Читать книгу All in a Life-time онлайн

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When, as president of my Board of Directors, I sat at the head of the table at our meetings, and looked down either side of the table, my eyes fell upon at least half a dozen of the greatest financial giants of the day—men who, as heads of enormous and often clashing interests, represented nearly every element in the epic struggle for the financial supremacy of America—that savage struggle which the public at large sensed but vaguely, and which it saw clearly only at the great moments of climax, as when the veil was lifted by the famous life insurance investigation, and later by the Pujo investigation. About this board were six representative financiers. These men were as diverse in their appearance and character and their methods as the interests they personified. The battle between the banks on the one hand and the trust companies on the other, was represented by James Stillman and Frederic P. Olcott. Stillman, as became the champion of the older type of institutions, the banks, was a perfect example of the well-built man of the world, sartorially correct, soft spoken, with a tendency toward cynical humour, and with a tongue capable of devastating sarcasms, while Olcott, as became the representative of the more recent competitors in the general banking business, the trust companies, was a type of the rough-and-ready, physically powerful, hard-spoken, tumultuous fighter. There was nothing conciliatory in his make-up. He rather enjoyed wrangling with his competitors, and prided himself on never having become money-mad, and looked commiseratingly on those who had. He was more interested in this financial struggle as a test of intellectual prowess, but wanted to remain an amateur gladiator rather than to become a professional wealth accumulator. Olcott’s burly figure, carelessly clad, surmounted by a huge, bucket-like head, adorned with unbelievably big and protruding ears, and illuminated with eyes that could glare terrifyingly, was in striking contrast with Stillman’s smooth-buttoned figure, his keen, distinguished face, and eyes that menaced by their subtlety and gleam of concentrated will, but whose whole manner betokened a measured, studied self-restraint.