Creative Capital. Spencer E. Ante

France.” Over the years, long after Doriot left New York & Foreign Development, Strauss continued to turn to Doriot for his expertise in evaluating new technologies and investment opportunities.

      In the fall of 1924, Doriot tried his hand at something entirely new: writing for the public. Doriot never took writing seriously but his efforts signaled the beginning of his evolution into a public figure, offering pointed commentaries on the world’s most important issues. Under a one-word pseudonym, Beaulieu, a cheeky reference to the village near his home in France, Doriot wrote two contrarian essays for The New Republic criticizing the Dawes Plan, an agreement designed to keep the lid on growing post-war tensions in Europe. After Germany defaulted on its steep reparations payments of nearly twenty billion marks in the summer and fall of 1922, the French and Belgian governments occupied the Ruhr region. The occupation of the center of the German coal and steel industries both outraged Germany and put further strain on its economy.

      To defuse tensions and get Germany back on a payment plan, the Allied Reparations Committee asked the businessman and politician Charles G. Dawes, who soon after became vice president to Calvin Coolidge, to find a solution. After a long and difficult negotiation, Dawes unveiled his plan in April of 1924. It called for a reparations schedule of one billion gold marks in the first year, rising to DM2.5 billion in the fifth, providing some room for changes if the price of gold went up or down more than 10 percent.

      In Doriot’s first story, “The Dawes Plan Myth,” published in the September 24, 1924 issue of The New Republic, he argued that the plan “is mainly and primarily a myth” because it was an unrealistic intrusion into Germany’s affairs. “The plan does provide for an initial truce,” wrote Doriot. “That is all to the good. It holds out the hope of reparations payments. That approaches fraud. As will appear, no substantial reparations can be paid under it.”

      In the second essay, “The Dawes Plan and the Peace of Europe,” published in the December 10, 1924 issue, Doriot stepped up his attacks. No longer would reparations be paid, but now Doriot argued that “the administration of the plan in accordance with the concept of its framers constitutes a standing threat to the peace of Europe.” The reason? He believed that high reparations payments would come from the hide of the German “workman and consumer which must in time lead to an anti-Allied outbreak.”

      Doriot was ultimately right, but his analysis was too premature for anyone to notice it. In fact, the Dawes Plan initially succeeded beyond expectations, leading to a wave of foreign loans that gave Germany enough money to pay reparations to France and Britain until 1929. The plan also helped keep the peace in Europe, as war did not break out again until Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.

      Doriot’s use of a pseudonym betrayed a deep-seated fear: he hated writing. It is a strange admission, revealed years later in his personal notes, from someone who became a professor and was actually a very good writer, a tireless composer of thousands of pages of prose that was clear as a windowpane. The confession underscored Doriot’s lack of self-confidence, which dogged him throughout his twenties as he struggled to find his way. “I never liked writing,” he confessed. “I do not do it well. My sentences do not “sound” well. Also, I never thought that I had anything to say that had lasting characteristics or value, nor would it have any interest for other people. When I had to make a speech (which I never enjoyed), I always asked for no publicity. The speech was designed for a particular audience and had no value for others.”

      The two New Republic stories were an interesting diversion from Doriot’s time at New York & Foreign Development. Back at the firm, Doriot was earning a reputation as a savvy, hard-nosed evaluator of investment opportunities. In one instance, in the winter of 1925 Doriot helped investigate and broker a deal for a new ice-making machine with the American Radiator Company. “There is no doubt as to the fact that the outside arm can make any amount of ice that you may wish, and this is in much shorter time than ordinary machines on the market,” wrote Doriot to R. R. Santini, the head of American Radiator, after seeing a demonstration of the machine. The following year, at Sir William’s request, Doriot visited the Prince George Hotel, north of New York’s Madison Square Park, to investigate an invention made by a Mr. de Northall, who was demonstrating a model saw in an apartment in the hotel. In a subsequent memo, Doriot revealed a talent for cutting to the heart of a matter.

       “I found that Mr. de Northall had contracted very heavy debts and owed money to friends and his relatives. It then became apparent that unless a certain sum of money could be set aside to take care of Mr. de Northall’s indebtedness, it would not be possible at the time, to spend anything merely on the development of the invention. Sir William Wiseman and his friend, being bankers, and not promoters of doubtful enterprises, also not being primarily interested in the lumber industry, I did not hesitate to recommend Sir William to state that he was not interested.”

      Then Doriot ripped into the saw, displaying his razor-sharp analytical skills. Inspecting the machine in the hotel room, Doriot found that it was not in working condition, and that the inventor had no idea how much power the saw needed, nor did he have a clue as to the cost of its installation. “There were several other mechanical difficulties which I pointed out to Mr. de Northall,” wrote Doriot. “I would not have advised anybody unfamiliar with the lumber industry to spend any time or money on that invention.”

      Doriot demonstrated an ability to make more subtle judgments as well. One of the more unusual projects that Doriot was asked to evaluate was an Ecuadorian natural resources venture. The plan, which forecast a very high rate of return, was to cut exotic trees in the mountains of Ecuador and then float the wood down to the coast, where a mill on the shore would then transform the logs into furniture veneer. Doriot told the bankers that when he was young boy in France he learned that some wood, being heavier than water, did not float. The bankers quickly discovered that the wood they wanted to float down the river sunk like a stone. New York & Foreign Development never invested in the program. “He had a very candid and open-minded approach to all of the problems,” says Doriot’s close friend Arnaud de Vitry. “Great businessmen on Wall Street missed this factor in their analysis.”

      In the future, Doriot’s boldness, powers of judgment, and technical fluency would help him pioneer the venture industry. Before he was able to step up to that level, though, he had to answer some of the more basic questions of his young life. True, he had found a home in America. But he was still without a career, a soul mate, or any guiding purpose.