Then there’s the touchy problem of who gets to sell the vault. Vaultmanship is very big these days; at least 60 percent of all Americans wind up in one of these stout rectangular metal or concrete containers, which may cost anywhere from several hundred to a few thousand dollars. Vault selling is ordinarily the prerogative of the funeral director, to whom the vault manufacturers address their message: “Think of your last ten clients. Think how many of that ten had the means and would actually have welcomed an opportunity to choose a finer vault. Makes sense, doesn’t it, to give them that opportunity? You’ll be surprised how many will choose this finer Clark Vault and be grateful to you for recommending it.”

Vault men, when they get together among themselves, can be a convivial and jolly lot, prone to their own kind of family jokes; the Wilbert Burial Vault Company, for instance, gives an annual picnic featuring barbecued chicken, ribs, and “vaultburgers.” This bonhomie does not extend to their relations with the cemetery people, whom they are constantly hauling into court. At one time, lawsuits were raging in various parts of the country, brought by vault manufacturers against the cemeteries, to enjoin the latter from going into the business of selling vaults. The theory is that the cemeteries, operating as nonprofit organizations, have no business selling things. The monument makers, too, have entered the fray with the same complaint, for the cemeteries have lately taken to banning the old-fashioned tombstones and selling their own bronze markers. They are slowly driving the monument makers out of business. In some cases, the monument makers have secured injunctions prohibiting the cemeteries from selling monuments, markers, or memorials of any kind. This is a cruel blow to the cemeteries, for they count heavily on the sale of bronze markers.

The cemeteries fight back by making things as rough as possible for both vault and monument companies. They may charge an arbitrary toll for use of their roads in connection with vault installations. They may require that all vaults be installed by cemetery personnel. They won’t permit monument makers to install the foundations for their Smiling Christs, Rocks of Ages, and other Items of Dignity, Strength, and Lasting Beauty; instead, they insist that these be installed by the cemetery, which sets a stiff fee for the service.

The backstage squabbling among the various branches of the funeral business has long been a matter of concern to some of the more farsighted industry leaders, who are understandably fearful that the customer will eventually catch on.

These leaders believe that, rather than engage in such unseemly quarrels over the customer’s dollar, they should instead concertedly strive to upgrade the standard of dying. A cemetery spokesman, decrying the friction between cemetery and undertaker, writes:

He acknowledges the funeral director’s pioneering role in conditioning the market:

The lesson to be learned, then, is to promote harmony backstage for a smooth and profitable public performance. Another cemetery writer, reproving his fellow cemetery operators for their jealousy of “the success and dollar income of the funeral directors,” suggests one good way in which the cemetery men can effect a rapprochement with these rivals: “Have a yearly meeting with them. Feed them a good dinner, distribute a small token. Last year, we gave them all a set of cuff links made of granite from our mausoleum. Last but not least set up a memorial council. It won’t cure all ills, but I can assure you it will help. I believe it can control legislation….”

The memorial council idea actually originated in another quarter, with the flower industry, which had long been urging that industries that profit from funerals unite in common cause. As the president of the Society of American Florists said, “Funeral directors, as well as florists, are in danger of being swept away along with sentiment and tradition by those who do not realize the true value of the traditional American funeral practice…. Cooperation between florists and funeral director is essential as it is only one step from ‘no flowers’ to ‘no funeral.’”

The florists, whose language is often pretty flowery, convened the first meeting of the allied funeral industries under the alliterative designation “Symposium on Sentiment.” The announced purpose of the symposium was “to combat the forces which are attacking sentiment, memorialization and the rights of the individual in freedom of expression”—in blunter words, to combat the religious leaders and the memorial societies who advocate simpler, less expensive funerals. As the editor of the American Funeral Director, weightiest of the industry’s trade journals, put it, “The present movement is broad and sweeping. It threatens not only funeral directors, but the entire American concept of memorialization. This means that the supply men, cemeteries, florists, memorial dealers and everyone else dedicated to the care and memorialization of the dead have genuine cause for alarm.”

The sentimental gentlemen who rallied to the Symposium on Sentiment (they were in fact the only ones summoned) were an elite group, the top executives of the funeral industry’s major trade associations. The names of the associations describe their respective areas of concern: National Funeral Directors Association, National Selected Morticians, American Cemetery Association, National Association of Cemeteries, Florists Telegraph Delivery Association, Monument Builders of America, and Casket Manufacturers Association.

The symposium heard a “Statement on Memorialization” prepared by the florists, who had quite a lot to say about the Dignity of Man, the United States as champion of freedom and leader of the democratic nations of the world, the importance of the individual, the profound traditions of the centuries, and so on: “The final rites, memorial tributes, the hallowed pageant of the funeral service all speak for the dignity of man…. Memorialization is love. It records a love so strong, so happy, so enduring that it can never die. It is the recognition of the immortality of the human spirit, the rightful reverence earned by the good life. It is the final testimony to the dignity of man.” Just what else went on at the Symposium on Sentiment is a little hard to say, for those participants in the hallowed pageant of the funeral service who attended the meeting have not told us what was said. I asked Mr. Howard Raether, who represented the funeral directors, what sort of agreements were reached. “No agreements.” And are copies of the proceedings available? “No.” Which is a pity, because from what one can learn of the florists and their ways, the symposium must have been a most colorful meeting.

Funeral flowers accounted for 65 to 70 percent of the cut-flower industry’s revenue in 1960, and many funeral homes either had an ownership interest or a commission “arrangement” with the local florist. By 1970 the market share had dropped to 40 percent, and it has, according to trade sources, gone down steadily since then. By 1995 sales had further declined to 14 percent of what was now a $14 billion industry (up from $414 million in 1960). While the floral industry has no statistics on how many flower shops are owned by undertakers, one can assume that the “arrangement” (or a markup) continues to be a sideline source of income for the mortuary.