Walters entered. He was one of the great railway presidents, was
universally regarded as a power, though I, of course, knew that he, like so
many other presidents of railways, of individual corporations, of banks,
of insurance companies, and high political officials in cities, states
and the nation, was little more than a figurehead put up and used by the
inside financial ring. As he shifted from leg to leg, holding his hat and
trying to steady his twitching upper lip, he looked as one of his smallest
section-bosses would have looked, if called up for a wigging.
Roebuck shook hands cordially with him, responded to his nervous glance at
me with:
“Blacklock is practically in our directory.” We all sat, then Roebuck began
in his kindliest tone:
“We have decided, Walters, that we must give your place to a stronger man.
Your gross receipts, outside of coal, have fallen rapidly and steadily for
the past three quarters. You were put into the presidency to bring them
up. They have shown no change beyond what might have been expected in the
natural fluctuations of freight. We calculated on resuming dividends a year
ago. We have barely been able to meet the interest on our bonds.”
“But, Mr. Roebuck,” pleaded Walters, “you doubled the bonded indebtedness
of the road just before I took charge.”
“The money went into improvements, into increasing your facilities, did it
not?” inquired Roebuck, his paw as soft as a playful tiger's.
“Part of it,” said Walters. “But you remember the reorganizing syndicate
got five millions, and then the contracts for the new work had to be given
to construction companies in which directors of the road were silent
partners. Then they are interested in the supply companies from which I
must buy. You know what all that means, Mr. Roebuck.”
“No doubt,” said Roebuck, still smooth and soft. “But if there was waste,
you should have reported--”
“To whom?” demanded Walters. “Every one of our directors, including
yourself, Mr. Roebuck, is a stock-holder--a large stock-holder--in one or
more of those companies.”
“Have you proof of this, Walters?” asked Roebuck, looking profoundly
shocked. “It's a very grave charge--a criminal charge.”
“Proof?” said Walters, “You know how that is. The real books of all big
companies are kept in the memories of the directors--and mighty treacherous
memories they are.” This with a nervous laugh. “As for the holdings of
directors in construction and supply companies--most of those holdings are
in other names--all of them are disguised where the connection is direct.”
Roebuck shook his head sadly. “You admit, then, that you have allowed
millions of the road's money to be wasted, that you made no complaint, no
effort to stop the waste; and your only defense is that you _suspect_
the directors of fraud. And you accuse them to excuse yourself--accuse them
with no proof. Were you in any of those companies, Walters?”
“No,” he said, his eyes shifting.
Roebuck's face grew stern. “You bought two hundred thousand dollars of the
last issue of government bonds, they tell me, with your two years' profits
from the Western Railway Construction Company.”
“I bought no bonds,” blustered Walters. “What money I have I made out of
speculating in the stock of my road--on legitimate inside information.”
“Your uncle in Wilkesbarre, I meant,” pursued Roebuck.
Walters reddened, looked straight at Roebuck without speaking.
“Do you still deny?” demanded Roebuck.
“I saw everybody--_everybody_--grafting,” said Walters boldly, “and
I thought I might as well take my share. It's part of the business.” Then
he added cynically: “That's the way it is nowadays. The lower ones see
the higher ones raking off, and they rake off, too--down to conductors
and brakemen. We caught some trackwalkers in a conspiracy to dispose
of the discarded ties and rails the other day.” He laughed. “We jailed
_them_.”
“If you can show that any director has taken anything that did not belong
to him, if you can show that a single contract you let to a construction or
a supply company--except, of course, the contracts you let to yourself--of
them I know nothing, suspect much--if you can show one instance of these
criminal doings, Mr. Walters, I shall back you up with all my power in
prosecution.”
“Of course I can't show it,” cried Walters. “If I tried, wouldn't they ruin
and disgrace me, perhaps send me to the penitentiary? Wasn't I the one that
passed on and signed their contracts? And wouldn't they--wouldn't you, Mr.
Roebuck--have fired me if I had refused to sign?”
“Excuses, excuses, Walters,” was Roebuck's answer, with a sad, disappointed
look, as if he had hoped Walters would make a brighter showing for himself.
“How many times have you yourself talked to me of this eternal excuse habit
of men who fail? And if I expended my limited brain-power in looking into
all the excuses and explanations, what energy or time would I have for
constructive work? All I can do is to select a man for a position and to
judge him by results. You were put in charge to produce dividends. You
haven't produced them. I'm sorry, and I venture to hope that things are not
so bad as you make out in your eagerness to excuse yourself. For the sake
of old times, Tom, I ignore your angry insinuations against me. I try to be
just, and to be just one must always be impersonal.”
“Well,” said Walters with an air of desperation, “give me another year, Mr.
Roebuck, and I'll produce results all right. I'll break the agreements and
cut rates. I'll freeze out the branch roads and our minority stock-holders,
I'll keep the books so that all the expert accountants in New York couldn't
untangle them. I'll wink at and commit and order committed all the
necessary crimes. I don't know why I've been so squeamish, when there were
so many penitentiary offenses that I did consent to, and, for that matter,
commit, without a quiver. I thought I ought to draw the line somewhere--and
I drew it at keeping my personal word and at keeping the books reasonably
straight. But I'll go the limit.”
I'll never forget Roebuck's expression; it was perfect, simply perfect--a
great and good man outraged beyond endurance, but a Christian still. “You
have made it impossible for me to temper justice with mercy, Walters,” said
he. “If it were not for the long years of association, for the affection
for you which has grown up in me, I should hand you over to the fate you
have earned. You tell me you have been committing crimes in my service. You
tell me you will commit more and greater crimes. I can scarcely believe my
own ears.”
Walters laughed scornfully--the reckless laugh of a man who suddenly sees
that he is cornered and must fight for his life. “Rot!” he jeered. “Rot!
You always have been a wonder at juggling with your conscience. But do
you expect me to believe you think yourself innocent because you do not
yourself execute the orders you issue--orders that can be carried out only
by committing crimes?” Walters was now beside himself with rage. He gave
the reins to that high horse he had been riding ever since he was promoted
to the presidency of the great coal road. He began to lay on whip and spur.
“Do you think,” he cried to Roebuck, “the blood of those five hundred men
drowned in the Pequot mine is not on _your_ hands--_your_ head?
You, who ordered John Wilkinson to suppress the competition the Pequot was
giving you, ordered him in such a way that he knew the alternative was his
own ruin? He shot himself--yet he had as good an excuse as you, for he,
too, passed on the order until it got to the poor fireman--that wretched
fellow they sent to the penitentiary for life? And as sure as there is
a God in Heaven, you will some day do a long, long sentence in whatever
hell there is, for letting that wretch rot in prison--yes, and for John
Wilkinson's suicide, and for the lives of those five hundred drowned. Your
pensions to the widows and orphans can't save you.”
I listened to this tirade astounded. Used as I was to men losing their
heads through vanity, I could not credit my own ears and eyes when they
reported to me this insane exhibition. I looked at Roebuck. He was wearing
an expression of beatific patience; he would have made a fine study for a
picture of the martyr at the stake.
“I forgive you, Tom,” he said, when Walters stopped for breath. “Your own
sinful heart makes you see the black of sin upon everything. I had heard
that you were going about making loud boasts of your power over your
employers, but I tried not to believe it. I see now that you have, indeed,
lost your senses. Your prosperity has been too much for your good sense.”
He sighed mournfully. “I shall not interfere to prevent your getting a
position elsewhere,” he continued. “But after what you have confessed,
after your slanders, how can I put you back in your old place out West, as
I intended? How can I continue the interest in you and care for your career
that I have had, in spite of all your shortcomings? I who raised you up
from a clerk.”
“Raised me up as you fellows always raise men up--because you find them
clever at doing your dirty work. I was a decent, honest fellow when you
first took notice of me and tempted me. But, by God, Mr. Roebuck, if I've
sold out beyond hope of living decent again, I'll have my price--to the
last cent. You've got to leave me where I am or give me a place and salary
equally as good.” This Walters said blusteringly, but beneath I could
detect the beginnings of a whine.
“You are angry, Tom,” said Roebuck soothingly. “I have hurt your vanity--it
is one of the heaviest crosses I have to bear, that I must be continually
hurting the vanity of men. Go away and--and calm down. Think the situation
over coolly; then come and apologize to me, and I will do what I can to
help you. As for your threats--when you are calm, you will see how idle
they are.”
Walters gave a sort of groan; and though I, blinded by my prejudices in
favor of Roebuck and of the crowd with whom my interests lay, had been
feeling that he was an impudent and crazy ingrate, I pitied him.
“What proofs have I got?” he said desperately. “If I show up the things I
know about, I show up myself, and everybody will say I'm lying about you
and the others in the effort to save myself. The newspapers would denounce
me as a treacherous liar--you fellows own or control or foozle them in
one way and another. And if I was believed, who'd prosecute you and what
court'd condemn you? Don't you own both political parties and make all the
tickets, and can't you ruin any office-holders who lifted a finger against
you? What a hell of a state of affairs!”
A swifter or a weaker descent I never witnessed. My pity changed to
contempt. “This fellow, with his great reputation,” thought I, “is a fool
and a knave, and a weak one at that.”
“Go away now, Tom,” said Roebuck.
“When you're master of yourself again, come to see me.”
“Master of myself!” cried Walters bitterly. “Who that's got anything to
lose is master of himself in this country?” With shoulders sagging and a
sort of stumble in his gait, he went toward the door. He paused there to
say: “I've served too long, Mr. Roebuck. There's no fight in me. I thought
there was, but there ain't. Do the best you can for me.” And he took
himself out of our sight.
You will wonder how I was ever able to blind myself to the reality of this
frightful scene. But please remember that in this world every thought and
every act is a mixture of the good and the bad; and the one or the other
shows the more prominently according to one's point of view. There probably
isn't a criminal in any cell, anywhere, no matter what he may say in
sniveling pretense in the hope of lighter sentence, who doesn't at the
bottom of his heart believe his crime or crimes somehow justifiable--and
who couldn't make out a plausible case for himself.
At that time I was stuffed with the arrogance of my fancied membership in
the caste of directing financial geniuses; I was looking at everything
from the viewpoint of the brotherhood of which Roebuck was the strongest
brother, and of which I imagined myself a full and equal member. I did not,
I could not, blind myself to the vivid reminders of his relentlessness; but
I knew too well how necessary the iron hand and the fixed purpose are to
great affairs to judge him as infuriated Walters, with his vanity savagely
wounded, was judging him. I'd as soon have thought of describing General
Grant as a murderer, because he ordered the battles in which men were
killed or because he planned and led the campaigns in which subordinates
committed rapine and pillage and assassination. I did not then see the
radical difference--did not realize that while Grant's work was at the
command of patriotism and necessity, there was no necessity whatever
for Roebuck's getting rich but the command of his own greedy and cruel
appetites.
Don't misunderstand me. My morals are practical, not theoretical. Men must
die, old customs embodied in law must be broken, the venal must be bribed
and the weak cowed and compelled, in order that civilization may advance.
You can't establish a railway or a great industrial system by rose-water
morality. But I shall show, before I finish, that Roebuck and his gang of
so-called “organizers of industry” bear about the same relation to industry
that the boll weevil bears to the cotton crop.
I'll withdraw this, if any one can show me that, as the result of the
activities of those parasites, anybody anywhere is using or is able to
use a single pound or bushel or yard more of any commodity whatsoever.
I'll withdraw it, if I can not show that but for those parasites, bearing
precisely the same relation to our society that the kings and nobles
and priests bore to France before the Revolution, everybody except them
would have more goods and more money than they have under the system that
enables these parasites to overshadow the highways of commerce with their
strongholds and to clog them with their toll-gates. They know little about
producing, about manufacturing, about distributing, about any process of
industry. Their skill is in temptation, in trickery and in terror.
On that day, however, I sided--honestly, as I thought--with Roebuck. What
I saw and heard increased my admiration of the man, my already profound
respect for his master mind. And when, just after Walters went out, he
leaned back in his chair and sat silent with closed eyes and moving lips,
I--yes, I, Matt Blacklock, “Black Matt,” as they call me--was awed in the
presence of this great and good man at prayer!
How he and that God of his must have laughed at me! So infatuated was I
that, clear as it is that he'd never have let me be present at such a scene
without a strong ulterior motive, not until he himself long afterward
made it impossible for me to deceive myself did I penetrate to his real
purpose--that he wished to fill me with a prudent dread and fear of him,
with a sense of the absoluteness of his power and of the hopelessness of
trying to combat it. But at the time I thought--imbecile that my vanity
had made me--at the time I thought he had let me be present because he
genuinely liked, admired and trusted me!
Is it not amazing that one who could fall into such colossal blunders
should survive to tell of them? I would not have survived had not Roebuck
and his crowd been at the same time making an even more colossal
misestimate of me than I was making of them. My attack of vanity was
violent, but temporary; theirs was equally violent, and chronic and
incurable to boot.