Passage I

LITERARY NARRATIVE: This passage is adapted from the novel Homeland by John Jakes (©1993 by John Jakes).

LITERARY NARRATIVE: This passage is adapted from the novel Homeland by John Jakes (©1993 by John Jakes).

Joseph Emanuel Crown, owner of the Crown Brewery of Chicago, was a worried man. Worried on several counts, the most immediate being a civic responsibility he was scheduled to discuss at an emergency meeting this Friday, the fourteenth of October; a meeting he had requested.

Joe Crown seldom revealed inner anxieties, and that was the case as he worked in his office this morning. He was a picture of steadiness, rectitude, prosperity. He wore a fine suit of medium gray enlivened by a dark red four-in-hand tied under a high collar. Since the day was not yet too warm, he kept his coat on.

Joe’s hair was more silver than white. He washed it daily, kept it shining. His eyes behind spectacles with silver wire frames were dark brown, rather large, and alert. His mustache and imperial showed careful attention; he had an appointment at twelve for the weekly trim. His hands were small but strong. He wasn’t handsome, but he was commanding.

Three principles ruled Joe Crown’s business and personal life, of which the most important was order. In German, Ordnung. Without order, organization, some rational plan, you had chaos.

The second principle was accuracy. Accuracy was mandatory in brewing, where timing and temperatures were critical. But accuracy was also the keystone of any business that made money instead of losing it. The primary tool for achieving accuracy was mathematics. Joe Crown had a towering belief in the potency of correct information, and the absolute authority of numbers which provided it.

In Germany, he’d learned his numbers before he learned to read. Though a mediocre student in most school subjects, at ciphering he was a prodigy. He could add a column of figures, or do calculations in his head, with astonishing speed. In Cincinnati, his first stop in America, he’d begged the owner of a Chinese laundry to teach him to use an abacus. One of these ancient counting devices could be found in his office, sitting on a low cabinet, within reach. Money measured success; counting measured money.

Questions he asked of his employees often involved numbers. “What is the exact temperature?” “How large is the population in that market?” “How many barrels did we ship last week?” “What’s the cost, per square foot, of this expansion?”

As for his third principle, modernity, he believed that, too, was crucial in business. Men who said the old ways were the best ways were fools, doomed to fall behind and fail. Joe was always searching for the newest methods to improve the brewery’s product, output, efficiency, cleanliness. He hadn’t hesitated to install expensive pasteurization equipment when he opened his first small brewery in Chicago. He’d been among the first to invest heavily in refrigerated freight cars. He insisted that modern machines be used in the office. From his desk he could hear the pleasing ratchet noise of a mechanical adding machine. This blended with the clicking keys and pinging bell on the black iron typewriter used for correspondence by his chief clerk, Stefan Zwick.

Originally Stefan had resisted Joe’s suggestion that he learn to operate a typewriter. “Sir, I respectfully decline, a quill pen suits me perfectly.”

“But Stefan,” Joe said to him in a friendly but firm way, “ I’m afraid it doesn’t suit me, because it makes Crown’s look old-fashioned. However, I’ll respect your feelings. Please place a help wanted advertisement. We’ll hire one of those young women who specialize in using the machines. I believe they too are called typewriters.”

Zwick blanched. “A woman? In my office?”

“I’m sorry, Stefan, but you leave me no choice if you won’t learn to typewrite.”

Stefan Zwick learned to typewrite.

Every solid house or building was supported by a strong foundation; and so there was a foundation on which Joe Crown’s three principles rested. It was not unusual, or peculiar to him. It was the cheerful acceptance, not to say worship, of hard work. Among other artifacts, advertising sheets, flags and fading brown photographs of annual brewery picnics decorating his office there was a small framed motto which his wife had done colorfully in cross-stitch and put into a frame of gilded wood. Ohne Fleiss, kein Preis, it said. In rough translation, this reminded you that without industry there was no reward. From his desk Joe Crown couldn’t see the gold-framed motto; it hung on the wall behind him, slightly to his right. But he didn’t need to see it. Its truth was in him deeper than the marrow of his bones. He was a German.