24

WILLIAM AND MATTHEW started their freshman year at Harvard in the fall of 1924.

William accepted the Hamilton Memorial Mathematics Scholarship and, despite his grandmothers’ disapproval, at a cost of $290, treated himself to ‘Daisy’, the latest Model T Ford which became the first real love of his life. He painted Daisy bright yellow, which halved her value but doubled the number of his girlfriends. Calvin Coolidge won a landslide victory to return to the White House – much to the disappointment of the grandmothers, who both voted for John W. Davis – and the volume on the New York Stock Exchange reached a five-year record of 2,336,160 shares.

Both young men – ‘We can no longer refer to them as children,’ pronounced Grandmother Cabot – had been looking forward to going to college. After an energetic summer of chasing golf balls and girls, both with handicaps, they were finally ready to get down to more serious pursuits. William started work on the day he arrived in their new room on the ‘Gold Coast’, a considerable improvement on their small study at St Paul’s, while Matthew went in search of the university rowing club. He was elected to captain the freshman crew, and William left his books every Sunday afternoon to watch his friend from the banks of the Charles River. He secretly enjoyed Matthew’s success, but was outwardly scathing.

‘Life is not about eight muscle-bound men pulling unwieldy pieces of misshapen wood through choppy water while one smaller man bellows at them,’ he declared haughtily.

‘Tell Yale that,’ said Matthew.

William, meanwhile, quickly demonstrated to his mathematics professors that, like Matthew, he was several strokes ahead of the field. He became chairman of the freshman Debating Society, and talked his great-uncle, President Lowell, into introducing the first university insurance plan, where students graduating from Harvard would take out a life policy for $1,000, naming the university as the beneficiary. William estimated that if 40 per cent of the alumni joined the scheme, Harvard would have a guaranteed income of about $3 million a year from 1950 onward. His great-uncle was impressed, and gave the scheme his full backing. A year later he invited William to join the board of the University Fund Raising Committee. William accepted with pride, not realizing that the appointment was for life.

President Lowell informed Grandmother Kane that he had captured one of the finest financial brains of his generation free of charge. Grandmother Kane testily told her cousin, ‘Everything has a purpose, and this will teach William to read the fine print.’

Almost as soon as the sophomore year began, it became time to choose (or be chosen for) one of the Finals Clubs that dominated the social landscape of the most successful at Harvard. William was ‘punched’ for the Porcellian, the oldest, most exclusive and least ostentatious of such clubs. In the clubhouse on Massachusetts Avenue, incongruously situated above a cheap Hayes-Bickford cafeteria, he would sit in a comfortable armchair, considering the four-colour map problem, discussing the implications of the Loeb-Leopold case and idly watching the street below through the conveniently angled mirror while listening to the large, newfangled radio set.

When the Christmas vacation came, William was persuaded to go skiing with Matthew in Vermont, and spent a week panting uphill in the footsteps of his fitter friend.

‘Tell me, Matthew, what is the point of spending an hour climbing up a hill only to come back down the same hill in a matter of seconds at considerable risk to life and limb?’

Matthew grunted. ‘It sure gives me a bigger kick than graph theory, William. Why don’t you just admit you’re not very good at either the going up or the coming down?’

They both did enough work during their sophomore year to get by, although their interpretations of ‘getting by’ were wildly different. For the first two months of the summer vacation they worked as junior management clerks in Charles Lester’s bank in New York, Matthew’s father having long since given up the battle of trying to keep William off the premises.

When the dog days of August arrived, they spent most of their time dashing about the New England countryside in ‘Daisy’, sailing on the Charles River with as many different girls as possible and attending any house party to which they could get themselves invited. They were fast becoming the most respected personalities of the university, known to the cognoscenti as the Scholar and the Sweat. It was perfectly understood in Boston society that the girl who married William Kane or Matthew Lester would have no fears for her future, but as fast as hopeful mothers appeared with their fresh-faced daughters, Grandmother Kane and Grandmother Cabot unceremoniously dispatched them.

On April 18, 1927, William celebrated his twenty-first birthday by attending the final meeting of the trustees of his estate. Alan Lloyd and Tony Simmons had prepared all the documents for his signature.

Well, William dear,’ said Millie Preston, as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders, ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to do every bit as well as we did.’

‘I hope so, Mrs Preston,’ William replied. ‘But if ever I need to lose half a million overnight, I’ll give you a call.’

Millie Preston turned bright red, and never spoke to William again.

The trust now showed a balance of over $32 million, and William already had plans for further growth. But he had also set himself the target of making a million dollars in his own right before he left Harvard. It was not a large sum compared with the amount in his trust, but his inherited wealth meant far less to him than the balance in his personal account at Lester’s.

That summer, the grandmothers, fearing a fresh outbreak of predatory girls, dispatched William and Matthew on the grand tour of Europe. This turned out to be thoroughly worthwhile for both of them. Matthew, surmounting all language barriers, found a beautiful girl in every major European capital – love, he assured William, was an international commodity. William secured introductions to directors of most of the major European banks -money, he assured Matthew, was also an international commodity, and a far less capricious one.

From London to Berlin to Rome, the two young men left a trail of broken hearts and suitably impressed bankers. When they returned to Harvard in September, they were both ready to hit the books for their final year.

In the bitter winter of 1927, Grandmother Kane died, aged eighty-five, and William wept for the first time since his mother’s death.

‘Come on,’ said Matthew, after bearing with his depression for several days. ‘She had a good life, and waited a long time to discover whether God’s a Cabot or a Lowell.’

William missed the shrewd observations he hadn’t fully appreciated in his grandmother’s lifetime, and arranged a funeral she would have been proud to attend. The great lady may have arrived at the cemetery in a Packard hearse (‘An outrageous contraption – over my dead body’), but her only criticism of William’s arrangements for her departure would have concerned this unsound mode of transport. Her death drove William to work with even more purpose during his final year at Harvard, and he dedicated himself to winning the university’s top mathematics prize in her memory.

Grandmother Cabot died five months after Grandmother Kane – probably, said William, because there was no one left for her to talk to.

In February 1928, William received a visit from the captain of the university Debating Team. There was to be a full-dress debate the following month on the motion ‘Socialism or Capitalism for America’s Future’, and he asked William to represent capitalism.

‘What if I told you I was only willing to speak on behalf of the downtrodden masses?’ William enquired of the surprised captain, slightly nettled by the thought that outsiders assumed they knew his ideological position simply because he had inherited a famous name and a prosperous bank.

‘Well, I must say, William, we did think your preference would be for, er – ’

‘It is. I accept your invitation. I take it that I am at liberty to select my partner?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Good. Then I choose Matthew Lester. May I know who our opponents will be?’

‘Not until the day before the debate, when the posters revealing the names will go up in the Yard.’

For the next month Matthew and William read the leaders in all the leading journals of the Left and Right at breakfast, and spent the evenings in strategy sessions for what the campus was beginning to call ‘The Great Debate’. William decided that Matthew should lead off.

As the day approached, it became clear that all of the politically motivated students, professors and even some Boston and Cambridge notables would be attending. On the morning before, William and Matthew walked over to the Yard to discover who their opponents would be.

‘Leland Crosby and Thaddeus Cohen. Either name ring a bell with you, William? Crosby must be one of the Philadelphia Crosbys, I suppose.’

‘That’s right. “The Red Maniac of Rittenhouse Square” as his aunt once described him. He’s the most committed revolutionary on campus. He’s loaded, and he spends most of his money on the popular radical causes. I can hear his opening already.’ William parodied Crosby’s grating tone: ‘“I know at first hand the rapacity and the utter lack of social conscience of the American moneyed class.” If everyone in the audience hadn’t already heard his views fifty times, he’d make a formidable opponent.’

‘And Cohen?’

‘Never heard of him. Probably a Jew.’

The following evening they made their way through the snow and biting wind, heavy overcoats flapping behind them, as they passed the gleaming columns of the Widener Library – like William’s father, the donor’s son had gone down on the Titanic – to Boylston Hall.

‘With weather like this, at least if we take a hiding, there shouldn’t be many to tell the tale,’ said Matthew hopefully.

But as they rounded the north end of the library they saw a steady stream of stamping, huffing figures ascending the steps and filing into the hall. After they had taken their seats on the podium William picked out some people he recognized in the packed audience: President Lowell, sitting discreetly in a middle row; ancient Newbury St John, professor of botany; a pair of Brattle Street bluestockings he recognized from Red House parties; and, to his right, a group of Bohemian-looking young men and women, some not even wearing ties, who turned and began to clap as their spokesmen – Crosby and Cohen – walked onto the stage.

Crosby was the more striking of the two, tall and thin almost to the point of caricature, dressed absentmindedly – or very carefully – in a shaggy tweed suit with a stiffly pressed shirt and a pipe dangling from his lower lip. Thaddeus Cohen was shorter, and wore rimless spectacles and an almost too perfectly cut dark worsted suit. William could have sworn he’d seen that face before.

The bells of Memorial Church sounded vague and distant as they rang out seven times.

The four speakers shook hands cautiously before the rules of the debate were spelled out. ‘The first speaker will be Mr Leland Crosby, Junior,’ announced the captain of debaters.

Crosby’s speech caused William little anxiety. He had anticipated the strident tone Crosby would take, the overstressed, nearly hysterical points he would emphasize. He recited the incantations of American radicalism – Haymarket, Money Trust, Standard Oil, even Cross of Gold. William didn’t think Crosby had done more than make an exhibition of himself, although he garnered the expected applause from his own little clique. When he sat down he had clearly won few new supporters, and it looked as though he might have lost a few old ones.

Matthew spoke well and to the point, charming his listeners by appearing to be the incarnation of liberal tolerance. William pumped his hand warmly when he returned to his seat to loud applause.

‘It’s all over bar the shouting,’ he whispered, but that was before they’d heard Thaddeus Cohen.

The young unknown took everyone by surprise. He had a pleasant, diffident manner and a sympathetic style. His references and quotations were catholic, pointed and illuminating. Without patronizing the audience, he conveyed a moral earnestness that made a failure to support those less fortunate than oneself seem to be irrational. He was willing to admit the excesses of the Left and the inadequacy of some of its leaders, but he didn’t leave the audience in any doubt that, in spite of its dangers, there was no alternative to socialism if the lot of mankind was ever to be improved. ‘Equality in the end is more important than equity.’ He sat down to loud applause from both sides.

William was flustered. A surgically logical attack on his adversaries would be useless against Cohen’s gentle and persuasive presentation. But to outdo him as a spokesman of hope and faith in the human spirit might also be impossible. He concentrated first on refuting some of Crosby’s more outrageous claims, then attempted to counter Cohen’s arguments with a declaration of his faith in the ability of the American system to produce the best results through competition, both intellectual and economic. He felt he had played a good defensive game, but no more, and sat down feeling that he had been well beaten by Cohen.

Crosby was their opponents’ rebuttal speaker. He began ferociously, sounding as if he now needed to beat Cohen even more than William or Matthew, demanding if anyone present could identify the enemy of the people among us tonight. He glared around the room for several long seconds as the audience squirmed in embarrassed silence, and even his most ardent supporters studied their shoes. Then he learned forward and roared:

‘He stands before you. He has just spoken in your midst. His name is William Lowell Kane.’ Gesturing with one hand towards William – but without looking at him – he thundered: ‘His bank owns mines in which the workers die to give its owners an extra million a year in dividends. His bank supports the bloody, corrupt dictatorships of Latin America. Through his bank, the American Congress is bribed into crushing the small farmer. His bank . . .’

The tirade went on for several minutes. William sat in stony silence, occasionally jotting down a comment on his yellow legal pad. A few members of the audience had begun shouting, ‘No!’ Crosby’s supporters shouted ‘Yes!’ loyally back. The society officials began to look nervous.

Crosby’s allotted time was almost up. He finally raised his fist and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that not more than two hundred yards from this very room we have the answer to the plight of America. There stands the Widener Library, the greatest private library in the world. Poor and immigrant scholars pass through its doors, along with the best-educated Americans, to increase their knowledge of the world. But why does it exist? Because one rich playboy had the misfortune to set sail sixteen years ago on a pleasure boat called the Titanic. I suggest, ladies and gentlemen, that not until the people of America hand each and every member of the ruling class a ticket for his own private cabin on the Titanic of capitalism, will the hoarded wealth of this great continent be freed, and devoted to the service of liberty, equality and progress.’

As Matthew listened to Crosby’s speech, his sentiments changed from exultation that with this blunder the victory had been handed to his side, to rage at the reference to the Titanic. He had no idea how William would respond to such provocation.

When a measure of silence had been restored, the debating captain walked to the lectern and said, ‘Mr William Lowell Kane.’

William walked slowly to the lectern and looked out over the audience. An expectant hush filled the room.

‘It is my opinion that the views expressed by Mr Crosby do not merit a response.’

He sat down. There was a moment of surprised silence – followed by thunderous applause.

The captain returned to the lectern, but appeared uncertain what to do next. A voice from behind him broke the tension.

‘If I may, Mr Chairman, I would like to ask Mr Kane if I might use his rebuttal time.’ It was Thaddeus Cohen.

William nodded his agreement.

Cohen walked to the lectern and blinked at the audience disarmingly. ‘It has long been true,’ he began, ‘that the greatest obstacle to the success of democratic socialism in the United States has been the extremism of some of its exponents. Nothing could have better exemplified this unfortunate fact more clearly than my colleague’s rebuttal speech tonight. The propensity to damage the progressive cause by calling for the physical extermination of those who oppose it might be understandable in a battle-hardened immigrant, a veteran of foreign struggles fiercer than our own. In America it is inexcusable. Speaking for myself, I extend my sincere apologies to Mr Kane.’

This time the applause was instantaneous. Virtually the entire audience rose to its feet and cheered.

It was no surprise to either William or Matthew that they won the debate by a margin of more than 150 votes. As the audience filed out of the hall, talking animatedly at the tops of their voices, William walked across to shake hands with Thaddeus Cohen.

‘How did you know my father was on the Titanic?’ he asked.

‘Because my father told me years ago.’

‘Of course,’ said William. ‘You must be Thomas Cohen’s son. Why don’t you join us for a drink?’

‘Thank you,’ said Cohen. The three of them set off together across Massachusetts Avenue, barely able to see where they were going in the driving snow. They came to a halt outside a big black door almost directly opposite Boylston Hall. William opened it with his key, and the three entered the vestibule.

Before the door was closed behind him, Cohen spoke. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be welcome here.’

William looked startled for a moment. ‘Nonsense. You’re with me.’

Matthew gave his friend a cautionary glance, but saw that William was determined.

They went up the stairs and into a large room, comfortably but not luxuriously furnished, in which there were about a dozen young men sitting in armchairs or standing in knots of two or three. As soon as William appeared in the doorway, the congratulations began.

‘You were magnificent, William. That’s exactly the way to treat that sort of people.’

‘Enter in triumph, the Bolski slayer.’

Cohen hung back, but William had not forgotten him.

‘Gentlemen, may I present my worthy adversary, Mr Thaddeus Cohen.’

Cohen stepped forward hesitantly.

All conversation ceased. A number of heads were averted, as if they were looking at the elm trees in the Yard, their branches weighed down with snow.

There was the creak of a floorboard as one young man left the room by the far door. Moments later there was another departure. Without haste, without a word being spoken, every other member filed out. The last to leave gave William a long look, then turned on his heel and disappeared through the door.

Matthew gazed at his companions in dismay. Thaddeus Cohen had turned a dull red, and stood with his head bowed. William’s lips were drawn together in the same tight, cold fury that had been apparent when Crosby had made his reference to the Titanic.

Matthew touched his arm. ‘We’d better leave.’

The three trudged off to William’s rooms and silently drank some indifferent brandy, and exchanged stories that no one listened to.

When William woke in the morning, an envelope had been pushed under his door. He tore it open to find a short note from the chairman of the Porcellian Club, informing him that he hoped ‘there will not be a recurrence of last night’s unfortunate incident’.

By lunchtime the chairman had received two letters of resignation.

After several studious months, William and Matthew were almost ready – no one ever thinks they are entirely ready – for their final examinations. For six days they answered questions and filled pages and pages of the little blue examination books, and once they had written their last line they waited patiently, but not in vain.

A week after the exams it was announced that William had won the President’s Mathematics Prize. Matthew had managed a ‘gentleman’s C, which came as a relief to him, and as no great surprise to anyone. Neither had any interest in prolonging their education, both wishing to join the ‘real’ world as quickly as possible.

William’s bank account in New York edged over the million-dollar mark eight days before he left Harvard. For the first time he discussed with Matthew his long-term plan to gain control of Lester’s Bank by merging it with Kane and Cabot. Matthew was enthusiastic about the idea, and confessed, ‘That’s about the only way I’ll ever improve on what my old man has achieved in his lifetime.’

In June 1928, Alan Lloyd, now in his sixtieth year, travelled to Harvard for graduation day. How William wished his father was alive to witness the presentation ceremony.

Afterwards, he took Alan for tea on the square. The banker looked at the tall young man with affection.

‘And what do you intend to do now that you’ve put Harvard behind you?’

‘I’m going to join Charles Lester’s bank in New York. I want to gain some more experience before I come to Kane and Cabot in a few years’ time.’

‘But you’ve been practically living in Lester’s Bank since you were twelve years old, William. Why don’t you come straight to us? We would make you a director immediately.’

No reply was forthcoming.

‘Well, I must say, William, it’s most unlike you to be rendered speechless by anything.’

‘But I never imagined you’d invite me to join the board before my twenty-fifth birthday. My father . . .’

‘It’s true that your father was twenty-five when he was elected. But that’s no reason why you shouldn’t join the board before then if the other directors support the idea, and I know they do. In any case, there are personal reasons why I’d like to see you take your place on the board as soon as possible. When I retire from the bank in five years’ time, we must be sure to elect the right chairman. You’ll be in a stronger position to influence that decision if you’ve been working for Kane and Cabot during those years, rather than as a glorified functionary at Lester’s. Well, my boy. Will you join the board?’

It was the second time that day that William had wished his father was still alive.

‘I should be delighted to accept, sir.’

‘That’s the first time you’ve called me “sir” since we played golf together, and I didn’t win on that occasion.’

William smiled.

‘Good,’ said Alan, ‘that’s settled, then. You’ll be a junior director in charge of investments, working directly under Tony Simmons.’

‘Can I appoint my own assistant?’ asked William.

‘Matthew Lester, no doubt?’

‘Yes.’

‘No. I don’t want him doing to our bank what you intended to do to theirs.’

William didn’t comment, but he never underestimated Alan Lloyd again.