ss now is mostly to care for
the flowers, and my father we call "Physician to The Roycrofters," as he
gives free advice and attendance to all who desire his services. Needless
to say, his medicine is mostly a matter of the mind. Unfortunately for
him, we do not enjoy poor health, so there is very seldom any one sick to
be cured. Fresh air is free, and outdoor exercise is not discouraged.

* * * * *

The Roycroft Shop and belongings represent an investment
of about three hundred thousand dollars. We have no liabilities, making
it a strict business policy to sign no notes or other instruments of debt
that may in the future prove inopportune and tend to disturb digestion.
Fortune has favored us.

First, the country has grown tired of soft platitude, silly truism and
undisputed things said in such a solemn way. So when "The Philistine"
stepped into the ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor
thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. Editors of
magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too
blunt, sometimes indelicate--it would give offense, subscribers would
cancel, et cetera. To get my thoughts published I had to publish them
myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said
they would cancel. The readers wanted brevity and plain statement--the
editors said they didn't.

The editors were wrong. They failed to properly diagnose a demand. I saw
the demand and supplied it--for a consideration.

Next I believed the American public. A portion of it, at least, wanted a
few good and beautiful books instead of a great many cheap books. The
truth came to me in the early Nineties, when John B. Alden and half a
dozen other publishers of cheap books went to the wall. I read the R.G.
Dun & Company bulletin and I said, "The publishers have mistaken their
public--we want better books, not cheaper." In Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-two, I met William Morris, and after that I was sure I was right.

Again I had gauged the public correctly--the publishers were wrong, as
wrong as the editors. There was a market for the best, and the problem
was to supply it. At first I bound my books in paper covers and simple
boards. Men wrote to me wanting fine bindings. I said, "There is a market
in America for the best--cheap boards, covered with cloth, stamped by
machinery in gaudy tinsel and gilt, are not enough." I discovered that
nearly all the boo