4. Before Dinner
Letty and her mother busied themselves readying for dinner. This meant managing a houseful of servants. Waterwood housed the immediate A. Reed family, Uncle James and his invalid wife – who took all her meals in her room – and 12 servants. Uncle James occupied the third floor, Isabelle and Adolphus the second and Letty and her brother lived on the first floor, which was also the nerve center for the many family businesses. The house could house an additional 25 guests easily and could entertain over 200. It sat on 10 acres and was surrounded by Old Man Walker’s Orchards to the East and the senior Reed’s Cattle ranch to the South. The north was a working farm with chickens, cattle, dairy and an assortment of grains and vegetables.
Adolphus and James Reed did a lot of talking on their rides. Always had done. There was something about a long, dusty ride on horseback that lubricated the mind and loosened the lips. The entire Reed Central California Trust was hatched on one of their last trips back from the shining city of San Francisco to the small town they loved. It was not uncommon for the family to hear the details of an incredible venture after the men returned from a long ride. More and more, those ideas were influenced by the Reed women who always saved their best business ideas for just before the Reed brothers saddled up. On their last trip to the big city, after three hours in the saddle, Adolphus and James Reed had made a number of decisions. A visit to the lawyers was in order.
The Walker Reed Company had bet 78 per cent of its total assets, no small amount, on a gamble that people in California would never know about. They purchased The Union Trust Company outright and merged it with Wells Fargo. They did not take ownership of Wells Fargo security or concerns. The government had nationalized the carriage and railroads for the War to End All Wars. Wells Fargo was too valuable a brand to have much fuss made and the only thing the Walker Reeds had left to distrust was the press.
The business plan was essentially Letty’s. She was convinced that most banks in the United States were over extended – and especially in California. All that “mining money” as Uncle James called it was tied up in a lot of shaky investments – much of it in the New York Stock Exchange, which had failed miserably in ’26 taking all but the heartiest banks with it. Letty knew that the rest of the smaller banks would fail in the next three years and that they could be purchased for pennies on the dollar by a bank rich in cash and gold. The only bank close enough was Wells Fargo but it would need a very large infusion of capitol, enough to make it the Wells Fargo Super-Bank. What she didn’t know at the time was that the Walker Reed Company had a lot of money it needed to protect from the coming economic storm.
A bad American economy, Letty had said the last time she played the Business Game, was a compelling reason for America go back to war in Europe, it made the most economic sense. Before that was done, she reasoned, money would have to flow into and out of this new Super-Bank as the best bank customer in the world –Uncle Sam – would need to fund a war bigger than the last Great War.
The best news was that the US would purchase raw material and foodstuffs with these guaranteed loans from the Super-Bank. And that was just exactly what the Reed brothers invested the remaining 22% of their holdings on. They were either going to be richer or fantastically richer in as little as 10 years.
She was right of course. But, of course, she would not live to see her fantastic successes and the growing fortunes of her family.
Isabella had managed to keep the mysterious book out of her hands before dinner but Letty was able to get a glimpse of a few well-rendered words in a strong, intelligent and – she could only hear the word dangerous – hand. The words, some Latin-based language, were fantastical. Bloody and violent on the only page she saw while walking to the stables with her father and uncle.
Then, intercepted by her mother before she could ask one of the thousands of questions about Wells, Fargo, Pinkerton and the book, she was off to arrange the details of the meal with the staff. The men shared a meaningful glance.
“Do you think we did the right thing, Jimmy?”
“We’ve been lucky, Dolfus.”
“Luck ain’t got nothin’ to do with it! We gambled millions on this.”
“The legal boys liked it, Dolphus.”
“Yep.”
“She’s smart.”
“Yep.”
“She just has a talent for reading all those articles and reports and books and coming up with a simple plan.”
“So simple! That’s why I don’t know if – ”
“Dolphus. It’s always been simple. Working with Papa. We pulled metal out of the ground and the men in San Fran gave us money for it.”
“Yep. Hard currency, though, Jimmy. Land, we can see. Horses we can touch. We gave hard money for hard things. This is just all just so much paper…”
“I know your guts as well as I know my own and we’re going to do well. ‘Sides, we didn’t bet it all on the banks. We saved some for commodities and such.”
“She thought of that too. She didn’t even care one way or the other. It was just like – what does she call it? A theoretical exercise? What the hell does that mean, James?”
“It means you got horse sense and your wife’s got book sense, Adolphus. And that beautiful, crazy daughter of yours has both in spades.”
“Yep.”
