to
the many teas and receptions given by them. But
errands of a different nature carried me there at the
time of which I write. One afternoon, when a
reception was going on in the home of a long-time
friend, I arrived at her basement door weighed
down and exhausted by the heavy package of coffee
I had to deliver. No one answered my ring, so I
entered to escape the too friendly interest of the
chauffeurs outside. Inside was much hurry and
bustle. Excitable French waiters rushed to and
fro with steaming urns of coffee or kettles of boiling
water. Maids, anxious-faced, washed plates or
arranged creamed dishes and salads. The cook,
a large pleasant-faced woman, stood rather helplessly in front of the kitchen table. It seemed to
me that she should have been glad to be released for




60      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
a little while from the arduous cares of stove and
refrigerator. But, no, long years of training had
made her forget how to be free, just as the rest of
us forget how to vacate ourselves of responsibility.
As I advanced to the table, a look of questioning
surprise overspread her rather glistening face, then
a little resentment. But as I explained my errand
a sweet expression of sympathetic understanding
came, and a quiet feeling of friendliness returned
to me.
Outside the chauffeurs grinned and chatted
about this unusual type of delivery girl. Embarrassment and a sense of the unreal overwhelmed
me. I hurried by. I wonder if college professors
realize that the young girls of their classrooms must
anticipate this type of business experience if they
contemplate commercial life.
Storms in New York, as elsewhere, do not wait
on my convenience or anyone else's. One night,
typical of many others, I remember well. I had
left Front Street at about 8:30 P.M. to deliver
coffee far up in the West Side of the city, a district
quite unfamiliar to me. I emerged from a subway
station approximating my destination, faced into
a blinding snowstorm, and, wading through drifts,
weighed down by my ten-pound package of coffee, I
finally arrived. Returning, I found Allan, then seven
years old, looking on Broadway for me, anxiety in
his childish face, because I was so late. The smile
of welcome he gave me was perfect compensation.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 6i1
After such a night I would have to go to bed
immediately; but usually, after an hour or so with
my children, singing or reading to them, as I had
always done before going into business, I would put
them to bed and then sit at the sewing machine fora few hours more to make their clothes. I had a
distinct feeling of triumph when I completed a set
of warm woolen paj amas for Allan between eleven
and two. When one has nerves one cannot sleep,
so sewing was quite restful. Finally, toward morning, I would take some kind of sleeping medicine
and forget - it could hardly be called sleep - for
a little. At six I was up again, for I had to start
the day for my children and order their meals, and
my hour for arrival at Front Street was 8 30.
Not long after my lease began, I made the
acquaintance of poor Jennie, the charwoman; a
frail., emaciated creature., she walked with a terrible
limp, for one leg was much shorter than the other.
She was an Italian and I soon learned to know and
really to love her. Joseph, her husband, worked in
a basket factory while John, their adored son, was
still at school. They had very, very little money.
For cleaning the offices Jennie got four dollars a
week and, as porter in the factory, Joseph got little
more. John sold papers after school hours and
eked out their scanty income with a few pennies
earned in this way. Jennie talked quite freely,
and when I asked her how she got along, she said,
" Vel, Mrs. Macca Douga', ye go slow, ver' slow! "




62      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
I believed her. But she seemed happy. Her love
for her husband and Johnnie seemed compensation
enough for her.
One evening she came in to me quite breathless,
a wild, hunted look in her brown eyes. I asked her
what the matter was. "Ah! Mrs. Macca Douga'
- they have gone to the hospital." And then it
turned out that Joseph, her husband - there were
no singular pronouns in the difficult English language for Jennie - had gone to the hospital for
a serious operation. This was bad enough, but she
must pay sixteen dollars a week for him.
Poor thing, how easily I understood her terror
and how keenly could I sympathize with it! Illness was a terror to my soul too at this time. So
I went to the hospital and arranged things. Jennie
became once more serene, for Joseph was made
well, and things, though still "slow," were not so
bad. Then one night, as I sat working after the
roar of Wall Street had ceased and I was quite
alone, the door of my office suddenly opened and
the three, Jennie and Joseph and John, stood in
martial array before me, Joseph and John, rosy
cheeked and well fed, Jennie the shadow of a
woman speaking volumes in self-sacrifice in contrast to the robust males of her family. White
with terror, she, the wife and mother, handed me
an envelope. "Look, look, Mrs. Macca Douga',"
she said. In it I found a bill for $i50 for Joseph's
long illness. Terror was hers, not alone at the




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 63
thought of how to pay the bill, but at the hideous
danger of imprisonment if she did n't. In Europe,
where Jennie had come from, there is little hope, if
any, for the poor if their bills are unpaid. It was
simple for me to reassure her and quiet her fears.
A trip uptown, an explanation to an understanding
and sympathetic hospital superintendent, so that
he adjusted what was but a bookkeeping error, and
sunshine crept again into dark 129 for all of us.
Gradually I became established. Six months
had passed, and in spite of the dismal croakings
of the coffee men I was still there. My mail contained perhaps ten daily letters now. Orders increased; a tiny, tiny spot of the earth's surface was
mine. People knew that A. F. MacDougall was
selling good coffee at a reasonable price. Some
knew that there was a woman behind that ambiguous name, honestly trying to support herself and
her family, and the great kind world reached out
friendly hands and hearts.
Still, it was not easy. I was dreadfully lonely.
Day after day passed and my sole companions were
a little Irish stenographer and a Jew who took the
strain of the packing and shipping off my shoulders.
It took strength, self-discipline, to leave my children alone all day, and day after day; also it was
hard to deny myself all pleasure and luxury. I had
almost no time to read. I could not afford the
delights of theatres and music. To add to my sorrow and loneliness was the separation from my




64      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
father, who had died just two months to the day
after I went into business. With him went a great
sustaining and inspiring love; his death came when
I most needed him. Sometimes wild despair would
overtake me, and a terrible hysteria which tormented me would not be controlled. Hastily flinging on hat and coat, I would rush out. Walking
through the laughing lunch-hour throng on lower
Broadway, I would rally myself by repeating: -
"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break."
When quiet returned I would go back to my office
to resume my battle.
As I have said, I had no equipment. What
thrills when my first chair arrived - a brand-new
secondhand one of "antique" oak! Much the
worse for wear, but at least a chair. Mr. Peck
loaned me a little desk. No place for papers, no
convenience, but a genuine comfort not to have my
knees continually bruised by the packing-box-desk
of my beginnings. And here hours at a time I sat
and figured out my small profits and tried to
dovetail into them the expenses of my home.
What if I werewrong? If my profit were wrongly
computed, then farewell to my whole scheme of
life. There was no bliss to my kind of ignorance,
I assure you, and long hours of figuring every remote contingency and every immediate possibility
made an exhausting addition to the busy day.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 6S
Long after Wall Street had put up shutters and
gone home," I sat at my bookkeeping, utterly weary,
terrified by the loneliness of the dark, silent building., figuring, figuring.
When I had been in business a few months., I
found it so very difficult to carry it on with no
money that I determined to borrow some., so I
explained the situation to my friend Mr. Spalding,
who sent the auditor of A. G. Spalding & Bros. to
verify my statements. Incidentally, from him I
learned all that I now know about bookkeeping.
Finding that my own books, while dreadfully feminine and erratic, were 'in the main correct., he and
Mr. William Barbour guaranteed me up to one
thousand dollars at one of the large city banks.
The arrangement was that I should pay this back
to the bank when and how I could. I could
never have any more., but I might draw up to
that sum - an ineffable boon when people did n't
pay their bills and my own matured.
All went along smoothly until on two different
occasions, on balancing my account, I found myself
short. The first time I was not greatly concerned,
but I was., the second. I had no corresponding
stub in my check book for either shortage, and the
bank returned no voucher for either. Instead of
my having - let me say - one hundred and fifty
dollars on the second occasion, the bank said I had
only one hundred and thirty-five. I nearly wore
the paper of my check book out trying to find my




66      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
mistake. Hours and hours were spent racking my
brains to remember cashing a check outside, which
I might have failed to enter on my return to my
office. I knew I had n't done this - money was
too precious and my bank account too small to
admit of any such carelessness. Finally I spoke to
the cashier. Indulgently he listened - of course
it was money paid over the counter. Tolerantly he
explained my error, and I felt all the humility of a
mere woman in the face of men and money. But I
was unconvinced, and after spending more weary
hours trying to find my error, I wrote the bank that
since they could not produce the vouchers, I thought
it was poor banking to allow such a thing to
happen; that it was not the amount of money
involved that disturbed me, but the dependability
of their organization. This, to one of the most
conservative banks in New York!
Immediately they wrote back that I might withdraw my account if I was not pleased. It was evident that they intended their letter to be a rebuke,
not a stimulus to action on my part, but within two
hours after the receipt of their letter I did withdraw
my account. I transferred my tiny sum, my life
raft, to a safer place. The new, friendlier bank
now has whatever advantage may accrue from its
handling of the banking affairs of a two-milliondollar business annually.
The troubles that beset me were not alone from
my own ignorance or need or timidity. Things




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 67
quite beyond my sphere of influence still affected
me. One hot Saturday in August 1909 I worked
late, figuring, planning, writing. I was pleased.
I was carrying several grades of coffee. Cocoa
had made its permanent addition to my stock, and
many delicious blends of tea. Orders were increasing and anxiety diminishing. Rest and peace were
approaching.
I went home to my restful Sunday duties with
a feeling of content. Monday morning, and what
a complete change! A bear movement had been
started, the market had broken, all values had
altered, and the established rest of Sunday was
changed into the pandemonium of a disordered
market.
Another time the strike of the express companies
turned things upside down for me, and made me
exercise all kinds of ingenuity to make deliveries,
when all delivery had stopped. But in spite of the
deterrents of one kind or another, the business
pushed steadily forward.
Thus time passed. By November 1909, just two
years after my beginning, I was established. My
business was about $20,000 gross a year, but the
profit in this was small. On each pound the net
profit was about four cents. My children were occupied at school throughout their day. Something
like security entered my mind. Still I was financing my apartment on a minus sign.
I had established for myself the inviolable rules




68      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
mentioned before of paying cash for everything, not
only as an excellent policy, but to secure the cash
discount. On the other hand, I had to extend
credit. Boards of Directors meet at stated intervals and bills are not passed for payment till they
do meet. So it happened that two or three months
might have to elapse between my payment for
green coffee and a rich and luxurious club's payment of my bill. In the interim, unspeakable
anxiety for me, sleepless nights of fear and doubt,
days of utmost endeavor, a few dollars here to quiet
an insistent butcher, saving, saving every little
penny to meet the onrushing of my next bill for
coffee. Rigid economy, patching, darning, mending at home. Economy of the most careful kind
exerted with ever increasing vigor in the office.
Look after the pennies, and the pounds - there
were no pounds, not even dollars; so pennies here
and pennies there saved and multiplied, and life
proceeded, and the years passed.
I look back with amusement upon my economies,
more especially because they are ingrown and hard
to dispense with now when they are unnecessary
and have in fact become almost a luxury. For
years I cut open each envelope and used the inside
for memoranda and figuring. As time passed, my
clerks were taught the same method, and as the
mail increased we had ample paper for the entire
force. Consequently I never spent one penny for
paper of any kind except the absolute essentials in




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 69
letterheads, billheads, and the like. It costs me
quite a pang to-day to see my precious envelopes
thrown intact into the scrap baskets when we have
become so vulgarly, carelessly wealthy and when
time is too precious to justify their use.
My apartment was blessed with an open fire, the
epitome of luxury to me. After a devastating day
of business care, what delight to draw near to its
restful, comforting warmth with the children and
either read, sing, talk, or sew. And here another
economy gladdened my soul. For my tea chests
accumulated, pretty in their gay covering of Oriental paper, chests which contained the aromatic
teas I used in making my blends. These broken
into pieces served as kindling and added to the
pleasure of my fire by the spicy sweetness of the
Oriental wood.
These economies were trifling in themselves but,
multiplied in hundreds of different ways, really
accomplished something, except - I blush to think
of it - for the offsetting extravagances, which were
mainly responses to heart appeals from other suffering souls whose need seemed greater than my own.
By what names did I not call myself when it was
over and I had to meet the daily demands of my
home with more faith than cash!
One of my enforced economies was going without
sweets. I longed for them, I craved the stimulant
they give. It was a subconscious craving for alcohol in those days of heavy strain and little physical




70      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
strength. Well did I grow to understand the feelings of the man who took a pick-me-up under
mental strain. Years of inexorable self-discipline
made me abnormal in my attitude toward food;
I still am so. A fifteen-cent malted milk with two
crackers made a full meal for me in those days, until
one day at the soda counter I saw the sticky mass
from which the clerk dipped the syrup he put in my
concoction. To cap my disgust and revolt me
permanently, he stuck his thumb in the egg as
he broke it on the edge of the glass from which I
was to drink. That was the end of that sort of
midday meal. The only alternative for me was one
of the quick-lunch places where about two thousand people eat at noontime, with all the unbearable clatter and confusion. I would wait until
2:30, when the place was rather empty, and ordering a piece of toast, sit down for a dreary moment.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that I years later
developed restaurants that are a haven from the
blare of the street and the too-great intimacy with
one's fellow man.
For my children, however, at this time as at all
others, I planned meals that should be nutritious,
have an endless variety, and eliminate any waste.
I made my menus weekly so as to utilize the leftovers. I used nothing but the most substantial
and wholesome foods, but I presented them to the
children excellently cooked and in such varied ways
that their appetites never flagged and they were




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 71
always well nourished. Roasts of beef did fulltime duty for us. Five meals at least out of a tenpound roast before submitting the bones to the
soup pot, where the left-over vegetables of many
me,als gave it the delicious flavor I wanted and a
little rice or barley added to its nutriment. When
the roast behaved in this capable manner., it was
simple to recruit the remaining meals from the
fish market or use the many less expensive but
wholly delicious foods.
Planning thus, I quickly knew to within a few
pennies the exact cost of my living. Rent, gas.,
wages, food - so much a day, so much a month.
In the office I knew with equal surety the profit
on each blend of coffee., each grade of tea and cocoa.
I devised my " slips." These were narrow pieces
of paper - the insides of large envelopes. I multiplied each day the profit (gross) of each blend of
coffee., etc.., by the number of pounds sold. From
this total I deducted my daily expenses', so each
evening before going home I knew whether I had
made or failed to make enough to pay my running
expenses. And this method, primitive as it was,
kept clearly before my mind just where I stood. I
was encouraged when business was good, curbed
when my optimism led to extravagance and the
day's slip registered a minus quantity. Above all
was the dominant rule to buy nothing that was not
an absolute necessity, and not to buy that necessity
until I had money to pay for it. To be sure, my




72      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
nature, which is that of a gambler, led me to take
long chances. But courage and ingenuity usually
came to my aid, and in the long run worked to my
advantage.
And I asked no favors. People have a tendency
to boast of their ability and then run to cover like
rabbits when a crisis comes, or else seek protection
under some stronger intellect. I am like the rest
of my kind, and probably would do the same were
it not for one thing: I know that in the long run
it just does n't pay. Human nature is dear,
beautiful, and long-suffering. It reaches out in
pity its generous kindness to all who are in trouble,
but after all, each one of us has his own responsibilities, and after a while our kindest friend must leave
us to work out his own immediate problem. Besides, I could not square it with my own selfrespect. So I adopted the principle that I would
ask no favors. Perhaps this is not quite an
accurate statement, for I had no compunction in
draining to the last drop the cup of wisdom and
ability in my friends. Did I want some light on advertising, up I went to Mr. Slee. Did some problem
of financing confront me, Mr. Walter Spalding shed
the sunlight of his powerful brain upon it, and it
vanished in thin air. If I were tortured by the
vast debates of my soul, the courageous philosophy
of Emerson and Browning inspired me for each
day's work. But to ask anyone actually to do one
little thing for me - that was impossible.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 73
One day Mr. George F. Baker telephoned me and
asked me to come to his office. Loving him very
dearly and respecting him for his lifelong friendship
for my father, I had purposely avoided acquainting
him with my trouble. But a mutual friend told
him about me and in consequence he called me to
his office. I went to the First National Bank -
that great bank of a great city. As I entered, what
thoughts crowded to my mind of its infinite power
and my impotence. We talked together, I knowing full well what was in Mr. Baker's heart. He
was embarrassed, I think, for he had all the hesitancy in the world as he said, "Alice, what can I do
for you?" and I replied, "Mr. Baker, I don't think
there is anything in the world that you or anyone
else can do for me. I have a big fight ahead. It is
my own special battle and I must fall or rise according to my ability." I believe in burning one's
bridges. I believe the only way to conquer is to
walk where the battle rages most fiercely, and fight,
fight, fight until you win.
It is this kind of determination that man has
acquired through long generations, and the woman
who is to conquer in the business world must
acquire it too if she is to succeed.
Mr. Baker, however, was not satisfied. Those
were the days when I was hanging on to life by a
rather slender thread. Just as I arose to go,
a clerk appeared in answer to Mr. Baker's ring.
A thousand dollar bill passed from his hand to




74      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
mine, so overwhelming me that I all but fainted.
I deposited it quickly, minding Mr. Baker's gentle
admonition, "Now, Alice, be careful not to lose
that," rushed to my office, drew checks for every
outstanding bill I owed, and that night slept
soundly for the first time in many years.
I could not write of this early stage of my business without remembering Dr. Devan and the
Tribune Fresh Air Fund. Dr. Devan preached
no special theory of life, but his whole soul was
dedicated to usefulness, coupled with a wise understanding, with great love and sympathy for suffering, and he gave me the entire order for coffee used
at the various camps of the Fresh Air Fund. One
morning, early in spring, I called to get my order,
and Dr. Devan said, "Mrs. MacDougall, if there
is anything else on that list that you think you can
sell me, you may do so." I looked over the list of
groceries and suddenly noticed that for every
pound of coffee there were about five of cocoa, so I
said, "I would like to sell you cocoa." "What do
you know about it?"  "Nothing at all, but this is
February. You will not need any till June, and
by that time I will know all that is necessary."
From that day and for many after, cocoa salesmen led a weary life and my digestion all but passed
away, for I tasted cocoa sweet and cocoa bitter;
cocoa fair and cocoa most indubitably foul; cocoa
made with xxxx sugar, and cocoa less proud,
sweetened with God alone knew what. But by




FRONT STREET AND HOW        IT GREW    75
June large drums of cocoa, as well as bags of coffee,
went to the Fresh Air Fund, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had lowered the price, bettered'the quality, and supplied the little children of
the New York slums with a pure and helpful drink.
Twenty years have passed. We still supply
them, and not once has there been a complaint of
either quality or flavor.
So far all advertising and'soliciting had been done
by mail. Now, however, I felt urged to greater
endeavor and I made my first attempt at commercial traveling.
I had decided upon a direct-to-the-customer
mail-order business, but the individual consumer
had a quite annoying way of going South in winter
and to Europe in summer, and I soon turned to
those comfortably all-the-year-round propositions:
institutions, clubs, hotels, hospitals, and colleges.
At first I did not fare far from home. Money was
scarce and traveling expensive, so I zoned a district
to a radius of about seventy-five miles from New
York and found enough to do to cover the sanitariums and hospitals and other institutions therein.
There was a very well known sanitarium in the
outskirts of New Haven, and that journey I remember with vivid distinctness. Arriving at the
station, I looked for some kind of conveyance to
carry me to my destination. A rather queer-looking man approached me, the type one would call a
"character."  Old, with gray hair that waved a




76      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
little as it escaped from a worn fur cap worn
jauntily on one side, corduroy coat and waistcoat,
and gay check trousers. He asked if he could be of
any assistance. I told him what I wanted and he
said if I could wait a "jiffy" he would return with
a team of "the prettiest pair of Kentucky-bred
mares you ever laid eyes on." My love for horses
carried the day and in a few moments my debonair
Jehu arrived and I found myself seated beside him
in a narrow racing road-wagon.
We started. My companion immediately began
a rapid-fire conversation. It was early spring.
The ground was soft and as we got farther and
farther away from the little town, deep ruts lined
the road and the wheels sank in while the pretty
horses tugged at the traces. There was a lovely
sweetness to the air. I was tired and it was good to
get away from dirty, noisy New York. I would
have been glad to drive in silence and rest my jaded
soul. But - no hope; my companion talked and
talked, and in spite of my laconic answers, a stream
of words flowed ceaselessly into my ears. Having
exhausted his fund of anecdotes, he began to recite
poetry, edging, little by little, nearer and nearer
to me till it seemed as if I was seated on the rim of
the wheel.
We were now out in the open country. Fields
just beginning to turn green after their long
winter's sleep stretched out to the horizon or else
reached to the low-lying hills far away. Not a




FRONT STREET AND HOW         IT GREW    77
vestige of a house, no sign of a human being. A
cow even would have been a welcome sight, for I
was beginning to suspect something and felt a bit
uneasy.
Then the gentleman stopped the horses, and
pressed close to me and began to make love. His
horrid breath heated my cheeks. I was conscious
of his face coming closer and closer to mine. Disgust - there is n't a word in the English language
strong enough for what I felt. The whip was in
the socket. I seized it. Words are often useless
things, but the words I used, the whip held near
the lash with the butt-end free, the look in my face,
carried some idea to the beastly creature and he
desisted. I did not get to the sanitarium nor have
I ever tried to return. He turned his horses about
and we drove back to the little town. Any woman
can imagine my relief when I saw the train arrive
to carry me back to wicked New York. Thus one
business episode ended.
That was all it was, an episode of a business day.
It did me no harm. I laughed over it the next day
and for many months after would recite part of the
poem, "The White Goblet and the Red," that had
been recited with so much fervor by my amorous
companion.
This is the kind of thing that happens to women
in business. This is the price one pays for emancipation - it is scarcely worth while, it seems to
me. Perhaps because I am mid-Victorian.




78      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Commercial traveling was vivid and lonely and
depressing and thought-provoking. My first selling
trip to Scranton comes to my mind in scenes,
reeling slowly as the hours passed then, midnight
till dawn, dawn till noon, noon till night. At
midnight in mid-winter I left my apartment and
said good-bye to my children. Dress suitcase in
hand I climbed the Elevated stair and started for
Scranton by the D. L. & W. How small and
lonely I felt, going out into the night and the cold
strangeness of that journey to parts unknown!
Arriving early the next morning, I breakfasted at
a counter, perched on a high, uncomfortable stool,
my feet barely touching the rail. My companions
were railroad laborers and train hands. I hated
the stale, overnight odors of food and the heavy
smell of pipe and tobacco of the brakeman who
ate next to me. A swallow or two of coffee and I
rushed for the fresh air, and rode back and forth
over the hills of Scranton till I could go to hospital,
club, and hotel and beard the mighty steward in
his den.
Nine was the earliest time permissible to call.
The interim had to be filled with these solitary but
fascinating rides through towns just awaking after
a long night's sleep.
And filled with fanciful romance were some of
these street journeys. There is always a fascination connected with the awakening of a city. One
thinks of the night before and its possible and




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 79
varied activities, not all bearing the light of investigation very well, and watches with quiet amusement the slow awakening of some houses, while
others are quick and alert to greet another day.
It is fascinating too to listen as the noise begins,
first with the jangling of the milkman, the slow
clump-clump of his sleepy horse and the tinkletinkle of the milk bottles. And then, one by one,
slowly and sleepily but ever yet a little more
briskly, other carts in succession, and finally the
slow, plodding footsteps of the first early artisans
walking to work. In summer it is sweet to listen
to the same awakening of life among the birds in
shrubs and bushes. In Scranton and Wilkesbarre
it was the miners going slowly to work that fascinated me. There had been a heavy snowfall.
The streets were narrow pathways. The little
places in front of the still dreaming homes were
piled high with fleecy snow, while tiny lights
blinked like nearsighted old men through their
snow-rimmed windows at the rising sun. And then
the streets began to fill with the poor, tired, wornlooking miners, black splotches on the breast of
the newly fallen snow. In the dull gray of the
morning they had a weird, unreal appearance,
slouching along with their queer, bulgy, bagging
black clothing, their little lamps, dull and useless,
fitted into their tight caps.
I felt a prayer creep into my heart and a keen
sense of pity for these toilers of the deep places.




8o      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Who knew their suffering, their struggle, or at
what moment death, far from the cheer of the sun.,
might reach them?
The Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton was the
goal of my ambition, The superintendent was said
to be a cold, reticent woman. People warned me
against her as I inquired my way. Finally, when
I was shown in., I was quite shaken by fear. A
long, nerve-racking wait ensued. At last she came
and listened in silence to my selling talk, unsmiling,
imperturbable. I was in despair. My long journey and tremendous outlay were useless, my effort
abortive. Then to my astonishment, without comment, she drew an order pad to her, wrote out and
handed me an order for four hundred pounds of
coffee and two hundred pounds of cocoa. I nearly
fainted. She gave me not an order alone, but a
promise, faithfully kept, of all her subsequent
orders. This alone justified the frightful expense
of the trip, and encouraged me for my visit to
Wilkesbarre and onward. Even then it was hard
not to turn tail and run away, so great was my distaste for this personal solicitation, but I was in
most cases received courteously, almost always
secured the order or business I was after, and
always returned with that fine sense of accomplishment,- the greatest reward for a self-fought battle.
In selling to hotels and clubs I had generally to
deal with the steward, and no one was more difficult., no one took more out of me and my none-too



FRONT STREET AND HOW         IT GREW    81
great strength. One late afternoon I went to the
top of a skyscraper on Wall Street to sell coffee to
the steward of a gentlemen's club. He was a
foreigner. Maybe he was a nice man - I certainly
did n't think so as he locked the door and I sat in
his little cubbyhole of an office, our knees almost
touching. A sardonic smile was on his lips. His
small black eyes glistened in a quite tormenting
way, and for several minutes he plied me with
questions, personal and impertinent. Temper,
not courage, came to my rescue. Either I was to
dominate or he. The debate did not last long.
Having received the order, I departed. I was
conscious of breathing a little hurriedly as he
unlocked that hateful door and I knew I was free.
But it was good - and an experience. I had
learned a lesson and secured a customer as well.
The next time found me better equipped.
But if this one was irritating, how amusing was
the steward of a large New York hospital. Here
was self-righteousness on a pedestal. He knew
the whole decalogue of morality. No hesitancy
was his. No delicacy restrained   the mighty
onrush of his majestic will. Through a doctor, he
knew all about me, and with colossal assurance
told me just what I should and should not do,
recounted my sins, past, present, and to come, and
breathless, demanded why I should ask him to
help me. For the first, last, and only time I longed
to be a pugilist. I would have loved to make




82      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
marmalade of his rosy countenance. Then the
humor of it all came to me, also the cold commercial
value of his order. Bottling up my wrath, I remembered that "molasses catches more flies than
vinegar." My lips became saccharine sweet, I
gently dallied with my inquisitor, while extolling
the virtues of these lords of humanity, the noble
company of apostolic stewards. After. all, was I
not a woman above all things and with three children to support? My coffee was good, my price
reasonable, my service excellent. Could n't he?
He could. Wouldn't he? He would and did.
Subsequently we became quite good friends.
But these unpleasant encounters were the exception. Never shall I forget the soothing help that
came to me after a long, tiresome day in Springfield. Feeling a kind of proprietary right in the
town of my father's boyhood, I made it one of my
first objectives. It is a large, lovely city, and I
went all day from place to place, hospital to hotel,
and finally reached the Nyasset Club and Mr.
Donald MacDonald. Maybe the Scotch merit their
reputation, but in Mr. MacDonald I found a soul
generous in understanding, liberal, and without
prejudice. Regularly, for many years after, my
coffee and tea went to the Nyasset Club. If the
membership glowed in a new brilliancy, it was due,
I firmly believe, to the coffee supplied by A. F.
MacDougall.
After each business trip I returned, exhausted,




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 83
and worked in the quiet of my office until again duty
summoned me to a new departure in some untried
field. It was always the same story. Fear,
hesitancy, inadequate physical strength, but will
conquering and courage assisting.
One really delightful memory rises from the
rather drab background of these trips. Colleges
and fraternity houses now became the object of my
endeavor. After a busy day wandering around
Williamstown, an undergraduate asked me to
dinner at his chapter house. Thirty boys, hungry,
not alone for dinner but for the things their mothers
gave them, circled me at table, and later around
the blazing fire. They sang with their strong
young voices the delightful college songs. They
plied me with a thousand questions, for life was
serious and their brave hearts were realizing a little
of the gravity of the Great Adventure. Midyears were over, but finals were not far away, and
soon the inevitable "What shall I do with it" would
have to be answered by each and every one. How
glad I was for the assurance I could give! If I,
an untrained woman, broken in health, could meet
life's challenge and conquer, what possible chance
of failure for them?
But if I succeeded with men and men's undertakings, how dismal was my failure when I
approached those institutions designed solely for
women's benefit, and officered principally by
women!




84      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
Explain the antagonism women showed me, as
you will, members of the suffrage and feminist
movements. I cannot. All I know is that while
men sprang ever ready, ever chivalrous, to put
business in my way, sometimes even when competitors, women almost invariably turned me down.
There were exceptions, of course, as in the case of
the superintendent of the hospital in Scranton, and
in Martha Van Rensselaer., that amazing woman
of the Department of Home Economics in Cornell.
There were many exceptions among the hundreds
of women housekeepers who were ready and eager
to help me get on my feet. But Smith College,
Bryn Mawr, the Women's Exchanges, and hundreds of other similar institutions for women were
impossible, and in them only I had to admit defeat.
If their hesitancy could have been attributed to
the quality of my coffee I would have been the first
to acknowledge it. But by the time I approached
places like these I was more or less of a specialist.
I knew my market, both wholesale and retail. 'I
knew the needs of these people, as my success elsewhere proved. The difficulty - an honest conversation proved that - lay in the quality of the
feminine mind. The subtle flattery of an adroit
salesman pleased them and their order in consequence went to him. Fear., also,) in a dim, unrealized way of those "higher up" crushed their
initiative, and I pitied them. But my admiration
of college intellect outside of scholastic matters had




FRONT STREET AND HOW         IT GREW    85
a severe blow, and my opinion concerning women in
general and a certain type of college woman in particular was strengthened.
Even while I deprecated the suffrage movement,
I felt that I must turn it to my own account. How
could it be done? On the one hand was my baffling experience with women and my deep opposition
to the movement as such. On the other, the vast
crowd of capable, intelligent women fighting to the
death either for or against suffrage. I had no time
to participate actively on either side. What little
I did for the side opposed to suffrage brought forth
such a swarm of condemning letters that my son
Allan at least felt that every man's and woman's
hand was raised against me. But after the little
flurry I felt that my customers were nearly all
sympathetic. Though I merely circularized them
with a questionnaire issued by my side, the fact
established me as a conservative among women
and really added to my prestige.
I know many of the so-called grievances of
women are false. No man ever unfairly discriminated against me. If one tried to, I, like
everyone else, was equal to the emergency, and
such experience really added a great deal to the
zest of life. I felt that women, as a habit, overestimated their ability, and that they were too
untrained even to appreciate the magnitude of their
undertaking. I felt that there was already too
much ignorance in government. I could see no




86     ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
good in increasing the illiterate, uneducated vote.
Also I knew the hardship to little children when,
by force of circumstance, their friend and mother
was obliged to withdraw her companionship for the
exhausting battle royal of politics or commerce.
I had, perhaps, too high a sentimental feeling
for woman per se, for - to me - the opportunity
offered by life to women is far in excess of any
offered to men. To be the inspiration is more than
to be the tool. To create the world, a greater
thing than to reform it. Also in my cynical mind
I knew how potent was woman's influence over
man, and questioned whether the vote could in any
way increase that influence. But I was convinced
that I must in some way utilize the great wave of
feminine emotion. And then it was, and because
of this thought, that the business of the obscure
A. F. MacDougall burst forth into the glory of
Alice Foote MacDougall.
A simple change. Much of the success of life
depends upon keeping one's mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes. From the
suffrage party I gained no direct advantage. One
of their leaders, a noted society woman, wrote with
quite amusing patronage that she would try ten
pounds of coffee and, if it was good enough to suit
her, would give me her trade. The ten pounds
were delivered and the episode ended. When one
is altering the face of the universe one cannot remember small helpful acts. But fortunately there




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 87
were many kindly souls, men and women, who, not
occupied by big reforms, could assist a woman
struggling for another kind of independence, and
with the establishment of my identity as a woman
the business leaped forward to definite success.
In 1912, after five years at 129 Front Street, I
was forced to move because the entire building was
taken over by the sugar interests. Besides, my
business was growing and I was delighted to feel
that I could take the rooms offered me directly
opposite, bright, sunny, and full of fresh air. Half
my trouble seemed to fall from my shoulders as I
established myself and my belongings in 138 Front
Street.
Here, added to the sweet light of God's heaven
came the sunlight of Allan's presence. A little
relaxation came too, for Allan took much detail
from my shoulders and relieved me of the strain
of commercial traveling; and the growing business
brought a sense of security.
At fourteen Allan, like his grandfather, had
graduated with flying colors from Trinity School
in New York. Then came the great question,
college or business? Obviously he wanted to go
to college, and undoubtedly he would have made
a star football player. But I was thinking of what
was best for him and for his future. Which was
better, four years of semi-loafing or four years of
learning in the college of business those things
that would equip him to "carry on"? He had




88      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
prepared for his examinations at Trinity School
and presented himself at Columbia for his preliminaries. He passed with one or two conditions-,
but as he was only fourteen it seemed unwise to
have him enter so young.
While I was debating, my mother died. During
her illness I developed quite a serious sinus trouble,,
but of course had neither time nor inclination to
have it cared for while she whom I loved so dearly
was making the great transition. After it was all
over my condition was serious, the cure was strenuous, and my work became an almost insuperable
difficulty. So much so, that the thought came to
me of what would happen to the children and the
business if I should die. This thought was what
really determined Allan's career, and having
worked for two years in the Linen Thread
Company, he came to me in 1913. His has been a
triumphal progress. Always popular, he has
inherited much of my father's charm and ability,
and bids fair to make a good name for himself.
Life unstintingly bestows upon him all its privileges.
He was sixteen when he came to me and our
vivid experience together began. I had hoped to
have him learn the coffee business in some office
on the Street, but my ill health hastened his
entrance into my business.
Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 89
was a little true in our case, and if I - and I did -
send him off on business trips to catch my breath
after a truly strenuous fortnight because of my
partner's exuberance of spirit, he, I am sure, found
a certain rest even when, to use his own expression,
his errand was to sell coffee to a lot of "gabby old
hens." (There were moments when Allan forgot
the respect due his elders and betters.) From
1913 to 1915 were two years of happiness. Allan
brought such joy into my life that it was easy to
carry my burden.
A little event occurred at this time that indicates
something of how near I was, for a brief time, to
light-heartedness. Kelly, our expressman, was an
ex-pugilist. Joseph, too, knew a good deal about
fists. It occurred to me that these two might give
Allan a few boxing lessons, and that it would be
sport for him. He had not had time, of course, for
much indulgence in sports.
On the evening of the first lesson I went home,
for I don't enjoy physical encounters, and I did n't
want my presence to dampen any fun Allan or
Kelly or Joseph might get out of the fray. I did
not see Allan until the next morning, and then he
seemed glum, almost sour, on the subject of boxing.
Evidently my frivolous idea of his getting a little
sport had been all wrong. But I could get nothing
from him in way of explanation. When I saw
Kelly I asked him what had happened. "Why,
nothing, Mrs. MacDougall," he said, "only he




90      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
wanted to keep his eyes shut, so I just tapped him a
little on the head." Before the end of the day I
managed to get from Allan the admission that
Kelly's little tap had kriocked him almost senseless.
His boxing lessons forthwith came to a sudden end.
I told Kelly that I thought life would open his eyes
fast enough.
After two years at 138 Front Street, the usual
business cloud promptly arose. We were forced,
like poor Jo, to "move on."
You see, men had been tolerant and a bit patronizing. I was not interfering with them. I was
strictly minding my own business, so successfully
in fact that gradually, instead of being small and
unobtrusive, it began to take on quite offensive
proportions. My purchases in the wholesale market were even being solicited. Those gentlemen
who had n't wished to be bothered before now
suggested the advantage of their stock, general
service, and facilities. But in the dignified office
building of 138 was rage and consternation! True,
there were two elevators, but with them loaded all
day with Mrs. MacDougall's incoming coffee, tea,
and cocoa and outgoing freight, where were they,
those lords of creation, to get up and down? They
forced the landlord, and out I had to go.
Now, every move is a calamity in business.
Changes of address almost always cause losses of
orders and letters. New letterheads, billheads,
advertising material, have to be printed and the




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 91
actual cost of moving was an expense that caused
me many a pang. You see I was still counting and
saving every penny. Besides, another change had
come. This was in 1917. The war had broken
out and real estate in the lower section of the city
had leaped into feverish activity. Every available
office was occupied to answer the multiple demands
of all nations, and those that were not occupied
were being held at prohibitive prices.
Miles we walked, Allan and I, until unwillingly
we were forced to lease the second floor of a building
at 138 Pearl Street. Once a stately home in the
early days of New York, afterward the offices of
the Standard Oil Company, it had no conveniences
of a commercial nature. No heat, no elevator, no
janitor, nothing that answered to the needs of what
was now a flourishing business with every indication of becoming more so. But there was no alternative, and here we established ourselves, and here
I made one of those experiments that give zest to
the game of life.
Everyone will remember the way prices soared
as difficulties of transportation, shortage of men,
and the immense consumption of the armies
increased. As always, I was working with no
capital, keeping myself desperately poor, running
my home - as I have said - on a minus sign, and
paying back into my business the most of my profit
to take care of its ever increasing demands. This
was quite all right, but not easy even in normal




92        ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
times.  Santos, a low-priced coffee, cost about
twelve dollars a bag at the beginning of the war.
In two years it had risen to thirty dollars, and the
high grades, Bogotas, Maracaibos, and so on, went
up as high as forty or fifty, while Java and Mocha
simply ceased to exist. The same was true of tea
and cocoa. Men with large capital looked serious;
for me it spelled ruiin if I could not secure enough
money to buy up a fair supply of coffee. Accommodation from my bank was hopeless. The
president respected me, knew I was honest, yet
nothing would justify a loan.
But one's brain is quickened by necessity. How
adroitly it comes to our rescue in times of peril!
I had gained by now the confidence of the people
who bought from me. Long hours at night I lay
awake thinking. Then I issued the following:SPECIAL NOTICE
Mrs. Alice Foote MacDougall regretfully announces
that, because of conditions arising from the war, the
following increased schedule of prices will become effective on and after May 10, 1916.
Coffee 20 per pound increase
(on all except fancy goods)
Tea 4ý per pound increase
(on all except fancy goods)
Cocoa,!2 per pound increase
Orders received before the above date, accompanied by
check or money order, will be filled at present prices.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 93
It worked like magic. Eager to save themselves
a few pennies in times when soaring prices made
everyone poor, intelligent men and women seized
the opportunity not only to save but to secure good
coffee, when a little later it would have disappeared
from the market. In a few days a snowstorm of
checks came in with each mail, not only for immediate orders, but far in excess, for future deliveries.
A crisis was passed. Unwittingly the public had
financed me and my business. I could just squeeze
through. Of course I kept faith with my customers. Their money was immediately converted
into coffee, and as higher and higher prices obtained, they as well as I benefited.
This crisis was nothing compared to the new ones
that arose because of the war. Events marched
with rapid strides, taking one's breath away,
leaving one devastated. Allan had become a member of Squadron A, a crack New York Cavalry
organization, and with them went to Texas for six
illuminating months of experience, a man among
men. During his stay there two soft brown eyes
smiled down upon him, and shortly after his return his engagement to Lorraine Allen occurred.
Naturally, I lost my boy; but a wealth of lovely
girlhood came into my life.
Then the darkness closed in upon me; the impenetrable war cloud enfolded me. In two brief
weeks my sons and my brother Harry sailed to
France to do their share in righting an atrocious




94      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
wrong. How I could have lived, had my sons not
returned, I do not know, but even had they gone
to return no more., as did my Harry, I could not
have held them back., could but rejoice that theyhad gladly, gayly even, given themselves to their
glorious duty. Even so it was frightful, as every
mother knows who had a son in the war.
And yet, strangely, life in one way was not quite
so grim then. A sympathetic feeling existed, born
of common suffering and sorrow. Everyone was
in the same boat. No one knew where or when
death would carry off a loved one. Life was
stripped of its arrogance. All men were brothers
with a common purpose, the winning of the war.
For once we were lifted out of artificiality. We
faced life bravely and truly as it is.
My boys' room was a dismal place after their
departure; and at first I could not find courage to
enter it. It spoke volumes to me of their unspeakable danger, and, though bright and sunny, it
seemed a hideous place of darkness without their
presence. But soon came the need for sleeping
places for our men as -they passed through New
York, and the occupants became many and frequent. I gave my boys' room to the boys of other
mothers, and in doing so learned another lesson of
faith in human nature. At night my telephone
would ring and a voice would say, "Mrs. MacDougall, I am one of the boys you met at the Navy
Club. I did n't know it was so hard to find a place




FRONT STREET AND HOW         IT GREW    95
to sleep in New York. You said I might call you
up if I ever needed one. May I come now?"
How would you feel if you opened your door at
midnight to a man you had never seen and let him
enter and spend the entire night in the narrow
confines of a small apartment? The war and the
fineness it developed in men's souls helped, of
course. None the less, it was quite an experience
and most satisfying. Never once was my faith
unjustified, my hospitality abused. After a little
while, I had keys made which certain boys carried.
That was a relief, for the irritating telephone bell
ceased to waken me. The room was there. They
came whenever they were in port. But it was
sometimes a little startling when five extra men
were there for breakfast. Many touching and appreciative letters came to me from them or their
people. This one from a boy's mother pleased me:MY DEAR MRS. MACDOUGALL, -
My son has again written me, of the delightful entertainment he has so greatly enjoyed at your home. I
feel sure that being a mother with "two sons in the
service, and a dear daughter," you will understand that
from my heart I thank you for your kindness to my son,
a stranger in a strange city. I wish it was so I could
give any, or all of you, a small part of the pleasure you
have given my dear son.
I can but think how many heartaches and anxious
hours you must have had, with so many of your dear
ones away in active service.




96      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
These are such awful times; the only hope one has is
that this war may soon be over.
We hear such encouraging news from the other side.,
these days, that it begins to look brighter for our victorysoon. I hope that all of your dear ones will return to
you soon in health. What a happy time it will be when
it is all over!
Very sincerely,
ANNA S. FOWLER
In those days I could not contribute to the War
funds., but I became greatly interested in the War
Camp Community work. Associating with me
six or eight bright and attractive girls, I began giving parties on Sunday afternoons at my apartment.
They began at three. Soldiers and sailors are
taught to be prompt. As the clock struck, the
doorbell would ring. I made a point of opening it
myself, and sometimes my heart would fairly stand
still as eight or ten men with evident embarrassment entered awkwardly, shyly. Three quarters
of an hour of the hardest work I ever did would
follow.' Presently, however, under the influence
of music, smiles., and cigarettes, the ice melted.
Dancing began, and at four o'clock tea was served;at seven, supper. It was almost pitiful to watch
the childlike enjoyment of these ungainly men and
to contrast the happy peacefulness of those Sundays at home with the terrors that lay before them.
Never shall I forget those great awkward boys and
laughing bright-eyed girls playing "Going to Jeru



FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 97
salem" with the same zest they would use when
firing a battery of machine guns. No, I shall never
forget; for my chairs are a living reminder, not one
unmarred. Some of them are entirely out of commission, some are merely not safe to sit on. All are
veterans - and look it.
I shall never forget the great privilege of these
experiences, or all they taught me of the goodness
of human nature and the splendor of our young
American manhood. This was my recreation after
days of intensive work at the office. The heat, the
work, the anxiety! I used to wonder at the courage of English and French women, when my own
was taxed to the point of breaking in so very short
a time.
Before Allan left, the business had grown so that
we had an office force of fourteen besides ourselves.
At the time of the "flu" in 1918 we were reduced to
three, of which I was one, and orders were heavy.
The whole force was reduced to Joseph, a little girl
billing-clerk, and myself, and I sang again the old
Bab Ballads refrain. Once again I went into the
shipping room and weighed and ground, packed
and shipped. Pride goeth before a fall. Only in
my case pride fell before a saw and hammer and the
necessity of making packing cases. The fact that
I was no carpenter dawned upon me, and ever since
I have walked with due humility.
Then, as autumn brought coolness and more
endurable weather arrived, the "flu" came with it,




98      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
and terror filled my heart lest the boy Joseph might
go in a different way. Kelly, the faithful, cheery
pugilist, died in two brief days of illness. What
would happen to Joseph? But he survived, and
with his return ended my days of humiliation and
carpentering.
Then came one of those unnecessary sorrows that
all but craze the mind. We were awaiting with
impatience the arrival of another Allan, the third
one, when a telegram came to me as I awoke one
early Autumn morning:Regret to announce the death of Lieut. Allan MacDougall in action September 17th.
(signed) THE RED CROSS
A scream escaped my lips, a sensation of suffocation, then brief oblivion. I revived quickly and
set my teeth. Gladys, my daughter, never very
strong, must be protected until there could be no
further doubt of the truth of this awful message,
and above all things Lorraine, the fair young wife,
awaiting a little baby, must not know. Cables
and telegrams flew to influential friends for verification, and a friend in the Red Cross in Paris
corroborated the horrible statement. There
seemed no doubt, yet I clung to one faint hope.
Mistakes had been made; and the Government
had not notified Allan's wife. Three weeks of
torture unspeakable passed. Each day I wrote
to him, my adored son, lest a silence on my part,




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 99
were he alive, might cause him added discomfort.
Every day I sat beside Lorraine and the little
Allan, who came in the interval., and talked and
planned for her husband's joyful return. She never
knew my agony, never suspected my suspense.
Finally a letter arrived, dated several days after
Allan's supposed death, and I knew he was safe
still to bless my life with his radiance. Lorraine
was well and the dear baby quite grown up before
she knew of my great anxiety.
Harry's death followed quickly, and days passed
in that distorted jumble of action and sorrow which
comes with the death of a beloved one. The ordinary routine of business went on, while my soul
agonized over the loss of this my first child in spirit,
my adored brother.
As slowly the months went by, we knew the Hun
was beaten., a fact he did not seem to realize.
Then - who will ever forget the wild delight of the
Armistice? First the glorious news flashing over
wires and shouted through the streets. Then the
heavenly pandemonium of bells and whistles.
Forgetting all dignity, I rushed into the shipping
room and flung my arms around Joseph's neck,
kissed him, and shouted, "The war is over - the
war is over, and my boys have not been killed! "
No more business for that day. I tore up Wall
Street, already carpeted with thousands of "scraps
of paper." On the steps of the Treasury, and as
far as eye could reach, men and women laughed,




100

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

cried, and shouted. The pent-up anguish and
anxiety of forty-eight months was let loose in
tears of joy. Men, women, and children, old and
young, rich and poor, joined in one great jubilation
that war was over and peace had once more come.
And our prayers were added to our rejoicings -
prayers for those who had gone; for those who
would not return. But more, more deep and earnest, that the horror might never be repeated.
Like all the other terrors of life, the war ended.
I have always suffered so much pain that I had
taught myself to prepare a kind of mental holding
of my breath. When my back ached so that I did
not dare to sit down, I consoled myself by thinking
how divine would be the relief when the pain
ceased. When anxiety made nightmares of my
days and terror stalked in my room at night, I
thought of the relief when pain ceased just after the
birth of Gladys, and mentally holding my breath,
I waited in the same way for relief to this other
agony. Something of this philosophy helped me
to endure that still more frightful pain - the war.
I had gradually accommodated myself to the
discomforts of Pearl Street. An open fire in my
office and gas radiators kept us at least from freezing. My chief anxiety was for the men who had to
carry in and out, up and down those steep and
narrow stairs, the heavy bags of coffee and the
ungainly barrels of cocoa and chests of tea.
It is a dreadful sight to watch the stevedores




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW ioi
bending and straining under the terrific burden of
unloading and loading the great ships on the water
front. But far more terrible to watch the men I
knew and cared for, carrying on their backs up
those fearful., dimly lighted stairs, barrels of cocoa
that weighed one hundred and eighty pounds and
bags of coffee and chests of tea no less heavy. It
was enough if they did it once a month. But it
was all day, and every day; and since what had
gone up must come down, after all these things
had been hauled in in the morning, they were
hauled out in the afternoon. A different appearance., maybe, but the same deadly weight. I could
not watch them do it. I would run and hide in my
private office, but I could hear their deep breathing
and the heavy thumps of their feet. It told me all
too plainly what they were doing. They knew how
I worried, and smiled and bravely made light of it
when I told them how sorry I was, how wicked I
felt, and how surely I would alter conditions once
the war permitted me.
The spring of 1919 my boys returned.
And now Allan was once more beside me. Donald went out on the road as a traveling salesman
and brought in new customers every day. The
business was really in a most flourishing condition.
We were expecting it to increase still more and
began leisurely search for more suitable quarters.
We were in no hurry. Our lease had still about
eight months to run.




102

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

Then a thunderbolt. That is the wearisome part
of business - there is no peace, no sense of certain,
permanent achievement, no stability. The unexpected, and usually the awful, is forever happening.
Upon opening a rather inoffensive-looking envelope one morning I found that the building had
been sold and - would I move out at once, the
new landlord blandly inquired, as wrecking was to
begin immediately. Just like that - the building
I occupied to be torn down, and not a vestige of
another place in sight. Somewhat perturbed, I
wrote to my new landlord, calling to his attention
the fact that my lease had six or eight months to
run. I said I would gladly vacate, provided I
could find a suitable place. What compensation,
however, would he offer me?
No reply. Only, in a few days, the building became infested with Italian laborers, and picks and
shovels in their sturdy hands began the work of
demolition. No words could ever adequately express the concentrated wrath I felt. As my rage
mounted, so did my determination solidify. Ably
seconded by Allan, I made up my mind: I would
vacate when I was ready, and sooner or later this
considerate landlord of mine would come to my
terms and dance to my piping.
Days of utmost discomfort followed. One bitter
morning icicles pendent from ceilings and rivulets
flowing through the hallways proclaimed the fact
that a water pipe had burst during the night.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 103
I had always objected to the Elevated that
roared and rumbled past our windows. But now it
was nothing to the deafening crash of falling plaster
and the sharp crack of breaking laths or of doors
being torn from their hinges. It was a pandemonium, and one's nerves must be strong indeed
to bear it. We brushed dust and chalk from our
faces; clothes were covered continually by a fine
coating of dirt. Callers were few in those days.
A mild and unsuspecting reporter fled as from the
trump of doom when a load of bricks and mortar
casually came down the chimney near which he
was seated.
And the heavenly joke was that my landlord had
not done one thing to transgress the law. So far
he had left me in the "peaceful enjoyment" of
the leased premises. Technically, at least, for as a
matter of fact my business was going on uninterruptedly.
And now it was a fight to the finish. In our few
moments of leisure Allan and I searched high and
low for a place to move to, and at last found, at
73 Front Street, one that would "do." That was
the best that could be said of it. Four stark, bare,
unplastered walls, divided into five rough floors
with ladders in place of stairs connecting them -
this was what we rented when Pearl Street would
hold us no more. Alteration began to make it
endurable, and the fact that there was a hoist,
elderly and altogether disreputable though it was,




0ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

104

consoled me, for now this wheezing, dilapidated
thing would carry up and down my freight and no
more would men strain and pant under the terrible
burden.
Secure in the certainty of a place to go when our
lease expired on Pearl Street, confident that sooner
or later our landlord would be forced to come to
terms, we sat down in what peace we could and
awaited developments. Soon a letter arrived
couched in much more friendly terms, and an agreement was reached: eighteen hundred dollars in
cash, an enormous sum to me in those days. All
moving expenses covered. We paid no rent for three
months, which also eased the situation and somewhat reconciled me for my months of discomfort.
One can see the humor of an experience in retrospect. At the time it is a severe tax on nerves and
physique and makes a salaried position attractive.
But in creating a business one must needs meet just
such ordeals and, conquering, move on to success.
This was 1920, the time of the Wall Street
explosion. Wall Street has an atmosphere and a
temperament of its own. I had felt it on many
occasions. When the Knickerbocker Trust Company closed its doors in the panic of 1907, the air
vibrated with anxiety and terror. In election
years business there takes on a curious semidelayed aspect, for men turn their whole energies
to electing a president. Rather too frequently, I
have always thought.




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 10o5
At noon the crowds are gay on Wall Street.
Girls flash by in their smart costumes and young
men relax for a few moments from the tension of
office hours. On the day of the bomb, Wall Street
was filled from curb to curb. Allan and I were
on our way uptown to do some shopping in, some
precious' minutes of leisure I had elected for myself.
We were walking along William Street, noting the
holiday aspect of the noontide throngs, when
suddenly a curious screeching noise, a sound of
tearing, rending, filled the air-, and immediately in
front of us a stream of glass flowed so fine in
particles that'it seemed fluid. Then a silence that
was like an eternity, followed by the most hideous
mortal sound., the cry of human souls in terror.
No one knew what he was doing, what noise he was
making, but human fear was vocal. The next
instant there was pandemonium. Everyone
rushed for safety, for cover, anywhere to flee from
the terror of that spot. I can still see a boy dashing with big hops, his hair blowing, his arms trying
to outrun his legs. He was multiplied by thousands. Human beings flowed like the plate glass
of the windows in a liquid broken stream. We saw
a poor little girl sitting on the curb, mute from
shock, while a clerk picked glass from her hair and
face as the blood ran down.
One minute I was thanking God that Allan was
safe beside me. The next I was praying for the
safety of Gladys, for I knew that my daughter had




Io6

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

had an errand at one of the banks only a door
removed from the explosion. If she had followed
her plans, she would be passing just at this time.
I set out to find her. I was a mother hunting for
her child, not a business woman. I was mute with
agony until we could get back to the office, where
we found that Gladys had escaped by five minutes
that hideous spot of disaster.
Shortly after this, a new battle began for me at
73 Front Street, one of the most decisive of my
life. Apparently larger opportunities were being
offered to Allan, and they were tempting, for the
men he had known in France were stepping into
prominent lucrative positions, and he felt lost and
submerged. But I had even at this time a certain
intuition of large success. In it I wanted Allan to
share. However, I could not still the fearful debate within me. Was my surety of success merely
the trick of a mother's psychology, a mother who
very much wanted her son to remain with her in
business? Allan himself decided to stick it out
with me. Of course to-day, seven years from that
decision, it seems ridiculous that the question
should ever have arisen. But at that hour success
was just around the corner, and I was the only one
who, apparently, had a sense of what was just
beyond the bend.
When Allan had made his decision, the sun once
more shone in our busy offices and I was glorified by
the incorporation of the coffee business. In March




ALLAN MACDOUGALL

DONALD MACDOUGALL

GLADYS MACDOUGALL







FRXONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 107
1920, "Alice Foote MacDougall and Sons, Inc.,"
came into being with Allan as president and secretary, Donald vice president, and their mother
chairman. and treasurer. Grand and glorious
names, as amusing as a child's regiment where
everyone is an officer and there are no foot soldiers,
but a joy to me after so many years of loneliness
and struggle.
Success is an absurd, erratic thing. She arrives
when one least expects her and after she has come
may depart again almost because of a whim. Or
perhaps the onward rush of her sweeping wings is
stopped by a foolish., trifling obstacle. Our success
camne near being checked by a chimera, a fantasy.
Big corporations hesitated to buy our coffee
because it was not roasted under the same roof
with our packing and shipping departments and
executive offices. This seemed a curious and unnecessary stumbling block. Just across the street
it was roasted under perfectly adequate modern
conditions. However, the opposition was insuperable. Eventually we had to load bag and baggage
and move to 139 Front Street, where we have room
to do our own roasting. From this turning point
on, our progress has been rapid. The coffee end of
our business amounts (1927) to about a million
dollars gross annually.
just one block north of that dismal room of my
beginnings, the five-story building at 139 Front
Street is occupied by our coffee business. The top




I08

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

floor contains a modern up-to-date roaster, working
to capacity and producing six thousand pounds of
roasted coffee every day. Below is a floor devoted
to grinding, mixing, and packing bulk shipments.
The third floor contains the canning. Yes, I said
"canning"; for now we have to distribute through
grocers, and no paper bag will stand the handling
of the grocery trade. Small deliveries timed to
suit the grocer's daily output prevent deterioration,
and the hermetically sealed tin retains the flavor
and freshness. Here too teas and cocoas are
packaged and the smaller orders filled.
I have indicated something of the discomforts
and inconveniences from which I si-fered during
the inception of my business. Nothing, however,
was more trying than the lack of privacy. Always
making physical comfort and convenience secondary, I worked, day in and day out, surrounded by
my employees, deafened by the noise of the grinding machines, choked sometimes by the chaff of
the coffee and the dust of tea and cocoa. No
matter how intimate a conversation, each employee
heard my most private affairs or witnessedmy sorrow when death made me lose my self-control.
To-day the quiet of solitude is mine. My office
shared with Allan only is a place of peace and
quiet. I have a feeling of great attachment for
that lower part of the city. Not only is it the scene
of the battle I have fought with Fate, but it is
invested with the atmosphere of purest romance




FRONT STREET AND HOW IT GREW 1o9
for me. Look at the ships lying idly beside the
quays, and visions of far-away lands, the tropics
and the Orient, rise before you. Walk along the
water front, and what paintings, instinct with life
and vitality, pass before your interested gaze.
Stand, and the flood tide of labor and its problems
overwhelms you.
On leaving the river, walk back, and all the
incidents of early New York life, the beginnings of
our great Endeavor, dawn on you. Barely three
hundred years since the first settler landed on
Manhattan, and now skyscrapers and the controlling power of the world where were the wigwam
and the Indian.
Coming still nearer in time are those days when
my grandfather did his "bit." What wonder then
that I should make of my office a little bit of early
New York? In it stands a nice old chair that
Grandpa Stephen used in the City Hall, and that in
those first dark days of my infancy cradled me.
For I was deposited on the seat - wide and roomy
- of Grandpa's chair while doctors, nurses, and
the whole family fought for my mother's life. I
sat in this chair when I signed a million-dollar
lease in 1927. But more of that later.
There too in my office is my father's desk, the
only one I have ever used since his death. There
is a lovely feeling of closeness when one uses some
article belonging to friends who have gone. And
here the uncovered rafters and the fireplace speak




I10

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

of the primitive comfort of the early New York I
love.
Just outside are the desks of our most responsible
clerks and secretaries, and there is a little restroom fQr my girls, where they can spend the noon
hour and even cook a light meal if they wish on
cold, stormy days.
On the ground floor, the switchboard facilitates
communication with the coffee houses, private
wires running to each one. And a busy board it
is, for orders come in swift succession during the
entire day. Here order clerks and salesmen congregate, and the coffees that are roasted in the
morning - the day's orders of tea and cocoa as
well --start on their journeys near and far, in
obedience to the instructions of the occupants of
this floor.
To-day my duties are varied and manifold.
Each spring carries me to Italy to purchase new
supplies for the restaurants and the ever increasing
demands of our pottery and glassware business.
This book has been written on the ocean, in Italy,
and in France, and now as I write I am surrounded
by the beautiful hills of New Hampshire.
Outside my window a golden sun is shining, the
air is full of the song of birds, the farmers are
gathering in a load of hay. It is such a June day
as Lowell writes about. I am inundated with the
peace that comes when, far from the cruel haunts
of time-serving man, one is in the presence of God.




FRONT STREET AND HOW       IT GREW     i i
Twenty years ago, despair, illness, doubt, fear,
and a something - a determination to win, perhaps. To-day, whether in the quiet little blue-andgray office on Front Street, or here among the
granite hills of New Hampshire, everywhere is for
me a peace quite beyond the power of words to
express.




IV

COFFEE HOUSES
FRONT STREET is only part of my story, and the
least spectacular at that.
In the very beginning I had realized the necessity of a more convenient location for marketing
coffee than Front Street afforded. But I chose the
district of lower Wall and Front streets, for here
is the centre of the coffee trade. Here the great
ships of the South and Central American trade
dock. Here are public roasters, here the generous
conveniences a great city makes for its enterprises.
Uptown one must seek post and express offices.
Downtown express wagons come to your door.
Then too there was a certain zest in invading this
very special district where men ruled supreme and
where the mighty pulse-beats of a world at work
could be distinctly felt. But if there were these
commercial conveniences, there were all but insurmountable obstacles. Women are not any too
energetic - at least as far as business goes. After
their business day, shopping, teas and dinners,
theatres and operas, the following morning finds
the telephone an easy solution to the marketing




COFFEE HOUSES

1I3

question, and once one has the number it is far
easier to add coffee to the grocer's list than make
another call, or even to send a self-addressed postal.
This I found out all too soon, and it solidified
my determination to have an uptown store. By
1919 I was spending between two and three thousand dollars a year in advertising, and I argued
that this money spent in store rent would advertise
the business, while yielding a return that could be
measured in sales and good will.
For these reasons then, we - my sons and I -
opened the Little Coffee Shop in the Grand Central
Station, on December 9, 1919, and the first step was
taken coffee-housewards. Small booths, twelve by
sixteen feet, were being offered for lease. This was
just as big a spot as we dared undertake. At first
my idea was to use this tiny store only as a place
to advertise and sell my coffee. One side was
show window and door, giving on the corridor; the
other three walls were blank, so I lined them with
shelves to display my various grades and blends of
coffee and, of course, the business step-children,
tea and cocoa. We screened in a small part of the
back of the shop, where we expected to store coffee
on the premises, so that, as the shelves in front were
emptied by a public voracious for good coffee, there
should be no delay in meeting any sort of run on
our stock.
That was a dream five years ahead of its time.
For the hope that the coffee would sell fast, once




114

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

we exposed the uptown public to it, proved fallacious. At the end of six months Allan wanted
me to close the little shop, because it was almost a
dead loss so far as dollars and cents were concerned.
But I have a natural antagonism to giving up, once
I have started anything. I simply don't believe in
failure. In itself, it does n't exist. We create it.
We make ourselves fail. Conditions present obstacles, of course, but there is a way to overcome
them; so I hung on to our little booth in the Grand
Central. Also I began to nurture it, as if it were a
sick child. I had made the place look cheerful and
sanitary, because any place connected with food
must be clean and look clean, but now I began to
make it a place of rest and beauty, a little haven to
entice the weary commuter to sit down before the
5.41 leaves or he meets Mary Ann on the incoming
6.16. I made a point of being there on Wednesday
afternoons to meet any friends who cared to come
in. Sheer blue-silk curtains were hung in the
window, and beside the packages of coffee and tea
on the shelves I began to place brasses and blueand-white china. Also I bought a huge electric
percolator, and the delicious aroma of coffee filled
the place.
The setting and the fragrance together began to
turn the trick. Gradually people came in to buy
their pound - or five, or ten - as they dashed for
their trains, commuting for dear life. Sometimes
they asked to taste my coffee, and before we knew




COFFEE HOUSES

II5

it we were serving coffee from tiny tables and all
unconsciously were laying the foundation of the
coffee houses.
Then, to my surprise, week-end guests began to
buy part of my atmosphere for presents - the
brasses and the blue-and-white china I was using
on the shelves to point up the simple color scheme.
I had long had a distinct fondness for the brightly
colored potteries of Italy and Rumania, and now I
tried to add these to my Grand Central shelves. It
was, of course, just after the end of the war, and
this pottery was almost unobtainable in New York.
Many a dreary ride on the Elevated downtown had
been enlivened for me by the sight of one window
filled with the gayly decorated plates and cups of
Rumania. Here I went first, and attempted to
order through this importer. He would sell me the
windowful of pottery which had cheered me so
many days, but that was all. He could fill no
orders. Having failed to receive the usual shipments from Rumania and Czechoslovakia, he had
written to his dealers there and had received this
reply: "Do not ask us to bake pottery. We have
no money to buy fuel to bake bread." He was
able to get Spanish pottery for me - for Spain had
not been crippled by the war - while I continued
my hunt over the city for importers who could
supply me steadily with Italian ware. Little by
little I managed to pick up here and there pieces of
old Russian brass and queer Chinese porcelains.




II6

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

For you see I had found, to my great surprise, that
I had two flourishing businesses: one, the sturdy
coffee plant, the other, the flowering pottery. I
was determined to supply my voluntary customers
in the latter goods with what they wanted, though
I pored over the classified telephone book by the
hour in order to ferret out the importers who
might possibly have stock. In a few months,
however, I was able to import my first Italian
china, through the kind assistance of my lifelong
friend, Mrs. J. Walter Spalding.
This is the way to get along in business, I believe.
Naturally one plans, organizes, and develops, but it
is a wise woman who is also led, who is quick to feel
the pulse-beat of her public and respond thereto.
My business was coffee, but when I found the
public wanted pottery, I let them have it. When I
found that in a place like the Grand Central weekend guests wanted week-end presents, I purchased
pretty little trifles in china and brass and copper to
supply that demand.
This all happened quickly. It was just as
though Fortune had decided to smile on us for a
change; as though she said, "Now you 've worked
hard. Here's a sugarplum for your pains."
Then a new problem arose. The demand for coffee and tea was ever increasing, and it is an anomalous thing to serve a beverage alone. But what
to serve with it? How prepare anything in that
tiny shop? I felt that the limitation of space made




COFFEE HOUSES

I17

the careful, immaculate preparation of sandwiches
impossible, and I would n't have them unless they
could compare with the coffee. Everything in life,
you see, had to standardize itself to the excellence
of the coffee.
This unsolved question was turning itself over
and over in my mind, burrowing annoyingly deeper
and deeper, when Chance, Fate, call it what you
will, solved it for me and started a golden stream
of money into my lap.
Do you know New York? Lovable as a dainty
maiden in her Easter dress of smiles and flowers,
adorable as a goddess abounding in plenty in her
lavish distribution of presents at Christmas, she
becomes a raging demon when the storms of winter
assail her. There is nothing in the way of a storm
that she does not indulge in, nothing that is possible that she leaves undone. After a day of gracious spring mildness, when the birds sing and one
can fairly hear the young things in the ground
waking from their winter sleep, the wind rises, swift,
piercing, bitter. With it come squalls of rain,
snow, sleet, and hail, in wearying succession and
depressing fierceness. It is a time of exhaustion
for the bravest, and one goes from place to place
drenched and miserable.
Many such a day had I experienced, trudging
wearily from place to place, delivering coffee or
attending to the innumerable details of my growing
business. This day on which "it happened" all




ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

was drear and dark and it was a courageous soul
who dared go out except of sheer necessity. It was
Wednesday, one of my "at home" days in the little
shop. As I entered the Grand Central I found the
huge corridors packed with a damp mass of miserable humanity. The air was heavy with that
horrid odor of moist woollen garments, and a kind
of steam filled each corner and hung gloomily
from the ceiling. Under foot was a composite of
mud, umbrella drippings, and sawdust. Pneumonia stalked up and down in fiendish glee, counting with ungodly mirth his many victims. It was
a pitiful spectacle. I knew the symptoms. Many
times had I been in just that condition.
On the impulse of the moment I telephoned my
apartment, ordered my waffle iron and all the necessary ingredients, and placed a little sign in the
window saying, "Waffles." A timid soul peered in.
What did the sign mean? An explanation made
good by a cup of piping hot coffee, filling the little
place with its aromatic fragrance, and waffles, so
delicate and crisp that they literally melted in one's
mouth. Cream the richest, syrup the purest -
an expression of contentment on the face of a man
responding to the delight of good food, and lo! a
million-dollar business was started.
When he offered to pay, I refused to accept any
money. It was a joke, I said, a pleasure to do as
I had not been done by in times when my need was
great. For to-day, a pleasant episode to vary the




A CORNER OF TH4E C"LITTLE COFFEE SHOP )) IN THE GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL







COFFEE HOUSES

l19

humdrum of everyday business, but never again;
so why bother about a few pennies more or less?
Thus I, who know so well the precious value of
those same little coppers. But he and the rest who
had crowded in said I must do it again. This was
Wednesday, the seventh of February 1921. So
rather reluctantly I said, "Well, just once again
on Saturday"; and almost before we realized it
we were serving coffee and waffles every day, and
all day, and turning people away by carloads. A
pleasant memory - a pleasanter surprise. We
know about bread that is cast upon the waters.
Who could think of such a return from a few waffles
given away on a pitilessly cruel February day?
There is another side to my story that is not so
spectacular perhaps, but far more lovely, it seems
to me. The war was over, but the unmitigated
horror of it was ever present in my mind. Somehow, I was impelled to create as much peace,
beauty, and gentleness as I could, that there might
be a tiny offset to the horror of that great iniquity.
So I talked, laughed, and chatted informally with my
customers. To my manager I spoke of gentleness
and love, and little by little the pretty coffee shop
took on an atmosphere of friendliness and peace.
Often I worked late when every other place was
closed to round out the day's sales, to add another
pound or two to the sum total.
One Christmas Eve I was just about to go home.
I was weary, and the inevitable sadness that creeps




120

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

into one's heart on these festival occasions was my
sole companion. The door of the shop opened and
a timid, quiet, drab little woman crept in. The
moment I saw her I knew she did not wish to buy
anything, but we chatted together, handled over
and over some of the pretty things I had for sale,
indulging in the dull small talk of the shopkeeper.
Finally, with a faint blush of shyness, she said,
"Well, lady, I guess I 'd better go now. You've
been real kind to me." She hesitated, then:
"You know it 's lonesome in New York on Christmas Eve, and I thought mebbe if I waited round
till the 11.20 for Waterbury went out, I might just
see someone who seemed kinder familiar." I felt
that the Little Coffee Shop had justified its existence, and that a lovely Christmas gift had come
to me from Santa Claus. Don't you think so too?
Another day, one of steaming heat and humidity
in mid-August, I was making waffles and a nervous
woman hurried in, sat down, and ordered her lunch.
My heart went out to her. I knew just the kind
of vexatious day she was having. I knew her
nerves were strained to the breaking point. Every
bit of her suffering I knew. So I began to laugh
and joke. Never did I cook waffles with greater
care. And little by little I saw the pain pass and a
look of greater repose come to her careworn face.
Months after she came to say good-bye. She
was going back home. No more New York for
her; but she said, "Mrs. MacDougall, this is the




COFFEE HOUSES

121

only place where in all New York I have found
peace and rest." When people talk of success,
I think of these two women and realize that I
have had mine in full measure. Life does not
offer many of us such rare opportunities to serve.
Another Christmas Eve I was again at my job,
and a lady in deep mourning entered. She talked
quite intimately of her sorrow, in that way that
is often more possible to a total stranger than to
one's relatives and friends. I think she gathered
a little too of my necessity. After a while she
went away. Standing behind the counter, I
finished my last duties and then stepped out prepared to go home. On the floor before my startled
eyes lay a crisp ten-dollar bill. Was it accident,
or was it - as I like to think - a gift from one
troubled soul to another? I do not know, but if
her eyes ever rest on this page, may she accept my
much-belated thanks. That Christmas the children had unexpectedly nice presents. For days
Allan and Donald were quite insufferably arrogant, due to the blue of two new neckties apiece,
and Gladys lost marks at school, because of her
charming bracelet.
In August 1922 the crowds were so large, and the
opportunity so obviously great, that a good angel
appeared in the form of Mr. George Marshall
Allen, a gentleman of ample means, my son's
father-in-law. He loaned to us' quite a large
sum, and thus made our second coffee house in




122

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

Forty-third Street a possibility. It was a most
generous act, a terrible risk for him, and a lifetime would not be long enough to tell the gratitude
and responsibility I felt toward that kind gentleman. At present, I believe, he is contented, for
his stock in the coffee houses is figured in six numerals. His purpose in lending us the money was
that he wanted to see his son-in-law in a position
commensurate with his own. To-day Allan is in
a rather enviable position - head of three large
and flourishing businesses, the father of two splendid little boys, with an adorable wife and a satisfactory position in the community in which he
lives.
One of the most challenging experiences of my
life attended the opening of the Forty-third Street
shop, December 9, 1922. Our lease was most
difficult. Our landlords - the Bar Building -
were not altogether free agents, for they held a
twenty-one-year lease from the august and mighty
Bar Association of the City of New York, and
many and varied were the limitations and requirements of that body. One of the lease clauses said
that there should be no smell of cooking; and I,
eager to secure this particular location, of peculiar
and varied advantages, I who would rather die
than do a dishonest thing, I who had for months
cooked waffles in the Grand Central - I said they
would not smell. And I honestly believed it.
Imagine then my despair and consternation on




COFFEE HOUSES

123

the day we opened! The air was blue outside
with smoke from the waffle irons, and it almost
seemed as if the odor of cooking batter could be
smelled a mile away. Added to this unexpected
horror, Sarah, the colored cook who had been with
me for years through thick and thin and unmoved
by either so far as she had ever shown it, Sarah
went to pieces. She was completely demoralized
by the amazing stream of customers, and began
to burn waffles with nervous persistency. Any
housekeeper knows very well what happened. I
set Sarah temporarily aside and myself generaled
the waffle irons. I had bought a new black satin
dress for the occasion of the opening, for I knew
people would want to talk with me as they did
at the Little Coffee Shop in the Grand Central. I
pictured myself "receiving," in a certain sense, at
this all-day tea-party we were inaugurating.
Well, my friends and customers did want to see
me; and they did see me, all smiles and batter,
my brand-new black satin dress showing the new
leopard-skin effect. I served as well as cooked
that day. There is a fire station near this location on Forty-third Street, and the firemen sent
in to ask if coffee and waffles could n't be sent in
to them. I took them in myself, poor Sarah by
this time being unable even to serve a waffle without dropping it.
But if Sarah was upset, what was I when that
day was over? My dilemma was not a passing




124

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

spasm of nerves. I stood face to face with one of
the business crises of my life, and I knew it.
Before opening we had figured out overhead and
profits very carefully, and had anticipated daily
about one hundred and twenty-five guests. Our
doors opened at eleven and every seat - sixtyfive in all - was taken. We closed at five with
a first-day record of two hundred and fifty customers. A brilliant opportunity loomed before
us. With ease a fortune was within our grasp.
And all future glory and profit snuffed out in a
cloud of waffle-iron smoke!
I never felt quite so discouraged in my life as
I did that night. The place was empty. Everyone had gone home. Allan and I sat in the gloom
and faced facts. Our landlords had every reason
and every right to break our lease. Then what
of our dreams, our hopes? Whence would come
the rest I was beginning to want so very, very
much? Once again eviction, but from a very
different cause. And all the time the shame of
my false - though innocent - statement to the
landlord.
We are, of course, still occupying the premises.
A ventilating system draws all odor and smoke up
fifteen stories and it is dissipated in the air. It
was not without travail that we hit upon this
plan, but it worked, and that was all we or the
landlord required of it.
And this very ventilating system gave me an




COFFEE HOUSES

125

opportunity for an attractive decorative detail.
When we opened Forty-third Street we had a
pantry but no kitchen, for we intended to serve
nothing but coffee and waffles, and these were
cooked in front of people's eyes on tables made
especially for the waffle irons. The ugly hood
used to deflect steam and smoke from these tables
was quickly turned into what we called a waffle
house - a latticed, three-cornered-cabin  affair
under which a colored maid stood, suggesting
the Southern-waffle, colored-mammy, log-cabin
idea. Within a short time, however, we expanded
our original plan of serving merely waffles and
coffee, adding first sandwiches and then all the
delicious foods we could think of. In March,
four months after our opening, we served eight
thousand people with three full meals a day, and
by August 1923 we took on more space, doubling
our seating capacity less than a year after opening.
It is hard to account for the unqualified satisfaction our coffee houses give the public. Our
policies are simple: unerringly and unalterably,
always the best the markets afford. I wrote to
our various dealers telling them that we wanted
the best, were willing to pay the full market price,
and that if after this statement any inferior article
was supplied, whether used or not, the whole
amount would be deducted from their bill. This
was a warning. On these terms and on these only
would we place our business. The penalty has




126

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

not been inflicted more than once or twice. We
receive surprisingly uniform and satisfactory
articles. Undoubtedly the quality of our food
and our attractive service also contribute largely
to our success.
In the early days of my struggle, when expenses
had to be held down to their minimum and all
luxury eliminated, I insisted that my own table
should be attractive. There is an aesthetic side
even to plain bread and butter. There is a spiritual significance connected with the gathering of
the family for the common meal. Pitch food
helter-skelter on a table, permit ugly, unlovely
manners, and divorce a meal of all aesthetic beauty,
and we approach the animal. But invest this
function with something of the holiness of a sacrament by the addition of beauty and tenderness,
and soul as well as body is uplifted.
So I assembled my maids before the opening of
this new adventure, the coffee house of Fortythird Street, and spoke to them of the horror of
war - whether in Europe or in our own souls, it
made no difference. But if we each crushed ugliness and hatred and developed their opposites,
if little by little the contagion of the beautiful
spread, then ugly diseases of the soul, hatred,
crime, and war would cease.
Applied to a coffee house, this meant the dainty
service of the most simple dish, the careful, accurate preparation leading to this service, and the




COFFEE HOUSES

127

kindest, most thoughtful consideration of the
needs and desires of our guests. Fortunately, I
was speaking to colored women. There is in
them a quality of gentleness and love which gave
quick assent, and I was sure of their sympathetic
understanding and fulfillment of my instructions;
so perhaps our second avenue to success was built
out of consideration and courtesy.
Waitress and hostess regard the people who
come to our coffee houses as so many honored
guests, and no effort is spared to make their visit,
long or short, a time of peace and of repose.
But rest and peace are not, unless the eye as
well as the body is re-created. Disorder in a room
increases irritation or weariness. And even as
irregularity and disorder create fatigue, so color
used wisely is a beneficence; used unwisely, it
borders on crime. Following this line of thought,
I had decorated the Little Coffee Shop in the
Grand Central Station in tones of soft brown,
relieved by curtains of delicate blue silk, and had
opened the new coffee house on Forty-third Street
with the same restful and harmonious combination. Here also the walls were lined with shelves
on which we displayed the quaint d.ecorative potteries we were importing from Italy for this part
of our growing business. I think that I must
have felt what the Italian peasant feels when he
satisfies his longing for color by painting brilliant
hues on pottery, for the Italian landscape is softly




128

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

toned. It is almost neutral in its many pastel
shades, and when the peasant paints he picks out
one or two or three of these and emphasizes them,
using the full color against an ivory-toned background. It was this that I wanted to do in my
coffee houses: against pleasing neutral backgrounds to display the pottery of the color-loving
Italian.
Almost at once, a further use of this pottery
developed. From the beginning I had retailed
it from our shelves and had used it on our tables,
for I could not imagine colorless china any more
than I could white tablecloths in our restaurants.
It makes food and drink taste better to be served
from a beautiful plate and an interesting cup, and
besides this, pottery amused and interested the
guests. I had to buy it in quantity for our own
service, so the thought of selling it wholesale was
forced upon me. Within a short time I was buying each year in Europe many thousands of dollars'
worth of pottery for our retail and wholesale
business.
In the Grand Central I had learned that people
were contented to eat with paper doilies under
their plates, and to use paper napkins instead of
laundered cotton or linen. Personally I have
always abhorred the public napkin, because of the
many times it is laundered. The use of prettily
cut paper doilies and firm paper napkins had
another virtue: it was economical. Against the




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129

dark walnut table tops, laid with paper doilies
cut in imitation of Italian lace, the bright potteries of Italy were altogether suitable. To them
I added colored glasses, here a violet one, here a
green or a blue. At each place were set differently
colored glasses and variously decorated pottery,
but all blended into a bright, cheerful whole. It
was a new note in the setting of the table, so of
course I knew women would be interested, but
men appeared to be too. I have had men tell
me on leaving one of our coffee houses that they
did n't know whether it was the food or the
dishes that tasted so delicious.
My choice of varied plates may seem to have
been haphazard, but there is generally method in
my madness. I have always tried to supplement
the color of the food with the color of the dish on
which it is served. For example, just as white
china drains the color from coffee, and an ivorytoned cup adds to its color, so a yellow-decorated
plate goes beautifully with a green salad, especially
if grapefruit tops the bouquet, so to speak.
Speaking of salads, reminds me of some of the
fun I have had, playing games in business as I
used to play in the Land of Let's Pretend. A
good many people like a salad served with the
main course, rather than separately. When all
the dishes are round, there is a great deal of waste
space, and the table looks awkward, too. So I
availed myself of the crescent-shaped salad plate,




13o

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

so familiar in Italy and so unknown in America,
that would fit half around the dinner plate. It was
amusing to do, and it solved the salad problem for
a good many men guests. Women seem more content than men to eat in the usual order of service.
One more detail, about cream and syrup. I
had been annoyed so many times by skimpy
quantities of thin cream served me in restaurants,
and I was sure many other people had too, that I
decided to serve not only the best cream and the
purest syrup but a full pitcher of each, giving the
guest a comfortable feeling of plenty. Very few
people have ever abused this generous service.
They use no more than if it were doled out to them
in tiny individual pitchers, but they feel better
about it. That's all.
The public is voracious. Once please it and,
like Oliver Twist, it asks for more. After about
eighteen months at Forty-third Street, our space
was still inadequate. Again we must expand.
Here arose an all but insurmountable difficulty,
but the surmounting of it gave us our big opportunity, and, we believe, created a new idea in
interior decorating.
One of my first axioms when I began business
was "Don't do the stereotyped." People like
variety. I always attempted to do and give the
original. In Forty-third Street came my great
opportunity.
The additional space available here was a nar



COFFEE HOUSES

131

row store thirteen feet wide, eighteen feet high,
ninety feet deep. From it a stairway led to a
huge mezzanine. The walls were sheer bleak
spaces of white plaster, relieved only by the great
ridges made by iron beams and girders. How
reduce the height of this ceiling - how out of this
narrow slit of ugliness create a thing of cosy
warmth and restfulness? That was our problem.
An oyster finding himself stuck with a grain of
sand from which he must make a pearl is n't any
more baffled than I was.
When one is working out a problem such as this,
life becomes duality. One's ego transacts the
ordinary routine of things, as if the mind had an
upper and lower story and the regular performance of the day's duties moved and motivated on
the upper floor, while down below the all-absorbing problem toils silently, forcefully, toward its
solution. At least this is how it seems to me.
From very earliest childhood my ears had been
filled with descriptions of Italy, the most beautiful
country in the world, and much of my subsequent
reading had amplified the talk of my parents. At
school, in art, literature, and poetry we were constantly taught of this same country and all it had
done through its artists and poets to enrich the
world with beauty.
So it was not strange that, in my perplexity, out
of my subconsciousness should leap into concrete
form all this beauty and that I should find it easily




132

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

adaptable to our needs. I had traveled in Italy
and one of the most beautiful remembrances I
had was that of walls, broken and crumbling with
age, and cracked by the strain of many storms
and tempests; walls soft and beautiful in their
dull greens, yellows, and blues; every crack filled
with tiny vines or baby flowers, as if a kindly
Providence, pitying the wall's grim resistance to
the elements, had placed them there as a solace
to their wounds. Those walls are a vision of
paramount and unending beauty.
In the quiet of a sleepless night, there flashed
upon my inward eye a vision of Italy, its irregular
walls and doorways; its crooked, tumble-down
stairs leading from street or courtyard, sometimes
to the upstairs rooms of a farmhouse, sometimes
to the loggia of a stately villa.
Then I set about applying my vision, realizing
it in a modern fireproof office building. It was
amazing how a hideously plain wall could be transformed. With a little chipping here and there,
with coats of paint one after another of varied and
different colors, the stubborn and ghostly white
plaster yielded to my desires. Gay pottery and
baskets and bright rags hanging on the always
present clotheslines of Italy, quickly produced the
desired atmosphere. In the Cortile, at 37 West
Forty-third Street, you may find a little Italian
courtyard - cortile - leading you gently away
from the noises of New York City's sidewalks.




J I
THE CORTILE







COFFEE HOUSES

133

But really it is sometimes more than annoying,
the way commonplace ordinary things stand in
the way of your dreams.
Next to the walls, the stairs of Italy enthrall you.
Almost always outside the house, they lift themselves in heavenly leisure and unevenness from
the ground to the floor above. For many centuries men and women, barefooted or in sabots,
have passed up and down, and gradually nice,
comfortable, infinitely picturesque grooves have
appeared. Of course I needed these grooves to
complete the character of my stairs and add to the
Italian feeling. But do you suppose I could have
them? No. I tried it! People will step carelessly - though there were the grooves, if they
would only use them properly - and slip and fall
and hurt themselves. The next step is claim for
damages, horrid words. After this had happened
a time or two, all my beautiful authentic stairs
had to be chiseled down again into a hateful, regular efficiency. The wings of my Pegasus were
clipped.
During the excited days of the opening of the
Cortile our second incorporation occurred and
the Alice Foote MacDougall Coffee Houses, Inc.,
came into being with myself as president, Mr.
George Marshall Allen as vice president, and Allan
as treasurer, in March 1923.
The Cortile finished, we expected to fold our
hands in sweet content and rest awhile from our




134

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

labors. Vain and futile thought. The more we
gave, the more insistent became the great goodnatured public.
In spite of two additions the Cortile was soon
all too small, and we knew we could profitably
build another coffee house out of our earnings, if
we had money in advance of those earnings. And
so, mindful of Mr. George F. Baker's long-time
kindness toward me, I went to him now voluntarily with a real business proposition. I asked
him for thirty thousand dollars, to build a new
coffee house, on the strength of the success of the
present one on Forty-third Street.
He talked to me about the condition of the
business, my plans, my prospects, and my policy,
and asked for how long I would want the money.
I said, "Mr. Baker, I want this money for one year
at six per cent. I want it in three notes of ten
thousand dollars each, with the privilege of paying it off at any time or interval in the interim."
He gave me the money. I made my first loan in
November. The new coffee house, the Piazzetta,
opened on Christmas Eve following. In three
months the loan, principal and interest, was paid
off. I asked for a year. I paid in three months.
I think nothing in all my life ever made me quite
so happy and proud as that business transaction
between myself and Mr. Baker.
And so, on December 29, 1923, we opened the
Piazzetta at 20 West Forty-seventh Street.




COFFEE HOUSES

135

Here I turned to Naples for the decorative
scheme. Every city of Europe has its own peculiar
charm. Naples of them all is the most simple
and direct. It has no reserve; its trust in your
sympathy and understanding is complete. It
takes you into its confidence and the whole performance of life passes gayly before your dreaming
eyes. To most Americans the Bay and the hills
rising from it, a panorama of endless beauty and
wonderment, spell Naples. For me it is the
streets and the street life that are enthralling.
The houses rise along the crooked twisting streets
in a multitude of colors, softened into sweet neutral
tints by the gentle ministrations of time and covered everywhere by lovely flowers, tons of them.
Who can wonder that the sunny Italian smiles
and is happy, bathed as he is in the warm lovely
air, gladdened by the always beautiful and ever
varying panorama, and enriched by the blessing
of countless lovely flowers? And if by any chance
he is lacking these cheerful companions - lo, he
hangs out his clothesline and gay-colored garments take their place. One gets to love the
clotheslines of Italy.
In the Piazzetta I tried to bring Naples to New
York. There is always a little square - piazzetta
- in front of every cathedral in Italy, and this
shop became one by our turning the great glaring
forty-five-foot front window into the fagade of a
cathedral. Reinhardt's production of The Miracle




I36

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

gave me my inspiration. The feeble architect
whom I employed had been unable to think of any
solution for the ugliness of this show window, but
when I told him to build the fagade of a cathedral
with Gothic arches and a rose window, verily, he
took me at my word and built two side by side.
When you step through the doors of this facade,
it is as though you stepped from an Old World
cathedral into the customary piazzetta overhung
with crumbling houses that are adorned with
bright shutters, quaint little doorways, and balconies that wait for lovers. They do not wait
long, for tables for two are tucked into spots as
secluded as shutters and the illusion of romance
can make them. Young New York has not been
slow to search them out.
In the open court there are planted here and
there the vines and bushes that all through Italy
charm the eye and rest the jaded spirit of the
traveler. And next to the flowers themselves are
the gay and flowing clotheslines that fling to the
breeze in a never-ending riot of color the peasant's
well-washed garments. By such little touches,
indicative of the very essence of the Italian landscape, we have made atmosphere. It has seemed
to captivate the fancy of the public. Italy
breathes her radiance about you as you eat, and
colored maids moving swiftly, copper trays in
hand, and wearing gay-colored peasant dresses with
brighter contrasting caps, make an animated picture.




COFFEE HOUSES

i37

During the day sunlight and cast shadows lie
on the crumbling houses that line the side of the
Piazzetta. At night the place is flooded with
moonlight, and flickering candles increase the
animation and add their charm.
So far as I know, my idea to depict exteriors
as the motif of interior decoration is entirely my
own. Instead of trying to make our coffee houses
look like drawing-rooms that had seen better days
or boudoirs that ought not to be open to the public
at all, I sought to make them suggest the easy,
care-free outdoor drinking and eating places that
obtain in Europe. To do this I did not attempt
to reproduce the sidewalks of Paris, for example,
where little tables line the terrasse. Rather I recreated in New York an Italian courtyard and a
little square in front of a cathedral, where Americans could eat and drink if they wished. It has
always been amazing to see how quickly they respond to the Italian love of ease and color.
Having once realized the delight of the public
in this type of restaurant, events moved swiftly.
For again in 1925 we opened another coffee house,
Florence - Firenze - on Forty-sixth Street.
Here again our interior was an outdoor scene from
Italy. As space was more ample in this location,
our imagination had wider sway. Now we were
blessed with an able artist as well as architect,
Mr. H. Drewry Baker, who made the elaborate
work of building Firenze a pleasure, eliminating




138

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

much of the exhaustion and irritation that less
able architects had caused when we were creating
the Cortile and the Piazzetta. Apparently there
are architects and architects.
If you have never been to Florence, Firenze
admits you to a taste of her charms. If you have
been there, she consoles you for not remaining in
that stately city of the Renaissance. Familiar
sights greet you; the Ponte Vecchio, that famous
bridge where Dante walked and Benvenuto Cellini
lived; The Porcelino of the Mercata Nuova,
beloved of all Italian children; the gracious stairway of the Bargello, and the very spirit of Italian
street life haunts the tiny courtyard far in the rear.
Florence has a stately dignity and a culture of
her own. Not one tittle has she changed since
the days of Savonarola. True, tramcars and
motors fill her streets, and tourists with their
natural destructiveness do all they can to mar the
loveliness of her old-time stateliness. But there
she is, the goddess among cities, and one forgets
the modern, the cheap, and the tawdry, and
eagerly turns a corner sure of seeing a Medici,
or hurries away lest a feud between some passing
Guelph and Ghibelline shall break out. Gentle
Romola sweeps sadly by and poor little Tessa
lurks, furtively watching, at the trysting place, for
Tito. On every side are places and sights made
familiar by the poets and painters of the ages.
When we planned Firenze our problem was sim



COFFEE HOUSES

139

plified by space, where building the other coffee
houses had been complicated by lack of it. Here
were a huge store and a large mezzanine. As I
entered for the first time, the picture of the Ponte
Vecchio flashed before me, and I determined to
reproduce in hurly-burly New York as much of
the charm  of Florence as I could without her
marvelous sky and a few other incomparable,
priceless Old World things. I told my vision to
Drewry Baker, and Firenze stands to-day as we
planned it then.
As you enter Firenze, on your right the tall
graceful pillars of the Mercato Nuova, a young
thing of some five hundred summers, rise before
you. For centuries this "new market" place has
been the open-air scene of much chaffering and
bargaining. One day it is baskets that are for
sale; another, ceramics; another, Trina and Ricarmi, pottery, lace and embroidery in quick succession. And always, outside, the porcelino, that
funny big boar, spouts water out of his mouth for
thirsty little boys and girls.
In one detail of Firenze we have indulged in
poetic license. For the beautiful old   Ponte
Vecchio crosses the store on the mezzanine, but
without the Arno! With the best will in the
world we cannot supply the river to flow under it.
Instead, the public peacefully occupies tables and
chairs where it should flow, and seems not altogether to object to the omission.




140

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

On the left, as you enter this coffee house, you see
that part of the Arno known and raved over by
painters for ages as the Left Bank. Here irregular houses stand out from the wall and are propped
up by the rough logs of wood the Florentine has
always felt sufficient support for them. Their
soft yellows and browns blend with the green moss
that covers all as with a veil, while a shutter is
picked out from the mass of blended pastel by its
splotch of bright green paint.
At the back of Firenze rises the famous stairway
of the never-to-be forgotten Bargello. And here
too, is one of the prettiest parts of all the coffee
houses, a little Italian street. As you stand on
the stairs and look down, you forget America and
all that is therein, and for a time live and breathe
the atmosphere of Italy.
In Firenze, as in the other coffee houses, sunlight, moonlight, and candlelight add their charm.
Shakespeare says all the world loves a lover. I
know I do, and hidden in quiet places are little
tables where lovers or near lovers can enjoy themselves detached from the crowd, in the solitude they
love so well. These places are never without
occupants.
Apart from building the restaurants is the building of the organization, a duty carried most capably by my son. Little by little a very highly
specialized body of men and women is being devel



-F

THE MARKET - FIRENZE







COFFEE HOUSES

141

oped - a difficult job when one considers that
there are about seven hundred employees (a contrast to the three of 1918) and that every day at
least six thousand people are accommodated in
our various places.
We like to do things well, my son and I, and we
take not a little pride in this perfecting of our
organization. Highly specialized women head
each department, and calm and strong above them
all is Miss Lillian Kennedy, our general manager.
With patience and understanding she handles the
multitude of problems a fast growing business like
ours presents, and not only guides the women
working under her but develops into strength
those who in the beginning are weak, and educates and trains those who come without previous
training.
To give pleasure to a few wretched souls; the
knowledge that human nature craves the good
things of life, in terms of nourishment, and needs
beauty in form and color, as its companion;
utilization of imagination and a long-suppressed
love of the beautiful to conquer a difficult decorative problem; abiding faith that in all life two
things alone are necessary, love and beauty, and
that in business as well as elsewhere they are
essential to a true success, and, adopted as a
business principle will lead to success - these
were the foundation stones on which this business,
the result of twenty years of hard labor, was laid.




142

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

November 23, 1907, I went out from my little
apartment a lone woman with a big fight ahead
of me and dedicated to conquest.
February 7, 1922, I gave away a bowl of batter
in terms of delicious waffles.
February o1, 1927, five years later, twenty
years from my lonely beginning, I signed the lease
for my fifth coffee house, -Sevillia, at 50 West
Fifty-seventh Street,-the lease amounting to
one million dollars.
In 1907 my rent was $240 a year.
In 1921 my rents were $4,650 a year.
In 1927 my rents were $169,175 a year.
To obtain this end, I sought and found, with ever
ready, ever generous response, the love of my
friends and the advice of several splendid men.
Mr. Slee gave me freely and generously of his wisdom as a man who had made, by his own unaided
efforts, a fortune out of "3-in- " oil. Mr. J. Walter
Spalding opened for me his treasure of wide
experience as a merchant and financier. Mr.
William H. Harris, a lawyer of wide experience,
helped me with restraining wisdom when my
impulsive nature would have run away with my
judgment.
To my son I attribute my final success in this,
my battle of life. From him also came my sunlight and my joy when life was full of sorrow and
my footsteps faltered on the difficult path.




COFFEE HOUSES               143
It is however to my three children, Gladys,
Allan, and Donald, collectively, I owe my very
being. In attempting to fulfill my duty to them
as a mother, I met the challenge of their helplessness, their innocence, their dependence. Despising cowardice in others, I wished to prove myself
no coward. Believing in the good, the gentle,
the beautiful things of life, I addressed myself
to the sweet duty of keeping these attributes for
my children's sake and my own. And in striving
to provide a living for them, I found a success
beyond my wildest dreams.




V

ADVERTISING
"ADVERTISING is a disease, not a business." So
said Mr. Spalding one morning as I sat talking
with him.
Perhaps, but quite the most fascinating disease
one can contract, the one department of a commercial enterprise that mitigates the dreary monotony of humdrum routine and admits of a certain
hilarity in the day's work. Since it was to me a
distinct and separate part of my business, I have
segregated - so to speak - the account of it in
this chapter.
From the very inception of my undertakings I
spent money for advertising when I was not quite
sure of having it for bread. The following embodies some of my reasons for so doing.
Competition is. In every business, no matter
how small or how large, someone is just around
the corner forever trying to steal your ideas and
build his success out of your imagination, struggling after that which you have toiled endless
years to secure, striving to outdo you in each and
every way. If such a competitor would work as




ADVERTISING

145

hard to originate as he does to copy, he would
much more quickly gain success.
As I have said, the roasted-coffee business was
almost unheard of at the time I was married in
1888. It is true, Arbuckle Brothers were wide
distributors of the Ariosa coffee. But this was a
harsh, crude, hard-drinking coffee, used largely in
mining and lumber camps of the North and West.
Park & Tilford and Acker, Merrall & Condit carried the Java-and-Mocha, which was practically
the only coffee used by people of social standing.
Mr. Park and Mr. Acker of those two highly respectable firms came at regular intervals to Front
Street. Though competitors, they always rode
downtown together and, having purchased their
aristocratic Java and spicy Mocha, returned to
dispense it - two thirds and one third to the
pound - to the waiting customers.
In 1907, however, almost every store on the
face of the earth sold coffee. Grocers large and
small, dairies and drug stores, department stores,
many restaurants - hundreds of shops of all
kinds and descriptions. Every friend    I had
seemed to have some relative in the coffee business. How was I, tiny atom that I was in the
great seething commercial metropolis - how was
I to overcome the resistance of the housekeeper
to the new and untried, win her away from the
established coffee of well-known repute, and distance this competition?




146

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

To undersell the market, of course, was my first
device, but not an easy one when every penny was
so vastly necessary to my small home and its
occupants. Nevertheless, I sent out thirty-cent
coffee under the trade name of # 2 Special at
twenty-eight cents, and the    Java-and-Mocha
that Park & Tilford sold at thirty-two cents I
offered at thirty.
In those first years of my business I was a living
example of the oft-repeated saying, "I drank like
a fish." For I had to standardize my taste, and
of course I could do this only by tasting. Slowly
my palate was trained to the flavor' of flat-bean
Santos, of Peaberries, of Maracaibos old and new,
Buchs, and Bogotas, and my eye at the same time
was learning the differences in appearance of the
green berries. Coffee as we test it on Front Street
is quite a different drink from that made on the
kitchen stove, and yet again different from that
of the restaurant urn. Still again is it different
with sugar, and when cream and sugar both are
added, it may be called a delicious beverage but
scarcely coffee.
So part of my daily dozen duties was to embrace each and every opportunity of drinking
coffee. In homes and hospitals, in churches or at
Childs', I drank what people served and fondly
called coffee, enduring the unimaginable flavors of
those varicolored and qualified liquids. Had
coffee been the baneful drug some people claim




ADVERTISING

147

it is, then surely must I have gone early to my
grave.
Men of the coffee trade buy from standards and
cup-quality. By this I mean coffee very finely
ground, of which the weight of a penny - weighed
on apothecaries' scales - is placed in a standardized cup. Freshly boiled water is poured on. After
waiting till it cools and stirring thoroughly, one is
able to get the real flavor of the coffee he is testing.
Gradually an idea, derived from the many
flavors registered by my palate, grew of the kind
of flavor I wanted, and my # 2 Special was its
product.
Then arose the problem of getting people to
know and believe in me so they would buy from
me. Here a serious difficulty confronted me, with
which I struggled blindly in a way, and yet definitely, for years. There was antagonism to the
woman in business, the blind antagonism of the
skeptic, latent, unspoken, but consciously felt.
Women would take the word of a dirty illiterate
grocer who assured them that he carried the "best
coffee," would pay him a high price, would drink
a bitter unpalatable draught, and be happy.
They would sniff suspiciously at the coffee I offered,
would grudgingly buy a pound or two, and then
return with contentment to the coffee redolent
with mustiness of the corner store.
I was always conscious of this antagonism and
struggled against it as I did against competition.




148

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

It is laughable now to hear the identical people
extol our coffee as they buy it in twenty-five- and
fifty-pound lots. Perhaps, too, letters of this
kind helped, in which I emphasized my desire to
help the housekeeper. The service note in my
advertising was its distinctive feature. The following is only one of many possible samples.
Are you entirely contented with your present dealer?
Is his aim to make money for himself, or to protect
your best interests? Does his quality always satisfy?
MINE DOES. Each and every cup of my coffee, when
properly made, is fragrant, strong, and delicious.
Is his price reasonable?
MINE IS ON THE MARKET. Just the cost, plus overhead, plus a moderate profit. No middlemen, no commissions. I buy here at first hand and deliver to you
direct. Does he pay carrying charges?
I Do, according to the quantity you order and the distance from New York. In other words, your coffee
delivered in your home costs you no more than it does
here in New York City.
If a mistake occurs in your shipment, does he rectify
it freely, ungrudgingly?
I Do. Look at the guarantee on my postcards.
Place a trial order with me and know comfort in Coffee,
Tea, and Cocoa.
Yours truly,
(signed) ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
I rented a typewriter and began my advertising
by personal letters to personal friends. I may say
for truth's sake, in passing, that as far as appearance went, my letters were dreadful objects.




ADVERTISING

149

I am an impressionist by nature; I loathe detail;
and I worked too fast on those letters for accuracy
and relied on the good nature of other people to
forgive my carelessness or make up with a little
ingenuity my innumerable mistakes.
But my letters, bad as they were, carried my
message, and I noted with joy and exultation that
orders began to come in.
I used my own ingenuity and all my imagination to intrigue the public, to interest it, and to
understand its needs and requirements. If you
want the public to be pleased with you, you must
be sure to please the public. The following letter,
sent out, perceptibly helped in breaking down the
resistance mentioned above.
A Home Keeping Experience of 20 years.
A Coffee Business Experience of 14 years.
THAT IS WHY you should let me select your Coffees and
Teas for you.
I know what people like to drink at home.
I buy coffee green.
I know just how to blend it, just how to roast it, just
how to ship it to you, so as to give you a more delicious
drink at the price you want to pay than anyone else.
I do not view life or the coffee business from the
grocer's viewpoint.
I have been a resident of New York City all my life
and I know what New Yorkers like.
So I say that you should let me select your Coffees and
Teas for you. I solicit a trial order.
If you do not like what I send, you can return it at my
expense.




I5o

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

Knowledge of human nature is essential to
success in advertising. I studied the whims as
well as the necessities of the housekeeper and
later of the various men and women whose business it is to supply food for larger places than the
individual home, stewards of clubs, managers of
hotels and sanitaria, and college fraternity houses.
If I studied the necessities of the housekeeper,
no less did I study the attributes of my most recent
offspring, coffee, so that I could give sound advice
concerning its use.
Green coffee, like wine, improves with age.
That is why my precious blue-paper samples were
so valuable and costly. But roasted coffee deteriorates quite rapidly, especially when allowed
to be contaminated by ill-smelling articles or subjected to dampness.
Among the many demons that beset me in those
early days, none was more trying than the one
who did not know how to make coffee the right
way. So the following "Do's and Don'ts," printed
on the gayest of colored paper, relieved my mind
and made me laugh as I wrote it: -
Don't!
~Don't start wrong and expect to make coffee right.
~A dirty pot ought to make dirty coffee. It will. Even
Emceedee can't prevent that.
~Don't use a rusty tea kettle.
~fYou can't see rust spots in coffee. You can't see
appendicitis either.




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~Don't use stale water.
TEven dead germs are not particularly healthful.
~Don't use water that tastes of iron or lime.
jWhile you require iron in your blood and lime in your
bones, you should have absolutely pure, tasteless water
for tasty Emceedee coffee.
TDon't use last night's dregs.
iThe cup that clears off past regrets and future fears is
made fresh every morning from good Emceedee coffee.
~Don't get "coffee nerves."
~In the first place coffee is a tonic. In the second place
coffee is a food. In the third place there is n't such a
thing as "coffee nerves" - if you use Emceedee.
~Don't pay rake-offs, commissions, extra profits.
TEmceedee is sold to you direct from the importer and
manufacturer at the lowest possible price for which an
absolutely A i coffee can be offered. I pay no commissions to your cook. I allow no corner grocer a rake-off.
I sell you pure coffee, the best coffee, a full, heaping
dollar's worth for each dollar - no more, but no less.
Full quality, full measure, and a taste for your table
that a king cannot surpass.
Dol
~Do try Emceedee Coffee.
~Just once.
~In a new tin coffee pot.
~New pot.
~Grind one cup of Emceedee Coffee.
~Fine.
~But not too fine.
[Then add water.
~Just a little water to make a paste.
~Put paste in pot.
~Let water tap run 5 minutes.




152

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

TNot 4- minutes - not 2 hours.
~And good, real fresh water.
~Four cups full.
~In the pot, too.
~Hot stove.
~Twenty minutes.
~Then I cup cold water.
TRight down the spout.
IStand 2 minutes - the coffee, not you.
~Then serve.
IAnd if you don't get the most delicious, taste-tantalizing, sense-pleasing draught of nectar goodness, tell me
- quick. Emceedee is the original-guaranteed-moneyback-coffee.
The making of coffee is always a sore point. I
tested and tried out the various ways and the
utensils used in them. The result of these experiments led me to believe that there are three perfectly good ways of making coffee: first, the oldfashioned long-esteemed boiling process, which
makes delicious coffee when done rightly, but is
capable of infinite variations. When Mary the
cook inadvertently leaves the grounds mixed with
egg on the hottest part of the stove and omits the
boiling water, lye, not coffee, results, and a husband's temper may be seriously incommoded
for the entire day. If the egg is mere egg, not
3X or strictly fresh, wrath and abomination may
ensue; so if you persist in boiling coffee (which of
course should never be boiled), be careful. Of the
other two ways, the percolator is all but fool



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proof, and this is why I advise it. Electrically
made on your own table or by gas in the kitchen,
you have only to follow the directions which come
with the percolator to get a delicious result. The
third, and of all ways the most artistic as well as
satisfactory, is the glass filtrola. In five minutes
you have a divine coffee if you use this method.
Next to experimenting with coffee the most
important task was the making of promotion lists.
They were made up from the Social Register first,
then from telephone books, club lists, school lists
taken spring and fall from magazine and newspaper advertisements. The selecting and compiling of all these was part of my daily work. My
long subway rides were occupied by selecting
names, my sleepless nights in cataloguing them.
You see I had to educate as well as to be educated, and a close study of conditions had to be
made if the letters issued to the new lists were to
be effective.
There was not much inward or outward sunshine in those days. My life took on a molelike
aspect. Leaving my dark apartment early in the
morning, I would burrow through the dismal
subway and arrive at my sunless office to work
through the mental fog of doubt and fear till night
came; then the subway once more, dark, illsmelling, and noisy, carried me to my home. One
must have plenty of money if one wants sunlight
in New York. Imagine then how grateful such




154

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

letters as these were to my tired soul. With them
came a burst of sunshine.
ALHAMBRA HOTEL, ALHAMBRA, CAL.
April 13, 1921
A far cry from B'way! Too far, alas! for a cup of
coffee with you, since there has been no method of longdistance drinking as yet.
(If there were, think how convenient for the topers to
keep their whiskey in Canada and drink it in New
York.)
I wish you the very best, always.
Cordially,
E. V. B. POST
December 5, 1921
DEAR MADAM,This is to advise you that our Pomeranian pup, Skylark Chief Wa-Wa, will use no other breakfast coffee
than your Mansion De Luxe.
Recently we ran out of your product and for two days
were compelled to substitute another brand. The pup
refused to drink the substitute, and inasmuch as we
trust his judgment, which in this case corroborated our
own, we immediately secured a new supply of Mansion
De Luxe, whereupon the pup resumed his breakfast
coffee drinking with every manifestation of delight.
Yours cordially,
GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER
LILLIAN CHESTER
There is romance in coffee. It comes from the
ends of the earth, and goes to the far corners of




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man's habitation. Letters from all over the world
come to me. For example, the following from
China.
U.S.S. HURON, SHANGHAI, CHINA
April i8, '25
The enclosed check is to pay the accompanying bill.
Permit me to thank you for the regularity of your
shipments and for the fine quality of coffee you have
sent. Good coffee is not to be had out here, and yours
has been mightily appreciated, not only by myself but
also by my numerous guests.
I hope to resume my orders when I get established at
home.               Yours truly,
VICTOR A. KIMBERLEY
Captain U. S. Navy
CORNELL HEIGHTS, ITHACA, N. Y.
Nov. 6, 1915
I enclose check for $4.80 for 20 lbs. of your Mansion
Blend coffee, which is now established as our household
coffee. The Bogota I use for especial occasions and it
is universally smacked over by all who get it. I dare
say you will receive occasional private orders.
Made properly, this grade has quite the rich delicious
aroma and taste of the true Andean coffee we got on the
spot, and I am not in the least disenchanted by the local
setting.            Very truly yours,
Louis A. FUERTES
P.S. Drop a card to Mr. Frank M. Chapman, Amer.
Museum of Nat. History, 77th. St. N.Y.C. He was




156

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

our chief of expedition [to Chile and Peru] and might
be much interested to know he can get the real coffee in
New York.
I resorted to all kinds of expedients to save my
letters from the doom that awaits so much good
direct-by-mail advertising: the waste-paper basket. Sometimes letters went out in non-commercial envelopes addressed by hand. Sometimes I
folded them wrong-side-out and placed a catchpenny or rather catch-eye phrase at the top to
ensure their being read. Bills - as a mark of consideration - were sent to the man of the family,
but letters were invariably addressed to women,
for I believed that they had more leisure, more
curiosity, and would therefore be more likely not
to throw them away unread.
Believing that brevity is the soul of wit and that
people are too hurried and impatient to bear with
long-winded discourses, I went over my letters
time and again, eliminating each unnecessary
word and making as many arresting phrases as I
could think of. At that time my business was all
direct to the consumer, so
NO GROCER SELLS ITTHE POSTMAN BRINGS IT
became a slogan that rang in people's ears so persistently that they ordered by mail to verify the
statement if nothing more.




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MORE JOY TO THE CUPMORE CUPS TO THE POUND
also had a convincing sound to the thrifty housekeeper's ears.
But I was not satisfied with results from letters. I needed more customers and the dangerous
envelope stood in the way of success. Besides,
letters were most expensive, costing      at least
twenty-five cents apiece. This made me resort to
postal cards. The result was electric. A       new
impetus had been given the business, and paved
the way for prompt response when the war
created dire necessity both for me and for the
customer.
The following card explained the "why" of the
rising coffee market.
Do You UNDERSTAND WHY COFFEE Is So HIGH?
Because the United States is about I,ooo,ooo bags short
of its usual supply.
Because Brazil is about 5,ooo,ooo bags short.
Because of lack of ships to bring coffee to the United
States.
Because of high freight rates.
Because of starving Europe.
But - Do you also realize that
One egg costs (at least)                    5s
One pound of beef costs (at least)          45S
One glass of soda water costs (at least)   I5
ONE CUP OF MANSION COFFEE COSTS             I1




158      ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL
A SINGLE ORDER- A MONTH'S SUPPLY
4      Ship by Express or Parcel Post, prepaid (in full or
z        in part) according to distance:
Per lb
i5 lbs. Mansion Coffee      420        6.3o0E
Wa      (an excellent coffee for general use)
~   lbs. Bowling Green      52         2.6o EP4    (delicious for after dinner)
H    3 lbs. Russian Tea (for family  560   1.68ElJ,4 use)
i lb. Ceylon Special (for the  8oo.80oEl
tea table)
Z      i lb. Nutheart Cocoa        45~.45F$II.83
S    zý. a pound reduction on coffee when 50 pounds are
ordered
NameAddress
o      City                 State
0
0      A cross in the square. A stamp in the corner.
0.4    Prices subject to change without notice.
During the war my advertising ceased. Money
was far too precious for saving lives to be spent
this way. But it was essential to keep my customers informed of conditions and so I issued
now and then market letters, thus keeping them
in touch with me and the Street.
Advertising, to be effective, must be pursued
relentlessly, and even then the results are so
intangible that one's courage weakens. It was
dreadful to see money flow out in this direction
when I needed it so much in others. For a long




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time I really could feel little if any response.
Looking back, however, I realize how that persistent reiteration of name and purpose gradually
impressed the public. Possibly that public did
not respond in terms' of coffee purchases. Eventually, however, our crowded coffee houses were
the indirect result. In fact it is fair to say that
that small outlay of capital during fifteen years
made advertising for them unnecessary.
But advertising does not consist in printed matter alone. All the small good-manners of everyday
life, as well as the thoughtful consideration one
shows for a friend's needs and peculiarities, may
be practised to good account when building up
goodwill, that best asset of a successful business.
As a child, I had been taught the use of the
thank-you note and the bread-and-butter letter.
This etiquette I applied to business. On receipt
of an initial order, my customer received a letter
expressing my appreciation of her patronage and
introducing to her mind the thought of the other
articles in my stock. Did she order coffee, in
answering I also extolled my tea. If her household needed tea and not coffee, I tried to sell her
cocoa as well, not alone as a beverage but as indispensable for cakes, pies, and frostings. I knew
only too well the struggles of the housekeeper and
the difficulties of the servant situation. Any
labor-saving that I could suggest was sure to be a
boon, so I emphasized the fact that my cocoa




160

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

had all the richness and flavor of chocolate but
dissolved easily and saved the necessity of being
broken up and melted.
Bitter experience had taught me the appalling
exertion of grinding coffee. One of my first purchases was a little grinding mill. Its hopper
capacity was only half a pound and one valuable
customer, the Hardware Club of New York City,
used fifty pounds of ground coffee weekly. No
matter how long I live or how old I grow, I shall
never forget grinding that coffee. It took a hundred hopperfuls to fill that order, and I did it
with my own good right arm.
To eliminate one vexation in the household, I
taught my customers to buy ground coffee. Hard
on me, but easy on the cook. Here again I had
to educate, for there seems to be a funny superstition that coffee that is ground freshly must of
necessity be fresh. So I advertised the fact that
coffee leaving my office in the afternoon had been
roasted that same morning; that my paper bags
of lining, interlining, and covering excluded dampness and kept coffee fresh and uncontaminated,
and that consequently a person could safely buy
ground coffee, thereby producing quiet for early
morning hours and the smile that won't come off
on Bridget or Mary Ann.
I told people how to keep coffee after buying it,
and I hope that future generations will rise up and
call me blessed for this if nothing else. For I have




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taught many a person that clean and sanitary glass
is the proper container and not the tin that mother
used.
Plodding along day after day, utilizing every
means that was fair and all the knowledge I had
or could acquire, I relentlessly pursued, with inky
tentacles sent through the mails, every man or
woman who used coffee, tea, and cocoa.
I installed a card-catalogue system, at the suggestion of Mr. Slee, and soon I had a kind of composite photograph on each card. For each card
represented all the needs and peculiarities of each
and every customer, and customers are pernickety.
One desires a light-bodied coffee which will not
hurt her nerves, and uses the old-fashioned boiling
process, so her coffee is Mansion Ground E. She
buys five pounds at a time and wants five single
packages. Her tea is Orange Pekoe with a dash
of Oolong. She does n't want to be bothered to
repeat these details, I know, so her requirements
are jotted down, the last t is crossed, the last i
dotted, and Madame merely telephones or writes,
"Repeat my last order." A little trouble on my
part, but one detail at least is eliminated from her
busy life.
I arranged a set of composite photographs
inside my brain. When I was writing a letter to
the ladies of the Social Register, I pictured to
myself all the idiosyncrasies, all the individual
tastes and inclinations of the women on my calling




162

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

list. I remembered that Mrs. A. knew, just knew,
that coffee was poison. I knew that Mrs. B's
husband smoked strong cigars and so killed his
taste for delicate flavors. I knew that Mrs. C.
suffered under the petty tyranny of a man who
begrudged her every cent for the actual necessities, not to say luxuries, of life. I knew there
were people of lavish expenditure, and I had to
give them high-priced coffee or they would be discontented; others of limited incomes must be
helped to a comforting delicious drink at a low
cost. And when I wrote my advertising letters
I planned their appeal to this composite person.
Another photograph stood before me as I wrote
to that difficult, intelligent somebody, the dietitian.
(Those individuals always think of themselves
in italics.) Another, of the poor, poor harassed
housekeepers of Chapter and on-and-off-campus
Houses. That bewildered creature of many minds
and oh! so little brain - the helpless shuttlecock
beaten pitilessly to and fro on the Board of Governors' battledore. The crafty, self-seeking steward of the rich man's club was all but hopeless;
but the woman of the telephone book, the commuter's wife with her well-trained, capable Main
Street mind, was easy to convince.
Business becomes fascinating under this kind
of psychoanalysis. Nothing helped me more than
my pitiless method of cutting off from my soul
the dead flesh of my self-esteem. Subjecting to




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equally pitiless analysis the mental attitudes and
limitations of the public to whom I sold my coffee,
helped make a success of the coffee business.
Card catalogues are blessings and make a business healthy. But they have to be pruned and
fertilized as carefully as any garden or they become
an incredible opportunity for waste, full of information as dead as last year's weeds.
Not only must advertising educate, it must suggest. It is incredible, the slowness of the human
mind to absorb facts. We speak of seeing things
in the twinkling of an eye. Only an advertiser
realizes the fallacy of this remark. Blind are the
eyes of the most intelligent. After the Little
Coffee Shop in the Grand Central had been opened
five years, a lady came in one morning and said,
"How charming this place is! It's quite new,
isn't it?"   I explained, and she said, quite
naively, "How strange! I pass here every single
day and this is the first time I have seen it."
After ten years, people who had received many of
my price lists were surprised to find that I sold tea.
Cocoa is still in the offing - but I have hopes.
One or two little flights into other fields of advertising proved the futility of the newspapers and
billboards for one located as I was, far out of the
way. I never pass a billboard without heaving a
sigh of remorse at the futile waste of good money
attendant upon my first, last, and only excursion
into that field.




164

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

But in all my advertising, as in all my life, I tried
to practise the Golden Rule, foolish though it
seems to say so. I did to others all those little
acts of courtesy and consideration that are such
invaluable helps in everyday life. I applied in my
approach to others all the knowledge I had of
life's difficulties and, with the limited means at my
disposal, eliminated them as much as possible. I
thought of myself and my own convenience not
at all. In the beginning of my business I could
refuse no order, no matter how small, and oftentimes went miles to deliver one small pound of
coffee. The profit might barely be six cents, the
carfare alone ten, but - you can never tell where
lightning will strike. The man who bought only
one pound a month might have a cousin who used
fifty pounds a week.
Furthermore, when customers complained, I
always assumed that I was wrong. Irate letters
would come. "Why was the coffee I ordered
under such-and-such a date not delivered?" We
had never received the order. Maybe it had
never been sent. Maybe it had been lost in the
mail. Invariably I wrote apologizing and promising great exactitude in the future. Difficult discipline for a woman with a temper.
Did someone complain of the coffee being bad,
a prompt apology was written, a new lot sent, and
the old one accepted. It cost double labor, packaging, and expressage, but the customer was pleased




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and friendly relations were established. All of
which was good advertising.
Sometimes amusing incidents occurred. A customer in Washington wrote saying that her coffee
was quite impossible and would I please send some
more and take this back. Of course I did, but I
was really puzzled because I knew that in this
particular instance the coffee was if anything
unusually good. Great therefore was my relief
when in a few days the lady wrote and amid profuse apologies explained that a new coffee-mill
had caused the mischief, for, as the coffee was
ground, so was the lacquer also.
Express companies are not always so careful
as they might be. For example, if coffee is delivered in a truck with kerosene, it is ruined. It will
even be affected if the truck has previously been
used for gasoline or kerosene and splashed on the
floor with either. The bag of coffee will be permeated with the odor.
My soul was wrung with anguish one morning
when, on opening my mail, I read the complaint
of a lady who claimed my coffee tasted of formaldehyde. Of course I told her to return the
coffee she had, and a new invoice was sent to her.
Then I set my mind at ease, for I learned that her
husband was a doctor, and I did not doubt the
formaldehyde was in her own storeroom.
There were however marvelously few complaints,
rather many compliments. To make my letters




166

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

more convincing, I printed a few of the favorable
comments I received and all outgoing letters -
I always tried to make a two-cent stamp do full
advertising duty - carried these testimonials.
At present the coffee business has lost its original plan of selling to the consumer and has,
under the able management of my son, greatly
widened its scope. I smiled many years ago
when Allan, aged fourteen, announced that he
would "soon come into mother's business to inject
into it a little of the masculine element." And,
my word, but he has! Our advertising goes
merrily on, now under the advice of Mr. W. I.
Tracy, and I sit back - but I still do a few little
things.
As I look back, however, the hours spent writing advertising letters and making dummies for
postcards, seem high spots in a life of varied interests. In the times of deepest sorrow they brought
a smile to my lips, and the response to them
smoothed a path not any too easy.




VI

ACCIDENTS
COMMERCIALISM is the blemish on the fair face of
American life. Fighting against the terrible conditions of the explorer and pioneer, our forefathers
had little time to think of beauty. Hearts and
heads became as hardened to the more gracious
things of life as did their bodies against physical
hardship. Little by little, as nature yielded before
the dynamite of their wills, life began to express
itself in the same hard terms, and the great commerce of a New World bent everything to its indomitable will. Adapting themselves to the size
of the rivers, the mountains, the prairies, in short,
the continent itself, our huge buildings are but
monuments to the vision and power of our princes
of prices. But to some of us the selfishness that
is bred of great success is our shame. We have
subdued the wilderness and made it ours. We
have conquered the earth and the richness thereof.
We have indelibly stamped upon its face the seal
of our dominating will. Now, unlike Alexander
sighing for more worlds to conquer, we should
address ourselves to adding beauty to that glory




i68

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

and grandeur. That people are eager for and
appreciative of beauty, the success of the coffee
houses proves; nor would the story of their conception be complete were not due emphasis given
to this side of the business.
Americans ignore the rules of life. Sleep may
be reduced to a minimum, food to a daily ration
eaten hurriedly, when and where is most convenient, and most of the laws of nature may be set
aside when we have a thing to do and want to do
it. But after a while tired Nature asserts herself
in no debatable accents and demands relaxation.
This was what happened to me when my firstborn coffee house, the Cortile, was about a month
old. Old pains returned. I walked with difficulty, stooping, and that most trying of conditions,
brain-fag, made me speak hesitantly. I constantly
forgot the word I wanted, and was unable to express myself freely, even when irritated - and then
at least I usually do not lack power of expression.
I was tired out. Money was not very plentiful.
We had gambled our all on Forty-third Street. I
faced the possibility of losing all I had spent in
labor and initiative during fifteen long, weary years
if the Cortile failed. Signing the lease for that
store was the thing that took courage. My
million-dollar lease caused me not a qualm. I had
then already gambled and won.
When at last the Forty-third Street place was
running smoothly, I went to Allan and stated the




ACCIDENTS

169

facts. I told him of my physical exhaustion, and
that I feared a mental breakdown. I said, "I'll
take a new gamble now, a thousand dollars on a trip
to Europe against an insane asylum." You see I
had worked for fifteen years without a vacation.
My day's work was rarely less than fifteen and for
a long time eighteen hours a day. I really was
very tired.
So one eventful day I departed. During all my
early life I had filled my mind with dreams of the
Old World. As I write this chapter now at Nice,
the Mediterranean stretches wide in all its beauty
before me and the dreams of those girlhood days
are realized as I hear the lap of its gentle waters.
But twenty years ago, as the prison closed its doors
and my sentence began, I had banished my dreams,
and all hope of seeing that land, which was so
familiar to me in book and picture, was put
aside.
When I sailed in the spring of 1923 I was too ill
to have much emotion. A long voyage lay before
me. In a sense I was as insecure of the future as
was Columbus, for my broken health bereft me of
ordinary initiative and to face the unknown land of
Italy, its currency and speech, seemed an ordeal.
I felt no interest in my arrival. I had been swallowed by an immense fatigue. All I wanted was
rest - oblivion. But with the first immortal
crack of my cocchiere's whip, the first delightful
bray of the donkey I encountered on the pier of




170

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

Naples, interest revived, and soon the beauty of
Italy and of the gentle laughing Italian people
overflowed my senses and life began anew. It
inundated my soul - this beauty - as some great
river its banks, and revived in it all the love of
form and color that had been buried for years under
piles of little brown coffee berries and dried-up
dusty leaves of tea.
Hard and cruel seemed the commercialism of my
own dear land. I longed to have some of the
Italian "know how to live" added to our "know
how to get."
After my return, refreshed in body and in soul by
beauty and gentleness, I spoke to my staff and to
my servants of the ideal I had found in Italy and
brought home with me. Added to the routine
performance of each day's work there must be the
ingratiating smile, the sympathetic understanding
that would make our coffee houses places of rest
for New York, as Italy had been a soul-reviving
experience for me. The gracious "buon' giorno,"
the gentle "buona sera" of the poorest peasant,
and of each and every clerk and shopkeeper abroad
was a benediction to ears accustomed, as mine were,
to the irritable discourtesy of commercial America.
But not until sometime later did the idea of
utilizing the characteristic features of the Italian
city occur to me. How it happened has already
been told, but the interesting and inexplicable fact
is that that enforced visit to Europe by one seeking




MRS. MACDOUGALL, HER DAUGHTER, HER SONS, AND STAFF
MANAGERS ON THE DECK OF THE S.S. CONTE ROSSO







ACCIDENTS

I7I

rest should have borne fruit that paid so well in
developing a purely commercial enterprise.
It is one of the mysteries of life, the way the
casual proves to be the important. I have learned
to feel that it is an essential of success to be very
sensitive and adroit in knowing how to turn these
accidental happenings to one's own advantage.
What is success? How does it come? What
causes produce it? In writing of my life, the
answer to these questions may be of interest to
women and I will at least attempt to indicate some
of the causes that I feel have contributed to my
success.
Many times during the years of what I must feel
was an eventful life, some simple and ordinary
occurrence has thus led to results of wide importance for me and for my business. For many years
I evolved my own advertising ideas, wrote my own
copy, attended to my own printing. Guided in the
beginning by Mr. J. Noah H. Slee, I carried on
alone until I reached a point where I felt in need of
a brain more capable and trained than my own. I
felt that my methods, as well as I, had gone stale.
Opportunely one day, as I sat at my desk, in October
1921, Mr. Harry A. Stewart, a gentleman who was
beginning to make his mark in the magazine world,
called to see me. I had known Mr. Stewart because of an interview he had previously given me
for an article for the New York Evening Post and
the memory was a pleasant one. Mr. Stewart was




172

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

a little shy, a little retiring, but some chord was
struck between us and a sympathetic understanding was established. I was glad to have it renewed
and listened with interest to his plan for publicity.
As a result, I met Mr. Stewart once a week.
Our opening story set the pace. "Sex is
woman's best business weapon."    I remember
shrinking a little before Mr. Stewart's quizzical
nonchalance. But his judgment was justified.
The story went like wildfire and was quoted
throughout the entire country. Magazine articles
followed. It does not pay to be squeamish in
publicity.
For at least two years I went every week to Mr.
Stewart's office in the Metropolitan Tower, twentyeight stories above the humming, seething world
below. He would say, after the usual greeting,
"Give me five good reasons why a woman should
not go into business"; or, "Tell me whether college is essential to the business woman." Then
would follow a discussion of perhaps an hour.
Sometimes the humor of some ridiculous proposition would dawn upon us, and jokes and laughter
formed a pleasant interlude. Sometimes I came
to him depressed, and his understanding soothed
and comforted me. Finally that story was produced which was "good copy." But whatever we
said was literally gobbled up by the papers.
It was great fun as well as great publicity. It
was an accident that led to big results, for finally




ACCIDENTS

i73

an article in the American Magazine told my story
to an audience of two million readers.
The newspaper stories always began: "Mrs.
Alice Foote MacDougall, left with thirty-eight
dollars and three children" - How tired I did get
of that woman and those interminable three! But
the stories filled other people with interest and
curiosity and the coffee houses filled up in consequence. How like some bearded lady or dog-faced
boy of the circus, I sometimes feel as the public
asks to "look at me."
After a short and markedly brilliant career as
a writer, Mr. Stewart passed, the victim of war
injuries received in France.
Another casual occurrence led to the most successful of advertising campaigns.
Life is beset by many annoyances, and those that
stand out above all are the life-insurance and advertising agents. The latter especially raise my
wrath. For, with urbane smile and perfect serenity the advertising man takes your precious time
to explain in detail how you may separate yourself
from thousands or millions of dollars according
to your reputed wealth. He spreads before your
bewildered eyes layouts of one kind or another, and
calculates with nicety what it will cost you per
second, minute, and hour for a longer or shorter
period. Then, pleased with his eloquence, he sits
back and smiles, a benignant angel, at your diminishing bank account. And you - you say, timidly




174

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

paraphrasing Little Peterkin: "But what good
will come of it at last? What will I get back, and
when, and how?"   Then the gentleman becomes
vague; prophecy is not his mitier. "One never
can really tell, but the chances -" and so forth
and so on.
Having been accustomed to this kind of thing,
I read, in February 1924, with half-hearted interest,
a letter from Mr. W. I. Tracy. His business was
advertising. He had a plan for me, and it happened that I was just at that moment in a somewhat receptive mood. As before, I felt the need
for a new and better-trained mind. I felt that the
time was ripe and the money ready for an advertising campaign.
You see, my business is coffee, and I love it.
Imagine my astonishment then, to find myself the
head of a restaurant business! To be sure, the restaurants were the living advertisements of the
coffee business, but at this time it was a case of the
tail wagging the dog, and poor little Front Street
was quite lost to sight under the nimbus of the
Cortile, the Piazzetta, and Firenze. So I wrote
Mr. Tracy. I rehearsed my various experiences
with his predecessors and said I had thought I was
finished as far as advertising men were concerned,
but if he could propose a plan whereby instead of
spending all the money I had or ever hoped to have,
I would stand a reasonable chance of a fair return,
I would gladly listen to him.




ACCIDENTS

I75

In the course of a few days I had my first personal interview. I was delighted. Here was a
man of charming personality who knew his business, just as Mr. Stewart knew his. He had vision
enough to understand my viewpoint and my advertising needs. He convinced me of his ability.
As I sailed for Europe again in the spring of 1924 I
left to him and to Allan the details of the campaign.
Thanks to Mr. Tracy, our outlay was small, our
success amazing.
But perhaps the most fantastic of these accidents
came through my own Donald and the Plattsburg
training camp during that period before our
entrance into the World War, when Theodore
Roosevelt and Leonard Wood were trying to arouse
a pacifist professor of a college town into active
duty as President of the United States.
Toward the end of camp, in 1916, I received a
letter from Donald saying he had met "a peach of
a boy," and could he bring him home when he came.
Enter Drewry, at that time an attractive boy of
sixteen, cultivated and intelligent. He is now the
architect of the coffee houses. I had floundered
around first with an architect who knew so much I
could never reach his highly turned-up nose, much
less his understanding, to tell him what I wanted,
though he heard me quite distinctly when I spoke
in terms of cash. Then I had struggled with his
successor, who was as dull and limited as anyone
could be. After these two it was joy to associate




i76

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

myself with this bright, intelligent, beauty-loving
young man who, at twenty-five, having graduated
from Princeton, was now an associate in the office
of Carrere and Hastings. In building the Cortile
and the Piazzetta, I battled with stupidity and
ignorance. I had    draftsmen - that was all.
When we created Firenze I had that most delightful
of all contacts, a soul that stimulated mine, an
ability that was equal to every occasion.
Quite by accident also came Frederic Sanseverro,
an Italian who does all the color work in the coffee
houses. What fun it is to stand beside him and
watch the uncouth white plaster of an office building turn into the many-colored, many-creviced
wall of an Italian inn, or to see the girder that
supports the ceiling change from soft plaster into
worm-eaten old wood. All by the deft use of
chisel and paint brush.
And what greater joy than to stand back and
watch the activity of these three young men of the
coming generation, who have contributed so largely
to the success people so kindly attribute to me.
Allan, thirty-four, clever, adroit, resourceful, grappling with apparent ease the intricate problems of
heating, ventilating, electricity, or the terms that
shall constitute a favorable lease for us.
Drewry, twenty-seven, a man tingling with
beauty and transcribing on blue prints a maze of
intricate detail and exquisite workmanship, the
vision of his soul.




ACCIDENTS

177

Still again, Sanseverro, adding color, and with
color radiance and life, to the whole.
The humble waffle should not be without its due
recognition in this chronicle of accidents. In a
way it was the crowning accident of all, for it
pointed the way to our coffee houses.
It has been cumulative and progressive, this
endeavor of a woman to care for her children, but
the progress has been punctuated by just such
fortuitous experiences as these.  Hence there
comes a feeling of a Power who is a "very present
help in time of trouble," and a great humility and
thankfulness abide in one's heart.
The burden is heavy, the sorrow cruel, the trial
long, but always the trail is blazed with the help
of understanding friends. Great minds send their
inspiring philosophy like beacons on one's way and
here and there the unexpected happens, and at the
right moment assistance comes, and deliverance
follows.
The day that I signed my million-dollar lease for
the new coffee house on Fifty-seventh Street was
one of great commotion on Front Street. Many
orders kept the roasters busy on the top floor, and
below the various machines for grinding, milling,
blending, mixing, and packing were working overtime. In the offices, the faces of my busy girls
were flushed and their excited fingers made the keys
dance to a lively tune. Newspapers telephoned for




178

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

this interview or that, the photographers, reporters,
lawyers, notaries, and the principals and owners
arrived to assist a woman in signing a milliondollar lease. It seemed to be something of an
event to these others, and I too felt a thrill. But
to me it had a deeper significance, for was it not
the release from my life sentence of twenty years at
hard labor?
As I started for home that night, Joseph stood
before me, cap in hand, a generous smile lighting up
the features of the face I loved so well. "Well,"
said he, "Mrs. MacDougall, I have been with you
twelve years. I know    what you have been
through. I am glad you have succeeded, and I 'm
glad to be a little part of your business." Dear
Joseph! Do you realize all your faithfulness has
done to bring about such success? Joseph came
to me as a boy of sixteen and we worked shoulder to
shoulder on those first days when big orders taxed
my small office force to the point of breaking. I
taught him to wrap up our parcel-post packages so
that the wildest attempts of postal employees
would not break them open, and on dreadful days
when orders requiring special grinding or special
packing overwhelmed us, I ground and packed with
him.
In the chaotic times of the war, never did he
hesitate. When express companies failed, when all
kinds of impossible conditions arose, Joseph always did the impossible - strong, smiling, willing,




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ACCIDENTS

179

faithful. One rule dominates us: "All orders must
invariably be delivered or shipped on the day of
their receipt." Knowing the dilemma of the
housekeeper when groceries do not arrive on time,
I had made this rule at the very outset of my
business. It is as forceful to-day as then. And to
this rule, in spirit as well as letter, Joseph was
semper fidelis. It is pleasant to feel that as the
business has developed so has he, for now he is
manager of the roasting and shipping departments
of our firm.
Arriving later in the organization, as entry and
bill clerk, Agnes Hunter has now become an expert
accountant, the head of all the intricate bookkeeping the two corporations require. Every detail is
on her finger tips; no minutest item escapes her
vigilant accuracy. Of a frail, supersensitive nature, not any too strong, blessed or cursed as it
may be with a New England conscience, she works
early and late with untiring zeal. The immediate
world of Alice Foote MacDougall would cease to
revolve if anything should ever happen to Joseph
Meyer or Agnes Hunter.
And the same devotion to the best interest of the
business seems to inspire each and every one
of our employees. Why? Because it is their
business, and we, the owner, and they, the employees, work together for a common end.
All through these long years of business
experience, I have tried to keep the human side




i8o

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

uppermost. A "soulless corporation" is a horridsounding phrase; for what is life, whether in the
human body or in a big corporation, without the
constant daily inspiration of the soul? It has always been a meaningless phrase to me, for never
have I found a soulless thing in all my journey
through life. But if there were such a thing, I
conceived it to be part of my business to keep it
very far from being in any way connected with
my endeavor.
I have felt it a privilege to suffer, since it has
made my understanding more complete. And I
have earnestly endeavored to add sympathy to my
understanding and to keep myself attentive to the
wants and necessities of my employees. As a
result I have their confidence. I am not "I."
They are not "they." We work together, and the
success of the business is "ours."
I do not have much time to read, and therefore
make the following statement with the conviction
borne of observation only. To me the Labor
Party has committed its greatest crime in belittling
the dignity of work, in dragging it down to a poor
thing of hours and pay envelopes, and of killing in
the workers the fine sense of pride in a job well
done, no matter how lowly. There was a time when
the laborer loved his work. As he beat out the
pattern on some exquisite piece of silver or carved
the consecration of his soul into some piece of old,
well-seasoned wood, he received from himself to




ACCIDENTS

i8I

himself a payment in joy beyond the power of
money to buy. What machinery has done in
depriving him of opportunity, Labor has done far
more cruelly in making him the pitiful tool of the
time clock and pay envelope.
A little of the joy in work well done remains, and
still goes on. In the kitchens and dining rooms of
the coffee houses, as well as in the offices, and the
roasting and packing rooms on Front Street, emphasis is laid upon the artistry of each and every
man's and woman's work. Accuracy of detail,
beauty of the finished product, whether a well-made
package of tea, a beautiful cake, or a leg of mutton
perfectly roasted, everywhere we try to inspire
our employees with the feeling that "the joy of
work is work's reward." A one-sided programme,
you say. Quite so. We ask perfection of labor
and we try to make each man's salary commensurate to his ability and to his needs. But we do
more. We want our people to be happy, and we
reason that only can they be so if their work is
beautifully accomplished. Since, however, our exactions are heavy, since we ask free and willing
service of our employees, and an accuracy and perfection far in excess of others, so we feel obligated
to recognize the service they give us. Consequently a bonus is given to each and every
employee according to length of service and perfection of work.
Our bonus meeting is a joyful affair. Once a




182

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

year, just before Christmas, our employees assemble and then my sons and I give to each man
and woman the bonus earned. When people speak
of the atmosphere of the coffee houses, of the feeling
of restfulness and peace as well as beauty that one
finds therein, I hope that it emanates from our
kitchens and service rooms, where contented and
interested employees work for the benefit of our
customers.
Work brings success. Long hours, conscientious
plugging, an open mind to opportunity, and a ready
adaptability contribute to it. Merchandising is
easy, a simple process of arithmetic and a clear
sense of a just relation between outgo and income.
But success is a dull and cruel thing if we stop here.
Really to succeed, we must give; of our souls to the
soulless, of our love to the lonely, of our intelligence
to the dull. Business is quite as much a process
of giving as it is of getting.




VII

MY PHILOSOPHY OF WORK AND
RICHES
ONCE there was a man who had lost his way in the
high mountain passes of Switzerland. It was cold
and the shadows of night were closing in upon him.
Just then a little peasant boy appeared and the
stranger asked of him, "My boy, can you tell me
where is Kandersteck?" And the boy replied,
"I do not know where Kandersteck is, sir, but
yonder lies the road."
In the same spirit I have written this book. I
do not know the way to the Kandersteck of success,
but certain paths lead there, and that woman is
rich indeed who follows them.
I constantly receive letters asking me how I have
achieved this thing that men call success. What
have I done to produce it? What has it done to
me? Apparently the world is full of poor women
who are left with children and no means of support.
They are careful readers of magazine articles and
having read a so-called story of my life, want me
to give them the Open Sesame prescription.
I cannot do it. No one's problems can be solved




184

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

by another. Conditions and the qualities of souls
differ too much. To me life means the growing of
a soul. I do not know why this duty is imposed
upon us. I merely know that it is, and I feel that
we are given much latitude of free will. We do
not know where Kandersteck is, but the way lies
clear before us, and the soul has qualities that may
be developed for guidance on our way. And so we
proceed. From the poor little bewildered embryonic thing of small ideas and limited vision, through
torment and despair, until at last the richness of
life and the glory of its great opportunities dawn
upon us and we are at rest.
I feel that I have lived deeply, vividly, and that,
if my life has any meaning to those outside of me,
a little of my readjustment may be interesting. I
wish I could write better, that I might explain it
better.
In the beginning was wild rebellion, complete
loss of faith. If anyone could have been brought
up with less equipment than I, I do not know her.
One idea was firmly fixed in my mind, that the
world was made for my enjoyment and everything
in it must adjust itself to my pleasure. My religion had a good deal of the reward-and-punishment idea about it. It was principally luxury I
expected, for my sins were not glaring. That is to
say, my virtues and my sins were about the same
as the rest of the people among whom I lived. I
thought of myself as did one of our colored




MY PHILOSOPHY

185

servants. Walking into her kitchen one day,
mamma said, "Lewis, your kitchen is a disgrace.
Everything in it is higgledy-piggledy, everything
is untidy, Lewis, and I am afraid you are dirty."
Six feet of dark-skinned complacency stood first
on one foot, then on the other, and nonchalantly
toyed with a greasy carving knife held between
more greasy fingers. "No ma'am, Mrs. Foote,
ma'am, I is n't dirty; I's average."  Average,
my sins and my virtues. For the rest, the world
then as now was a pleasant place, peopled with
friends full of unmitigated kindness, consideration,
and helpfulness.
When the change began, I was totally unequipped to meet it. My revolt was complete.
Why did God single me out for such punishment?
What had I done to deserve it? Others not one
bit worse than I were living in the lap of comfort
and contentment, while my soul was torn by
bewilderment, grief, and despair. I was, in the
accepted way, good. Why should I be singled out
for such dreadful punishment?
From this attitude of mind began the long, slow
process that gradually led to a new philosophy of
life and to an understanding of the divine purpose
in all things that makes life supremely sweet.
Now, instead of the old futile debates and questioning, is security. In place of doubt, is assurance. Contentment has superseded fear.
Because of the success business life has brought




186

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

me, even because of this very philosophy of peace
which I acknowledge has been achieved through
overcoming the obstacles business offered me, many
people wonder why I still advise women not to go
into business. Perhaps those who read this book
may get a clearer vision of what the price of business is to a woman.
But if one must pay this price, if Fate leaves a
woman no choice in the matter, if she is to fulfill
her duty, if it happens that life ordains her for
work instead of leisure, then let her go to it. She
should forget individuality, traditions, inheritances, strip for the game as does the athlete, relieving her soul of all unnecessary impedimenta, and
then address her enterprising spirit to the free and
careless enjoyment of the great adventure. Business for women is inevitable in many cases. When
it is - then make it a fight to the finish and get a
great deal of satisfaction from the fighting. Pay a
big price, and pay it cheerfully. I am conscious
of the sniff of derision that my mid-Victorian attitude must arouse.
To the college girl brimming with the enthusiasms of her youth and the rather false information given by her worthy professors - persons
whose knowledge and vision rarely go beyond the
college campus - commercial life means emancipation from endless tiresome details of home life.
Especially if she has been reared on a farm, visions
of the exhausting, soul-destroying cares of the




MY PHILOSOPHY

I87

farmer's wife must lend powerful support to the
professors' talk, and the glamour of office life in a
big city shines alluring and resplendent to her innocent eyes.
Business life to the efficient salaried individual
presents less terrors, surely, than to the woman who
attempts to blaze her own trail. To the salaried
clerk, no matter how low or how high her position,
life is comparatively easy if her budget is accurate.
So much to send home to parents or to help a
sister or brother through college; so much for possible ill-health; so much for board, lodging, clothes,
charity; so much, if possible, set aside for old age.
And the overplus of pleasure a big city gives freely
to everyone alert to atmosphere and beauty produces a quite comfortable condition for soul and
body.
But it is to the woman who departs upon her own
adventure and attempts to create, who pays rather
than receives salaries, who is not to be satisfied by
running in a groove but must initiate, it is to her
I say - Don't!
The terrible uncertainty. The silence and aloofness life takes on when one is in the midst of the
hand-to-hand fight. It is the lack of understanding in well-meaning friends, it is struggle and
poverty, it is loneliness and despair, that constitute
the salient, integral parts of the thing men call
business. If a woman thinks the battle worth
while, let her go to it. My advice is - Don't.




i88

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

What, then, must woman do to win in the world
of business, once she has entered it? What qualities must she cultivate, what characteristics suppress, what others develop?
First of all, it seems to me, she should honestly
inventory her abilities and limitations. So very
many of us, in business or out, overestimate. our
abilities. When I was growing up, Bill Tweed
covered New York City with the shame of his
iniquity, and I can still quite distinctly hear my
mother say, "If I were mayor of New York City,
I 'd soon put an end to Tweed and his gang."
How many of us say the same sort of thing, and
believe it, until the event proves its impossibility.
The suffrage party was equally sure of this ability
to purge politics, yet the changes they promised
have not materialized. Not because they are not
sincere and earnest, but just quite simply because
they don't and did not know what they were undertaking.
This overconfidence in one's own ability is the
root of much evil. Vanity, egoism, is the deadliest
of all characteristics. This vanity, combined with
extreme ignorance of conditions the knowledge of
which is the very A B C of business and of life,
produces more shipwrecks and heartaches than
any other part of our mental make-up.
Honestly take into account your inability.
Don't camouflage yourself. See yourself as others
see you - or at least try to. Don't imagine you




MY PHILOSOPHY

I89

are Napoleon when you have n't even the qualities
of his valet. If you are sure of the weak points
in your character, if you are quite conversant with
your limitations, the best corner stone of success is
laid. Do not arrogate to yourself qualities that
you have not; but for heaven's sake don't forget
that of all God's creatures you have the highest
opportunity, and that your sphere is limited by the
heavens only.
So, if a woman enters commercial life, let her
inventory most carefully her limitations, and build
herself up where she finds herself lacking.
Again, if she is to win she must suppress all traditions that are likely to limit the free flight of her
spirit. This was the very hardest thing for me, I
think. I had never seen my mother wash a dish
or do any sort of manual labor even about her own
home. Ladies did n't do it at that time. And it
took a great deal of spiritual development before
I could look on myself and my fate rightly, because
I had not only to wash dishes but do all sorts of
work for other people, sewing, mending, anything
that brought in a few pennies, in those years before
I made the plunge into an actual business office.
One must eliminate the traditional and cling to
the essential.
Then there is always the question of health to be
considered. Many women think themselves delicate when they are really only lazy. Half of the
so-called ill health is imagination or nerves or both.




190o

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

The other half has for component parts indolence
and the joy of wearing a martyr's crown.
Life is not precious, a thing to be cherished.
The soul and the mind are the instruments God
gives us for our use and half of us don't begin to
use them. We put Life and Health on two little
pedestals and spend most of our time performing
acts of devotion before them. Instead of using
them as a carpenter his tools, as a helmsman the
rudder, to hammer or steer our way to victory, we
turn ourselves into Vestal Virgins with nothing on
the face of the earth to do but to feed the feeble
flames of our comfort. Life is no craven thing,
lurking coward-like in a corner. It is big, broad,
splendid in opportunity. It is to be used, not cherished. It is to be spent, not saved.
Faultless honesty is a sine qua non of business
life. Not alone the honesty according to the moral
code and the Bible. When I speak of honesty I
refer to the small, hidden, evasive meannesses of
our natures. I speak of the honesty of ourselves to
ourselves. In the still watches of the night, have
it out with your soul. Honestly size up your smallness and cultivate bigness of outlook, of charity,
of understanding, and of sympathy.
Imagination is a valuable asset in business and
she has a sister, Understanding, who also serves.
Together they make a splendid team and business
problems dissolve and the impossible is accomplished by their ministrations.




MY PHILOSOPHY

191

And what a luxury of riches follows in the path
of our imagination! Give it free wing and it
solves many a problem, creates the conditions that
hasten  success.  Imagination  concerning  the
world's wants and the individual's needs should
be the Alpha and Omega of self-education.
I think a large portion of success is derived from
flexibility. It is all very well to have principles,
rules of behavior concerning right and wrong. But
it is quite as essential to know when to forget as
when to use them. Your rules are yours and they
may be as relentless as you please for yourself, but
don't carry them farther than that. You are not
your brother's keeper, and even if you were your
rules would probably not apply to his needs and
behavior. Much less in business must you adhere
to the rules set up by yourself. I had a coffee
business, but flexibility added a pottery business
and practising the Golden Rule led to our large and
flourishing restaurants. In business you get what
you want by giving other people what they want.
A necessity always makes a better business -
or at least a more dependable one - than a luxury.
I selected coffee as my business not only because
it was a sheer necessity, but because, through my
observance of affairs, I feared a business that dealt
in luxuries.
I had a passionate love of books, and in the early
days of my marriage I had the privilege of frequenting the bookshops of Mr. Alphonse Duprat, a




192

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

bibliophile of wide learning and great discrimination. But I learned a lesson from him which I applied in after years. When times were good and
money easy, when Wall Street smiled, Mr. Duprat
could easily sell his priceless Elzevirs or some
lovely Book of Hours once cherished by the haughty
Mary of Scotland. (I still remember when I held
that book in my hands and felt the thrill of touching what she had touched even while she plotted
the murder of Darnley or Rizzio.) But in bad times
his business withered like a flower during a drought.
My necessity was too great to tamper with so
sporadic a thing. Coffee was necessary - more
so perhaps in bad times than in good, but always a
comforting and delicious drink. So coffee was my
choice. But in the beginning friends offered many
and varied opportunities based upon the get-richquick idea. To each and all I said No, with
thanks. I knew I had chosen a hard, slow road,
but I also knew it would pay in the end. It was
merely a question of push, perseverance, and prayer.
In all the wide gamut of human experience,
nothing plays so important a part as faith.
Faith - not the poor little thing recited in five
minutes at church on Sunday morning. Faith that
is as broad as the heavens and as wide as the earth.
Faith that comprehends in its vast sympathies
everything human as well as divine, and carries
one with the swift sure wings of the angels directly
to his goal.




MY PHILOSOPHY

193

But my faith did not confine itself to the things
of religion alone. Perhaps nothing in all my
business has helped me more than faith in my fellow man. From the very first I felt confident that
I could trust the great, friendly public. So I told
it quite simply what I thought, what I felt, what
I was trying to do. And the response was quick,
sure, and immediate. Trust is a great thing. In
fact, all constructive thought is powerful. It is
the small doubts of timid souls that accomplish
their ruin. It is the narrow vision, the fear and
trembling hesitation, that constitute defeat.
Have faith in God. Trust your fellow man.
Believe in yourself. And life becomes a triumphant advance, and one approaches death itself as
the last great adventure in that unfinished episode
men call life. "God helps those who help themselves." There were times when I wished God
had n't given me quite so much latitude in this respect, but it was necessary for my development.
To faith in God add faith in man, add faith in one's
self.
But it is a lonely programme. The very virtues
you cultivate become walls that inevitably separate
you from your kind. Life takes on a new glory,
it is true. Fear falls away, vanquished. Contentment and peace reign where once were rebellion
and despair. A new danger comes to your soul,
and intolerance and impatience with those who are
as you have been all but destroy that which you




194

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

have taken such pains to build up. Not alone are
there spiritual barriers between you and the friends
that you have, but your business training has made
your mind incisive. In the swift rush of business
you have no time for small debates and petty
dilemmas. You have not time to think even of
possible failure. You depart upon an intended
action or policy. If you succeed, all well and good.
If you fail - well, it simply means double time till
you catch up. Often you put in eighteen hours of
work because there is no one with whom you can
play. Work thus becomes at once a delight and a
tyrant. For even when the time comes and you
can relax, you hardly know how. And those who
can relax with you are too far away, energizing their
own sphere with the wealth of their intellects, or
- like you - have forgotten how to let go.
Age also plays its part. One may look young
and feel young, but at forty a woman has only a
little of the girl's resiliency. Men, unhampered by
the physical limitations that women endure, can
play all night and still work all day, though even
men cannot go on forever. But the woman has to
have more rest, to build up tissues broken down by
the wear and tear of being a woman. After a day
of hard work, it is not always possible to recreate
oneself at concert or theatre. We go home and go
to bed.
And our homes. Those lonely bachelor-maid
affairs! An attractive apartment, the phantom of




MY PHILOSOPHY

195

a real home, a bird or dog or cat in place of children.
The questionable companionship of near marriage,
in some cases. In others, books and periodicals
as a substitute for one's husband's brain and companionship.
All this, every step of the way, takes courage and
is exhausting. We all know courage in its accepted
terms. To me the big courageous acts of life are
those one never hears of and only suspects from
having been through like experience. It takes
real courage to do battle in the unspectacular task.
We always listen for the applause of our co-workers.
He is courageous who plods on, unlettered and
unknown.
The boy awaiting his captain's summons, the
soldier listening for the call of zero hour, the man on
the Stock Exchange watching the ticker fluctuating to a panicky market, or you in your own home
at the bedside of your little child, feeling the pulse
beat of his fluttering heart - all, all need courage.
Courage not alone in the free-for-all of the business
day but in those still, silent hours of the night. In
the last analysis it is this courage, developing
between man and his limitations, that brings
success.
One should have a mental house-cleaning before
going into business, for many well-established ideas
are erroneous. Among these is our attitude toward
poverty.
Poverty is relative. If you want a Rolls-Royce




196

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

and are forced to ride on the tram, provided you
allow it to disturb you, you are as miserable as the
man who is starving to death in a cellar or dying
of thirst on a raft at sea. Poverty is the result
of bad adjustment between the soul and its desires.
We pity the poor. Yes, they are always with us
and to be pitied. But don't forget - they are
also to be envied. Think of the joy of not needing
a bathtub, of not being dependent upon soap and
water! The person who has been accustomed to
these, suffers when forced to do without. In the
days of great poverty, I did not mind the sensation
of hunger. A glass of water is inexpensive and
quite a satisfying lunch. But, as I have already
said, to be deprived of tooth paste, to brush the
teeth without it, was a dreadful thing, a daily discomfort.
It was a real struggle to give up my subscriptions
to current magazines. I have a peculiar possessive
quality in my love of books, and hated those I got
at circulating libraries. I wanted my own, clean
and personal to me. I wanted the joy of marking
passages that pleased me, to which I could refer at
some future time. And there were many weeks
when even the public libraries were impossible for
me because of lack of time. For leisure is essential
in selecting the book you want, and I had no leisure.
This for me was one of the trials of poverty.
One experience is common to the always poor
and the newly poor alike, the lack of privacy. One




MY PHILOSOPHY

i97

would never go to a man of wealth and ask searching questions as to his expenditures or the amount
of his income. Yet no more embarrassing and discouraging thing ever happened to me than the selfconstituted right of relatives and friends to firsthand knowledge of my most private affairs. How
much money did I have? How much rent did I
pay? Why did I buy this for my children? Why
did I send them to private schools? I had no
money; there were the public schools, giving a
good education (Heaven save the mark!). What
right had I to send them anywhere else?
At one time a worthy but not overintelligent
relative sent me a hundred dollars as a fund for
my children's education. I had a beautiful time
calculating what I would do with the income of this
princely sum, invested and drawing six per cent per
annum.
People were forever telling me to live within my
income. Gladly, provided I could find it. How
people love high-sounding, well-known, and familiar phrases! No advice could have been more
futile. My income was a matter of pennies seized
when and where I could. I was always in debt,
and payments on account here and there gave us
the necessities of life. Once the rent was paid, I
prayed for money for the next month. Having
allayed the fear of the butcher, I smiled down the
suspicions of the milkman till pennies enough
accumulated to reassure him in a more practical




198

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

way. I could tell my outgo. My income was an
unknown quantity, except as the books of the
business showed a definite profit on each pound of
coffee.
I do not mean that people were purposely unkind
nor that they were especially curious. They
sincerely wanted to help me. But the incessant
questioning racked my soul. Introspection and
self-questioning as to the sincerity of my motives
increased till I was brought to the verge of despair.
Forced one day to ask a relation, a rich man, for
temporary assistance, partly to help but far more to
please his self-esteem he went over my wretched
books with a magnifying glass. Why did I keep a
servant? Twenty dollars a month - how hard
had he worked as a boy to earn twenty dollars!
He knew the value of money. At the outset of his
life he had never allowed himself such luxury; why
should I? I asked him to tell me how I could be in
my office working and at the same time cook, dust,
make beds, and look after little children. "Well
- well, well," he hesitated. He had not thought
of that; and he passed on. Three hours' grilling
and I left. Less chance than ever for sleep that
night.
Poverty is relative, and lack of food and of the
necessities of life is not necessarily a hardship.
Spiritual and social ostracism, the invasion of your
privacy, are what constitute the pain of poverty.
Added to the constant attempt to keep my personal




MY PHILOSOPHY                199
life my own, a thing that kept me always on the
defensive, I was unable to be part of the society to
which I had been reared. It was only one more
straw, but it added its burden to my overladen
back. I had no time for society, no energy, no
vivacity for it.
I have spoken of the servant I kept. Perhaps no
humiliation of poverty is more trying than that
inflicted by one's servant. People of this class are
so often the veriest snobs, ignorant and yet sophisticated. Full of a knowledge born of the frightful
intimacy of domestic service, they are devoid of
feeling or charity. Their wages are their gods, and
once you lapse, you stand convicted before them,
a being worthy only of contempt.
I employ many servants now, principally colored.
Among them is Saidie, whose story shows as well
as anyone else's one of the frailties to which flesh
is heir.
Years ago Saidie came to me. After three or
four days she gave me notice. I was very anxious
to keep her, for she was an excellent old-time servant. But she explained that she could not stay.
"You see," she said, "I am accustomed to living
where one can go over every piece of furniture with
a fine lace handkerchief without soiling it." I
stood convicted, I who loved cleanness and hated
dirt and disorder; but I was working at the business for dear life and a period of two or three weeks
before Saidie came had reduced the apartment to




200

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

great untidiness. Each morning a few hours of
intensive cleaning, dusting, and sweeping I had
done, to be sure, but my limited strength had little
effect upon the dirt of New York, so Saidie, sniffing
superciliously, departed. A few years ago this
same Saidie appeared at one of our coffee houses
and was employed. Not long after I was amused
to hear her boasting of the fact that at one time
she was "the madam's" household servant. She
is still with us, contented and happy.
In fact our servants all seem happy, but just back
of them I often see the sinister face of my colored
maid in those dark days, years ago. I knew I was
supporting my home, three children, and that maid,
but how many more because of her depredations
I could only guess. During the long days of my
absence at business, with the children at school,
what use did she not make of my apartment?
What cooking, washing, and preserving did she not
do in my kitchen, using all the gas she needed and
whatever supplies she could steal? And I was
almost glad to have her do so, provided only she
would stay and relieve my weary ill-health of the
strain of cooking and cleaning. Yet, with what
self-righteousness and lips curling with scorn would
she show her contempt if her wages were not paid
on the tick of the clock. Gossiping with my
tradespeople, she knew just how long they waited
for their bills and, knowing better than I how much
of those selfsame bills could be laid to her stealing,




MY PHILOSOPHY

201

still would show by her contempt how much she
despised me for paying so slowly.
Of course I could buy no clothes for myself in
those days and kind friends gave me clothes they
no longer needed. So in spring I received winter
clothes, in the autumn and winter the thin things
of summer. I sweltered in summer in a winter
dress and for years never knew what it was to be
warm in winter. I shall never forget the acute
agony of my fingers in winter as I went about
delivering coffee. How the string cut through my
thin, shabby gloves.
But hunger and cold, ill-health and pain are
nothing. They pass. The thing that remains is
ignorant criticism, well-meaning but futile advice,
the contempt of a subordinate, the feelings of the
under dog. The amazement he feels at the kind of
people who kick him. The despair at his helpless
inability to resist. Always duality. The life of
the under dog, silent and suffering. And the constant endeavor of the soul to rise and dominate,
assert its independence, its equality, its right as
good as anyone else's to its own peculiar way of
living and thinking. No man is his brother's
keeper. But for the poor the whole world is a selfconstituted critic; your smallest action is open to
debate. No secret place of your soul is safe from
invasion. To have lived through it is rich experience, filling one's life with understanding and sympathy, helping one to be useful.




202

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

Everywhere and always I was conscious of the
inevitable mystery of God's plan working through
my life. It was as if I were but a vessel which God
used in order to work out a certain purpose.
Slowly the beneficence of suffering dawned upon
me. A feeling came that we are here for growth
and development, a thing not accomplished by ease
and indolence.
With eyes then opened to a new vision, I walked
the way of life. Sorrow was no longer hardship.
Sickness and trouble were no longer hindrances.
It was by these measures that a loving Providence
was leading me to a broader outlook, a braver way
of life. My duty and soon my pleasure was to
accept the conditions and build upon them the
edifice of life. Futile questions were stilled. Inequalities ceased to trouble. There was something
in life higher than physical comfort and well-being;
their opposites were fitting means for the work I
had in hand. I began to understand a little of
Christ's atonement. I too, was beginning to have
a little of His at-one-ment. Life became rich in
opportunity.
At one time I felt all the agony of the violin
string when the master stretches and stretches it,
tuning it to the proper pitch. Now that tuning has
been accomplished for me and divine harmonies
vibrate through my awaiting soul. Once I had
felt like the wretched horses I had seen tugging
helplessly at heavy loads or on the deadly treadmill,




MY PHILOSOPHY

203

climbing an endless hill, monotonously dull, with
limbs and back aching, no respite or goal in sight.
But now life is a fairway or a race course for me, and
I can pursue with swift and free decision the path
toward my longed-for goal.
Apart from the philosophy I learned through
bitter experience, certain inborn traits helped me.
I have no sense of the value of money. It means
nothing to me in itself. My brain does not register
in terms of dollars and cents. And strangely
enough, I have always felt this to be my greatest
asset. You see it freed me from fear and released
me from those small pitiful debates of the careful
and particular. I worked very hard. I spent
freely after figuring carefully and assuring myself
of the accuracy of my figures, and then I sat back
and waited for the results I had discounted. It
was a gambler's method, but, controlled by the
inexorable knowledge of two-plus-two, it carried
me to success.
And then, being thoroughly illogical, I never
allowed business to interfere with pleasure. For I
have always enjoyed life in its every aspect. Anything from a peanut at the circus to a box at the
opera may be sheer, unadulterated joy. In my
hardest years, if an opportunity offered of a ride
into the country with a friend or an afternoon
under the soul-reviving influence of a symphony,
I departed thereto. True, I worked half the night
to make up, but you see by this time I had learned




204

ALICE FOOTE MACDOUGALL

a little of how to use my body to liberate my spirit.
Anyway, a few hours with Beethoven are more
restful than sleep.
Riches and poverty do not lie in the acquisition
of money or the lack of it. Money has very little
to do with the riches of the soul, which in the end
are all one has. There is even a certain impoverishment that comes with a motor and an apartment on
a fashionable street. No, I don't mean their upkeep. I mean the humiliation, the poverty, that
you are you, the same woman rich that you were
poor, full of faults and a few virtues, making the
same dull, inexcusable mistakes, but certainly striving always to improve. You the rich are no whit
more attractive or capable than you who were poor
and struggling a few years back. But when before
you plodded lonely and unappreciated, now the
glamour of the motor and the smart apartment
surrounds you with a tangible glory. It is amazing
how many friends look you up, call you by name,
and extol you, who were once a little timid, or indifferent, or utterly neglectful in your time of dire
poverty. One has true friends when one is poor
and no riches can be greater than that. They are
not so obvious when one is rich.
And the deep experience of the lonely climb on
the mountain of success brings a wealth beyond
power to compute. To you all suffering is understandable and your heart opens wide in sympathy.
To you illness is negligible. You have learned




MY PHILOSOPHY

205

that you can dominate yourself. You know that
your body lags, but your soul proceeds upon its
triumphant way.
You realize the futility of worry. You learn to
hate the small and the little. Life is a pie which
you cut in large slices, not grudgingly, not sparingly. You know your limitations and proceed
to eliminate them; your abilities, and proceed to
develop them.
You are free. The small perplexities of small
minds eddy and boil about you. Confident from
the experience that has led you out of these same
dangers, you attack each problem as it appears, unafraid. And a new philosophy is born, reversing
all accepted creeds and rules. For you the precipitate of sorrow is happiness, the precipitate of
struggle is success. Life means opportunity, and
the thing men call death is the last wonderful,
beautiful adventure.
I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send His hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or.stifling snow,
In some time, His good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In His good time!



















UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 03422 9578




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