Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [347]
“What do you think you mean?” asked Lawson, his voice rising.
“Skip it,” ordered Wesley Mouch.
“I don’t care what you decide to do, Wesley,” said Mr. Thompson, “and I don’t care if the businessmen squawk about it. Just be sure you’ve got the press with you. Be damn sure about that.”
“I’ve got .‘em,” said Mouch.
“One editor who’d open his trap at the wrong time could do us more harm than ten disgruntled millionaires.”
“That’s true, Mr. Thompson,” said Dr. Ferris. “But can you name one editor who knows it?”
“Guess not,” said Mr. Thompson; he sounded pleased.
“Whatever type of men we’re counting on and planning for,” said Dr. Ferris, “there’s a certain old-fashioned quotation which we may safely forget: the one about counting on the wise and the honest. We don’t have to consider them. They’re out of date.”
James Taggart glanced at the window. There were patches of blue in the sky above the spacious streets of Washington, the faint blue of mid-April, and a few beams breaking through the clouds. A monument stood shining in the distance, hit by a ray of sun: it was a tall, white obelisk, erected to the memory of the man Dr. Ferris was quoting, the man in whose honor this city had been named. James Taggart looked away.
“I don’t like the professor’s remarks,” said Lawson loudly and sullenly.
“Keep still,” said Wesley Mouch. “Dr. Ferris is not talking theory, but practice.”
“Well, if you want to talk practice,” said Fred Kinnan, “then let me tell you that we can’t worry about businessmen at a time like this. What we’ve got to think about is jobs. More jobs for the people. In my unions, every man who’s working is feeding five who aren.‘t, not counting his own pack of starving relatives. If you want my advice—oh, I know you won’t go for it, but it’s just a thought—issue a directive making it compulsory to add, say, one-third more men to every payroll in the country.”
“Good God!” yelled Taggart. “Are you crazy? We can barely meet our payrolls as it is! There’s not enough work for the men we’ve got now! One-third more? We wouldn’t have any use for them whatever!”
“Who cares whether you’d have any use for them?” said Fred Kinnan. “They need jobs. That’s what comes first—need—doesn’t it?—not your profits.”
“It’s not a question of profits!” yelled Taggart hastily. “I haven’t said anything about profits. I haven’t given you any grounds to insult me. It’s just a question of where in hell we’d get the money to pay your men—when half our trains are running empty and there’s not enough freight to fill a trolley car.” His voice slowed down suddenly to a tone of cautious thoughtfulness: “However, we do understand the plight of the working men, and—it’s just a thought -we could, perhaps, take on a certain extra number, if we were permitted to double our freight rates, which—”
“Have you lost your mind?” yelled Orren Boyle. “I’m going broke on the rates you’re charging now, I shudder every time a damn boxcar pulls in or out of the mills, they’re bleeding me to death, I can’t afford it—and you want to double it?”
“It is not essential whether you can afford it or not,” said Taggart coldly. “You have to be prepared to make some sacrifices. The public needs railroads. Need comes first—above your profits.”
“What profits?” yelled Orren Boyle. “When did I ever make any profits? Nobody can accuse me of running a profit-making business! Just look at my balance sheet—and then look at the books of a certain competitor of mine, who’s got all the customers, all the raw materials, all the technical advantages and a monopoly on secret formulas—then tell me who’s the profiteer! ... But, of course, the public does need railroads, and perhaps I could manage to absorb a certain raise in rates, if I were to get—it’s just a thought—if I were to get a subsidy to carry me over the next year or two, until I catch my stride and—”
“What? Again?” yelled Mr. Weatherby, losing his primness. “How many loans have you got from us and how many extensions, suspensions and moratoriums? You haven’t repaid a penny—and with all of you boys going broke and the tax