Within a month after his elevation
the two men were lunching together daily and Sam was spending many extra
hours behind closed doors in Colonel Tom's office.
Although American business and manufacturing had not yet achieved the
modern idea of efficiency in shop and office management, Sam had many of
these ideas in his mind and expounded them tirelessly to Colonel Tom. He
hated waste; he cared nothing for company tradition; he had no idea, as
did the heads of other departments, of getting into a comfortable berth
and spending the rest of his days there, and he was bent on managing the
great Rainey Company, if not directly, then through Colonel Tom, who, he
felt, was putty in his hands.
From his new position as treasurer Sam did not drop his work as buyer,
but, after a talk with Colonel Tom, merged the two departments, put in
capable assistants of his own, and went on with his work of effacing the
tracks of the cousin. For years the company had been overpaying for
inferior material. Sam put his own material inspectors into the west side
factories and brought several big Pennsylvania steel companies scurrying
to Chicago to make restitution. The restitution was stiff, but when
Colonel Tom was appealed to, Sam went to lunch with him, bought a bottle
of wine, and stiffened his back.
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