there was a good deal of disappointment among the passengers of the steamship paris as she steamed up from sandy hook toward quarantine, in the dusk of friday evening of the week following brent’s conversation by cable with his new york representative. the ship had failed by less than two hours to reach the quarantine station before sunset. the exasperating and absurd regulation under which the health officers of the port refuse to give pratique to any vessel between sunset and sunrise would, therefore, keep the ship’s company of a thousand persons prisoners for twelve long hours almost within sight of their destination.
the delay was particularly annoying to brent, whose rising apprehensions had made the voyage irksome and long. the splendid ship, only two years before the queen of the seas, had seemed slow. she had made her name and record. her qualities and powers were known. ships, like men, become time-servers and lose ambition. not since she was first{258} outstripped by a younger rival had the paris matched even her own best speed. brent missed the exhilaration which the tingling nerves and throbbing pulses of the mystery had communicated to every one on board during her conquering voyage of a month before. the new-born ship, a third the size of this powerful leviathan, had seemed to feel a sympathetic yet absolute mastery of the element in which she moved, from the moment her prow first tossed aside the astonished waters of new york bay. neptune favored youth and audacity, and had contempt for age and experience and mere size.
like every one else, brent watched the beautiful panorama on either side as the ship ran up the narrows in the soft october twilight. no sooner had the anchor been dropped in the little quarantine cove than two steamboats came alongside. one was the mail boat, and brent was cogitating the idea that perhaps a few dollars judiciously bestowed might enable him to smuggle himself over the side with the mail-bags, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a cheery voice said:
“how are you, old fellow? come along with me.”
“jack? this is good luck. how did you get aboard?”
“came down on the revenue cutter. don’t say{259} anything to the other passengers; but i’ve got a pass to take you right up to the city. you can’t take your baggage. leave that till to-morrow and come along at once.”
the two men climbed down the ladder over the side, and while the cutter was steaming back to the battery, wharton detailed the week’s rapid turn of events.
“you’ve come back none too soon, old man,” he began in a serious voice. “things are really in a very bad way, and i am not ready to take any further steps without your direct authority. a mob in milwaukee burned two or three big grain elevators with several million bushels of wheat day before yesterday; there have been bread riots in buffalo and pittsburg, and there would have been bloody work in chicago this week if we had not broken the corner in retail bread prices. the president has called a special session of congress to meet early next month. the outlook is even more critical than when i cabled you, and no mere palliative measures will relieve the situation. it will require a very radical remedy to prevent serious disaster in several forms.”
“i’m mighty sorry to hear it, jack. do you think things are much worse than they would have been if we had not interfered last winter?” asked brent, with a discouraged air.{260}
“that’s hard to say,” replied wharton in some doubt. “i presume we should have had a blue panic, plenty of failures, commercial paralysis, suspension of all kinds of manufacturing, low prices, and the pinch of the hardest of hard times—just a repetition of what the country has to go through once in twenty years or so. what is happening now is very different. it is an entirely new experience, and its very novelty adds to the danger, because nobody really understands it or knows how to deal with it. instead of too little money, we have too much. in ordinary hard times people get frightened and don’t dare invest in the usual ways. so they hoard their money till the scare is over. it’s just the opposite now. the country seems to have lost confidence in money itself. that is something which hasn’t happened before in our day. so the popular passion is to hoard things of intrinsic value instead of gold.”
“how much have you succeeded in borrowing?”
“only about fifteen millions so far. such large loans cannot be negotiated as rapidly as i hoped, but within three or four days we shall be able to withdraw fully fifty millions from the money market, and by the time congress meets, twice that. the effect will be beneficial, no doubt, but its full influence will not be felt for a month at least, and in the meantime there is a very dangerous emergency to meet.{261}”
“well, john, what can we do? i confess i am unequal to the problem,” and the worry and anxiety upon brent’s countenance gave him more the appearance of a man helpless in the face of bankruptcy than of a cr?sus struggling under too great a load of wealth.
wharton looked at his friend closely in the rather dim light of a lamp which lit that corner of the cabin before replying. after a moment or two, he said, with an earnestness of which brent had not thought him capable:
“bob, old fellow, i don’t consider that you are obliged to do anything. you are an immensely wealthy man—the richest in the world, i have no doubt. you have been good enough to make me your confidant and agent in all your operations of the past year. i know that in everything you have done, your object has been some general or specific benefit to others. i know that your motives in the use of money have been purer and more unselfish than those of any other man i ever met. money may be the root of all evil, but it is not your fault that your money has not been an unmixed blessing to every one who has touched it. it may be true that some of the evils which threaten just now are traceable to the free distribution of your great store of gold. but you can face the situation with an absolutely clear conscience. you did the best you could, and everything{262} for the best. no man can do more than that. there is no obligation upon you, legal or moral, to sacrifice yourself in the solution of this crisis.”
“you are very good, jack, to make a philanthropist of me,” interrupted brent, smiling faintly, “but you know very well that the coat doesn’t fit, and to tell you the truth, i should be sorry if it did. there is no virtue in giving or throwing away what one doesn’t want. neither is it any credit to a man to use money for a good purpose when he can gain nothing by devoting it to an evil one. i am in the most humiliating of all positions—that of a man unequal to his responsibilities. a fool is more to be despised than a knave,” went on the young man bitterly, “and ‘good intentions’ excuse nothing. i have got the whole country into an infernal mess through my stupid interference with the established order of things. now i am bound to repair the mischief as far as possible, just as much as if i had deliberately wrought the same ruin.”
“nonsense, man,” responded wharton warmly. “your sentiments do you credit, but you’re morbidly overconscientious. and so far from being a fool or stupid, there isn’t one trained financier in a hundred that wouldn’t have made worse mistakes than yours. of course you know it will make a big hole even in your fortune to restore the financial world to its nor{263}mal condition. in fact, i don’t know how it’s to be done, though i’ve no doubt we can much improve the present situation. let me see, you have added about five hundred million dollars to the world’s monetary supply of gold. i hope you haven’t a few hundred millions more still in reserve.”
brent had been pacing restlessly back and forth in the little cabin. he stopped suddenly at wharton’s last words, hesitated a moment, then faced his friend, and with a gesture, half of defiance, half of despair, exclaimed:
“that’s the worst of the whole accursed business, jack. i haven’t used a sixth part of the stuff yet!”
it was not merely surprise that overspread wharton’s face as he stared speechlessly at his friend on hearing these words. it was the half-dazed, apprehensive, helpless expression which the shock of bad news first brings to a man’s countenance. it was a strange picture, the deep and genuine distress of these two men over the possession of fabulous wealth. money may usually be depended upon to intensify the passions of its possessor. is it contrary to human nature to say that its unstinted supply will overwhelm even selfishness and greed? or was the desire to escape the burden and responsibility of superfluous millions only another form of selfishness? the two men were silent a long time—the one striving to{264} realize the tremendous, the terrible significance to the world of those ten pregnant words; the other enjoying a certain relief that at last his weary load was shared by another’s shoulders. it was brent who spoke first.
“jack, my boy,” he exclaimed suddenly, the genial spirit of college days coming to the surface once more under the influence of his confession, “i’ll turn it all over to you, and there is certainly more than five thousand tons left, and cry good riddance if you’ll take it off my hands.”
wharton was still silent.
“there’s an offer for you, man,” brent went on lightly. “untold wealth, boundless power, immortal fame, all without lifting a finger! can you refuse?”
there was neither eagerness nor greed in wharton’s eye. he had appeared careworn and jaded under the pressure of his extraordinary labors of the past week when he met brent on the steamer. now he seemed suddenly to have grown ten years older.
“don’t joke, bob, it’s too serious. it’s appalling,” he wearily replied to his friend’s last question.
“but i’m not joking,” said brent more seriously. “i’m in dead earnest. you are much better fitted for this responsibility than i am. i shall be quite contented with a few millions to live upon and develop a few hobbies. then you can work out the greater{265} problem to the best advantage. it is in your line and not in mine. furthermore, i have perfect confidence in both your heart and your head, for the solving of it—if it can be solved.”
“you have been very generous to me already, bob,” was the earnest response, “but what you propose would be cruelty rather than generosity. however, i presume not one man in a million would look at it in that light. i shouldn’t myself six months ago. but i am stunned by this news. what you told me last december seemed too good to be true; this is quite the reverse. my first impulse is to beg you to take this gold back where it came from, or rather to bury it, sink it, destroy it somehow, and never let the world know it existed. the mere suspicion of its existence would plunge the markets of the world, the whole financial system, into chaos, and throw us back to the primitive methods of barter and trade under barbarism. gold would be demonetized instantly and become a mere commodity before any ‘gold repeal acts’ could be passed. you have seen the effect of flooding the market with gold in the last few months. we are on the verge of disaster now, and only prompt corrective measures will save us. what would happen if the whole truth were known? why, man, it is almost beyond one’s power to conceive the ruin that would be wrought. but i{266} must have time to think. there are a thousand things to be considered before you can act, bob, and i fear you must call in the assistance of wiser heads than mine. i never until now quailed before responsibility, robert, but i do before this. the very fate of civilization may almost be said to hang upon your decision,” and a sense akin to awe deepened the lines in the young man’s face as he rose rather unsteadily to his feet, and put both hands on the shoulders of his friend.
“you do not need to impress upon me the fearful importance of it all, john,” brent responded sadly, all the lightness vanishing from his tones and manner. “the knowledge of it has been growing upon me for weeks, until it has crushed out half the charm of life. i wish i had told you the truth at the outset, for it would have enabled me to avoid some mistakes, and the accursed secret would have been easier to carry if you had shared it. never mind now, it is still a problem of to-morrow, while that of to-day is difficult enough. every remaining ounce of gold shall remain where it is until we have decided upon its final disposition. well, here we are at the wharf,” and the two men went ashore, took an elevated train up town, and brent established himself in his former quarters at the waldorf.
wharton remained until long after midnight, dis{267}cussing plans and expedients for easing the situation where the pressure was greatest. his face was haggard and white, when he finally said good-night.
“i almost wish you hadn’t told me about your vault full of reserves,” he observed wearily. “it will worry me all night. i haven’t known what insomnia was until lately—and it’s the very devil.”
“take care, old fellow,” responded brent anxiously. “you are working far harder over this business than i am, and heaven knows it’s never out of my mind many minutes at a time. we can’t either of us afford to break down. just take the thing philosophically—which means, you know, look at it with the eyes of a fatalist. we can do just so much and no more, and we are doing it. i’m not going to let my hindsight abuse my foresight any longer. i shall sleep better to-night than i have slept for six months, and you can do the same if you will remember that my abominable troubles are beyond your reach until ten o’clock to-morrow. sit down a minute longer while i tell you a little story,” and brent, with many quaint touches of dry humor, of which he had a rich fund rarely drawn upon, told of his first meeting with his ragged london protégé. wharton enjoyed the little incident hugely, and the genuine ring of college days in his laugh was a better assurance than drugs could{268} give that his rest would not after all be sleepless.
they were critical days which followed. the country passed through a crisis more perilous than the keenest observers could understand or fathom. the course of events was a complete enigma. the unexpected happened continually. where danger seemed greatest it disappeared. where it had been unsuspected, it broke out even in violence and bloodshed. where bread had been most scarce, it became mysteriously plentiful. where hunger had been clemming in silence, it suddenly gave voice, and honest hands defied the law that they might feed empty bellies. and the world of trade seemed turned over to laws of paradox. the distrust of gold, of money, was growing rapidly stronger, yet there sprang up a vigorous demand for it. the banks wanted it, and began putting up their rates. it was no longer a drug in the market. the effect upon perverse human nature was what it always had been. as long as it had been plentiful nobody cared for it; when it began to grow scarce everybody clamored for it. within ten days the visible supply of money in new york shrank more than one hundred millions.
there was a sudden halt in the mad speculation in wheat. the newspapers discovered that bread by the loaf in new york and chicago could be bought{269} cheaper than wheat by the bushel or flour by the barrel. the revelation was received first with incredulity and then with dismay by the holders of grain. under this influence and that of tightening money, the more timid of the speculators began to sell out. that was enough. the market trembled, tottered, and then the crash came. the wheat pit in chicago was the scene of the greatest tragedy in trade of all its long history of great catastrophes. black ruin stalked into the wild arena and laid low great and small alike.
brent was in wharton’s office when the news came. a private wire from chicago brought fragmentary reports of the frenzied panic. for a few minutes the confusion of quotations was impossible to understand. then it appeared that wheat had fallen more than fifty cents a bushel in less than a quarter of an hour.
“can’t we stop it, jack?” exclaimed brent, when the operator handed wharton a slip of paper making this point clear. “this is unnecessary ruin, and there’s no knowing where the thing will end.”
“i’ll try,” replied wharton, scribbling rapidly on a pad and handing it to the operator. “i’m instructing barton to buy five million bushels if necessary, to steady the market.”
the message was gone in a trice, but it was a matter of seconds rather than minutes in dealing with{270} such an emergency, and nothing for the moment could check the frantic scramble to escape from the ruins of the flimsy fabric of speculation. in ten minutes more, wheat was a dollar a bushel cheaper than the day before, and the transactions mounted high in the millions. news of failures began to come, and the scene in the wheat pit was reported to be like that of a madhouse in revolt.
“i’m afraid we’ve overdone it,” said wharton anxiously. “i had no idea the bubble would collapse so easily. we must be ready for trouble here, too. the stock market will take alarm, and there may be devils let loose here, too.”
in confirmation of his fears, the telephone connecting with the stock exchange on wharton’s desk rang at that moment, and strong & co.’s representative there notified him that the market was becoming active and feverish over the news from chicago. wharton telephoned brief instructions to head off any decline by supporting strongly two or three prominent stocks, and he quickly turned again to some more slips from the chicago wire which brent handed him.
“worse than ever, jack,” said the latter. “how much cash have we in chicago?”
“about twelve millions available within instant reach.{271}”
“hadn’t we better throw it all into wheat, and force a reaction?”
“perhaps even that wouldn’t stem the tide, if this fury doesn’t soon exhaust itself. whew! some of the biggest houses in the west are in this list of suspensions. these last figures are a little better, though. barton must be at work.”
“mr. barton’s reply, sir,” called out the telegraph operator, and a moment later handed over this message:
“order filled. market still unsettled. await instructions.”
“i think you are right, robert. i shall tell him to bid up wheat smartly. five million bushels more, if necessary.” and the order was in chicago sixty seconds later.
the effect was soon felt. the recovery began, and within an hour the advance had become steady. wharton checked it as soon as about one fourth of the day’s decline had been regained.
it was impossible to do much toward limiting the secondary effects of the crash during the next few days. the fears of all classes of investors had been fully roused. the ordinary laws of trade seemed to have been suspended. a kind of commercial anarchy was in the air. all markets were unsettled, and everybody was apprehensive of all manner of disaster.{272} for several days, wharton and brent strove by every resource and expedient that their combined wits could suggest to hold the storm in check. they bought in some markets, they sold in others, they borrowed money, they loaned it, according as the rapidly changing exigencies of the situation seemed to dictate. they succeeded in completely confusing and demoralizing even the wisest and most conservative financial leaders. the men whose judgment and action are the best reliance in great crises were as much in the dark as the most bumptious charlatan of finance. but after a few days things began to quiet down a little. it was not the calm of returning confidence, however. the partial suspension of activity was merely the paralysis of doubt and fear, and as ominous almost as the rampant fever which had preceded it.
the situation was complicated by the culmination of long gathering protests in the industrial world. great strikes upon the principal railways and in cotton, woolen, and other manufacturing establishments were not only threatened, but in some cases actually begun. mill-owners had been on the point of yielding to their operatives’ demands, but the panic in prices for two weeks had affected their products seriously. they realized that their market, like nearly all others, was overstocked. instead of running their{273} mills overtime as they had been doing to supply what was really an investors’ and not a consumers’ demand, they suddenly faced the necessity of cutting down production, if not closing their mills entirely. the operatives had pressed their demand too late. they were again to become the victims of the suddenly changed conditions. before the crisis, they were in the hard situation of having plenty of work at nominally fair wages, but really at wages possessing only sixty per cent of the purchasing power of the same number of dollars and cents six months before. now that they had finally rebelled against this injustice, the conditions had suddenly changed. prices of the necessaries of life had fallen, but before the wage-earners could take advantage of the return to old conditions, their demands for more money were met by the announcement that there would soon be no work at any price. what wonder that discontent and rebellion were rampant among all classes?
affairs were in this gloomy condition, when brent and wharton sat in the latter’s office after the close of business on the 1st of november. the events of the past month had been a severe strain upon both men. wharton was both pale and haggard. his nervous force had been almost drained. he was tipped back in his office chair, with both feet perched{274} upon the slide at the side of his desk, and with his head resting wearily upon his hand. brent, with gloomy, rather indifferent countenance, was stretched out in an equally negligent attitude in a large leather-covered lounging chair. neither had spoken for some time when brent turned to his friend and remarked, in a tone that expressed both disgust and indifference:
“well, jack, what next? for my part, i’m utterly sick of it all. let’s take to-morrow’s steamer for the mediterranean. you need it badly enough, and what good can we do here? i believe things get worse instead of better the more we meddle with them.”
wharton pondered some time before replying. finally he took his feet down from their resting-place, shook himself together, and with strong emphasis thus delivered himself:
“yes, bob, it’s time we stopped meddling, and i agree there’s not much more that we alone can do in the present situation. the crisis is too great for one man or two men. we must have help. i know how you dread notoriety, but if ever a problem demanded the best wisdom of the country and the world for its solution, it is this one. our poor efforts have not been altogether mischievous. worse things might have happened than have happened; but we{275} haven’t begun to get at the heart of the problem yet. even if we weather the present crisis without worse disaster, there is your remaining incubus of gold to deal with. that is what makes the situation hopeless in my eyes. humanity has never faced a more terrible enemy, in my opinion, than you hold locked up in your vault. it isn’t safe there, or rather society isn’t safe as long as it remains there. i haven’t had a moment’s peace since you told me about it. no locks and keys ever made are strong enough to hold such a quantity of gold in safety. that isn’t the worst of it. the knowledge of its existence is just as dangerous as the thing itself. it is a marvel to me that the secret has not leaked out before now. mark my words, it will leak out. what we have done in the last year is enough to justify the wildest suspicions. i am not so sure that they do not already exist. the sun, as you know, printed some broad hints six months ago. a widespread suspicion of the truth would work almost as much mischief as actual knowledge, and it would inevitably lead to discovery. why, in such an emergency, a strong government on some pretext or other would arbitrarily assume the authority to investigate and uncover the facts at any cost. it would be quite right, too, in defying legal rights and all other obstacles to the accomplishment of its purpose. private property rights are sacred{276} and inviolable, properly enough, in the ordinary circumstances of life; but when they threaten the vital welfare of society they will soon be swept aside—yes, even in liberty-loving, all-men-free-and-equal america.”
“go on, jack, i agree with you,” said brent quietly, when wharton paused for a moment.
“very well, then, we see the danger, and it is imminent,” resumed the young man, with the emphasis of intense conviction. “it is far better that the truth should be made known voluntarily and with due precautions to those most qualified to deal with it, than that it should be discovered by accident. everything depends, in fact, on keeping it from the knowledge of the world until a policy for rendering it harmless has been decided upon. in a word, bob, it seems to me there are only two courses open to you—either sink this gold, every bit of it, in a bottomless pit, or place the facts at once before the best jury of financial wisdom the world can supply, and abide by its decision.”
wharton’s pale face was whiter than ever in its earnestness, as he leaned forward and watched the effect of his words upon his friend. brent had listened to the straightforward argument without any sign of emotion. he did not speak for some moments, and when he did turn toward his companion,{277} wharton was surprised at the expression of mingled sadness and determination which he saw in his eyes.
“i had already reached the same conclusion, jack,” he said, still very quietly, “and i have made my decision.”
“which is?”
“to put the whole case before a competent tribunal, as you suggest, and act upon its decision. i cannot bring myself to take the responsibility of destroying this great mass of what the world calls wealth, and i recognize the criminal folly of risking longer the disclosure of its existence. i tell you frankly that i never took a step with greater reluctance than i shall take this one. it means the sacrifice of much that i hold most dear in life. it means the loss of all privacy. it means an odious notoriety from which there will not be a moment’s escape. it means living till the end of my days under a fiercer light than beats upon a throne. it means fame without honor, fame such as only the lowest vanity can covet. it means the envy and hatred of the majority of my fellows. it means—bah!” a gesture of loathing expressed even more forcibly than his words the young man’s shrinking from the penalties of the course of action he had decided upon.
“i know how you feel about it, robert,” interrupted his friend, “and i sympathize with you sin{278}cerely in your dread of becoming in a certain sense a public character; but i think you take a wrong view of your position and of the attitude which the general public will assume toward you. if the plain truth be told, and further evil effects of the existence of this gold are avoided, as i believe they will be, then you cannot stand in any but a patriotic and honorable light. instead of being criticised and condemned, you will be respected and honored by every man whose good opinion is worth having. none but a few crazy fools will denounce you. even the anarchists cannot complain if you devote this treasure to public uses, as you probably will.”
“you are quite wrong about the anarchists,” remarked brent, with cynical bitterness. “their big red mouths will be loudest in my denunciation, and i shall have to be as careful in my precautions against bombs and cranks as the czar of russia. yes, i shall be speedily proclaimed the deadliest enemy of the race. but that will be one of the least of my annoyances. however, i’ll make the best of it. the load of responsibility which is crushing both of us will at all events be taken away. now, for carrying out our resolve. what do you suggest?”
“it is too vast a subject, it seems to me, to be dealt with under any private or even strictly american auspices—no matter how high the individuals com{279}posing your jury might stand in the financial world. we should secure if possible the creation of a small international board, composed of the most eminent financiers or statesmen, selected under the direct authority of the principal powers. i know of no other plan which would secure the world’s confidence, which is essential in the end. i think the president will readily see the wisdom of summoning such a monetary conference. it could be done without exciting suspicion, for the troubles of the past few months have many times suggested it, as you know. my idea would be to see the secretary of the treasury and the president at once, lay the whole matter before them, and suggest this course of action.”
“a good plan, i believe, jack,” said brent reflectively. “we cannot act on it too promptly, for there’s no knowing what mischief congress may do as soon as it assembles. i wouldn’t be surprised if its first step should be to order a drag-net investigation of the financial situation, and you may be sure you would be the first witness summoned. be a good idea to see the president before he sends in his message, wouldn’t it?”
“quite right,” responded wharton quickly. “it might save lots of trouble.”
“well, why not go over to washington to-night,{280} and call on the secretary and the president to-morrow?”
wharton thought a moment.
“yes, the very best thing we can do. we’ll take the midnight train,” he said finally.
and the midnight train carried no passengers whose sleep was sounder than that of the two weary men, who took with them to washington a heavier burden to put upon the shoulders of the nation’s chief than any president had borne since lincoln.
