Wilson — Cambridge, MA
A dozen alternative strategies for taking down the secret partnership scrolled through Wilson’s mind, as he reflected on a past conversation with his father. He was alone in the belfry library, giving Emily the space she needed. The conversation he couldn’t stop thinking about had taken place fifteen years ago, during a Christmas break midway through his junior year at Milton Academy. Wilson had just finished studying America’s Gilded Age and written a lengthy report on the Pullman Strike of 1894. He was anxious to discuss what he’d learned with his father and had looked forward to what he hoped would be a lively debate.
The family was eating dinner in the chalet at White Horse. It was the day after Christmas, following a terrific day of skiing. His father was talking about a Dutch economist named Jan Pen, who had equated annual income to physical height. A person with an annual income of $50,000 would be six feet tall. Someone with an income of $5 million would be fifty feet tall. Billions of people would be dwarfs less than three feet tall, many of them standing less than one foot. Several million in income would make a person sixty to a hundred feet tall. And there would be a few hundred giants on the earth, some towering above our tallest skyscrapers, others rising more than a hundred miles into the stratosphere with fifteen mile long footprints. From that point, Wilson mentally replayed the dialogue in remarkable detail.
His fourteen-year-old sister Rachel had started it all by saying: “Capitalism sucks.” Then she teased, “How tall are you, Dad?”
His father smiled and raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Until we have a better alternative, I think we should be grateful for the economic system we have,” his mother said, always trying to temper things.
Anxious to share his thoughts, Wilson said, “I just finished writing a paper on the Pullman Strike of 1894 and how it shaped the relationship between capitalists and laborers in America. It’s not a pretty story.”
“Remind us of what happened,” his mother said, noticeably excited to hear more about what he’d been studying at school.
Wilson jumped at the opportunity, having already committed his synopsis to memory for an oral presentation at school. “George Pullman invented his luxury railroad car in 1867 and then joined forces with Andrew Carnegie to build the Pullman Palace Car Company. In the 1880s Pullman built an entire town on the south side of Chicago for his workers, to shield them from the vices of the day and Chicago’s labor unrest. Paved streets, indoor plumbing, gas lighting, sewage system, communal stables, parks, and an arcade were all part of the model town for his company’s ten thousand railcar manufacturing workers. But after workers paid Pullman rent for their new houses, they only had a few cents to buy their families the other things they needed. When the stock market crashed in 1893, the economy went into a recession. Pullman cut workers’ wages by thirty percent, making their living situation intolerable. Four thousand Pullman workers, who were members of Eugene Deb’s American Railway Union, went on strike in 1894. George Pullman refused to even talk to the union or his workers. He locked up his home and left town. That summer, another hundred thousand railroad workers, from across the country, supported the strike by refusing to handle Pullman railcars. When Pullman fired workers who were union members, entire rail lines began to shut down and the U.S. mail stopped moving by rail. Chicago erupted in riots. Federal troops were brought in from Fort Sheridan, a military base on Lake Michigan. It had been donated to the Federal Government by The Commercial Club of Chicago to protect Chicago’s capitalist elite-men like George Pullman, Marshall Field, Cyrus McCormick, George Armour, and Frederic Delano-from labor unrest. On July 8, 1894, federal troops opened fire against the strikers. Thirty-four people were killed. Eugene Debs went to jail and the courts stood behind the capitalists. A federal commission later censured George Pullman for charging excessive rent and forcing his employees to bear unnecessary burdens, but the capitalist elite had already emerged victorious over united labor,” Wilson finished as he sat back waiting for comments.
“So what was the conclusion of your paper?” his father asked.
“Capitalism sucks,” Rachel repeated to loud laughter.
Then everyone turned to Wilson, awaiting his response.
“It’s simple. The government helped capital defeat labor,” Wilson said wryly.
“Right or wrong?” his father asked.
“Wrong,” Wilson said.
“Why?”
“Because the forces of capital and labor should be better balanced, but after the Pullman Strike, thanks to the government, capital gained the clear advantage. It shaped American history, for the worse.”
“What would you have done, if you’d been President Cleveland?”
“I wouldn’t have sent in federal troops or allowed Eugene Debs to go to jail. But it was the courts that gave capital its advantage. Capitalists were allowed to use the rule of law-and the shrewdest lawyers they could buy-to control rebellious laborers. Laborers never had the same opportunity or resources to control greedy capitalists.”
His father nodded without saying anything for several moments. His mother and Rachel remained quiet, finishing their dinners. “So how do we correct things?” his father had finally asked.
“Our system of favoring capital over labor has become entrenched. It’s too late,” Wilson said, baiting his father. He could still remember the excitement he felt when provoking his father into a heated debate. The fact was he loved arguing with his father, because it allowed him to penetrate his father’s enigma. “The capitalists rule. Control or be controlled, isn’t that what you tell your clients?”
His father waited a moment before taking the bait. “It’s never too late, Wilson. Control or be controlled is an argument used by the powerful to justify their exploitation of the weak. That’s exactly why the laws in this country must be changed-to prevent the strong from crushing the weak. Wage slavery is a reality for most of the population and I hate it as much as you do,” his father said firmly.
Wilson remembered smiling to himself, thinking that the polemics were about to commence. “How can you say that you hate it when you continue to make yourself and your rich clients richer, just like every other capitalist? It’s capitalism that promotes exclusivity, inequality, unemployment, overwork, and poverty-and in its current form, it will never be compatible with democracy,” Wilson said, heightening the drama.
His father stopped eating and placed his elbows on the table. “No form of capitalism, fascism, socialism, communism, libertarianism, communitarianism, or any other “ism” is going to prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak-and you can’t force equality when it doesn’t exist. If the powerful few were wise, noble, and committed to spreading the wealth, then the powerless many would have little to fear. But every governing hierarchy on earth, public or private, is designed to give a few control over the many. The secret lies in making capitalism more accessible to all.”
Perfect, Wilson remembered saying to himself. It’s time for a frontal attack. “So, when are you going to begin using your wealth to make the weak more powerful or teach your clients to become less cutthroat and more inclusive? And for what it’s worth, I don’t think making big donations to Harvard is going to make much of a difference.” Wilson cringed as he replayed the dialogue in his head. He’d been such a smartass.
“Wilson. This is not…” his mother began before his father cut her off.
“What makes you think I’m not already doing more than making charitable donations?” his father said defensively.
“What exactly are you doing?” Wilson asked, unwilling to let his father off the hook. “The fact is most capitalists don’t want to change things because they need the slaves.”
“That’s enough, Wilson,” his mother said decisively. “It’s Christmas. Rachel and I are not interested in sitting here while you and your father have another one of your jousting sessions.”
“Your mother’s right,” his father said. “It’s time to lighten the conversation. The snow is falling and our new hot tub is beckoning. However, I will say one more thing in response to your questions. Fielder amp; Company is in the process of launching a rather novel approach to humanizing capitalism. But you need to give me a decade or so to see if it works. If it does, we may finally overcome the generations of concealed corruption that have created our current version of capitalism. If it doesn’t, you may have to pick up the pieces.” His father smiled, looking as if he wanted to say more but then decided against it. His intense blue-green eyes suddenly softened. “Who’s ready to hit the hot tub?”
“I am,” Rachel squealed, as only fourteen-year-old girls can.
That was the end of the now troubling conversation. Wilson had questioned his father about it on numerous occasions after that, but his father only responded in vague terms, usually saying something like ‘We’re still working on it’. Then he’d typically shift the conversation to why it was difficult, but never impossible, to change deeply entrenched and widely accepted systems. I should have pressed harder, much harder, Wilson thought. But at the time, he was leaving for Princeton and his own fight against the abuse of power.
Wilson returned to considering his options for attacking the secret partnership. He continued to favor an infiltration strategy, assuming he could convince the secret partnership that it would be safer to bring him inside. Regardless of which strategy he ultimately pursued, picking up the pieces of his father’s life had become his reality and that meant figuring out how his father planned to use his secret insiders club to humanize capitalism. The lives of his loved ones, his father’s reputation, and his and Emily’s future depended on it.
Over the next few days, Wilson was so thoroughly absorbed with planning his attack or reassuring Emily that he’d completely missed the two Wall Street Journal articles on the J. B. Musselman Company and his old antagonist David Quinn. When a colleague at Kresge amp; Company emailed him about the articles, he immediately accessed the stories online and read with rapt interest.
David Quinn had managed to pull off another turnaround, but Wilson knew it wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, the Musselman roll-up would unravel. He was sure of it. Wayland Tate must have found a way to appease Musselman’s Chairman James MacMillan. Wilson had never believed in Tate’s strategy of going head-to-head with Costco and Sam’s Club, but Tate was extremely persuasive. Wilson had known that for years, ever since they first met at White Horse when Wilson was a boy. He remembered his father’s introduction of Tate as the most brilliant advertising executive of his generation. Tate and his father had shared common clients over the years. Was he part of the secret partnership? Wilson made a mental note to ask Carter about him, but right now he had his hands full.
Since Sunday, Emily had continued her attempts to dissuade him from his course of action, so when she entered the belfry library, he prepared himself for another lengthy discussion.
“As much as I hate to admit it, you may be right about the path forward. But it scares me to death. I don’t want to lose us,” Emily said as her large brown eyes glistened.
Wilson’s heart immediately filled with gratitude and empathy. “There’s nothing I want more than a life with you, no matter where we live or how crazy our schedules get. I never want to live without you again. Never. But we can’t live in constant fear that some paranoid member of a secret society might one day decide to take us out, just because we represent a potential risk. We can’t live that way,” he said, reaching over and running his fingers through her blonde curls.
“You’re right. I just…”
Wilson placed his finger on her lips and then kissed them gently. “I promise not to take any unnecessary risks. If it gets too dicey, we’ll go to the authorities. I promise,” he said, putting his arms around her.
“Thank you,” she said, holding him tightly.
“Trust me. There’s no death wish here. Not when I have you. And I have been listening to you. If the KaneWeller merger goes through, we may have no choice but to involve the FBI immediately.”
She squeezed him as tight as she could, desiring never to let go of him. “I love you, Wilson,” she said as she took Wilson by the hand. “I think it’s time for something less stressful.”
Later that night as Wilson was lying in bed next to Emily, Bill Heinke called to inform him that KaneWeller had decided to withdraw from the merger with Fielder amp; Company. “We can challenge it, if you choose,” Heinke said with a voice that sounded either reluctant or weary.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll be taking Fielder amp; Company off the market for now,” Wilson said, looking over at Emily with eyes that said I’m sorry. Emily got up from the bed and went to the bathroom.
“I understand,” Heinke said in a low serious voice. “Liquidation of all non-Fielder amp; Company holdings is now fifty percent complete. We should be able to finish almost everything within two weeks. Some of the real estate holdings will take longer.”
UBS had been providing Wilson with daily encrypted updates on proceeds from the ongoing liquidation, which were immediately reinvested through concealed accounts. Daniel had set up the reinvestment structure and strategy, so he wasn’t worried, but he did want to find out how involved Bill Heinke had been with Fielder amp; Company.
“Fine,” Wilson said. “Were you able to find the missing files?”
“Not yet,” Heinke was curt, offering no explanation.
“In the wrong hands, that information could cause a lot of problems.”
“We are acutely aware of Fielder amp; Company’s exposure and have contracted the necessary resources to find the missing files. We remain optimistic. In the event that the missing files are not recovered, however, we are prepared to indemnify Fielder amp; Company against any and all resulting damages. We’ve already discussed the issue at length with Atlas Casualty and Surety. They provide our catastrophic insurance coverage. $1.2 billion in potential damages has already been preapproved.”
Wilson thanked Heinke and replaced the phone in its cradle. He’d said enough about the missing files to Heinke. If he was a member of the secret partnership, he’d alert his cohorts. If he wasn’t a member, then the conversation served to make sure there were no missteps by his firm regarding anything that had to do with the Fielder family. Wilson knew that his first moves against the secret partnership would have to come in the next few days, and they’d have to be the right moves. There would be no second chances.
When Emily returned from the bathroom, they held each other for several minutes without saying a word. Everything in their lives was about to change-more than either one of them could possibly imagine.