The effect on the business did not seem to occur to Johnathan. Or if he thought about it, he told himself the business was so large he could afford to lose occasionally for the sake of winning a principle.
Not once did the man realize or admit the rights of stockholders, or consider them on a par with himself in the matter of ownership. Stockholders were but a step raised above “help.” They had merely been privileged to share in a small portion of the company’s annual profits. Fiddlesticks with stockholders!
Nathan had kept the firm “right side up” and always progressing in the right direction. Johnathan had thereby gained the idea that businesses—at least manufacturing businesses—once established, ran themselves. By sheer force of organization! He now set out deliberately and maliciously to checkmate his son and retard him in every way he could conceive. The business was a bit beyond Johnathan’s grasp. So he decided upon a policy of “retrenchment.”
“Retrenchment” became his slogan and the motto on his ensign. Refusing to order necessary office and factory supplies was “retrenchment.” Turning down requests for quotations on new business on the ground that the company already had business enough was “retrenchment.” “Docking” a little flaxen-haired stenographer a half-day’s wages when she went home ill at three in the afternoon was “retrenchment.” Anything and everything that could discount Nathan, discredit his administration, get the employees dissatisfied with the boy’s management, curtail production so to show a loss which could be triumphantly charged to Nathan—all this was “retrenchment”—most commendable “retrenchment.” Nathan grew to abhor the word.
At such times as the father succeeded in his policy and the boy was humiliated and stopped, Johnathan waved his hand grandly and said: “You see! Some day you will grasp that your father is older and therefore must know better!” To beat Nathan and get his word doubted or his ability discounted among employees or stockholders pleased Johnathan more than declaring a twelve per cent dividend.
Nathan had flouted his father, deliberately plunged into matrimony in spite of all his father’s threats and admonitions. He had made his bed. Now let him lie in it. But in addition, Johnathan, as the mocked parent, intended to see that the bed was as hard, knotty and acanaceous as the father knew how to make it.
If Nathan didn’t like all this, let him quit. He, Johnathan, had managed to exist a considerable time before Nathan came into it; he guessed he could take care of himself and his business “for a while yet.”
But Nathan had made a discovery which comes ultimately to many organizers and builders,—that there is a point where the human creator may become slave to the thing created.
It was easy enough for people to declare wrathfully that Nathan should leave the box-shop and strike out for himself to teach John a lesson. They did their thinking superficially. Nathan had built that business under old Caleb’s coaching. He had a thousand details at his finger tips. Large numbers of humble folk had invested in the company’s stock, and there were the bank loans. The boy knew his father could not run the plant, that chaos and failure would follow swift and sure upon his retirement. And because of this knowledge, practical experience and large bump of moral responsibility, the boy believed he had obligations which he could not entirely sacrifice to self-interest. The business owned him. He must go on, not because of his father, but in spite of him. Perhaps Johnathan might be persuaded to drop out or dispose of his stock. Better still, he might die. Or the bankers and stockholders might some day learn the truth in a way that would not jeopardize the business. In that event, merit and loyalty must be rewarded. But nothing of the sort happened.
Johnathan had controlling stock in the company, and he saw to it that he kept controlling stock in the company. He would no more have considered making Nat a present of a block than he would have considered making the boy a present of his severed hand. He had worked hard for all he possessed, Johnathan had. His father had never helped him. Besides, Nathan had proven himself incorrigible. He had married against his father’s wishes. Therefore let him suffer the full penalty,—or get out and hustle and cultivate the acquisitive faculty for himself.