The Deluge Read online

  II. IN THOSE DAYS AROSE KINGS

  Imagine yourself back two years and a half before Wild Week, back atthe time when the kings of finance had just completed their apparentlyfinal conquest of the industries of the country, when they were seatingthemselves upon thrones encircled by vast armies of capital and brains,when all the governments of the nation--national, state and city--wereprostrate under their iron heels.

  You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all theirfinancial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them, the mostbelieved in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices in thebuilding that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed me also, andChicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, inthe towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke ofBlacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies--andI had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while--myenemies spoke of me as the "biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world."

  Gambler I was--like all the other manipulators of the markets.But "bucket-shop" I never kept. As the kings of finance were therepresentatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so wasI the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small savingsproperly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon wealth andthe brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service; my power wasfounded upon the hearts and homes of the people, upon faith in my frankhonesty.

  How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of publicity,the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines putwithin the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the wholecountry, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied uponthe assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through thestealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. Irelied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous,understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to thepeople.

  My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So?Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare ofpublicity?

  It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myselfinto wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have usedfor honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdlyappropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely andmost quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as acloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let the stupid covertheir stupidity with "dignity." Let the swindler hide his schemings under"dignity." I am a man of the people, not afraid to be seen as the humanbeing that I am. I laugh when I feel like it. I have no sense of jarwhen people call me "Matt." I have a good time, and I shall stay youngas long as I stay alive. Wealth hasn't made me a solemn ass, fenced inand unapproachable. The custom of receiving obedience and flattery andadmiration has not made me a turkey-cock. Life is a joke; and when thejoke's on me, I laugh as heartily as when it's on the other fellow.

  It is half-past three o'clock on a May afternoon; a dismal, dreary rainis being whirled through the streets by as nasty a wind as ever blew outof the east. You are in the private office of that "king of kings," HenryJ. Roebuck, philanthropist, eminent churchman, leading citizen and--inbusiness--as corrupt a creature as ever used the domino of respectability.That office is on the twelfth floor of the Power Trust Building--and thePower Trust is Roebuck, and Roebuck is the Power Trust. He is seated at hisdesk and, thinking I do not see him, is looking at me with an expression ofbenevolent and melancholy pity--the look with which he always regarded anyone whom the Roebuck God Almighty had commanded Roebuck to destroy. He andhis God were in constant communication; his God never did anything exceptfor his benefit, he never did anything except on the direct counsel orcommand of his God. Just now his God is commanding him to destroy me, hisconfidential agent in shaping many a vast industrial enterprise and ininducing the public to buy by the million its bonds and stocks.

  I invited the angry frown of the Roebuck God by saying: "And I bought inthe Manasquale mines on my own account."

  "On your own account!" said Roebuck. Then he hastily effaced hisinvoluntary air of the engineer startled by sight of an unexpected redlight.

  "Yes," replied I, as calm as if I were not realizing the tremendoussignificance of what I had announced. "I look to you to let me participateon equal terms."

  That is, I had decided that the time had come for me to take my placeamong the kings of finance. I had decided to promote myself from agent toprincipal, from prime minister to king--I must, myself, promote myself,for in this world all promotion that is solid comes from within. And infurtherance of my object I had bought this group of mines, control of whichwas vital to the Roebuck-Langdon-Melville combine for a monopoly of thecoal of the country.

  "Did not Mr. Langdon commission you to buy them for him and his friends?"inquired Roebuck, in that slow, placid tone which yet, for the attentiveear, had a note in it like the scream of a jaguar that comes home and findsits cub gone.

  "But I couldn't get them for him," I explained. "The owners wouldn't selluntil I engaged that the National Coal and Railway Company was not to havethem."

  "Oh, I see," said Roebuck, sinking back relieved. "We must get Browne todraw up some sort of perpetual, irrevocable power of attorney to us for youto sign."

  "But I won't sign it," said I.

  Roebuck took up a sheet of paper and began to fold it upon itself withgreat care to get the edges straight. He had grasped my meaning; he wasdeliberating.

  "For four years now," I went on, "you people have been promising to takeme in as a principal in some one of your deals--to give me recognition bymaking me president, or chairman of an executive or finance committee. I aman impatient man, Mr. Roebuck. Life is short, and I have much to do. So Ihave bought the Manasquale mines--and I shall hold them."

  Roebuck continued to fold the paper upon itself until he had reduced itto a short, thick strip. This he slowly twisted between his cruel fingersuntil it was in two pieces. He dropped them, one at a time, into thewaste-basket, then smiled benevolently at me. "You are right," he said."You shall have what you want. You have seemed such a mere boy to me that,in spite of your giving again and again proof of what you are, I have beenputting you off. Then, too--" He halted, and his look was that of onesurveying delicate ground.

  "The bucket-shop?" suggested I.

  "Exactly," said he gratefully. "Your brokerage business has been invaluableto us. But--well, I needn't tell you how people--the men of standing--lookon that sort of thing."

  "I never have paid any attention to pompous pretenses," said I, "and Inever shall. My brokerage business must go on, and my daily letters toinvestors. By advertising I rose; by advertising I am a power that even yourecognize; by advertising alone can I keep that power."

  "You forget that in the new circumstances, you won't need that sort ofpower. Adapt yourself to your new surroundings. Overalls for the trench; abusiness suit for the office."

  "I shall keep to my overalls for the present," said I. "They're morecomfortable, and"--here I smiled significantly at him--"if I shed them, Imight have to go naked. The first principle of business is never to give upwhat you have until your grip is tight on something better."

  "No doubt you're right," agreed the white-haired old scoundrel, givingno sign that I had fathomed his motive for trying to "hint" me out of mystronghold. "I will talk the matter over with Langdon and Melville. Restassured, my boy, that you will be satisfied." He got up, put his armaffectionately round my shoulders. "We all like you. I have a feelingtoward you as if you were my own son. I am getting old, and I like to seeyoung men about me, growing up to assume the responsibilities of the Lord'swork whenever He shall call me to my reward."

  It will seem incredible that a man of my shrewdness and experience couldbe taken in by such slimy stuff as that--I who knew Roebuck as only afew insiders knew hi
m, I who had seen him at work, as devoid of heart asan empty spider in an empty web. Yet I was taken in to the extent thatI thought he really purposed to recognize my services, to yield to theonly persuasion that could affect him--force. I fancied he was actuallyabout to put me where I could be of the highest usefulness to him and hisassociates, as well as to myself. As if an old man ever yielded power orpermitted another to gain power, even though it were to his own greatadvantage. The avarice of age is not open to reason.

  It was with tears in my eyes that I shook hands with him, thanking himemotionally. It was with a high chin and a proud heart that I went backto my offices. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was about to get mydeserts, was about to enter the charmed circle of "high finance."

  That small and exclusive circle, into which I was seeing myself admittedwithout the usual arduous and unequal battle, was what may be called theindustrial ring--a loose, yet tight, combine of about a dozen men whocontrolled in one way or another practically all the industries of thecountry. They had no formal agreements; they held no official meetings.They did not look upon themselves as an association. They often quarreledamong themselves, waged bitter wars upon each other over divisions ofpower or plunder. But, in the broad sense, in the true sense, they werean association--a band united by a common interest, to control finance,commerce and therefore politics; a band united by a common purpose, to keepthat control in as few hands as possible. Whenever there was sign of perilfrom without they flung away differences, pooled resources, marched infull force to put down the insurrection. For they looked on any attemptto interfere with them as a mutiny, as an outbreak of anarchy. This bandpersisted, but membership in it changed, changed rapidly. Now, one wouldbe beaten to death and despoiled by a clique of fellows; again, weak orrash ones would be cut off in strenuous battle. Often, most often, sometoo-powerful or too-arrogant member would be secretly and stealthilyassassinated by a jealous associate or by a committee of internal safety.Of course, I do not mean literally assassinated, but assassinated, cut off,destroyed, in the sense that a man whose whole life is wealth and power isdead when wealth and power are taken from him.

  Actual assassination, the crime of murder--these "gentlemen" rarely didanything which their lawyers did not advise them was legal or could be madelegal by bribery of one kind or another. Rarely, I say--not never. You willsee presently why I make that qualification.

  I had my heart set upon membership in this band--and, as I confess now withshame, my prejudices of self-interest had blinded me into regarding itand its members as great and useful and honorable "captains of industry."Honorable in the main; for, not even my prejudice could blind me to thealmost hair-raising atrocity of some of their doings. Still, morality islargely a question of environment. I had been bred in that environment.Even the atrocities I excused on the ground that he who goes forth to warmust be prepared to do and to tolerate many acts the church would have tostrain a point to bless. What was Columbus but a marauder, a buccaneer?Was not Drake, in law and in fact, a pirate; Washington a traitor to hissoldier's oath of allegiance to King George? I had much to learn, and tounlearn. I was to find out that whenever a Roebuck puts his arm round you,it is invariably to get within your guard and nearer your fifth rib. I wasto trace the ugliest deformities of that conscience of his, hidden awaydown inside him like a dwarfed, starved prisoner in an underground dungeon.I was to be astounded by revelations of Langdon, who was not a believer,like Roebuck, and so was not under the restraint of the feeling that hemust keep some sort of conscience ledgers against the inspection of theangelic auditing committee in the day of wrath.

  Much to learn--and to unlearn. It makes me laugh as I recall how, on thatMay day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled delighted,as an idiot with myself and said: "Matt, you are of the kings now. Yourcrown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to keep it. Now forsome fun with your subjects and your fellow sovereigns."

  A little premature, that preening!