went on expanding—production and profits went on increasing. Judson-Morris began to be a real factor in the automobile world and in the financial world as well. Twice in four years it was recapitalized and refinanced.
It was no longer a close corporation. Old holdings were broken up and went on the market. The stock was listed on exchanges.
There came a time when in a single year the earnings of George's remaining thirty-six per cent. of the stock would have sufficed to buy in the open market the fifteen thousand shares of Judson-Morris necessary to make sure and permanent his control, but the young president did not seize this opportunity, because in that moment his loyalty to his company and its future proved greater than any mere self-interest. He refused to halt the year-by-year expansion by declaring a hull-clean dividend of all its earnings. In part this was because George Judson loved his company better than he loved himself. For his company he would seize the moment; for himself he would take a chance. This was typically Judsonian—in a way, it is typically American. Today, George believed, was the seeding time, tomorrow the harvest; the greater the sowing, the larger the harvest; therefore he never paid off today what could be invested to create a larger fund for paying off tomorrow. It seemed a shrewd policy, but it had its hazards.
