The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (82 page)

Spoken in
My Manner
sweeping the country." She clapped Sam on the back. "Cindar
. . . don't you wish that Mat Chilling could be here?"

 

 

Cynthia nodded. "Oh, dear God . . . I really do, because Yale is going
to need all the help he can get."

 

 

Yale hung up the phone. "I never expected such a fast reaction. So far,
according to Greene, we seem to have deeply disturbed three or four
Congressmen, and a half dozen ministers. No comment as yet in the press
from Catholic or Jewish opinion." Yale sat down. He continued to eat his
breakfast. "The book is selling at a good clip . . . I told Greene to run
another hundred thousand copies. He's got to move fast, I want plenty of
copies available. Right after Labor Day the advertising campaign will
really break."

 

 

As they were discussing the amazing sale of the book, it occurred to
Yale that he would now have to find an office staff for Challenge and
get them ready to handle the avalanche of membership cards that would
soon be pouring in.

 

 

"Do you realize what you are up against?" Sam asked. "Everyone who pays
ten smackers for that book is sure as hell going to claim his Gadfly Pin.
I don't know why or how . . . but you've unleashed some kind of craze
that's likely to sweep the country. Do you know what a job it's going
to be to handle all those membership cards . . . send out those pins
. . . and handle God knows how much correspondence?"

 

 

Yale and the girls looked at Sam, bewildered. "Yale!" Cynthia was dismayed.
"You never actually placed the order for those pins. You told the
manufacturer you were going to wait. Now what are you going to do . . . ?"

 

 

Yale didn't answer. He grabbed the telephone and placed a long distance
call to Pennsylvania. While the call was going through he cracked out
rapid-fire instructions to Anne and Cynthia. They would have to develop
a training plan for employees before the day was over . . . Anne could
write an advertisement for office help. Call Peoples and get it in this
afternoon's edition of the
Midhaven Herald
. They could interview
the applicants tomorrow. They should check with the post office on
the trucking of mail. They would need postage meter machines. How had
he forgotten that? They would have to play the whole operation by ear
. . . develop systems as they went along. He guessed that there would
be a tremendous amount of personal correspondence. Cranks would write
them . . . people would write them seeking information . . . maybe they
would even become a clearing house for all kinds of personal problems.

 

 

"Remember," Yale said, listening for his connection with Philadelphia,
"this book is only the beginning. Challenge is going to have enough money
and enough enthusiastic members some day to become a strong influence
on public opinion. We will challenge hypocrisy on every front!"

 

 

"Hear! Hear!" Anne cheered. "The King has spoken. . . ."

 

 

"Yes . . . this is Yale Marratt." Yale winked appreciatively at his
interested audience. "Mr. Healey. You've got your order. Yes, the Gadfly
Pins . . . go ahead with two hundred thousand of them. Yes . . . I know
. . . Challenge will send you an advance payment of fifty thousand dollars
today . . . balance on delivery. I want delivery of the first hundred
thousand within three weeks, boxed, ready to ship . . . no excuses. . . ."

 

 

 

 

Ralph Weeks chauffeured Agatha, Yale, and Sam to the Latham Shipyards.
Dressed in a wrinkled seersucker suit, wearing a yachting cap, his beard
extending his profile, Weeks made an impressive, if somewhat Bohemian
appearance behind the wheel of the car. When they drove up in front of
the administration building a crowd of unemployed Latham workers gathered
around the car and greeted them with shouts of encouragement. "You tell
'em, Agatha. Atta boy, Yale Marratt. Let's get this place going. Kick
Alfred Latham out. He and his son have ruined the place." Several men
were carrying crudely lettered placards exhorting them to get a Navy
contract to save the city of Midhaven.

 

 

Yale mentioned to Sam that employment in the Yards was down to three
thousand people from a war-time record when nearly thirty thousand were
employed. At the moment the Yards had only a couple of small tanker
contracts that were nearing completion.

 

 

"They think you just hire them, and pay the wages from some kind of a
money tree . . contracts or not." Agatha was grim. She remarked that the
laboring man really should be pitied. "Despite your Ten Commandments,
Yale, that try to tell people that they are free . . . capable of making
decisions . . . the truth is that only a small portion of us actually
run things. The rest of the population, the millions upon millions of
people in any decade of history, are just statistics. In one country
you have a Hitler or a Mussolini, and these statistical entities called
people are motivated, basically, by fear of extermination. In countries
like ours we do it more subtly . . . by the mass pressure of advertising
or the even stronger pressure of conformity."

 

 

As they entered the elevator Agatha was still expounding. "Did you ever
stop to think, Yale, the social force that this shipyard exerts on the
city of Midhaven? Right now in your high schools without the Lathams
saying a word, a solid body of future workers are not only being trained,
but they are being conditioned for an eventual future as employees of
the Latham Shipyards. Guidance counsellors are telling children that
Lathams always has openings in electrical work, drafting, pipefitting
. . . what have you? So you see, young man, the average man's life is
pretty much determined for him. His muscles and rudimentary brain power
are his only within certain prescribed areas."

 

 

Yale smiled. "The interesting thing about what you are saying, Agatha,
is that the slave owns the master. We are developing a society where your
average pre-conditioned man . . . also is pre-conditioned to expect as his
social right that he will be employed. In the coming years this is going
to lead to some interesting changes in your Victorian form of thinking."

 

 

The elevator attendant opened the door into a broad-loomed outer office.
Several reporters who had been waiting gathered around Yale and rapid-fired
questions at him. Will the Challenge Foundation direct the policies here?
Are you sure that you have the controlling interest? Will Miss Agatha
Latham take an interest in the operating management of the Yards? Is there
anything to the rumor that you will liquidate the Yards? Weren't you
quoted as saying that the day of this type of shipyard is fast running
out? Where did you get your investment knowledge, Mr. Marratt . . . from
Miss Latham? What's your philosophy of business, Mr. Marratt? Do you think
Senator Williams can get a Naval contract for the Yards?

 

 

Yale parried the questions good-naturedly. He told them that Challenge
was not interested in operating the Yards. Challenge had other work to do.
It was only interested in maximum dividends from its holdings. No. He was
not personally interested in taking part in the active management of the
Yards. Yes. He and Agatha Latham were vitally interested in making the
Yards profitable.

 

 

While he was talking, Alfred Latham opened the door of his private
office. Tall with a full head of white hair and piercing blue eyes,
he listened to the conversation a moment, and then coldly invited
them inside.

 

 

The big windows of the mahogany panelled office looked out on the skeleton
structures of the Shipyard ways. The floor was covered with two very large
oriental rugs. At one end of the office, the long directors' table was
already occupied by a number of people. Yale recognized Pat Marratt,
Doctor Amos Tangle . . . and yes, he thought, next to Pat must be Bert
Walsh, older, a little grey at the temples, and seeming even more poised
than when Yale had worked with him during summer vacations. Sitting at
the head of the table was Jim Latham who stared at Yale frigidly. Sitting
next to Jim were two men unfamiliar to Yale. A mousy-looking woman,
her hair tied in a pug, was evidently the recording secretary.

 

 

Yale wondered what Bert Walsh was doing here, and then as Bert made
his excuses to leave because of the strike situation at Marratt, Yale
realized that Pat had probably promoted him to Executive Vice-President
of the Marratt Corporation. Bert shook hands with Yale perfunctorily.
"I met Pat here to discuss what steps we are going to take. You can tell
your friend Cohen that he'll be sorry that he started this."

 

 

Yale didn't show his surprise. It was obvious that Pat had started a
surveillance of him, and was aware that Harry Cohen had been at his house.

 

 

"This place should be familiar to you, Agatha," Alfred Latham said as he
led her to her place at the directors' table. "I know that you haven't
attended a stockholders' meeting for several years, but we haven't changed
the offices much. It still doubles as my office and directors' room."

 

 

"It still smells the same, too!" Agatha sniffed. "As if several
generations of Lathams were buried under the floor!"

 

 

Sam thought that was funny. Sitting at the directors' table next to Yale,
he laughed until he caught the sneer of Jim Latham who was looking at
both of them as if they were ill-mannered serfs that the ducal lord
had been reluctantly forced to entertain. Yale had to admit that he and
Sam, dressed as they were in sport jackets and slacks, were in strange
contrast to the neat pin-striped, pinned-down collar appearance of the
other stockholders. Yale remembered, with a grin, that both Anne and
Cynthia had argued with him before he left. This morning, they told him
he should make an exception and at least try to look like the successful
young executive. He could wear his gabardine suit. A man capable of
earning millions of dollars shouldn't look like one of the crew just
off a tramp steamer.

 

 

It would make no difference, Yale thought, If I made a hundred million
dollars. I could never acquire the cool self-possession that Jim Latham
and Bert Walsh have adopted as a kind of trademark. Yale had discovered,
however, that his insouciant non-conformity, coupled with an ability
to say the completely unexpected, tended to ruffle these bright young
men. He found it constantly interesting to match his intensity against
their exterior polish, and see them grow dull and less confident.

 

 

Alfred Latham performed the introductions. Jim Latham nodded at Yale and
Sam, but made no effort to stand up or shake hands. Ed Baker, sitting
next to Jim, was introduced as Vice-President and Comptroller. Baker,
a slight man, wearing rimless glasses, shook hands limply with Yale and
Sam and bowed his head to Agatha. The man next to him, John Norwell,
was Vice-President in charge of production. He was a granite-faced man
who spoke with a Scotch accent. Yale thought he detected a congratulatory
tone in his voice. He took Yale's hand in a strong grip.

 

 

"You've been around Latham for a long time, Mr. Norwell. I've heard your
name mentioned frequently since I was a youngster." Yale looked at him
for a moment, and then said: "How would you like to take over here?"

 

 

Norwell's face was expressionless. "I've been here for thirty years,
laddie. To tell the truth, you still seem a bit of a youngster to me.
I wouldna' care to answer your question . . . yet."

 

 

Alfred Latham looked at Norwell, a little displeased. He continued with
the introductions. "On the other side of the table is Bessie Martin, our
recording secretary . . . down at that end is, of course, Patrick Marratt
and Doctor Amos Tangle. This constitutes our Board of Directors." Pat
ignored Yale. He nodded at Sam Higgins. Doctor Tangle shook hands with
both of them perfunctorily.

 

 

"Shall we call the meeting to order?" Agatha's interruption was crisp.
"I see no need of prolonging the agony." She looked at Pat Marratt a moment
and cackled at him. "How are things going at your plant, Patrick? Everyone
milling around outside like a lot of damned fools? The other day I was
offered twenty dollars if I would join the pickets and carry a placard
that said, 'Pat Marratt is a tight old skinflint.'" She smiled charmingly
at Pat. "If we get through in time I might take them up on it. Unless
you'd like to better the offer."

 

 

Pat's face flushed. "I've known you a long time, Agatha. Lately, I don't
find your actions or statements amusing. Maybe it's to be expected of
people in their senility."

 

 

Agatha and he glared at each other. Alfred Latham called the meeting
to order. Yale immediately asked for recognition from the chair.
"Mr. Chairman, I think we should establish immediately the stock control
of this corporation. I represent Challenge Incorporated, a non-profit
foundation. Mr. Sam Higgins will pass among you a certified auditor's
statement that one hundred and ninety thousand shares of this corporation
are controlled by Challenge. He will also give you proof that I have a
right to vote these shares. While Challenge is in the process of dealing
with certain interests who were caught napping when they sold Latham
stock short, I can tell you that under no circumstances will Challenge
dilute its controlling interest. Should there be any doubt in your mind
that the situation may change . . . even, should I decide to settle
completely with the shorts at an agreed upon price, Agatha Latham has
assigned to Challenge, for the purpose of this stockholders' meeting,
the right to vote her shares in any way I may desire."