Business Career
While a scouting executive, Bartle also engaged in profitable business enterprises and made shrewd investment decisions. He also served on the board of directors of numerous corporations and banks, including largest independent liquor dealer in Missouri. According to his daughter, when his friend, President Harry Truman, asked him to become the regional director of the Economic Stabilization Agency, Bartle had to resign from 57 boards of directors to avoid possible conflicts of interest.
As a professional public speaker, he regularly addressed political, fraternal, educational, religious, civic, business, and service organizations. (He had a rich, powerful voice, and in Nice, France, he blew out the public address system.) By the time he ran for mayor, he was making 200 speeches a year at fees that ranged upwards from $1,000 each. One service club secretary was so dazzled by Bartle's rhetoric and humor that he announced Bartle had given "one of the most dynamic speeches ever heard by man." A slightly skeptical reporter added that, nevertheless, "just what he said...was not recorded."
The money Bartle made in the private sector subsidized his public service and allowed him to fund organizations in which he took an interest. For instance, for 30 years he donated his Boy Scout salary to the organization. There were three Bartles, he said, the Bartle "who makes money, the Bartle who gives it away, and the Bartle who works for free."
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