August Busch IV testified in the Francine Katz discrimination lawsuit last week, and he did surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because his life has been so publicly messy that it’s difficult to think of him as sober, thoughtful and intelligent. But that’s what he appeared to be last week. He did not dominate the courtroom the way his father had a few days earlier, but he struck me as a man capable of running a company.
It was enough to make me muse about the fate of two great ºüÀêÊÓƵ companies — Anheuser-Busch and Pulitzer Publishing. They were both publicly owned companies — Pulitzer more recently so — but they were both run as if they were family-owned companies. The Busch family ran the brewery. The Pulitzer family ran the publishing company. Headquarters were in ºüÀêÊÓƵ. The flagship brewery and the flagship paper were here, too.
When I got here, the publishing company was run by Joseph III, who by then went by Joseph Jr. The brewery was run by August III. Both had sons who were expected to succeed their fathers in the family business. Joseph IV and August IV.
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I knew Joseph IV. He was called Jay. He was the late-night editor when I was the night police reporter. You did not have to know him well to know he had a difficult relationship with his father. His father was elegant. Jay was scruffy. He wore an old Navy pea coat and a blue stocking cap. He drove an old car. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes. (His father did not allow cigarette advertising in the newspaper.)
His personal life was not a public mess, but he was a child of the ’60s. Let’s just leave it at that.
Still, it seemed that he was being groomed to take over the company.
That did not happen. When Jay’s father decided to relinquish his position as editor and publisher of this newspaper, a non-family member was named editor. Another was named publisher.
After his father died, Jay got the boot. We ran a story saying he was “exploring other avenues.†His stepmother got control of the company. She eventually sold it. Stories at the time said Jay was not given the courtesy of a phone call to let him know about the sale.
That’s another thing August IV had in common with Joseph IV. A stepmother. That can’t be a positive thing if your father already questions your competence. All the pillow talk reinforces his doubts.
That’s a guess, of course. I was privy to no secrets in either family. But it seemed clear that neither father completely trusted his son. Neither was willing to step aside and cede control. It struck me as a form of child abuse. Maybe the rich don’t beat their kids — not physically, anyway — but they let them know they doubt them.
Of course, the Busch case was complicated. It would have been hard to turn the company over to August IV. There were so many public messes. I was reminded of that when I ran into Eric Banks at the Katz trial. Years ago, he was the assistant circuit attorney who prosecuted August IV after a high-speed chase that ended only when the police shot out his tires. I asked Banks if he were watching the trial because of his own history with Busch. He laughed, shook his head and said he was at the trial to observe the attorneys — Mary Anne Sedey and Donna Harper for the plaintiffs, and Jim Bennett and Gabriel Gore for the defendants. This is like a clinic for lawyers, Banks said.
A clinic of another sort for those of us who always wonder, What if?
Like Jay, August IV was seemingly groomed to succeed his father. Unlike Jay, he actually did. But only sort of. August IV got the CEO job in December 2006. He was then 42. His father remained as chairman of the board. In other words, he still ran things.
When August IV testified last week, he mentioned that the company had pretty much stayed on the sidelines during a period of international mergers in the years preceding the sale to InBev. That sale took place in July 2008. What chance did August IV have to reverse the company’s strategy in the 18 months he had as CEO?
Besides, it would have required arguing that his father’s concentration on the domestic market had been misplaced. Could August IV have done that? I doubt it. Reporter Lisa Brown included a heart-breaking detail in her account of the son’s testimony. She mentioned that he wore cowboy boots with his suit, just as his father had done days earlier.
Emulating his father. How complicated things get when we talk about fathers and sons.
Cowboy boots or not, August IV did well on the witness stand. It made me wonder what would have happened if a couple of sons would have succeeded their fathers.