“Precisely,” said I. “And the only use I have for a lawyer is to show me how to do as I please, in spite of these wretched demagogues and blackmailers that control the statute-books. If you are as intelligent as Crawford led me to believe and as my own observation of you suggests, you’ll profit by this little talk we’ve had. Look round you at the men who are making the big successes in your profession nowadays—look at your predecessor, Crawford. Imitate them and stop casting about for ways of interpreting the law against your employer’s interest.”
Two days later he came to me in triumph. He had found the “way round.” I had my law slipped through, signed by the Governor, and safely put on the statute-book, the two bosses as unsuspicious as were the newspapers and the public. Then I came out in a public disavowal of my original purpose, denounced it as a crime against the people, and deplored that my railroad corporation should be unjustly accused of promoting it. You must fight the devil with fire.
Those two bosses—and the sensational newspapers that had been attacking them and my corporations—were astounded, and haven’t recovered yet. It will be six months before they realise that I have accomplished my purpose; even then they won’t be sure that I planned it, but will half believe it was my “luck.”
In passing, I may note that Stratton tells me I ought to pay him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars instead of one hundred and fifty thousand—for pulling me out of the hole! He has wholly forgotten having said “can’t be done” and “impossible” to me so many times that I finally had to stop him by cursing him violently. With their own vanity and their women-folks’ flattery for ever conspiring to destroy their judgment, it’s a wonder to me that men are able to get on at all. Indeed, they wouldn’t if they didn’t have masters like me over them.
After I had got my little joke on the bosses and the impertinent public safely on the statute-book, there remained the problem of how to take advantage of it without stirring up the sensational newspapers and the politicians, always ready to pander to the spirit of demagogy. I had my rights safely embodied in the law; but in this lawless time that is not enough. Instead of being respectful to the great natural leaders and deferential to their larger vision and larger knowledge, the people regard us with suspicion and overlook our services in their envy of the trifling commissions we get—for, what is the wealth we reserve for ourselves in comparison with the benefits we confer upon the country?
At this dinner which I have mentioned, both Burridge and Ridley were silent, and so my thoughts had no distraction. As I know that it is bad for my digestion to use my brain as I eat, I tried to start a conversation.
“Have you seen Aurora to-day?” I asked Burridge. She is my eldest daughter, just turned eighteen.
“She and Walter”—he is my second son, within a month or so of twenty-two—“are dining out this evening; she at Carnarvon’s, he at Longview’s. I think they meet at Mrs. Hollister’s dance and come home together.”
This was agreeable news. The names told me that my wife was at last succeeding in her social campaign, thanks to the irresistible temptation to the narrow aristocrats of the inner circle in the prospective fortunes of my children. While this social campaign of ours has its vanity side—and I here admit that I am not insensible to certain higher kinds of vanity—it also has a substantial business side. The greatest disadvantage I have laboured under—and at times it was serious—has been a certain suspicion of me as a newcomer and an adventurer. Naturally this has not been lessened by the boldness and swiftness of my operations. When I and my family are admitted on terms of intimacy and perfect equality among the people of large and old-established fortune, I shall be absolutely trusted in the financial world and shall be secure in the position of leadership which my brains have won for me and which I now maintain only by steady fighting.
“And Helen?” I went on. Helen is my other daughter, not yet twelve.