Upton Sinclair - The Metropolis

" Patented, hell!" replied the other. "What's a patent to lawyers of concerns of that size ? They'd have taken it and had it in use from Maine to Texas; and when he sued, they'd have tied the case up in so many technicalities and quibbles that he couldn't have got to the end of it in ten years — and he'd have been ruined ten times over in the process."

"Is that really done ?" asked Montamie.

"Done!" exclaimed the Major. "It's done so often you might say it's the only thing that's done. The people are probably trying to take you in with a fake."

"That couldn't possibly be so," responded the other. " The man is a friend —"

"I've found it an excellent rule never to do business with friends," said the Major, grimly.

"But listen," said Montague; and he argued long enough to convince his companion that that could not be the true explanation. Then the Major sat for a minute or two and pondered; and suddenly he exclaimed, " I have it! I see why they won't touch it!"

"What is it.?"

"It's the coal companies! They're giving^ the steamships short weight, and they don't want the coal weighed truly!"

"But there's no sense in that," said Montague. "It's the steamship companies that won't take the machine."

"Yes," said the Major; "naturally, their officers are sharing the graft." And he laughed heartily at Montague's look of perplexity.

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"Do you know anything about the business?" Montague asked.

"Nothing whatever," said the Major. "I am like the- German who shut himself up in his inner consciousness and deduced the shape of an elephant from first principles. I know the game of big business from A to Z, and I'm telling you that if the invention is good and the companies won't take it, that's the reason; and I'll lay you a wager that if you were to make an investigation, some such thing as that is what you'd find! Last winter I went South on a steamer, and when we got near port, I saw them dumping a ton or two of good food overboard; and I made inquiries, and learned that one of the oflBcials of the company ran a farm, and furnished the stuff — and the orders were to get rid of so much every trip!"

Montague's jaw had fallen. "What could Major Thorne do against such a combination.?" lie asked.

"I don't know," said the Major, shrugging his shoulders. "It's a case to take to a lawyer — one who knows the ropes. Hawkins over there would know what to tell you. I should imagine the thing he'd advise would be to call a strike of the men who handle the coal, and tie up the companies and bring them to terms."

"You're joking now!" exclaimed the other.

"Not at all," said the Major, laughing again. **It's done all the time. There's a building trust in this city, and the way it put all its rivals out of business was by having strikes called on their jobs."

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"But how could it do that?"

"Easiest thing in the world. A labour leader is a man with a great deal of power, and a very small salary to live on. And even if he won't sell out — there are other ways. I could introduce you to a man right in this room who had a big strike on at an inconvenient time, and he had the president of the union trapped in a hotel with a woman, and the poor fellow gave in and called off the strike."

"I should think the strikers might sometimes get out of hand," said Montague.

"Sometimes they do," smiled the other. "There is a regular procedure for that case, also. Then you hire detectives and start violence, and call out the militia and put the strike leaders into jail."

Montague could think of nothing to say to that. The programme seemed to be complete.

"You see," the Major continued, earnestly, "I'm advising you as a friend, and I'm taking the point of view of a man who has money in his pocket. I've had some there always, but I've had to work hard to keep it there. All my life I've been surrounded by people who wanted to do me good; and the way they wanted to do it was to exchange nay real money for pieces of paper which they d had printed with fancy scrollwork and eagles and flags. Of course, if you want to look at the thing from the other side, why, then the invention is most ingenious, and trade is booming just now, and this is a great country, and merit is all you need in it — and everything else is just as it ought to be. It

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£06 THE METROPOLIS

makes all the difference in the world, you know, whether a man is buying a horse or selling him!"

Montague had observed with perplexity that such incendiary talk as this was one of the characteristics of people in these lofty altitudes. It was one of the liberties accorded to their station. Editors and bishops and statesmen and aU the rest of their retainers had to believe in the respectabilities, even in the privacy of their clubs — the people's ears were getting terribly sharp these days! But among the real giants of business-you might have thought yourself in a society of revolutionists; they would tear up the mountain tops and hurl them at €ach other. Wlien one of these old warrhorses once got started, he would tell tales of deviltry to appall the soul of the hardiest muck-rake man. It was always the other fellow, of course; but then, if you pinned your man down, and if he thought > that he could trust you—he would acknowledge that he had sometimes fought the

But of course one must- understand that all this radicalism was for conversational purposes only. The Major, for instance, never had the slightest idea of doing anything about all the ■evils of which he told; when it came to action, he proposed to do just what he had done all his life — to sit tight on his own little pile. And the Millionaires' was an excellent place to learn to do it!

"See that old money-bags over there in the corner," said the Major. "He's a man you

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want to fix in your mind — old Henry S. Grimes. Have you heard of him?"

"Vaguely," said the other.

"Hes Laura Hegan's uncle. She'll have his money also some day — but Lord, how he does hold on to it meantime ! It's quite tragic, if you come to know him — he's frightened at his own shadow. He goes in for slum tenements, and I guess he evicts more people in a month than you could crowd into this building!"

Montague looked at the solitary figure at the table, a man with a wizened-up little face like a weasel's, and a big napkin tied around his neck. "That's so as to save his shirt-front'for to-morrow," the Major explained. "He's really only about sixty, but you'd think he was eighty. Three times every day he sits here and eats a bowl of graham crackers and milk, and then goes out and sits rigid in an arm-chair for an hour. That's the regimen his doctors have put him on — angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

The old gentleman paused, and a chuckle shook his scarlet jowls. "Only think!" he said — "they tried to do that to me! But no, sir — when Bob Venable has to eat graham crackers and milk, he'll put in arsenic instead of sugar! That's the way with many a one of these rich fellows, though — you picture him living in Capuan luxury, when, as a matter of fact, he's a man with a torpid liver and a weak stomach, who is put to bed at ten o'clock with a hot-water bag and a flannel nightcap!"

The two had got up and were strolling toward

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the smoking room; when suddenly at one side a door opened, and a group of men came out. At the head of them was an extraordinary figure, a big powerful body with a grim face. "Hello !" said the Major. "All the big bugs are here tonight. There must be a governors' meeting."

'Who is that.?" asked his companion; and he answered, "That.-^ Why, that's Dan Waterman."

Dan Waterman! Montague stared harder than ever, and now he identified the face with the pictures he had seen. Waterman, the Colossus of finance, the Crcesus of copper and gold! How many trusts had Waterman organised! And how many puns had been made upon that name of his!