months. You must remember the extraordinary conditions in his line of
business caused by the events of recent years. He had lived to see his
old friends, merchants with whom he had dealt for decades, some of them
the foreign representatives of his own firm, out of a job and hunted
from their homes by creditors. He had lived to realize that the
commodity he and his family had been manufacturing for generations was
out of date, a thing no longer needed or wanted by the modern world. The
strain which his mind was enduring is shown by the febrile and
unbalanced tone of one of his letters, sent to a member of his own
family who ran one of the company's branch offices but was forced to
resign by bankruptcy:

"I have heard with wrath of the infamous outrage committed by our common
enemies upon you and upon your business. I assure you that your
deprivation can be only temporary. The mailed fist, with further aid
from Almighty God, will restore you to your office, of which no man by
right can rob you. The company will wreak vengeance on those who have
dared so insolently to lay their criminal hands on you. We hope to
welcome you at the earliest opportunity."

The failure of his business was the great drama of the century; and it
is worth while to remember what it was that killed it--and him. While
the struggle was still on there were many arguments as to what would
bring matters to an end; some cunning invention, some new patent that
would outwit the methods of his firm. But after all it was nothing more
startling than the printing press and the moral of the whole matter may
be put in those fine old words, "But above all things, truth beareth
away the victory." Little by little, the immense power of the printed
word became too strong for him. Rave and fume as he might, and hammer
the mahogany desk, the rolling thunders of a world massed against him