Of Courtesy, Cops and Drivers

Not a citation, but a marriage certificate – Imagine the surprise of this couple, George W. Williams and Mrs. Ellen Jones, when a traffic officer appeared in response to their call for a minister to marry them. Traffic cop, William Norton of the Seattle police force, happens to be a regularly ordained minister, so Mrs. Jones became Mrs. Williams in jig time after Officer Norton parked his motorcycle outside and entered with his Bible.

Courtesy Drives Success in Life

• No matter what kind of machine you drive, courtesy will get you farther at the end of the day than anything else. 
• Courtesy does more to smooth out the bad bumps in the road than balloon tires and shock absorbers. 
• Courtesy saves you money in police court. 
• Courtesy is a substitute for almost everything a man can have except brains, and it can even be used as a substitute for brains. 
• If motor-cops and other traffic officers set a better example in courtesy than some of them do, the average motorist would profit by that example.
• Safe motor driving is not promoted by the traffic officer whose ideas and conversation, lumped to consists of  “Hey there, whadya think you’re doin’?” The average man responds a lot faster to kindness than to abuse.
• Traffic officers will find that the habit of courtesy will do more to make them successful in their jobs than any other one factor. 
• Courtesy is not only the most important rule of the road for drivers and policemen. It opens the best way through life for us all—afoot or on horseback. 

“Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy,” said Emerson. 

“A moral, sensible, and well-bred man will not affront me and no other can.” So wrote the poet Cowper. Therein he told the whole story. Fear is the great foe of life. Courtesy disarms even fear. 

James T. Fields wrote beautifully of courtesy. He said:  

“How sweet and gracious, even in common speech is that fine sense which men call Courtesy! Wholesome as air and genial as the light, welcome in every clime as breath of flowers. It transmutes aliens into trusting friends. And gives its owner passport round the globe.” 

                              – John Carlyle for San Pedro News, 1927 

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