The PlayFinder™

THE STORY: According to John Chapman in the New York Daily News, “begins with the annual stockholders’ meeting and election of officers of a colossal manufacturing empire called General Products. Some new officers (old ones being moved up a notch) must be elected because the president of the corporation has taken a big government post in Washington and has been forced to sell his stock at a profit of three million dollars. The election is going smoothly and the meeting is about over when a timid old lady who owns 10 shares…asks if she can ask a question. She has read every page of the annual report and she wants to know why the chairman of the board is being paid $170,000 a year, and how many hours he works to earn this money… She puts one mild query after another, and pretty soon the new officers hush her up by giving her a phony job at $150 a week.” She is to be a kind of liaison officer for the other minority stockholders. She takes her job seriously and writes chatty, friendly letters to the other minority stockholders—asking about their health, their children, and the weather, and makes solid friendships with the small stockholders. The officers of the corporation become a bit uneasy at this, and they’re all set to fire her when she discovers that a small firm that General Products has just forced into bankruptcy is its own subsidiary firm! Using this as gentle means of prodding the directors, the little old lady keeps her own job. When the former president learns what a mess the current directors are making of his business, however, he resigns from his government job, and the big fight is on to regain control of his own business. Things look dark indeed, the wicked directors are about to triumph, and our nice old lady is fired, when the proxies of all the small stockholders start pouring in, and thanks to them the little old lady and former president foil the wicked Board of Directors.