Something had to be done.
Fenwick hadn't realized it before, but this was the thought that had been churning in his cortex for the last hour. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.
But, short of murder, what?
Getting rid of Baker physically was not the answer, of course. If he were gone, a hundred others like him would fight for his place.
Baker had to be shown. He had to be shown that high-grading was costing him the very thing he was trying to find. It must be proven to him that flotation methods work as well in mining human resources as in mining metal. That the extra trouble paid off.
This was known—a long time ago—Fenwick thought. Somewhere along the way things got changed. He glanced toward the Jefferson Memorial. Tom Jefferson knew how it should be, Tom Jefferson, statesman, farmer, writer, and amateur mechanic and inventor. It was not only every gentleman's privilege, it was also his duty to be a tinkerer and amateur scientist, no matter what else he might be.
Fenwick glanced in the distance toward the Lincoln Memorial. Abe had done his share of tinkering. His weird boot-strap system for hoisting river boats off shoals and bars hadn't amounted to much, but Abe knew the principle that every man has the right to be his own scientist.
And then there was Ben Franklin, the noblest amateur of them all! He had roamed these parts, too.
Somewhere it had been lost. The Bill Bakers would have laughed out of existence the great tinkerers like Franklin and Lincoln and Jefferson. And the Pasteurs and the Mendels—and the George Durrants and the Jim Ellerbees, too.
Fenwick started the car. Something had to be done about Bill Baker.