While they no longer make coffins on the premises, these are all in the traditional coffin shape. Thus far, nobody has asked for an American casket, said Mr. Wakely, “but if people wanted them, we’d have to supply them.” As in Derbyshire, “people are tending to ask for charitable contributions, and only the family brings flowers from their own gardens,” he said.

Prices range from $1,040 for an oak-veneered coffin with engraved nameplate, removal of the deceased within a twenty-mile radius, hire of a hearse, pallbearers and funeral director’s arrangement fee to the “Dorset Burial Funeral,” which comes with an oakdene-paneled coffin, for $1,952.

There is no extra charge for embalming, which would come under funeral director’s costs and is carried out according to the wishes of the family. “Many families in Dorset still like to view the deceased in their own homes,” Mr. Wakely said, “and this is the only time we recommend embalming; but some families do not want embalming even when the body will be in their home for as long as a week. Others prefer to use Wakely’s Chapel of Rest for the purpose; again embalming is optional.” The Wakelys estimate that fewer than 25 percent of their clients opt for embalming.

So far, SCI’s entry into the British funeral industry, as in the case of Mettam’s, poses little threat to the Wakelys. Philip Wakely said that although the new American presence is “kind of scary,” it “has only affected us from a distress point of view,” as people read about SCI in the papers and assume that all funeral directors operate like them.

18. PRESS AND PROTEST

To hear the funeral men complain about the bad press they get, one might think they are the target of a huge newspaper and magazine conspiracy to defame and slander them, to tease them and laugh at them, and eventually to ruin them.

Actually, they have not fared too badly. There have been—from time to time—documented exposés of the funeral trade in national magazines of large circulation; occasional short items in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, and the like; and a few feature stories in metropolitan newspapers.

Industry leaders spend an enormous amount of time worrying over these articles. Criticism, and how to deal with it; projected magazine articles, and how to get them suppressed; threatened legislation, and how to forestall it—these are their major preoccupations. If all else fails, they snarl at the world from the pages of the funeral trade press, like angry dogs behind a fence unable to get to grips with the enemy.

Two articles, published a decade apart, caused particular consternation and alarm within the industry: “The High Cost of Dying” by Bill Davidson, which appeared in Collier’smagazine in May 1951, and “Can You Afford to Die?” by Roul Tunley, in the Saturday Evening Postof June 17, 1961.

The Davidson piece very nearly triggered a major upset for the funeral industry, at least in California. It was the most comprehensive statement on the industry that had thus far appeared; it was detailed and well documented; and it made some very specific charges: “Even this honest majority [of undertakers] is guilty of accepting a mysterious, nation-wide fixing and raising of prices,” and “The burial industry’s great lobbying and political strength enables it to cow a significant number of legislators and jurists and do pretty much as it pleases…. The lobbying is spearheaded in the state legislatures by associations of funeral directors and cemeteries.”

The funeral press reacted, as usual, like a rather inefficient bull confronted with a red flag. In a brave attempt at incisive sarcasm, Mortuary Managementprefaced an editorial: “Coal is black and dirty. A Collier is ‘a vessel for transporting coal’—Webster.” The words “shabby handling” and “dirty journalism” reverberated through its pages. Forest Lawn’s spokesman Ugene Blalock called it “an invitation to socialism.” But what was to follow required a subtler and more sophisticated approach than mere angry denunciation.

Because the article dealt quite fully with funeral industry abuses in California, the legislature of that state launched an official investigation into “Funeral Directors, Embalmers, Morticians and Funeral Establishments.” For a while it looked as though real trouble was in store. The resolution creating the investigating committee mentioned a “need for closer regulation” of funeral establishments and “needed revision of laws” relating to the funeral business. The funeral men were thrown into a state of alarm and confusion; should they or shouldn’t they answer the questionnaires sent out by the legislative committee? (“Don’t be in too big a hurry to complete and send in your questionnaire,” counseled Mortuary Management.) Should they or should they not cooperate with the committee’s investigators?

This consternation in the ranks proved to have been unwarranted, for their interests were being more than adequately protected. The committee’s report, when it finally appeared in June 1953, over the signature of Assemblyman Clayton A. Dills, must have been cause for much rejoicing and self-congratulation in funeral circles. What a relief to read, after the months of nagging uncertainty, “The funeral industry of California is unusually well organized for the public interest…. Criticisms of retail prices overlook the high operating costs, many of which are mandatory under the public health laws, while others are required under social and religious custom and the stress of emotion…. It is the considered opinion of the committee that no further legislative action is needed in this matter.”

The report has a strangely familiar ring to anybody versed in the thought processes and literary style of funeral directors. There are phrases that could have come directly out of the proceedings of a National Funeral Directors Association convention: “Embalming is first and foremost an essential public health measure. A concomitant function, which developed with the evolution of embalming and funeral directing as a distinct vocation, is to restore the features of the deceased to a serene and natural appearance. Both functions demand a high degree of professional skill based on specialized education and training.” There is mention of the “evolution of the funeral director as a part of the American way of life”; there is praise for the funeral home with its “special features planned and furnished to provide facilities and conveniences to serve the living and reverently prepare the dead for burial.” The Association of Better Business Bureaus pamphlet Facts Every Family Should Know(itself based on material furnished by the NFDA) is reproduced in its entirety as part of the report.

Was this report really written by a subcommittee of the California State Assembly? Apparently not. A more plausible explanation of how it came to be written is contained in a letter that came into my possession. The letter—dated July 24, 1953—is from J. Wilfred Corr, then executive secretary of the California Funeral Directors Association, and is addressed to Mr. Wilber M. Krieger, head of National Selected Morticians: