A Certain Rich Man Part 26

Barclay listened to her story, and then wheeled in his chair and exclaimed, "Can Adrian publish that book?"

"Yes," she answered tentatively; "that is, he could if it didn't take such an awful lot of money."

After discussing details with her, Barclay called Neal Ward and said:--

"Get up a letter to Adrian Brownwell asking him to print for me three thousand copies of the colonel's book, at one dollar and fifty cents a copy, and give seventy-five per cent of the profits to Colonel Culpepper. We'll put that book in every public library in this country. How's that?" And he looked at the tintype and said, "Bless her dear little heart."

"Neal," asked Barclay, as Mrs. Brownwell left the room, "how old are you? I keep forgetting." When the young man answered twenty-five, Barclay, who was putting away the tintype picture, said, "And Jeanette will be twenty-three at her next birthday." He closed the desk and looked at the youth bending over his typewriter and sighed. "Been going together off and on five or six years--I should say."

Neal nodded. Barclay put his hand on his chin and contemplated the young man a moment. "Ever have any other love affair, son?"

The youngster coloured and looked up quickly with a puzzled look and did not reply.

Barclay cut in with, "Well, son, I'm glad to find you don't lie easily." He laughed silently. "Jennie has--lots of them. When she was six she used to cry for little Watts Fernald, and they quarrelled like cats and dogs, and when she was ten there was an Irish boy--Finnegan I think his name was--who milked the cow, whom she adored, and when she was fourteen or so, it was some boy in the high school who gave her candy until her mother had to shoo him off, and I don't know how many others." He paused for a few seconds and then went on, "But she's forgotten them--that's the way of women." His eyes danced merrily as he continued, while he scratched his head: "But with us men--it's different. We never forget." He chuckled a moment, and then his face changed as he said, "Neal, I wish you'd go into the mail room and see if the noon mail has anything in it from that d.a.m.n scoundrel who's trying to start a cracker factory in St. Louis--I hate to bother to smash him right now when we're so busy."

But it so happened that the d.a.m.n scoundrel thought better of his intention and took fifty thousand for his first thought, and Neal Ward, being one of the component parts of an engaged couple, went ahead being sensible about it. All engaged couples, of course, resolve to be sensible about it. And for two years and a half--during nineteen one and two and part of nineteen three--Jeanette Barclay and Neal Ward had tried earnestly and succeeded admirably (they believed) in being exceedingly sensible about everything. Jeanette had gone through school and was spending the year in Europe with her mother, and she would be home in May; and in June--in June of 1904--why, the almanac stopped there; the world had no further interest, and no one on earth could imagine anything after that. For then they proposed not to be sensible any longer.

In the early years of this century--about 1902, probably--John Barclay paid an accounting company twenty-five thousand dollars--more money than General Ward and Watts McHurdie and Martin Culpepper and Jacob Dolan had saved in all their long, industrious, frugal, and useful lives--to go over his business, install a system of audits and accounts, and tell him just how much money he was worth. After a score of men had been working for six months, the accounting company made its report. It was put in terms of dollars and cents, which are fleeting and illusive terms, and mean much in one country and little in another, signify great wealth at one time and mere affluence in another period. So the sum need not be set down here. But certain interesting details of the report may be set down to illuminate this narrative. For instance, it indicates that John Barclay was a man of some consequence, when one knows that he employed more men in that year than many a sovereign state of this Union employed in its state and county and city governments. It signifies something to learn that he controlled more land growing wheat than any of half a dozen European kings reign over. It means something to realize that in those years of his high tide John Barclay, by a few lines dictated to Neal Ward, could have put bread out of the reach of millions of his fellow-creatures. And these are evidences of material power--these men he hired, these lands he dominated, and this vast store of food that he kept. So it is fair to a.s.sume that if this is a material world, John Barclay's fortune was founded upon a rock. He and his National Provisions Company were real. They were able to make laws; they were able to create administrators of the law; and they were able to influence those who interpreted the law. Barclay and his power were substantial, palpable, and translatable into terms of money, of power, of vital force.

And then one day, after long years of growth in the under-consciousnesses of men, an idea came into full bloom in the world. It had no especial champions. The people began to think this idea. That was all. Now life reduced to its lowest terms consists of you and him and me. Put us on a desert island together--you and him and me--and he can do nothing without you and me--except he kill us, and then he is alone; even then we haunt him, so our influence still binds him. You can do nothing without him and me, and I can do nothing without you and him. Not that you and he will hold me; not that you will stop me; but what you think and say will bind me to your wishes tighter than any chains you might forge. What you and he think is more powerful than all the material forces of this universe. For what you and he think is public opinion. It is not substantial; it is not palpable. It may not readily be translated into terms of money, or power, or vital force. But it crushes all these things before it. When this public opinion rises sure and firm and strong, no material force on this earth can stop it. For a time it may be dammed and checked.

For a day or a week or a year or a decade it may be turned from its channel; yet money cannot hold it; arms cannot hold it; cunning cannot baffle it. For it is G.o.d moving among men. Thus He manifests Himself in this earth. Through the centuries, amid the storm and stress of time, often m.u.f.fled, often strangled, often incoherent, often raucous and inarticulate with anguish, but always in the end triumphant, the voice of the people is indeed the voice of G.o.d!

Nearly a dozen years had pa.s.sed since the Russian painted the picture of John Barclay, which hangs in the public library of Sycamore Ridge, and in that time the heart of the American people had changed. Barclay was beginning to feel upon him, night and day, the crushing weight of popular scorn. He called the idea envy, but it was not envy. It was the idea working in the world, and the weight of the scorn was beginning to crumple his soul; for this idea that the people were thinking was finding its way into newspapers, magazines, and books.

They were beginning to question the divine right of wealth to rule, because it was wealth--an idea that Barclay could not comprehend even vaguely. The term honest wealth, which was creeping into respectable periodicals, was exceedingly annoying to him. For the very presence of the term seemed to indicate that there was such a thing as dishonest wealth,--an obvious absurdity; and when he addressed the students of the Southwestern University at their commencement exercises in 1902, his address attracted considerable attention because it deplored the modern tendency in high places toward socialism and warned the students that a nation of iconoclasts would perish from the earth. But the people went on questioning the divine right of wealth to rule. In the early part of 1903 Barclay was astounded at the action of a score of his senators and nearly a hundred of his congressmen, who voted for a national law prohibiting the giving of railroad rebates. He was a.s.sured by all of them that it was done to satisfy temporary agitation, but the fact that they voted for the law at all, as he explained to Senator Myton, at some length and with some asperity, was a breach of faith with "interests in American politics which may not safely be ignored." "And what's more," he added angrily, "this is a personal insult to me. That law hits my Door Strip."

And then out of the clear sky like a thunderbolt, not from an enemy, not from any clique or crowd he had fought, but from the government itself, during the last days of Congress came a law creating a Department of Commerce and Labour at Washington, a law giving federal inspectors the right to go through books of private concerns. Barclay was overwhelmed with amazement. He raged, but to no avail; and his wrath was heated by the rumours printed in all the newspapers that Barclay and the National Provisions Company were to be the first victims of the new law. Mrs. Barclay and Jeanette were going to Europe in the spring of 1903, and Barclay on the whole was glad of it. He wished the decks cleared for his fight; he felt that he must not have Jane at his elbow holding his hand from malice in the engagement that was coming, and when he left them on the boat, he spent a week scurrying through the East looking for some unknown enemy in high financial circles who might be back of the government's determination to move against the N.P.C. He felt sure he could uncover the source of his trouble--and then, either fight his enemy or make terms. It did not occur to Barclay that he could not find a material, palpable, personal object upon which to charge or with which to capitulate. But he found nothing, and crossed the Alleghanies puzzled.

When he got home, he learned that a government inspector, one H. S.

Smith, was beginning the investigation of the Provisions Company's books in St. Paul, Omaha, Chicago, and Denver. Barclay learned that Smith had secured some bills of lading that might not easily be explained. Incidentally, Barclay learned that an attempt had been made, through proper channels, to buy Smith, and he was nonplussed to learn that Smith was not purchasable. Then to end the whole matter, Barclay wrote to Senator Myton, directing him to have Smith removed immediately. But Myton's reply, which was forwarded to Barclay at Sycamore Ridge, indicated that "the orders under which Smith is working come from a higher source than the department."

Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith--a man whom he could buy and sell a dozen times from one day's income from his wealth--flamed into a pa.s.sion. He tore Myton's letter to bits, and refreshed his faith in the G.o.d of Things As They Are by garroting a mill in Texas. While the Texas miller was squirming, Barclay did not consider Inspector Smith consciously, but in remote places in his mind always there lived the scorned person whom Barclay knew was working against him.

From time to time in the early summer the newspapers contained definite statements, authorized from Washington with increasing positiveness, that the cordon around the N.P.C. was tightening. In July Barclay's scorn of Inspector Smith grew into disquietude; for a letter from Judge Bemis, of the federal court,--written up in the Catskills,--warned him that scorn was not the only emotion with which he should honour Smith. After reading Bemis' confidential and ambiguous scrawl, Barclay drummed for a time with his hard fingers on the mahogany before him, stared at the print sketches of machinery above him, and paced the floor of his office with the roar of the mill answering something in his angry heart. He could not know that the tide was running out. He went to his telephone and asked for a city so far away that when he had finished talking for ten minutes, he had spent enough money to keep General Ward in comfort for a month. Neal Ward, sitting in his room, heard Barclay say: "What kind of a d.a.m.n bunco game were you fellows putting up on me in 1900? You got my money; that's all right; I didn't squeal at the a.s.sessment, did I?"

Young Ward in the pause closed his door. But the bull-like roar of Barclay came through the wood between them in a moment, and he heard: "Matter enough--here's this fellow Smith bullying my clerks out in Omaha, and nosing around the St. Paul office; what right has he got?

Who is he, anyway--who got him his job? I wrote to Myton to get him removed, or sent to some other work, and Myton said that the White House was back of him. I wish you'd go over to Washington, and tell them who I am and what we did for you in '96 and 1900; we can't stand this. It's a d.a.m.ned outrage, and I look to you to stop it." In a moment Ward heard Barclay exclaim: "You can't--why, that's a h.e.l.l of a note! What kind of a fellow is he, anyway? Tell him I gave half a million to the party, and I've got some rights in this government that a white man is bound to respect--or does he believe in taking your money and letting you whistle?" A train rolling by the mill drowned Barclay's voice, but at the end of the conversation Ward heard Barclay say: "Well, what's a party good for if it doesn't protect the men who contribute to its support? You simply must do it. I look to you for it. You got my good money, and it's up to you to get results."

There was some growling, and then Barclay hung up the receiver. But he was mad all day, and dictated a panic interview to Ward, which Ward was to give to the a.s.sociated Press when they went to Chicago the next day. In the interview, Barclay said that economic conditions were being disturbed by half-baked politicians, and that values would shrink and the worst panic in the history of the country would follow unless the socialistic meddling with business was stopped.

The summer had deepened to its maturest splendour before Barclay acknowledged to himself his dread of the City. For he began to feel a definite discomfiture at the panorama of his pictures on the news-stands in connection with the advertising of the Sunday newspapers and magazines. The newspapers were blazoning to the whole country that the Economy Door Strip was a blind for taking railroad rebates, and everywhere he met the report of Inspector Smith that the National Provisions Company's fifty-pound sack of Barclay's Best contained but forty-eight pounds and ten ounces; also that Barclay had been taking three ounces out of the pound cartons of breakfast food, and that the cracker packages were growing smaller, while the prices were not lowered. Even in Sycamore Ridge the reporters appeared with exasperating regularity, and the papers were filled with diverting articles telling of the Barclays' social simplicity and rehashing old stories of John Barclay's boyhood. His attempt to stop the investigation of the National Provisions Company became noised around Washington, and the news of his failure was frankly given out from the White House. This inspired a cartoon from McCutcheon in the _Chicago Tribune_, representing the President weighing a flour sack on which was printed "Barclay's Worst," with Barclay behind the President trying to get his foot on the scales.

All of his life Barclay had been a fighter; he liked to hit and dodge or get hit back. His struggles in business and in the business part of politics had been with tangible foes, with material things; and his weapons had been material things: coercion, bribery (more or less sugar-coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar of his voice or the power of his name. But now, facing the formless, impersonal thing called public opinion, hitherto unknown in his scheme of things, he was filled with uncertainty and indecision.

One autumn day, after sending three stenographers home limp and weary with directions for his battles, Barclay strayed into McHurdie's shop.

The general and Dolan were the only members of the parliament present that afternoon, besides Watts. Barclay nodded at the general without speaking, and Dolan said:--

"Cool, ain't it? Think it will freeze?"

Barclay took a chair, and when Dolan and Ward saw that he had come for a visit, they left.

"Watts," asked Barclay, after the others had gone, and the little man at the bench did not speak, "Watts, what's got into the people of this country? What have I done that they should begin pounding me this way?"

McHurdie turned a gentle smile on his visitor, knowing that Barclay would do the talking. Barclay went on: "Here are five suits in county courts in Texas against me; a suit in Kansas by the attorney-general, five or ten in the Dakotas, three in Nebraska, one or two in each of the Lake states, and the juries always finding against me. I haven't changed my methods. I'm doing just what I've done for fifteen years.

I've had lots of lawsuits before, with stockholders and rival companies and partners, and millers and all that--but this standing in front of the mob and fighting them off--why? Why? What have I done? These county attorneys and attorneys-general seem to delight in it--now why? They didn't used to; it used to be that only cranks like old Phil Ward even talked of such things, and people laughed at them; and now prosecuting attorneys actually do these things, and people reelect them. Why? What's got into the people? What am I doing that I haven't been doing?"

"Maybe the people are growing honest, John," suggested the harness maker amiably.

Barclay threw back his head and roared: "Naw--naw--it isn't that; it's the d.a.m.n newspapers. That's what it is! They're what's raising the devil. But why? Why? What have I done? Why, they have even bulldozed some of my own federal judges--my own men, Watts, my own men; men whose senators came into my office with their hats in their hands and asked permission to name these judges. Now why?" He was silent awhile and then began chuckling: "But I fixed 'em the other day. Did you see that article in all the papers briefed out of New York about how that professor had said that the N.P.C. was an economic necessity? I did that, Watts: and got it published in the magazines, too--and our advertising agents made all the newspapers that get our advertising print it--and they had to." Barclay laughed. After a moody silence he continued: "And you know what I could do. I could finance a scheme to buy out the meat trust and the lumber trust, and I could control every line of advertising that goes into the d.a.m.n magazines--and I could buy the paper trust too, and that would fix 'em. The Phil Wards are not running this country yet. The men who make the wealth and maintain the prosperity have got to run it in spite of the long-nosed reformers and socialists. You know, Watts, that we men who do things have a divine responsibility to keep the country off the rocks. But she's drifting a lot just now, and they're all after me, because I'm rich. That's all, Watts, just because I've worked hard and earned a little money--that's why." And so he talked on, until he was tired, and limped home and sat idly in front of his organ, unable to touch the keys.

Then he turned toward the City to visit his temporal kingdom. There in the great Corn Exchange Building his domain was unquestioned. There in the room with the mahogany walls he could feel his power, and stanch the flow of his courage. There he was a man. But alas for human vanity! When he got to the City, he found the morning papers full of a story of a baby that had died from overeating breakfast food made at his mills and adulterated with earth from his Missouri clay banks, as the coroner had attested after an autopsy; and a miserable county prosecutor was looking for John Barclay. So he hid all the next day in his offices, and that evening took Neal Ward on a special train in his private car, on a roundabout way home to Sycamore Ridge.

It was a wretched homecoming for so great and successful a man as Barclay. Yet he with all his riches, with all his material power, even he longed for the safety of home, as any hunted thing longs for his lair. On the way he paced the diagonals of the little office room in his car, like a caged jackal. The man had lost his anchor; the things which his life had been built on would not hold him. Money--men envied the rich nowadays, he said, and the rich man had no rights in the courts or out of them; friends--they had gone up in the market, and he could not afford them; politics--he had found it a quicksand.

So he jabbered to Neal Ward, his secretary, and pulled down the curtains of his car on the station side of every stop the train made in its long day's journey.

CHAPTER XXIV

It was nearly midnight when the special train pulled into Sycamore Ridge, and Neal Ward hurried home. He went to his room, and found there a letter and a package, both addressed in Jeanette's handwriting. The letter was only a note that read:--

"MY DEAREST BOY: I could not wait to send it for your Christmas present. So I am sending it the very day it is finished. I hope it will bring me close to you--into your very heart and keep me there.

I have kissed it--for I knew that you would.

"Your loving JEANETTE."

He tore open the package and found a miniature of Jeanette done on ivory--that seemed to bring her into the room, and illumine it with her presence. The thing bloomed with life, and his heart bounded with joy as his eyes drank the beauty of it. His father called from below stairs, and the youth went down holding the note and the miniature in his hands. Before the father could speak, the son held out the picture, and Philemon Ward looked for a moment into the glowing faces--that of the picture and that of the living soul before him, and hesitated before speaking.

"I got your wire--" he began.

"But isn't it beautiful, father--wonderful!" broke in the son.

The father a.s.sented kindly and then continued: "So I thought I'd sit up for you. I had to talk with you." The son's face looked an interrogation, and the father answered, "Read that, Neal--" handing his son a letter in a rich linen envelope bearing in the corner the indication that it was written at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. The lovely face in the miniature lay on the table between them and smiled up impartially at father and son as the young man drew out the letter and read:--

"MY DEAR GENERAL WARD: This letter will introduce to you Mr. H. S.

Smith, an inspector from the Bureau of Commerce and Labour, who has been working upon evidence connected with the National Provisions Company. I happened to be at luncheon this afternoon with a man of the highest official authority, whose name it would be bad faith to divulge, but whom I know you respect, even if you do not always agree with him. I mentioned your name and the part you took in the battle of the Wilderness, and my friend was at once interested, though, of course, he had known you by name and fame for forty years. One word led to another, as is usual in these cases, and my friend mentioned the fact that your son, Neal Dow Ward, is secretary to John Barclay, and in a position to verify certain evidence which the government now has in the N.P.C. matter. I happen to know that the government is exceedingly anxious to be exactly correct in every charge it makes against this Company, and hence I am writing to you.

Your son can do a service to his country to-day by telling the truth when he is questioned by Inspector Smith, to my mind as important as that you did in the Wilderness. Inspector Smith has a right to question him, and will do so, and I have promised my friend here to ask you to counsel with your son, and beg him in the name of that good citizenship for which you have always stood, and for which you offered your life, to tell the simple truth. As a comrade and a patriot, I have no doubt what you will do, knowing the facts."

Neal Ward put his hand on the table, with the letter still in his fingers. "Father," he asked blankly, "do you know what that means?"

"Yes, Neal, I think I understand; it means that to-morrow morning will decide whether you are a patriot or a perjurer, my boy--a patriot or a perjurer!" The general, who was in his shirt-sleeves and collarless, rose, and putting his hands behind him, backed to the radiator to warm them.

"But, father--father," exclaimed the boy, "how can I? What I learned was in confidence. How can I?"

The father saw the anguish in his son's face, and did not reply at once. "Is it crooked, Neal?"

"Yes," replied the son, and then added: "So bad I was going to get out of it, as soon as Jeanette came home. I couldn't stand it--for a life, father. But I promised to stay three years, and try, and I think I should keep my promise."

The father and son were silent for a time, and then the father spoke.