The People Make The City
Last night while researching for our new podcast This Day in South Bend, I happened upon a remarkable article in the April 23, 1927 evening edition of The South Bend Tribune.
It is titled “People Make The City Says Tribune Speaker” and contains a transcript of a WSBT radio address in which a local businessman attempts to sell South Bend to the people of America with a simple, yet profound, message: the people make the city.
Read the article below and listen and subscribe to This Day in South Bend via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, and WSBP Studio.
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William Bender, Jr., president of the Howard Cranfill company, speaking from WSBT, The Tribune’s broadcasting station, Friday evening, was the 15th speaker in the series of broadcasts begun by The Tribune last January for the purpose of selling South Bend and the great St. Joseph valley to the people of America.
Mr. Bender is especially qualified to speak on South Bend due to his almost life-long residence here, his wide acquaintance and his intimate knowledge of the city’s advantages. He assumed a different view in his talk than that taken by most of the speakers, bringing out the points of advantage in a most happy way and dwelling particularly upon what might be called the soul of the city. In this talk, one of the most interesting of the series, Mr. Bender said:
“As the advantages of South Bend have been so well told to you for the past few months by people who are more able than I am may I take up the subject of the people of South Bend, for, after all, the people make the town.
“It is not the word ‘South Bend’ that makes this town. It is the automobiles, the plows, the sewing machines, the universities, newspapers, banks, diversified manufactures, the wholesale houses and the merchants of the city and the labor employees. It is the quality of their products and the quality of their business methods that make the town. The name of a town does not stay made unless the manufacturers, merchants and educators of that town maintain the quality of their products. Unless the quality of the business transacted is good and is kept good the town will not maintain its reputation.
South Bend World Famed.
“South Bend is world famed. There is not a place where the sun shines that has civilization that is not using South Bend products. The good name, ‘South Bend,’ may have assisted in a first sale some time but the continued sale comes from the upkeep of the product, the people that operate the commercial end of South Bend and the men who are employed to make the product. This assembly of quality is what makes South Bend what it is. So, after all, it is the ‘people of South Bend.’
“Our concern, the Howard Cranfill company, has over 1,500 dealer accounts in and out of South Bend covered by eight traveling salesmen. we have sold lots of auto supplies and radio without making much noise. Our slogan is ‘If it’s from Cranfill’s it’s guaranteed.’ That goes for the whole town, our autos, our plows, our lathes, our varnish, our universities; whatever we are selling, be it merchandise, banking facilities, educational, you’ll find a square deal back of it. It is the prevailing custom of the town.
“You may go to our stores selling dry goods, clothing, shoes wherever you go and back of them stand the people who make the town and maintain it by clean business methods. The confidence that the buying public has in our town our people have earned by standing back of our products, by giving honest values. South Bend didn’t just happen by luck. It is this square deal that has made out town and it maintains that sure-fire standard that keeps it so.
“A very large credit is due our Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, Knife & Fork clubs, our two country clubs in boosting the publicity of South Bend’s manufacturers and its stability. Our Progress and Women’s clubs, our Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., fraternal societies, Boy Scouts and Salvation Army are high in maintaining the moral, educational and social welfare of our city.
Custom in Other Towns.
“With our large growth of new population may I suggest a little custom I have seen in use in other towns of going up and meeting our many newcomers and future residents with a handshake, introducing ourselves, finding out their names, residence and employment and a general welcome which new-comers will so greatly appreciate when they come to a new town. I stood out in the cold in Victoria, British Columbia, looking up at a Studebaker and Oliver sign for five minutes and reading it over. It sounded like home to me. I was lonesome and it comforted me. We can largely assist our new-comers to help break the lonesomeness they can so easily feel in coming to a new town and which we can so easily relieve by just being human and real people.
“South Bend is no place for blue sky dealers, shoddy stuff or one time sellers. If you are not right yourself this is no place for you. If you are right come over to South Bend. Look us over. It’s the best town in Indiana. We can use a few more industries. No one has ever lost a penny on South Bend real estate; no booms, no bubbles; just solid commercialism, and with a little assistance to the farming element, which I have confidence our president will give us, and track elevation, etc., South Bend will be a 200,000 town by 1935 to 1940.
“I have possibly had some advantages over other residents of South Bend. Having been employed for a number of years with a big business my occupation was one that carried me into every state in the union. There is hardly a city of prominence that I have not been in. I am telling you this only to qualify to make comparisons between cities.
Certain Class in Cities.
“Now, in traveling from town to town I made acquaintances and had to investigate and inquire into some of the residents that live there. In my effort to get information these is hardly a place I have been that I have not met some fellow, who, when you asked him about some person in his town who had been successful or made something of himself, would say: ‘I knew him when—.’ He was what we could call a ‘whener.’ If he didn’t say any more he would say” ‘I knew him when he wore knee pants.’ Gee, we all worse them at some time! Some of these fellows who say these things ought to be wearing them yet.
“There are other kings of ‘whiners.’ There is hardly a town I have gone into that has not had plenty of men in it who are working hard every day, laying away money to eat future porterhouse steaks in the days when the doctor is going to recommend soup. There is hardly a town I have been into that hasn’t got a lot of fellows who have been making money and piling it up and forgetting to do any good with it and acting as if they were going to put a shawl strap around it when they leave here, forgetting that St. Peter is liable to tell them to take that baggage out and put it in the check room.
“My greatest belief and proof that there is a God in heaven is in sizing up humanity as I have met it. What more do you want than to use humanity itself as a proof that there is a God? You will find in every town a class of people that are industrious. God has gifted them to make a living and they use their gifts and they succeed. There is another class that have been given the same gifts but don’t use them and they get by anyhow. God sees that both crowds get by some way. What bigger proof do you want?
“I have always felt that all South Bend people are going to heaven; but the last few years I have been doubtful of a few. Not that they won’t go to heaven but they may not stay there. They have acquired while here on earth a habit of finding fault with things, so I’m afraid when they get to heaven they will start finding fault and may get a transfer. That’s another ‘whener.’
Less in South Bend.
“Now, don’t expect me to say this big, prosperous, healthy and beautiful good city has no ‘wheners’ in it. We have just a few but the beauty of it is we have less of them in South Bend than any city of its size in the country. But won’t you let me mention just one of the many good fellows we have here? South Bend has for a number of years been fortunate, indeed, in having as the head of our great automobile industry a man who had in mind, while he was making money, to voluntarily spend it for the betterments of the public and parks and playgrounds and is ever ready to help any cause that might advance our town and its people.
“The achievements of this remarkable man have won him a world wide reputation as a true philanthropist and we are proud of him as a neighbor, a friend and a citizen; a real man and we all love him. I mentioned him as I have in mind towns where people are accumulating riches and do nothing for their city; fellows who could do so much but forget to do anything.
“I’ve no doubt tired you so I will close and ask you to remember that our good old town of South Bend is a solid one full of real people and we are different than some towns. In South Bend we still believe in the old St. James’ version of the Bible that when the prodigal son returns we kill the fatted calf. Some towns shoot the bull. I bid you good-night. Good-bye until I meet you in South Bend.”
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