"But, father; it is a great work, isn't it, to change the desert into a land of farms and homes for thousands and thousands of people?"
"Do you think that Greenfield and his crowd are going into this scheme because it is a great thing for the people?"
"But don't even capitalists sometimes undertake a great work just because it is great and because thousands upon thousands of people, through years and years to come, will be benefited even though the men themselves do not make so awfully much money?"
If Jefferson Worth felt her unconscious insinuation his face gave no sign. Carefully he listened with his manner of considering and weighing every word, while to Barbara his mind seemed to be reaching out on every side or running far into the future. When he answered his words were carefully exact. "Capitalists, as individuals might and do, spend millions in projects from which they, personally, expect no returns. But Capital doesn't do such things. Anything that Capital, as Capital, goes into must be purely a business proposition. If anything like sentiment entered into it that would be the end of the whole matter."
Barbara moved uneasily. "I don't think I quite understand why," she said.
There was a shade of color now in the banker's voice as he explained by asking: "How long do you think this bank could exist if we made loans to Tom, Dick and Harry because they needed help, or put money into this and that scheme simply because it was a beneficial thing? How long would it be before we went to smash?"
"But don't business men ever do anything except to make money? Doesn't
Capital, as you say, ever consider the people?"
"This bank is a very substantial benefit to the people. But it can only benefit them by doing business on strictly business principles. As an individual any officer or stock holder can do what he pleases for whatever reason moves him. He can burn his money if he wants to. But as officers and directors of this corporation we can't burn the capital of the institution."
"But Mr. Greenfield and these New York men, who have organized the company—are they not careful financiers?"
"Very."