"That is a large contract for any one man to undertake," Covington remarked. "No individual has yet been able to disintegrate a successful going corporation when the stockholders and the directors were opposed to it."
"We are talking of unusual things," Gorham replied. "No individual before has been able to found so mammoth or so successful a corporation as the Consolidated Companies. No individual before this has found himself strong enough to force the immediate capitulation, against their wills, of so powerful an Executive Committee. With these precedents before me, I state my determination not as a threat, or as a boast, but as a fact."
"Are you counting on the stockholders for support?"
"Absolutely."
"You will find them as unanimously against you as you have just found the committee."
"Do you know this?"
"They all know it; they would not have taken their position otherwise.
Next time, the stockholders will be put in evidence."
Gorham again became silent. This second shock, following so soon after the first, for a moment paralyzed his power to think, but he quickly recovered his optimism.
"I do not believe it—I will not believe it. But why do you tell me this?" he again asked. "There must be some purpose behind it all."
"There is. It is necessary for you to realize the exact position we are in. Your work has been with those about to become stockholders, or with the consolidations; I have been brought in personal contact with the stockholders and the directors. You have met the ideals, while I have come face to face with the actualities. For this reason I tell you that you are undertaking a more serious campaign than you realize, and I also tell you that, strong as you are, compromise and conciliation will eventually be required."