Atlas Shrugged [325]
"I have none to make."
"But, after all, as our Operating Vice-President, you have a vital interest in the policies of this railroad."
"I have no authority over the policies of this railroad."
"Oh, but we are anxious to consider your opinion."
"I have no opinions."
"Miss Taggart," he said, in the smoothly formal tone of an order, "you cannot fail to realize that our branch lines are running at a disastrous deficit-and that we expect you to make them pay."
"How?"
"I don't know. That is your job, not ours."
"I have stated in my report the reasons why that is now impossible.
If there are facts which I have overlooked, please name them."
"Oh, I wouldn't know. We expect you to find some way to make it possible. Our job is only to see that the stockholders get a fair profit.
It's up to you to deliver. You wouldn't want us to think that you're unable to do the job and-"
"I am unable to do it."
The man opened his mouth, but found nothing else to say; he looked at her in bewilderment, wondering why the formula had failed.
"Miss Taggart," asked the man with the green muffler, "did you imply in your report that the situation of the Rio Norte Line was critical?"
"I stated that it was hopeless."
"Then what action do you propose?"
"I propose- nothing."
"Aren't you evading a responsibility?"
"What is it that you think you're doing?" She spoke evenly, addressing them all. "Are you counting on my not saying that the responsibility-is yours, that it was your goddamn policies that brought us where we are? Well, I'm saying it."
"Miss Taggart, Miss Taggart," said the chairman in a tone of pleading reproach, "there shouldn't be any hard feelings among us. Does it matter now who was to blame? We don't want to quarrel over past mistakes. We must all pull together as a team to carry our railroad through this desperate emergency,"
A gray-haired man of patrician bearing, who had remained silent throughout the session, with a look of the quietly bitter knowledge that the entire performance was futile, glanced at Dagny in a way which would have been sympathy had he still felt a remnant of hope. He said, raising his voice just enough to betray a note of controlled indignation, "Mr. Chairman, if it is practical solutions that we are considering, I should like to suggest that we discuss the limitation placed upon the length and speed of our trains. Of any single practice, that is the most disastrous one. Its repeal would not solve all of our problems, but it would be an enormous relief. With the desperate shortage of motive power and the appalling shortage of fuel, it is criminal insanity to send an engine out on the road with sixty cars when it could pull a hundred and to take four days on a run which could be made in three. I suggest that we compute the number of shippers we have ruined and the districts we have destroyed through the failures, shortages and delays of transportation, and then we-"
"Don't think of it," Mr. Weatherby cut in snappily. "Don't try dreaming about any repeals. We wouldn't consider it. We wouldn't even consider listening to any talk on the subject."
"Mr. Chairman," the gray-haired man asked quietly, "shall I continue?"
The chairman spread out his hands, with a smooth smile, indicating helplessness. "It would be impractical," he answered.
"I think we'd better confine the discussion to the status of the Rio Norte Line," snapped James Taggart.
There was a long silence.
The man with the green muffler turned to Dagny. "Miss Taggart," he asked sadly and cautiously, "would you say that if-this is just a hypothetical question-if the equipment now in use on the Rio Norte Line were made available, it would fill the needs of our transcontinental main-line traffic?"
"It would help."
"The rail of the Rio Norte Line," said the pallid man with the mustache, "is unmatched anywhere in the country and could not now be purchased at any price. We have three hundred miles of track, which means well over four hundred miles of rail of pure Rearden Metal in that Line. Would you say, Miss