A Straight Thinker
An unexpected reminder that character "was a thing."
(My dad, Robert Collins, during World War II.)
I came across an old book of my dad’s today with the wildly-optimistic title of “Successful Human Relations,” by economist and author William J. Reilly. No, my dad was not a clunky metal robot from a cold and distant planet, as you might assume about anyone owning a book with such a title. He was just a guy from the rural Midwest who did 5 years of Army service in WWII, came home and got a business-related degree from UW-Madison, and then went to work. He would’ve purchased this tome in the early 1950s, I assume to learn how to become a great salesman, not so much how to be a sensitive modern man; “feelings” and “vulnerability” weren’t really what was in vogue, to say the least. It would be like asking Frank Sinatra about his “wounded inner child.” You’d get “the look.”
I can’t ask my dad about what he learned from the book as he died 30-some years ago. But I do know something of those post-war times where America had to move from a war economy to a consumer society. Ladies who stepped up during the war to keep country running? Hey thanks so much, gals, but it’s time for you to give all the jobs back to the young vets now and get down to marriage and babies. We have houses to build and factories to ramp up, and so many new and shiny modern things to sell you! It was a pretty good time to get into business if you had a little ambition, some motivation, and you were a white man, like my dad. But still, it looks like he felt he needed a little advice. The competition was real.
I was very interested to get some insight into my dad by reading something that he clearly thought was important enough to keep in our home library for 40 years. The thin book — less than 150 pages — is what now seems like a fairly quaint mash-up of capitalist rah-rahs, civics lessons, persuasion psychology, and Sunday school. It would be easy for someone like my small-town dad to buy in to all of it as he stood on the bottom rung of the fabled ladder of success. There are chapters on winning confidence, changing folks’ minds, and (uh) the use of appropriate force. I’m very glad to guess my dad skipped over the chapter on spanking children, which also featured a disturbing few paragraphs of “what to do with a child arsonist.” This Reilly guy really fits in a lot of stuff in 150 pages.
What I wasn’t expecting was insight relevant to my own American life in 2025. This paragraph in the chapter entitled “Inspiring Belief” stopped me cold:
And every now and then, you have the high privilege of knowing a person who deserves your wholehearted belief in every possible kind of situation of any importance — a person whom you have seen conduct himself with poise, control, and good judgment in all kinds of personal, social, and business situations — a person wise enough not to undertake anything that he is not able to accomplish — a straight thinker, a planner, a man of action with broad vision, deep human sympathies, and sound beliefs, a man who senses the consequences of his actions far into the future, a man you would trust with your pocketbook, your wife, your daughter, your all.
I sat with the book and re-read the paragraph again, and it settled heavily in my chest like a rock to the bottom of the sea. Here is what would be considered a sober, conservative viewpoint in the mid-20th century, an idea for even a lowly associate salesperson or factory apprentice or anyone to aspire to. Reilly isn’t telling you to con people into thinking you are better than you are; he’s telling you that if you want to lead, you have to develop human qualities that inspire real confidence, ones that are multifaceted and you see in practice over and over again with true consistency.
WHEN EXACTLY WAS IT when we decided the LOWEST OF CHARACTERS should carry our fates?
I closed the book, and sighed. My dad would’ve been 105 next month. I mean, he never would’ve made it that far as an inveterate smoker and drinker who didn’t much fancy regular doctor visits, but I imagine if he had, Reilly’s vision and advice would probably have been erased by decades of hateful rhetoric flowing from the television. All of us know “good people” who have been manipulated into making awful choices. Less kindly viewed, manipulated into tapping into the worst of their natures. And cynically, maybe Reilly’s “straight thinker” was just a fantasy after all, an ideal that isn’t cognizant of the ever-present undercurrent of darkness in people.
But cynicism is laziness. Cynicism gives you a pass to do nothing, and to let the worst win. I used to be a cynic. Now I’m a grown-ass adult, and adults take responsibility.
I’m going to keep my dad’s book, and I’m going to bookmark the page that I quoted. That’s my bar. That’s who I expect to represent me, and that’s who I expect I should be: worthy of trust, confidence, and belief.
