424 THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL POWER
He knew that getting one major advertiser would help keep his company
afloat. He targeted the Zenith corporation, also based in Chicago, and went after
it with consummate imagination.
Zenith's chairman, Eugene McDonald, was famous for having gone to the
North Pole. Johnson decided to appeal to McDonald's interests by running a feature
on Matthew Henson, a Black man who had made it to the North Pole ahead of
the famed Robert Peary. When Johnson arrived at McDonald's office, he saw on the
wall a pair of snowshoes that Henson had given to the executive. McDonald was
easily persuaded that Ebony was a good place to advertise.
For the next twenty years, Johnson continued his campaign to interest big
companies in the Black consumer. His publishing operations were successful and
by the mid-1960s Johnson was a member of the board of companies like Zenith
and Twentieth Century-Fox. In 1982 he was the first Black person to appear on
the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans.The late Dr. Harper, who was formerly president of the University of
Chicago, was one of the most efficient college presidents of his time. He
had a penchant for raising funds in large amounts. It was he who induced
John D. Rockefeller to contribute millions of dollars to the support of
the University of Chicago.
It may be helpfUl to the student of this course to study Dr. Harper's
technique, because he was a leader of the highest order. Moreover, I have
his own word for it that his Leadership was never a matter of chance
or accident, but always the result of carefully planned procedure.
The following incident will serve to show just how Dr. Harper made
use of Imagination in raising money in large sums.
Dr. Harper needed an extra million dollars for the construction
of a new building. Taking inventory of the wealthy men of Chicago to
whom he might turn for this large sum, he decided upon two, each of
whom was a millionaire, and both were bitter enemies.
One of these was, at that time, the head of the Chicago street
railway system. Choosing the noon hour, when the office force and