The man who changed his destiny with a letter

Nearly a hundred years ago, an article was published in the United States entitled Everybody ought to be rich [Everyone Should Be Rich], in which the author paid a series of compliments to capitalism, to the savings of the masses, and, above all, to the stock market, which in his view was the mechanism for fulfilling the purpose of the article's title, namely, that any citizen could be a potentate. A debatable worldview, but with an almost insurmountable problem: the text was published only a couple of months before the famous Crash of '29, the stock market collapse that plunged the American economy into a decade of darkness, the well-known Great Depression of the 1930s, a long period of hunger and unemployment.

The author of the article was John Jakob Raskob, a pivotal figure in the American business world. His blind faith in the functioning of the market economy most likely stemmed from the fact that, having enjoyed a comfortable childhood, his father's death forced him to abandon his studies and become self-employed. With great effort and ingenuity, he managed to rise to the pinnacle of capitalism. In his case, the American Dream worked, and surely if his father—a small-time cigar maker of German origin—had lived to see his son's success, he would have considered the family's American adventure worthwhile.

At the service of the DuPont

After gaining experience in a wide variety of jobs, while working at the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company he decided to send a letter, complete with recommendations, to none other than Pierre du Pont, the company's president, offering to work for him directly. This Du Pont was a member of one of the richest families in the United States and a direct descendant ofÉleuthère du Pont de Nemours (1771-1834)The offer was successful, and in 1901 Raskob began working as DuPont's personal secretary. After a decade of service, he joined the treasury of the DuPont family business, which he would take over in 1914, at the age of thirty-five. But his rise had not yet reached its peak, because only four years later he was appointed financial director of both DuPont and General Motors. He took this position at the automobile company because General Motors was immersed in a severe crisis and Raskob had recommended that DuPont make sufficient investments to rescue it, so his protector became one of its main shareholders. Raskob's reign over the car manufacturer's finances lasted a decade, until he folded amidst a bitter power struggle with General Motors. Alfred P. SloanIt must be said that Raskob's influence on DuPont was decisive, transforming it into a modern and diversified multinational.

And it was precisely in this environment of triumph and power that Raskob wrote the article with which we opened this story, so it's easy to understand his visceral optimism. But his goals would not end there, because shortly before leaving his responsibilities at General Motors, he joined the executive branch of the Democratic Party of the United States, a position he held until Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to power (1932), with whom he had very deep disputes regarding macroeconomic policies.

Promoter of the Empire State Building

During the Great Depression, Raskob focused his interests on real estate, specifically the fight to build the tallest skyscraper in New York. He was the main investor in the construction of the Empire State Building, but once it was completed and he triumphed in the private war with the Chrysler Building, making it profitable was a different story... and it wasn't a good business until 1950, just before our protagonist's death.

Like the vast majority of American millionaires, Raskob was very active in charitable causes. Together with his wife, with whom he had thirteen children, he founded the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities (1921), which was dedicated to activism in education, health, and general welfare. That the foundation was visibly Catholic is no anecdote; it was a declaration of principles in a Protestant-dominated America.