Buggy whips. Then rotary-dial phones. And now Ivory soap?

Headquarters

Procter & Gamble

Cincinnati, Ohio

Dear Mr.-Ms.-Miss Decision Maker:

Please forgive my being so forward, but I must tell you that you may be on the verge of making a grievous error, and I feel it is my duty to let you know what I and millions of your customers think about the possibility that you will drop Ivory soap from the many brands you currently produce worldwide.

Ivory soap, my friend, does not just get you clean. It makes you a better person.

I have lived longer than any of my grandparents, and throughout my life there has always been a bar of Ivory soap at hand. So just put two and two together. My grandparents made their own soap. It wasn't close to 99.44 percent pure. And look what happened to them.

On the other hand, look at the prominent, successful, noteworthy individuals of today. Some are scientists or doctors or lawyers or entrepreneurs or statesmen or presidents. I bet if you asked you would find that nearly all of them have some things in common. First, they have made the most of their native intelligence. Second, they are ambitious. Third, they have dared to take chances. And fourth, they are loyal Ivory soap customers. I'm just guessing, but I think I'm right.

Can you imagine what future generations might produce in the way of leaders and risk-takers in a world without Ivory soap? I shudder at the thought.

OK, P&G, I understand you have a business to run. I wince when I read in The Wall Street Journal that Ivory is no longer one of your biggest brands. As recently as the 1970s it had 20 percent of the bar-soap market. That's impressive. Now the figure is 3.4 percent. But after nearly a century and a half, Ivory soap is still selling, isn't it? Try to think of another brand that has made it that long. Don't fall into the pit of thinking that just because something -- or someone -- is old that it no longer has value. I would be personally offended if you did that.

Yes, I see in The WSJ that Ivory soap sales are down to $112 million a year out of P&G's total revenue of $83 billion. Yes, I see that Ivory is just a blip on your sales chart. But at $2 for three bars, that's still a lot of Ivory soap.

Look at the history of extinct products. When did the horse-and-carriage trade vanish? When the makers of buggy whips went under. Some will contend that the advent of the automobile eliminated the need for both horses and buggy whips. I maintain that buggy-whip makers turned out to be wimps, giving Ford and his ilk a toehold in the transportation market. If God has intended for us to risk our lives in self-propelled chunks of metal, glass, plastic and rubber, he wouldn't have created trains.

And just think what the world would be like if Ma Bell hadn't thrown in the towel on rotary phones. We might still have real phone numbers like GLadstone 3-2812, the number my wife and I were assigned shortly after we were married and bought a house in Gladstone, Mo. That's the way phone numbers worked in those days. They told you not only how to reach someone by phone, but also where that someone resided. Now we don't know anyone's number. Today's numbers are logged into cell-phone contact lists that include "Mom" and "Office" and "Shirley" and so forth. If you want to call Mom, you touch "Mom" in your contact list, and you have no reason to know or remember the number. And we wonder why our brains are so addled these days.

When big, powerful, smart, successful companies eliminate something that much of society takes for granted, we lose a piece of our culture, our identity, our well-being.

P&G, if you stop making Ivory, is there any hope you'll sell the formula to another maker? Do we dare hope Ivory soap will be at least as well-regarded as Twinkies, which now have returned to the shelves of convenience stores and supermarkets?

Hope floats as lightly as a bar of 99.44 percent-pure Ivory soap. Please think of us, your loyal customers, as you face the future. And thank you for your attention to this matter. I know you will do your best to keep your customers satisfied just as you have all these decades.

Best regards.

Your obedient scrivener …

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.