The Business of Tomorrow by Dirk Smillie

Author:Dirk Smillie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

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One person unimpressed by Harry’s new crimebuster career was his wife. Less than a year after Harry was named head of the rackets committee, Carol moved out of Falaise. Her primary residence became their apartment on E. 57th Street. From Carol’s point of view, they were already living separate lives. Besides being immersed in crime committee meetings, Harry was frequently coming or going from Cain Hoy, tending to his 800 cows and bulls; buying and breeding his expanding stable of thoroughbred horses; analyzing progress on Goddard’s experiments and regular reports on the aviation programs he and Daniel had established a decade earlier; raising money for Jewish aid; and frequently on the road delivering speeches on aviation and rocketry. Carol had her art and her friendships at the Oxford Group. But she no longer had a husband, she felt.

In early 1937, after spending their first New Year’s apart, Carol and Harry stopped seeing each other altogether. Instead they jousted by mail over questions like who would pay the help. Carol wrote Harry: “About two weeks ago I asked you if Floreka and the Chef and Augusta would be available for the apartment. You could not tell me when and said ‘get my own cook.’ I have done so and gave you every opportunity to cooperate with me. I can’t keep changing cooks constantly. I have already had four in the past two months and am not willing to change again… it is very unfair to expect me to pay two sets of servants under the circumstances.” Was an affair among the circumstances? “After all marriage is a fifty-fifty contract, not a harem,” wrote Carol, later explaining she could no longer tolerate a relationship consisting of “Marriage for me, freedom for you.”

Later that year Carol formalized their separation by moving out of the E. 57th St. apartment, triggering a bitter letter from Harry, who wrote: “you abandoned our home.” Carol responded a few weeks later, on Valentine’s Day, contending she had no choice. “Do you really think that it was possible for me to continue living at your apartment in view of your conduct and unwillingness to assume the essential obligations of marriage?”

Most of their arguments revolved around money. Carol revealed to Harry that, from the beginning of their marriage, living in a world of opulence was a personal sacrifice. She would have preferred the frugal life of a simple artist without the trappings of wealth. Carol made these complaints to her husband from the comforts of her elegant apartment overlooking the East River at 10 Gracie Square. The irony was not lost on Harry: “You assured me that your one desire was to shake off all luxury and live without financial sycophants in a small studio on a few thousand a year, or better on your own earnings. Now, your new environment speaks for itself.”

A particularly contentious issue was the investment account Harry had created, with holdings worth some $3 million and delivering $100,000 in annual income, intended for their combined household expenses.

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