CHAPTER XXXIX
AN ALLEGORY OF ACHIEVEMENT

To visit Birmingham without seeing an iron and steel plant would be like visiting Rome without seeing the Forum. Consequently my companion and I made application for permission to go through the Tennessee Coal, Iron, & Railroad Company's plant, at Ensley, on the outskirts of the city. When the permission was refused us we attacked from another angle—using influence—and were refused again. Next we called upon a high official of the company, and (as we had, of course, done in making our previous requests for admission to the plant) explained our errand.

Though this gentleman received us with the utmost courtesy, he declared that the company desired no publicity, and plainly indicated that he was not disposed to let us into the plant.

"I'll tell you what the trouble is," said my companion to me. "This company is a part of the United States Steel Corporation, and in the old muckraking days it was thoroughly raked. They think that we have come down here full of passionate feeling over the poor, downtrodden workingman and the great, greedy octopus."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, we are a writer and an artist. Lots of writers and artists have made good livings by teaching magazine readers that it is dishonest for a corporation, or a corporation official, to prosper; that the way to integrity is through insolvency; that the word 'company' is a term of reproach, while 'corporation' is a foul epithet, and 'trust' blasphemy."

"What shall we do?"

"We must make it clear to these people," he said, "that we have no mission. We must satisfy them that we are not reformers—that we didn't come to dig out a red-hot story, but to see red-hot rails rolled out."

Pursuing this course, we were successful. All that any official of the company required of us was that we be open-minded. The position of the company, when we came to understand it, was simply that it did not wish to facilitate the work of men who came down with pencils, paper, and preconceived "views," deliberately to play the great American game of "swat the corporation."