"He doesn't borrow. He works on his own capital. St. Ronan's is free and clear," admitted the Senator, crossly.
"That's too bad! Calling loans is always effective in improving a radical's opinions. Then this friend, whom you have held up to me as so important in our plans——"
"I did consider him important, Daunt! I do now. I know him. I have seen him go after things, ever since he was a boy. That storage-commission scheme is his own device and, as the head of it, he occupies a strategic position."
"But it's only a scheme; he has no actual organization of the people behind it."
"Confound it! I'm afraid he will have!"
"It's an impractical dream—trying to establish such shadowy ownership of what vested capital under private control must naturally possess and develop. We have sound business on our side."
"It may not seem so much like a dream after he puts that report into the legislature," complained the Senator. "I tell you, I know Stewart Morrison. He indulges in visions, but he'll back this particular one up with so many facts and figures that it will make a treasury report look like a ghost-story by comparison. Talk about sound business! That's Morrison's other name!"
"What's going to be done with that report, Corson?"
The Senator hesitated a few moments.
"Understand that I'm no kin of old Captain Teach, the buccaneer, either in politics or business, Daunt. But I'm not fool enough to believe that the millennium has arrived in this world, even if the battle of Armageddon has been fought, as the parsons are preaching. We still must deal with human conditions. The tree is full of good ideas, I'll admit. But we've got to let 'em ripen. Eat 'em now—and it's a case of the gripes for business and politics, both. Therefore"—the Senator paused and squinted at the end of his cigar. "Well, Daunt, we'll have to apply a little common sense to conditions, even though the opposition may squeal. That ownership of the water-power by the people isn't ripe. The legislative committee will pocket Morrison's report, or will refer the thing to the public utilities commission."