A Review of "Fifty Years With the Golden Rule" by J. C. Penney
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Date Published: January 10, 2023
Date Modified: May 9, 2025 |
As it appears in the high-quality image below, only the front dust cover displays the full title of this book by J. C. Penney: "Fifty Years With The Golden Rule - A Spiritual Autobiography." Within the actual covers of the book, this full title is constantly rendered as only "Fifty Years With The Golden Rule."
A Review of “Fifty Years With the Golden Rule” by J. C. Penney
- Reviews of the Day: 1950–51
- Interesting Insights from “Fifty Years With the Golden Rule”
- This Author’s Perceptions of “Fifty Years With the Golden Rule”
Reviews of the Day: 1950–51
James C. Penney in 1925
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“Mr. Penney’s autobiography, 'My Fifty Years With the Golden Rule: A Spiritual Autobiography,' has just been published and I find it crowded with experiences that have justified and confirmed this man’s formula for success. …
“Mr. Penney believes and says, ‘Nothing in life is all of a piece. There’s good in bad times and bad in good times. The swing of business cycles is not just the working of an economic law. It’s a device of the Almighty to keep us from getting too soft in prosperity or sorely tried in lean years.’ ” Daniel A. Poling, “Americans All,” The Salt Lake Tribune, 1950
“Perhaps you are one of those souls with a nostalgia for the days and the literature of Horatio Alger flavor. Here’s your book, and it’s a really good one. It deviates from the norm in a number of ways for it may be classified as a spiritual pilgrimage. It is an amazingly simple book in its vocabulary and in its progression.”
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Murray L. Wagner, “Penney Tells of Lifetime with Stores,” The Dayton Journal Herald, 1950
“ ‘Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ A successful businessman has built his life on this rule. In the beginning of his career the motivations were ethical rather than spiritual. … After years of hard work, a rise to financial power, and the subsequent loss of a fortune, Penney achieved true humility of spirit. … The observance of the Golden Rule as an ethical principle brought J. C. Penney material wealth; the understanding of the spiritual import of the words brought him peace of mind and soul.”
Lois Peyton Kaufman, “Books,” The Daily Oklahoman, 1951
Interesting Insights from “Fifty Years With the Golden Rule”
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This is a book of amazing quotes and insights for those of a spiritual nature. I had developed my own opinion of the book, but after reading these reviews … my faith was restored, not in the great men and women who built America—that is unwavering, but in those who review and read such works in the press—not all critics are cynical. Some understood an ethical and spiritual rule applied in business: A Golden Rule.
The following insights from his book are as true today as when James C. Penney wrote them seven decades ago. If only we had such spiritually-minded men and women leading our corporations today. |
Read how IBM and J. C. Penney Company used
the Golden Rule to build their brands |
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“Our country could have been mightier than it is, had not some throughout every period of its history retarded its growth by greed, corruption in high places, petty partisanship in crucial periods, and individual selfishness. Selfishness, of course, is the festering spot in every evil situation, whether world, nation, or individual.”
"Fifty Years with the Golden Rule"
front dust cover |
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“I don't have much patience with people I hear saying that it is impossible to get good people for jobs. Won't it follow naturally that if a business idea is basically sound it will draw to itself quality people, not only because of the job but because they want to be connected with a business whose underlying idea has vigor, and offers scope for individual initiative?”
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“My advice to young people today is to let no day pass without pushing personal standards a notch higher. The law of struggle is the essence of all life—animal, vegetable, and human. Our progress from birth to death is marked by struggle, and rightly so, for when we cease to struggle, dry rot takes over. Young people who count not their hours but their opportunities are the ones who maintain the difficult road to success.”
It is as if he were writing this to me and to the men and women of today!
Or maybe these are just "eternal" truths that last centuries. |
This Author’s Perceptions of “Fifty Years With the Golden Rule”
I had read this book years ago and forgot to write a review. This was my second read of the book. The second time was even more enlightening and enjoyable.
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Besides the excerpts above, here are a few of my favorite insights. The first one reminds me of IBM's training of its sales and technical-sales forces: Help the customer use a product to its best advantage.
“To sell a customer helpfully a merchant must know more than the customer does about what he is buying. The merchant operating by the golden rule uses his margin of knowledge to help the customer get more from his purchase and use what he buys with more efficiency.”
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J. C. Penney's first store was named "The Golden Rule" store
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“It is the spiritually minded men and women who ... will in the end be responsible for the creation of a free, democratic world society. We must find a way of coordinating all the spiritual power that exists in the minds and hearts of men and women everywhere of whatever religion or faith, and create a new political federation of spiritually minded men and women. . . . Such a federation would cross economic and political boundaries and be based wholly on the individual's belief in the Supreme Divine Being.”
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“It was clear to me that what I envisioned as a business was a just economic environment, underwritten by a moral rather than a money bond. The laws running it would be written in the character and on the hearts of the men I selected and trained for partnership. Men of character never break moral bonds.”
I would have loved to have been a Penney employee in the day. It was an organization lead by a man with similar beliefs to Thomas J. Watson Sr. In fact, they were friends and J. C. Penney spoke in eulogy of Tom Watson at the Watson Homestead Memorial dedication a year after Watsons’s death [Eulogy is here].
Rest in peace Mr. Penney, and thanks for leaving this book in memory of your time on this earth. Cheers, - Pete |
"Fifty Years with the Golden Rule"
back dust cover |
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