Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield

A: Well, I guess it was. I guess 1 just have enough Jewish instinct, association, with me
that I could deal. I know I didn't hwe any money and I used to bug a lot of stuff on e dit
just to get the cash flow, see. My credit was good and so I didn't - I'd buy a couple of
big truckIoads of feed, or we'd call it bran and chipped stuff in those days. You didn't have
like your hog feed today. And I'd deliver that to a customer and probably pay cash. And
I had thirty or sixty days - that would give me thirty or sixty days there . . .
A: . . . run-on, see and then we had a floating deal too on checks where you could have your
checks ten, twelve days. Now you can cash them overnight. You can't do that. But we had
the advantage in those days. I always recall I went in this - and then T changed my operation
one time. T started getting a lot of money on credit. See, you had - that's what
we did in business, the credit business. I'd go to the Stix dry goods company one time. And
I bought a slug of merchandise, a couple, three, four thousand dollars.
(to maid coming in room) And - oh, would you take them clothes upstairs for me? Oh,
my watch, thank you. (laughs) So he called me in and said - I always remember, a kid
and just scared to death you know because, hell, I didn't have no cash reserve or
nothing. And this credit man was a big man too. You'd go in there and talk to him and
he says, '+Wittmond," he says, "see you've been in the house today buying some more merchandise.
Now let me give you a little advice," he says. "No matter how good a businessman
you think you are, how good a business you've got, do enough credit business, you'll eventually
go broke."
Q: Well. (chuckles)
A: And 1'11 always remember that. And I came back home and I thought, "I'm going to
change my . . ." So I started on a different operation. And I started putting it on a cash
basia X came down and that did put me in a better position. I lost a lot of business, but
T knew where I was at. When I went to bed at night, I knew whit I had was paid for and
didn't have a lot of worries on my hand. It uaed to be you owed everybody and everybcdy
owed you and half of them didn't pay. I had credit. We threw two ox three ledgers away
I guess. Years later we got a lot of money from people who owed us that sent us a check
later on that just morally they knew they'd owed us. But we wasn't going ta bother them
anymore. But they mailed me a check years and years later, went away and got a job someplace
and made some money.
Q: Well where did you learn your business like bookkeeping and that sort of thing? Did
you get that at Quincy College?
A: I got that at Quincy College, yes, that helped some. And f get that from just natural
instinct. Like there's a farmer out here that I associate with too, has ability. We were
just hlking about it. He had lunch here a minute ago. And I'd just sit down with
him. He [was] talking about some of these fellows who - they can't even . . .
(taping stopped to peet customers, then resumed)
Q: The farmer you say?
A: Oh he has that same trait. He can go out here and he can look at something and just
size it up. He don't need no pencil or paper to figure it up. I guess that's just a gift that
you have. Some people have it and mme don't.
Q: And then you cultivate it as you use it?
A: Yes I think that helps out a whole lot. I think that by practice - I know I can walk
into a place and - why this Jewish friend taught me that too because we used to go out
Carl Wittmond Memoir -- Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield