i
The ready explanation of Galt’s rise in a few years to the rôle of Wall Street monarch is that he was a master profit maker. The way of it was phenomenal. His touch was that of genius, daring, unaccountable, mysteriously guided by an inner mentality. And when the results appeared they were so natural, inevitable, that men wondered no less at their own stupidity than at his prescience. Why had they not seen the same opportunity?
His associates made money by no effort of their own. They had only to put their talents with the mighty steward. He took them, employed them as he pleased, and presently returned them two-fold, five-fold, sometimes twenty-fold.
But this explanation only begs the secret. The nature of his unique power is still hidden. It was in the first manifestation a power to persuade men. It became a power to command them, in virtue of the ability he had to reward them. This ability was the consummate power,—a power to imagine and create wealth. As it grew and as the respect for it became a superstition among his associates and a terror to all adversaries he passed into the dictatorial phase of his career.
Mordecai’s thought,—“Id iss only zat ve zhall manage him a liddle,”—was rudely shattered. He was unmanageable. He gave Mordecai & Co. peremptory orders, and they were obeyed, as they well might be, since Galt’s star had lifted the house of Mordecai from third to first rank in the financial world. It had become richer and more powerful than any other house in Wall Street save one and that one was its ancient enemy.
Mordecai’s courage had fainting fits. To “zese heights” he was often unable to follow without a good deal of forcible assistance. Frequently he would come to wrestle prayerfully with Galt, begging him in vain to scale down some particularly audacious plan, whatever it was. One day they had been at this for an hour. Galt was pugnacious and oppressive. They stood up to it. Mordecai, retreating step by step, had come to bay in a corner, gazing upward, the tips of his fingers together; Galt was passing to and fro in front of him, laying down his will, stopping now and then to emphasize the point by shaking his fist under Mordecai’s nose.
Just then the boy from the reception room came to my desk with the name of Horace Potter. That was awkward. Potter was a tempestuous man, easily moved to high anger, himself an autocrat, unaccustomed to wait upon the pleasure of others. He was personally one of Galt’s most powerful supporters and brought to him besides the whole strength of the puissant oil crowd, which controlled at that time more available wealth than any other group in Wall Street. It was an unusual concession for him to call upon anyone. People always came to him. And there he was outside, waiting. He had come to keep a definite appointment. There was no excuse. I tried to tell Galt, but he waved me away fiercely.
“Don’t bother me now, Coxey.”
Five minutes passed. Of a sudden Potter bolted in. “What is this?” he roared. “Am I one to cool my heels in your outer office?”
Galt turned round and stared at him, blankly at first and then with blazing anger.
“How did you get in here?” he asked.
“By God, I walked in,” said Potter.
“Then, by God, walk out again,” said Galt, turning his back.
I followed him out, thinking to find some mollifying word to say; he was unapproachable. The reception room was empty but for Potter and the friend he had with him, an important banker who was to have been presented to Galt in a special way. They talked with no heed of me.
“He’s in one of his damned tantrums,” said Potter. “We’ll have to chuck it or try again.”
The other man got very red.
“Why do you stand it?” he asked. “You!”
“I’ll tell you why,” said Potter. “We make more with him than with any other man who ever handled our money. That’s a very good reason.”
“I couldn’t help it,” I said to Galt, afterward.
“All right,” he said. “He won’t do it again.”
He never did. And so one by one they learned to take him as he was, to swallow their pride and submit to his moods, all for the same reason. He had the power to make them rich, richer, richest.
A meeting of the board of directors became a perfunctory formality, serving only to verify and approve Galt’s acts for purposes of record. On his own responsibility he committed the company to policies, investments, vast undertakings, and informed the board later. Success was his whole justification. If once that failed him his authority would collapse instantly.
In a rare moment of self-inspection, after one of his darling visions had come true, he said:
“After all, Coxey, it’s the Lord makes the tide rise. We don’t control it. We only ride it.”
It was an amazing tide. Never was one like it before. It floated old hulks that had been lying helpless and bankrupt on the sands for years. And when men began to say it was high enough, that it was time to prepare for the ebb, Galt said it was yet beginning. On the day Great Midwestern stock sold at one hundred dollars a share,—par!—he said to Mordecai: “That’s nothing. It will sell at two hundred. Buy me twenty thousand shares at this price.”
“I belief you, Mr. Gald,” said Mordecai in an awe-struck whisper.