Atlas Shrugged [145]
She reached for a sheet of blank paper and handed it to him. "Put it down in writing," she said, "and we'll sign a contract to that effect."
"What contract?"
"That no member of your union will ever be employed to run an engine on the John Galt Line."
"Why . . . wait a minute . . . I haven't said-"
"You don't want to sign such a contract?"
-No, I-"
"Why not, since you know that the bridge is going to collapse?"
"I only want-"
"I know what you want. You want a stranglehold on your men by means of the jobs which I give them-and on me, by means of your men. You want me to provide the jobs, and you want to make it impossible for me to have any jobs to provide. Now I'll give you a choice.
That train is going to be run. You have no choice about that. But you can choose whether it's going to be run by one of your men or not. If you choose not to let them, the train will still run, if I have to drive the engine myself. Then, if the bridge collapses, there won't be any railroad left in existence, anyway. But if it doesn't collapse, no member of your union will ever get a job on the John Galt Line. If you think that I need your men more than they need me, choose accordingly. If you know that I can run an engine, but they can't build a railroad, choose according to that. Now are you going to forbid your men to run that train?"
"I didn't say we'd forbid it. I haven't said anything about forbidding.
But . . . but you can't force men to risk their lives on something nobody's ever tried before."
"I'm not going to force anyone to take that run."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to ask for a volunteer."
"And if none of them volunteers?"
"Then it will be my problem, not yours."
"Well, let me tell you that I'm going to advise them to refuse."
"Go ahead. Advise them anything you wish. Tell them whatever, you like. But leave the choice to them. Don't try to forbid it."
The notice that appeared in every roundhouse of the Taggart system was signed "Edwin Willers, Vice-President in Charge of Operation." It asked engineers, who were willing to drive the first train on the John Galt Line, so to inform the office of Mr. Willers., not later than eleven A.M. of July 15.
It was a quarter of eleven, on the morning of the fifteenth, when the telephone rang in her office. It was Eddie, calling from high up in the Taggart Building outside her window. "Dagny, I think you'd better come over." His voice sounded queer.
She hurried across the street, then down the marble-floored halls, to the door that still carried the name "Dagny Taggart" on its glass panel.
She pulled the door open.
The anteroom of the office was full. Men stood jammed among the desks, against the walls. As she entered, they took their hats off in sudden silence. She saw the graying heads, the muscular shoulders, she saw the smiling faces of her staff at their desks and the face of Eddie Willers at the end of the room. Everybody knew that nothing had to be said.
Eddie stood by the open door of her office. The crowd parted to let her approach him. He moved his hand, pointing at the room, then at a pile of letters and telegrams.
"Dagny, every one of them," he said. "Every engineer on Taggart Transcontinental. Those who could, came here, some from as far as the Chicago Division." He pointed at the mail. "There's the rest of them.
To be exact, there's only three I haven't heard from: one's on a vacation in the north woods, one's in a hospital, and one's in jail for reckless driving-of his automobile."
She looked at the men. She saw the suppressed grins on the solemn faces. She inclined her head, in acknowledgment. She stood for a moment, head bowed, as if she were accepting a verdict, knowing that the verdict applied to her, to every man in the room and to the world beyond the walls of the building.
"Thank you," she said.
Most of the men had seen her many times. Looking at her, as she raised her head, many of them thought-in astonishment and for the first time-that the face of their Operating Vice-President was the face of a woman and that it