Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street. Chapter 10. Stockholder Season
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这章名为“股东季”，讲述了作者在1966年春天参加几次公司年度股东大会的经历。作者首先描绘了背景，强调了少数大型公司及其专业管理人员手中掌握的巨大权力，暗示这些公司的权力堪比中世纪的封建领主。尽管权力如此集中，但正式的结构规定，最终的权力属于股东，他们在美国有超过2000万。然而，股东的漠不关心、无知和庞大的数量等因素削弱了他们的权力，导致几乎所有投票都一致支持管理层认可的董事候选人名单。
因此，年度股东大会成为股东施加影响力的主要场合。受到前一年股东大会上不守规矩的行为引发的公司管理层对股东采取“强硬路线”的新闻的吸引，作者开始亲身观察这些互动。这种“强硬路线”的特点是驱逐制造混乱的股东，执行更严格的会议规则，并指派特别小组来控制起哄者，似乎旨在让“理论上的根本权力持有者”安分守己。
作者观察到一种趋势，即公司将年度股东大会从纽约迁走，表面上是为了方便其他地区的股东。然而，作者怀疑这些搬迁与避免来自纽约的喧闹、持不同意见的股东有关。作者从底特律的美国电话电报公司（AT&T）开始。作者注意到AT&T股东的数量庞大（近300万），但参会人数相对较少。人群构成多样化，但明显缺乏少数族裔的代表。
本章的很大一部分重点关注公司主席与“专业股东”之间的互动动态——这些个人通过提出问题和提出决议来积极参与年度股东大会。作者将这些专业股东，尤其是威尔玛·索斯夫人和路易斯·D·吉尔伯特，描述为在很大程度上是自封的代表，代表着一个可能非常需要代表的庞大选民群体。虽然他们中的一些人因粗鲁和辱骂行为而受到批评，但另一些人，如索斯夫人和吉尔伯特先生，被认为是见多识广、敬业和勤奋的批评家，尽管他们的名字经常在官方公司报告中被回避。
作者描述了AT&T股东大会上的互动，包括索斯夫人和伊芙琳·Y·戴维斯女士等专业股东的抱怨和干扰，以及卡佩尔先生试图维持秩序。作者注意到，公司通过在纽约以外的地方举行会议获得了优势：能够利用地区自豪感来对抗直言不讳的异见者。然后，作者参加了在亚特兰大举行的通用电气股东大会，在那里，“强硬路线”通过对会议的受控管理得到展现。在多元化的制药和化学公司辉瑞公司（Charles Pfizer and Company）的另一次会议上，作者发现气氛最为友好。作者参加的最后一次会议是通信卫星公司（Communications Satellite Corporation）的会议，结果一片混乱。
最后，作者反思了年度股东大会的价值以及专业股东的角色。作者承认专业股东是管理层的秘密武器，但认为他们的异议，虽然经常带有攻击性，却是商业结构中人际关系的一个有价值的功能。
This chapter, "Stockholder Season," recounts the author's experiences attending several corporate annual meetings in the spring of 1966. The author sets the stage by highlighting the immense power concentrated in the hands of a few large corporations and their professional managers, suggesting that these corporations wield a power comparable to medieval feudal lords. Despite this concentration of power, the formal structure dictates that ultimate authority resides in the stockholders, numbering over 20 million in the U.S. However, factors like stockholder indifference, ignorance, and sheer numbers undermine their power, resulting in near-unanimous votes for management-endorsed director slates.
The annual meeting, therefore, becomes the primary occasion for stockholders to exert influence. Intrigued by reports of a "new hard-line approach" from company management towards stockholders, triggered by unruly behavior at the previous year's meetings, the author embarks on a journey to observe these interactions firsthand. This "hard-line approach," characterized by ejecting disruptive stockholders, enforcing stricter meeting rules, and assigning task forces to control hecklers, seems designed to put the "theoretical holders of fundamental power" in their place.
The author observes a trend of companies moving their annual meetings away from New York, ostensibly to accommodate stockholders in other regions. However, the author suspects a connection between these relocations and the desire to avoid noisy, New York-based dissident stockholders. The author begins with AT&T in Detroit. The author notes the massive number of AT&T stockholders (almost three million) and the relatively small attendance at the meeting. The crowd is diverse, but notably lacking in representation from minority groups.
A significant portion of the chapter focuses on the dynamic between corporate chairmen and "professional stockholders" - individuals who actively participate in annual meetings by raising questions and proposing resolutions. The author describes these professional stockholders, notably Mrs. Wilma Soss and Louis D. Gilbert, as largely self-appointed representatives of a huge constituency that may badly need representing. While some of them are criticized for boorish and abusive behavior, others like Mrs. Soss and Mr. Gilbert, are recognized as well-informed, dedicated, and diligent critics, although their names are often avoided in official corporate reports.
The author describes interactions at the AT&T meeting, including complaints and interruptions from professional stockholders like Mrs. Soss and Mrs. Evelyn Y. Davis, and Mr. Capel's attempts to maintain order. The author notes the advantages companies gain by holding meetings away from New York: the ability to leverage regional pride against vocal dissidents. The author then attends the General Electric meeting in Atlanta where the "hard line" is demonstrated through controlled management of the meeting. Another meeting of the diversified pharmaceutical and chemical firm Charles Pfizer and Company, the author finds the most amicable. The last meeting the author attends is of the Communications Satellite Corporation where total chaos ensues.
The author concludes by reflecting on the value of annual meetings and the role of professional stockholders. While acknowledging that the professional stockholders are management's secret weapon, the author believes their dissent, though often abrasive, is a valuable function of the human relationship within business structures.
中英文字稿 
第十章：股东季节
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Chapter 10. Stockholder Season
几年前，《泰晤士报》援引一位欧洲外交官的话说：“美国经济已经大到让人难以想象的地步。但现在，除了规模之外，美国经济还在快速增长。这种基本的力量在世界历史上是无与伦比的。”大约在同一时期，A.A. 伯利在一项关于公司权力的研究中写道，主导美国经济的约500家公司代表了一种对经济的权力集中，这让中世纪的封建制度看起来像是个主日学派对。至于这些公司内部的权力，伯利在同一篇文章中继续指出，实际掌握权力的是董事和职业经理人，而他们往往不是公司的大股东，时常构成一个自我延续的寡头集团。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A few years ago, a European diplomat was quoted in the Times as saying, The American economy has become so big that it is beyond the imagination to comprehend. But now on top of size, you are getting rapid growth as well. That is a situation of fundamental power unequaled in the history of the world. At about the same time, A.A. Burley wrote in a study of corporate power that the 500 or so corporations that dominate that economy represent a concentration of power over economics, which makes the medieval feudal system look like a Sunday school party. As for the power within those corporations, it clearly rests for all practical purposes, if they are directors and they are professional managers, often not substantial owners, who, Burley goes on to suggest in the same essay, sometimes constitute a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
在当今，大多数公正的观察者似乎认为，从社会角度来看，寡头统治并没有想象中那么糟糕，在很多情况下甚至相当不错。然而，无论情况如何，理论上，最终的权力并不归他们所有。根据公司组织形式，权力属于股东。在美国，各种规模的企业的股东总数超过2,000万。虽然法院多次裁定董事不必遵循股东的指示，就像国会议员不必遵循选民的指示一样，但股东仍然通过一种按一股一票的逻辑（虽然不完全符合民主原则）来选举董事。股东由于一些因素而失去了实际权力，其中包括在利润和股息增加时对权力漠不关心、对公司事务的无知以及股东人数众多。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Most fair-minded observers these days seem to feel that the stewardship of the oligarchs, from a social point of view, isn't anything like as bad as it might be, and in many cases is pretty good, yet however that may be, the ultimate power theoretically does not reside in them at all. According to the corporate form of organization, it resides in the stockholders, of whom, in United States business enterprises of all sizes and descriptions, there are more than 20 million. Even though the courts have repeatedly ruled that a director does not have to follow stockholder instructions, any more than a congressman has to follow the instructions of his constituents, stockholders nevertheless do elect directors, on the logical, if not exactly, democratic basis of one share one vote. The stockholders are deprived of their real power by a number of factors, among which are their indifference to it in times of rising profits and dividends, their ignorance of corporate affairs and their sheer numbers.
不管怎样，他们总是投票支持管理层，而大多数董事选举的结果似乎让人想起俄罗斯——99%或更多的票数都投给支持者。通常情况下，股东能让管理层真正感受到他们存在的主要机会是在年度股东大会上。许多年度股东大会通常在春季举行。在1966年的春天，我参与了一些这样的会议，想了解那些理论上拥有巨大权力的股东们的看法，以及他们与选出的董事之间的关系。让我特别关注1966年这个季节的原因是，有报道称公司管理层对股东采取了新的强硬态度，这预示着这个季节的会议可能会特别热闹。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
One way or another, they vote the management slate, and the results of most director elections have a certain Russian ring—99% or more of the votes cast in favor. The chief, and in many cases the only occasion, when stockholders make their presence felt by management, is at the annual meeting. Many annual meetings are customarily held in the spring, and one spring, it was that of 1966, I made the rounds of a few of them to get a line on what the theoretical holders of all that feudal power had to say for themselves, and also on the state of their relations with their elected directors. What particularly commended the 1966 season to me was that it promised to be a particularly lively one. Various reports of a new hard-line approach by company management to stockholders had appeared in the press.
我被这样的想法吸引：一个候选人在选举前宣布他对选民的新强硬态度。据报道，这种新方法是因为前一年会议上的事件而产生的。在那次会议上，股东的骚动达到了新高。通讯卫星公司（Communications Satellite Corporation）的董事长不得不召唤保安，在华盛顿的公司会议上将过于无理取闹的股东硬是扔出去。联合爱迪生公司（Consolidated Edison）的时任董事长哈兰德·C·福布斯（Harland C. Forbes）在纽约把一个起哄者命令离开，而在费城，美国电话电报公司（American Telephone and Telegraph）的董事长弗雷德里克·R·卡佩尔（Frederick R. Capel）被激怒，突然宣布，此次会议不再遵循罗伯特议事规则，而是由我说了算。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I was charmed by the notion of a candidate for office announcing his new hard-line approach to voters right before an election. The new approach, it was reported, was the upshot of events at the previous year's meetings, where a new high in stockholder unruliness was reached. The chairman of the Communications Satellite Corporation was forced to call on guards to eject bodily, too bad-during stockholders at his company's meeting in Washington. Harland C. Forbes, who was then the chairman of Consolidated Edison, ordered one heckler off the premises in New York, and in Philadelphia, American Telephone and Telegraph chairman Frederick R. Capel was goted into announcing abruptly, this meeting is not being run by Robert's Rules of Order. It's being run by me.
美国公司秘书协会的执行董事后来解释说，精确地运用《罗伯特议事规则》实际上不会增加股东的言论自由，反而会限制他们的言论自由。这位执行董事暗示说，Capel先生只是保护股东免受议会专制的影响。通用电气董事长Gerald L. Felipe经过几个小时与股东的交锋后，总结了他的新强硬路线，表示“我希望明年以及未来几年，主席可能会采取更加严格的态度。” 根据《商业周刊》的报道，通用电气管理层随后指派了一个特别小组，负责研究如何通过改变年度会议模式来打击捣乱者。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The executive director of the American Society of Corporate Secretaries later explained that precise application of Robert's Rules would have had the effect not of increasing the stockholders' freedom of speech but rather of restricting it. Mr. Capel, the secretary implied, had merely been protecting stockholders from parliamentary tyranny. Insconectivity Gerald L. Felipe, chairman of General Electric, after several hours of fencing with stockholders, summed up his new hard line by saying, I should like it to be clear that next year and in the years to come, the chair may well adopt a more rigorous attitude. According to Business Week, the General Electric Management then assigned a special task force to the job of seeing what could be done about cracking down on hecklers by changing the annual meeting pattern.
在1966年初，被称为管理界“圣经”的《哈佛商业评论》发表了一篇文章。文中的作者是O'Glenn Saxon Jr.，他是一个专门为管理层提供投资者服务的公司的负责人。他明确建议年度会议的主席要承认主席职位所具备的权威，并决心恰当地使用这一权力。显然，这个理论上拥有无与伦比权力的人群正准备被置于他们应在的位置。
在我查看当年主要会议的日程时，注意到一个趋势，那就是会议地点不再是或靠近纽约。官方给出的理由一贯是这样做能够方便其他地区的股东出席，这些股东在过去几乎没有机会参加会议。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And early in 1966, the Bible of Management, the Harvard Business Review, entered the lists with an article by O'Glenn Saxon Jr., the head of a company specializing in investor services to management, in which he recommended crisply that the chairman of annual meetings recognize the authority inherent in the role of the chair and resolve to use it appropriately. Apparently, the theoretical holders of fundamental power unequaled in the history of the world were about to be put in their place. One thing I couldn't help noticing as I went over the schedule of the year's leading meetings was a trend away from holding them in or near New York. Invariably, the official reason given was that the move would accommodate stockholders from other areas who had seldom if ever been able to attend in the past.
然而，大多数最为活跃的反对派股东似乎都位于纽约地区，这些行动都发生在采取新强硬路线的那一年，因此我发现这两个事实之间的关系绝非偶然。比如，美国钢铁公司的股东们将在克利夫兰开会，这将是自公司1901年成立以来，第二次在其名义上的故乡新泽西州之外举行会议。通用电气公司近年来第三次离开纽约州会议，并且一路南下到乔治亚州，那里管理层似乎突然发现了5600名股东，他们占公司总股东人数的1%以上，非常需要一个机会参加年度会议。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
However, most of the noisiest dissident stockholders seemed to be based in the New York area, and the moves were taking place in the year of the new hard line, so I found the likelihood of a relationship between these two facts by no means remote. United States' steel holders, for example, were to meet in Cleveland, making their second foray outside their company's nominal home state of New Jersey since its formation in 1901. General Electric was going outside New York State for the third time in recent years, and going all the way to Georgia, a state in which management appeared to have suddenly discovered 5600 stockholders, or a bit more than 1% of the firm's total role who were badly in need of a chance to attend an annual meeting.
美国电话电报公司是其中最大的公司，它选择了底特律作为在纽约市之外的第三个地点，这是它81年历史上的第三个地点，第二个地点是1965年会议举办地费城。为了开始我自己的会议季，我跟随AT&T来到了底特律。在飞往那里的飞机上翻阅了一些资料时，我得知AT&T的股东人数增加到了创纪录的将近三百万，我不禁好奇，如果所有股东，甚至一半的股东，都不大可能地出现在底特律并要求参加会议会怎么样呢？无论如何，几周前他们每个人都收到了会议通知和正式的参会邀请函，在我看来，美国工业几乎可以肯定又创造了一个第一：首次有将近三百万份个人邀请函被寄出，邀请参与这样的活动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The biggest company of them all, American, telephone, and telegraph had chosen Detroit, which was its third site outside New York City in its 81-year history, the second having been Philadelphia, where the 1965 session was held. To open my own meeting-going season, I tracked AT&T to Detroit. Leaping through some papers on the plane going out there, I learned that the number of AT&T stockholders had increased to an all-time record of almost three million, and I felt a wondering what would happen in the unlikely event that all of them, or even half of them, appeared in Detroit and demanded seats of the meeting. At any rate, each one of them had received by mail a few weeks earlier a notice of the meeting along with a formal invitation to attend, and it seemed to me almost certain that American industry had achieved another first. The first time almost three million individual invitations had ever been mailed out to any event of any kind anywhere.
当我到达科博大厅时，我对最初的担忧就消除了。这是一个位于河边的大型礼堂，会议将在这里举行。大厅远没有坐满。即便是在平日的下午，这样的出席人数也会让曾经辉煌的洋基队感到不满。第二天的报纸报道说，到场人数为4,016人。环视四周，我注意到人群中有一些带着小孩的家庭。一位坐在轮椅上的女士，一位留胡子的男士，还有仅仅两位黑人股东。最后的观察表明，那些鼓吹人民资本主义的人可能需要与民权运动进行一些协调。会议的宣布时间是下午1点半，主席卡佩尔准时进入并走向平台上的演讲台。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
My fears on the first score were put to rest when I got to Cobo Hall, a huge riverfront auditorium where the meeting was to take place. The hall was far from filled. The Yankees, in their better days, would have been disgusted with such a turnout on any weekday afternoon. The papers next day said the attendance was 4,016. Looking around, I noticed in the crowd several families with small children. One woman in a wheelchair, one man with a beard, and just two Negro stockholders. The last observation suggesting that the trumpeters of people's capitalism might well do some coordinating with the civil rights movement. The announced time of the meeting was 1.30, and Chairman Capel entered on the dot and marched to a reading stand on the platform.
其他18位AT&T董事走到他身后的座位上入座，Capel先生急促地宣布会议开始。根据我的了解和以往参加年度会议的经验，我知道大型公司的会议通常会有所谓的专业股东出席。这些人专职购买公司的股票，获取其他股东的投票权，然后深入了解公司事务，出席年度会议来提出问题或建议决议。其中最著名的代表包括来自纽约的威尔玛·索斯女士，她领导一个女性股东组织，并代表其会员及她自己的股份投票；还有同样来自纽约的路易斯·D·吉尔伯特，他代表自己和家族持有的相当数量的股份。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The 18 other AT&T directors tripped to a row of seats just behind him, and Mr. Capel gabbled the meeting to order. From my reading and from annual meetings that I'd attended in past years, I knew that the meetings of the biggest companies are usually marked by the presence of so-called professional stockholders, persons who make a full-time occupation of buying stock in companies who are obtaining the proxies of other stockholders, then informing themselves more or less intimately about the corporation's affairs and attending annual meetings to raise questions or propose resolutions, and that the most celebrated members of this breed were Mrs. Wilma Sauce of New York, who heads an organization of women's stockholders and votes the proxies of its members, as well as her own shares, and Louis D. Gilbert, also of New York, who represents his own holdings and those of his family, a considerable total.
我在参加 AT&T 会议以及之后参加的其他会议时才了解的一件事是，除了管理层准备好的演讲之外，许多大公司的会议实际上是对话的形式。在某些情况下，这种对话更像是董事长与少数专业股东之间的较量。非专业人士的发言通常是不太了解情况或比较温和的问题，或者是对管理层的长篇赞美，因此提出有力批评或尴尬问题的任务就落到了专业人士头上。尽管这些专业人士基本是自发担任此角色，但由于缺乏其他代表，他们默认成为了一个可能非常需要代表的大群体的唯一代表。有些人不是很称职，而少数人的表现糟糕到令人质疑其行为是否符合美国的礼仪规范。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Something I did not know and learned at the AT&T meeting, and at others I attended subsequently, was that apart from the prepared speeches of management, a good many big company meetings really consist of a dialogue. In some cases, it's more of a duel between the Chairman and the few professional stockholders. The contributions of non-professionals run strongly to ill-informed or tame questions in windy and comiums of management, and thus the task of making cogent criticisms or asking embarrassing questions falls to the professionals. Though largely self-appointed, they become, by default, the sole representatives of a huge constituency that may badly need representing. Some of them are not very good representatives, and a few are so bad that their conduct raises a problem in American manners.
这些人在年度会议上反复说一些话——这些话可能是无聊的、愚蠢的、侮辱性的或谩骂性的——虽然根据公司规定是允许的，但在客厅的社交礼仪中却是绝对不允许的，有时还会搞得这些大公司的年度会议像农场里的争斗一样闹哄哄的。而Soss女士是一位前公共关系工作者，自1947年以来一直是孜孜不倦的职业股东，通常高出这一水平很多。没错，她有时通过穿着奇特的服装来迎合观众。她试图并偶尔成功地激怒那些顽固的董事长，把她赶出去。她经常责骂，有时有些粗鲁，而且没人会指责她太简练。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
These few repeatedly say things at annual meetings—borsch, silly, insulting, or abusive things—that are apparently permissible by corporate rules, but are certainly impermissible by drawing-room rules, and sometimes succeed in giving the annual meetings of mighty companies the general air of barnyard squabbles. Mrs. Soss, a former public relations woman, who has been a tireless professional stockholder since 1947, is usually a good many cuts above this level. True, she is not beyond playing to the gallery by wearing bizarre costumes to meetings. She tries, with occasional success, to taunt recalcitrant Chairman into throwing her out. She is often scolding and occasionally abusive, and nobody could accuse her of being unduly concise.
我承认她一贯的语气和态度让人感到不适，但我不得不承认，由于她做了充分的准备工作，她通常都是有道理的。自1933年以来，吉尔伯特先生一直在这个领域工作，是商场的资深人物，他几乎总是切中要害，和其他同事相比，他是简洁和严谨的典范，同时也充满了奉献精神和勤奋。尽管大多数公司管理层都不喜欢这些职业股东，索斯女士和吉尔伯特先生依然受到广泛认可，被列入《美国名人录》。此外，尽管他们在一些商业文章中通常只是被称作“个人”，但他们就像无名的阿伽门农和艾阿斯，总是默默付出，为企业界书写史诗。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I confess that her customary tone and manner set my teeth on edge, but I can't help recognizing that, because she does her homework, she usually has a point. Mr. Gilbert, who has been at it since 1933 and is the dean of the mall, almost invariably has a point, and by comparison with his colleagues he is the soul of brevity and punctilio, as well as of dedication and diligence. Despised as professional stockholders are, by most company management, Mrs. Soss and Mr. Gilbert are widely enough recognized to be listed in Whose Who in America? Furthermore, for what satisfaction it may bring them, they are the nameless Agamemnonz and Ajaxes, invariably called individuals in some of the prose epics produced by the business establishment itself.
在1965-18 T年度会议的官方报告中，记载着，会议的大部分讨论时间被一些个人提出的问题和发表的声明占据，而这些内容几乎与会议主题无关。有两个人打断了主席的开场陈述，主席建议他们停止打断或者离开会议。尽管Mr. Saxon在《哈佛商业评论》中的文章完全关于处理专业股东的问题，但出于公司体面的考量，作者完全没有提到任何一个股东的名字。要做到这点并不容易，但Mr. Saxon成功地做到了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The greater portion of the discussion period was taken up by questions and statements of a few individuals on matters that can scarcely be deemed relevant. Two individuals interrupted the opening statement of the chairman. The chairman advised the individuals, who had interrupted, to choose between ceasing their interruption or leaving the meeting. So reads in part the official report of the 1965-18 T annual meeting. And although Mr. Saxon's piece in the Harvard Business Review was entirely about professional stockholders and how to deal with them, the author's corporate dignity did not permit him to mention the name of even one of them. Avoiding this was quite a trick, but Mr. Saxon pulled it off.
索斯夫人和吉尔伯特先生都出席了Cobo Hall的会议。事实上，会议刚刚开始，吉尔伯特先生就站了起来，抱怨说他要求公司纳入委托书声明和会议议程的几个提案都被遗漏了。卡佩尔先生则是一位戴着钢边眼镜、看起来十分严厉的人，他显然是那种老派、冷漠的公司类型，而不是那种新的、更开放的类型。他简短地回应称，吉尔伯特的提案涉及不适合股东考虑的事项，并且提交得太晚了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Both Mrs. Soss and Mr. Gilbert were present at Cobo Hall. Indeed, the meeting had barely got underway before Mr. Gilbert was on his feet, complaining that several resolutions he had asked the company to include in the proxy statement and the meeting agenda had been omitted from both. Mr. Capel, a stern-looking man with steel-rimmed spectacles, who was unmistakably cast in the old-fashioned, aloof corporate mold rather than the new, more permissive one, replied shortly that the Gilbert proposals had referred to matters that were not proper for stockholder consideration and had been submitted too late anyhow.
卡佩尔先生接着宣布他将报告公司业务情况，此时其他18位董事陆续走下讲台。显然，他们只是为了被介绍给股东，而不是来回答股东的问题。我不知道他们具体去了哪里。他们从我的视线中消失了，而当稍后在会议上有股东询问他们的去向时，卡佩尔先生简洁地回应道：“他们在这儿。”这并没有让我更清楚他们的行踪。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mr. Capel then announced that he was about to report on company operations, whereupon the 18 other directors filed off the platform. Evidently, they had been there only to be introduced not to field questions from stockholders. Exactly where they went I don't know. They vanished from my field of vision, and I wasn't enlightened when, later on in the meeting, Mr. Capel responded to a stockholder's question as to their whereabouts with a laconic statement. They're here.
独自进行时，卡佩尔先生在他的报告中表示，商业繁荣，收益良好，前景看好，并预期未来会保持这种势头。他宣称，AT&T迫切希望联邦通信委员会继续调查电话资费问题，因为公司没有任何不可告人的秘密。随后，他描绘了一幅光明的电话未来图景：视频电话将变得司空见惯，而且信息将通过光束传输。当卡佩尔先生的讲话结束后，公司管理层提名的来年董事名单已正当提议，这时，索斯女士站起来提名了一位自己的人选——精神分析学家弗朗西斯·阿金博士。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Going it alone, Mr. Capel said in his report that businesses booming, earnings are good, and the prospect ahead is for more of the same. Declared that AT&T was eager for the Federal Communications Commission to get on with its investigation of telephone rates, since the company had no skeletons in the closet, and then painted a picture of a bright telephonic future, in which picture phones will be commonplace and light beams will carry messages. When Mr. Capel's address was over, and the management-sponsored slate of directors for the coming year had been duly nominated, Mrs. Sos rose to make a nomination of her own. Dr. Francis Arkin, a psychoanalyst.
在解释中，Sos女士表示，她认为AT&T董事会中应该有一名女性。此外，她有时觉得公司的一些高管需要偶尔接受心理检查。他的言论在我看来有些多余，但随后在另一场会议上，这种在老板和股东之间的礼仪平衡得以体现。当时主席建议他的一些公司股东应该去看心理医生。Arkin博士的提名得到了Gilbert先生的支持，不过是在Sos女士坐在离他几个座位远的地方，伸手用力捅了捅他的肋部之后。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In explanation, Mrs. Sos said that she felt AT&T ought to have a woman on its board, and that furthermore, she sometimes felt some of the company's executives would be benefited by occasional psychiatric examinations. His remarks seemed to me gratuitous, but the balance of manners between bosses and stockholders was subsequently addressed, at least to my mind, at another meeting, when the chairman suggested that some of his firm stockholders ought to see a psychiatrist. The nomination of Dr. Arkin was seconded by Mr. Gilbert, although not until Mrs. Sos, who was sitting a couple of seats from him, had reached over and nudged him vigorously in the ribs.
职业股东伊芙琳·Y·戴维斯对会议地点表示不满，抱怨她被迫从纽约坐巴士赶来。戴维斯女士是一位棕发女子，是其他职业股东中最年轻，甚至可能是最有魅力的，但根据我在 AT&T 会议和其他场合看到的情况，她并不是信息最灵通、态度最温和、最严肃或最有见识的。在这次场合中，她受到现场热烈的嘘声欢迎，而当卡皮尔先生回答她说：“你这样做没有意义，只是在自说自话”时，他赢得了观众的热烈欢呼。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The professional stockholder, named Evelyn Y. Davis, protested the venue of the meeting, complaining that she had been forced to come all the way from New York by bus. Mrs. Davis, a brunette, was the youngest and, perhaps, the best-looking other professional stockholders, but, on the basis of what I saw at the AT&T meeting and others, not the best informed or the most temperate, serious-minded or worldly-wise. On this occasion, she was greeted by thunderous booze, and when Mr. Capil answered her by saying, You're out of order, you're just talking to the wind. He was loudly cheered.
直到那时我才明白，这家公司通过将会议地点从纽约迁走所获得的优势。虽然他们没有完全摆脱那些"牛虻"般纠缠不休的人，但他们成功地让这些人身处一种充满强烈美国情感、地区自豪感的氛围中。一位戴着白帽子的女士，她自称来自伊利诺伊州的迪斯普兰斯，站起来说道："我希望在座有些人能表现得像聪明的成年人，而不是两岁的孩子。" 随后掌声雷动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It was only then that I understood the nature of the advantage that the company had gained by moving its meetings away from New York. It had not succeeded in shaking off the gadflies, but it had succeeded in putting them in a climate where they were subject to the rigors of that great American emotion, regional pride. A lady in a floured hat, who said she was from Displains, Illinois, emphasized the point by rising to say, I wish some of the people here would behave like intelligent adults rather than two-year-olds. Prolonged applause.
尽管如此，来自东边的冷嘲热讽仍在继续。到了3点半时，会议已经进行了两个小时，Capil先生显然开始不耐烦了。他开始不安地在讲台上走来走去，答复越来越简短。对于有人抱怨他专制，Capil仅仅简单地回应：“好，好。”会议的高潮出现在他与Sauce女士之间的争论。当时，AT&T在会议上分发的小册子里列出了董事提名者的商业关系，但在寄给股东的材料中却没有列出，这一问题成为了争论的焦点。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Even so, the sniping from the east went on, and by 3.30, when the meeting had been in session for two hours, Mr. Capil was clearly getting testy. He began pacing impatiently around the platform, and his answers got shorter and shorter. Okay, okay, was all he replied to one complaint that he was dictatorial. The climax came in a wrangle between him and Mrs. Sauce about the fact that AT&T, although it had listed the business affiliations of its nominees for director in a pamphlet that was handed out at the meeting, had failed to list them in the material mailed out to the stockholders.
大多数人并未亲自出席会议，而是通过代理投票。大多数其他大公司通常会在邮寄的委托书中披露相关信息，因此股东们显然有权得到合理的解释，说明为什么AT&T没有这样做。但在某个环节，理智被抛在了脑后。在交流过程中，Sauce女士采用了责备的语气，而Capil先生则保持着冷冰冰的态度。至于在场的观众，他们有的在嘘声中度过了一段愉快时光，如果Sauce女士代表的是基督教徒的话；有的则在加油声中享受欢快的时刻，如果Capil先生代表的是狮子的话。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The overwhelming majority of whom were not at the meeting and had done their voting by proxy. Most other big companies make such disclosures in their mailed proxy statements, so the stockholders were apparently entitled to a reasonable explanation of why AT&T had failed to do so. But somewhere along the way reason was left behind. As the exchange progressed, Mrs. Sauce adopted a scolding tone, and Mr. Capil an icy one. As for the crowd, it was having a fine time booing the Christian, if that is what Mrs. Sauce represented, and cheering the lion, if that is what Mr. Capil represented.
我听不见你，先生。Sauce女士有一刻说。Capil先生回应，如果你能听，而不是说话就好了。然后Sauce女士说了些什么，我没听清，但肯定是挑衅主席的话，因为Capil先生的态度立刻从冷淡变得火冒三丈。他开始用手指指着她，说他不会再容忍任何侮辱，然后Sauce女士使用的地面麦克风突然被关掉。伴随着震耳欲聋的嘘声和跺脚声，Sauce女士在十到十五英尺远的距离里被一名穿制服的保安跟随，她走上过道，站在平台前面，面对Capil先生。Capil先生告诉她，他知道她想让他把她赶出去，但他拒绝配合。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I can't hear you, sir. Mrs. Sauce said at one point, well, if you just listen instead of talking, Mr. Capil returned, then Mrs. Sauce said something I didn't catch, and it must have been a telling bit of chairman baiting, because Mr. Capil's manner changed completely, from ice to fire. He began shaking his finger and saying he wouldn't stand for any more abuse, and the floor microphone that Mrs. Sauce had been using was abruptly turned off. Followed at a distance of ten or fifteen feet by uniform security guard, and to the accompaniment of deafening booing and stamping, Mrs. Sauce marched up the aisle and took a stand in front of the platform, facing Mr. Capil, who informed her that he knew she wanted him to have her thrown out, and that he declined to comply.
最后，索斯太太回到座位上，大家都平静了下来。会议的剩余部分主要由业余股东提问和评论，而非专业股东，比之前的环节明显少了些活力，智力内容上也没有显著提升。来自大急流城、底特律和安娜堡的股东们都认为最好还是让董事会来管理公司，不过来自大急流城的那位股东略带不满地指出，他们那里的电视已经无法接收到贝尔电话时段的节目了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Eventually, Mrs. Sauce went back to her seat and everybody calmed down. The rest of the meeting, given over largely to questions and comments from amateur stockholders, rather than professional ones, was certainly less lively than what had gone before, and not noticeably higher in intellectual content. Stockholders from Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Ann Arbor all expressed the view that it would be best to let the directors run the company, although the Grand Rapids man objected mildly that the bell telephone hour couldn't be received on television and his locality anymore.
来自密歇根州普莱森特里奇的一位男士为退休股东发声，希望AT&T能减少将收益用于扩张的投入，从而支付更高的股息。一位来自路易斯安那州乡村的股东表示，最近他接电话时，接线员五到十分钟都没有应答。“‘我希望你们注意这个问题，’这位路易斯安那州的男士说道，于是卡皮尔先生承诺会派人调查此事。”戴维斯夫人对AT&T的慈善捐款提出了质疑，这让卡皮尔先生有机会回应说他很高兴这个世界上有比她更具慈善心的人。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A man from Pleasant Ridge, Michigan spoke up for retired stockholders who would like AT&T to plow less of its earnings back into expansion so that it could pay higher dividends. A stockholder from rural Louisiana stated that when he picked up his telephone lately, the operator didn't answer for five or ten minutes. "'I bring it to your attention,' the Louisiana man said, and Mr. Capil promised to have somebody look into the matter. Mrs. Davis raised a complaint about AT&T's contributions to charity, giving Mr. Capil the opportunity to reply that he was glad the world contained people more charitable than she."
政府没有表示认可。一位底特律的男子说：“我希望你们不会因为一些不满分子的辱骂就不再把会议带回大中西部。”会上宣布，由于只有19,106股投票支持，并且每个公司管理层候选人获得的委托投票都有大约4亿股，阿尔金博士输掉了董事会席位的竞选。通过批准公司管理层的提名，委托投票者实际上可以反对现场提名，即使他对提名一无所知。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The government exempt applause. A Detroit man said, "'I hope you won't let the abuse you've been subjected to by a few mal-contents keep you from bringing the meeting back to the Great Midwest again.'" It was announced that Dr. Arkin had been defeated for a seat on the board since she had received a vote of only 19,106 shares against some 400 million proxy votes included for each candidate on the management slate. By approving the management slate a proxy voter can in effect oppose a floor nomination, even though he knows nothing about it.
这就是1966年全球最大公司年度会议的情况，或者说会议的情况一直到下午5点30分，大多数股东已经离场，只剩几百人，随后我前往机场赶飞机回纽约。此次AT&T会议让我陷入沉思。年度会议通常是考验民主政府迷信者灵魂的时刻，尤其是在他发现自己出于内疚而同情那些被股东席上的人“轰炸”的主席时。专业股东在极端时刻成了管理层的秘密武器。一位Sauce女士或Davis女士在最激烈的时候，足以让范德比尔特和摩根显得和蔼可亲。而她们也可以让一个现代的像Capil先生这样的巨头看起来像个被精心挑选的丈夫，甚至是股东权利的捍卫者。在这样的时刻，专业股东从实际角度来看，成为了理性反对的敌人。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And that was how the 1966 annual meeting of the world's largest company went. Or how it went until 530, when all but a few hundred stockholders had left, and when I headed for the airport to catch a plane back to New York. The AT&T meeting left me in a thoughtful mood. Annual meetings are reflected can be times to try the soul of an admirer of representative Democratic government, especially when he finds himself guiltily sympathizing with the chairman who is being badgered from the floor. The professional stockholders, in their wilder moments, are management's secret weapon. A Mrs. Sauce and Mrs. Davis at their most strident could have made Commodore Vanderbilt and Pierpont Morgan seem like affable old gentleman. And they can make a latter-day magnate like Mr. Capil seem like a hand-picked husband, if not actually a champion of stockholders' rights. At such moments the professional stockholders become, from a practical standpoint, enemies of intelligent dissent.
另一方面，我认为他们也值得同情。不论我们是否认为他们有道理，因为他们处在一个不愿被代表的选民群体立场中。很难想象，有谁会比这些因股息而富足的股东更不情愿去主张他们的民主权利，或者更怀疑那些试图为他们主张这些权利的人。当然，如今大多数股东确实都充分享受着股息。Burley提到，股东的角色本质上是被动接受的，而不是管理和创造。据我观察，大多数底特律的AT&T股东如此坚信公司如同圣诞老人般慷慨赠予，以至于他们超越了被动接受，变成了一种积极地隐藏的爱。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On the other hand, I thought they deserve sympathy, too. Whether or not one believes they have right on their side, because they are in the position of representing a constituency that doesn't want to be represented. It's hard to imagine anyone more reluctant to claim as Democratic rights, or more suspicious of anyone who tries to claim them for him than a dividend-fattened stockholder. And of course, most stockholders are thoroughly dividend-fattened these days. Burley speaks of the estate of stockholders as being, by its nature, passive-receptive, rather than managing and creating. Most of the AT&T stockholders in Detroit, it seemed to me, were so deeply devoted to the notion of the company as Santa Claus that they went beyond passive receptivity to active-covered love.
专业股东们承担了一项几乎像在大通曼哈顿银行的年轻经理中为青年共产主义联盟招募人员一样吃力不讨好的任务，这是我的感觉。考虑到菲利皮主席在1965年于斯克内克塔迪对通用电气股东的警告和关于公司强硬派任务小组的报告，我怀着紧迫追击的感觉，登上了一列南行的普尔曼列车，前往通用电气年度会议。这次会议在亚特兰大的市政礼堂举行，这是一个精致的大厅，后面有一个带树木和草坪的室内花园。尽管会议是在一个沉闷、下着小雨的南方春季早晨举行，但仍有超过一千名通用电气股东出席。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And the professional stockholders, I felt, had taken on an assignment almost as thankless as that of recruiting for the Young Communist League among the junior executives of the Chase Manhattan Bank. In view of Chairman Philippi's warning to General Electric stockholders at Schenectady in 1965, and of the report about the company's hard-line task force, it was with a sense of being engaged in hot pursuit that I boarded a Southbound Pullman for the General Electric Annual Meeting. This one was held in Atlanta's Municipal Auditorium, a snappy hall, the rear of which was brightened by an interior garden complete with trees and lawn, and, in spite of the fact, that it was held on a langerous, rainy, southern spring morning, more than a thousand GE stockholders turned out.
据我所见，他们中有三人是黑人，而且不久后我发现他们中还有一位是Sauce女士。虽然上一年在Schenectady时，Philippi先生可能已经十分恼火，但这次主持1966年的会议时，他完全掌控住了自己和局势。无论他是在阐述GE平衡表的奇迹和其实验室的发现，还是与专业股东争辩，他都用同样单调的语调讲话，小心翼翼地在耐心、细致的讲解与讽刺之间找到平衡。Saxon先生在他发表在《哈佛商业评论》中的文章中写道，高管们发现有必要学习如何减轻少数捣乱者对大多数股东的不利影响，同时增强年度会议中发生的好事情的积极效果。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As far as I could see, three of them were Negroes, and it was not long before I saw that another of them was Mrs. Sauce. However exasperated he may have become the previous year in Schenectady, Mr. Philippi, who also conducted the 1966 meeting, was in perfect control of himself and of the situation this time around. Whether he was expatiating on the wonders of GE's balance sheet and its laboratory discoveries were sparring with the professional stockholders, he spoke in the same singsong way, delicately treading the thin line between patient, careful exposition, and irony. Mr. Saxon, in his Harvard Business Review article, had written, top executives are finding it necessary to learn how to lessen the adverse impact of the few disruptors on the majority of share owners, while simultaneously enhancing the positive effects of the good things which do take place in the annual meeting.
得知先前同一个萨克森先生被通用电气聘为股东关系顾问后，我不禁怀疑菲利皮先生的表现是在展示萨克森主义。那些专业股东则采用了完全相同的模棱两可的风格进行回应，整个对话的氛围就像是两个曾经争吵过的人在尝试不太情愿地和好。专业股东本可能要求知道通用电气在控制他们方面花了多少钱，但他们错过了这个机会。其中一段对话甚至显得有些机智风趣。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And having learned sometime earlier that the same Mr. Saxon had been engaged by GE as an advisor on stockholder relations, I couldn't help suspecting that Mr. Philippi's performance was a demonstration of Saxonism in action. The professional stockholders, for their part, responded by adopting precisely the same ambiguous style, and the resulting dialogue had the general air of a conversation between two people who have quarreled and then decided not quite wholeheartedly to make it up. The professional stockholders might have demanded to know how much money GE had spent in the interest of keeping them under control, but they missed the chance. One of the exchanges in this vein achieved a touch of wit.
索女士用最甜美的语气提醒大家一件事：董事会候选人之一，普渡大学校长、前陆军科学顾问小组主席傅雷德里克·L·霍夫德，仅持有通用电气公司十股股票。她认为董事会成员应该是持股较多的人。对此，菲利普先生也同样温和地指出，公司有成千上万的小股东，其中就包括索女士。他建议这些小股东或许也应该在董事会中有代表。索女士不得不承认这一主席风范的高明之处，并表示赞同。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mrs. Saw speaking in her sweetest tone called attention to the fact that one of the board of directors' candidates, Frederick L. Hovde, president of Purdue University and former chairman of the Army Scientific Advisory Panel, owned only ten shares of GE stock and said she felt that the board should be made up of more substantial holders. Whereupon, Mr. Philippi pointed out, just as sweetly, that the company had many thousands of holders of ten or fewer shares, Mrs. Sawce among them, and suggested that perhaps these small holders were deserving of representation on the board by one of their number. Mrs. Sawce had to concede a fine stroke of chairmanship, and she did.
就另一件事而言，虽然双方都严格保持了礼仪，但表面的和谐并不完全。一些累积投票制的股东，包括索斯夫人在内，正式提议公司在董事选举中采用累积投票制度。根据该制度，股东可以将他拥有的所有选票集中投给单一候选人，而不是分散给整个董事会的所有候选人。这使得少数股东有更大机会选出自己的代表。虽然在大企业中累积投票是一个争议话题，原因显而易见，但它确实是一个非常可取的想法。事实上，在超过二十个州注册的公司采用这种制度是强制性的，纽约证券交易所上市的大约四百家公司也在使用这种制度。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On another matter, although decorum was stringently maintained by both sides, outward accord was less complete. Commulative stockholders, Mrs. Sawce among them, had formally proposed that the company adopt for its director elections the system called cumulative voting, under which a stockholder may concentrate all the votes he is entitled to on a single candidate rather than spread them over the whole slate, and which therefore gives a minority group of stockholders a much better chance of electing one representative to the board. In voting, though a subject of controversy in big business circles, for obvious reasons, is nevertheless a perfectly respectable idea. Indeed, it is mandatory for companies incorporated in more than twenty states, and it is used by some four hundred companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
尽管如此，Philippi先生并没有觉得有必要回应Sawce女士关于累积投票的论点。相反，他选择依靠一份之前已邮寄给股东的公司简短声明，该声明的重点是，如果累积投票导致特别利益团体的代表进入GE董事会，可能会产生分裂和干扰作用。当然，Philippi先生并没有透露他知道公司已经掌握了足够多的代理票以否决该提案，尽管他很可能确实知道这一点。有些公司就像某些动物一样，有自己专门的挑衅者，专门骚扰它们，而不是其他公司，通用电气就是其中之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Nevertheless, Mr. Philippi did not find it necessary to answer Mrs. Sawce's argument for cumulative voting. He chose instead to stand on a brief company statement on this subject that had been previously mailed out to stockholders, the main point of which was that the presence on the GE Board, as a result of cumulative voting of representatives of special interest groups, might have a divisive and disruptive effect. Of course, Mr. Philippi did not say he knew, as he doubtless did know, that the company had in hand more than enough proxies to defeat the proposal. Some companies, like some animals, have their private, highly specialized gadflies, who harass them and nobody else, and General Electric is one.
在这个例子中，这位“搅局者”是来自芝加哥的路易斯·A·布鲁萨蒂。在过去的十三年里，他在公司的会议上提出了三十一项提案，但所有提案都以至少97%对3%的投票结果被否决。这次在亚特兰大，布鲁萨蒂先生这位头发花白、身材如同橄榄球运动员的人，再次站出来。不过这次不是提案，而是提问。他想知道为什么菲利皮先生在委托书声明中列出的通用电气股票个人持股现在是423股，比一年前少了。菲利皮先生回答说，这些差额是他捐给了家族信托基金，并轻描淡写但强调地补充说，我可以说这不关你的事。我相信我有权保持我事务的隐私。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In this instance, the gadfly was Louis A. Brussati of Chicago, who, at the company's meetings over the past thirteen years, had advanced thirty-one proposals, all of which had been defeated by a vote of at least ninety-seven percent to three percent. In Atlanta, Mr. Brussati, a gray-haired man built like a football player, was added again. Not with proposals this time but with questions. For one thing, he wanted to know why Mr. Philippi's personal holdings of GE stock listed in the proxy statement, now were 423 shares, fewer than they had been a year ago. Mr. Philippi replied that the difference represented shares that he had contributed to family trust funds, and added, mildly, but with emphasis, I could say it's none of your business. I believe I have a right to the privacy of my affairs.
在布鲁萨蒂先生毫无情感的单调声调中指出，马拉德的理由比强调的理由更多。许多菲利皮先生的股份都是通过期权以优惠价格获得的，这些价格是其他人无法得到的。此外，菲利皮先生的具体持股在委托书中被列出，这显然表明，在证券交易委员会的意见中，他的持股是布鲁萨蒂先生关心的事情。接下来，关于支付给董事的费用问题，布鲁萨蒂先生从菲利皮先生那里得知，这些费用在过去七年中从每年2,500美元先是提高到5,000美元，然后又提高到7,500美元。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
There was more reason for the maladness than for the emphasis, as Mr. Brussati did not fail to point out in an impeccably unemotional monotone. Many of Mr. Philippi's shares had been acquired under options at preferential prices, not available to others, and moreover, the fact that Mr. Philippi's precise holdings had been included in the proxy statement clearly showed that in the opinion of the Securities and Exchange Commission, his holdings were Mr. Brussati's business. Moving on to the matter of the fees paid directors, Mr. Brussati elicited from Mr. Philippi the information that over the past seven years these had been raised from $2,500 per annum first to $5,000 and then to $7,500.
两位男士之间接下来的对话是这样的。顺便问一下，这些费用是谁定的？这些费用是由董事会制定的。董事会为自己定的费？是的。谢谢，谢谢您，布鲁萨蒂先生。当天早上晚些时候，股东们对通用电气和南方美德发表了几次长篇且有力的讲话。但让我印象深刻的是，布鲁萨蒂先生和菲利皮先生之间相当优雅而隐晦的这段对话，它似乎概括了会议的精神。只有在宣布散会后，这是在12点30分，菲利皮先生宣布无人反对的董事名单已经当选，累计投票以97.51％比2.49％失利后，我才意识到这次会议不仅没有像底特律那样出现跺脚、喝倒彩或大喊大叫的情况，而且也不需要通过调动地区自豪感来应对专业股东们。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The ensuing dialogue between the two men went like this. By the way, who establishes those fees? Those fees are established by the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors established their own fees? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brussati. Later on in the morning, there were several lengthy and eloquent orations by stockholders on the virtues of General Electric and of the South. But this rather elegantly elliptical exchange between Mr. Brussati and Mr. Philippi stuck in my mind, for it seemed to sum up the spirit of the meeting. Only after adjournment, which came at $12.30, following Mr. Philippi's announcement that the unopposed slate of directors had been elected and that cumulative voting had lost by 97.51% to 2.49%, did I realize that not only had there been no stamping, booing, or shouting as there had been in Detroit, but regional pride had not had to be invoked against the professional stockholders.
我感觉通用电气公司手里一直掌握着一张王牌，但它在董事会上获胜的过程中并不需要亮出这张牌。每次我参加的会议都有其明显的特点，而查尔斯·辉瑞公司的会议则表现出一种和睦的氛围。这家多元化制药和化工公司辉瑞，以往通常在布鲁克林的总部召开年度会议，而今年却反其道而行之，将会议搬到了言辞最激烈的反对者所在地——曼哈顿中城。不过，我所看到和听到的一切让我确信，这么做的动机并不是公司想勇敢地去挑战反对者，而是一种不太时髦但十分诚恳的愿望：希望能吸引尽可能多的人参与会议。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It had been General Electric's whole card, I felt, but General Electric had won on the Board without needing to turn it up. Each meeting I attended had its easily discernible characteristic tone, and that of Charles Pfizer and Company, the diversified pharmaceutical and chemical firm was amicability. Pfizer, which in previous years had customarily held its annual meeting at its headquarters in Brooklyn, reversed the trend by moving this year's meeting right into the lair of the most vocal dissenters, Midtown Manhattan. But everything that I saw and heard convinced me that the motivation behind this move had been not a brash resolve on the company's part to beard the lions and their den, but a highly unfashionable desire to get the maximum possible turnout.
辉瑞似乎对自己很有信心，以至于在与股东们见面时毫无戒备。例如，与我参加的其他会议不同，在辉瑞会议举办地——大都会酒店的Grand Balderm大厅入口处，没有收取股东的门票或检查资格证书。就连我偶尔觉得专业股东们模仿的演讲风格的菲德尔·卡斯特罗本人也可以自由走入并发表任何言论。大约有1700人出席了会议，几乎坐满了整个舞厅。辉瑞董事会的全体成员从头到尾都坐在台上，并单独回答了股东们提出的任何问题。董事长约翰尼·麦基恩（Johnny McKean）以带有细微布鲁克林口音的语调，热情地称呼股东们为“我亲爱和珍视的朋友们”。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Pfizer seemed to feel self-confident enough to meet its stockholders with its guard down. For instance, in contrast with the other meetings I attended, no stockholder tickets were collected or credentials checked at the entrance to the Grand Balderm of the Commodore Hotel, where the Pfizer meeting was held. Fidel Castro himself, whose oratorical style, I have occasionally felt that the professional stockholders were using as a model, could presumably have walked in and set whatever he chose. Some 1700 persons, or nearly enough to fill the ballroom, showed up, and all the members of the Pfizer board of directors sat on the platform from start to finish and answered any questions addressed to them individually. Speaking appropriately with a faint trace of a Brooklyn accent, Chairman Johnny McKean welcomed the stockholders as, my dear and cherished friends.
我试着想象Capel先生和Philippi先生像这样对他们的股东讲话，但无法做到。不过，他们的公司更大。此外，他们表示，在离开时，每位在场人士都会收到一个包含辉瑞消费品的大礼包，例如Barbosol、Deceton和Imprevoo。Wood通过这些亲切的话语和赠礼的承诺，再加上由公司总裁John J. Powers Jr.对于当前运营情况的报告进行进一步软化，报告显示各项记录保持良好，前景良好，还有更多记录预期将被打破。即使是最顽固的职业股东在这个会议上也很难发动什么反抗，而事实上，唯一在场的职业股东似乎是Lewis的哥哥John Gilbert。我后来了解到，那天Lewis Gilbert和Davis女士在克利夫兰，参加美国钢铁公司的会议。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I tried to imagine Mr. Capel and Mr. Philippi addressing their stockholders that way, and couldn't, but then their companies are bigger, and said that on the way out everyone present would be given a big free-sample kit of Pfizer consumer products, such as Barbosol, Deceton, and Imprevoo. Wood thus by endearments and the promise of gifts, and further softened up by the report of President John J. Powers Jr. on current operations, records all around, in immediate prospects, more records expected. The most intransigent professional stockholder would have been hard put to it to mount much of a rebellion at this particular meeting, and, as it happened, the only professional present seemed to be John Gilbert, brother of Lewis. I learned later that Lewis Gilbert and Mrs. Davis were in Cleveland that day, attending the U.S. Steel meeting.
约翰·吉尔伯特是辉瑞公司管理层理想中的职业股东类型，或至少他们希望是这样的类型。他性格随和，经常用自嘲的小笑声来点缀自己的话语，是人们能想象到的最会撒娇的惹人讨厌的人，至少在这个场合如此，据说他并不总是这样。当他逐一询问看似吉尔伯特家族惯常的问题，如公司审计师的可靠性、高管的薪水、董事的费用时，他似乎对此感到几乎抱歉，仿佛是职责迫使他不得不冒昧地提问。至于在场的业余股东们，他们的问题和评论与我参加过的其他会议大致相同，但这次他们对职业股东角色的态度明显不同。原本压倒性反对的他们，现在似乎分成了两派。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
John Gilbert is the sort of professional stockholder the Pfizer management deserves, or would like to think it does. With an easygoing manner, in a habit of punctuating his words with self-deprecating little laughs, he is the most ingratiating gadfly imaginable, or was, on this occasion, I'm told he isn't always. And as he ran through what seemed to be the standard Gilbert family repertoire of questions, on the reliability of the firm's auditors, the salaries of its officers, the fees of its directors, he seemed almost apologetic that duty called on him to commit the indelicacy of asking such things. As for the amateur stockholders present, their questions and comments were about like those at the other meetings I'd attended, but this time their attitude toward the role of the professional stockholder was noticeably different. Instead of being overwhelmingly opposed, they appeared to be split.
法官通过掌声和轻微的抱怨声判断，在场的大约一半人认为吉尔伯特令人厌烦，而另一半则认为他是个帮助。法官明确表达了自己的感受。在结束会议前，他毫不讽刺地表示欢迎吉尔伯特的提问，并特地邀请他明年再来。而在辉瑞会议的后期阶段，当吉尔伯特以聊天的方式赞扬公司某些方面，又批评其他方面时，董事会的各成员也同样轻松地回复了他的评论。我第一次感受到股东和管理者之间有了一丝真实的交流。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The judge, from the volume of clapping and of discrete groaning, about half of those present considered Gilbert an annoyance and half considered him a help. The judge left no doubt about how he felt. Before journeying the meeting he said without irony that he had welcomed Gilbert's questions and made a point of inviting him to come again next year. And indeed, during the later stages of the Pfizer meeting, when Gilbert, in a conversational way, was praising the company for some things and criticizing it for others, and the various members of the board were replying to his comments just as informally, I got for the first time a fleeting sense of genuine communication between stockholders and managers.
美国无线电公司（RCA）在1964年和1965年分别在洛杉矶和芝加哥召开了其最后两次会议，这次逆转了远离纽约总部召开的趋势，选择在卡内基音乐厅举行。这次会议吸引了大量股东，共有约2300名，整个乐队席和两层包厢都坐满了人。其中明显比我参加的其他任何会议中男性比例更高。不过，Sauce女士和Davis女士依然出席了，与会的还有Lewis Gilbert和一些我之前没见过的职业股东。和辉瑞公司一样，RCA的整个董事会成员都坐在了台上，而会议的焦点则是公司75岁的董事长大卫·萨尔诺夫和他的儿子、48岁的罗伯特·W·萨尔诺夫，他从年初开始担任公司的总裁。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The Radio Corporation of America, which had held its last two meetings far from its New York headquarters in Los Angeles in 1964, in Chicago in 1965, reserved the current trend even more decisively than Pfizer by convening this time in Carnegie Hall. The entire orchestra and the two tiers of boxes were completely filled with stockholders, about twenty-three hundred of them, of whom a strikingly larger proportion than at any of my other meetings was male. Mrs. Sauce and Mrs. Davis were on hand, though, along with Lewis Gilbert and some professional stockholders I hadn't seen before. And, as with Pfizer, the company's whole board of directors sat on the platform, with the chief centers of attraction in RCA's case were David Sarnoff, the company's 75-year-old chairman, and his 48-year-old son, Robert W. Sarnoff, who had been its president since the beginning of the year.
对我来说，RCA会议中有两个方面特别引人注目。首先是股东们对他们著名主席几乎崇拜般的尊重，其次是业余股东们表现出的不寻常的主动发言态度。年长的萨诺夫先生，看起来精神饱满，随时准备应对任何事情，他主持了会议，并与其他几位RCA高管一起汇报了公司的运营和前景。在他们报告的过程中，“记录”和“增长”这几个词重复得如此单调，以至于我作为一个非RCA股东，差点昏昏欲睡。不过，有一次我听到RCA子公司全国广播公司主席沃尔特·D·斯科特在谈论电视节目时说，创意资源总是能超前满足需求。这个说法没有人反对，其他亮眼的报告内容也无人质疑，但在报告结束后，股东们对其他事务畅所欲言。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
For me, two aspects of the RCA meetings stood out. The evident respect, amounting almost to veneration of the stockholders for their celebrated chairman, and an unaccustomed disposition of the amateur stockholders to speak up for themselves. The elder Mr. Sarnoff, looking hail and ready for anything, conducted the meeting, and he and several other RCA executives gave reports on company operations and prospects, in the course of which the words, record and growth, recurred so monotonously that I, not being an RCA stockholder, began to nod. I was brought wide awake with a jolt on one occasion, though, when I heard Walter D. Scott, chairman of RCA's subsidiary, the National Broadcasting Company, say in connection with his network's television programming that creative resources are always running ahead of demand. No one objected to that statement, or to anything else in the glowing reports, but when they were over the stockholders had their say on other matters.
吉尔伯特先生提出了一些他最喜欢的有关会计程序的问题，RCA公司聘请的会计公司Arthur Young and Company的一位代表做出了回复，让吉尔伯特先生感到满意。一位自称玛莎·布兰德夫人的老年女士表示，她持有RCA公司的大量股票，并认为公司会计程序不应该受到质疑。我后来了解到，布兰德夫人是一位非常支持管理层立场的职业股东，这在业内是个特例。接着，吉尔伯特先生提出采纳累积投票制的建议，并援引了在GE会议上由索女士使用过的类似论点进行支持。萨尔诺夫先生反对这一动议，布兰德夫人也表示反对。她解释说，她确信现在的董事们总是在不遗余力地为公司福祉工作，并补充说她持有非常大量的股票。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mr. Gilbert raised some favorite questions of his about accounting procedures, and a representative of RCA's accountants, Arthur Young and Company, made replies that seemed to satisfy Mr. Gilbert. A Dickensian elderly lady, who identified herself as Mrs. Martha Brand, and said she held many thousands of shares of RCA stock, expressed the view that the accounting procedures of the company should not even be questioned. I have since learned that Mrs. Brand is a professional stockholder who is an anomaly within the profession in that she leans strongly toward the management view of things. Mr. Gilbert then advanced the proposal for the adoption of cumulative voting, supporting it with about the same arguments that Mrs. Saw said used at the GE meeting. Mr. Sarnoff opposed the motion, and so did Mrs. Brand, who explained that she was sure the present directors always worked tirelessly for the welfare of the corporation, and added this time that she was the holder of many, many thousands of shares.
两三位其他股东发言支持累计投票，这是我唯一一次在任何会议上看到未被视为专业人士的股东在实质性问题上表达不同意见。然而，累计投票被否决了，投票结果是95.3%对4.7%。Mrs. Sawce在亚特兰大时情绪稍微平和，她表示很高兴看到一位女士Josephine Young Case夫人坐在舞台上担任RCA董事会成员，但对代理声明中将Case夫人的主要身份描述为家庭主妇表示遗憾。这样一位担任Skidmore College董事会主席的女性，至少不能被称作家庭管理者吗？另一位女股东引发了一阵掌声，她称主席Sarnoff为20世纪奇妙的灰姑娘，并赠送了一份编号（P.N.）。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Two or three other stockholders spoke up in favor of cumulative voting, the only occasion at any meeting, and which I saw stockholders not easily identifiable as professionals speak in dissent on a matter of substance. Cumulative voting was defeated, 95.3% to 4.7%. Mrs. Sawce, still in his milder mood as in Atlanta, said she was delighted to see a woman, Mrs. Josephine Young Case, sitting on the stage as a member of the RCA Board, but deplored the fact that Mrs. Case's principal occupation was given on the proxy statement as housewife. Couldn't a woman, who was chairman of the Board of Skidmore College, at least be called a home executive? Another lady stockholder, set off a round of applause by delivering a P.N. to Chairman Sarnoff, whom she called the marvelous Cinder-Elamand of the 20th Century.
戴维斯夫人曾反对会议地点，她认为卡内基音乐厅对RCA来说太不高雅，这让我感到震惊。她提出了一项决议，要求公司采取行动，确保今后任何人在年满72岁后不得担任董事。虽然许多公司都有类似的规定，并且该提案不会追溯影响萨尔诺夫先生的地位，但似乎是针对他的。因此，戴维斯夫人再次展示了她惊人的本事，反而顺了管理层的意。然而，当她戴上蝙蝠侠面具时，我并没有理解其象征意义，这也没能帮助她的主张。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mrs. Davis, who had earlier objected to the site of the meeting on the ground, which I found dumbfounding, that Carnegie Hall was too unsophisticated for RCA, advanced a resolution calling for company action to ensure that hereafter no person shall serve as a director after he shall have attained the age of 72. Even though similar rulings are in effect in many companies, and even though the proposal not being retroactive would have no effect upon Mr. Sarnoff's status, it seemed to be aimed at him, and thus Mrs. Davis demonstrated again her uncanny knack of playing into management's hands. Nor did she appear to help her cause by putting on a Batman mask, the symbolism of which I didn't grasp when she made it.
无论如何，这项提议引发了许多人对萨尔诺夫先生的热情辩护，其中一位发言者还激烈抱怨说戴维斯夫人侮辱了在场所有人的智商。听到这些，态度严肃的吉尔伯特先生跳起来说：“我完全同意她服装的荒唐，但她的提议中有一个合理的原则。”通过这种伏尔泰式的辩证，吉尔伯特先生显然在克服个人倾向上取得了理性的胜利，但这也让他倍感挣扎。最终，戴维斯夫人的提案被压倒性否决。否决的比例也为会议画上了句号，相当于对“灰姑娘”的人给予了热烈的信任投票。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
At all events, the proposal gave rise to several impassioned defenses of Mr. Sarnoff, and one of the speakers went on to complain bitterly that Mrs. Davis was insulting the intelligence of everyone present. At this, the serious-minded Mr. Gilbert leaped up to say, I quite agree about the silliness of her costume, but there is a valid principle in her proposal. In making this Voltarian distinction, Mr. Gilbert, to judge from his evident state of agitation, was achieving a triumph of reason over inclination that was costing him plenty. Mrs. Davis's resolution was defeated overwhelmingly. The margin against it served to end the meeting with what amounted to a rousing vote of confidence in the Cinderella man.
在我结束会议季时，参加了通信卫星公司（Comsat）的会议，会议的气氛充满了经典的滑稽色彩，这是一种主导的情绪。通信卫星公司当然是那个令人瞩目的太空时代通信公司，它于1963年由政府成立，并于1964年通过一次著名的股票发行转为公开持有。当我抵达位于华盛顿的Shorem酒店会议现场时，看到大约一千位股东中有戴维斯夫人、索斯夫人和刘易斯·吉尔伯特，并不感到特别惊讶。戴维斯夫人化着舞台妆，穿着橙色的太阳帽、短红裙、白靴子和黑色毛衣，毛衣上用白字写着“我生来就是要制造混乱”的字样，她坚定地站在一排电视摄像机前。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Classic Fars, with elements of slapstick, was the dominant mood of the meeting of the Communications Satellite Corporation, with which I wound up my meeting-going season. Comsat is, of course, the glamorous space-age communications company that was set up by the government in 1963, and turned over to public ownership in a celebrated stock sale in 1964. Upon arriving at the meeting site, the Shorem Hotel in Washington, I was scarcely startled to discover Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Sauce, and Lewis Gilbert among the thousand-or-so stockholders present. Mrs. Davis, decked out in stage-makeup, in orange-pith helmet, a short red skirt, white boots, and a black sweater, bearing in white letters the legend I was born to raise hell, had planted herself squarely in front of a battery of television cameras.
根据我了解到的习惯，索斯夫人（Mrs. Sauce）坐到了房间里戴维斯夫人（Mrs. Davis）对面的座位上，这意味着她现在尽可能地远离了电视摄像机。考虑到索斯夫人平时并不介意被拍摄，我只能把她的座位选择看作是良心的艰难胜利，类似于吉尔伯特先生在卡内基音乐厅的表现。至于吉尔伯特先生，他选了一个离索斯夫人不远的座位，自然也就离戴维斯夫人很远了。自去年以来，那位在1965年坚定主持ComSAT会议的里奥·D·韦尔奇（Leo D. Welch）已被公司新任主席詹姆斯·麦考密克（James McCormick）取代。麦考密克先生毕业于西点军校，曾是罗德学者，也是退役的空军将军，他举止文雅，和温莎公爵有几分相似。今年的会议正是由麦考密克先生主持。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mrs. Sauce, as I had learned by now was her custom, had taken a place at the opposite side of the room for Mrs. Davis, and this meant that she was now as far as possible from the television cameras. Considering that Mrs. Sauce does not ordinarily seem to be averse to being photographed, I could write down this choice of seat only as a hard-won triumph of conscience akin to Mr. Gilbert's at Carnegie Hall. As for Mr. Gilbert, he took a place not far from Mrs. Sauce, and thus, of course, a long way from Mrs. Davis. Since the previous year, Leo D. Welch, the man who had conducted the 1965 ComSAT meeting with such a firm hand, has been replaced as chairman of the company by James McCormick, a West Point graduate, former Rhodes Scholar, and retired Air Force General with an impeccably polished manor who bears a certain resemblance to the Duke of Windsor, and Mr. McCormick was conducting this year's session.
他开始时用几句开场白来热身，在此过程中，他流畅却不乏强调地指出，股东可以进行的任何干预，其相关性的范围非常有限。当麦考密克先生结束开场后，萨斯女士做了一个简短的演讲，这可能与相关性问题有关，也可能无关。由于她的地板麦克风出现故障，我错过了大部分内容。随后，戴维斯女士要求发言，她的麦克风效果好得过头。作为镜头焦点，她对公司及其董事进行了声嘶力竭的抨击，原因是会议室有一扇特别为嘉宾保留的入口门。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He warmed up with some preliminary remarks in the course of which he noted, smoothly, but not without emphasis, that as for the subject of any intervention that a stockholder might choose to make, the field of relevance is quite narrow. When Mr. McCormick had finished his warm-up, Mrs. Sauce made a brief speech that may or may not have come within the field of relevance. I missed most of it because the floor microphone supplied to her wasn't working right. Mrs. Davis then claimed the floor, and her mic was working all too well. As the camera's ground, she launched into an ear-splitting tirade against the company and its directors because there had been a special door to the meeting room reserved for the entrance of distinguished guests.
戴维斯夫人用了相当多的话表示她认为这个程序不够民主。我们道歉，麦考密克先生说，当您出去时，可以随便走任何一扇门。然而，戴维斯夫人显然并未满意，继续发表她的意见。这时，随着吉尔伯特阵营决定放弃与戴维斯夫人保持一致的努力，福雷斯特的情绪变得更为激动。在她演讲达到高潮时，吉尔伯特先生如同一个因为球赛被不懂规矩且无所谓的人破坏而愤怒的男孩，站起身来大喊：“程序问题，程序问题。”但麦考密克先生拒绝了这次议会程序帮助的提议。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mrs. Davis, in a good many words, said she considered this procedure undemocratic. We apologize, and when you go out, please go by any door you want, Mr. McCormick said. But, Mrs. Davis clearly unappeased when on speaking. And now the mood of Forrest was heightened when it became clear that the Sauce Gilbert faction had decided to abandon all efforts to keep ranks closed with Mrs. Davis. Near the height of her oration, Mr. Gilbert, looking as outraged as a boy whose ballgame is being spoiled by a player who doesn't know the rules or care about the game, got up and began shouting, point of order, point of order. But Mr. McCormick spurned this offer of parliamentary help.
他裁定吉尔伯特先生的程序质疑无效。于此同时，戴维斯女士继续发言。我很容易地推断出他这样做的原因。显然，他与我见过的其他公司主席不同，非常享受会议中的每一分钟。在大部分会议期间，尤其是在职业股东发言时，麦考密克先生始终带着一种完全着迷的观众般的恍惚微笑。最终，戴维斯女士的演讲达到一个音量和内容的高峰，她开始对某些商业卫星董事提出具体指控。此时，三名安保人员出现了：两位魁梧的男士和一位看起来坚毅的女士，全都身穿华丽的瓶绿色制服，看起来就像宾赞斯海盗的戏服。他们从后排进入，以稳健而庄重的步伐走到中间过道，并在戴维斯女士身边的过道休息区站成了列队，仿佛随时准备采取行动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He ruled Mr. Gilbert's point of order out of order. Inbaid, Mrs. Davis proceed. I had no trouble deducing why he did this. There were unmistakable signs that he, unlike any other corporate chairman I had seen in action, was enjoying every minute of the goings-on. Through most of the meeting, and especially when the professional stockholders had the floor, Mr. McCormick wore the dreamy smile of a wholly bemused spectator. Eventually, Mrs. Davis' speech built up to a peak of both volume and content at which she began making specific allegations against individual comm-sat directors. At this point, three security guards, two beefy men and a determined looking woman, all dressed in gaudy, bottle-green uniforms that might have been costumes for the pirates of Penzance, appeared at the rear, marched with brisk yet stately tread up the center aisle and assumed the position of parade rest in the aisle within handy reach of Mrs. Davis.
她突然结束了讲话，然后坐下。麦考密克先生依然笑着说：“好的，一切都解决了。”保安退下后，会议继续进行。麦考密克先生和通讯卫星公司的总裁约瑟夫·V·切里克给出了一个我已经习以为常的公司乐观报告。麦考密克先生甚至说道，通讯卫星公司可能会在来年首次实现盈利，而不是如最初预计的1969年。结果确实如此。吉尔伯特先生问，麦考密克先生除了正常工资之外，还获得了多少董事会议出席费。麦考密克先生回答说他没有得到任何出席费，吉尔伯特先生说：“很高兴你一点都没拿，我对此表示赞成。”大家都笑了，麦考密克先生笑得更加开心。吉尔伯特先生显然试图表明一个他认为很严肃的观点，但今天似乎不适合这种事情。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Whereupon she abruptly concluded her speech and sat down. All right, Mr. McCormick said, still grinning. Everything's cool now. The guards retired, and the meeting proceeded. Mr. McCormick and the comm-sat president, Joseph V. Cherick, gave the sort of glowing report on the company that I had grown accustomed to. Mr. McCormick, going so far as to say that comm-sat might start showing its first profit the following year rather than in 1969 as originally forecast. It did. Mr. Gilbert asked what fee, apart from his regular salary, Mr. McCormick received for attending director's meetings. Mr. McCormick replied that he got no fee, and when Mr. Gilbert said, I'm glad you get nothing, I approve of that, everybody laughed, and Mr. McCormick grinned more broadly than ever. Mr. Gilbert was clearly trying to make what he considered to be a serious point, but this didn't seem to be the day for that sort of thing.
酱夫人尖锐地讽刺了戴维斯夫人，表示反对麦考密克先生担任公司主席的人都缺乏洞察力。然而，她提到自己也难以投票支持威尔士先生——公司前任主席、现任董事会候选人，因为去年他曾下令把她赶出公司。一位精神矍铄的老先生表示，他认为公司运转得很好，大家都应该对公司有信心。有一次，吉尔伯特先生说了句话让戴维斯夫人不满，戴维斯夫人未经允许就在房间里大声反对，麦考密克先生不禁轻笑了一声。这“咯咯”的一声 falsetto 笑音，通过主席的麦克风放大后，成了康姆赛特会议上的主题。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Mrs. Sauce took a dig at Mrs. Davis by saying pointedly that anyone who opposed Mr. McCormick as company chairman was lacking in perspicacity. She did note, however, that she couldn't quite bring herself to vote for Mr. Welch, the former chairman, who was now a candidate for the board, in as much as he had ordered her thrown out last year. A peppy old gentleman said that he thought the company was doing fine, and everyone should have faith in it. Once when Mr. Gilbert said something that Mrs. Davis didn't like, and Mrs. Davis, without waiting to be recognized, began shouting her objection across the room, Mr. McCormick gave a short, irrepressible giggle. That single falsetto syllable, magnificently amplified by the chairman's microphone, was the motif of the Comsat meeting.
在从华盛顿返回的飞机上，当我回想参加过的那些会议时，我意识到，如果会上没有职业股东，我可能对公司的事务了解得差不多，但对他们的首席执行官的个性了解得会少很多。毕竟，正是那些职业股东的提问、打断和发言在某种程度上让公司变得生动，使得每位董事长不得不放下他们在官方场合的面具，投入到一种真正的人际交流中。虽然这种人际关系通常只是没完没了的唠叨和唠叨，但对于那些希望在高层企业事务中寻找人情味的人来说，没有太大的选择余地。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On the plane returning from Washington, as I was musing on the meetings I had attended, it occurred to me that if there had been no professional stockholders at them, I would probably have learned almost as much as I did about the company's affairs, but that I would have learned a good deal less about their chief executive's personalities. It had, after all, been the questions, interruptions, and speeches of the professional stockholders that brought the companies to life, in a sense, by forcing each chairman to shed his official portrait by Bach Rock Mask and engage in a human relationship. More often than not, this had been the hardly satisfactory human relationship of nag and nag, but anyone looking for humanity in high corporate affairs can't afford to pick and choose.
仍然存在一些疑虑。在三万英尺的高空，俯瞰全局是很有帮助的。当我们飞过费城时，我得出结论，基于自己所见所闻，公司管理层和股东们可能都应该记住《李尔王》中的一个教训：当把核心角色交给小丑时，大家可能都会面临麻烦。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Still some doubts remained. Being thirty thousand feet up in the air is conducive to taking the broader view, and doing so as we winged over Philadelphia, I concluded that, on the basis of what I had seen and heard, both company-management and stockholders might well consider a lesson King Lear learned. That when the role of the center is left to the fool, there may be trouble ahead for everybody.