A Kick in the Shins

HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND START LIVING (306 pp.)--Dale Carnegie--Simon & Schuster ($2.95).

Stretched taut as a wet clothesline by nervous tension, studded with warts of worry, perforated by ulcers, 20th Century man lives his much-cartooned life sandwiched between the deep blues and high blood pressure. Starting this month, he may take a new lease on life: his problems have been taken in hand by the author of the century's bestselling success story, How to Win Friends and Influence People.

In twelve years, How to Win Friends has sold 3,500,000 copies--excepting classics, a U.S. non-fiction record ("I am probably one of the most astonished authors now living," says Dale Carnegie). How to Stop Worrying, of which 125,000 advance copies are already in print, is likely to make a bestselling bang that will surprise even its sophisticated publishers.

The Worms Have It. When Dale Carnegie discovered that worry was "one of the biggest problems of ... adults," he hotfooted it off to "New York's great public library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street." To his horror, he found 189 books listed under WORMS, only 22 under WORRY. Obedient to one of his favorite maxims ("Cooperate with the Inevitable"), Carnegie thereupon went to work from scratch. He read everything that "philosophers of all ages have said about worry." He read biographies "from Confucius to Churchill." He interviewed everyone from General Omar Bradley to Dorothy Dix. He spent seven years on How to Stop Worrying. "Let me warn you," says he, "you won't find anything new in it, but. . . you and I don't need to be told anything new. We already know enough to lead perfect lives . . . The purpose of this book is to . . . kick you in the shins . . ." Indeed, Author Carnegie's assault on worry is irresistible.

The book is composed chiefly of worrywarts' case histories. Samples: P: Mr. H. J. Englert of Tell City, Ind. got scarlet fever, then nephritis ("a kidney disease"), ran his blood pressure up to 214. Doctors advised him to make sure that his "insurance was all paid up" and then to get dressed for his funeral. After a week's "wallowing in self-pity," Mr. Englert "threw back [his] shoulders, put a smile on." Today, he is not only alive and happy, but his "blood pressure is down."

P: Miss C. Daley wanted to be a singer, but she had "a large mouth and protruding buckteeth." At her debut "she tried to pull down her upper lip to cover her teeth," got all her trills gummed up. Bawled a friend: "Open your mouth, and the audience will love you!" Today, openmouthed Cass Daley is "a top star in movies and radio. Other comedians are trying to imitate her!"

P: Earl P. Haney of Winchester, Mass. was forced (by ulcers) "to give up a fine and highly paid position" and expect "a lingering death." He made what Author Carnegie calls a "rare and superb decision"; he set off on a round-the-world jaunt, taking his coffin with him. The undertaker has now bought back the coffin, and Mr. Haney, who stopped worrying en route, has "gained 90 pounds."

P: Patient X was so worried that he decided on suicide. Chortled his wise doctor: "You might at least do it in a heroic fashion. Run around the block until you drop dead!" Patient X ran round & round like mad, but "each time felt better." Now he has "joined an athletic club."

P: Mr. Snyder of Maywood, Ill. fell ill. His wife had only 10-c- worth of ingredients and a kitchen stove to fall back on. Unworried, "she took the white of an egg and sugar and made some candy," which she sold. "During the first week, she not only made a profit of $4.15, but. . . put a new zest into living."

P: Stenographer Dorothy Vanderpool of Tulsa "had one of the dullest jobs imaginable: filling out printed forms for oil leases." Resisting "the fatigue that is spawned by boredom," she started "a daily contest with herself. She counted the number of forms she filled out each morning, and then tried to excel that record in the afternoon." Now she is married to wealthy Dale Carnegie (one child).

Be Glad You're Suicidal. How to Stop Worrying is crammed with anti-worry rules which Author Carnegie advises the businessman to follow rigorously ("Offer your wife a quarter every time she catches you violating one"). There are physical rules (e.g., "Lie flat on the floor whenever you feel tired ... Sit upright like [an] Egyptian statue . . . slowly tense the toes ... let your head roll around heavily, as though it were a football"). There are also home-&-office rules (e.g., "After carefully weighing all the facts, come to a decision").

But the bulk of Author Carnegie's rules concern mental detachment and emotional tranquility. They include: frequent prayer ("some of the most famous 'hemen' in the world pray every day"); making a profit out of handicaps ("If Tchaikovsky had not been . . . driven almost to suicide ... he probably would never have been able to compose his immortal Symphonic Pathetique"); remaining blandly indifferent even when "ridiculed, doubled-crossed , knifed in the back, and sold down the river by ... our most intimate friends" ("that's precisely what happened to Jesus"). The whole is rounded off with snappy personal histories by such noted non-worriers as Jack Dempsey, Gene Autry and Senator Elmer Thomas.

Exhibit A. There is no doubt that his own rules have raised Dale Carnegie to his present eminence. Born (Nov. 24, 1888) on a poor Missouri farm, he was bred in "struggle and heartache . . . debts and humiliation." Young Dale dreamed of "becoming a foreign missionary." But soon, losing all faith in life and in God, he dreamed of becoming an actor. When this dream, too, faded, he decided to become a "second . . . Thomas Hardy" and spent two years in Europe writing a novel called The Blizzard.

When his literary agent icily described his novel as "worthless," Carnegie's "heart almost stopped." But, plucking up his courage, he decided to 'borrow the ideas of a lot of other writers" and make them into "the best book on public speaking . . . ever . . . written." This book flopped, too, and Carnegie decided that instead of borrowing from, or acting like others, "you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life." Out of the depths of his heart and personal experience, he drew How to Win Friends and Influence People. Today, wiry, white-maned Dale Carnegie is one of the world's richest authors and most famous men. He has recovered his faith in God and man and is kingpin of the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations, whose system is used in 150 U.S. cities. "I can honestly say," says he, "that I have never spent a day or an hour . . . lamenting the fact that I am not another Thomas Hardy."

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