As the politicians of the industrial age have created a myth about
themselves, so also have the owners of dollars, the big bankers, the
railroad manipulators, the promoters of industrial enterprise. The impulse
to do so is partly sprung from shrewdness but for the most part it is due
to a hunger within to be of some real moment in the world. Knowing that
the talent that had made them rich is but a secondary talent, and being
a little worried about the matter, they employ men to glorify it. Having
employed a man for the purpose, they are themselves children enough to
believe the myth they have paid money to have created. Every rich man in
the country unconsciously hates his press agent.
Although he had never read a book, Steve was a constant reader of the
newspapers and had been deeply impressed by the stories he had read
regarding the shrewdness and ability of the American captains of industry.
To him they were supermen and he would have crawled on his knees before
a Gould or a Cal Price--the commanding figures among moneyed men of that
day. As he went down along Turner's Pike that day when industry was born in
Bidwell, he thought of these men and of lesser rich men of Cleveland and
Buffalo, and was afraid that in approaching Hugh he might be coming into
competition with one of these men. As he hurried along under the gray
sky, he however realized that the time for action had come and that he
must at once put the plans that he had formed in his mind to the test of
practicability; that he must at once see Hugh McVey, find out if he really
did have an invention that could be manufactured, and if he did try to
secure some kind of rights of ownership over it.
Pages:
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114