It was necessary for me to find, calculating liberally, about eight million dollars—the four millions definitely promised to my university, a quarter of a million to redeem my promise to Natalie, a million properly to set Walter and her going in an independent establishment, two millions to provide them with the income to maintain it, and about half a million for my own and my family’s regular annual expenses. Further, an investment of twelve millions that had been sending its seven per cent. securely and regularly for the past nine years was about to fall in through the payment of the debt it represented—I could write a volume on the harassments and exasperations of hunting investments. Finally, I was hoping that Aurora would marry Horton Kirkby, which might mean a million, perhaps several millions, more, if he should demand a dowry.
The situation commanded me to plan and carry through some new enterprise which would afford me a safe investment for my released twelve millions and in addition would net me enough to cover well the other demands upon me. Years ago—as soon as I had my first million put by—I resolved that I would never for any purpose whatsoever subtract a penny either from the principal or from the income of my fortune. Gifts of all kinds, expenses of all kinds, outgo of every description, must come from new sources of revenue; my fortune and its income and the surplus over the previous year’s outgo must be treated as a sacred fund of which I was merely the trustee. That rule has put me often in straits, has forced me to many money-making measures that in the narrow view would be called relentless. But to it the world owes my highest achievements, as a financier and industrial leader, and to it I owe the bulk of my fortune.
The brain earns in vain, however hugely, if the hands do not hoard; and, thanks to my rule, my hands have been like those valves which open only to pressure from without and seal the more tightly the greater the pressure from within.
I could not break my rule. Yet I must properly marry my children and must keep my promise to my university; and to have left twelve millions of capital idle would have been to show myself unworthy of the responsibilities of great wealth. I was thus literally driven to one of those large public services which are so venomously criticised by the small and the envious. Every action of no matter what kind produces both good and bad consequences. To wait until one could act without any unfortunate results to anybody would be to sit motionless, even to refrain from eating. The most that conscience demands is that one shall do only those things which in his best judgment will show a balance on the side of good.
I had long had my eye on certain mines and appendant manufactories situated at several points on two of my three lines of railway. They were doing well enough in a small way; but I knew that, combined under the direction of such a brain as mine, they would become immensely more profitable. I now saw no alternative to taking them and making them as valuable and as useful as they were clearly intended to be. In preparation for the coup I withdrew from the directory of my third railway, substituting one of my unrecognised agents, himself a millionaire in a small way; and I put my stock in the names of others of my agents and did not deny the report that I had ceased to have any financial interest in the road. Thus I was in a position to alter its freight rates without the change being traced to me by those prying meddlers who are so active in their interference in other people’s business nowadays. When it was universally believed that I no longer had any connection with my third road, and that it had passed to a control hostile to me, I ordered it to give large secret rebates upon all freight of the kind I wished to affect.
The result was that the owners of those mines and factories, being compelled to ship by my two other railways, which stiffly maintained rates, were no longer able to compete. Their competitors, shipping by my third line, easily undersold them with the assistance of the secret rebate. They came in a stew and sweat to my two presidents and said that secret rebates by the third line were the cause of their impending ruin. My two presidents agreed with them and opened a fierce war of words upon my third president—him whom they and every one else thought hostile to me. He retorted with a sweeping denial of their charges. “It is nothing new in a world of self-excuse,” said he, “for incompetent business men to attribute their misfortunes to the wickedness of others instead of to the real source—their own incapacity and incompetence.” And so the sham battle raged by mail and newspaper interview. But—the mine and factory owners I was gunning for got nothing tangible out of it. Their competitors continued to undersell them; their business rapidly languished.
When I saw that they were in a sufficiently humble frame of mind I came to their relief. I sent word to them that, as I had a warm personal feeling for the towns dependent upon the prosperity of their works, I would take a hand in their languishing businesses if they wished and would do my utmost to maintain the apparently hopeless battle.
My offer was received with enthusiastic gratitude—as it should have been; for, while it is true that I had precipitated the crisis which their antiquated methods of doing business would have inevitably brought sooner or later, is it not also true that I have the right to do what I wish with my own? And are not those two railways, and the third, as well, my own? But for the present rampant spirit of contemptuous disregard for the rights of private property and the impudent intrusions into private business it would not have been necessary for me to disguise myself and act like a housebreaker in order to exercise my plain rights—yes, and do my plain duty; for can there be any question in any judicial mind that it is the duty of men of the commercial and financial genius which I possess to use it to bring the resources of the country to their highest efficiency?
After some negotiations I got control of the properties that I needed and that needed me. I agreed to pay altogether fifteen millions for a controlling share in them—about half what it would have cost me before I brought my rebate artillery to bear, but about twice what control would have cost had I battered away for six months longer. I might have accomplished my purpose much more cheaply; but I am not a hard man, and I do not flatter myself when I say that conscience is the dominant factor in all my operations. I felt that in the circumstances the owners were entitled to consideration and that to make my victory complete would be an abuse of power. It is hardly necessary to add that my generosity had its prudent side, as has all rational generosity. To have assailed the properties too long in order to get them cheap would have permanently impaired their value; to have wiped out the owners utterly would have caused a profound, possibly dangerous, public resentment against my class, too many members of which had been guilty of the grave blunder of using their power without regard to public opinion. But while prudence was a factor in my general settlement, the main factor was, as I have said, conscience. Not the narrow conscientiousness of ordinary men, which is three parts ignorance, two parts cowardice, and five parts envy—for is it not usually roused only when the acts of others are to be judged?
When my offer was accepted I organised a combination to take over the properties, and I paid for them with its guaranteed bonds and preferred stock. Then I countermanded the order for a heavy secret rebate against their products and, instead, issued an order for a small secret rebate in their favour—letting the public think I had by some secret audacious move regained control of my third railroad. The combination’s business boomed, its stock went up, and all that it was necessary for me to sell was eagerly bought. What with the bonds and the stocks I sold, I had gained control without its having cost me a penny. It is not vanity, is it, when I call that genius?
But control is not possession, and these properties are worth possessing. I must possess them. It is not just that so large a part of the profits of my labour—of my act of creation—should go to others.
I have anticipated somewhat. The operation took a considerable time, but not long in view of the great results. When one has my vast resources and my peculiar talents, men and events move, obstacles are blown up, roads are thrust swift and straight through the thickest tangles, and the objective is reached before feeble folk have got beyond the stage of debate and diplomacy. Still, nearly a year elapsed between the start and the finish, and many things happened which were the reverse of satisfactory—most of them, as usual, in my domestic affairs.
I had got the enterprise only fairly under way when the invitations for Walter’s wedding were issued. Natalie’s father had seen me several times and had shown his determination to intervene in the matter of her dowry by bringing up the subject at our business conferences whenever he could force the smallest opening. Like all my associates, from capitalist to clerk, he is in awe of me. I see to it that in the velvet glove there shall always be holes through which the iron hand can be plainly seen. That often saves me the exertion of using it. An iron hand, once it has an established reputation, is mightier when merely seen than when felt. He would always begin by some vague, halting reference to my promised generosity.
“A royal gift, Galloway!” he would say, enthusiastically. “You certainly are a king, much more powerful than those European figureheads.”
But he never had the courage to speak the exact sum, the “quarter of a million dollars a year,” that I saw in his hungry, glistening, hopeful, yet doubtful eyes. And I would not take the hint to discuss the gift further, but would put him off by showing how completely I was absorbed in the forming combination. Probably at the time he was letting his greed blind him into believing I would make as big a fool of myself as I had rashly promised and so was fearful of irritating me in any way. Two days before the wedding invitations went out he forced himself on me for lunch. I saw determination written in his face—determination to compel me to something definite about that “quarter of a million a year” for his daughter. So, at the first pause in the conversation, I played my card.
“Matt,” said I, “I really must arrange the formalities for that settlement on our daughter. I’ll have my lawyer—will the latter part of the week do? He’s up to his eyes in the combination just now.”
Bradish looked enormously relieved. He could hardly keep from laughing outright with delight—the miserable old seller of his own children. “Oh, I wasn’t disturbing myself,” he replied; “your word’s good enough, though, of course, you’d—we’d—want the thing in legal shape—before the marriage.”
“Of course,” said I, waving the matter aside as settled, and beginning again on the affairs of the combination. I had let him into it on attractive terms and had put him on my board of directors. He revelled in these favours as the mere foretaste of his gains from the powerful commercial alliance he was making through his daughter.
Out went the invitations—and the first danger point was rounded.
On the following Sunday night I left suddenly in my private car for an inspection of the new properties. Every day of nearly two weeks was full to its last minute. When I returned to New York five days before the wedding, I was utterly worn out. I went to bed and sent for my doctor—Hanbury.
He is one of those highly successful New York physicians who are famed among the laity for their skill in medicine, and in the profession for their skill at hocus-pocus. He is a specialist in what I may call the diseases of the idle rich—boredom, exaggeration of a slight discomfort into a frightful torture, craving for fussy personal attentions, abnormal fear of death, etc. He is a professional “funny man,” a discreet but depraved gossip, and a tireless listener—and is handsome and well-mannered. He has a soft, firm touch—on pulse and on purse. The women adore him—when they want to rest, they complain of nervousness and send for him to prescribe for them. One of his most successful and lucrative lines of treatment is helping wives to loosen the purse-strings of husbands by agitating their sympathies and fears. He never irritates or frightens his clients with unpleasant truths. He doesn’t tell the men to stop eating and drinking and the women to stop gadding. He gives them digestion-tablets and nerve-tonics and sends them on agreeable excursions to Europe. Of all the swarm of parasites that live upon rich New Yorkers none keeps up a more dignified front than does Hanbury. I’ve found him useful in social matters, and, as I’ve paid him liberally, he is greatly in my debt.
“Hanbury,” I said, from my bed, “I’m a very sick man.”
“Nonsense—only tired,” replied he. “A good sleep, a few days’ rest——”
I looked at him steadily. “I tell you I’m desperately ill, and here’s my son’s wedding only five days away!”
“You’ll be all right by that time. I’ll guarantee to fix you up, good as new.”
I continued to look at him steadily. “No, I sha’n’t—it’s impossible. And I sha’n’t be able to transact any business whatever. I mustn’t be allowed to see even the members of my own family. Do you understand?”
He glanced curiously at me, then reflected, twisting the end of his Van Dyck beard. He looked at my tongue, listened to my heart, felt my pulse, and took my temperature. “I’m afraid you’re right,” he said, gravely; “I see you’re worse off than I thought. We must have a trained nurse.”
“But I must have you, too,” said I. “You must move into the house, and I don’t want anybody but you to attend me.”
“Very well. You know I’m at your service. I’ll—superintend the nurse.”
“Thank you, Hanbury,” said I. “You understand me perfectly. I can trust you. And—something might happen to me—I’ll write you a check for ten thousand at once—a little personal matter quite apart from your bill.”
Hanbury reddened. I think he thought he was hesitating. But when he spoke it was to say: “Thank you—if you wish—but I’m sure I’ll pull you through.”
“I shall be able to see no one,” I went on. “But I’ve set my heart on my son’s marrying—the wedding must not be put off. I’m sure it would kill me if there were to be a delay.”
“I understand.” His eyes were smiling; the rest of his face was grave.
“And not a word of the serious nature of my illness must get into the papers. You will deny any rumour of that kind, should there be occasion. My stocks must not be affected—and they would be, and the whole list——”
“And the prosperity of the country,” said Hanbury.
This illness of mine, while primarily for smoothly carrying through Walter’s marriage, was really inspired by an actual physical need. I had long felt that the machine needed rest. The necessity of preventing Natalie from making a fool of herself gave me the opportunity to combine rest with accomplishment. Before shutting myself in I had put my affairs into such shape that my lieutenants and secretaries could look after them. I dozed and slept and listened to the nurse or Hanbury reading, or talked with Hanbury. The nurse had little to do—and I suspect could do little. What Hanbury did not do was done by my stupid old Pigott, half crazed with fear lest I should die and he should find that he was right in suspecting he had not been handsomely remembered in my will. Hanbury’s manner was so perfect that, had I not felt robustly well on long sleep, short diet, and no annoyances, I might have been convinced and badly frightened. My family—Hanbury managed to keep them from thinking it necessary to try to impress me with their affection for me by pretending wild alarm. He had most difficulty with poor little Helen—not so very little any more, though I think of her as a baby still. It’s astonishing how unspoiled she is—another proof of her unusuality.
On the third day Hanbury said: “Your wife tells me she must see you, and that, if she doesn’t, the wedding will surely be postponed.”
“It’s impossible to admit her—when I’m just entering the crisis,” replied I. “Tell her—you know how to do it—that, if Bradish acts up, she shall as a last resort go to Burridge, who will let him see my will. And can’t you call—don’t you think you had better call—some one—say Doctor Lowndes—in consultation?”
He reflected for several minutes. “I’ll call Lowndes,” he said. “You couldn’t possibly have picked out a better man.” And he looked at me with the admiration I deserved.
“Let Bradish know you’ve done it,” I added.
“Certainly,” he replied, in a tone which assured me he knew what to do at the right time.
Lowndes came—and went. A quarter of an hour before he came Hanbury gave me a dose of some strong-smelling, yellow-black medicine. The blood bounded through my arteries and throbbed with fierce violence in my veins; I sank into a sort of stupor. I dimly realised that another man was in the room with Hanbury and was making a hasty examination of me. It must have been an amusing farce. Lowndes indorsed Hanbury, and—yesterday I paid Lowndes’s bill for twelve hundred dollars.
I fell asleep while he was still solemnly studying Hanbury’s temperature chart. When I awoke the latter was reading by the shaded electric light on the night-stand. I felt somewhat dazed and tired, but otherwise extremely comfortable.
“What news?” I asked.
“Your wife says the wedding is to go on—a quiet ceremony at Mr. Bradish’s house. I fear I gave him the impression that, while there was no immediate danger, you would——”
“Hardly pull through?”
“I fear so.”
That amused me. “Did he see my will?” I asked.
“I believe he did. I think that was what decided him.”
And well it might, for not only had he read that I had willed three-fourths of my entire estate to my son Walter, but also he had read a schedule of my chief holdings which I had folded in with the will in anticipation of this very contingency. It must have amazed him—it must have stirred every atom in his avaricious old body—to see how much richer I am than is generally supposed. No, it would have been impossible for him to take any chances on losing my principal heir for his daughter after that will and that schedule had burned themselves into his brain.
I’ve not the slightest doubt that he knew his daughter would never get the dowry she was dreaming of, for he is a sensible, practical man. If I did not know how glibly young people talk and think of huge sums of money nowadays I’d not believe Natalie herself silly enough ever seriously to imagine me giving her outright the enormous sum necessary to produce a quarter of a million a year.
Hanbury urged that Walter and his bride go down to the country near town, assuring them he could give them several hours’ warning of a turn for the worse. The change in the wedding plans had started a report that I was dangerously ill. As the best possible denial of this stock-depressing rumour they yielded to Hanbury’s representations.
I ordered Hanbury to give it out that I was much better, as soon as I heard that the marriage ceremony had been performed, and I began to mend so rapidly that he, in alarm for his reputation, begged me to restrain myself. “I want people to say I worked a cure,” he said, “not to say I worked a miracle—and then wink.” In two weeks I was far enough advanced for Walter and Natalie to sail on the trip which my illness had delayed.
I was now free to give my entire attention to my down-town affairs. My long rest had made me young again and had given me fresh points of view upon nearly every department of my activity. Also I found that my success with my big combination and my stupendous public gift had enormously increased my reputation. Half one’s power comes from within himself, the other half from the belief of other people in him. My star was approaching the zenith, and I saw it. I always work incessantly, regardless of the position of my star—no man who accomplishes great things ever takes his mind off his work.
Not that I am one of those who disbelieve in luck. Luck is the tide. When it is with me, I reach port—if I row hard and steer straight. When it is against me, I must still row hard and steer straight to keep off the rocks and be ready for the turn.
At my suggestion, my down-town confidential man intimated to a few of the principal men in the towns dependent on my mines and factories that it would be gracious and fitting to show in some public way their appreciation of what I had done. Usually these demonstrations are extremely perfunctory, betraying on the surface that they are got up either by the man honoured or out of a reluctant sense of decency and a lively sense of the right way to get more favours. But in this instance the suggestion met with a spontaneous and universal response. All that my agents had to do in the matter was to organise the enthusiasm and relieve the entertainment committee of the heavier expenses—such as railway transportation, catering, music, and carriages. The people did the rest.
They regarded me as their saviour—and so I was. Could I not have destroyed them had I willed it? Was I not inaugurating for them a prosperity such as the former small-fry owners of those properties had neither the genius nor the resources to create?
The trouble with those who criticise the morality of the actions of men like me is that they are trying to study astronomy with a microscope.
Jack Ridley and I fell into an argument along these lines one evening after dinner, and the only answer he could make to me was, “Then a murderer, on the same principle, could say: ‘I’m killing this man so that his family, to whom he’s really of no use, may get his life insurance and live comfortably and happily. I’m not doing it because I want what he has in his pockets—though I’ll take it partially to repay me for risking my neck.’” I couldn’t help smiling—he put it so plausibly. I should have reasoned precisely like that twenty years ago. But my mind and my conscience have grown since then. I no longer look out upon life through the twisted glass of the windows of the House of Have-not; I see it through the clear French-plate of the House of Have.
When the programme for my testimonial was perfected, a joint delegation from the city governments, the chambers of commerce, and the ministers’ associations of the five towns waited upon me to invite me to a grand joint reception and banquet to be held in the largest town. They invited my wife, also, but I did not permit her to accept. In the first place, she had done nothing to entitle her to divide the honour with me; and, in the second place, she would have had her head even more utterly turned than it now is. On the appointed day I went up in my private car, taking Burridge and Jack Ridley with me. I had outlined to Ridley what I wished to say, and he had expanded it into the necessary three speeches. In the main he caught the spirit of my ideas very cleverly. The only editing I had to do was in striking out a lot of self-deprecatory rubbish which would have made me minimise my part in the new era for the towns. A man is a fool who assists his enemies to rob him of what is justly his. How could I expect any one to have a proper respect for me if I did not show that I have a proper respect for myself?
Where this so-called modesty is genuine it is a dangerous weakness; where it is false, it is hypocritical cowardice.
As the train carrying my car drew into the station I stared amazed, much to the delight of the reception committee, which had joined me at the station below. Before me I saw ten or twelve thousand people. The schoolgirls, each dressed in white and carrying flowers, occupied the front space—there must have been a thousand of them.
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” I exclaimed.
“There hasn’t been such an outpouring of the people,” said a gentleman who stood near me, “since Mr. Blaine passed through here when he was a candidate for the presidency.”
I noted that several of the committee grew red and frowned at him. Afterward Ridley told me why—the Blaine demonstration had led them to expect that he would carry the county by an overwhelming majority; instead, he had lost it by a “landslide” vote against him.
When the train stopped, a battery of artillery began to fire a salute of one hundred guns. Several bands struck up, the children sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and the crowd burst into frenzies of cheering. I was overcome with emotion and the tears streamed down my cheeks. At that the cheering was more tremendous and I saw many of the women and little girls crying.
I entered the carriage drawn by six horses, the mayor of the town beside me, and the march to the Court House began. I had given my workingmen a holiday and my excursion trains had poured the people of the four other towns into this fifth town, about quadrupling its population for the day. The streets were therefore thronged from the house-walls to the edges of a lane just wide enough for the procession. The houses were draped with bunting; arches of evergreens and bunting, each bearing my name and words of welcome, spanned the route of march at frequent intervals. I stood all the way, my hat in hand. As I bowed, the cheers answered me. The bells in all the towers and steeples rang, cannon boomed, and the procession, in five divisions, each with a band and militia, wound in my wake. My heart swelled with triumph and with grateful appreciation. I fully realised myself for the first time in my life.
As I have said, I always did have a self-respecting opinion of myself, even when an over-nice and inexperienced conscience was annoying me with its hair-splittings. As I have grown older, and have seen the inferiority of other men and the superiority of my own mind and judgment, naturally my early opinion has been strengthened and deepened. But on that day I realised how my own sight of myself had been obscured by a too close view. My domestic exasperations, the necessary disagreeableness and pettiness of so many of the details of my great projects, the triviality of my routine of business and its harassments—all these had combined to make me belittle my own stature and bulk. On that day I saw myself as others see me. I felt a great uplifting, a supreme disdain for those who oppose me or cavil at me, a high and firm resolve to devote myself thereafter more confidently and more boldly to my plans.
But—the more splendid the crown, the more splitting the headache.
At the banquet in the evening I observed that the enthusiasm of the daytime was not being sustained. I was amazed and irritated by the large number of vacant places at the tables, when my agents had been instructed judiciously and quietly to distribute free tickets should there not be a sufficient number of persons able to pay the five dollars a plate we were charging for a nine-dollar dinner. I was puzzled by the nervous uneasiness of those who sat with me at the table of honour and who had been all geniality a few hours before. The speeches seemed to me halting and inadequate—my own speech, well calculated to rouse local pride, was received with a faint hand-clapping which soon died away. After the dinner I, Burridge, and Ridley drove alone to the station. It was filled with weary throngs taking the returning excursion trains. They did not cheer me; they only stared curiously.
When we were on our way back to New York I wished to discuss the triumph with my two companions, but Burridge was dumb and Ridley morose. In the morning I called for the New York dailies; they were haltingly produced. Imagine my amazement when I saw, in many kinds of type, now jubilant, now regretful, now apologetic headlines, all agreeing that my reception was a fiasco. Only my stanch —— printed the truth, and it laid entirely too much stress upon the “act of malicious and mendacious demagoguery.” That act was: Some enemy of mine had discovered inside facts as to my manipulation of freight rates to get control of the mines and factories, and, late in the afternoon, in the interval between the reception and the banquet, a New York newspaper containing what purported to be a full account of my machinations had been hawked about the streets, and was read by everybody—except me.
I do not here deny that the basic facts were practically true as printed. But the worst possible colour was given to them, and the worst possible motives of rapacity and conscienceless cruelty were ascribed to me. Instead of showing that I was like a general who sacrifices a comparative few in order that he may save millions and advance a great cause, the wretched rag held me up as a swindler and robber—worse, as an assassin!
I understood all, and sympathised with my hosts, the people of those five towns, in their embarrassment. As their local newspapers, which I got the next day, assured me, they did not believe the slanderous story. But I can readily see how nervous it must have made them. It is fortunate for them that they had the good sense to discern the truth. Had I been insulted, I should have taken a terrible revenge, even though it had cost me several hundred thousand dollars.
While I was reading those New York papers, Jack Ridley was smoking a cigar at the opposite side of the breakfast-table. When I had finished, I spoke. “Did you see that newspaper yesterday?” I demanded, my rage hardly able to wait upon his answer before bursting.
Ridley nodded.
“And Burridge?”
“Yes—he saw it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Bad news will always keep.”
I shouted for Burridge, and, when he came, ordered him into a seat. “At every step in my career I’ve been harassed and hampered by petty minds,” I said—“not among my enemies, for there they have been a help, but among my employees and servants of every kind. How often have I told both of you never to think for me? I don’t pay you to think—I pay you to do what