Category: Chapters (Page 5 of 5)

“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.“

Eugene v. debs; “Statement to the court upon being convicted of violating the sedition act”; September 18, 1918

Perhaps Too Convenient

In 1934, there was nothing more exclusive than being a billionaire.

Except, perhaps, being the Man of Steel.

You could count on  one hand the number of billionaires in the United States: Lex Luthor and Henry Ford were, somewhat consistently, the wealthiest or second wealthiest man in America, depending on the day of the week that you looked into it. Number four and five were banker and former Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, and famed “oil man” H.L. Hunt, respectively.

The third wealthiest man in the United States, as was customary for him, was taking dinner in his home at Wayne Manor, joined by his adoptive family.

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“There is no shortcut to achievement, Life requires thorough preparation—veneer isn’t worth anything.”

George Washington Carver

That’s Something We Could Test

Wayne Manor, The Library

July 1920

The first time that Bruce Wayne read The Hound of The Baskervilles, he thought it was the best thing he’d ever read.

When Bruce Wayne was a child, his parents would read to him. He became, in turn, a voracious reader and seeker of knowledge. The bookshelves of his family’s ancestral home were packed edge-to-edge with texts; tomes from academia and collected works that previously were published as pulp stories.

There was almost no genre of fiction or nonfiction that Bruce didn’t have a favorite book within.

By far his favorite books were mysteries, but Sherlock Holmes had fallen out of his preference in favor of detective stories where the reader could actually solve the mystery.

Two months after the murder of his mother and father in a robbery-gone-wrong, Bruce, formerly a playful and spirited boy, had become a brooding, traumatized young man.

During a re-read of Hound, Bruce became crestfallen, almost to the point of tears. He put down the volume and relayed the source of his disappointment to nobody-in-particular.

“Impossible. There’s no real way Holmes could’ve known these specific details. This isn’t ‘elementary,’ it’s magical.”

“Magical, Mister Bruce?” Replied Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce’s adoptive father.

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