Chapter 12

"Then I laughed at him, and that made him mad.

"'That's right,' says he. 'There're people here in this town who tell me that her divorce from me warn't reg'lar, and I may be takin' the lady back to New Orleans with me, and a heap o' money besides.'

"0' course, all this don't mean nothin' to me, but I thought it might to you, sir."

Mr. Gorham did not reply for so long a time that James became anxious.

"I hope I done right, sir, to come to you with this."

"Yes, James; quite right. You are evidently influenced by your loyalty to my family," Gorham answered. "It is right that you should be, but it shall not be forgotten. There probably is nothing in all this, but, since Mrs. Gorham's name was mentioned, I should like to get to the bottom of it. I shall depend upon you to keep me posted."

"I will, sir," James responded, eagerly. "I'll do that as long as he stays in New York, but he says they're trying to get him to go back to New Orleans."

"Who are 'they'?"

"I don't know, sir."

"That is the first thing to discover, James. I shall trust you to do it."

Gorham rose, and James, vastly satisfied with himself, followed the suggestion.

"I'll do it for you, sir," he said at the door. "You can depend on me for that."

"Thank you, James; and in the mean time it will be prudent for you to keep your information to yourself."

"Yes, sir; I'll do that, sir. Any one with a Tammany Hall education knows how to do that, sir."

Riley was anxiously awaiting the close of the interview, and eagerly accompanied his son to the front door. Before he opened it, the old man turned inquiringly.

"Ain't ye goin' ter tell me phwat it's all about, Jimmie?"

"It's too delicate a situation to discuss with the servants," James replied, freezingly. "Me and Mr. Gorham understands each other, that's all."

Riley gazed with still greater admiration at the straight figure which passed by him, out of the house, and up the gravel walk to the street.

"Jimmie's th' great man," he muttered to himself as he closed the door--"he's th' great man, mixin' wid men like Misther Robert; but he hadn't oughter wear that sorry rag an' th' ravens, wid me, his only livin' relation, still livin'."

The bell rang almost immediately, and Riley, certain that James had returned, hastened to throw the door open. As he did so, he discovered Allen Sanford.

"Who's that undertaker person?" Allen demanded.

Riley straightened perceptibly. "'Tis me son James, Misther Sanford, an' it's th' great man he is, an' no undertaker."

"I beg your pardon, Riley," Allen laughed, noting the old man's injured dignity. "Of course I should have known; but I may want to employ an undertaker soon, so I suppose I had it on my mind."

"Ain't ye falin' well, Misther Allen?" Riley asked, anxiously.

"Oh, I don't want him for myself," Allen laughed again. "Is Miss Alice in?"

"How do I know 'til she tells me, sor?"

"All right; you'll have to ask her then, won't you? If she is in, tell her that I've called to have tea with her."

Alice was in particularly high spirits. She had digested Covington's proposal, and found that she enjoyed it. She was still waiting for a chance to discuss it with Eleanor and her father, but she experienced an unexpected amount of pleasure in thinking it over by herself. She had already decided that she would take plenty of time before she gave her answer. The sensation was so exhilarating that she was unwilling to shorten its duration. It was all so incredible that she--little she--should have attracted a man of Mr. Covington's calibre to the extent that he should actually want to marry her! And now Allen had called, giving her an outlet for this unusual buoyancy.

Her caller was not blind to the excitement which showed in Alice's face, and the formalities were scarcely over before he asked the question which brought a violent color to the girl's cheeks.

"So it's come, has it--just as I said it would?"

"What has come?" Alice busied herself with the teacups which the butler had already placed on the little table in front of her, and appeared to be mystified, though she knew well what he meant.

"That doesn't surprise me any," Allen continued, "but I really didn't think it would set you up so much when it did strike."

"I suppose you are enjoying this monologue," she replied. "Don't mind me if it gives you any pleasure."

"Look here, Alice"--he became desperate--"why can't we talk it over without having to jump all these high hurdles? I know you don't care anything about me, and you know that I can't see anything in life worth while except you, so the situation is clear on both sides. But I can't let that four-flusher pull the wool over your eyes without saying, 'Beware of the dog.' I shouldn't be a man if I did."

"You take advantage of our friendship," she said, severely; "but there are limits beyond which even an old friend cannot go, and you've reached them. Mr. Covington is a friend too; I don't admit that he is more than this, but I shan't let you say unfair things about him any more than I should listen to similar things about you. Come now, let's drop the subject. How many lumps will you have?"

"Two lumps, and--no lemon, please."

"You say you wouldn't be a man if you didn't warn me," the girl went on; "but it is because you are not that you talk as you do. You find me agreeable, and, boy-like, think you want to marry me. Pat thinks she wants to marry you--you are both children, and both behave the same."

Allen put his cup down on the table untasted. "Is there no way I can convince you that I've grown up?" he demanded.

"Yes; drop all this nonsense about me, and make yourself a place in the world as Mr. Covington has done."

"Never!" he almost shouted. "You don't know how he's made his place, or you wouldn't say that. Do you want me to climb up by stepping all over those who have helped me, to play double with every one I meet, to crisscross even on the man who trusts me most, and finally try to cinch my position by marrying his daughter? If that's your idea of being a man, I'll tell you right now, not for mine."

Alice rose, with flaming face. "I told you that you had reached the limit, Allen--now you have passed it. Oh! why did I let you go on! I like you so much, and I want to see you succeed. I've tried to help you all I could, and this is the result. Now we can't even be friends any more, and this insane jealousy of yours will spoil your chances in the Companies. Oh, Allen, Allen--why can't you grow up and be sensible!"

"Don't worry about me," the boy said, dejectedly. "You're probably right, just as the pater was probably right. I'm no good anyhow. I didn't want to go into diplomacy because there seemed to be so much in it which was double-dealing. Now I'm in business, and I see the same things there. It's all my fault--it must be; but I'm in wrong somehow. I wouldn't say a word, Alice, if it were some one else, but Covington--well, you've told me to cut that out, so I will. But don't say we can't be friends--I couldn't stand that. You'll need me some time, little girl, and when you do, I want to be Johnny on the spot."

Alice never found it possible to be angry with him for any extended period. Always after his impulsive outbreaks he became so contrite that the early displeasure was abated by his unspoken but evident desire for forgiveness.

"Will you take back what you said about Mr. Covington?" she asked.

"I can't do that," he replied, firmly; "but I'll do my best to let you find him out from some one else."

And the girl let him leave it there, remaining in the same position several minutes after he had gone, wondering that she had been willing to permit so gross a slander to stand unchallenged. When at last she turned slowly toward the door, she started violently as something began to untangle itself from the portières.

"It's only me," announced Patricia, ungrammatically, but none the less undauntedly.

"What have you been doing there?" the elder sister demanded, her momentary fright making her indignation even greater.

"Listenin'," replied the culprit, shamelessly.

"Patricia Gorham!" For Alice to use the child's full name conveyed the absolute limit of reproach, but Patricia stood her ground fearlessly.

"I'm not ashamed--I've simply _got_ to know my future. You'll stick to what you said, won't you, Alice?"

"You ought to be punished!"

"But you won't marry Allen, will you?" Pat pleaded, unblushingly. "You can have Mr. Covington and I will have Allen, and we all will be happy ever afterward."

"Oh, you--kids, that's what you both are!" Alice cried in sheer desperation. "Between you, I can't get a moment's peace."

"He would make a lovely Knight." Patricia's face assumed an enraptured expression. "Oh, I wish I was a damosel, with a vessel of gold between my hands, and Allen was Sir Launcelot, and I would say, 'Wit ye well,' and he would kneel and say his prayers to me, and--Alice, what does 'Wit ye well' mean, anyhow?"

But Alice had fled, leaving Patricia the victrix of her bloodless battle-field.

XVIII

James Riley's information, while causing Gorham some concern, was not the matter which gave him the greatest anxiety during the days he passed away from his office. The fact that Buckner was in town was not altogether surprising, and his maudlin comments need not necessarily be seriously considered. In addition to the commission he intrusted to young Riley, Gorham also set in motion the wheels of his own secret-service department, feeling confident that he would soon learn all the facts. The conduct of the current business of the Companies, complex as it had now become, appeared to be advancing steadily along the lines which he himself had laid down for it, and he saw no reason to think that his temporary absence was causing the slightest disarrangement of the delicately adjusted machine upon which depended the continued momentum of the business. This interested him particularly, as he considered that the crowning point of his successful formation of the Consolidated Companies would not be attained until his actual contact with the business was not required.

But great enterprises do not expand themselves without the jealous watchfulness of other competing or interested organizations, and Gorham's daily reports contained an increasing number of references to the efforts being made by these to harass the Consolidated Companies with governmental interference. Senator Kenmore had by this time become the chief spokesman of the Companies in Washington. Since his first exhaustive examination into its affairs, his doubts as to the possibility of conducting so mammoth a consolidation along conscientious lines had been dissipated by the absolute straightness of the course which Gorham steered. His influence had been exerted frequently in behalf of the Companies, and each time the success which thus came to the corporation carried in its wake advantages to the people, just as Gorham had promised. The Senator had become one of Gorham's stanchest admirers and supporters, and the president of the Consolidated Companies in turn relied fully upon him. For several weeks Kenmore's correspondence had suggested certain unrest in the Senate concerning trusts and consolidations, so when Gorham received from him an urgent summons to come to Washington at once, it left no room for doubt as to the necessity which prompted its sending, and obliged him for the present to abandon his idea of rest.

Gorham found Kenmore awaiting him in his office, and the Senator, with characteristic directness, came to the point at once.

"Some one is starting up another scare on monopolies and combinations, and is making the Consolidated Companies the target. Do you know anything about it?"

"Does it come from New York State?" Gorham asked.

"Yes; the junior senator is at the head of it."

"He is a Tammany man."

"Yes."

"Brady made him, and now he is collecting his fee. The Consolidated Companies hit Brady hard in the Manhattan Traction deal, you remember. How much headway has it gained?"

"Enough to be dangerous; that's why I wrote as I did."

"It can't be dangerous while we have the people so strongly with us, but it might become troublesome. Whom do you want me to see?"

"The President. I have made an appointment with him half an hour from now. The Senator from New York has touched him a bit by demanding why he is haling the other great corporations into court, and leaving the Consolidated Companies to grow larger and stronger without opposition."

"Have you discussed the matter with the President?"

"No; I thought it best to let you present it as a whole. Come--we shall find him ready for us."

The President received his callers in his office. He was a great President, and as such realized, as some of his predecessors had not, that the country of which he was the chief executive was constantly outgrowing the legislation which had been wise at the time of its enactment. He realized that as expansion comes conditions change, and these changed conditions necessitate the exercise of a far-seeing and a far-reaching judgment in administering the law in its spirit rather than always in its letter; but the experience he had gained in the White House had taught him the difficulties which beset his path in living up to his convictions. Gorham had been frequently called to his councils for advice upon various subjects, and the President was familiar with the Consolidated Companies in conception and operation.

"We are accused of discrimination, Mr. Gorham," the President explained, after the first greetings. "You and I have discussed the Consolidated Companies upon various occasions; I have watched its operations carefully, and I am free to say that my early apprehensions have thus far proved groundless. I believe that I have acted conscientiously in pushing the investigations and prosecutions against those combinations which are really a menace to the country; but there are some who disagree with me, and flaunt the Consolidated Companies in my face as an evidence of insincerity on my part. I have asked you and Senator Kenmore to meet me here this afternoon, to talk over the question quite informally with the senator from New York and with the Attorney-General."

"I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. President," Gorham replied, quietly.

"Then we are all ready for the discussion," said the President, touching a button. "They are waiting--I will send for them."

Upon the arrival of the others, he repeated to them what he had said to Gorham, and then, settling back in his chair, became an interested listener, leaving Gorham and the senator from New York as the principal disputants, with Kenmore and the Attorney-General joining in the argument from time to time.

"Do I understand that Mr. Gorham speaks for the Administration in this matter?" asked Senator Hunt, with some asperity.

"I speak for the Consolidated Companies, and for that alone," Gorham replied, promptly.

"Then you will perhaps explain why your corporation, the largest trust in existence to-day, is immune, while other trusts are being persecuted to the extent of the Government's power."

"I am not authorized to answer any question which has to do with the Government," Gorham continued; "but it may be that it is due to the same reason that some of the 'other trusts' you mention are not as yet incorporated as a part of the Consolidated Companies."

"Then they have been approached?" the Senator asked, quickly.

"Several of them have approached us; but they have thus far been unwilling to accept the principles upon which the Consolidated Companies is founded."

"You refer to its alleged benevolent aspect?"

"Yes, if you choose to call it that," Gorham replied, smiling. "We prefer to call it reciprocity. If we receive favors in the form of concessions from the people, we believe it to be not only fair, but also sound business, to use these concessions not to bleed them, but for their benefit."

"In other words, the Consolidated Companies is a good trust, and the others are bad trusts?"

"Exactly."

"The Sherman Act, if I read it correctly, makes no distinction."

"But the Government does."

"And to that extent unlawfully discriminates," the Senator said, emphatically.

"What would be the effect upon the country if the Sherman Act were enforced literally?" Gorham asked.

"That is not for me to say."

"Perhaps the Attorney-General will give us his opinion," Gorham persisted.

The Attorney-General had been listening to the discussion with much interest.

"There can be but one answer to that question," he replied; "it would produce an industrial reign of terror, and yet I am frank to say that, from a legal standpoint, I believe Senator Hunt is correct in his statement that the Government unlawfully discriminates in drawing any distinction between good and bad trusts; but let me say further, that it is my definite opinion that the Sherman Act, as it now stands, is a menace to the country. That Act, literally interpreted, would break up every trust into smaller corporations. It is based on a hasty inference that great consolidations are of necessity monopolies. Even if we disintegrated a great corporation like the Consolidated Companies, for instance, into a large number of smaller corporations, we should not have solved the problem. There would always be methods by which a common understanding could be reached, and, in the disintegration, producing concerns would lose much of the efficiency in serving the public which has already been demonstrated by the Consolidated Companies. I have answered your question frankly, giving you my opinion from a legal and also from a personal standpoint."

"Was there not a time," Kenmore asked, "when the public in England was as much afraid of the formation of business partnerships as our public has been afraid of trusts?"

"Yes," the Attorney-General replied; "our own trust legislation is nothing more than a modern repetition of certain laws which centuries ago were in force in England, and were designed to prevent the formation of co-partnerships in business."

"Yet partnerships were formed in spite of the law, were they not?" insisted Kenmore, "and it was discovered that the prices of goods did not go up."

"We are digressing," the senator from New York interrupted. "As I understand it, we are concerned with the present rather than the past."

"I am glad you realize that," Gorham responded, "for it has a considerable bearing upon the situation. In the past, the public has been opposed to the organization of industry, and properly so, since it has meant the secret rebates, the limiting of output, the 'fake' independent companies, and the stealing of competitors' secrets; but to-day there is a changed public sentiment, and perhaps I may be pardoned if I say that I believe the Consolidated Companies has played its part in bringing this about. The magazines have turned from muckraking to articles instructing their readers in finance; the anti-trust orator is speaking to empty seats; and intelligent lawmakers, who once considered 'corporation' as a synonym for 'crime,' now carefully distinguish between the honest and the dishonest organization. The Administration is elected by the people to exercise the will of the people, and it is the will of the people to-day that honest combinations be permitted, in order to reduce the cost of the necessities of life."

"It is a conflict between a literal interpretation of the law and industrial progress," added Senator Kenmore, "and the law as it stands does not appeal to justice nor does it express American public sentiment. Bigness, in commerce and industry, has now come to be associated with progress. Production on a large scale is justified by its economy and efficiency when brought about through the free play of economic forces. It would be just as ridiculous to oppose the ever-increasing demand for machinery."

"To what point is all this leading us?" asked Senator Hunt, impatiently. "These one-sided arguments may be interesting to those who agree with them, but my question still remains unanswered: why does not the Government enforce the law equally against one offender as against another, since by that law both are offenders?"

"Senator Kenmore, the Attorney-General, and I have endeavored to answer your question to the best of our ability," Gorham replied, "and I, for one, regret to have failed in my endeavor. We all agree, I am sure, that the Government has a plain duty to perform, but we do not understand that duty to be the prevention of honest and beneficial combination. The Consolidated Companies has led the way in seeking publicity and preserving equality, and in insuring public participation in the benefits accruing from the combinations which it effects. If other trusts do likewise, I have no doubt that they will be as 'immune' as you have been pleased to call the Consolidated Companies."

"Are you prepared to deny that, in spite of this 'benevolent' aspect of which you boast, the profits of your corporation are greater than those of any trust in the world?"

"I have never made the comparative analysis which would be required to answer your question," Gorham replied; "but I do say without fear of contradiction that no organization ever gave back to the people so large a percentage of its earnings. It may interest Senator Hunt if I outline the principles upon which the Consolidated Companies was conceived."

Gorham's voice was a strong asset. Its low, clear tones carried without apparent effort, and there was a firmness and sincerity in every spoken word which always secured attentive hearing.

"The public," he said, "has long since become accustomed to mergers and consolidations, and has naturally associated with them the strangling of competition and the creation and enjoyment, on the part of a few, of the conditions of monopoly. But business exploits such as these are, in a measure, things of the past, and cannot be repeated. Great industries can no longer hem in their rivals, or stifle and cripple them to the extent that fields, which by natural law are free to all, become the field of one. The people have at last risen against this, and consolidations will only be tolerated when confidence is established that the masses will be benefited. When the scheme of the Consolidated Companies first became known, it was bitterly opposed by the public, who saw in it nothing other than a new and more gigantic octopus, to feed upon its very life-blood.