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Wood doesn't believe that "one fellow or a small group of fellows can envision the problems of the whole country and make all the decisions at the top level." He has divided Sears' empire into five satrapies and put a vice president in charge of each. Day-to-day operating problems are left entirely to store managers. They plan their own advertising, price their own goods, pick what they want from Sears' vast supplies. They run their own show—as long as they are getting results. The general can quickly tell when they aren't; each store turns in a monthly box score. As one top aide explained: "The general learned that wet-nursing isn't what develops merchants—and merchants are what he wants in his stores."
"Artillery, Charge!" Wood concentrates just as hard in his off hours, whether at bridge (10¢ a point), hunting, riding, or reading in his 14-room white brick house in suburban Lake Forest. A voracious reader, he races through three or four volumes a week, mostly history and biography. For years he took an early-morning canter on his chestnut-colored Arabian horse Kebar, but has recently been forced to take up golf because all his friends "got too old" to ride. A hunter who used to go after mountain goats, moose and grizzlies, he now limits himself to smaller game such as pheasant and quail. He gets a lot of excitement out of it. When the birds rise, the general is likely to shoot all over the lot, yelling, "Artillery on the left flank, charge!" Farmers who let him hunt on their property are often rewarded; their children get a choice of toys from the Sears catalogue.
Wood's generosity to his own family goes far beyond the covers of the catalogue. He has already given his wife, children, grandchildren and great-granddaughter 57,000 shares of Sears stock, now owns only 52,000 shares himself (worth about $2,800,000).*
"Awful Discipline." Wood's vigorous way of life is the result of a rigorous youth. Born in Kansas City, Mo. in 1879, he was the first of five children of Robert Whitney Wood, an ex-Union Army captain who settled down to run a coal and ice business. When he was 16, Wood was so small (5' 4") that his father gave him $10, sent him off to earn his living and toughen up. After nearly a year with a railroad surveying gang in Texas, Wood returned to Kansas City and won a competitive examination for West Point.
At first, he didn't like the Point, and still recalls that "the discipline was awful." He was among the smallest in his class, and perhaps the sloppiest cadet the Point had ever seen. Once, when the cadets were ordered to wear side arms to chapel, Wood forgetfully marched in with a rifle. Another time, he showed up for guard duty with his shirttail hanging out, and was saved by a friend who threw a raincoat around him. Eventually he put on enough muscle and height so that he was twice selected to represent his class in bare-knuckle bouts with plebes. According to the code of the Point, the plebes could escape hazing if they won. Wood licked both his plebes. He graduated 13th in a class of 54, and was shipped off to the Philippines as a cavalry lieutenant in charge of 100 men and horses, to help clean up Aguinaldo's insurrectos.