by Ayn Rand
"Good morning, Eddie. Sorry if I got you out so early. It's the only time I had. Have to go back to Philadelphia right after breakfast. We can talk while we're eating."
The dressing gown he wore was of dark blue flannel, with the white initials "H R" on the breast pocket. He looked young, relaxed, at home in this room and in the world.
Eddie watched a waiter wheel the breakfast table into the room with a swift efficiency that made him feel braced. He found himself enjoying the stiff freshness of the white tablecloth and the sunlight sparkling on the silver, on the two bowls of crushed ice holding glasses of orange juice; he had not known that such things could give him an invigorating pleasure.
"I didn't want to phone Dagny long distance about this particular matter," said Rearden. "She has enough to do. We can settle it in a few minutes, you and I."
"If I have the authority to do it."
Rearden smiled. "You have." He leaned forward across the table. "Eddie, what's the financial state of Taggart Transcontinental at the moment? Desperate?"
"Worse than that, Mr. Rearden."
"Are you able to meet pay rolls?"
"Not quite. We've kept it out of the newspapers, but I think everybody knows it. We're in arrears all over the system and Jim is running out of excuses."
"Do you know that your first payment for the Rearden Metal rail is due next week?"
"Yes, I know it."
"Well, let's agree on a moratorium. I'm going to give you an extension--you won't have to pay me anything until six months after the opening of the John Galt Line."
Eddie Willers put down his cup of coffee with a sharp thud. He could not say a word.
Rearden chuckled. "What's the matter? You do have the authority to accept, don't you?"
"Mr. Rearden . . . I don't know . . . what to say to you."
"Why, just 'okay' is all that's necessary."
"Okay, Mr. Rearden." Eddie's voice was barely audible.
"I'll draw up the papers and send them to you. You can tell Jim about it and have him sign them."
"Yes, Mr. Rearden."
"I don't like to deal with Jim. He'd waste two hours trying to make himself believe that he's made me believe that he's doing me a favor by accepting."
Eddie sat without moving, looking down at his plate.
"What's the matter?"
"Mr. Rearden, I'd like ... to say thank you . . . but there isn't any form of it big enough to--"
"Look, Eddie. You've got the makings of a good businessman, so you'd better get a few things straight. There aren't any thank-you's in situations of this kind. I'm not doing it for Taggart Transcontinental. It's a simple, practical, selfish matter on my part. Why should I collect my money from you now, when it might prove to be the death blow to your company? If your company were no good, I'd collect, and fast. I don't engage in charity and I don't gamble on incompetents. But you're still the best railroad in the country. When the John Galt Line is completed, you'll be the soundest one financially. So I have good reason to wait. Besides, you're in trouble on account of my rail. I intend to see you win."
"I still owe you thanks, Mr. Rearden . . . for something much greater than charity."
"No. Don't you see? I have just received a great deal of money . . . which I didn't want. I can't invest it. It's of no use to me whatever.... So, in a way, it pleases me that I can turn that money against the same people in the same battle. They made it possible for me to give you an extension to help you fight them."
He saw Eddie wincing, as if he had hit a wound. "That's what's horrible about it!"
"What?"
"What they've done to you--and what you're doing in return. I mean--" He stopped. "Forgive me, Mr. Rearden. I know this is no way to talk business."
Rearden smiled. "Thanks, Eddie. I know what you mean. But forget it. To hell with them."
"Yes. Only . . . Mr. Rearden, may I say something to you? I know it's completely improper and I'm not speaking as a vice-president."
"Go ahead."
"I don't have to tell you what your offer means to Dagny, to me, to every decent person on Taggart Transcontinental. You know it. And you know you can count on us. But . . . but I think it's horrible that Jim Taggart should benefit, too--that you should be the one to save him and people like him, after they--"
Rearden laughed. "Eddie, what do we care about people like him? We're driving an express, and they're riding on the roof, making a lot of noise about being leaders. Why should we care? We have enough power to carry them along--haven't we?"
"It won't stand."
The summer sun made blotches of fire on the windows of the city, and glittering sparks in the dust of the streets. Columns of heat shimmered through the air, rising from the roofs to the white page of the calendar. The calendar's motor ran on, marking off the last days of June.
"It won't stand," people said. "When they run the first train on the John Galt Line, the rail will split. They'll never get to the bridge. If they do, the bridge will collapse under the engine."
From the slopes of Colorado, freight trains rolled down the track of the Phoenix-Durango, north to Wyoming and the main line of Taggart Transcontinental, south to New Mexico and the main line of the Atlantic Southern. Strings of tank cars went radiating in all directions from the Wyatt oil fields to industries in distant states. No one spoke about them. To the knowledge of the public, the tank trains moved as silently as rays and, as rays, they were noticed only when they became the light of electric lamps, the heat of furnaces, the movement of motors; but as such, they were not noticed, they were taken for granted.
The Phoenix-Durango Railroad was to end operations on July 25.
"Hank Rearden is a greedy monster," people said. "Look at the fortune he's made. Has he ever given anything in return? Has he ever shown any sign of social conscience? Money, that's all he's after. He'll do anything for money. What does he care if people lose their lives when his bridge collapses?"
"The Taggarts have been a band of vultures for generations," people said. "It's in their blood. Just remember that the founder of that family was Nat Taggart, the most notoriously anti-social scoundrel that ever lived, who bled the country white to squeeze a fortune for himself. You can be sure that a Taggart won't hesitate to risk people's lives in order to make a profit. They bought inferior rail, because it's cheaper than steel--what do they care about catastrophes and mangled human bodies, after they've collected the fares?"
People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. "Reason," Dr. Pritchett had told them, "is the most naive of all superstitions."
"The source of public opinion?" said Claude Slagenhop in a radio speech. "There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind."
Orren Boyle gave an interview to Globe, the news magazine with the largest circulation. The interview was devoted to the subject of the grave social responsibility of metallurgists, stressing the fact that metal performed so many crucial tasks where human lives depended on its quality. "One should not, it seems to me, use human beings as guinea pigs in the launching of a new product," he said. He mentioned no names.
"Why, no, I don't say that that bridge will collapse," said the chief metallurgist of Associated Steel, on a television program. "I don't say it at all. I just say that if I had any children, I wouldn't let them ride on the first train that's going to cross that bridge. But it's only a personal preference, nothing more, just because I'm overly fond of children."
"I don't claim that the Rearden-Taggart contraption will collapse," wrote Bertram Scudder in The Future. "Maybe it will and maybe it won't. That's not the important issue. The important issue is: what protection does society have against the arrogance, selfishness and greed of two unbridled individualists, whose records are conspicuously devoid of any public-spirited actions? These two, apparently, are willing to stake the lives of
their fellow men on their own conceited notions about their powers of judgment, against the overwhelming majority opinion of recognized experts. Should society permit it? If that thing does collapse, won't it be too late to take precautionary measures? Won't it be like locking the barn after the horse has escaped? It has always been the belief of this column that certain kinds of horses should be kept bridled and locked, on general social principles."
A group that called itself "Committee of Disinterested Citizens" collected signatures on a petition demanding a year's study of the John Galt Line by government experts before the first train were allowed to run. The petition stated that its signers had no motive other than "a sense of civic duty." The first signatures were those of Balph Eubank and Mort Liddy. The petition was given a great deal of space and comment in all the newspapers. The consideration it received was respectful, because it came from people who were disinterested.
No space was given by the newspapers to the progress of the construction of the John Galt Line. No reporter was sent to look at the scene. The general policy of the press had been stated by a famous editor five years ago. "There are no objective facts," he had said. "Every report on facts is only somebody's opinion. It is, therefore, useless to write about facts."
A few businessmen thought that one should think about the possibility that there might be commercial value in Rearden Metal. They undertock a survey of the question. They did not hire metallurgists to examine samples, nor engineers to visit the site of construction. They took a public poll. Ten thousand people, guaranteed to represent every existing kind of brain, were asked the question: "Would you ride on the John Galt Line?" The answer, overwhelmingly, was: "No, sir-ree!"
No voices were heard in public in defense of Rearden Metal. And nobody attached significance to the fact that the stock of Taggart Transcontinental was rising on the market, very slowly, almost furtively. There were men who watched and played safe. Mr. Mowen bought Taggart stock in the name of his sister. Ben Nealy bought it in the name of a cousin. Paul Larkin bought it under an alias. "I don't believe in raising controversial issues," said one of these men.
"Oh yes, of course, the construction is moving on schedule," said James Taggart, shrugging, to his Board of Directors. "Oh yes, you may feel full confidence. My dear sister does not happen to be a human being, but just an internal combustion engine, so one must not wonder at her success."
When James Taggart heard a rumor that some bridge girders had split and crashed, killing three workmen, he leaped to his feet and ran to his secretary's office, ordering him to call Colorado. He waited, pressed against the secretary's desk, as if seeking protection; his eyes had the unfocused look of panic. Yet his mouth moved suddenly into almost a smile and he said, "I'd give anything to see Henry Rearden's face right now." When he heard that the rumor was false, he said, "Thank God!" But his voice had a note of disappointment.
"Oh well!" said Philip Rearden to his friends, hearing the same rumor. "Maybe he can fail, too, once in a while. Maybe my great brother isn't as great as he thinks."
"Darling," said Lillian Rearden to her husband, "I fought for you yesterday, at a tea where the women were saying that Dagny Taggart is your mistress.... Oh, for heaven's sake, don't look at me like that! I know it's preposterous and I gave them hell for it. It's just that those silly bitches can't imagine any other reason why a woman would take such a stand against everybody for the sake of your Metal. Of course, I know better than that. I know that the Taggart woman is perfectly sexless and doesn't give a damn about you--and, darling, I know that if you ever had the courage for anything of the sort, which you haven't, you wouldn't go for an adding machine in tailored suits, you'd go for some blond, feminine chorus girl who--oh, but Henry, I'm only joking! -don't look at me like that!"
"Dagny," James Taggart said miserably, "what's going to happen to us? Taggart Transcontinental has become so unpopular!"
Dagny laughed, in enjoyment of the moment, any moment, as if the undercurrent of enjoyment was constant within her and little was needed to tap it. She laughed easily, her mouth relaxed and open. Her teeth were very white against her sun-scorched face. Her eyes had the look, acquired in open country, of being set for great distances. On her last few visits to New York, he had noticed that she looked at him as if she did not see him.
"What are we going to do? The public is so overwhelmingly against us!"
"Jim, do you remember the story they tell about Nat Taggart? He said that he envied only one of his competitors, the one who said 'The public be damned!' He wished he had said it."
In the summer days and in the heavy stillness of the evenings of the city, there were moments when a lonely man or woman--on a park bench, on a street corner, at an open window--would see in a newspaper a brief mention of the progress of the John Galt Line, and would look at the city with a sudden stab of hope. They were the very young, who felt that it was the kind of event they longed to see happening in the world--or the very old, who had seen a world in which such events did happen. They did not care about railroads, they knew nothing about business, they knew only that someone was fighting against great odds and winning. They did not admire the fighters' purpose, they believed the voices of public opinion--and yet, when they read that the Line was growing, they felt a moment's sparkle and wondered why it made their own problems seem easier.
Silently, unknown to everyone except to the freight yard of Taggart Transcontinental in Cheyenne and the office of the John Galt Line in the dark alley, freight was rolling in and orders for cars were piling up--for the first train to run on the John Galt Line. Dagny Taggart had announced that the first train would be, not a passenger express loaded with celebrities and politicians, as was the custom, but a freight special.
The freight came from farms, from lumber yards, from mines all over the country, from distant places whose last means of survival were the new factories of Colorado. No one wrote about these shippers, because they were men who were not disinterested.
The Phoenix-Durango Railroad was to close on July 25. The first train of the John Galt Line was to run on July 22.
"Well, it's like this, Miss Taggart," said the delegate of the Union of Locomotive Engineers. "I don't think we're going to allow you to run that train."
Dagny sat at her battered desk, against the blotched wall of her office. She said, without moving, "Get out of here."
It was a sentence the man had never heard in the polished offices of railroad executives. He looked bewildered. "I came to tell you--"
"If you have anything to say to me, start over again."
"What?"
"Don't tell me what you're going to allow me to do."
"Well, I meant we're not going to allow our men to run your train."
"That's different."
"Well, that's what we've decided."
"Who's decided it?"
"The committee. What you're doing is a violation of human rights. You can't force men to go out to get killed--when that bridge collapses -just to make money for you."
She reached for a sheet of blank paper and handed it to him. "Put it down in writing," she said, "and we'll sign a contract to that effect."
"What contract?"
"That no member of your union will ever be employed to run an engine on the John Galt Line."
"Why . . . wait a minute . . . I haven't said--"
"You don't want to sign such a contract?"
"No, I--"
"Why not, since you know that the bridge is going to collapse?"
"I only want--"
"I know what you want. You want a stranglehold on your men by means of the jobs which I give them--and on me, by means of your men. You want me to provide the jobs, and you want to make it impossible for me to have any jobs to provide. Now I'll give you a choice. That train is going to be run. You have no choice about that. But you can choose whether it's going to be run by one of your men or not. If you choose not to let them, the train will still run, if I have to drive the engine m
yself. Then, if the bridge collapses, there won't be any railroad left in existence, anyway. But if it doesn't collapse, no member of your union will ever get a job on the John Galt Line. If you think that I need your men more than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, but they can't build a railroad, choose according to that. Now are you going to forbid your men to run that train?"
"I didn't say we'd forbid it. I haven't said anything about forbidding. But . . . but you can't force men to risk their lives on something nobody's ever tried before."
"I'm not going to force anyone to take that run."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to ask for a volunteer."
"And if none of them volunteers?"
"Then it will be my problem, not yours."
"Well, let me tell you that I'm going to advise them to refuse."
"Go ahead. Advise them anything you wish. Tell them whatever you like. But leave the choice to them. Don't try to forbid it."
The notice that appeared in every roundhouse of the Taggart system was signed "Edwin Willers, Vice-President in Charge of Operation." It asked engineers, who were willing to drive the first train on the John Galt Line, so to inform the office of Mr. Willers, not later than eleven A.M. of July 15.
It was a quarter of eleven, on the morning of the fifteenth, when the telephone rang in her office. It was Eddie, calling from high up in the Taggart Building outside her window. "Dagny, I think you'd better come over." His voice sounded queer.
She hurried across the street, then down the marble-floored halls, to the door that still carried the name "Dagny Taggart" on its glass panel. She pulled the door open.
The anteroom of the office was full. Men stood jammed among the desks, against the walls. As she entered, they took their hats off in sudden silence. She saw the graying heads, the muscular shoulders, she saw the smiling faces of her staff at their desks and the face of Eddie Willers at the end of the room. Everybody knew that nothing had to be said.
Eddie stood by the open door of her office. The crowd parted to let her approach him. He moved his hand, pointing at the room, then at a pile of letters and telegrams.