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This was the first true exhibition of his power to move men’s minds,—a power which nobody understood, which he did not himself understand. Perhaps it was not their minds he moved. Men of strong will often turned from their convictions and voted with him or for what he wanted who afterward, having recovered their own opinions, were unable to say why they had acted that way. He was not eloquent. When he was excited his voice became shrill and irritating. He had no felicity of speech and often lost the grammar of tenses, cases and pronouns. The reasoning was always clear. He moulded an argument in the form of a wedge and then hit it a sledge-hammer blow. But it was not the argument alone that did it. As time went on he more and more dispensed with argument and brought the result to pass directly, as a hypnotist with a well trained subject induces the trance without preparation, seemingly by an act of mere intention. It was a power that increased with use until it was like an elemental force and acted at a distance, so that he had only to send an agent with word that this or that should be done, and men did it helplessly. You may say of course that all such later phenomena were owing to a habit of submission, men having accepted the tyranny of his will, only that would not account for the rise of his power from nothing, would it?
In this first case he had back of him no prestige of success. He was still unknown and distrusted by a majority of the ten directors who sat at the board table. And they were not men accustomed to be led. They were themselves leaders. In all Wall Street it would have been impossible to find a more powerful, self-confident group, cold, calculating, unsentimental in business, their faces all cruelly scarred with the marks of success terrifically achieved. Yet as he talked their chemistries changed. The first visible reaction was one of bothered surprise. This was followed by efforts of resistance. The last phase was one of fascination.
His reasons were these: A flood was about to rise. He adduced evidence on that point. Money, materials and labor were plenty and cheap. Never again would it be possible to increase the railroad’s capacity at a cost so low. And a railroad that made itself ready to receive the flood would reap a rich harvest. Finally, the spending of fifty million dollars in this way would give business the impulse it was waiting for,—the little push that sends a great vessel down the ways into the water. The moment was rare and propitious.
“Is it true,” asked Mr. Valentine, “that the chairman on his own responsibility, without consulting the president or the board of directors, has already placed contracts for engines, cars, rails and construction work, before the money has been voted for that purpose, before anybody knows whether it can be raised or not? I have heard so.”
Everyone was startled by the question. Galt was not expecting it.
“That is true,” he said, and waited.
“So we are committed to this expenditure whether we approve it or not?”
“That’s the predicament,” said Galt, recklessly.
Valentine, wholly deceived by his manner, came heavily on.
“Have you any idea what it will cost us to get out of these contracts,—to cancel them?”
“The construction contracts,” Galt said very slowly, “are subject to cancellation without penalty until this midnight. The contracts for engines, cars and rails cannot be cancelled. I’ve baked this pie for the Great Midwestern. If it doesn’t want it I’ll give the company’s treasurer my check for one hundred thousand dollars and eat it myself.”
“What do you mean?” Horace Potter asked.
“I mean that in consideration of placing the orders when and as I did, on the equipment makers’ empty stomach, I got a special discount of ten per cent. The idea was that the news of our buying as it got around would start a general buying movement. That has happened. Other roads have placed orders behind ours at full prices. We started a stampede. Nobody has been buying equipment for two or three years. Everybody needs some. These contracts can be sold today for at least one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Can we sell fifty millions of bonds?” asked Potter, looking at Mordecai.
“Ve vill guarantee to zell zem,” said Mordecai. “Mr. Gald iss righd. Iv ve reap ve musd zow.”
With no further discussion they voted with Galt, and the feud between Valentine and Galt was openly established.
We were torn by the dilemma of allegiance. Everyone was fond of Valentine. One could not help liking him. And his position was desperately uncomfortable. Galt had reduced him to a mere figurehead, not intentionally perhaps, not by any overt act of hostility certainly, but as an inevitable consequence of his ruthless pursuit of ends. Valentine became obstructive. Galt grew irritable. They ceased to have any working contact whatever. And although the organization to a man was sorry for Valentine, still there was a turning to Galt, purely as an instinctive reaction to strength. As a railroad executive Valentine for all his experience was inefficient. This had been always tolerantly understood. But now with Galt’s work beginning to produce results in contrast the fact was openly admitted. Galt’s touch was sure, propulsive and unhesitating. And besides, in whatever he did there was an element of fortuity that could not be reasoned about. He not only did the right things; he did them at precisely the right time.
“You remember what I told you a long time ago,” said Harbinger. “He sees things before they happen. My heart breaks for the old man ... but it’s no use.”
The sight of inspired craftsmanship is irresistible to men. The organization wavered between affection for the one and awe of the other and ended by giving its undivided loyalty to Galt, not for love of his eyes but for reasons that were obvious.
One day Mr. Valentine complained that I was unable to serve him and Galt both, and asked me gently if I did not wish to go entirely to Galt. He had guessed my inclinations. So we shook hands and parted. Thereafter my place was in Galt’s room and I attended the board meetings as his private secretary.