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.