"We put up our credit in Paris and Amsterdam for the colonies and for the Federal Government when the colonies and the Federal Government had none. Then along comes a little coterie of steel men in our own day," Kimberly tossed his head with disdainful impatience, "who make the toil of a hundred years look like a farce--out-Herod Herod in protection and pile up hundreds of millions while we are up to our armpits in molasses trying to grind out a mere living. Protection! We don't get half enough. Who has any better sanction for exercising that airy, invisible pressure of a tariff tax?" he demanded, lifting a glass of wine to the light.
"Picturesque old pirate," murmured Hamilton.
"And he needs the money," commented De Castro. "Why quarrel with him?"
"I am sure you will all pledge the sugar business," continued Kimberly, raising a refilled glass blandly, "and join me in welcoming anybody that wants to go into it. This is a free country, gentlemen."
"What do you use on competitors, the rack and dungeon?"
"Nothing that savors of them."
"But you take care of competition," persisted Hamilton.
Kimberly laughed.
"Certainly we do," interposed McCrea, quickly and frankly. "But without unnecessary cruelty, as Mr. Robert Kimberly puts it. No man that ever fought the company and had horse-sense has ever starved to death. We can use such a man's talents better than he can, and very often he comes into camp and becomes our teacher; that has happened. Our system of combination has brought comforts and luxuries into thousands of homes that never would have known them under the waste of competition. Hundreds and thousands of men have profited by uniting their efforts with ours. And no man that wasn't a business lunatic has ever been the worse for anything we've done."
"Your husband talks well, Mrs. McCrea," said Robert Kimberly, to a quiet little woman near him.