CHAPTER XXXIX
THE STRUGGLE COMMENCED
By midsummer of 1896 the liquidation of the affairs of the old firm was practically completed; that is, in so far as related to the conversion of our assets into cash and payment of the proceeds to our creditors. These payments were very large, but there was still a heavy deficiency, which I hoped in time to pay in full with interest, gigantic as the burden seemed.
Every business day found me at my office working early and late as I had never worked before. With but one clerk and an office-boy, a vast amount of detail had to be undertaken by myself. Night after night my thoughts were almost constantly on plans to keep together the business I had established.
I was fighting an octopus. My competitors all were arrayed against me with a force I had never before experienced. They spared no effort to crush the man who had beaten them over and over again in battles for commercial supremacy. It was their turn now and they showed no mercy.
But how different was the warfare waged on me! In the days gone by I had struck them powerful blows, straight from the shoulder; but a foul blow?—never! No man, living or dead, can or could say I did not fight fair. Nor did I ever press an advantage unduly or profit by the necessities of a competitor.
Here was one enemy, sneaking through the trade with his lying tongue, always under cover, doing his utmost to injure me. Had that man forgotten the day in 1888 when he came to my office and told me he would be ruined unless our London friends would accept a compromise from him and asked me to cable urging them to do so? Had he forgotten how on the following day, when I showed him the reply reading, "Risk of buyers does not concern us. Cannot assist," he raised his hands, and shouting, "My God! what shall I do"? almost collapsed? Surely he must have forgotten how I told him that I would stand between him and ruin, allowed him to settle on his own terms, and carried him along for years.
Here was another enemy, a different stripe of man. He sat in his palatial office and never let an opportunity pass to thrust a knife in my back. His blows, less coarse and brutal, were even more effective, for they were backed by the weight of great wealth and respectability. An adept in the refinement of cruelty, between Sundays, when as a vestryman of a prominent church he presumably asked forgiveness of his sins, he did all that he could by false insinuations to help along the work of putting down and out forever the man who had never done him an injury, or conquered him in any way not warranted by fair and generous business competition.
There were many like this man.
I had to fight against practically unlimited wealth in the hands of a score of bitter enemies, men without conscience in the matter of crushing a competitor. Anything to beat Stowe was the war-cry; get the orders away from him, no matter what the cost, the plan of campaign. Those men knew I could not long survive if they could keep me from getting business.
To fight them back I had complete knowledge of the trade, great personal popularity with my customers, and only eighty-five hundred dollars capital. The last item was the weak point. Had I controlled even only one hundred thousand dollars I believe with all their wealth I could have beaten them to a standstill.
My customers stood nobly by me. There were hundreds of instances when telegrams came to the office advising me of my competitors' quotations and giving me the opportunity to meet the price and secure the business. I never lost an order that the buyer did not write and express his regret at our failure to secure it; but I could not do business at a loss, my competitors knew this, and that sooner or later they must surely win the fight.
From business on the Exchange I was barred until after final settlement with creditors. As a matter of fact this was more of a loss to the Exchange than to me. During 1895 our name had appeared on the contracts of fully ninety per cent. of all the business done on the floor, and in the five years immediately following our failure the entire business did not equal that of any two months in 1895.
On December 3lst, I found the volume of business for the year had been less than a million of dollars as compared with nearly fifteen millions in 1895.
Competition had cut into the percentage of profit to such an extent that what I had made was insufficient to counterbalance my expenditures.
Office and home expenses had been kept down to small figures; I had made the regular monthly payments to Mrs. Slater and to Mr. Pell and in addition made some payments of interest on the moral obligations to our Connecticut friends, but my little capital had to some extent been impaired.
The year at Westfield in its home life was far from unpleasant. Our reduced circumstances had not deprived us of the ordinary comforts. We still had our library and the handsome appointments of our former home, and though these latter were out of keeping with the house we enjoyed them.
The game of billiards after dinner, while I smoked my cigar, served to distract for the time being my thoughts from business worries, and for out-of-door exercise we took almost daily spins on our wheels, which had been substituted for the horses.
We made one delightful trip on those wheels during the summer. With my wife, a son, and a daughter, we started on Friday afternoon, and after spending the night in Morristown, went on the next day to Lake Hopatcong, returning home on Monday (Labor Day).
On Sunday, in our wandering, we visited all the familiar spots and recalled the many drag trips we had taken there with our friends as our guests and wondered if we would ever again repeat those pleasant experiences.
We dwelt particularly on one trip, brought to mind by a visit to the Bertrand Island Club. While there we looked back in the register at a sketch made by my friend and architect, Charlie Fitch. He and his wife were included with our guests on that occasion, and after asking me to allow him to register the party he filled a page with an artistic sketch of "Redstone" with the drag in the foreground.
Charlie Wood and his wife also were of that party, and at a dinner at "Redstone" on our return he sang a song composed by himself for the occasion. I quote a few lines:
"Here's a good health to the Lake in the hills,
Here's to the hand that our glass ever fills,
The Kodak and Banjo;
But principally, mind you,
To the fellow who pays the bills."
This chapter covering the first year after my failure would be incomplete without its testimony to the devotion of my wife and children under the new conditions. My wife was a glorious sunbeam whose rays of cheerfulness never dimmed. Her wonderful spirits and courage lifted me out of the Slough of Despondency, and her love and tenderness supported me through every trial.
The children, from my elder son, who had cut short his college course and joined me in the office, down to the baby of the family, then a girl of eight years, were constant in their efforts to contribute to my comfort and happiness.