Books: The Lion and the Mouse
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Charles Klein >> The Lion and the Mouse
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19 Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
The Lion and the Mouse
by
Charles Klein
A Story of an American Life
Novelized from the play by
Arthur Hornblow
"Judges and Senates have been bought for gold;
Love and esteem have never been sold."
POPE
CONTENTS
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
THE LION AND THE MOUSE
CHAPTER I
There was unwonted bustle in the usually sleepy and dignified New
York offices of the Southern and Transcontinental Railroad Company
in lower Broadway. The supercilious, well-groomed clerks who, on
ordinary days, are far too preoccupied with their own personal
affairs to betray the slightest interest in anything not
immediately concerning them, now condescended to bestir themselves
and, gathered in little groups, conversed in subdued, eager tones.
The slim, nervous fingers of half a dozen haughty stenographers,
representing as many different types of business femininity, were
busily rattling the keys of clicking typewriters, each of their
owners intent on reducing with all possible despatch the mass of
letters which lay piled up in front of her. Through the heavy
plate-glass swinging doors, leading to the elevators and thence to
the street, came and went an army of messengers and telegraph
boys, noisy and insolent. Through the open windows the hoarse
shouting of news-venders, the rushing of elevated trains, the
clanging of street cars, with the occasional feverish dash of an
ambulance--all these familiar noises of a great city had the far-
away sound peculiar to top floors of the modern sky-scraper. The
day was warm and sticky, as is not uncommon in early May, and the
overcast sky and a distant rumbling of thunder promised rain
before night.
The big express elevators, running smoothly and swiftly, unloaded
every few moments a number of prosperous-looking men who, chatting
volubly and affably, made their way immediately through the outer
offices towards another and larger inner office on the glass door
of which was the legend "Directors Room. Private." Each comer gave
a patronizing nod in recognition of the deferential salutation of
the clerks. Earlier arrivals had preceded them, and as they opened
the door there issued from the Directors Room a confused murmur of
voices, each different in pitch and tone, some deep and
deliberate, others shrill and nervous, but all talking earnestly
and with animation as men do when the subject under discussion is
of common interest. Now and again a voice was heard high above the
others, denoting anger in the speaker, followed by the pleading
accents of the peace-maker, who was arguing his irate colleague
into calmness. At intervals the door opened to admit other
arrivals, and through the crack was caught a glimpse of a dozen
directors, some seated, some standing near a long table covered
with green baize.
It was the regular quarterly meeting of the directors of the
Southern and Transcontinental Railroad Company, but it was
something more than mere routine that had called out a quorum of
such strength and which made to-day's gathering one of
extraordinary importance in the history of the road. That the
business on hand was of the greatest significance was easily to be
inferred from the concerned and anxious expression on the
directors' faces and the eagerness of the employes as they plied
each other with questions.
"Suppose the injunction is sustained?" asked a clerk in a whisper.
"Is not the road rich enough to bear the loss?"
The man he addressed turned impatiently to the questioner: "That's
all you know about railroading. Don't you understand that this
suit we have lost will be the entering wedge for hundreds of
others. The very existence of the road may be at stake. And
between you and me," he added in a lower key, "with Judge Rossmore
on the bench we never stood much show. It's Judge Rossmore that
scares 'em, not the injunction. They've found it easy to corrupt
most of the Supreme Court judges, but Judge Rossmore is one too
many for them. You could no more bribe him than you could have
bribed Abraham Lincoln."
"But the newspapers say that he, too, has been caught accepting
$50,000 worth of stock for that decision he rendered in the Great
Northwestern case."
"Lies! All those stories are lies," replied the other
emphatically. Then looking cautiously around to make sure no one
overheard, he added contemptuously, "The big interests fear him,
and they're inventing these lies to try and injure him. They might
as well try to blow up Gibraltar. The fact is the public is
seriously aroused this time and the railroads are in a panic."
It was true. The railroad, which heretofore had considered itself
superior to law, had found itself checked in its career of
outlawry and oppression. The railroad, this modern octopus of
steam and steel which stretches its greedy tentacles out over the
land, had at last been brought to book.
At first, when the country was in the earlier stages of its
development, the railroad appeared in the guise of a public
benefactor. It brought to the markets of the East the produce of
the South and West. It opened up new and inaccessible territory
and made oases of waste places. It brought to the city coal,
lumber, food and other prime necessaries of life, taking back to
the farmer and the woodsman in exchange, clothes and other
manufactured goods. Thus, little by little, the railroad wormed
itself into the affections of the people and gradually became an
indispensable part of the life it had itself created. Tear up the
railroad and life itself is extinguished.
So when the railroad found it could not be dispensed with, it grew
dissatisfied with the size of its earnings. Legitimate profits
were not enough. Its directors cried out for bigger dividends, and
from then on the railroad became a conscienceless tyrant, fawning
on those it feared and crushing without mercy those who were
defenceless. It raised its rates for hauling freight,
discriminating against certain localities without reason or
justice, and favouring other points where its own interests lay.
By corrupting government officials and other unlawful methods it
appropriated lands, and there was no escape from its exactions and
brigandage. Other roads were built, and for a brief period there
was held out the hope of relief that invariably comes from honest
competition. But the railroad either absorbed its rivals or pooled
interests with them, and thereafter there were several masters
instead of one.
Soon the railroads began to war among themselves, and in a mad
scramble to secure business at any price they cut each other's
rates and unlawfully entered into secret compacts with certain big
shippers, permitting the latter to enjoy lower freight rates than
their competitors. The smaller shippers were soon crushed out of
existence in this way. Competition was throttled and prices went
up, making the railroad barons richer and the people poorer. That
was the beginning of the giant Trusts, the greatest evil American
civilization has yet produced, and one which, unless checked, will
inevitably drag this country into the throes of civil strife.
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. 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; his peculiar talents fitted
exactly the conditions of his time. Attracted early in life to the
newly discovered oil fields of Pennsylvania, he became a dealer in
the raw product and later a refiner, acquiring with capital,
laboriously saved, first one refinery, then another. The railroads
were cutting each other's throats to secure the freight business
of the oil men, and John Burkett Ryder saw his opportunity. He
made secret overtures to the road, guaranteeing a vast amount of
business if he could get exceptionally low rates, and the illegal
compact was made. His competitors, undersold in the market, stood
no chance, and one by one they were crushed out of existence.
Ryder called these manouvres "business"; the world called them
brigandage. But the Colossus prospered and slowly built up the
foundations of the extraordinary fortune which is the talk and the
wonder of the world today. Master now of the oil situation, Ryder
succeeded in his ambition of organizing the Empire Trading
Company, the most powerful, the most secretive, and the most
wealthy business institution the commercial world has yet known.
Yet with all this success John Burkett Ryder was still not
content. He was now a rich man, richer by many millions that he
had dreamed he could ever be, but still he was unsatisfied. He
became money mad. He wanted to be richer still, to be the richest
man in the world, the richest man the world had ever known. And
the richer he got the stronger the idea grew upon him with all the
force of a morbid obsession. He thought of money by day, he dreamt
of it at night. No matter by what questionable device it was to be
procured, more gold and more must flow into his already
overflowing coffers. So each day, instead of spending the rest of
his years in peace, in the enjoyment of the wealth he had
accumulated, he went downtown like any twenty-dollar-a-week clerk
to the tall building in lower Broadway and, closeted with his
associates, toiled and plotted to make more money.
He acquired vast copper mines and secured control of this and that
railroad. He had invested heavily in the Southern and
Transcontinental road and was chairman of its board of directors.
Then he and his fellow-conspirators planned a great financial
coup. The millions were not coming in fast enough. They must make
a hundred millions at one stroke. They floated a great mining
company to which the public was invited to subscribe. The scheme
having the endorsement of the Empire Trading Company no one
suspected a snare, and such was the magic of John Ryder's name
that gold flowed in from every point of the compass. The stock
sold away above par the day it was issued. Men deemed themselves
fortunate if they were even granted an allotment. What matter if,
a few days later, the house of cards came tumbling down, and a
dozen suicides were strewn along Wall Street, that sinister
thoroughfare which, as a wit has said, has a graveyard at one end
and the river at the other! Had Ryder any twinges of conscience?
Hardly. Had he not made a cool twenty millions by the deal?
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. He had no sense of right, or
wrong, or justice where his own interests were concerned. He was
the prince of egoists. On the other hand, he possessed qualities
which, with some people, count as virtues. He was pious and
regular in his attendance at church and, while he had done but
little for charity, he was known to have encouraged the giving of
alms by the members of his family, which consisted of a wife,
whose timid voice was rarely heard, and a son Jefferson, who was
the destined successor to his gigantic estate.
Such was the man who was the real power behind the Southern and
Transcontinental Railroad. More than anyone else Ryder had been
aroused by the present legal action, not so much for the money
interest at stake as that any one should dare to thwart his will.
It had been a pet scheme of his, this purchase for a song, when
the land was cheap, of some thousand acres along the line, and it
is true that at the time of the purchase there had been some idea
of laying the land out as a park. But real estate values had
increased in astonishing fashion, the road could no longer afford
to carry out the original scheme, and had attempted to dispose of
the property for building purposes, including a right of way for a
branch road. The news, made public in the newspapers, had raised a
storm of protest. The people in the vicinity claimed that the
railroad secured the land on the express condition of a park being
laid out, and in order to make a legal test they had secured an
injunction, which had been sustained by Judge Rossmore of the
United States Circuit Court.
These details were hastily told and re-told by one clerk to
another as the babel of voices in the inner room grew louder, and
more directors kept arriving from the ever-busy elevators. The
meeting was called for three o'clock. Another five minutes and the
chairman would rap for order. A tall, strongly built man with
white moustache and kindly smile emerged from the directors room
and, addressing one of the clerks, asked:
"Has Mr. Ryder arrived yet?"
The alacrity with which the employe hastened forward to reply
would indicate that his interlocutor was a person of more than
ordinary importance.
"No, Senator, not yet. We expect him any minute." Then with a
deferential smile he added: "Mr. Ryder usually arrives on the
stroke, sir."
The senator gave a nod of acquiescence and, turning on his heel,
greeted with a grasp of the hand and affable smile his fellow-
directors as they passed in by twos and threes.
Senator Roberts was in the world of politics what his friend John
Burkett Ryder was in the world of finance--a leader of men. He
started life in Wisconsin as an errand boy, was educated in the
public schools, and later became clerk in a dry-goods store,
finally going into business for his own account on a large scale.
He was elected to the Legislature, where his ability as an
organizer soon gained the friendship of the men in power, and
later was sent to Congress, where he was quickly initiated in the
game of corrupt politics. In 1885 he entered the United States
Senate. He soon became the acknowledged leader of a considerable
majority of the Republican senators, and from then on he was a
figure to be reckoned with. A very ambitious man, with a great
love of power and few scruples, it is little wonder that only the
practical or dishonest side of politics appealed to him. He was in
politics for all there was in it, and he saw in his lofty position
only a splendid opportunity for easy graft.
He did not hesitate to make such alliances with corporate
interests seeking influence at Washington as would enable him to
accomplish this purpose, and in this way he had met and formed a
strong friendship with John Burkett Ryder. Each being a master in
his own field was useful to the other. Neither was troubled with
qualms of conscience, so they never quarrelled. If the Ryder
interests needed anything in the Senate, Roberts and his followers
were there to attend to it. Just now the cohort was marshalled in
defence of the railroads against the attacks of the new Rebate
bill. In fact, Ryder managed to keep the Senate busy all the time.
When, on the other hand, the senators wanted anything--and they
often did--Ryder saw that they got it, lower rates for this one, a
fat job for that one, not forgetting themselves. Senator Roberts
was already a very rich man, and although the world often wondered
where he got it, no one had the courage to ask him.
But the Republican leader was stirred with an ambition greater
than that of controlling a majority in the Senate. He had a
daughter, a marriageable young woman who, at least in her father's
opinion, would make a desirable wife for any man. His friend Ryder
had a son, and this son was the only heir to the greatest fortune
ever amassed by one man, a fortune which, at its present rate of
increase, by the time the father died and the young couple were
ready to inherit, would probably amount to over SIX BILLIONS OF
DOLLARS. Could the human mind grasp the possibilities of such a
colossal fortune? It staggered the imagination. Its owner, or the
man who controlled it, would be master of the world! Was not this
a prize any man might well set himself out to win? The senator was
thinking of it now as he stood exchanging banal remarks with the
men who accosted him. If he could only bring off that marriage he
would be content. The ambition of his life would be attained.
There was no difficulty as far as John Ryder was concerned. He
favoured the match and had often spoken of it. Indeed, Ryder
desired it, for such an alliance would naturally further his
business interests in every way. Roberts knew that his daughter
Kate had more than a liking for Ryder's handsome young son.
Moreover, Kate was practical, like her father, and had sense
enough to realize what it would mean to be the mistress of the
Ryder fortune. No, Kate was all right, but there was young Ryder
to reckon with. It would take two in this case to make a bargain.
Jefferson Ryder was, in truth, an entirely different man from his
father. It was difficult to realize that both had sprung from the
same stock. A college-bred boy with all the advantages his
father's wealth could give him, he had inherited from the parent
only those characteristics which would have made him successful
even if born poor--activity, pluck, application, dogged obstinacy,
alert mentality. To these qualities he added what his father
sorely lacked--a high notion of honour, a keen sense of right and
wrong. He had the honest man's contempt for meanness of any
description, and he had little patience with the lax so-called
business morals of the day. For him a dishonourable or dishonest
action could have no apologist, and he could see no difference
between the crime of the hungry wretch who stole a loaf of bread
and the coal baron who systematically robbed both his employes and
the public. In fact, had he been on the bench he would probably
have acquitted the human derelict who, in despair, had
appropriated the prime necessary of life, and sent the over-fed,
conscienceless coal baron to jail.
"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." This simple
and fundamental axiom Jefferson Ryder had adopted early in life,
and it had become his religion--the only one, in fact, that he
had. He was never pious like his father, a fact much regretted by
his mother, who could see nothing but eternal damnation in store
for her son because he never went to church and professed no
orthodox creed. She knew him to be a good lad, but to her simple
mind a conduct of life based merely on a system of moral
philosophy was the worst kind of paganism. There could, she
argued, be no religion, and assuredly no salvation, outside the
dogmatic teachings of the Church. But otherwise Jefferson was a
model son and, with the exception of this bad habit of thinking
for himself on religious matters, really gave her no anxiety. When
Jefferson left college, his father took him into the Empire
Trading Company with the idea of his eventually succeeding him as
head of the concern, but the different views held by father and
son on almost every subject soon led to stormy scenes that made
the continuation of the arrangement impossible. Senator Roberts
was well aware of these unfortunate independent tendencies in John
Ryder's son, and while he devoutly desired the consummation of
Jefferson's union with his daughter, he quite realized that the
young man was a nut which was going to be exceedingly hard to
crack.
"Hello, senator, you're always on time!"
Disturbed in his reflections, Senator Roberts looked up and saw
the extended hand of a red-faced, corpulent man, one of the
directors. He was no favourite with the senator, but the latter
was too keen a man of the world to make enemies uselessly, so he
condescended to place two fingers in the outstretched fat palm.
"How are you, Mr. Grimsby? Well, what are we going to do about
this injunction? The case has gone against us. I knew Judge
Rossmore's decision would be for the other side. Public opinion is
aroused. The press--"
Mr. Grimsby's red face grew more apoplectic as he blurted out:
"Public opinion and the press be d---d. Who cares for public
opinion? What is public opinion, anyhow? This road can manage its
own affairs or it can't. If it can't I for one quit railroading.
The press! Pshaw! It's all graft, I tell you. It's nothing but a
strike! I never knew one of these virtuous outbursts that wasn't.
First the newspapers bark ferociously to advertise themselves;
then they crawl round and whine like a cur. And it usually costs
something to fix matters."
The senator smiled grimly.
"No, no, Grimsby--not this time. It's more serious than that.
Hitherto the road has been unusually lucky in its bench decisions-
-"
The senator gave a covert glance round to see if any long ears
were listening. Then he added:
"We can't expect always to get a favourable decision like that in
the Cartwright case, when franchise rights valued at nearly five
millions were at stake. Judge Stollmann proved himself a true
friend in that affair."
Grimsby made a wry grimace as he retorted:
"Yes, and it was worth it to him. A Supreme Court judge don't get
a cheque for $20,000 every day. That represents two years' pay."
"It might represent two years in jail if it were found out," said
the senator with a forced laugh.
Grimsby saw an opportunity, and he could not resist the
temptation. Bluntly he said:
"As far as jail's concerned, others might be getting their deserts
there too."
The senator looked keenly at Grimsby from under his white
eyebrows. Then in a calm, decisive tone he replied:
"It's no question of a cheque this time. The road could not buy
Judge Rossmore with $200,000. He is absolutely unapproachable in
that way."
The apoplectic face of Mr. Grimsby looked incredulous.
It was hard for these men who plotted in the dark, and cheated the
widow and the orphan for love of the dollar, to understand that
there were in the world, breathing the same air as they, men who
put honour, truth and justice above mere money-getting. With a
slight tinge of sarcasm he asked:
"Is there any man in our public life who is unapproachable from
some direction or other?"
"Yes, Judge Rossmore is such a man. He is one of the few men in
American public life who takes his duties seriously. In the
strictest sense of the term, he serves his country instead of
serving himself. I am no friend of his, but I must do him that
justice."
He spoke sharply, in an irritated tone, as if resenting the
insinuation of this vulgarian that every man in public life had
his price. Roberts knew that the charge was true as far as he and
the men he consorted with were concerned, but sometimes the truth
hurts. That was why he had for a moment seemed to champion Judge
Rossmore, which, seeing that the judge himself was at that very
moment under a cloud, was an absurd thing for him to do.
He had known Rossmore years before when the latter was a city
magistrate in New York. That was before he, Roberts, had become a
political grafter and when the decent things in life still
appealed to him. The two men, although having few interests in
common, had seen a good deal of one another until Roberts went to
Washington when their relations were completely severed. But he
had always watched Rossmore's career, and when he was made a judge
of the Supreme Court at a comparatively early age he was sincerely
glad. If anything could have convinced Roberts that success can
come in public life to a man who pursues it by honest methods it
was the success of James Rossmore. He could never help feeling
that Rossmore had been endowed by Nature with certain qualities
which had been denied to him, above all that ability to walk
straight through life with skirts clean which he had found
impossible himself. To-day Judge Rossmore was one of the most
celebrated judges in the country. He was a brilliant jurist and a
splendid after-dinner speaker. He was considered the most learned
and able of all the members of the judiciary, and his decisions
were noted as much for their fearlessness as for their wisdom. But
what was far more, he enjoyed a reputation for absolute integrity.
Until now no breath of slander, no suspicion of corruption, had
ever touched him. Even his enemies acknowledged that. And that is
why there was a panic to-day among the directors of the Southern
and Transcontinental Railroad. This honest, upright man had been
called upon in the course of his duty to decide matters of vital
importance to the road, and the directors were ready to stampede
because, in their hearts, they knew the weakness of their case and
the strength of the judge.
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