Fletcherism

"What is good for the richest man in the world, must be also good for the poorest, and all in between." Daily Express, London, May 15th, 1913.

This quotation was apropos of an announcement in the Evening Mail, of New York, telling that the Twentieth Century Croesus and financial philosopher, John D. Rockefeller, had uttered a Confession of his Faith in the fundamental principles of Dietetic Righteousness and General Efficiency as follows:

"Don't gobble your...
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"What is good for the richest man in the world, must be also good for the poorest, and all in between." Daily Express, London, May 15th, 1913.

This quotation was apropos of an announcement in the Evening Mail, of New York, telling that the Twentieth Century Croesus and financial philosopher, John D. Rockefeller, had uttered a Confession of his Faith in the fundamental principles of Dietetic Righteousness and General Efficiency as follows:

"Don't gobble your food. Fletcherize, or chew very slowly while you eat. Talk on pleasant topics. Don't be in a hurry. Take time to masticate and cultivate a cheerful appetite while you eat. So will the demon indigestion be encompassed round about and his slaughter complete."

At the time this compendium of physiological and psychological wisdom concerning the source of health, comfort, and happiness came to my notice I was engaged in furnishing my publishers with a "compact statement of the Gospel of Fletcherism," as they call it, and hence the able assistance of Mr. Rockefeller was welcomed most cordially. Here it was in a nutshell, crystallized, compact, refined, monopolized as to brevity of description, masterly, and practically leaving little more to be said.

The Grand Old Man of Democracy in England, William Ewart Gladstone, had had his say on the same subject some years before, and will be known to the future of physiological fitness more permanently on account of his glorification of Head Digestion of food than for his Liberal Statesmanship.

In like manner, Mr. Rockefeller will deserve more gratitude from posterity for having prescribed the secret of highest mental and physical efficiency in thirty-three words, than for the multiple millions he is dedicating to Science and Sociological Betterment.

It will be interesting, however, to seekers after supermanish health and strength to know how the author took the "straight tip" of Mr. Gladstone, and "worked it for all it was worth" until Mr. Rockefeller referred to the process of common-sense involved as "Fletcherizing."

I assure you it is an interesting story. It has taken nearly fifteen years to bring the development to the point where Mr. Rockefeller, who is carefulness personified when it comes to committing himself for publication, is willing to express his opinion on the subject. It has cost the author unremitting, completely-absorbing, and prayerful concentration of attention, and nearly twenty thousand pounds sterling ($100,000), spent in fostering investigations and securing publicity of the results of the inquiries, with some of the best people in Science, Medicine, and Business helping him with generous assistance, to accomplish this triumph of natural sanity.