All-Wool Morrison, Holman Day [historical books to read txt] 📗

country at large. If this Morrison proposes to play the bigoted demagogue in the matter, exciting the people to attempt impractical control that will paralyze the whole proposition, he must be stepped on. You can show due regard for the honor and the prosperity of your own state, but as a statesman, working for the general welfare of the country at large, you've got to take a broader view than his."
"I do. I can make Stewart understand."
Daunt paced up and down the room, easing his turgid neck against a damp collar. The Senator pondered.
The secretary, after a time, tapped and entered.
"Mayor Morrison is not in the ballroom, sir. And I could not find him."
"You should have inquired of Miss Corson."
"I could not find Miss Corson."
The Senator started for the door. He turned and went back to Daunt. "It's all right! I gave her a bit of a commission. It's in regard to Morrison. She seems to be attending to it faithfully. Be easy! I'll bring him."
The father went straight to the library. He knew the resources of his own mansion in the matter of nooks for a tete-a-tete interview; now he was particularly assisted by remembrance of Stewart's habits in the old days. He found his daughter and the mayor of Marion cozily ensconced among the cushions of a deep window-seat.
Stewart was listening intently to the girl, his chin on his knuckles, his elbow propped on his knee. His forehead was puckered; he was gazing at her with intent seriousness.
"Senator Corson," warned the girl, "we are in executive session."
"I see! I understand! But I need Stewart urgently for a few moments."
"I surrendered him willingly a little while ago. But this conference must not be interrupted, sir!"
"Certainly not, Senator Corson!" asserted Stewart, with a decisive snap in his tone. "We have a great deal of ground to go over."
"I'll allow you plenty of time--but a little later. There is a small matter to be set straight. 'Twill take but a few moments."
"It's undoubtedly either business or politics, sir," declared Lana, with a fine assumption of parliamentary dignity. "But I have the floor for concerns of my own, and I'll not cede any of my time."
"It is hardly business or politics," returned the Senator, gravely. "It concerns a matter of courtesy between guests in my home, and I'm anxious to have the thing straightened out at once. I beg of you, Stewart!"
The mayor rose promptly.
"I suppose I must consider it a question of privilege and yield," consented Lana, still carrying on her little play of procedure. "But do I have your solemn promise, Senator Corson, that this gentleman will be returned to me by you at the earliest possible moment?"
"I promise."
"And I want your promise that you will hurry back," said the girl, addressing Stewart. "I'll wait right here!"
"But, Lana, remember your duties to our guests," protested her father.
"I have been fulfilling them ever since the reception-line was formed." She waved her hand to draw their attention to the distant music. "The guests are having a gorgeous time all by themselves. I'll be waiting here," she warned. "Remember, please, both of you that I am waiting. That ought to hurry your settlement of that other matter you speak of."
"I'll waste no time!" Morrison assured her. He marched away with the Senator.
In the study Corson took his stand between his two guests. Daunt was bristling; Morrison displayed no emotion of any sort.
"Mr. Daunt, I think you'd better state your grievance, as you feel it, so that Mr. Morrison can assure both of us that it arises from a misunderstanding."
The banker took advantage of that opportunity with great alacrity. "Now that Senator Corson is present--now that we have a broad-minded referee, Mr. Morrison, I propose to go over that matter of business."
"Exactly on the same lines?" inquired Stewart, mildly.
"Exactly! And for obvious reasons--so that Corson may understand just how much your attitude hurt my feelings."
"Pardon me, Mr. Daunt. I have no time to listen to the repetition. It will gain you nothing from me. My mind remains the same. And Miss Corson is waiting for me. I have promised to return to her as soon as possible."
"But it will take only a little while to go over the matter," pleaded Corson.
"It will be time wasted on a repetition, sir. I have no right to keep Miss Corson waiting, on such an excuse."
"You give me an almighty poor excuse for unmannerly treatment of my business, Morrison," Daunt stated, with increasing ire.
"I really must agree in that," chided the Senator.
"Sir, you gave your daughter the same promise for yourself," declared Stewart.
"Now let's not be silly, Stewart. Lana was playing! You can go right on with her from where you left off."
"Perhaps!" admitted the mayor. "I hope so, at any rate. But I don't propose to break my promise." He added in his own mind that he did not intend to allow a certain topic between him and Lana Corson to get cold while he was being bullyragged by two elderly gentlemen in that study.
"By the gods! you'll have to talk turkey to me on one point!" asserted Daunt, his veneer of dignity cracking wide and showing the coarser grain of his nature. "I made you a square business proposition and you insulted me--under the roof of a gentleman who had vouched for both of us."
"Thank you! Now we are not retracing our steps, as you threatened to do. We go on from where we left off. Therefore, I can give you a few moments, sir. What insult did I offer you?"
"You told me that I ought to be ashamed of myself."
"That was not an insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher--at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business I intend to talk it straight and use few words--and those words may sound rather blunt, sometimes. Just a moment, I say!"
He leaned over the table and struck a resounding blow on it with his knuckles. "This is a nutshell proposition and we'll keep it in small compass. You gave me a layout of your proposed stock issue. No matter what has been done by the best of big financiers, no matter what is being done or what is proposed to be done, in this particular case your consolidation means that you've got to mulct the people to pay unreasonably high charges on stock. It isn't a square deal. My property was developed on real money. I know what it pays and ought to pay. I won't put it into a scheme that will oblige every consumer of electricity to help pay dividends on imaginary money. And if you're seriously attempting to put over any consolidation of that sort on our people, Mr. Daunt, I repeat that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"And now you have heard him with your own ears," clamored the banker. "What do you say to that, Mr. Corson?"
"All capitalization entails a fair compromise--values to be considered in the light of new development," said the Senator. "Let's discuss the proposition, Stewart."
"Discussion will only snarl us up. I'm stating the principle. You can't compromise principle! I refuse to discuss."
"Have you gone crazy over this protection-of-the-people idea?" demanded Corson, with heat.
"Maybe so! I'm not sure. I may be a little muddled. But I see a principle ahead and I'm going straight at it, even though I may tread on some toes. I believe that the opinion doesn't hold good, any longer, as a matter of right, that because a man has secured a franchise, and his charter permits him to build a dam across a river or the mouth of a lake, he is thereby entitled to all the power and control and profit he can get from that river or lake without return in direct payment on that power to the people of the state. We know it's by constitutional law that the people own the river and the lake. I'm putting in a report on this whole matter to the incoming legislature, Senator Corson."
"Good Heavens! Morrison, you're not advocating the soviet doctrine that the state can break existing contracts, are you?" shouted the Senator.
"I take the stand that charters do not grant the right for operators of water-power to charge anything their greed prompts 'em to charge on ballooned stock. I assert that charters are fractured when operators flagrantly abuse the public that way! I'm going to propose a legislative bill that will oblige water-power corporations to submit in public reports our state engineers' figures on actual honest profit-earning valuation; to publish complete lists of all the men who own stock so that we may know the interests and the persons who are secretly behind the corporations."
Corson displayed instant perturbation.
"Such publication can be twisted to injure honest investors. It can be used politically by a man's enemies. Stewart, I am heavily interested financially in Daunt's syndicate, because I believe in developing our grand old state. I bring this personal matter to your attention so that you may see how this general windmill-tilting is going to affect your friends."
"I'm for our state, too, sir! And I'll mention a personal matter that's close to me, seeing that you have broached the subject. St. Ronan's mill is responsible for more than two hundred good homes in the city of Marion, built, owned, and occupied by our workers. And in order to clean up a million profit for myself, I don't propose to go into a syndicate that may decide to ship power out of this state and empty those homes."
"You are leaping at insane conclusions," roared Daunt. He shook his finger under Morrison's nose.
"I'll admit that I have arrived at some rather extreme conclusions, sir," admitted Stewart, putting his threatened nose a little nearer Daunt's finger. "I based the conclusions on your own statement to me that you proposed to make my syndicate holdings more valuable by a legislative measure that would permit the consolidation to take over poles and wires of existing companies or else run wires into communities in case the existing companies would not sell."
"That's only the basic principle of business competition for the good of the consuming public. Competition is the demand, the right of the people," declared Daunt.
"I'm a bit skeptical--still basing my opinion on your own statements as to common-stock dividends--as to the price per kilowatt after competitors shall have been sandbagged according to that legislative measure," drawled the mayor. He turned to the Senator. "You see, sir, your guest and myself are still a good ways apart in our business ideas!"
"We'll drop business--drop it right where it is," said the Senator, curtly. "Mr. Daunt has tried to meet you more than half-way in business, in my house, taking my indorsement of you. When I recommended you I was not aware that you had been making radical speeches to a down-town mob. I am shocked by the change in you, Stewart. Have you any explanation to give me?"
"I'm afraid it would take too long to go over it now in a way to make you understand, sir. I don't want to spoil my case by leaving you half informed. Mr. Daunt and I have reached an understanding. Pardon me, but I insist that I must keep my promise to Miss Corson."
The father did not welcome that announcement. "I trust that the