I was now free to give my entire attention to my down-town affairs. My long rest had made me young again and had given me fresh points of view upon nearly every department of my activity. Also I found that my success with my big combination and my stupendous public gift had enormously increased my reputation. Half one’s power comes from within himself, the other half from the belief of other people in him. My star was approaching the zenith, and I saw it. I always work incessantly, regardless of the position of my star—no man who accomplishes great things ever takes his mind off his work.
Not that I am one of those who disbelieve in luck. Luck is the tide. When it is with me, I reach port—if I row hard and steer straight. When it is against me, I must still row hard and steer straight to keep off the rocks and be ready for the turn.
At my suggestion, my down-town confidential man intimated to a few of the principal men in the towns dependent on my mines and factories that it would be gracious and fitting to show in some public way their appreciation of what I had done. Usually these demonstrations are extremely perfunctory, betraying on the surface that they are got up either by the man honoured or out of a reluctant sense of decency and a lively sense of the right way to get more favours. But in this instance the suggestion met with a spontaneous and universal response. All that my agents had to do in the matter was to organise the enthusiasm and relieve the entertainment committee of the heavier expenses—such as railway transportation, catering, music, and carriages. The people did the rest.
They regarded me as their saviour—and so I was. Could I not have destroyed them had I willed it? Was I not inaugurating for them a prosperity such as the former small-fry owners of those properties had neither the genius nor the resources to create?
The trouble with those who criticise the morality of the actions of men like me is that they are trying to study astronomy with a microscope.
Jack Ridley and I fell into an argument along these lines one evening after dinner, and the only answer he could make to me was, “Then a murderer, on the same principle, could say: ‘I’m killing this man so that his family, to whom he’s really of no use, may get his life insurance and live comfortably and happily. I’m not doing it because I want what he has in his pockets—though I’ll take it partially to repay me for risking my neck.’” I couldn’t help smiling—he put it so plausibly. I should have reasoned precisely like that twenty years ago. But my mind and my conscience have grown since then. I no longer look out upon life through the twisted glass of the windows of the House of Have-not; I see it through the clear French-plate of the House of Have.
When the programme for my testimonial was perfected, a joint delegation from the city governments, the chambers of commerce, and the ministers’ associations of the five towns waited upon me to invite me to a grand joint reception and banquet to be held in the largest town. They invited my wife, also, but I did not permit her to accept. In the first place, she had done nothing to entitle her to divide the honour with me; and, in the second place, she would have had her head even more utterly turned than it now is. On the appointed day I went up in my private car, taking Burridge and Jack Ridley with me. I had outlined to Ridley what I wished to say, and he had expanded it into the necessary three speeches. In the main he caught the spirit of my ideas very cleverly. The only editing I had to do was in striking out a lot of self-deprecatory rubbish which would have made me minimise my part in the new era for the towns. A man is a fool who assists his enemies to rob him of what is justly his. How could I expect any one to have a proper respect for me if I did not show that I have a proper respect for myself?
Where this so-called modesty is genuine it is a dangerous weakness; where it is false, it is hypocritical cowardice.
As the train carrying my car drew into the station I stared amazed, much to the delight of the reception committee, which had joined me at the station below. Before me I saw ten or twelve thousand people. The schoolgirls, each dressed in white and carrying flowers, occupied the front space—there must have been a thousand of them.
“Wonderful! Wonderful!” I exclaimed.