Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/282



result was that Claus Spreckels was a captain of industry, retired, but victorious; not only rich, but an independent financial power. You hear that his methods were — those of big business. I don’t know anything about them, nor do I care. It isn’t the father that is trying to clean up San Francisco, it’s the son.

And Rudolph Spreckels is the son of Claus; not only of his loins, but of his spirit. He was the eleventh or twelfth child; he couldn’t recall which, off hand, and it does not matter, for now he is the first. This masterful father tried to dominate his masterful son, and they clinched. It was a long, bitter business fight and, in the course of it, Rudolph Spreckels discovered that there is such a thing as Organized Capital. He learned that a financial power like Claus Spreckels can close all the banks and shut off credit to his “scab” enemies. But Claus Spreckels learned some things, too — among them the character and resources of his own son.

“I never was beaten but once in my life, he is quoted as saying not long before his death, “and that was by my own boy.”

This sounds like pride, and it was known in financial circles downtown that when the head of the Spreckels family went away, he left his affairs in the hands of Rudolph, his eleventh