The Deluge | Page 4

experience
could be taken in by such slimy stuff as that--I who knew Roebuck as
only a few insiders knew him, I who had seen him at work, as devoid

of heart as an empty spider in an empty web. Yet I was taken in to the
extent that I thought he really purposed to recognize my services, to
yield to the only persuasion that could affect him--force. I fancied he
was actually about to put me where I could be of the highest usefulness
to him and his associates, as well as to myself. As if an old man ever
yielded power or permitted another to gain power, even though it were
to his own great advantage. The avarice of age is not open to reason.
It was with tears in my eyes that I shook hands with him, thanking him
emotionally. It was with a high chin and a proud heart that I went back
to my offices. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was about to get
my deserts, was about to enter the charmed circle of "high finance."
That small and exclusive circle, into which I was seeing myself
admitted without the usual arduous and unequal battle, was what may
be called the industrial ring--a loose, yet tight, combine of about a
dozen men who controlled in one way or another practically all the
industries of the country. They had no formal agreements; they held no
official meetings. They did not look upon themselves as an association.
They often quarreled among themselves, waged bitter wars upon each
other over divisions of power or plunder. But, in the broad sense, in the
true sense, they were an association--a band united by a common
interest, to control finance, commerce and therefore politics; a band
united by a common purpose, to keep that control in as few hands as
possible. Whenever there was sign of peril from without they flung
away differences, pooled resources, marched in full force to put down
the insurrection. For they looked on any attempt to interfere with them
as a mutiny, as an outbreak of anarchy. This band persisted, but
membership in it changed, changed rapidly. Now, one would be beaten
to death and despoiled by a clique of fellows; again, weak or rash ones
would be cut off in strenuous battle. Often, most often, some
too-powerful or too-arrogant member would be secretly and stealthily
assassinated by a jealous associate or by a committee of internal safety.
Of course, I do not mean literally assassinated, but assassinated, cut off,
destroyed, in the sense that a man whose whole life is wealth and
power is dead when wealth and power are taken from him.
Actual assassination, the crime of murder--these "gentlemen" rarely did
anything which their lawyers did not advise them was legal or could be
made legal by bribery of one kind or another. Rarely, I say--not never.

You will see presently why I make that qualification.
I had my heart set upon membership in this band--and, as I confess now
with shame, my prejudices of self-interest had blinded me into
regarding it and its members as great and useful and honorable
"captains of industry." Honorable in the main; for, not even my
prejudice could blind me to the almost hair-raising atrocity of some of
their doings. Still, morality is largely a question of environment. I had
been bred in that environment. Even the atrocities I excused on the
ground that he who goes forth to war must be prepared to do and to
tolerate many acts the church would have to strain a point to bless.
What was Columbus but a marauder, a buccaneer? Was not Drake, in
law and in fact, a pirate; Washington a traitor to his soldier's oath of
allegiance to King George? I had much to learn, and to unlearn. I was
to find out that whenever a Roebuck puts his arm round you, it is
invariably to get within your guard and nearer your fifth rib. I was to
trace the ugliest deformities of that conscience of his, hidden away
down inside him like a dwarfed, starved prisoner in an underground
dungeon. I was to be astounded by revelations of Langdon, who was
not a believer, like Roebuck, and so was not under the restraint of the
feeling that he must keep some sort of conscience ledgers against the
inspection of the angelic auditing committee in the day of wrath.
Much to learn--and to unlearn. It makes me laugh as I recall how, on
that May day, I looked into the first mirror I was alone with, smiled
delighted, as an idiot with myself and said: "Matt, you are of the kings
now. Your crown suits you and, as you've earned it, you know how to
keep