“Against any raise?” said Mr. Weatherby mildly, with a good imitation of astonishment. “That is not the stand they have taken.”
“If certain rumors, which I refuse to credit, are true—” said the chairman, and stopped one syllable after the tone of panic had become obvious in his voice.
“Jim,” said Mr. Weatherby pleasantly, “I think it would be best if we just didn’t mention the subject of raising the rates.”
“I wasn’t suggesting an actual raise at this time,” said Taggart hastily. “I merely referred to it to round out the picture.”
“But, Jim,” said an old man with a quavering voice, “I thought that your influence—I mean, your friendship—with Mr. Mouch would insure... ”
He stopped, because the others were looking at him severely, in reproof for the breach of an unwritten law: one did not mention a failure of this kind, one did not discuss the mysterious ways of Jim’s powerful friendships or why they had failed him.
“Fact is,” said Mr. Weatherby easily, “that Mr. Mouch sent me here to discuss the demand of the railway unions for a raise in wages and the demand of the shippers for a cut in rates.”
He said it in a tone of casual firmness; he knew that all these men had known it, that the demands had been discussed in the newspapers for months; he knew that the dread in these men’s minds was not of the fact, but of his naming it—as if the fact had not existed, but his words held the power to make it exist; he knew that they had waited to see whether he would exercise that power; he was letting them know that he would.
Their situation warranted an outcry of protest; there was none; nobody answered him. Then James Taggart said in that biting, nervous tone which is intended to convey anger, but merely confesses uncertainty, “I wouldn’t exaggerate the importance of Buzzy Watts of the National Shippers Council. He’s been making a lot of noise and giving a lot of expensive dinners in Washington, but I wouldn’t advise taking it too seriously.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Weatherby.
“Listen, Clem, I do know that Wesley refused to see him last week.”
“That’s true. Wesley is a pretty busy man.”
“And I know that when Gene Lawson gave that big party ten days ago, practically everybody was there, but Buzzy Watts was not invited.”
“That’s so,” said Mr. Weatherby peaceably.
“So I wouldn’t bet on Mr. Buzzy Watts, Clem. And I wouldn’t let it worry me.”
“Wesley’s an impartial man,” said Mr. Weatherby. “A man devoted to public duty. It’s the interests of the country as a whole that he’s got to consider above everything else.” Taggart sat up; of all the danger signs he knew, this line of talk was the worst. “Nobody can deny it, Jim, that Wesley feels a high regard for you as an enlightened businessman, a valuable adviser and one of his closest personal friends.”
Taggart’s eyes shot to him swiftly: this was still worse. “But nobody can say that Wesley would hesitate to sacrifice his personal feelings and friendships—where the welfare of the public is concerned.”
Taggart’s face remained blank; his terror came from things never allowed to reach expression in words or in facial muscles. The terror was his struggle against an unadmitted thought: he himself had been “the public” for so long and in so many different issues, that he knew what it would mean if that magic title, that sacred title no one dared to oppose, were transferred, along with its “welfare,” to the person of Buzzy Watts.
But what he asked, and he asked it hastily, was, “You’re not implying that I would place my personal interests above the public welfare, are you?”
“No, of course not,” said Mr. Weatherby, with a look that was almost a smile. “Certainly not. Not you, Jim. Your public-spirited attitude—and understanding—are too well known. That’s why Wesley expects you to see every side of the picture.”
“Yes, of course,” said Taggart, trapped.
“Well, consider the unions’ side of it. Maybe you can’t afford to give them a raise, but how can they afford to exist when the cost of living has shot sky-high? They’ve got to eat, don’t they? That comes first, railroad or no railroad.” Mr. Weatherby’s tone had a kind of placid righteousness, as if he were reciting a formula required to convey another meaning, clear to all of them; he was looking straight at Taggart, in special emphasis of the unstated. “There are almost a million members in the railway unions. With families, dependents and poor relatives—and who hasn’t got poor relatives these days?—it amounts to about five million votes. Persons, I mean. Wesley has to bear that in mind. He has to think of their psychology. And then, consider the public. The rates you’re charging were established at a time when everybody was making money. But the way things are now, the cost of transportation has become a burden nobody can afford. People are screaming about it all over the country.” He looked straight at Taggart; he merely looked, but his glance had the quality of a wink.
“There’s an awful lot of them, Jim. They’re not very happy at the moment about an awful lot of things. A government that would bring the railroad rates down would make a lot of folks grateful.”
The silence that answered him was like a hole so deep that no sound could be heard of the things crashing down to its bottom. Taggart knew, as they all knew, to what disinterested motive Mr. Mouch would always be ready to sacrifice his personal friendships.
It was the silence and the fact that she did not want to say it, had come here resolved not to speak, but could not resist it, that made Dagny’s voice sound so vibrantly harsh: “Got what you’ve been asking for, all these years, gentlemen?”
The swiftness with which their eyes moved to her was an involuntary answer to an unexpected sound, but the swiftness with which they moved away—to look down at the table, at the walls, anywhere but at her—was the conscious answer to the meaning of the sounds.
In the silence of the next moment, she felt their resentment like a starch thickening the air of the room, and she knew that it was not resentment against Mr. Weatherby, but against her. She could have borne it, if they had merely let her question go unanswered; but what made her feel a sickening tightness in her stomach, was their double fraud of pretending to ignore her and then answering in their own kind of manner.
The chairman said, not looking at her, his voice pointedly noncommittal, yet vaguely purposeful at the same time, “It would have been all right, everything would have worked out fine, if it weren’t for the wrong people in positions of power, such as Buzzy Watts and Chick Morrison.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Chick Morrison,” said the pallid man with the mustache. “He hasn’t any top-level connections. Not really.
It’s Tinky Holloway that’s poison.”
“I don’t see the picture as hopeless,” said a portly man who wore a green muffler. “Joe Dunphy and Bud Hazleton are very close to Wesley. If their influence prevails, we’ll be all right. However, Kip Chalmers and Tinky Holloway are dangerous.”