another.'
Chapter 15
Book Three
Chapter 15
When William started work as a junior director of Kane and Cabot in September 1928, he felt for the first time in his life that he was doing something really worthwhile. He began his career in a small oak - panelled office next to Tony Simmons, the bank's director of finance. From the week that William arrived, he knew without a word being spoken that Tony Simmons was hoping to succeed Alan Lloyd as chairman of the bank.
The bank's entire investment programme was Sinunons' responsibility. He quickly delegated to William some aspects of his work; in particular, private investment in small businesses, land, and any other outside entrepreneurial activities in which the bank became involved. Among William's official duties was to make a monthly report on the investments he wished to recommend, at a full meeting of the board. The fourteen board members met once a month in a larger oakpanelled room, dominated at both ends by portraits, one of William's father, the other of his grandfather. William had never known his grandfather, but had always considered he must have been a 'hell of a man' to have married Grand - mother Kane. There was ample room left on the walls for his own portrait.
William conducted himself during those early months at the bank with caution, and his fellow board members soon came to respect his judgment and follow his recommendations with rare exceptions. As it turned out, the advice they rejected was among the best that William ever gave. On the first occasion, a Mr. Mayer sought a loan from the bank to invest in 'talking pictures' but the board refused to see that the notion had any merit or future. Another time, a Mr. Paley came to William with an ambitious plan for United, the radio network. Alan Lloyd, who had about as much respect for telegraphy as for telepathy, would have nothing to do with the scheme. Ile board supported Alan's views, and Louis B. Mayer later headed M.G.M. and William Paley the company that was to become C.B.S. William believed in his own judgment and backed both men with money from his trust and, like his father, never informed the recipients of his support.
One of the more unpleasant aspects of William's day - to - day work was the handling of the liquidations and bankruptcies of clients who had borrowed large sums from the bank and had subsequently found themselves unable to repay their loans. William was not by nature a soft person, as Henry Osborne had learned to his cost, but insisting that old and respected clients liquidate their stocks and even sell their homes did not make for easy sleeping at nights. William soon learned that these clients fell into two distinct categories; those who looked upon bankruptcy as a part of everyday business and those who were appalled by the very word and who would spend the rest of their lives trying to repay every penny they had borrowed.
William found it natural to be tough with the first category but was almost always far more lenient with the second, with the grudging approval of Tony Simmons.
It was during such a case that William broke one of the bank's golden rules and became personally involved with a client. Her name was Katherine Brookes, and her husband, Max Brookes, had borrowed over a million dollars from Kane and Cabot to invest in the Florida land boom of 1925, an in - vestment William would never had backed had he then been working at the bank. Max Brookes had, however, been something of a hero in Massachusetts as one of the new intrepid breed of balloonists and flyers, and a close friend of Charles Lindbergh into the bargain. Brookes' tragic death when the small plane he was piloting, at a height of all of ten feet above the ground, hit a tree only a hundred yards after take - off was reported in the press across the length and breadth of America as a national loss.
William, acting for the bank, immediately took over the Brookes estate, which was already insolvent, dissolved it and tried to cut the bank's losses by selling all the land held in Florida except for two acres on which the family home stood. The bank's loss was still over three hundred thousand dollars. Some directors were slightly critical of William!s snap decision to sell off the land, a decision with which Tony Simmons had not agreed. William had Simmons'