On Paper Drinking Cups and Power

THE JOHN O'HARA SOCIETY

On July 26, 1930, publication of "Paper Drinking Cups?" The New Yorker.

Hagedorn & Brownmiller, Incorporated is feeling the first year of the Great Depression. " . . . We have to cut down expenses temporarily. Right now there aren't going to be any changes in personnel. Not to speak of, that is. But we're not hiring. We're doing everything to trim overhead to the bone . . . The matter of drinking cups, for instance. Do you know what the paper drinking cups in this office alone . . . do you know how much they cost the office last year?

From a July 26, 1960 letter to David Brown:

Politics, after all, is just human maneuvering for power of some sort or other . . . The son of a bitch in a man appeals to those who are in a position to intrust him with power, who themselves already have power, and as sons of bitches can recognize the quality in  other men. I suppose it is possible to have power and not be a son of a bitch, but it is much simpler for the powerful to deal with other sons of bitches, so it is hard to find cases of men who have been given power without qualifying as sons of bitches.