The Trespassers (28 page)

The machinery, he said, had been established. The good work will go on “without interruption, in order that the hopes of the men, women, and children who have placed faith in our efforts may not be dispelled and their suffering embittered.”

Before closing, the Intergovernmental Committee adopted two final resolutions. The first duly constituted it a permanent organization. It would meet again in London on August 3.

The second resolution spoke of the future. “The prospects have increased for the receiving of refugees…the governments should continue to study in a generous spirit these technical problems.”

In a generous spirit. Recommend to granite that it be as velvet, recommend to the blind that he see the nasturtium on the lawn.

The Evian Conference had come and gone.

Up to then there had been hope. Now that was done.

E
ACH DAY FOR MORE
than a week, Franz Vederle read everything any newspaper printed about the meeting at Evian. Each day his heart contracted with a deeper dismay. He could not feel that this failure was impersonal; he found in it only ominous and dark warning. Each day’s reports wrote another sentence in an essay on the world’s hostility to the foreigner, and deeply he felt an answering hatred to the ones who rejected him and the millions like him.

He had told Christa about everything that had happened at the Consulate—except about the Hungarian quota. It had been shock enough, without that. She had actually cried out in a thready voice of terror at the words, “our visas were denied.” She had been listless while he told her that he had already set in motion the material for the new applications. A few days later she had agreed, still listless, when he said, “I’ve decided it would be only prudent to investigate in some other directions, too—in case there are too many new delays about America.” He would write to Ramsey-Smithe in London, and to M. Cresselin in Paris, and perhaps start some balls rolling, there. “Perhaps we will end up in London or Canada or Holland, after all,” he had said brightly. But she had responded only with silence.

Christa read the news of Evian also. She hardly spoke about what, she read. She would look up, meet Franz’ waiting eyes, and slowly nod, as if she were recognizing something. “Yes, this is the way it would be,” her eyes commented. Since the news about the visas, she had known everything would fail them. Even this.

In New York, too, Vee Marriner followed each day the dispatches from Evian. They bewildered her. She felt quietly and oddly beaten back, rebuked by the great men at Evian for her eagerness to help the Vederles, Rosie Tupchik, Bronya, and any others she could help. It was as though they said, to her directly, “Look here, my girl, don’t be so sentimental.
This
is the correct way to be—remote, wary, carefully calculating every conceivable result of taking a positive step.”

To Jasper Crown, the Evian Conference was a daily jab at his conscience and he resented the jab. Because Vee was interested in it, he felt that he ought to follow the news of it, but after a quick glance at the headlines in the
Times
each morning he was unable to force himself to read on. His own problems pressed so thick and tight now that he had no minutes to spare. Vee could tell him about it.

Each day he had a dozen appointments. He now began his business day at the breakfast table, and there was hardly one morning when he did not have an eight-thirty appointment with some station manager, news broadcaster, banker, possible investor, and the like. It pleased him to see how invariable was the eagerness to meet him at whatever fantastic hour he suggested. Eight-thirty in the morning and eleven at night were as acceptable as the more usual business hours. He would suggest some outlandish time to whoever it was he wished to see and, nearly always the answer would be an unhesitating, “Yes, of course, Mr. Crown, I know how busy you are.

They each wanted him to offer a job, a deal, a contract. Even the prospective investors now were accessible to him for the mere offer of a personal meeting. And he offered only in exceptional cases. For the rest he left the entire process to Kenneth McAnson, Vice-President and Treasurer, Giles Craven, Vice-President in charge of sales, and Frank Terson, who had resigned from CBS to move into the number-two spot Timothy Grosvenor once held. The last major stock-selling effort he himself had carried through from start to finish had been with Stark, Conerhan, and Friedman. They had signed on July 3, the total crossed the eight million mark, and just as he had foreseen, the final rush began. He knew now that if he had wanted to capitalize at twenty million, it would have been entirely feasible.

Now, when he could not avoid a meeting with prospects, he found the session exceedingly dull. Each time the conclusion was in sight before the meeting began. Eight million dollars of the smartest, shrewdest investment capital in the country spoke for him and his future. There was no longer any battle for victory in a meeting about another $100,000. There was now only the victory.

The same automatic victory was now his nearly every time he went on some trip to sign up a new station or group of stations. The fighting, arguing, selling talk was no longer necessary. He now had ninety stations signed; he needed only twenty or thirty more. The whole world of station owners, station managers knew of his two astonishing innovations—first, his formation of The Station Advisory Board, comprised of seven men, representing the largest stations in the new chain and meeting as a collateral group to the network’s board of directors, and second, his equally unheard-of decision to let the stations themselves buy up to twenty-five per cent of the securities and thus share in the network profits.

Both of these were irresistible magnets. Whenever an independent
did
turn him down, there was usually regret, fury at some contract which still had a year or two to run with one of the big chains. He was able to pick and chose, and he chose only stations that were most firmly established in their localities, stations that had the soundest management and the best local schedules. He wanted no lame ducks, no potential weak links.

If all went well, he would open the network officially by October 1. Sometimes he found himself wishing that the maniac Hitler would stage some huge crisis for October, something, with luck, as big as
Anschluss.

A
moment
later he would chide himself for being cold-blooded. But he would tell himself, “If anything does happen, I mean to be ready for it.”

The thing he enjoyed most now was hiring his major staff. He wanted the best broadcasters, the best program men, the best news analysts, the best forum managers, the best everything. He meant to have them, and his own years in radio had long since spotted them decisively and clearly. It was always stimulating to offer one of them a job. When the moment came, he shoved finesse aside, ignored the old nonsense about not raiding another company’s personnel. That was an old-school-tie concept thought up by employers who wanted hands off their underpaid and ordinarily helpless underlings.

Now, in the middle of July, he was concentrating on rounding out his executive staff and his staff of talent. This very morning he would sign up Bellinger, send him abroad at once to hire the few people there who were already experienced enough and good enough in radio, and to find others who one day might be.

Bellinger he knew only slightly. Their paths had crossed for a week, two years ago, when Jasper was leaving his old company. Joseph Bellinger was just beginning there, in the then not-very-important post of Foreign Programs. Jasper had watched all foreign broadcasts with particular care, and he knew that in this field Bellinger was the most promising of the available men in any company. He was the man he must have.

Jasper glanced at his watch. It was eight-twenty-five. Bellinger would arrive in a moment, even before eight-thirty. They all did. As he thought it, he heard the bell.

“Good morning, Bellinger.”

“Good morning, Mr. Crown.”

“Let’s have some food first, coffee starts my wheels turning.”

They began their breakfast. Jasper glanced at the headlines and made quick remarks about what he read. Bellinger nodded, grunted once or twice, but was silent.

“What pay are they giving you over there?” Jasper suddenly asked.

Bellinger looked startled.

“This is in confidence, of course,” Jasper added.

“Eight thousand, next January,” Bellinger replied, as if without volition.

“About seven now, hey? The swine.”

Bellinger looked at him sharply. This approach was unheard of. Usually there were lots of generalities first, sly hinting to find out whether or not you were interested, how much you wanted. Not this guy. He threw his dart right at the bull’s-eye of money.

“There hasn’t been so much foreign broadcasting up to now,” Bellinger pointed out. “Sponsored, anyway. If it gets to a point that sponsors pay for foreign—”

“Will you sign up with me? I’ll start you at fourteen.”

“Fourt—I—well, this is pretty sudden.”

Jasper laughed.

“What’d you think I got you here for? You knew I was going to offer you a job. Fourteen it is. Contract for a year.”

“Well, I couldn’t possibly say no to that, though I’d like to talk a bit with you about—”

“Talk, sure. My aims, principles, et cetera. Let’s be honest with each other. What do you care about all that crap really? Fourteen thousand, year’s contract. You know the theory I work on, don’t you, about pay?”

“No, I don’t. I’ve heard you were generous, but I—”

“Generous, hell. Some more of the idiotic nonsense that gets around about a man starting something big. He’s generous. He’s ruthless. He’s this. He’s that. I go on the assumption that what ever the big networks pay anybody is about a third of what he’s worth. I automatically double that, and still drive a thirty per cent bargain.”

Now Bellinger laughed. It was a burst of sound, a relieved, explosive escape from his own incredulous doubt at what he had heard. He had hoped at the most for an offer of a thousand a year more. Possibly fifteen hundred. He would have grabbed at it; it was clear that the money boys upstairs at the company were going to keep on raking in millions for themselves and their stockholders—and shelling out peanuts to their talent, the lifeblood of their business. It was that way in most creative enterprises except the movies—big salaries for executives, salesmen, advertising men, press agents—big dividends for stockholders—big dough for everybody except the writers, the editors, the idea people, who
made
the enterprise if they were talented and ruined it if they were dull.

“Damn it, Mr. Crown, I like the way you approach a thing.” His admiration was thoroughgoing.

“I’m too busy to horse around,” he replied.

Bellinger nodded. He studied the face opposite him, examining it, searching for some clue to the direct power that streamed out of the man.

“You can’t miss,” he said simply. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but just these few minutes make me sense something—you can’t fail at this.” He saw Jasper smile, saw his eyes, over the smiling mouth, go cool. “I’m not a flatterer,” he went on hastily. “I just think radio is so scared of itself yet—”

“Right. And I’m not scared of it at all. My approach is the opposite of theirs. They have a basic contempt for the little people—that’s why their programs are mostly hogwash or soap opera, with a little good music or news thrown in as a sop to the public-service idea.”

“You’re planning—”

“Listen, Bellinger. The time will come when prime ministers and kings and presidents will
ask
to get on the air. I’m going to build up an audience level that will make that happen, and happen fast. CBS and NBC will follow my lead. Have to.”

Meetings like this aroused something in Jasper that was apart from and even better than the meetings with the Wall Streeters. Here he became a god of the future to the very men who would create the future for him by their own gifted minds and talents. And they would never feel that he was exploiting them, for the rewards they would get would be twice what they could wrest out of the only other employers they could find. He would raise hob all over the industry by his new ideas, his new scale of pay. That pleased him, too. He wasn’t doing it just to be Peck’s Bad Boy, but from principle. He was championing the employee, raising the status o the performer, the news commentator, the singer, even the gag artist. They would one day say, “After Jasper Crown got going—” and their new calendar would date from his appearance on the air.

Bellinger responded to everything Jasper said. He would resign as soon as it could be arranged. He would leave at once for Europe, he was only too eager to do s. There were men in Europe, some already broadcasting in special crises like
Anschluss,
more not even dreaming of giving up their newspaper jobs, their news-bureau jobs. He suggested Kane in London, Jenkins or Zitorsky for Paris, for Germany and Central Europe he was uncertain, but he, could ask around. He knew Shirer and Fodor and Streit and all of them. They would suggest good men. Perhaps some of them would themselves want to sign up.

For fifteen minutes they discussed the foreign staff. Jasper pulled a card from his pocket and read names and figures from it. He had obviously given careful thought to the problem long before this, and now had many specific suggestions to make. There was nothing vague or impractical about his instructions. He had an estimate of each person’s current salary, a decision about what was to be offered instead. It wasn’t always double the amount, but it was always enough more to be tempting. He didn’t expect many refusals.

Joseph Bellinger took rapid notes and grew steadily more impressed with the man he was to work for. Then he sat, intent and admiring, while Jasper gave him the broad picture of the day-in, day-out news programs from abroad, the plan to split the sponsorship of the news according to subject, not according to the conventional fifteen-minute unit of time. He could see how complex the thing could be, for accounting departments, for budget-makers. But he could see it would work. At the end, the men sat staring at each other in silence.