“Gildersleeve woke up too late. His first cold realisation that he had a dangerous rival came when the North Star secured a huge government contract for harbour dredging and improvements, for which an appropriation of two million dollars had been placed in the parliamentary estimates. With the money credit established by the acquisition of this contract, the North Star was enabled to invest in a formidable fleet of tugs and the most modern dredging equipment.
“There was no stopping now—the North Star’s only salvation lay in continuous expansion to the last shred of money credit and the gobbling up of every worthwhile contract. High capitalisation and enormous daily overhead had to be met with tremendous production and what the newspapers call profiteering on a large scale. There is an advanced stage of development of a commercial enterprise when its directing head must chloroform his conscience. The North Star had reached that stage. It was a case of destroying or being destroyed. The war between the North Star and the Gildersleeve interests was on in deadly earnest, and I saw to it that the North Star was continuously the aggressor.
“Gildersleeve was no fool as a business man, and under his smug cloak of respectability he knew no scruples save where the law might halt him. But, as his potential destroyer, I had made a thorough, patient study of his weaknesses rather than his strength. He had so long been used to easy, safe stages of progress that he had lost the initiative of a plunger. He considered too long and was over-cautious; while Gildersleeve was holding long-winded conferences with his associates and executives, the North Star was striking hard where it was least expected to strike.
“Through a thoroughly organised private intelligence department, I knew the Gildersleeve plans before they were put into operation. The North Star too held conferences; but they were merely ‘blinds,’ the plans of the company being devised by none but myself, and none knew what they were until orders went out to the president over the signature of ‘J.C.X.’
“I picked my men for their ability to carry out instructions quickly and thoroughly. I had no need for generals or advisors; except that their recommendations regarding campaign plans gave me an idea what other people, including our competitors, would be liable to conceive we were about to do. If such recommendations tallied with the plans already formulated, I promptly discarded the latter and set about devising entirely different methods. The North Star never did the obvious thing, and the element of surprise invariably helped carry the day.