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In 1967 Cadillac mailed out scrolls of “The Penalty of
Leadership” to a customer list. Elvis was on that mailing list.
This written work by Theodore F. MacManus had been used in some
Cadillac ads as far back as the 1920s. Elvis happened to be out
in his father’s office behind Graceland after this had come in
the mail. He read “The Penalty of Leadership” and said that,
even though the piece had been written before he was born, the
author could have just as well been writing about him.
Elvis
said it described his life. He framed the scroll and hung it
near the desk in his own office upstairs at the mansion. He
periodically referred to it and quoted from it. He even had a
friend, Janelle McComb, draw up and frame a version in hand
calligraphy, written in colors to match his bedroom so he could
hang one in there. The one Elvis hung in his office is on
display for Graceland visitors.
The Penalty of Leadership
In every field of human
endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white
light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or
in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work.
In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the
punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread
recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When
a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also
becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work
be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone - if he
achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging.
Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who
produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint,
or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to
slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of
genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been
done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out
that it cannot be done.
Spiteful little voices in the domain of
art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long
after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest genius.
Multitudes flocked to worship at the shrine of Wagner, while the
little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued
angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world
continued to protest that Fulton could not build a steamboat,
while the big world flocked to the river to see his boat steam
by. The leader is assailed because he is the leader, and the
effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership.
Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate
and to destroy - but only confirms once more the superiority of
that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this.
It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions -
envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it
all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains - the
leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his
turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages.
That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how
loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live - lives.
By Theodore F. MacManus
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