Tending the Family Business

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE wrote that America possessed a unique advantage in that it was born a democracy and had none of the trappings of feudalism. The members of the du Pont family would have a horse-laugh at the expense of that thesis. The du Ponts were a self-proclaimed aristocracy, a family that preferred its sons and daughters to marry cousins so as not to sully the family blood. By the 1920s they were the wealthiest and most powerful family in the country. They controlled General Motors and U.S. Rubber, as well as their own corporation. People said they owned the state of Delaware--and, in a way, they did. Individual du Ponts owned most of the state's prime real estate, both major newspapers and the major industries. One cousin, Alfred I. du Pont, held similar sway over Florida.

Mosley's book takes the du Ponts from the time they left France and started a gunpowder business in Delaware in 1802. He relates the personal side of the family--their loves, their fears and their extensive rivalries within the family. The monopolistic business enterprises of the du Ponts are discussed from the family's point of view: this book does not criticize the du Ponts, it merely explains them.

For Mosley the explanation of the family's success stems from baronial mentality that allowed them to view the company as both their empire and their self-justification. As long as the family controlled the company, their fortunes and their power grew. The book is subtitled The Rise and Fall of the du Ponts of Delaware-- and the fall comes only in the late 1950s with a government crackdown, anti-trust laws, and the removal of the family from active control of the corporation.

Mosley is a voyeur. He dips under their lordly business decisions into personal journals and diaries of his subjects and recreates their emotions and feelings. He attempts to latch onto the most vulnerable side of the leading family members, and expands on the little quirks to introduce each of his characters. Mosley's style of intimate portrayals is effective with the twentieth-century du Ponts--simply because he had superb material to work with.

The dearth of personal records of earlier family members forces Mosley in the first few chapters to give a dry account of the cousins' earlier business efforts in Delaware. Mosley, however, blunts the tediousness of some of these chapters with a catchy prologue set in 1918.

The scene is a du Pont Corporation board meeting. The board of officers is gathered awaiting the arrival of P.S. du Pont, their president. His absence is baffling. He is punctilious about company matters, and he never misses a board meeting. The officers begin to speculate that perhaps the influenza epidemic or a terrible accident has stricken the boss. He, in fact, is missing the meeting to be at the sick bed of his chauffeur--his only true friend. Mosley contrasts P.S.'s affection for his servant with his marked coldness toward his wife. P.S. is the first of many du Ponts in the book whose friendships and love-lives are warped by the excesses and eccentricities of their upbringing.

Mosley spends less than half the book on the nineteenth century, establishing family traditions of unhappy near-incestuous marriages, cousinly battles over control of the company and a heritage of business genius. In the early years, these characteristics are most clearly embodied in General Henry du Pont, who attempted to banish his brother William from company ranks because of his scandalous romances. General Henry started the company's monopolistic control of the gunpowder industry by promoting the establishment of the Gunpowder Trade Association. Originally a cooperative effort amongst gunpowder manufacturers, the association rapidly became the cover for du Pont to buy out all its rivals.

After General Henry, the most successful director of the company was P.S. du Pont; and it is on P.S. and his cousin Alfred I. du Pont that Mosley focuses the rest of the book. His fascination with these two men is obvious; he reveals their motives and characters as if he knew them. If Mosley were any less meticulous with his and notes you might think he had fabricated scenes in order to create lively portraits.

P.S. ran the company in the family's interest. Mosley details how this proud man was genuinely aggrieved and confounded when a government committee led by Alger Hiss investigated du Pont's World War I activities and accused them of gross profiteering. He simply could not fathom the criticism. In his mind had it not been for du Pont's efforts, the allies would not have had enough gunpowder to win the war.

The book is a catalogue of these arrogant viewpoints and dealings. The du Ponts' lifestyles and attitudes are startling anachronisms, for when the family crossed the Atlantic they brought with them the values of Louis XIV. From the start of their business in the United States the du Ponts viewed themselves as privileged individuals, and Blood Relations is the absorbing account of the two hundred years they flaunted their self-declared superiority.