“The following summer the mining claim was sold for thirty-five thousand dollars. It was more than it subsequently proved to be worth, for the vein was only a shallow out-cropping. But fortune was already playing into my hands, for Norman T. Gildersleeve, who was one of the heaviest shareholders in the company that bought it, lost a lot of money developing it. Through the mine, unexpectedly, I had dealt him his first blow.
“That thirty-five thousand dollars brought the North Star Towing and Contracting Company into existence as a one-tug-and-barge concern. As Acey Smith, a man from nowhere, I became its skipper and general outdoors executive, but its actual ownership in the name of J.C.X. was known only to its bankers. The general public believed it was backed by a syndicate of eastern capitalists, a delusion I took every means to foster.
“The North Star prospered from the start. From then on its progress was like that of a thing of destiny. Gildersleeve, who, with his associates, had until now almost a complete monopoly of marine work, at first paid little attention to the insignificant North Star. He was then more concerned with city real estate and western land ventures. It was not until it was announced that a leading Kam City citizen, holding the patronage from Ottawa, had been appointed president of the North Star that he became at all alarmed. What he did not fully realise was that this political trickster and professional lobbyist had been bought body and soul for the use of his name and his influence at the capital. He was merely a dummy president, as all the presidents of the North Star since have been, with no more real executive authority than the man in the moon.”
IV
“Gildersleeve woke up too late. His first cold realisation that he had a dangerous rival came when the North Star secured a huge government contract for harbour dredging and improvements, for which an appropriation of two million dollars had been placed in the parliamentary estimates. With the money credit established by the acquisition of this contract, the North Star was enabled to invest in a formidable fleet of tugs and the most modern dredging equipment.
“There was no stopping now—the North Star’s only salvation lay in continuous expansion to the last shred of money credit and the gobbling up of every worthwhile contract. High capitalisation and enormous daily overhead had to be met with tremendous production and what the newspapers call profiteering on a large scale. There is an advanced stage of development of a commercial enterprise when its directing head must chloroform his conscience. The North Star had reached that stage. It was a case of destroying or being destroyed. The war between the North Star and the Gildersleeve interests was on in deadly earnest, and I saw to it that the North Star was continuously the aggressor.
“Gildersleeve was no fool as a business man, and under his smug cloak of respectability he knew no scruples save where the law might halt him. But, as his potential destroyer, I had made a thorough, patient study of his weaknesses rather than his strength. He had so long been used to easy, safe stages of progress that he had lost the initiative of a plunger. He considered too long and was over-cautious; while Gildersleeve was holding long-winded conferences with his associates and executives, the North Star was striking hard where it was least expected to strike.
“Through a thoroughly organised private intelligence department, I knew the Gildersleeve plans before they were put into operation. The North Star too held conferences; but they were merely ‘blinds,’ the plans of the company being devised by none but myself, and none knew what they were until orders went out to the president over the signature of ‘J.C.X.’
“I picked my men for their ability to carry out instructions quickly and thoroughly. I had no need for generals or advisors; except that their recommendations regarding campaign plans gave me an idea what other people, including our competitors, would be liable to conceive we were about to do. If such recommendations tallied with the plans already formulated, I promptly discarded the latter and set about devising entirely different methods. The North Star never did the obvious thing, and the element of surprise invariably helped carry the day.
“The North Star took a controlling interest in powerful newspapers it could use, and it used their news columns and editorials in a subtle manner that never gave them the appearance of mere organs. To be a power in the land and so many stuffed clubs to drive the politicians to do the North Star’s bidding, they had to be papers of the people and with the people.