Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  As the fateful day approached, it became clear that most of the politically aware students, professors and even some Boston and Cambridge notables would be attending. On the morning before the two friends walked over to the Yard to discover who their opposition would be.

  “Leland Crosby and Thaddeus Cohen. Either name ring a bell with you, William? Crosby must be one of the Philadelphia Crosbys, I suppose.”

  “Of course he is. ‘The Red Maniac of Rittenhouse Square,’ as his own aunt once described him. Accurately. He’s the most convincing revolutionary on campus. He’s loaded and he spends all his money on the popular radical causes. I can hear his opening now.”

  William parodied Crosby’s grating tone. “‘I know at first hand the rapacity and the utter lack of social conscience of the American monied class.’ If everyone in the audience hasn’t already heard that fifty times, I’d say he’ll make a formidable opponent.”

  “And Thaddeus Cohen?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  The following evening, refusing to admit to stage fright, they made their way through the snow and cold wind, heavy overcoats flapping behind them, past the gleaming columns of the Widener Library—like William’s father, the donor’s son had gone down on the Titanic—to Boylston Hall.

  “With weather like this, at least if we take a beating, there won’t be many to tell the tale,” said Matthew hopefully.

  But as they rounded the side of the library, they could see a steady stream of stamping, huffing figures ascending the stairs and filing into the hall. Inside, they were shown to chairs on the podium. William sat still, but his eyes picked out the people he knew in the audience: President Lowell, sitting discreetly in a middle row; ancient Newbury St. John, professor of botany; a pair of Brattle Street bluestockings he recognized from Red House parties; and, to his right, a group of Bohemian-looking young men and women, some not even wearing ties, who turned and started to clap as their spokesmen—Crosby and Cohen—walked onto the stage.

  Crosby was the more striking of the two, tall and thin almost to the point of caricature, dressed absentmindedly—or very carefully—in a shaggy tweed suit but with a stiffly pressed shirt, and dangling a pipe with no apparent connection to his body except at his lower lip. Thaddeus Cohen was shorter and wore rimless glasses and an almost too perfectly cut dark worsted suit.

  The four speakers shook hands cautiously as the lastminute arrangements were made. The bells of Memorial Church, only a hundred feet away, sounded vague and distant as they rang out seven times.

  “Mr. Leland Crosby, Junior,” said the captain.

  Crosby’s speech gave William cause for self-congratulation. He had anticipated everything—the strident tone Crosby would take, the overstressed, nearly hysterical points he would make. He recited the incantations of American radicalism—Haymarket, Money Trust, Standard Oil, even Cross of Gold. William didn’t think Crosby had made more than an exhibition of himself although he garnered the expected applause from his claque on William’s right. When Crosby sat down, he had clearly won no new supporters and it looked as though he might have lost a few old ones. The comparison with William and Matthew—equally rich, equally socially distinguished but selfishly refusing martyrdom for the cause of the advancement of social justice—just might be devastating.

  Matthew spoke well and to the point, soothing his listeners, the incarnation of liberal toleration. William pumped his friend’s hand warmly when he returned to his chair to loud applause.

  “It’s all over but the shouting, I think,” he whispered.

  But Thaddeus Cohen surprised virtually everyone. He had a pleasant, diffident manner and a sympathetic style. His references and quotations were catholic, pointed and illuminating. Without conveying to the audience the feeling that it was being deliberately impressed, he exuded a moral earnestness that made anything less seem a failure to a rational human being. He was willing to admit the excesses of his own side and the inadequacy of its leaders, but he left the impression that, in spite of its dangers, there was no alternative to socialism if the lot of mankind was ever to be improved.

  William was flustered. A surgically logical attack on the political platform of his adversaries would be useless against Cohen’s gentle and persuasive presentation. Yet to outdo him as a spokesman of hope and faith in the human spirit would be impossible. William concentrated first on refuting some of Crosby’s charges and then countered Cohen’s arguments with a declaration of his own faith in the ability of the American system to produce the best results through competition, intellectual and economic. He felt he had played a good defensive game, but no more, and sat down supposing that he had been well beaten by Cohen.

  Crosby was his opponents’ rebuttal speaker. He began ferociously, sounding as if he now needed to beat Cohen as much as William and Matthew, asking the audience if they could identify an “enemy of the people” among themselves that night. He glared around the room for several long seconds as members of the audience squirmed in embarrassed silence and his dedicated supporters studied their shoes. Then he learned forward and roared:

  “He stands before you. He has just spoken in your midst. His name is William Lowell Kane.” Gesturing with one hand toward William—but without looking at him—he thundered: “His bank owns mines in which the workers die to give its owners an extra million a year in dividends. His bank supports the bloody, corrupt dictatorships of Latin America. Through his bank, the American Congress is bribed into crushing the small farmer. His bank …”

  The tirade went on for several minutes. William sat in stony silence, occasionally jotting down a comment on his yellow legal pad. A few members of the audience had begun shouting “No.” Crosby’s supporters shouted loyally back. The officials began to look nervous.

  Crosby’s allotted time was about up. He raised his fist and said, “Gentlemen, I submit that not more than two hundred yards from this very room we have the answer to the plight of America. There stands the Widener Library, the greatest private library in the world. Here poor and immigrant scholars come, along with the best-educated Americans, to increase the knowledge and prosperity of the world. Why does it exist? Because one rich playboy had the misfortune to set sail sixteen years ago on a pleasure boat called the Titanic. I suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that not until the people of America hand each and every member of the ruling class a ticket for his own private cabin on the Titanic of capitalism, will the hoarded wealth of this great continent be freed and devoted to the service of liberty, equality and progress.”

  As Matthew listened to Crosby’s speech, his sentiments changed from exultation that, by this blunder, the victory had been secured for his side, through embarrassment at the behavior of his adversary, to rage at the reference to the Titanic. He had no idea how William would respond to such provocation.

  When some measure of silence had been restored, the captain walked to the lectern and said, “Mr. William Lowell Kane.”

  William strode to the platform and looked out over the audience. An expectant hush filled the room.

  “It is my opinion that the views expressed by Mr. Crosby do not merit a response.”

  He sat down. There was a moment of surprised silence—and then loud applause.

  The captain returned to the platform but appeared uncertain what to do. A voice from behind him broke the tension.

  “If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Kane if I might use his rebuttal time.” It was Thaddeus Cohen.

  William nodded his agreement to the captain.

  Cohen walked to the lectern and blinked at the audience disarmingly. “It has long been true,” he began, “that the greatest obstacle to the success of democratic socialism in the United States has been the extremism of some of its allies. Nothing could have exemplified this unfortunate fact more clearly than my colleague’s speech tonight. The propensity to damage the progressive cause by calling for the physical extermination of those who oppose it might be understandable in a battle-hardene
d immigrant, a veteran of foreign struggles fiercer than our own. In America it is pathetic and inexcusable. Speaking for myself, I extend my sincere apologies to Mr. Kane.”

  This time the applause was instantaneous. Virtually the entire audience rose to its feet clapping continuously.

  William walked over to shake hands with Thaddeus Cohen. It was no surprise to either of them that William and Matthew won the vote by a margin of more than 150 votes. The evening was over and the audience filed out into the silent, snow-covered paths, walking in the middle of the street, talking animatedly at the tops of their voices.

  William insisted that Thaddeus Cohen join him and Matthew for a drink. They set off together across Massachusetts Avenue, barely able to see where they were going in the drifting snow, and came to a halt outside a big black door almost directly opposite Boylston Hall. William opened it with his key and the three entered the vestibule.

  Before the door shut behind him, Thaddeus Cohen spoke. “I’m afraid I won’t be welcome here.”

  William looked startled for a second. “Nonsense. You’re with me.”

  Matthew gave his friend a cautionary glance but saw that William was determined.

  They went up the stairs and into a large room, comfortably but not luxuriously furnished, in which there were about a dozen young men sitting in armchairs or standing in knots of two or three. As soon as William appeared in the doorway, the congratulations started.

  “You were marvelous, William. That’s exactly the way to treat those sort of people.”

  “Enter in triumph, Bolski slayer.”

  Thaddeus Cohen hung back, still half-shadowed by the doorway, but William had not forgotten him.

  “And gentlemen, may I present my worthy adversary, Mr. Thaddeus Cohen.”

  Cohen stepped forward hesitantly.

  All noise ceased. A number of heads were averted, as if they were looking at the elm trees in the Yard, their branches weighed down with new snow.

  Finally there was the crack of a floorboard as one young man left the room by another door. Then there was another departure. Without haste, without apparent agreement, the entire group filed out. The last to leave gave William a long look, then turned on his heel and disappeared.

  Matthew gazed at his companions in dismay. Thaddeus Cohen had turned a dull red and stood with his head bowed. William’s lips were drawn together in the same tight, cold fury that had been apparent when Crosby had made his reference to the Titanic.

  Matthew touched his friend’s arm. “We’d better go.”

  The three trudged off to William’s rooms and silently drank some indifferent brandy.

  When William woke in the morning, there was an envelope under his door. Inside, there was a short note, from the chairman of the Porcellian Club, informing him that he hoped “there would never be a recurrence of last night’s best-forgotten incident.”

  By lunchtime the chairman had received two letters of resignation.

  After months of long, studious days, William and Matthew were almost ready—no one ever thinks he is quite ready—for their final examinations. For six days they answered questions and filled up sheets and sheets of the little blue books and then they waited, not in vain, for they both graduated as expected from Harvard in June of 1928.

  A week after the exams it was announced that William had won the President’s Mathematics Prize. He wished his father had been alive to witness the presentation ceremony on graduation day. Matthew had managed a “gentleman’s C,” which came as a relief to him and no great surprise to anyone else. Neither had any interest in further education, both having elected to join the “real” world as quickly as possible.

  William’s bank account in New York edged over the million-dollar mark eight days before he left Harvard. It was then that he discussed in greater detail with Matthew his long-term plan to gain control of Lester’s Bank by merging it with Kane and Cabot.

  Matthew was enthusiastic about the idea and confessed, “That’s about the only way I’ll ever improve on what my old man will undoubtedly leave me when he dies.”

  On graduation day, Alan Lloyd, now in his sixtieth year, came to Harvard. After the graduation ceremony William took his guest for tea on the square. Alan eyed the tall young man affectionately.

  “And what do you intend to do now that you have put Harvard behind you?”

  “I’m going to join Charles Lester’s bank in New York. I want some experience before I come to Kane and Cabot a few years from now.”

  “But you’ve been living in Lester’s bank since you were twelve years old, William. Why don’t you come straight to us now? We would appoint you a director immediately.”

  Alan Lloyd waited for his reply. It was not forthcoming.

  “Well, I must say, William, it’s most unlike you to be rendered speechless by anything.”

  “But I never imagined you would invite me to join the board before my twenty-fifth birthday, when my father …”

  “It’s true your father was elected when he was twenty-five. However, that’s no reason to prevent you from joining the board before then if the other directors support the idea, and I know that they do. In any case, there are personal reasons why I’d like to see you a director as soon as possible. When I retire from the bank in five years, we must be sure of electing the right chairman. You will be in a stronger position to influence that decision if you have been working for Kane and Cabot during those five years rather than as a grand functionary at Lester’s. Well, my boy, will you join the board?”

  It was the second time that day that William wished his father were still alive.

  “I should be delighted to accept, sir,” he said.

  Alan looked up at William. “That’s the first time you’ve called me ‘sir’ since we played golf together. I shall have to watch you very carefully.”

  William smiled.

  “Good,” said Alan Lloyd, “that’s settled, then. You’ll be a junior director in charge of investments, working directly under Tony Simmons.”

  “Can I appoint my own assistant?” asked William.

  Alan Lloyd looked at him quizzically. “Matthew Lester, no doubt?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I don’t want him doing in our bank what you intended to do in theirs. Thomas Cohen should have taught you that.” William said nothing but never underestimated Alan again.

  Charles Lester laughed when William repeated the conversation word for word to him.

  “I’m sorry to hear you won’t be coming to us, even as a spy,” he said genially, “but I have no doubt you’ll end up here someday—in one capacity or another.”

  PART THREE

  1928–1932

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When William started work as a junior director of Kane and Cabot in September 1928, he felt for the first time in his life that he was doing something really worthwhile. He began his career in a small office next to Tony Simmons, the bank’s Investment Director. From the week that William arrived, he knew, even though nothing had been said, that Tony Simmons was hoping to succeed Alan Lloyd as chairman of the bank.

  The bank’s entire investment program was Simmons’s responsibility. He quickly delegated to William some aspects of his work, in particular, private investment in small businesses, land and any other outside entrepreneurial activities in which the bank was involved. Among William’s official duties was a monthly report on the investments he wished to recommend, at a full meeting of the board. The 17 board members met once a month in a larger oak-paneled room, dominated at both ends by portraits, one of William’s father, the other of his grandfather. William had never known his grandfather but had always thought he must have been a “hell of a man” to have married Grandmother Kane. There was ample room left on the walls for his own portrait.

  William conducted himself during those early days at the bank with caution and his fellow board members soon came to respect his judgment and follow his recommendations with rare exceptions. As it t
urned out, the advice they rejected was among the best that William ever gave. On the first occasion, a Mr. Mayer sought a loan from the bank to invest in “talking pictures,” but the board refused to see that the notion had any merit or future. Another time, a Mr. Paley came to William with an ambitious plan for United, the radio network. Alan Lloyd, who had about as much respect for telegraphy as for telepathy, would have nothing to do with the scheme. The board supported Alan’s view, and Louis B. Mayer later headed MGM; and William Paley, the company that became CBS. William believed in his own judgment and had backed both men with money from his trust and, like his father, never informed the recipients of his support.

  One of the more unpleasant aspects of William’s day-to-day work was the handling of the liquidations and bankruptcies of clients who had borrowed large sums from the bank and had subsequently found themselves unable to repay their loans. William was not by nature a soft person, as Henry Osborne had learned to his cost, but insisting that old and respected clients liquidate their stocks and even sell their homes did not make for easy sleeping at nights. William soon learned that these clients fell into two distinct categories—those who looked upon bankruptcy as a part of everyday business and those who were appalled by the very word and who would spend the rest of their lives trying to repay every penny they had borrowed. William found it natural to be tough with the first category but was almost always far more lenient with the second, with the grudging approval of Tony Simmons.

  It was during such a case that William broke one of the bank’s golden rules and became personally involved with a client. Her name was Katherine Brookes, and her husband, Max Brookes, had borrowed more than a million dollars from Kane and Cabot to invest in the Florida land boom of 1925, an investment William would never have backed had he then been working at the bank. Max Brookes had, however, been something of a hero in Massachusetts as one of the new intrepid breed of balloonists and flyers and a close friend of Charles Lindbergh in the bargain. Brookes’s tragic death when the small plane he was piloting, at a height of all of ten feet above the ground, hit a tree only a hundred yards after takeoff was reported in the press across the length and breadth of America as a national loss.