The Seven Ages of Johns-Manville

The Seven Ages of Johns-Manville A typical American corporation grows up. From single-hearted production to many-handed distribution. From hard-fisted Manvilles to hard-headed Morgans. From a family's source of livelihood to a nation's speculative favorite. HE law delights in defying common of them presented an opportunity for in ing has been retarded by the long winter of T sense, but now and then its flights of sulation, just as every rising house had to depression. None the less, the reorganiza fantasy are touched with genius-as when, be roofed. In 1901, Mr. Johns was dead, tion has gone on, and Johns-Manville is al for example, it preposterously assumes that and Mr. Manville's business had passed in ready a much changed corporate person. a corporation is a person. Compare this to the hands of his able son T. F., who uni The ambition of its leaders is that it shall perspicuity of the law with the fatuity of ted the two firms and launche~ the new come to sit on the bench of the substantial, those men who regard a corporation as a H. W. Johns-Manville Company on a lover deliberate citizens, occupying in its own number in the great game of stock-exchange like, impassioned quest for profits. The right a place analogous to that, say, of Gen roulette, who would write a corporation's infinite complexity of the company that eral Electric. exists today is largely traceable to the young history in the form of a series of stock • • • market quotations. A speculator might re lover's adventures. cord as corporation history that he had The soldier (seeking the bubble reputa HE management of Johns-Manville sold Johns-Manville common at so% in tion even in the cannon's mouth). By 1918, T has so set its stamp upon the company 1926; that he had bought it at 242% in Johns-Manville had developed a magnifi that it is well worth while to examine the 1929; had sold it at go in the same year; cent physique; it had the power to strike men who in recent years have made it what bought it at 148% in 1930; and had ended hard where there lay a possibility of profit, it is. by selling it again at 48% on the seven and in the person ofT. F. Manville it had In the first place: T. Frank Manville. He teenth of December last. Actually, the spec a leader who struck boldly. In the few years came very near to being the type of the old ulator had done little but describe the of War-time expansion, Johns-Manville fashioned captain of industry. His career history of a speculator's state of mind. Com stormed one stronghold of profits after began in shirtsleeves and ended in the met pare these fantastic fluctuations with the another. It may not have been a well-ma aphorical silk hat, not only because his po much more credible and interesting story chined, well-regulated army, but it had ter tent touch turned things into gold, but of Johns-Manville, the corporate person: rific hitting power, and its success was in because it turned them into the property First the infant (mewling and puking in proportion. Virtually at the peak of its ca ofT. F. Manville. He talked at top speed in its nurse's arms). Sixty years and more ago, reer, when the bubble reputation was with a low voice that was hard to understand, H. W. Johns had a windowless office in Wil in its hands, T. F. Manville, its leader, fell and he would brook no interruption. He liam Street, New York, and a "factory" built in battle. That was in 1925. For the mo had a thorough grasp of the very simple on a filled-in swamp in Long Island City ment, Johns-Manville's genius for success principle that the way to make money was a factory with one full-time employee, a had outstripped its organization. The dead to sell things-any things-for more than superintendent who hired help whenever leader's field marshals were at a loose end. they cost. He liked salesmen to be worth big there was an order to be filled. About the Soon a new leadership had to be called in, salaries, and did not hesitate to pay them in same time, C. B. Manville was mixing ce but the era of soldiering bequeathed a com proportion. He had three great field mar ment in the cellar of his home in Milwau pany whose rank and file are veterans of shals of sales: L. R. Hoff, George Nicol, and kee and carrying it out in pails to cover his marches and assaults, of the days of raids J. S. Carroll. The result was that his sales neighbors' furnaces. This unprepossessing and conquests. staff literally sold roofing by the acre and infant business had, however, the traits The justice (his belly with good capon pipe insulation by the mile. The result is from which Johns-Manville grew. Johns was lined). In 1927, the company passed from also (according to report in the industry) making a roofing of felt and other sub family control and management to the that Johns-Manville probably has today stances waterproofed with pitch; Manville bankers and to the public, for its control more men of independent means on its pay was doing primary insulation. was sold by H. E. Manville (younger roll than any other company of equal size. Next the schoolboy (with shining morn brother of T. F.) and other executives of T. F. Manville not only built up his ing face). Asbestos had come into the mar the company to J. P. Morgan & Co. Johns shock battalions of salesmen; he had mag ket. Salesmen of Mr. Johns were explaining Manville now stood on a financial rock; nificent confidence in them. If any manu to customers what it was: a mineral, but not the soldier was home from the wars, facturing company was on the market, his a metal, composed of slender fibers and ready to settle down, eager for more stable impulse was to say: "Sure, my men can sell found in veins of rock; it made roofing successes. To obtain these, Morgan & Co. that product at a profit"; and accordingly and insulating materials fire resistant. The installed as president of Johns-Manville the he bought all sorts of unrelated businesses public was taking to it. Paper and a dozen most able executive they could lay hands or acquired them in payment of debts, put other useful products were compounded on: T. F. Merseles, who had made an out ting them in the charge of his field marshal from asbestos, but asbestos cloth, still a rar standing success as head of Montgomery of production, W. R. Seigle. His salesmen ity, had to be imported. It was valued at Ward. He took matters in hand for a year once sold (besides roofing, insulation, and about $1 a square inch and was kept in and a half, when he, too, died. He was suc various asbestos products) such items as a office safes. In short, the business as a grow ceeded by one of his own lieutenants, Lewis speedometer, a refrigerator, a toilet seat, ing youngster was nourished not on shred H. Brown. At the time of Mr. Merseles' electrical fixtures, fire extinguishers, fiber ded wheat but on a new food, asbestos. death in 1929, business was already on the cuspidors, and wastebaskets. The almost The lover (sighing like furnace). Amer down grade. The fruits of the reorganiza fantastic variety of Johns-Manville products ica was the land of furnaces, and every one tion are yet to be tasted, because their ripen- today is in part a relic of this policy. Only • 8 2 • THREE PRESIDENTS OF JOHNS-MANVILLE: LEWIS H. BROWN, T. F. MANVILLE, THEODORE F. MERSELES Young Mr. Brown, who today with quiet calculation charts a stable future for made it big by making big profits; and Mr Merseles, who ably and briefly held the the company; dominant Mr. Manville, whose bold leadership in a few years stage between them. last year did the company, in an attempt to Since then, "H.E." has become better chateau perches majestically on a hill. In rationalize its varied field of operations, known. He has a magnificent 385-acre estate 1928, his daughter, Estelle, was married give up marketing steam traps for radiators. at Pleasantville, New York, where a French there to Count Falke Bernadotte, nephew One evening in October, of the King of Sweden (but 1925, he went home to the Plaza without rights of reversion to Hotel, where he had lived alone the throne). The wedding was for three years, called a waiter of unprecedented splendor: col to order his dinner, and dropped ored spot lights played on the dead of heart disease. There is wedding cake and movie cam no doubt that he had wished to eras on the bridal party. Since put the company on such a basis then Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Man that it could consolidate its ville have made several sump gains after his death. Not long tuous trips to Europe in their before, he had negotiated for yacht (which has an extra sale of control to J. P. Morgan length bed for the tall King & Co., but had changed his mind Gustaf), the last of the trips, in before the transaction was con 1930, being marred by the death summated. He left a net estate of the Queen of Sweden.

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