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.
A current survey of newspaper death notices (and yes, Virginia, there is a trade publication called
What then was achieved by the florists’ huge advertising campaign and massive deployment of forces in the War of the Roses? Having won the battle and lost the war, whom can they blame for the distressing decline in sales of funeral flowers?
“Donations to… preferred,” a formulation devised by the florists themselves to curtail the use of “please omit,” must certainly have played a part. “Preferred to what?” is inescapably suggestive.
There are other culprits, of course—no doubt the major ones are the parallel decline of the “standard” open- casket funeral and the sixfold increase in cremations since 1960. These are developments which the florists, with all their resources, have been unable to influence.
8. GOD’S LITTLE MILLION-DOLLAR ACRE
In the interment industry there have been a great many revolutionary changes taking place in the last twenty years. More progress has been made during this period than had been made in the previous two thousand years…. Today we face an era of unprecedented development in our industry through the use of progressive methods, materials and educational techniques.
There’s gold in them thar verdant lawns and splashing fountains, in them mausoleums of rugged strength and beauty, in them distinctive personalized bronze memorials, in them museums and gift shops.
The cemetery as a moneymaking proposition is new in this century. The earliest type of burial ground in America was the churchyard. This gave way in the nineteenth century to graveyards at the town limits, largely municipally owned and operated. Whether owned by church or municipality, the burial ground was considered a community facility; charges for graves were nominal, and the burial ground was generally not expected to show a profit.
Prevailing sentiment that there was something special and sacred about cemetery land, that it deserved special consideration and should not be subjected to such temporal regulation as taxation, was reflected in court decisions and state laws. A cemetery company is an association formed for “a pious and public use,” the United States Supreme Court said in 1882, and more recently the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a cemetery, even if privately owned, is a public burial ground “whose operation for purposes of profit is offensive to public policy.” Other rulings have affirmed that land acquired for cemetery purposes becomes entirely exempt from real estate taxes the moment it is acquired, even before a dead body is buried in it.
This traditional view of cemetery land proved a blessing to the land speculators who began to enter the field, and whose handiwork can now be seen on the outskirts of thousands of American communities.
The major premises which, evolved over the years, lie behind modern cemetery operation are all, on the face of it, sound and intelligent enough. Cemetery land is tax-free, which is as it should be, since in theory the land is not to be put to gainful use. Cheap land which for one reason or another does not easily lend itself to such needs of the living as housing and agriculture is commonly used for cemeteries. The purchase of a grave for future occupancy is, surely, a rational and sensible act, showing foresight and prudence on the part of the buyer who wishes to spare his family the trouble and expense of doing so when the need arises. Innovations which result in more economical upkeep of cemeteries, such as dispensing with upright tombstones to facilitate mechanical mowing, seem practical and commendable; so does the establishment of an endowment fund for the future upkeep of the cemetery.
Economies achieved by new and efficient operating methods, tax exemptions such as only schools and churches enjoy, dedication to “pious and public use”—these would all seem to point in the direction of continuously reducing the cost of burial. The opposite has been the case. The cost of burial has soared, at a rate outstripping even the rise in undertakers’ charges. The winning combination that has transformed the modern cemetery into a wildly profitable commercial venture is precisely its tax-free status, the adaptability of cheap land to its purposes, the almost unlimited possibilities of subdividing the land, the availability for reinvestment of huge “perpetual care” resources, and the introduction of “pre-need” installment selling. Given these propitious conditions, there is really no end to the creative ideas that can be put to work by the cemetery promoter.
A very creative idea for cemeteries is to establish them as nonprofit corporations. In California and in many other states, virtually all commercial cemeteries enjoy this privilege. At first glance it would seem an act of purest altruism that somebody should go to all the trouble, at absolutely no profit to himself, to start a cemetery wherein his fellow man may be laid to eternal rest. A second glance discloses that the nonprofit aspect removes the necessity to pay income tax on grave sales. And a really close look discloses that the profits that are now routinely extracted by the promoters of “nonprofit” cemeteries are spectacular beyond the dreams of the most avaricious real estate subdivider.
There is nothing actually illegal about the operation. It works like this: Foreverness Lawn Memory Gardens, Inc., is organized as a nonprofit cemetery corporation, closely controlled by the promoters. Foreverness owns not a scrap of land. The acreage it will use for burial plots is owned by the promoters, either in their own names or, more commonly, in the name of a closely held land company. They enter into a contract with themselves—that is, the land company has a contract with Foreverness which provides that Foreverness will operate the cemetery and sell the graves, the promoters to receive for each grave sold 50 percent of the selling price, and for each mausoleum crypt, 60 percent. Since Foreverness out of its half of the income must bear all of the cemetery’s operating, sales, and maintenance costs, there is little danger that it will lose its chaste nonprofit character. The promoters, for their
