Light-Fingered Gentry

by David Graham Phillips

He saw the storm coming. Not that there were any clouds or gusty winds; the great storms, the cyclones, don't come that way. No, his sky was serene all round; everything looked bright, brilliant. But there was an ominous stillness in the air—that dead, dead calm which fills an experienced weather expert with misgivings. Before the great storms that explode out of those utter calms, the domestic animals always act queerly; and, in this case, that sign was not lacking. The big fellows beamed on him, were most polite, most eager for his friendship. Not so the little fellows—the underlings, both in the O.A.D. and in its allied banks and in the institutions of high finance into which Armstrong happened to go. At sight of him they became agitated, nervous, stood aloof, watched him furtively.

But he went his new way steadily, as if he did not know what was impending. It secretly amused him greatly to observe his directors. The new board he had selected was composed of men of substantial fortune, who were just outside high finance—business men, trained in business methods. But they had been agitated by what they had seen and heard and read of the financiers—of the vast fortunes quickly made, of the huge mysterious profits, of the great enterprises where the financier risked only other people's money, and stood to lose nothing if the venture failed, kept all the profits if it succeeded. They longed for these fairylike lands where money grew on bushes and the rivers ran gold. And when they were invited into the directory of the O.A.D., they thought they were at last sweeping through the gates from the real world of business to the Hesperian Gardens of finance. As they sat at the meetings, hearing Armstrong and his lieutenants give accounts of economies and safe investments and profits for the policy holders, each felt like a child who had been led to believe it was going to a Christmas festival and finds that it has been lured into a regular session of the Sunday school. Why, the honor and the director's fees were all there was in it!

Then there were the agents, the officials, the staff of the company, high and low, far and near. To the easy-going, golden days of finance had succeeded these sober days of business. Instead of generosity, free flinging about of the money that came in so easily, there was now the most rigid economy—"regular, damn, pinch-penny honesty," complained Duncan, the magnificent agent at Chicago. "I tell you frankly, Armstrong, I'm going to get out. It isn't worth the while of a man of my ability to work for what the company now allows."

"Sorry to lose you, old man," said Armstrong, "but we can't allow any secret rake-offs."

It was Duncan who precipitated the cyclone. A cyclone at its start is a little eddy of air which happens to be set whirling by a chance twist of a sunbeam glancing from a cloud. Millions of these eddies occur every hour everywhere. Only when conditions are just right does a cyclone result, does the eddy continue to whirl, draw more and more air in commotion, get a forward impulse that increases, until in an incredibly short space of time destruction is raging over the land. The conditions in the O.A.D. were just right. Armstrong was hated by the whole personnel, at home and abroad, and hated as only the man is hated who cuts his fellows off from "easy money." And he had not a friend. Throughout high finance, he was hated and feared; at any moment, as the result of his doings, some other big institution, all other big institutions might have to adopt his policy. Directors, presidents, officials great and small, all the recipients of the profits from the system of using other people's money as if it were your own, regarded him as a personal enemy. When Duncan said to one of his fellow agents, "We must get that chap out," the right eddy had been started.

Within two weeks, Duncan was at the head of an association of agents gathering proxies from the policy holders to oust the Armstrong régime. Duncan and his fellow conspirators sent out a circular, calling attention to the recent rise in the profits to policy holders. "It is evident," said the circular, "that there has been mismanagement of our interests, and that the present powers have been frightened into giving us a little larger part of our own. We ought to have it all! Send your proxies to the undersigned, that the O.A.D. may be reorganized upon an honest, democratic basis. A new broom, a clean sweep!"

Duncan in person came to Armstrong with one of the circulars. "There's nothing underhand about me," said he as he handed it to the president. "Here's our declaration of war."

Armstrong glanced at it, smiled satirically. "You've sent copies to the newspapers also, haven't you?" replied he. "As you couldn't possibly keep the matter secret, I can't get excited about your candor." And he tossed the circular on his desk.

"When you read it, you'll see we're fighting fair," said Duncan.

"I've read it," was Armstrong's answer. "One of my friends among the agents sent me a copy a week ago—the day you drew it up."