The Dividend (1916)

John Steele, a capitalist, makes formal announcement as president of the meat corporation of which he is the head, that the new year just starting will see the company earn the greatest dividend in its history. Then he virtually offers his entire life to the task of making good his boast. He neglects his wife, and when his son returns from college he has so little time to devote to the boy that the young man soon drifts into a life of shame and degradation. He is disowned by his father and soon takes up with evil companions who drag him lower and lower. The father, meanwhile, seeks to discharge his obligations to society by a generous contribution to a charitable organization that is erecting a mission for people of the slums. The fact that the very corporation of which Steele is the head will declare its great dividend on the by crushing the people who are expected to take advantage or the mission, does lessen the public acclaim with which Steele's princely gift is received. The paths of Frank Steele, the rich man's son, and Betty Price, a girl of the slums who has been driven to the streets by the oppression of Steele, the elder, eventually cross, and they take up life together. With them are other companions of the underworld, one of whom attends the dedication of the mission upon its completion, and when words of praise are being said for Steele, the millionaire, the girl of the underworld arises and denounces him as the man responsible for the condition of herself and hundreds of others like her at that very minute. Young Steele has long since ceased to make efforts to see his father and has surrendered body and soul to a life of the deepest degradation. With his companion, Betty, he becomes a drug fiend and his greatest struggle is to secure the money needed to supply them with opium. And then Betty, now a sodden, wretched, depraved woman of the streets, deserts Steele, and takes up with a thug who soon tires of her and casts her off. Deserted by the one creature to whom he might have clung, young Steele becomes a wanderer on the streets. There is to be a big ball of one of the gangs a certain night. A rival gang plans an attack on that night. Just as the attacking gangsters reach the hall where the ball is in progress, young Steele shambles into sight. A fight starts between the two gangs and a stray bullet strikes young Steele. He is mortally wounded, and the police, who reach the scene almost immediately, are able to identify him and notify his father. The magnate has made good his boast that the company will pay its greatest dividend, but the price has been greater than he reckoned. His wife has gone; his boy lay wounded unto death. The aged man sends word to have his son brought to his home. The boy, just before he dies, forgives his father, but makes clear to him the enormous price he has paid for the record dividend.