Simon and schuster

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“IF YOU WANT TO GATHER HONEY, DON’T KICK OVER 
THE BEEHIVE.”
 
On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New York City had ever known had come to its climax. 
After weeks of search, “Two Gun” Crowley—the killer, the gunman who didn’t smoke or drink—was at bay, 
trapped in his sweetheart’s apartment on West End Avenue. 
One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his top-floor hideaway. They chopped 
holes in the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop killer,” with teargas. Then they mounted their 
machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of New York’s fine residential areas 
reverberated with the crack of pistol fire and the 
rut-tat-tat 
of machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an 
over-stuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like 
it ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New York. 
When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun 
desperado was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. “He will kill,” 
said the Commissioner, “at the drop of a feather.” 
But how did “Two Gun” Crowley regard himself? We know, because while the police were firing into 
his apartment, he wrote a letter addressed “To whom it may concern, ” and, as he wrote, the blood flowing from 
his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In this letter Crowley said, “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a 
kind one—one that would do nobody any harm.” 
A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party with his girlfriend on a country road 
out on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the car and said, “Let me see your license.” 
Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the policeman down with a shower of lead. As 
the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the officer’s revolver, and fired another bullet into 
the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said, “Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one—one that 
would do nobody any harm.’ 
Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he 
say, “This is what I get for killing people”? No, he said, “This is what I get for defending myself.” 
The point of the story is this: “Two Gun” Crowley didn’t blame himself for anything. 
Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to this: 
“I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good 
time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man.” 
That’s Al Capone speaking. Yes, America’s most notorious Public Enemy—the most sinister gang 
leader who ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn’t condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a public 
benefactor—an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor. 
And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one 
of New York’s most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor. And he 
believed it. 
I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York’s 
infamous Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he declared that “few of the criminals in Sing 
Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They 
can tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of 
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reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their anti-social acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly 
maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all.” 
If Al Capone, “Two Gun” Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison 
walls don’t blame themselves for anything—what about the people with whom you and I come in contact? 
John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed, “I learned thirty years ago 
that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact 
that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.” 
Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder through this old world for a third 
of a century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize 
themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be. 
Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify 
himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and 
arouses resentment. 
B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded 
for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal 
punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not 
make lasting changes and often incur resentment. 
Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, “As much as we thirst for approval, we dread 
condemnation.” 
The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and 
still not correct the situation that has been condemned. 
George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for an engineering company. One of 
his responsibilities is to see that employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He 
reported that whenever he came across workers who were not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of 
authority of the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often after 
he left, the workers would remove the hats. 
He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some of the workers not wearing their 
hard hat, he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a pleasant 
tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the 
job. The result was increased compliance with the regulation with no resentment or emotional upset. 
You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a thousand pages of history, Take, for 
example, the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft—a quarrel that split the 
Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and wrote bold, luminous lines across the First 
World War and altered the flow of history. Let’s review the facts quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped 
out of the White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went 
off to Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded. He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to 
secure the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. 
In the election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican party carried only two states—Vermont 
and Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever known. 
Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame himself? Of course not. With tears in his 
eyes, Taft said: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from what I have.” 
Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don’t know, and I don’t care. The point I am trying to 
make is that all of Theodore Roosevelt’s criticism didn’t persuade Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft 
strive to justify himself and to reiterate with tears in his eyes: “I don’t see how I could have done any differently 
from what I have.” 
Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 
1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in 
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American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s 
cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome—oil reserves 
that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He 
handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave 
Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed 
manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent 
wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of 
guns and bayonets, rushed into court—and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that 
it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party, and 
put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars. 
Fall was condemned viciously—condemned as few men in public life have ever been. Did he repent? 
Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public speech that President Harding’s death had been due to 
mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her 
chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed, “What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband 
never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one 
who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified.” 
There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like 
that. So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let’s remember Al Capone, “Two Gun” 
Crowley and Albert Fall. Let’s realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s 
realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and 
condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say, “I don’t see how I could have done any differently from 
what I have.” 
On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall bedroom of a cheap lodging 
house directly across the street from Ford’s Theater, where John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln’s long 
body lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was too short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa 
Bonheur’s famous painting