Part 28 (2/2)

The South was doomed.

Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his resignation and asked Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to appoint ”a younger and abler man.”

If Lee had wanted to blame the disastrous failure of Pickett's charge on someone else, he could have found a score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had failed him. The cavalry hadn't arrived in time to support the infantry attack. This had gone wrong and that had gone awry.

But Lee was far too n.o.ble to blame others. As Pickett's beaten and b.l.o.o.d.y troops struggled back to the Confederate lines, Robert E. Lee rode out to meet them all alone and greeted them with a self-condemnation that was little short of sublime. ”All this has been my fault,”

he confessed. ”I and I alone have lost this battle.”

Few generals in all history have had the courage and character to admit that.

Michael Cheung, who teaches our course in Hong Kong, told of how the Chinese culture presents some special problems and how sometimes it is necessary to recognize that the benefit of applying a principle may be more advantageous than maintaining an old tradition.

He had one middle-aged cla.s.s member who had been estranged from his son for many years. The father had been an opium addict, but was now cured. In Chinese tradition an older person cannot take the first step. The father felt that it was up to his son to take the initiative toward a reconciliation. In an early session, he told the cla.s.s about the grandchildren he had never seen and how much he desired to be reunited with his son. His cla.s.smates, all Chinese, understood his conflict between his desire and long-established tradition. The father felt that young people should have respect for their elders and that he was right in not giving in to his desire, but to wait for his son to come to him.

Toward the end of the course the father again addressed his cla.s.s. ”I have pondered this problem,” he said. ”Dale Carnegie says, 'If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.' It is too late for me to admit it quickly, but I can admit it emphatically. I wronged my son. He was right in not wanting to see me and to expel me from his life. I may lose face by asking a younger person's forgiveness, but I was at fault and it is my responsibility to admit this.” The cla.s.s applauded and gave him their full support. At the next cla.s.s he told how he went to his son's house, asked for and received forgiveness and was now embarked on a new relations.h.i.+p with his son, his daughter-in-law and the grandchildren he had at last met.

Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors who ever stirred up a nation, and his stinging sentences often aroused fierce resentment. But Hubbard with his rare skill for handling people frequently turned his enemies into friends.

For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to say that he didn't agree with such and such an article and ended by calling Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard would answer like this:

Come to think it over, I don't entirely agree with it myself.

Not everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn what you think on the subject. The next time you are in the neighborhood you must visit us and we'll get this subject threshed out for all time. So here is a handclasp over the miles, and I am,

Your sincerely,

What could you say to a man who treated you like that?

When we are right, let's try to win people gently and tactfully to our way of thinking, and when we are wrong - and that will be surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves - let's admit our mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. Not only will that technique produce astonis.h.i.+ng results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more fun, under the circ.u.mstances, than trying to defend oneself.

Remember the old proverb: ”By fighting you never get enough, but by yielding you get more than you expected.”

PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

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