Litchfield was again spokesman.  “Nothing can be more painful,” he said, “to me personally or to the other members of the Board of Directors than to have circumstances arise such as these which have made this meeting necessary.  It was a surprise to us, on the occasion of the last session, to have our president take such exceptions to the suggestions which we advanced in good faith.  We tried to make it clear to him that we all recognized and appreciated the extraordinary services which he has rendered to the Consolidated Companies, yet we cannot admit that he possesses all the wisdom, or that his policies are the only ones which can be considered.  He made it quite evident to us at that time that our judgment was desired only to the extent that it coincided with his own.  He has seemed to overlook the fact that the Consolidated Companies is not a private corporation, but rather one in which several of the Directors are even more heavily interested, in a financial way, than he is himself.

“There is no question in the minds of any of us that the services of our president are still absolutely essential to the success of the corporation, and we have no wish or intention of having him separate himself from it; but we have become aware, through the unprecedented position which has been taken, that if those interests which we represent are to be safeguarded, immediate action must be taken to convince him that the Consolidated Companies is not his personal property, that the Executive Committee are not mere puppets, and that even the president of a great and successful corporation is, after all, an employee of that corporation, and subject to its control.  The gentlemen who have the honor to serve on the Executive Committee resent the imputation made by him that this code of business morals, which he has originated, is necessarily the only moral code, or that he himself possesses the right or the power to establish the standard by which to measure them as individuals or as officials.

“My colleagues have asked me to state the situation at this length in order that our president may understand that our present attitude is inspired not by any personal antagonism, but rather by what appears to us to be a necessary and simple business precaution.  What the Board of Directors propose now is to rescind the resolution, passed upon our president’s insistence at the last meeting, which gave him unlimited power in the conduct of the corporation, to divide the responsibilities in such a way that the fortunes of the Consolidated Companies will no longer remain dependent upon the life or services of any one officer, and to insist that the employees of the corporation be used only in the execution of the corporation’s business.  Our president will still be given a free scope in the conduct of the important matters which will be intrusted to him, but from now on the Board of Directors insist that the corporation shall be dominated by their joint policies, in the establishment of which our president will still have great weight.”