"Yes! You must love me a little always."
CHAPTER XXIV
WAR
Wall street and the people of the country—Collateral—I decide to go home—Slocum finds that I am a patriot—I plan to enlist—Hardman once more—Claims—A midnight problem—The telegram
War! That was what was in the air those days. It had muttered on for months, giving our politicians at Washington something to mouth about in their less serious hours. Then came the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor, and even Wall Street could see that the country was drifting fast into war. And in their jackal fashion, the men of Wall Street were trying to make money out of this crisis of their country, starting rumors from those high in authority to run the prices of their goods up and down. To those men who had honest interests at stake it was a terrible time for panic, for uncertainty. One could never guess what might happen over night.
But throughout the land, among the common people, the question at issue had been heard and judged. The farmer on his ranch, the laborer in his factory, the hand on the railroad—the men of the land up and down the States—had judged this question. When the time came their judgment got itself recorded; for any big question is settled just that way by those men, not at Washington or in Wall Street.
The sick spirit of our nation needed just this tonic of a generous war, fought not for our own profit. It would do us good to give ourselves for those poor Cuban dogs. The Jew spirit of Wall Street doesn't rule this country, after all, and Wall Street doesn't understand that the millions in the land long to hustle sometimes for something besides their own bellies. So, although Wall Street groaned, I had a kind of faith that war would be a good thing, cost what it might.
And it might cost me the work of my life. Latterly, with the revival of trade, my enterprises had been prospering, and were emerging from that doubtful state where they were blown upon by every wind of the market. For the American Meat Products Company had kept its promise and was earning dividends. It had paid, in the past year, six per cent on the preferred stock, and, what with the big contracts we were getting from the Government just now, it would earn something on the common. So far very little of our stock had come upon the market, although the period covered by the agreement among the stockholders not to sell their holdings had passed. In spite of Mr. Dround's threats, there was no evidence that he had disposed of his stock up to this time. It was probable that when he saw what a good earner the company had proved to be, he had reconsidered his scruples, as he had done years before in the matter of private agreements and rebates.
And that rag of a railroad out of Kansas City, which Farson and his friends found left on their hands in the panic times of '93, now reached all the way to the Gulf and was spreading fast into a respectable system. After Farson had withdrawn his help at the time of our disagreement, we had interested a firm of bankers in New York, and, one way and another, had built and equipped the road. A few years of good times, and all this network of enterprises would be beyond attack. Meanwhile, I was loaded down to the water's edge with the securities of these new companies, and had borrowed heavily at home and in the East in the effort to push through my plans.