Arthur Hornblow

“ How can my love of power do you an injustice?"
"Because," replied Jefferson, "you exert that power over your family as well as over your business associates. You think and will for everybody in the house, for everyone who comes in contact with you. Yours is an influence no one seems able to resist. You robbed me of my right to think. Ever since I was old enough to think, you have thought for me; ever since I was old enough to choose, you have chosen for me. You have chosen that I should marry Kate Roberts. That is the one thing I wished to speak to you about. The marriage is impossible." ”

“ The railroads had created the Trust, the ogre of corporate greed, of which Ryder was the incarnation, and in time the Trust became master of the railroads, which after all seemed but retributive justice.
John Burkett Ryder, the richest man in the world—the man whose name had spread to the farthest corners of the earth because of his wealth, and whose money, instead of being a blessing, promised to become not only a curse to himself but a source of dire peril to all mankind—was a genius born of the railroad age. No other age could have brought him forth ”

“ Seeing that his words had made no effect, Ryder thumped his desk with his fist and cried:
"You see my weakness. You see that I want you with me, and now you take advantage—you take advantage—"
"No, father, I don't," protested Jefferson; "but I want to go away. Although I have my studio and am practically independent, I want to go where I shall be perfectly free—where my every move will not be watched—where I can meet my fellow-man heart to heart on an equal basis, where I shall not be pointed out as the son of Ready Money Ryder. I want to make a reputation of my own as an artist." ”

“ Socialism does not take into account two great factors that move the world—men's passions and human ambition. If you eliminate ambition you remove the strongest incentive to individual effort. From your own account a socialistic world would be a dreadfully tame place to live in—everybody depressingly good, without any of the feverish turmoil of life as we know it. Such a world would not appeal to me at all. I love the fray—the daily battle of gain and loss, the excitement of making or losing millions. That is my life!"
"Yet what good is your money to you?" insisted Shirley. ”

“ We must build on truth or our whole house will crumble and fall. We have deceived your father, but he will forgive that, won't you?" she said, appealing to Ryder, "and you will go to Washington, you will save my father's honour, his life, you will—?"
They stood face to face—this slim, delicate girl battling for her father's life, arrayed against a cold-blooded, heartless, unscrupulous man, deaf to every impulse of human sympathy or pity. Since this woman had deceived him, fooled him, he would deal with her as with everyone else who crossed his will. ”

“ When, therefore, she first conceived the idea of portraying in the guise of fiction the personality of John Burkett Ryder, the Colossus of finance whose vast and ever-increasing fortune was fast becoming a public nuisance, she naturally turned to Jefferson for assistance. She wanted to write a book that would be talked about, and which at the same time would open the eyes of the public to this growing peril in their midst—this monster of insensate and unscrupulous greed who, by sheer weight of his ill-gotten gold, was corrupting legislators and judges and trying to enslave the nation. ”

“ She affected to not understand him.
"You?" she inquired in a tone of surprise.
"Well—it's a natural question," stammered Ryder, with a nervous little laugh; "every man sees himself in the hero of a novel just as every woman sees herself in the heroine. We're all heroes and heroines in our own eyes. But tell me what's your private opinion of this man. You drew the character. What do you think of him as a type, how would you classify him?"
"As the greatest criminal the world has yet produced," replied Shirley without a moment's hesitation. ”

“ She passed her hand over her face to conceal her confusion.
"You—you must give me time to think," she stammered. "Suppose I don't love your son—I should want something—something to compensate."
"Something to compensate?" echoed Ryder surprised and a little disconcerted. "Why, the boy will inherit millions—I don't know how many."
"No—no, not money," rejoined Shirley; "money only compensates those who love money. It's something else—a man's honour—a man's life! It means nothing to you." ”

“ You try to throw millions to the public as a bone to a dog, and they decline the money on the ground that it is tainted. Doesn't that tell you what the world thinks of your methods?"
Ryder laughed cynically. He went back to his desk, and, sitting facing his son, he replied:
"Jefferson, you are young. It is one of the symptoms of youth to worry about public opinion. When you are as old as I am you will understand that there is only one thing which counts in this world—money. The man who has it possesses power over the man who has it not, and power is what the ambitious man loves most." ”

“ Each of these million-dollar residences, he pondered, was filled from cellar to roof with costly furnishings, masterpieces of painting and sculpture, priceless art treasures of all kinds purchased in every corner of the globe with the gold filched from a Trust-ridden people. For every stone in those marble halls a human being, other than the owner, had been sold into bondage, for each of these magnificent edifices, which the plutocrat put up in his pride only to occupy it two months in the year, ten thousand American men, women and children had starved and sorrowed. ”

“ Well, I want you to gnaw with your sharp woman's teeth at the cords which bind the son of John Burkett Ryder to this Rossmore woman. I want you to be the mouse—to set me free of this disgraceful entanglement."
"How? asked Shirley calmly.
"Ah, that's just it—how?" he replied. "Can't you think—you're a woman—you have youth, beauty—brains." He stopped and eyed her closely until she reddened from the embarrassing scrutiny. Then he blurted out: "By George! marry him yourself—force him to let go of this other woman! Why not? ”

“ But until the socialistic millennium arrived and society was reorganized, money, he admitted, would remain the lever of the world, the great stimulus to effort. Money supplied not only the necessities of life but also its luxuries, everything the material desire craved for, and so long as money had this magic purchasing power, so long would men lie and cheat and rob and kill for its possession. Was life worth living without money? Could one travel and enjoy the glorious spectacles Nature affords—the rolling ocean, the majestic mountains, the beautiful lakes, the noble rivers—without money? ”

“ I've given you the biggest name in the commercial world; the most colossal fortune ever accumulated by one man is waiting for you, and you say I've done you an injustice!"
"Yes—we are rich," said Jefferson bitterly. "But at what a cost! You do not go into the world and hear the sneers that I get everywhere. You may succeed in muzzling the newspapers and magazines, but you cannot silence public opinion. People laugh when they hear the name Ryder—when they do not weep. All your millions cannot purchase the world's respect. ”

“ If my father were convicted and driven from the bench and you found you had married the daughter of a disgraced man you would be ashamed of us all, and if I saw that it would break my heart."
Emotion stopped her utterance and she buried her face in her hands weeping silently.
"Shirley," said Jefferson gently, "you are wrong. I love you for yourself, not because of your trouble. You know that. I shall never love any other woman but you. ”

“ Forgetting the austere simplicity of their forebears, a love of show and ostentation had become the ruling passion of the American people. Money, MONEY, MONEY! was to-day the only standard, the only god! The whole nation, frenzied with a wild lust for wealth no matter how acquired, had tacitly acquiesced in all sorts of turpitude, every description of moral depravity, and so had fallen an easy victim to the band of capitalistic adventurers who now virtually ruled the land. ”

“ I realize that marriage would put an extinguisher on all aspirations in that direction."
"Is marriage so very commonplace?" grumbled Jefferson.
"Not commonplace, but there is no room in marriage for a woman having personal ambitions of her own. Once married her duty is to her husband and her children—not to herself."
"That is right," he replied; "but which is likely to give you greater joy—a literary success or a happy wifehood? When you have spent your best years and given the public your best work they will throw you over for some new favorite. ”

“ He stopped as if unable to find words, while Shirley gazed at him in utter astonishment. "Ah," he went on finally, "you have made it very hard for me to speak." Again he paused and then with an effort he said slowly: "An hour ago I had Senator Roberts on the long distance telephone, and I'm going to Washington. It's all right about your father. The matter will be dropped. You've beaten me. I acknowledge it. You're the first living soul who ever has beaten John Burkett Ryder." ”

“ Declining to take the hint, and gathering from Bagley's embarrassed manner that he wanted to get rid of him, Jefferson lingered purposely. When the butler had disappeared, he said:
"This house is getting more and more like a barracks every day. You've got men all over the place. One can't move a step without falling over one."
Mr. Bagley drew himself up stiffly, as he always did when assuming an air of authority.
"Your father's personality demands the utmost precaution," he replied. "We cannot leave the life of the richest and most powerful financier in the world at the mercy of the rabble." ”

“ The United States owed its high rank in the family of nations to the country's vast natural resources, its inexhaustible vitality, its great wheat fields, the industrial and mechanical genius of its people. It was the plain American citizen who had made the greatness of America, not the millionaires who, forming a class by themselves of unscrupulous capitalists, had created an arrogant oligarchy which sought to rule the country by corrupting the legislature and the judiciary. The plutocrats—these were the leeches, the sores in the body politic. ”

“ The financier looked at the girl in unfeigned astonishment.
"Criminal?" he echoed.
"Yes, criminal," repeated Shirley decisively. "He is avarice, egotism, and ambition incarnate. He loves money because he loves power, and he loves power more than his fellow man."
Ryder laughed uneasily. Decidedly, this girl had opinions of her own which she was not backward to express.
"Isn't that rather strong?" he asked.
"I don't think so," replied Shirley. Then quickly she asked: "But what does it matter? No such man exists." ”

“ Shaking his fist at his son he shouted:
"When I get through with Judge Rossmore at Washington, I'll start after his daughter. This time to-morrow he'll be a disgraced man. A week later she will be a notorious woman. Then we'll see if you'll be so eager to marry her!"
"Father!" cried Jefferson.
"There is sure to be something in her life that won't bear inspection," sneered Ryder. "There is in everybody's life. I'll find out what it is. Where is she to-day? She can't be found. No one knows where she is—not even her own mother. Something is wrong—the girl's no good!" ”

“ At one time Jefferson had even begun to think he might do what his father wished and marry the girl, but it was only after he had met and known Shirley Rossmore that he realized how different one woman can be from another. Yet Kate had her good qualities. She was frivolous and silly as are most girls with no brains and nothing else to do in life but dress and spend money, but she might yet be happy with some other fellow, and that was why it made him angry to see this girl with $100,000 in her own right playing into the hands of an unscrupulous adventurer. ”

“ His father, he knew well, was not a happy man, neither happy himself nor respected by the world. He had toiled all his life to make his vast fortune and now he toiled to take care of it. The galley slave led a life of luxurious ease compared with John Burkett Ryder. Baited by the yellow newspapers and magazines, investigated by State committees, dogged by process-servers, haunted by beggars, harassed by blackmailers, threatened by kidnappers, frustrated in his attempts to bestow charity by the cry "tainted money"—certainly the lot of the world's richest man was far from being an enviable one. ”

“ Rossmore, who at that instant entered the room. Shirley arose and appealed to her:
"Isn't it absurd, mother, when you come to think of it, that anybody should accuse father of being corrupt and of having forfeited the right to be judge? Isn't it still more absurd that we should be helpless and dejected and unhappy because we are on Long Island instead of Madison Avenue? Why should Manhattan Island be a happier spot than Long Island? Why shouldn't we be happy anywhere; we have each other. And we do need each other. ”

“ Yet, despite its swarming streets and crowded shops, ceaselessly thronged with men and women eagerly hurrying here and there in the pursuit of business or elusive pleasure, all chattering, laughing, shouting amid the deafening, multisonous roar of traffic incidental to Gotham's daily life, there is one part of the great metropolis where there is no bustle, no noise, no crowd, where the streets are empty even in daytime, where a passer-by is a curiosity and a child a phenomenon. ”

“ One day they will rise in their wrath and seize by the throat this knavish plutocracy which, confident in the power of its wealth to procure legal immunity and reckless of its danger, persists in robbing the public daily. But retribution is at hand. The growing discontent of the proletariat, the ever-increasing strikes and labour disputes of all kinds, the clamour against the Railroads and the Trusts, the evidence of collusion between both—all this is the writing on the wall. The capitalistic system is doomed; socialism will succeed it. ”

“ New York certainly was a dull place with all its boasted cosmopolitanism. There was no denying that. Destitute of any natural beauty, handicapped by its cramped geographical position between two rivers, made unsightly by gigantic sky-scrapers and that noisy monstrosity the Elevated Railroad, having no intellectual interests, no art interests, no interest in anything not immediately connected with dollars, it was a city to dwell in and make money in, but hardly a city to LIVE in. ”

“ While she was an attractive, aristocratic-looking girl, Shirley Rossmore had no serious claims to academic beauty. Her features were irregular, and the firm and rather thin mouth lines disturbed the harmony indispensable to plastic beauty. Yet there was in her face something far more appealing—soul and character. The face of the merely beautiful woman expresses nothing, promises nothing. It presents absolutely no key to the soul within, and often there is no soul within to have a key to. ”

“ Conscious of the resistless power of his untold millions, he felt no more compunction in mercilessly crushing this business rival than he would in trampling out the life of a worm. The little man facing him looked haggard and distressed. He knew well that this was no idle threat. He was well aware that Ryder and his associates by the sheer weight of the enormous wealth they controlled could sell out or destroy any industrial corporation in the land. ”

“ We turn after a man in the street and ask, Who is he? And nine times out of ten the object of our curiosity is a man who has made his mark—a successful soldier, a famous sailor, a celebrated author, a distinguished lawyer, or even a notorious crook.
There was certainly nothing in John Ryder's outward appearance to justify Lombroso's sensational description of him: "A social and physiological freak, a degenerate and a prodigy of turpitude who, in the pursuit of money, crushes with the insensibility of a steel machine everyone who stands in his way." ”

“ Europe, thought Jefferson as he strode quickly along, pointed with envy to America's unparalleled prosperity, spoke with bated breath of her great fortunes. Rather should they say her gigantic robberies, her colossal frauds! As a nation we were not proud of our multi-millionaires. How many of them would bear the search-light of investigation? Would his own father? How many millions could one man make by honest methods? America was enjoying unprecedented prosperity, not because of her millionaires, but in spite of them. ”

“ A sour, discontented creature, bitter to all mankind, owing to disappointments in early life and especially vindictive towards the rich, whom her socialistic and even anarchistical tendencies prompted her to hate and attack. Yet, withal, a brainy, intelligent woman, remarkably well informed as to political and industrial conditions—a woman to make a friend of rather than an enemy. And John Ryder, who had educated himself to believe that with gold he could do everything, that none could resist its power, had no doubt that with money he could enlist this Shirley Green in his service. ”

“ The "interests" feared him and so had sacrificed him without pity, and as Jefferson walked along Central Park, past the rows of superb palaces which face its eastern wall, he wondered in which particular mansion had been hatched this wicked, iniquitous plot against a wholly blameless American citizen. Here, he thought, were the citadels of the plutocrats, America's aristocracy of money, the strongholds of her Coal, Railroad, Oil, Gas and Ice barons, the castles of her monarchs of Steel, Copper, and Finance. ”

“ From out of this quagmire of corruption and rascality emerged the Colossus, a man so stupendously rich and with such unlimited powers for evil that the world has never looked upon his like. The famous Croesus, whose fortune was estimated at only eight millions in our money, was a pauper compared with John Burkett Ryder, whose holdings no man could count, but which were approximately estimated at a thousand millions of dollars. ”

“ Meantime the plutocrats, wholly careless of the significant signs of the times and the growing irritation and resentment of the people, continued their illegal practices, scoffing at public opinion, snapping their fingers at the law, even going so far in their insolence as to mock and jibe at the President of the United States. Feeling secure in long immunity and actually protected in their wrong doing by the courts—the legal machinery by its very elaborateness defeating the ends of justice—the Trust kings impudently defied the country and tried to impose their own will upon the people. ”

“ Yet this commercial pirate, this Napoleon of finance, was not a wholly bad man. He had his redeeming qualities, like most bad men. His most pronounced weakness, and the one that had made him the most conspicuous man of his time, was an entire lack of moral principle. No honest or honourable man could have amassed such stupendous wealth. In other words, John Ryder had not been equipped by Nature with a conscience. ”

“ Shirley, herself a daughter of the Revolution, was a staunch supporter of the immortal principles of Democracy and of the equality of man before the law. But all other talk of equality was the greatest sophistry and charlatanism. There could be no real equality so long as some people were cultured and refined and others were uneducated and vulgar. Shirley believed in an aristocracy of brains and soap. She insisted that no clean person, no matter how good a democrat, should be expected to sit close in public places to persons who were not on speaking terms with the bath-tub. ”