After hanging around the law offices of Stein and Salant who "masterminded"
my conversations with Sylvan Gotschal, of Weil Gotschal & Manges for weeks and weeks, I decided it was time to get a job. Stein and Salant figured that they could mastermind Sylvan of W.G. M. and he made monkeys of them. Hot letters and phone calls were interchanged but it was much to do about nothing .
We waited and waited, and waited some more until my patience ran out. 85th Street was turned into a "preparation for a law suit" office, rather than a home, and Elise Gaines plus another secretary, Helene and I, began to pour over the papers of my 18 years with the Kastors. Letters, notes about Alfred's sickness, all the stuff the lawyers had me get up when in October Stein and Salant, recommended by Joseph E. Gilbert, had me "pack up all my cares and woes, papers, memorabilia, furniture (that Helene had given me) and moved out of the office with a farewell note Good bye and good luck. I climbed into a taxi, my heart in my mouth and I drove around and around Central Park and had a good old-fashioned cry. Eighteen years could not be erased by moving furniture.
I made a list of companies that I wanted to see. I wasn't sure that I could buy a company, certainly not if I could have gotten a good job. But, having been so long a lion my own" (when Alfred was sick
I was on my own and ran the show), I couldn't visualize knuckling down to a boss. The list consisted of competitors. Schrade, Dwight Devine, Ekco and Utica. I visited all on the list and each told me they were shocked, for they felt that I was Kastor and Camillus. George Graff, the Wool-worth buyer, wrote a letter to the Board that Camillus was a ship without a rudder. That didn't sit well with Alfred Kastor, for F. W. Woolworth was their #2 client.
At Utica, I began an active conversation with Walter Matt, son of F. X. Matt of Utica Brewery. He wanted me badly and gave me all their "figures. It looked surely as though I would make a deal and take over Utica. But one day, after some stalling, I learned that Alfred had reached Walter Matt, threatening him that if he made a deal with me, they would leave no stone unturned to "break" Utica and it was a most unfriendly act on Mattis part to deal with me.
This was not the case with C. C. Devine, whom I reached via Ellenville and Frieda Van Keuren, in his room at the Commodore Hotel in New York, where he was attending a meeting of the Cutlery Association. Did I say room? It was a closet with a bed. I sat on the chair while C. D. Devine sat on the bed and with an unlit cigar which he chewed and spat from one corner of his mouth, he explained that he and his family were going to close the business. I asked how much he wanted to sell, and he answered they hadn't thought of selling it; that they didn't want their name used. I told him we would change the name. They could retain their name, Dwight Devine. I would operate under the name, Ulster Knife Company.
Nothing that C.D. ever said or asked could be answered in words of one syllable. Everything had to be thought about and discussed with his family, etc. etc. Dwight Devine & Son was owned by C. D., John Devine his brother, Alice his sister (a medical doctor) and Jennie Young a married sister.
I made an appointment to drive my family to Ellenville, New York, on the 13th of December 1940, and in the words of Betsy and Margie, the factory "Looked like a cellar." As we left, having been entertained by Mrs. Devine (her mother was the first white child born in the State of New York), I knew without a doubt that this was what I wanted to do. But there was one question where was I to get the money?
Before New Year's I had an agreement with the Devines to buy the business. By the 16th of the month, I had Walter Scott in my office to tell him that I had not signed the final papers, but that I wanted Hibbard's business (he was the buyer).
On the 17th of January, I signed with the Devines. They turned over the management of the business, gave me an option to buy them out over a period of years, at a substantial increase in the price they ever had expected to get for the business.
The Devine family took this matter seriously and were kind enough to stay on the Board, consisting of C.D. Devine, Chairman, me as President and Treasurer, Harry Aaron as Vice President, and Henry Boer as Secretary. The complete Board added John Devine, Helene Baer, and with 39 typewritten pages of legal gobbledegook, we started in business. It wasn't long before Frank Kethcart was up at the factory and was one of our first customers in addition to Hibbard, Spencer Bartlett, Sears Roebuck and C. M. McClung. Dwight Devine was an old skinflint from way back, but absolutely honest. However, his pound of flesh was not easy to come by.
I met Harry Aaron through Alfred Kastor. I had loaned him some money to make the first electric shaver, which worked like a lawn mower (but it worked). After trying to fool around himself, Harry met a chap who was a real promoter and soon used the name "Packard" so that he could be sued by the Packard Motor Company and get the free publicity. Packard Shavers couldn't be delivered, so they sold empty boxes with a promise of delivery. How Harry ever stayed out of jail, only the Lord knows. Goodyear blimps were flying around, advertising the Shaver and it was the only one on the market at that time.
It wasn't long after we bought the Devine factory that the Remington Arms Company decided to concentrate on defense work and go out of the knife business.
Soon I was on my way to negotiate with Remington. I had a good letter of introduction from John Roscob, former Chairman of DuPont, the owner of Remington, but that didn't do much good in the negotiations. The final upshot was that the Pal Blade Company, through Joe Mailman, formerly of Utica Knife & Razor Company, bought the plant and he bought a lemon. I still have the papers of the offer that I made.
While visiting Remington, another competitor decided to sell out his business
Landers, Frary & Clark, and I bought, for steel was in short supply as were all metals since the defense program was now in full swing. All of the steel and metals that Landers had on hand, I bought for .02 a pound across the board. This, believe me, was a lifesaver for it gave us material at a crucial time.
After we removed the lace curtains and the photographs of President McKinley,
and gave the factory a cleaning and painting, Harry Aaron hired Bert and Elvira Hess to come and work. No two more ingenious individuals could be found than Harry and Bert. They literally tied presses together with bailing wire to blank blades, and the operations to make cutlery in this factory were unbelievable. They had 25 people working when we started. Each of the 25 had their own opinion how to make knives. It wasn't long before we had 300 employees, and a union problem on our hands, and nothing to ship for we had to build up work in process like filling an empty hose with water. I thought the water would never come out the other end.
One lifesaver among others, was the fact that Ulster in 1912 had the license to make the Boy Scout knives with the Boy Scout Emblem on the handle. This we capitalized on because we put into the government specifications the requirements of an Official Boy Scout Knife. This gave us the right to get a priority and the right to continue to produce.
