Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  In 1915 a craze for collecting matchbox labels hit Sayre Academy. William observed this frenzy for a week with great interest but did not join in. Within a few days, common labels were changing hands at a dime, while rarities commanded as much as fifty cents. William considered the situation and decided to become not a collector but a dealer.

  On the following Saturday he went to Leavitt and Peirce, one of the largest tobacconists in Boston, and spent the afternoon taking down the names and addresses of major match box manufacturers throughout the world, making a special note of those nations that were not at war. He invested five dollars in notepaper, envelopes and stamps and wrote to the chairman or president of every company he had listed. His letter was simple despite having been rewritten seven times.

  Dear Mr. Chairman:

  I am a dedicated collector of matchbox labels, but I cannot afford to buy all the matches. My pocket money is only one dollar a week, but I enclose a three-cent stamp for postage to prove that I am serious about my hobby. I am sorry to bother you personally, but yours was the only name I could find to write to.

  Your friend,

  William Kane (aged 9)

  P.S. Yours are one of my favorites.

  Within two weeks, William had a 55 percent reply, which yielded 78 different labels. Nearly all his correspondents also returned the three-cent stamp, as William had anticipated they would.

  During the next seven days, William set up a market in labels within the school, always checking what he could sell even before he had made a purchase. He noticed that some boys showed no interest in the rarity of the matchbox label, only in its looks, and with them he made quick exchanges to obtain rare trophies for the more discerning collectors. After a further two weeks of buying and selling he sensed that the market was reaching its zenith and that if he was not careful, with the holidays fast approaching, interest might begin to die off. With much trumpeted advance publicity in the form of a printed handout, which cost him a half-cent a sheet, placed on every boy’s desk, William announced that he would be holding an auction of all his matchbox labels, all 211 of them. The auction took place in the school washroom during the lunch hour and was better attended than most school hockey games.

  The result was that William grossed $57.32, a net profit of $51.32 on his original investment. William put $25.00 on deposit with the bank at 2.5 percent, bought himself a camera for $10, gave $5 to the Young Men’s Christian Association, which had broadened its activities to helping the new flood of immigrants, bought his mother some flowers and put the remaining few dollars into his pocket. The market in matchbox labels collapsed even before the school term ended. It was to be the first of many such occasions on which William got out at the top of the market. The grandmothers were proud of him when they were informed of the details; it was not unlike the way their husbands had made their fortunes in the panic of 1873.

  When the holidays came, William could not resist finding out if it was possible to obtain a better return on his invested capital than the 2.5 percent yielded by his savings account. For the next three months he invested—again through Grandmother Kane—in stocks highly recommended by The Wall Street Journal. During the next term at school he lost more than half the money he had made on the matchbox labels. It was the only time in his life that he relied solely on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal, or on any information available on any street corner.

  Angry with his loss of more than $20, William decided that it must be recouped during the Easter holidays. He worked out which parties and other functions his mother would expect him to attend and found he was left with only fourteen free days, just enough time for his new venture. He sold all his remaining Wall Street Journal shares, which netted him only $12. With this money he bought himself a flat piece of wood, two sets of wheels, axles and a piece of rope, at a cost, after some bargaining, of $5. He then put on a flat cloth cap and an old suit he had outgrown and went off to the local railroad station. He stood outside the exit, looking hungry and tired, informing selected travelers that the main hotels in Boston were near the railroad station, so that there was no need to take a taxi or the occasional surviving hansom carriage as he, William, could carry their luggage on his moving board for 20 percent of what the taxis charged; he added that the walk would also do them good. Working six hours a day, he found he could make roughly $4.

  Five days before the new school term was due to start, he had made back all his original losses and chalked up a further $10 profit. He then hit a problem. The taxi drivers were starting to get annoyed with him. William assured them that he would retire, aged nine, if each one of them would give him 50 cents to cover the cost of his homemade dolly; they agreed and he made another $8.50. On the way home to Beacon Hill, William sold his dolly for $2 to a school friend two years his senior, promising he would not return to his beat. The friend was soon to discover that the taxi drivers were waiting for him; moreover, it rained the rest of the week.

  On the day he returned to school, William put his money back on deposit in the bank, at 2.5 percent. During the following year this decision caused him no anxiety as he watched his savings rise steadily. The sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915 and Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany in April of 1917 didn’t concern William. Nothing and no one could ever beat America, he assured his mother. William even invested $10 in Liberty Bonds to back his judgment.

  By William’s eleventh birthday the credit column of his ledger showed a profit of $412. He had given his mother a fountain pen and his two grandmothers brooches from a local jewelry shop. The fountain pen was a Parker and the jewelry arrived at his grandmothers’ homes in Shreve, Crump and Low boxes, which he had found after much searching in the trash cans behind the famous store. To do the boy justice, he had not wanted to cheat his grandmothers, but he had already learned from his matchbox-label experience that good packaging sells products. The grandmothers, who noted the lack of the Shreve, Crump and Low hallmark, still wore their brooches with considerable pride.

  They continued to follow William’s every move and had decided that he would proceed as planned to the first form at St. Paul’s, in Concord, New Hampshire, the following September. For good measure the boy rewarded them with the top mathematics scholarship, unnecessarily saving the family some $300 a year. William accepted the scholarship and the grandmothers returned the money for, as they expressed it, “a less fortunate child.” Anne hated the thought that William was leaving her to go away to boarding school, but the grandmothers insisted, and more important, she knew it was what Richard had wanted. She sewed on William’s name tapes, marked his boots, checked his clothes and finally packed his trunk, refusing any help from the servants. When the time came for William to go, his mother asked him how much pocket money he would like for the term ahead of him.

  “None,” he replied without further comment.

  William kissed his mother on the cheek; he had no idea how much she was going to miss him. He marched off down the path in his first pair of long pants, his hair cut very short, carrying a small suitcase, toward Roberts, the chauffeur. He climbed into the back of the Rolls-Royce and it drove him away. He didn’t look back. His mother waved and waved and later cried. William wanted to cry, too, but he knew his father would not have approved.

  The first thing that struck William Kane as strange about his new prep school was that the other boys did not care who he was. The looks of admiration, the silent acknowledgment of his presence, were no longer there. One older boy actually asked his name, and what was worse, when told, was not manifestly impressed. Some even called him Bill, which he soon corrected with the explanation that no one had ever referred to his father as Dick.

  William’s new domain was a small room with wooden bookshelves, two tables, two chairs, two beds and a comfortably shabby leather settee. The other chair, table and bed were occupied by a boy from New York named Matthew Lester, whose father was chairman of Lester and Company of New York, another old family bank.