Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, Part II

P.337 Part II – Either-Or

Chapter I – The Man Who Belonged On Earth
P339. Dr. Stadler, founder and head of the State Science Institute, is waiting in his office for Dr. Floyd Ferris. Stadler is upset that seemingly natural disasters have affected the normal course of life at the Institute (State Science Institute). Most recently, they have been without power for five days because of an electrical storm. A book, irritating to Stadler, is on his desk. The book, written by Dr. Ferris, is t
@itled, Why Do You Think You Think?, and it is filled with mysticisms and non-rationalities:
“Thought is a primitive superstition. Reason is an irrational idea.”
“Your brain being an instrument of distortion, the more active the brain the greater the distortion.”
“The more we know, the more we learn that we know nothing.”
“Only the crassest ignoramus can still hold to the old-fashioned notion that seeing is believing. That which you see is the first thing to disbelieve.”
“So you think you’re sure of your opinions? You cannot be sure of anything.”
“Everything is wrong in human eyes – so why fight it? Don’t argue. Accept. Adjust yourself. Obey.”
(342) Ferris arrives late, without an apology. Ferris is 45 years old, smooth and obsequious. He is a former biologist who prides himself on looking like a gigolo.
Stadler asks about the oil shortage mess and Ferris launches into a justification of the State Science Institute’s actions regarding the Wyatt oil fields. The State Science Institute has taken over the oil fields and for six months has been trying to get them back into operation. What Stadler had really wanted to know was why the State Science Institute headquarters have been without oil for the past five days.
(344) Ferris tells Stadler that two more businesses have closed and both the owners have disappeared. The businesses were the Stockton Foundry, owned by Andrew Stockton, in Colorado and the Hammond Auto Works, owned by Lawrence Hammond. Stadler asks about something called Project X. Ferris wants to know how he heard about it, because it has been kept especially secret. Ferris deflects Stadler’s inquiry, saying only that it is a technical project dealing with sound.
(345) Stadler as
ks about the book Ferris has published. Ferris says that sales have been strong and the reviews have been excellent. Stadler can’t believe that Ferris has published such trash and, moreover, that Ferris implied that Stadler supported the ideas in the book. Stadler and Ferris both know the book is drivel, but Stadler hasn’t figured out why Ferris wrote it. According to Ferris, the book is intended for the public, not the scientist. The book gives people a reason not to have to worry about thinking: “You see, Dr. Stadler, people don’t want to think. And the deeper they get into trouble, the less they want to think. But by some sort of instinct, they feel that they ought to and it makes them feel guilty. So they’ll bless and follow anyone who gives them a justification for not thinking.”
(347) In the days when their were “men of intelligence” in the world, Stadler knows that this book would have brought disgrace to the State Science Institute
W. Not many are left and Ferris sees no reason to worry about the few who remain. All of this strikes Stadler with a “cold terror.” He knows something is terribly wrong with this logic, but he is afraid of taking a stand against it because he is afraid that he will find that his name no longer carries any stature. Ferris assures Stadler that his efforts are best spent working on mathematical formulas, not on public relations. Stadler wishes to hide. He knows that the men of intelligence have no use for him any longer. At just that moment, Stadler receives a call from Dagny, asking if she can see him on Monday. Hungry to speak with someone of intelligence, Stadler makes up an excuse to say that he was already going to be in New York that afternoon.
P349. Dagny is in her office, cancelling another train, like going through the rituals
when someone dies. For six months after Ellis Wyatt had gone, all the little oil producers, the ones who had whined about unfairness in the face of Wyatt’s competence, had made fortunes “requiring no competence or effort.” After six months, however, the major customers of oil began switching over to coal because the two-bit oil producers had raised prices to compensate for their own incompetence. And although Andrew Stockton had profited from the switch to coal, he disappeared anyway.
(350) Lawrence Hammond’s disappearance was causing the automobile industry to wither. No new cars were made. “There were still cars on the roads of the country, but they moved like travelers in the desert, who ride past the warning skeletons of horses bleached by the sun: they moved past the skeletons of cars that had collapsed on duty and had been left in the ditches by the side of the road.” Wyatt’s disappearance continued to be a mystery. All of his flami
ng wells had been extinguished, except one, which had been named Wyatt’s Torch.
(351) Because of the oil shortage and the resulting high oil prices, most Taggart Transcontinental trains are now being fueled by coal instead of oil. The company is having a very profitable period, not because of their operations, but instead because of “…subsidies for empty trains; and the money [Jim Taggart] did not own – the sums that should have gone to pay the interest and the retirement of Taggart bonds…” Jim snidely tells his sister that it looks like he’s better at making money than she. Wesley Mouch issued a directive saying that railroad bonds could be “de-frozen” upon proof of “essential need.”
(352) Dagny feels a “guilty shame” for the way they are making money. Nat Taggart’s way of making money is her role model. The riddle of the motor continues to be her primary focus. She shows the cigarette stub with the dollar sign to the Taggart Terminal ve
ndor. He has never seen it, but is impressed and astonished.
(353) Dagny tries to find a scientist to make the motor work. She meets with four scientists who are all looters: one doesn’t think the motor can work; another looks at the project as a “boring imposition”; a third is “belligerently insolent” and refuses to take any risk; the fourth doesn’t believe that the motor should be made workable because it would be unfair: “It would be so superior to anything we’ve got that it would be unfair to lesser scientists…I don’t think that the strong should have the right to wound the self-esteem of the weak.” Dagny reluctantly calls Dr. Stadler because she is out of options.
(354) Waiting in her office for Stadler, she thinks how her life is like a train. “A train has the two great attributes of life…motion and purpose.” Stadler arrives and is overly thankful. Like a dog wanting affection, Stadler needs to know that his in
tellect is valued. Dagny shows Stadler the manuscript of the motor and Stadler slowly becomes excited. He understands the revolutionary nature of this “new concept of energy.” At the same time, he is amused that the person working on this project would have been employed as a lowly “commercial inventor…Why did he want to waste his mind on practical matters?” Dagny answers, “Perhaps because he liked living on this earth.” The prevailing wisdom is that practical science is common and does not deliver greater good to society. Stadler wonders why the inventor didn’t publish a paper on his findings and he’s just as mystified as to why the motor was left in the factory. “You’d think any greedy fool of an industrialist would have grabb
Ued it in order to make a fortune. No intelligence was needed to see its commercial value.” Dagny responds with “a smile ugly with bitterness.” {Society will become more prosperous and happy when we recognized that the people who are productive, who add value (the businessmen and women) are the ones keeping society headed on the right track, the track of prosperity.}
(357) Stadler doesn’t know anyone who could complete the motor, but he shares Dagny’s concern over “trying to find men of talent.” Stadler asks if he might see the motor. They go to the underground vault where it is kept and look at it as one would look into a “coffin.” Showing his productive side, Stadler says to Dagny, “Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling l
est someone’s work prove greater than their own – have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal – for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire…Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?” Dagny shares this feeling, in both business and life. Stadler is moved by this exchange to offer Dagny the name of a man who
0declined a job with the State Science Institute. Dagny is momentarily moved to admiration, but this is destroyed when Stadler adds, “the young man had no desire to work for the good of society or the welfare of science.” {Rand believes that the good of society comes when people do their own tasks well out of self-interest. The good of society can be found in business, work, adding value and rewarding merit.} The young physicist is Quentin Daniels, from the Utah Institute of Technology. As they leave the underground area, they pass a frustrated worker who mutters to another worker, “who is John Galt?” This prompts Stadler to remark that he’s never like the phrase. He once knew a man named John Galt, however, Stadler says, “He has to be dead.”
P360. Rearden looks over a letter from the State Scie
nce Institute demanding that he sell them ten thousand tons of Rearden Metal for Project X. Rearden gives it back to Miss Ives and says he will not comply. The laws restricting his tonnage have gone into effect, but they are arbitrary and vague. The new laws also allow any consumer to sue Rearden if he doesn’t get his “fair share” of Rearden Metal. Rearden’s motto for dealing with these encumbering laws is: “Act first, keep the mills going, feel later.”
(361) Washington sends a young man to Rearden Steel to oversee the fair distribution of Rearden Metal. This boy, nicknamed the Wet Nurse by the steel workers, distributes Rearden Metal so that long-time customers
like Ken Danagger go without the metal while a looter like Mr. Mowen, who had earlier refused to make switches from Rearden Metal (P182), receives shipment. Moreover, manufacturers of less important products like golf clubs, coffee pots and and garden tools given a share of Rearden Metal while Danaggers coal mines can’t be re-inforced with Rearden Metal structural members. The socialistic concept of everyone right to a “fair-share” of Rearden Metal allows fortunes to be made by simply buying and selling
“rights
to the metal.
(362) The Wet Nurse does not understand morality and what little morality he ever had “…had been bred out of him by his college.” The young man became an unknowing villain because of the system in which he grew up. “He uttered nothing but uncertain opinions about physical nature – and nothing but categorical imperatives about men.” {Rand believes that all good things occur when we require definiteness about the physical world and accept some vagueness in our descriptions of men.} The Wet Nurse tells Rearden that he could ship steel to certain people in exchange for “a few expenses.” Rearden tries to get the Nurse to acknowledge that he is asking for graft, but the Nurse doesn’t want to name the “ugliness.” The Nurse says, “You know, Mr. Rearden, there are n
#o absolute standards. We can’t go by rigid principles, we’ve got to be flexible…” Rearden wins and finishes the argument simultaneously, “Run along, punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid principles, on the expediency of the moment.”
(363) Rearden Metal as a company is merely hanging on. Hank smiles, thinking about Ellis Wyatt, although he knows that he must guard against whatever it was that convinced Wyatt to quit. Rearden is convinced that he must do the best he can, even in the face of the looters all around him.
(364) The Nurse attempts, unsuccessfully, to convince Rearden to sell the State Science Institute the Rearden Metal it wants. Rearden is then visited by another young man from the State Science Institute who also tries to convince him to sell them the metal. By the law, if Rearden doesn’t comply, the State Science Institute can have him jailed. This man, the State Science Institute and all the looters don’t want to name this club of force, otherwise their extortion would be brought into the clear light of day. Rearden knows that the
y will not jail him because they need men like him, men of ability, to do the work of society.
{Extortion means obtaining something by force or threat of force. There are three types of extortion: 1) physical extortion, such as the threat of a gun; 2) blackmail, the threat exposing information; 3) guilt, the attempt to make someone take an action to avoid feeling guilty. Extortion is the same as looting; both words imply the existence of a victim. Throughout the book, the looters claim that they are the victims of the doers. A central point of the book is that the looters, the non-productive and collectivist members of society, are actually the ones who are extorting the productive and capitalistic individuals.}
(366) Rearden refuses to play a charade with the young man from the State Science Institute. “A sale,” Rearden says, “requires the seller’s consent.” Rearden says that the State Science Institute may seize their steel at any time, but the young man knows that the public would be appalled by the appearance of such an act. Rearden understands, “You need my help to make it look like a sale – like a safe, just, moral transaction. I will not help you.”
P367. Rearden comes to Dagny’s apartment. Dagny is thinking about how her nights with Hank are filled with pride while her days at work have become drudgery, slipping past her life forever.
Rearden brings Dagny gifts, including “tropical flowers,” “a cape of blue fox” and a “pearl-shaped ruby” which is far too expensive for even Rearden. He brings the gifts for his own pleasure. Dagny loves to be admired. Rearden thinks an artist could paint her and it would move men to have sex with “the first barmaid in sight,” but that’s not for him. He would never hold onto a dream, “a stillborn aspiration,” that he knew he couldn’t attain.
(369) They drive one evening to a country inn. Dagny reflects on Rearden: “He belonged in the countryside, she thought – he belonged everywhere – he was a man who belonged on earth – and then she thought of the words which were more exact: he was a man to whom the earth belonged, the man at home on earth and in control.” {See title of chapter.} Nevertheless, Dagny is puzzled why Rearden “had to carry a burden of tragedy which, in silent endurance, he had accepted so completely that he had barely known he carried it?” {Rearden has accepted the gui
lt of being an adulterer. This willingness to bear guilt is his tragic flaw.}
(370) Rearden has always wanted to enjoy his wealth, but he never had a desire to spend his money…until now. Now he intends to make Dagny his personal “luxury object.” Dagny understands the situation better and tells Rearden that he paid for her as his luxury object long ago, “…by means of the same values with which [he] paid for [his] mills.” Dagny wants him and has given herself to him because of the man he is, not the things he gives her.
(372) They look around at the others in the restaurant and see people who are “waiting for this place to give them meaning, not the other way around.” Society, she says, highly regards the “enjoyers of material pleasures,” and yet, the “enjoyment of material pleasures” is also held as “evil.” Dagny and Hank make the places they go meaningful because they are
meaningful people. Hank tells Dagny how he dreamt long ago, when he was working in the mines, about spending an evening where he would “sit in a place like this, where one drink of wine would cost more than my day’s wages, and I would have earned the price of every minute of it…” True celebrations are for those who have accomplished something, not for those who hope that a celebratory situation will make them feel like they have accomplished something worth celebrating.
(373) She tells Hank that she believes that they both are on the verge of discovering “some error that’s vicious and very important.” It is something which everyone has been taught, but is “some sort of perversion.”
(374) A deal has been made between Francisco and the government. The deal adversely affects the copper supply and Rearden. He knows how to act, but “action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.” When the goal is currying favor, playing politics or “pull,” then Rearden has no desire to act. Life is “purposeful motion” and when an individual is denied the freedom to choose their purpose and their motion, but is instead told through force what to do, then Rearden sees little purpose in living and acting. “In moments of suffering, he had never let pain win its one permanent victory: he had never allowed it to make him lose the desire for joy. He had never doubted the
onature of the world or man’s greatness as its motive power and its core.” Rearden wonders what a man should do if he is “trapped in a malevolent universe, ruled by evil…”
(375) He visits Dagny on another evening. He is happy being with her, but he is adamant that “no form of claim between them should ever be motivated by pain and aimed at pity.” She agrees, knowing that they are both valuable people and that that is why they are attracted to each other. Most people think they are worth more when someone else wants them. However, Hank wants Dagny, and Dagny wants Hank, because they each place high value on
Peach other.
(376) As Dagny relates the latest developments of the motor, Hank thinks about how the core of a city is a beings who is a “face stripped of everything but purpose…a being intent upon his goal.” Men like these, “they were the world, they, not the men crouched in dark corners, half-begging, half-threatening, boastfully displaying their open sores as their only claim on life and virtue…”
(377) Hank tells Dagny that he doesn’t think she should have met with Stadler. Stadler only wanted affirmation of his scientific abilities, but they both know that Stadler has sold
himself out to the looters. Similarly, the young man from the State Science Institute who visited Rearden wanted Rearden’s affirmation that he was “just an honest buyer.” A sanction is permission or approval which makes something valid. Dagny and Hank are slowly sensing that they make a crucial decision when they give these people a sanction.
(378) As they begin making love, Rearden felt “…the unadmitted knowledge that that which he had called her depravity was her highest virtue – this capacity of hers to feel the joy of being, as he felt it.”

Chapter II – The Aristocracy Of Pull
P379. Dagny is thinking in her office about all the capitalists who are disappearing. She recalls speaking recently with Ted Nielson, owner of Nielson Motors and a capitalist. Nielson himself wondered
whether or not he will escape whatever is taking the other capitalists.
(380) Dagny reflects on Quentin Daniels, the man she has hired to rebuild the motor. When the Utah Institute of Technology “was closed for lack of funds, he had remained there as night watchman and sole inhabitant of the place; the salary was sufficient to pay for his needs – and the Institute’s laboratory was there, intact, for his own private, undisturbed use.” Daniels is a doer. His goal in his research had not been “to be of service to humanity.” Because of this comment, Dagny knew that Daniels was the man for the job. Daniels and Dagny agreed on a meager salary upfront, but
Ma huge percentage for Daniels when he succeeds. Daniels told Dagny, “I don’t know how many years it will take me to solve this, if ever. But I know that if I spend the rest of my life on it and succeed, I will die satisfied.” Furhtermore, Daniels says, “There’s only one thing that I want more than to solve it: it’s to meet the man who has [built the motor].”
(382) Dagny remembers she must go to Jim’s wedding and, as she is rushing out of the terminal, she is called by the cigar stand vendor. The cigarette stub which she gave him was made by a machine, but to the best of the vendor’s knowledge, “that cigarette was not made anywhere on earth.”
P383. Rearden is concluding a clandestine meeting with Ken Danagger at a suite at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. They both are risking fines and jail time for meeting and conducting busines
s in this way. Rearden is selling Danagger four thousand tons of Rearden Metal, aginst the Fair Share Law. Danagger is committed to feeding Taggart Transcontinental with coal. “I keep thinking of what would happen if the railroads collapsed…Those people in Washington don’t seem to have a clear picture of what that would be like.” Rearden is not afraid of the prospect of jail, even though as a kid he would never have stolen anything. The difference is that the laws have changed so that now they can convict him of something of which he is proud: doing business. This is contrasted with his views on adultery. Rearden is fearful of having his affair with Dagny exposed. Daydreaming about Dagny, the most important part of his life, his wife storms into the suite. She peruses the room, looking for some telltale sign of another woman, but concludes there couldn’t be another woman in Hank’s life because that woman would have to b
e on call at anytime and everyone knows that would mean a prostitute. Lillian wants Hank to take her to Jim Taggart’s wedding. She makes an appeal, not to his own interests, but to his sense of a “husband’s duty” and his pity for her needs. Dagny has never made any claim on him, nor he on her (P367, P425), and he is tormented by Lillian’s request. He doesn’t want Dagny to have to see Lillian flaunting her “ownership” of him and yet, “…he knew that the reason for his refusal to go, was the reason that gave him no right to refuse.” Rearden agrees.
P387. Cherryl, being prepared for the wedding by “an aging sob sister,” is reflecting on the circumstances leading up to her wedding.
KShe is fundamentally a good person, but does not understand that she is being looted by Jim. She had chosen to live in a tenement apartment to save her money. The first time Jim saw the apartment he had snidely smiled. When he had taken her to expensive restaurants, she had thought that she had somehow earned the privilege of such dinners, but Jim was just trying to display his generosity to others. She would not take money from him and, since he did not want to have sex, she rewarded him with her “silent worship.” She listened to him complain about his problems, including his sister. Unknowingly, she is affirming him, sanctioning him, giving validity to his perspective.
Jim talked to Cherryl one time about the doers, the people like Rearden and Dagny: “Why are they so sure they’re right?…If I acknowledge their superiorit
y in the material realm, why don’t they acknowledge mine in the spiritual? They have the brain, but I have the heart. They have the capacity to produce wealth, but I have the capacity to love. Isn’t mine the greater capacity?…And if they’re great and I’m not – isn’t that exactly why they should bow to me, because I’m not? Wouldn’t that be an act of true humanity? It takes no kindness to respect a man who deserves respect – it’s only a payment which he’s earned. To give unearned respect is the supreme gesture of charity.” {This is pure looter/socialist philosophy. Why has our society so glorified doing good for others? It’s no “better” to do good for others than to do something well for yourself. If more people would do well for themselves and act virtuously, our
society would quickly improve itself: Crime, unemployment and domestic violence would all drop; our standard of living would rise.}
(389) One time Cherryl asked Jim if he could help her find a better job, but Jim never took any action. Cherryl blamed herself for having offended him, but Jim really wanted her to remain in poverty so that he could continue to feel generous.
(390) They attended a party put on by Mrs. Cornelius Pope. Cherryl spent a year’s saving on a d
ress which was very out-of-place. People talked about Cherryl behind her back. Jim got little respect even when people talked directly to him. Nevertheless, Jim has become very powerful because of his appearance of being very generous. Cherryl continued to believe that Jim was a hero and that the others envied him. She did her best to show a positive face. Later that night, Jim asked her to marry him. She was in an unhappy mood because of the party and, although she accepted the proposal, she knew that something was wrong, that “this was not the way she would have wanted it to happen.” During the engagement she remained living in her tenement. Jim
was toasted by the press as the ‘Democratic Businessman.’
(392) As the sob sister places a veil on Cherryl, she warns, “…there are people who’ll try to hurt you through the good they see in you – knowing that it’s the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don’t let it break you when you discover that.” Cherryl doesn’t really understand. She thinks that in life “things could happen which were beautiful and very great.”
P392. The wedding of Cherryl and Jim has just ended. Jim is speaking with a group of reporters at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, gloating and garnering more power with his looter drivel: “Money is the root of all evil…Love will conquer any barrier…” The people who attended his wedding are a symbol of Jim’s power. There are two groups of attendees: the first is the youthful crowd from Washington, there to bestow favors upon Jim. The second group are those who
are letting Jim climb higher, over their backs. These are the older businessmen from all over the country.
(393) For the looters, words are used for outward displays, not for inward analysis. In many situations, words are unnecessary and expressions are even more powerful. {Rand’s point is that words have precise meanings, for those who seek to know and affect reality. Those who do not use words with precision are usually seeking to avoid and manipulate reality.}
(394) Taggart is upset because Wesley Mouch did not attend the wedding, indicating that Jim owes Mouch more favors than vice versa. Orren Boyle teases Jim about Mouch’s absence, which prompts the two to argue about who owes more to the other: Jim got a bond moratorium; Boyle got Rearden Metal kept off the market. Jim then tries to play the act of being truly interested in the service of the country, but Boyle won’t hear it. Boyle
spells out the looter philosophy: trading money is out; trading favors is in; trading scandal is in; trading men is in, especially when one has the dirt on a man. Mouch’s power has been growing, because he has the dirt and the power over so many men.
(395) Cherryl is completely clueless through the wedding and reception. She thinks there is no malice anywhere, and yet she doesn’t understand why people keep asking her for favors. Cherryl spots Dagny, who in her mind is “the enemy.” Dagny looks like a fortress, with “gun-metal gray” eyes and wearing a “chain of heavy metal links.” Cherryl tells Dagny that she is “the woman in this family now.” Dagny smartly responds, “That’s quite all right…I’m the man.”
(396) Hank arrives with Lillian and immediately looks into Dagny’s eyes. He can not act like the coward who would pretend at a public gathering that Dagny does not exist. Hank is in love
with Dagny and even feels jealousy at those men who speak with her. Lillian is “static.” Her dress, her smile and her behavior are all very superficial, unchanging and plastic. Hank is struck by the thought that he has attended the reception solely for the benefit of Lillian. “…He wondered who had the right to demand that he waste a single irreplaceable hour of his life…” Then he tells himself that he made a marriage contract and that he should honor it. However, the first internal voice tells him that in business he does not honor contracts where value is not being exchanged between the parties. Nevertheless, he dismisses this last thought.
(398) Lillian brags to Jim about her ability to deliver Hank to the wedding, creating a greater illusion of Jim’s power. “…A ward heeler says that he can deliver the vote, is that right? Well, what I wanted you to know is that I can deliver him, any time I choose.” Lillian
says the only payment she wants is Jim’s “admiration.” Jim and Lillian like each other because they both enjoy despising: both other people and themselves.
(400) Lillian spies the Rearden Metal bracelet on the arm of Dagny and decides that she wants it back. She starts a conversation with Dagny and asks whether the non-business exploits of females are worthy. Dagny is a new and difficult adversary for Lillian because Dagny is “a woman who refused to be hurt.” Dagny turns to leave, but Lillian persists in the discussion: “I would like to believe that you’re fully consistent, Miss Taggart, and full devoid of human frailties…” She asks Dagny to give her back the bracelet (P27, 155, 273). Dagny declines. Lillian insinuates that by
not making the trade, Dagny is sleeping with Hank. Dagny names Lillian’s insinuation and Lillian withdraws. To the shock of both Lillian and Dagny, Hank steps in and requires Lillian to apologize to Dagny. The heavy contrast between Hank’s actions at his wedding anniversary and Jim and Cherryl’s reception is apparent to Dagny: “He had taken his wife’s side, then; he had taken [Dagny's], now.”
(404) Jim speaks to a group of people: “We will liberate our culture from the stranglehold of the profit-chasers. We will build a society dedicated to higher ideals, and we will replace the aristocracy of money by – ” His sentence is finished by Francisco: ” – the aristocracy of pull.” Jim is nervous that Francisco has showed up. He wonders if this is a good or bad symbol. Jim’s friends laugh at the sight of Jim cow-towing to Francisco. Francisco tells Jim that he knows Jim doesn’t want the others to know that he is a shareholder in d’Anconia Copper because he doesn’t want people to kn
ow how rich he is. d’Anconia Copper has benefited from rules which have eliminated its competition. Francisco says he has also benefited from the “modern” investors who have invested in d’Anconia Copper on “faith” versus the more traditional investors who studied the fundamentals of a business. Francisco foreshadows the future when he proclaims how safe d’Anconia Copper has been throughout the ages and that “it would take a most unusual kind of man to destroy d’Anconia Copper…” Francisco wants to thank Jim and all the looters for investing in d’Anconia Copper, but he also knows that the name of the game is to not name what everybody knows. Francisco tells Jim, “In an age when men exist, not by right, but by favor, one does not reject a grateful person, one tries
to trap into gratitude as many people as possible.”
(408) Francisco stops to speak with Dagny. He teases her about the John Galt Line and says to her, “Don’t you remember that you dared him to come and claim your Line? Well, he has.”
(409) As Francisco walks through the crowd, Rearden wears a smile. Despite party boy facade, Hank has always admired Francisco and is glad to see him at the party. Francisco’s eyes “seemed intentionally expressionless, holding no trace of gaiety, showing – like a warning signal – nothing but the activity of a heightened perceptiveness.”
(410) Francisco overhears Bertram Scudder saying that money is the root of all evil. He addresses the gathered crowd, although his real audience is Hank Rearden:
e
“Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.”
“Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions – and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever ex
isted on earth.”
“Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think…Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of those who did not invent it?…Money is made…by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.”
“Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgement of the traders…And when men live by trade – with reason, not force, as their final arbiter – it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgement and highest ability – and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money.”
“Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another – their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.”
If the
looters are in control of society, “…then the race goes, not the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.”
“…When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing…you may know that your society is doomed.”
“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good.”
“The phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves.”
“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase ‘to make money.’ No other language or nation had ever used the words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, loo
ted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words ‘to make money’ hold the essence of human morality.”
{I derive ‘making money’ as follows: Customer value comes from delivering excellent quality for a given price. Therefore, the first step is to maximize customer value. Companies make money by having prices higher than costs. The second step is to maximize company profit. Figure XX, below, shows that a business will exist over the long term if it maximizes customer value while it attempts to maximize its own profits.}

(415) The looters at the party don’t like Francisco’s speech, not for any logical reason, but because
of their feelings. A woman is asked by Francisco to explain why she does not agree with his views and she says, “Oh, I can’t answer you. I don’t have any answers, my mind doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel that you’re right, so I know that you’re wrong.”
(415) Francisco then turns to Rearden and they converse. Hank can’t understand why Francisco has wasted his life and yet he is also grateful to Francisco for his speech because it has supported his own philosophy of life. Francisco tells Hank that he, Rearden, is actually the guiltiest man at the reception. The others “keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won’t permit yourself to consider anything that would spare you…They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to bear anything. They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming
it. But don’t you see that the essential error is the same? Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think.” {One of Rearden’s greatest failings is his unwillingness to consider the evilness of his wife’s actions in their marriage.}
(418) Francisco then warns Hank not to invest in or do business with d’Anconia Copper. All the profits of the looters are in d’Anconia Copper. Francisco is going to lose all this looter money, on purpose. Hank thinks that Francisco is a quitter. Francisco triggers a panic by telling a young looter that d’Anconia Copper is in trouble and that
< he should sell all his stock. Pandemonium ensues. Jim approaches Francisco asking if the rumor is true. Francisco sarcastically replies, “Money is the root of all evil – so I just got tired of being evil.” As chaos ensues, the three heroes, Dagny, Rearden and Francisco “…stood immovably still, like three pillars spaced through the room, the lines of their sight cutting across the spread of the wreckage…”

Chapter III – White Blackmail
P423. At their apartment in New York, Lillian is complaining to Hank that Francisco’s has wrecked d’Anconia Copper and that he “owed a certain duty to his stockholders…” Hank decides to stay overnight in the apartment and Lillian decides to go home to their home in the country. Hank drops Lillian off at the train station and goes directly to Dagny’s apartment.
(425) Ha
nk tries to apologize to Dagny for making her bear the strain of their affair, but Dagny tells Hank that she knew about his marriage when she got into the affair. She views a relationship like a trade. If it isn’t satisfying to either person, then that person should get out. If Hank asked Dagny to stop working for the railroad, then she leave him. Hank compares Dagny’s words to Lillian, who believes in the “husband’s duty” (P383).
(426) Hank tells Dagny he hasn’t slept with Lillian since he began seeing Dagny. He asks her who was the first man she slept with, but Dagny will not divulge anything. Somehow, Hank can’t believe that Dagny has ever been with anoth
Ger man, but Dagny points out that Hank probably can’t see Dagny with any man, including himself. Dagny tells Hank, “Do you know your only real guilt? With the greatest capacity for it, you’ve never learned to enjoy yourself. You’ve always rejected your own pleasure too easily. You’ve been willing to bear too much.”
(427) Hank can’t comprehend all of his feelings about Francisco. He knows that he likes him, but he also knows that Francisco has hurt the doers of the world by hastening its destruction. And yet, for some strange reason, Francisco has made Hank feel “hope.” Finally, Hank apologizes to Dagny for his beratement of her on the morning after their first night together (see P253-255).
P428. When Hank returns to his apartment the next morning, Lillian is waiting for him. She knows he’s having an affair and knows
that he hasn’t spent a single night in this apartment for the past year. Hank won’t tell Lillian the identity of the woman. Lillian chastises, belittles and demeans Hank. She says, “I’ve always known that under that ascetic look of yours you were a plain, crude sensualist who sought nothing from a woman except an animal satisfaction which I pride myself on not having given you.” Lillian believes that lust is evil and she assumes that lust is what Hank was after. {Rand believes that lust is related to one’s brain. What one finds lustworthy is related not just to physical appearance, but also to character and intelligence.}
(430) Hank agrees to any “demand” which Lillian will make of him, except for him to give up his affair.
She revels in bringing him down and wants see him “condemned to the life of the hypocrite…” While a divorce would be financially lucrative for Lillian, she will not give it to him. Instead, she tries to take a higher moral road, telling him, “You’re unable to believe that there may exist a person who feels no concern for money.” What Lillian wants and gets is a non-commercial trade: He gets to keep his affair and she gets to see him “look [at her] and know that you’re no better, that you’re superior to no one…” Hank thinks that he is to blame for the punishment he will receive. However, he wonders why Lillian isn’t suffering
. As she leaves the apartment, Hank congratulates himself for not having killed Lillian.
P432. Dr. Floyd Ferris visits Rearden at his office. Initially, Ferris avoids his purpose, which is to get Hank to ship Rearden Metal for Project X. Ferris speaks the standard looter drivel: “Wisdom lies in knowing when to remember and when to forget. Consistency is not a habit of mind which it is wise to practice or to expect of the human race.” Rearden declines to ship the metal. Ferris then threatens Rearden with blackmail. He says he will expose Rearden’s trade of Rearden Metal with Ken Danagger and send Rearden to jail for ten years of jail if Rearden won’t deliver the metal. Ferris thinks he has Rearden. He
Ncan’t believe that Rearden is as devoid of fear as he appears.
(434) Ferris was informed about the illegal trade by an individual in the copper business who received some value in exchange for the favor of the information. Value, favor, guilt and threat are the instruments of the trading amonst the looters. Rearden names what Ferris is doing as blackmail, although he notes that Ferris does not appear to be gloating over his victim’s sin as normal blackmailers would. Instead, Ferris wants to play a game where he and Rearden are accomplices. He makes his intentions known by telling Rearden all the great things he could get if he cooperates. “Want us to step on Orren Boyle for you? He’s given you an awful beating, want us to trim him down a little? It can be done. Or want us to keep Ken Danagger in line?”
(436) Ferris doesn’t
1 have a clue that Rearden is not caught. “We’ve waited a long time to get something on you. You honest men are such a problem and such a headache.” The purpose of laws, in Ferris’ mind, is for holding things over people’s heads. “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them…Just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on the guilt.”
Rearden listens without fear or guilt, as he was when he made the trade with Danagger, against a law which is completely unjust. He throws Ferris out of his office and proudly throws his feet onto his desk, feeling like a “young cr
usader.”
P438. Eddie Willers is speaking to his friend in the underground cafeteria. He relates that Rearden and Danagger have been indicted and will go on trial in a month. He says that Dagny doesn’t think that Danagger will be able to take the load. Dagny says that all of the vanishings affect the remaining capitalists by making them bear an even greater portion of the load. “As soon as all the weight of the moment shifts to the shoulders of some one man – he’s the one who vanishes, like a pillar slashed off.” The track laborer laughs because he can see that Dagny has things figured out. Eddie says that Dagny thinks there is a “destroyer” out in the world who is causing all this havoc. He tells the track laborer that Dagny has an appointment the next day to meet with Danagger and, hopefully, to convince him not to quit. Dagny has said that she wants to find the “destroyer” more than
any other man on earth, even the inventor of the motor. The track laborer asks what Dagny looks like while she is sleeping. Eddie says that she is exhausted but has “that guiltless purity of her face.”
P440. Dagny arrives at Danagger’s office at 3 pm and is told he will be right with her. Twelve minutes after the appointment was supposed to begin, it becomes clear that this tardiness is highly unusual for Danagger. His secretarty, who is normally impervious, is nervous and can’t understand Danagger’s behavior. Danagger becomes thirty minutes late and Dagny can hear voices behind the door. She learns that Danagger had an unscheduled visitor who arrived at 1 pm. Dagny thinks about breaking the door down, but does not because of “the power of a civilized order and of Ken Danagger’s right.”
(442) Dagny recalls that she had written Hugh Akston asking for information about his cigarette with the
p dollar symbol, but she had received her letter back with no forwarding address. Danagger’s secretary tells Dagny that the unscheduled caller had announced himself and “said that this was an appointment which Mr. Danagger had made with him forty years ago.” Strangly, Danagger is fifty-two and the caller, who was in his thirties, was not alive when Danagger was twelve years old.
(442) At 3:50 pm, the door opens. Dagny sees the back of the caller as he leaves through a private exit door. Danagger is sitting at his desk with a face of “hope, eargerness and guiltless serenity: the theme was deliverance.” Dagny thinks that everything is all right, but she is mistaken. Danagger wants to take a boat ride around New York. He announces that he is going to retire. He tells Dagny that there is nothing that she could have done to prevent his decision, even if she had co
me before the caller. Danagger is abandoning all of his mines and won’t tell her where he is going. Dagny asks him, “You, who loved your work…have you renounced the kind of life you loved?” Danagger responds, “No. I have just discovered how much I do love it.” Dagny thinks he is “deserting” and leaving the others to carry “a greater burden.” Danagger acts as if he has found the answer to many unanswered questions in his life. He makes only one request of Dagny. He wants her to tell Rearden that “he was the only man I ever loved.” Danagger is not leaving his business to anyone. If the government takes it, then he wants that exposed. He doesn’t want “to help the looters to pretend that private property still exists.”
(447) Danagger says that the caller did not give him a revel
Eation, but instead named the code by which Danagger has lived his life. Dagny notices a cigarette butt stamped with the dollar sign in the ashtray. Danagger tells Dagny that he won’t say ‘good-bye’ to her because she will be joining him soon.
P447. Rearden is in his office, thinking about the disappearance of Ken Danagger. He envies Danagger for having left, but is angry at the “destroyer.” Rearden feels safe inside of his mills, “as in a circle of fires drawn about him to ward off evil.” The name of his company could just as easily be “Rearden Life” as “Rearden Steel.” There are no more men remaining in the world whom Rearden respects. As he is about to go home, he sees Francisco sitting in his outer office.
(449) Francisco knows that Rearden is “desperately lonely” this evening. He asks Rearden what Danagger’s di
sappearance will do to him. Rearden replies, “I will just have to work a little harder.” Francisco wonders when Hank will break, “Every one of those girders has a limit to the load it can carry. What’s yours?” Rearden says he will keep going, but Francisco says that anyone can be stopped, as long as one knows that individual’s “motive power.” Francisco implies that the motive power of the doers of the world is their morality. And what is morality? Morality is a system of ideas of right and wrong conduct. In a business, Francisco says morality is the way everything which is a part of that business has been scrutinized as to whether or not it is right or wrong for that business’s purpose. Rearden had to have strict discipline in building his steel mill. “You had t
o act on your own judgement, you had to have the capacity to judge, the courage to stand on the verdict of your mind, and the purest, the most ruthless consecration to the rule of doing right, of doing the best, the utmost best possible to you.” Francisco wonders, however, how Rearden can have such a strict morality for his work, and yet in his personal life, he lives by another code, one in which he does not have the courage to stand behind his own opinions of right and wrong, one in which he allows others to break him down. Francisco asks Rearden why he makes steel and, furthermore, why he lives: “Why don’t you hold to the purpose of your life as clearly and rigidly as you hold to the purpose of your mills?” Francisco pushes Rearden’s thinking, “What do you wish to achieve
by giving your life to the making of steel?” Rearden initially answers, “In order to make money,” but Francisco points out that “There were many easier ways to make money.” Then Rearden gets to the core of why he makes steel, “…in order to exchange my best effort for the best effort of others.”
(452) Francisco points out that Rearden has not achieved that goal of exchanging best efforts. In fact, Rearden has been punished by putting forth his best efforts. Rearden Metal is good, but this has not made Rearden’s life any easier or better. Francisco asks him, “Then if you were punished, instead – what sort of code have you accepted?” Francisco asks Rearden for what sort of men did he make the rail of the John Galt Line. He wants to know if it was for
:
1) The doers with intelligence and integrity, like Ellis Wyatt;
2) The people with integrity but only moderate intelligence, like Eddie Willers;
3) The looters, “…who hold their wishing as an equivalent of your work and their need as a higher claim to reward than your effort…”
Rearden says he built Rearden Metal rail for the likes of Wyatt and Willers, not Boyle and Ferris. But Francisco says that just the opposite has occurred. An immoral person, according to Francisco, “…is any man who proclaims his right to a single penny of another man’s effort.” Francisco tells Rearden that he is a tool of evil because he has allowed himself to carry the looters: “You who won’t allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of metal – what have you allowed into your moral c
ode?” {Rearden has allowed those who see themselves as victims to apply moral pressure towards him. This pressure has acted to ensure his compliance, which he has given in the form of “the sanction of the victim.”}
(454) Francisco tells Rearden that he has been called all sorts of bad names by the looters, moochers, destroyers and victims. These names include “greedy …selfish …ruthless …parasite …exploiter …vulgar materialist …” Francisco says, “You knew what exacting morality was needed to produce a single metal nail, but you let them brand you as immoral…Their moral code is their weapon…I’m the first man who has given you what the whole world owes you and what you should have demanded of all men before you dealt with them: a moral sanction.” Everyone lives
by a moral code, whether they know it or not. The life one leads is an example of the code they have accepted. Francisco tells Rearden “You’re guilty of a great sin…The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt – and that is what you have been doing all your life. You have been paying blackmail, not for your vices, but for your virtues.” Rearden lived by the code of life, but allowed himself to be punished. Francisco says, “Man’s motive power is his moral code.” The right moral code builds things, grows things, constructs things. The right moral code is positive and supportive of everything that is good. All other codes do not build. Furthermore, an evil code is one that will destroy.
(455) The title of the book is explained when Francisco asks Rearden what he would tell Atlas, “…the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling,
his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders…” Rearden answers that he would tell Atlas “…To shrug.” A shrug is a symbol of doubt, disdain or indifference. Every man somewhere has a certain point, where he doubts the worthiness of a course of action. Atlas Shrugged is a book about what moral individuals might do in the face of others who carry an evil moral code: they shrug those evil moral codes off their backs; they do not allow others to make them feel guilt.
(456) Rearden is completely fixed on Francisco and his words. Just then, the mill has an emergency, a steel break-out, and Rearden and Francisco fly into action. They skillfully work together to plug a hole in the kettle of molten steel. Rearden feels “the exultant feeling of action, of his own capac
ity, of his body’s precision, of its response to his will.” Rearden also knows that he is seeing the real Francisco, a man of action, competence and victory. Francisco almost falls into the hole, which would have meant an instant death, but Rearden saves him. When they have finished plugging the hole, Francisco is somber because he realizes that Rearden is far from seeing the true nature of his faulty logic. Francisco realizes that Rearden is able to go on amidst all of the troubles in society because he loves his work and he loves the feeling of being able to take action.

Chapter IV – The Sanction Of The Victim

P461. Rearden is having Thanksgiving dinner with his wife, mother and brother. The furnishings are ornate and expensive. Rearden’s mother says they all should be thankful, especially in light of one of her old neighbors, who is now a street lady. “That could’ve been me,” she says, “but for the grace of God.” {
It is actually Hank Rearden who has kept her from becoming a “toothless old hag.”}
(462) Philip remarks that all the expensive furnishings are things that anyone could have because they only take money. To him, a moronic wooden shoe is what is really impressive about the setting. Hank’s mother notes Hank’s somber mood and Lillian tells her, “Henry is not in the mood for it…I’m afraid Thanksgiving is a holiday only for those who have a clear conscience.” Rearden is going on trial the next day, along with Ken Dannager, for the “crime” of having traded Rearden Metal outside of the quotas set by the government. Philip enjoys the fact that other people are calling Hank names. Hank has decided to defend himself simply by naming the exact nature of his crime, that he and Danagger partook in a fair exchange. If they are willing to put him in jail for that, then their society is completely unjust
g. Rearden’s mother, who has always been provided for by Hank, is incredulous that Hank says that he may not be able to fix this problem.
(463) Lillian tells Hank that he could get out of the trial by making a deal. Hank says he won’t bargain because he knows he’s right. Lillian calls Hank’s righteousness “conceit” and “vanity.” For her, right and wrong don’t exist. People take whatever they need in life, in whatever manner they can. No one person is better than any other, because everyone, even Hank, has moral flaws. Humanity is not and can not be perfect. She says to him, “I think you should abandon the illusion of your own perfection.”
(464) Hank understands that the looters like Lillian want more than just his money; they want his moral code. She has tried to punish him with shame, but his thinking has progressed. He is now without guilt, imper
vious to her insults and bored by her “droning.” He understands that a person can only be wounded by another’s insults if he lets that person impose their philosophy on him: “She wanted to force upon him the suffering of dishonor – but his own sense of honor was her only weapon of enforcement.” His virtue is her power: “…She held her pain as a gun aimed at him…” Hank knows that if he was a looter, she would have no claim on him. He is unsure whether she is acting on purpose. Nevertheless, he does believe that her vengeance is coming, not from despair, but from genuine enjoyment. However, he still can not declare her to be totally evil.
(467) Philip takes up the “wider, social aspect” of Hank’s trial. Unlike Lillian, Philip actually believes the looter socialistic philosophy. Businessmen today, he says, “…break the regulations which protect the common welfare of all – for the sake of their own
personal gain…They pursue a ruthless, grasping, grabbing, anti-social policy, based on nothing but plain, selfish greed.” Hank hears this and threatens to throw Philip on the street if he ever repeats those words or anything similar. Hank tells Philip that he is “an object of charity who’s exhausted his credit long ago.” Hank’s mistake was allowing Philip to voice his philosophy for so long. “You concluded that I was the safest person in the world for you to spit on, precisely because I held you by the throat.” Philip plays the victim, saying that he will get by if he gets thrown out, but he’s indirectly making an appeal to his mother to help him. He then tries to retract his statement: “I wasn’t speaking in any personal way. I was only discussing the general political picture from an abstract sociological viewpoint…” Rearden is repulsed. He wants to ask Philip, “Why did you let the wonderful fact of your own existence go by?”
(470) Rearden wonders why Lillian, Philip and his mother
are not responding. In the past, he had received “maliciously righteous reproaches” in exchange for everything he gave them. Tonight he has attacked Philip for being ungrateful and they are silent. The key is “the sanction of the victim.” {For looting to occur, the victims must give a sanction to the person who is looting them. Rearden took away their power when he freely admitted his “selfish” nature and would not tolerate Philip’s drivel. Rearden decides, in the middle of dinner, that he wants to go to New York and excuses himself. Lillian knows where he is going and she forbids him. However, he goes anyway.
P471. Driving in to New York, Hank reflects on a conversation he has had recently with the Wet Nurse. The Nurse had known about Rearden’s deal with Dannager and had not reported it to his superiors, even though such a piece of information would have been greatly profitably to both his pocketbook and his career. Rearden ask
ed the Wet Nurse why he didn’t report the trade and the Wet Nurse can only say that he didn’t want to. Earlier that Thanksgiving morning, Rearden had found the Wet Nurse, who had been trained as a metallurgist, at the mill, simply because he likes being there. {The Wet Nurse has been developing a capitalist morality, although it is unclear whether at his age he will be able to fully make the change.}
(472) Rearden reflects further on Taggart Transcontinental. Taggart’s rail has been wearing out because it has not been replaced with Rearden Metal, as was originally planned. The Board of Directors has been stingy in allowing any further capital improvements. Freight revenues are falling and train wrecks are increasing.
(473) Rearden finds Dagny and Eddie in Dagny’s office. Eddie tells Hank that he supports him in his trial, even though he has no influence. Hank tells Dagny that the shipment of rails which the Taggart Transcontinental board
had begrudgingly approved will actually be shipped in a higher quantity and in the form of Rearden Metal. Hank will make sure all the paperwork is confusing so that no one can trace the fact that the shipment is against the current laws. He asks Dagny for her word that she will never admit that she knew anything of this transaction. Dagny’s response is in her face: “…pain, admiration, understanding…” Dagny tells Hank that if he is convicted tomorrow, she will quit. Hank objectively says that he will be testing a hypothesis during the trial, a hypothesis which he will explain after the trial. Hank gets them a round of drinks and offers a toast, “You know, Dagny, Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their work.”
P475. On the day of the trial, the crowd is curious to see Hank Rearden, “the man who had invented Rearden Metal.” Although depicted by the press as “evil,” the populace is still fascinated by him, like their attraction to a “half-
naked female” in a movie. A couple of years ago the crowd would have jeered at Rearden for his wealth; now they are quiet. Oil and coal supplies are dwindling. Orren Boyle’s steel girders have been responsible for at least four construction deaths. If the crowd had known that capitalism was the pathway to their re-birth, they would have looked upon Rearden with hope. Instead, they look at him with “a faint question mark,” uncertain where a person like Rearden would lead them.
(476) Rearden is on trial for “the greedy crime of withholding from the public a load” of Rearden Metal. Ironically, he had been censured by the press some years earlier for selling th
is same metal on the open market (P172). Rearden does not offer a defense. He says that he won’t participate in the trial because he won’t give them the pretense of being just. “The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, that I have no rights…” The court argues the law is based upon “public good.” The court’s opinion is that because society needs Rearden Metal, the government is justified in forcing Rearden to sell Rearden Metal to whomever the government deems to need Rearden metal. Rearden repies, “There was a time when men believed that ‘the good’ was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man h
ad the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another.” Rearden can see that the state is trying to portray him as a criminal. He tells the court that the only difference between the act of a burglar and what the state is doing to him is that “the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act.” {The state wants Rearden to acknolwedge his guilt and selfishness.}
(478) The judge tries to imply that Rearden’s main interest is property, but to make himself more plausible, he is arguing that his interest is “some sort of principle.” Rearden tells the court that he is actually fighting for prinicple of property and, moreover, that he refuses to accept the idea that property is evil. The judge gives Rearden a chance to say that he has a social conscience and believes in the greater good, but Rearden espouses egoism {see Part III, Chapter VIII}: “I work for nothing but my own profit – which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it.
I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs…” Every man with whom he has ever dealt did so with “voluntary consent.” He will not and has not paid workers more than they are worth. He will not and has not sold his product or his services for less than their worth. “I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able…to do it well…to do it better than most people…I refuse to apologize for my ability…my success…my money.” {Underlining TMP.} Rearden tells the judge that he could argue that his code does more for the public good than theirs, but public good is not his motive and he doesn’t recognize the “public good” as a legitimate reason for taking what is his. If “public good” requires victims, then this society is no
thing more than a group of cannibals and, Rearden concludes, “The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!” The crowd breaks in applause.
(482) The judges try to let Rearden off by claiming that Dannager is the real culprit and that the trial has merely been a discussion. Rearden won’t comply. He tells the judges that his motives were selfish and profit-driven. The judges retire, deliberate briefly and return with a suspended verdict of a $5,000 fine. The crowd laughs. Rearden begins to understand what is happening: “He was seeing the enormity of the smallness of the enemy who was destroying the world.” {The tiniest element of negative thought is at the root of all destruction.} The crowd can see, for the moment, that the charity of the rich encourages others to not have to work for their living. “The guilt is ours, [Rearden] thought. If we who were the movers, the providers, the benefactors of mankind, were willing to let the brand of evil be stampe
d upon us and silently to bear punishment for our virtues – what sort of “good” did we expect to triumph in the world?” Rearden wonders why people allow what is the best within them to be defined as the worst within them. He wonders what “simple idea…had made mankind accept the doctrines that led it to self-destruction.”
P484. Responses to the trial are mixed. Dagny is energized. Lillian is matter-of-fact. The Wet Nurse is overjoyed, although he can’t exactly understand why. He asks Rearden what a moral premise is. Rearden tells him that “The thing that makes you sure is a moral premise.” The newspapers are quiet. The businessmen think Rearden made too many waves and that he should have found some sort of “middle ground.” Rearden responds, “A middle ground between you and your murderers?” Another group of businessmen, headed by Mr. Mowen, announce the endowment of “a playground for the children of the unemployed.” {Who’s interests should people serve? Who’s interests should take precedence in
y a person’s life? Who’s interests do take precedence in a person’s life?}
(485) Rearden is sitting in his apartment in the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. He wants to speak with Francisco, who has an apartment a few floors above him, but he is worried that speaking with Francisco, the well-known playboy, might not be good for him. Nevertheless, Rearden is drawn to Francisco and goes to his room. Upon arriving, Rearden finds Francisco intently working on a drawing which looks like a smelter, although Francisco will not show any details to Rearden. Francisco heard Rearden’s trial on the radio and tells Rearden that the speech was “
!about three generations too late.” Francisco questions whether Rearden is “fully and consistently” practicing what he said at the trial. {The reference is to Rearden’s continuing marriage to Lillian and his willingness to bear so many burdens in his work.} Rearden wants Francisco to continue the discussion they had the night of the explosion at the mill, but Francisco says “It’s too soon.” Francisco, who seems a bit nervous, is disturbed by the behavior of the businessmen who erected the playground. Moreover, he has been disturbed by the behavior of most businessmen for the past twelve years, since something un-revealed occurred.
(488) Rearden wants to talk about Francisco, who is the only man whom he can “trust, respect and admire.” He launches a conversation by saying, “You know,
I think that the only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or his actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in the victim.” Rearden tells Frnacisco again that he is wasting his life chasing women. Francisco tells Rearden to “check your premises.” He tells Hank that some people, those who despise themself, try to gain their self-esteem through sex. However, this “can’t be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man’s sense of his own value.” Francisco does not believe that love is blind. Instead, “a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. {Underlining TMP} Show me the woman he sleeps
with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selfishness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!” Francisco points out that messed up sex lives are generally accompanied by a mixed up moral philosophy. When a person somehow makes it their moral code to have existence as evil, then pain becomes virtue and pleasure becomes depravity. Rearden realizes that he has failed to uphold his moral code in his choice of Lillian, but he believes that he has been true in his work. Francisco agrees and elaborates: to desire something, one has to love that thing first. If you don’t love it first, then you end up either as an idealist, who hates the material, loves disconnected ideas an
d yet cannot feel his own emotions, or you end up as a materialist, who loves the material, hates any ponderous idea and feels only superficial emotions. Francisco tells how he actually “wanted to be known as a playboy.” He says it was “camouflage” for some purpose he cannot relate. He tells Hank all this because he is growing impatient in his current character. He relates how he still only loves one woman (which is Dagny, but neither of the men yet know it is the same woman). Hank knows that Francisco is not a looter and he decides to tell Francisco a secret: that he is going to continue producing Rearden Metal. Francisco tells Rearden that he is only going to be bearing that much of a bigger load. Rearden reveals that he is going to get his copper to make his metal from d’Anconia copper. Francisco is shocked and angered, especially because he had previously told Rearden not to deal with d’Anconia Copper (see P418). Francisco wants to make a phone call to Ragnar to tell
z him to call off his planned attack on the shipload of d’Anconia copper, but he decides not to. The goals and purpose of these two producers, Rearden and Francisco, have squarely found themselves in opposition. Francisco knows that by calling off the attack, he would hurt his cause and help Rearden’s. He tells Rearden, “I swear to you – by the woman I love – that I am your friend.” They part and Rearden learns later that his ship of copper has been torpedoed and sunk.

Chapter V – Account Overdrawn

P496. The winter is especially hard, and the weather, combined with the state of disrepair of business, causes an inordinate number of late shipments and quality problems throughout the economy.
o For the first time, Rearden Steel is late on an order.
o The government decides to send a shipment of coal to England instead of to Taggart Transcontinental.
o The new co
usin of Ken Dannager in charge of Dannager Coal has nothing but excuses to explain his company’s poor performance.
o The Quinn Ball Bearing Company goes out of business, triggering a series of other businesses to also fail.
o With the bad weather, three trains are stopped for six days on the Taggart Transcontinental route at Winston Colorado because the pass could not be cleared. The press says that no one can be blamed for the problems, even though in prior years similar storms had not caused such damage. One writer says, “Privations strengthen a people’s spirit…and forge the fine steel of social discipline. Sacrifice is the cement which unites human bricks into the great edifice of society.” Rand notes, through the character of Francisco, that “The nation which had once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor.”
The amusement industry does well for a while, but then even it gets shut down by the government because, according to another writer, “pleasure is not an essential of existence.”
o A professor tries to tell a student whose mother has died that the death is not certain because “reality is only an illusion.” {Rand is being ridiculous.}
o Evangalists say that the woes of society are occuring because man has relied upon science and intellect where faith and love are what really work.
o A load of steel goes to Germany instead of the Atlantic Southern railroad because of “need” as perceived by the government. The president of the railroad will not argue in public against the principle of sacrifice. The chief engineer of Atlantic Southern quits because the railroad has done nothing to fix their only bridge over the Mississippi. He writes a letter to a major newspaper about the problem, but his letter is not published. The bridge later collapses, except for thre
e spans made of Rearden Metal. Several people die in the collapse. With the Atlantic Southern bridge gone, the Taggart Bridge is left as the only link “left to hold the continent together.” Meanwhile, the shipment of steel headed for Germany is sunk by Ragnar, who spares the crew and does not take the cargo.
o In order to save power, the government requires that the top floors of the skyscrapers of the major cities be left without power.
o Hank Rearden finds himself illicitly trading for coal somewhere in Pennsylvania with men who mine ore from mines they don’t own. Both Rearden and these miners would’ve been “great industrialist{s}” in a prior era, but in the current environment they are “savages.”
P501. Taggart Transcontinental is having a board meeting in an impressive, although inadequately heated room. A man from Washington, Mr. Weatherby, is also in attendance. Weatherby does not have any stated power in Taggart Transcontinental, yet all th
e board memebers know his power to grant and give favors is great. The main issue facing the company is the bad state of the track on the main line. The only good track in their system is the track of the Rio Norte Line (also known as the John Galt Line). This track was made from Rearden Metal. The company wants to tear up this track, but it needs some sort of permission from Weatherby and, moreover, no one on the board has the guts to make this decision. Jim Taggart describes how businesses along the main line are going broke, causing Taggart Transcontinental’s financial position to become “desperate.” He says they need to raise its rates. Weatherby responds that he doesn’t want to talk about raising rates. Another board member tells Jim that he thought that Jim’s influence was greater. He is greeted by a silence because it is accepted practice not to discuss people’s “pull” openly with others. Weatherby tells the group that Mouch wants
a raise in wages for Taggart’s union workers and a cut in rates for the Taggart shippers.
(503) The board gets into the heart of their discussion, talking about power, influence, who’s in favor and who’s out of favor. Their discussion is a far cry from discussions of Return on Equity common at most board meetings. Weatherby tells the group that Mouch is fair and keeps the needs of the entire country in mind. This comment inspires terror in Jim because he knows that “public good” is a weapon Weatherby uses to do anything he wants. Everyone on the board must put on the facade that the “public welfare” comes before “personal wants.” Weatherby says that the public would want lower railroad rates. The hypocrisy is that Mouch must stay in office. This is his private interest and by claiming to serve the public interest, he serves his private interest. The fate of Taggart Transcontinental hangs with whether or not certain looters in Washington will support them. Weatherby wants Jim to support an increas
e in wage rates, going against the stand of the railroad Alliance, which has agreed not to raise union wages. Jim tells Weatherby he doesn’t know how he will make up for an increase in Taggart’s costs. Weatherby tells him to figure something out. Jim looks to Dagny. Finally, the Chairman directly asks Dagny how she will make the railroad remain profitable with a wage increase, to which she responds “I am unable to do it.” She had stated earlier in a report to the board that the situation is hopeless. She
?calmly tells the board that it is the prior policies which are responsible for Taggart Transcontinental’s current situation. The Chairman tries to smooth things over and tells the board: “We must all pull together as a team to carry our railroad through this desperate emergency.” A board member of some good suggests removing the restriction on car lengths. He is immediately shot down by Weatherby.
(508) The board wants to tell Dagny to simply deliver the profitability necessary to keep Taggart in business, but they know that that is not possible without a significant change and they also don’t want to take responsibility for tearing up the Rio Norte Line, even though it is no longer making money. Dagny refuses to be a part of their decision. She tells the board that she is only an employee and that she’s not sure
` if Taggart Transcontinental will be able to continue much longer, although she intends “to continue running trains so long as it is still possible to run them.” She stands at the window as the board somehow decides to close the John Galt Line. Dagny thinks about Nat Taggart and wonders if the load that he carried was different or the same from hers. Weatherby tells the Board that Taggart Transcontinental will need a permit if they are to close the John Galt Line. He smoothly states that if Taggart Transcontinental granted a union wage increase, the permit would go through, but if Taggart Transcontinental does not, then the permit will be denied and the government will require Taggart Transcontinental to repay the Taggart Bonds, originally issued to finance the construction of the John Galt Line. The interest on Taggart Bonds was previously put un
der moratorium and over half of the bonds have been bought by the government. Taggart and Weatherby make a trade: Taggart agrees to the increase wages and Weatherby agrees to allow the John Galt Line to be shut down in six weeks, on March 31st.
(511) Dagny walks from the meeting on autopilot. When things get especially difficult for her, she issues herself little assignments. She is suprised to see Francisco waiting for her in the lobby. Normally harsh, Francisco is now supportive. He knows that Dagny is unsure at this moment of the difference between right and wrong. He also knows that she is susceptible to evil influences. They go to a small restaurant to talk. He tells her that definites do exist and that definites are what gets things done. “Look around you…A city is the frozen shape of human courage – the courage of those men who thought for the first time of every bolt, rivet and power generator that went to make it. The courage to say, not ‘It seems to me,’ but ‘It is’ – and to stake one’
s life on one’s judgement. You’re not alone. Those men exist.” Dagny wonders if they really do exist because she can’t find them to work on her railroad.
(513) Dagny tells Francisco the story of Nat Taggart and his struggle t build a transcontinental railroad. He was fighting to build the bridge across the Mississippi against “steamboat concerns” and the voice of the public interest. His stockholders and workers abandoned him. His bank told him that if he agreed to ferrying his passengers across the
river, then he could get his loan. Taggart said no and proceeded to spend all night working alone on his uncompleted bridge, thinking up a plan to raise the money necessary to continue the bridge. Dagny tells Francisco that If Nat Taggart could make it through that night, then she can make it through her situation.
(514) Francisco tells Dagny that none of the Taggart board members can equal Nat Taggart’s or her effectiveness. Unfortunately, the men who make the world, the doers, have always lost it to the looters, the people like the Taggart board members. He asks her why has this happened – and he answers that the doers have allowed it, as Dagny has allowed it with the The John Galt Line. Her efforts built it and, ultimately, those same efforts were used to pay for social welfare. Laws had been enacted which taxed Colorado businesses because they were able to pay and support the other members of society who were in need (P332). This law had forced the Colorado businesses along The John Galt Line to g
o out of business. Now the John Galt Line is being used to keep the main line going. Dagny’s efforts have ultimately only paid for social welfare. Dagny does not see the correlation. {How should a society fight socialism? As any society gains wealth, the forces of socialism grow because the capitalistic elements, which made the society wealthy in the first place, compromise with those carrying socialistic views. It is easier to care for the poor or the weak when survival is not the society’s concern. However, th
fose who do the “caring” are rarely those who do the wealth-creating, and even when they are the same individual, the caring actions usually occur more from obligation than self-interest. I believe that capitalists should maintain a hard view. The newly wealthy Asian countries should look to the Western countries current difficulties regarding entitlements for a foreshadowing of possible future problems.}
(514) Francisco asks Dagny, “How much injustice are you willing to take?” She responds, “As much as I’m able to fight.” She says she will tear up the John Galt Line and not consider the surrounding situation. Francisco then asks, “What if it were the main line that you had to dismember?” Dagny doesn’t have a good answer. His question gets at the heart of why she works. With their difference unresolved, they make a toast to their forebears, Nat Tagga
rt and Sebastián d’Anconia. While they pursue different courses of philosophical action, both are convinced that their forebears would be proud of their actions.
(515) Dagny wonders why Francisco had come to her for the first time in twelve years. {He did it to carry her through one of her worst moments.} Francisco tells Dagny the story of Sebastián d’Anconia, who had toiled for fifteen years alone to provide a suitable home for his wife. Francisco is still in love with Dagny and waiting for her to see the pathway to a similar philosphical outlook. Dagny thinks his comments are a trap and she changes the subject to Hank Rearden, who once said that Francisco was “the only man he’d ever liked.” Now he has vowed to kill Francisco “on sight.” Francisco says that Rearden was warned and that he, Francisco, still holds Rearden in regard, along with one other unnamed man {who will turn out
to be John Galt}. Dagny sarcastically asks if he always hurts the men that mean a lot to him. Francisco doesn’t directly respond. Before leaving the restaurant, they notice, inscribed into their table, the words, “Who is John Galt?” Francisco tells Dagny he knows the answer: “John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains and he withdrew his fire – until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”
P517. It is March 31st and Dagny and Hank are in Marshville, Colorado, supposedly to buy equipment from the defunct businesses on the Rio Norte Line, but really to ride the last train. The business closings are like funerals, like life being snuffed out o
f existence. One week after the announcement of the closing of the John Galt Line, Ted Nielson of Nielson Motors had quit and vanished. Dagny walks through Marshville, formerly home to the electical appliance business of Roger Marsh, another capitalist who is gone. All of the good houses in the town are for sale while the cheap houses are still occupied. The only stores remaining are grocery stores and saloons. Many people are leaving Marshville because once the last train is gone, Marshville will no longer be connected to the rest of the world. It won’t be long thereafter that Marshville becomes like Starnesville, the town where Dagny and Hank found the motor.
(520) Dagny looks around the train station and sees people filled with panic, anger, guilt, drivel, bedlam and terror.
Their terror had the evasive quality of guilt: it was not the fear that comes from understanding, but from the refusal to understand.” Someone at the platform remarks, “What do they mean, no business! Look at that train! It’s full of passengers! There’s plenty of business! It’s just that there’s no profits for them – that’s why they’re letting you perish, those greedy parasites!” Another person says to Dagny, “It’s all right for you, you’ve got a good overcoat and a private car, but you won’t give us any trains, you and all the selfish-…” Rearden takes Dagny away and onto the train.
P521. Jim calls Lillian and asks if she would like to have lunch. They speak vaguely to each other, because speaking directly would give the othe
r an advantage and force the speaker to clearly understand who he is. When they meet, Jim doesn’t get to his point, which is his curiosity about how Hank is taking the closing of the Rio Norte Line. Jim has recently visited Weatherby and has been told that he could get big favors if he could keep Rearden in line. Jim doesn’t really like Lillian because she plays the looter’s game too openly. Although she sometimes feigns ignorance, at other times she states the truth of their actions far too blatantly. For example, she says, “You mean that the purpose of this very excellent luncheon was not a favor you wanted to do me, but a favor you wanted to get from me.” Jim tells Lillian that Hank’s performance at his trial was not an indication of Lillian delivering th
e goods. Lillian says that she failed and is trying to figure out what went wrong and make sure that she can control him in the future. Jim asks why Lillian is helping him: “What are you getting out of it?” She responds, “This lunch. Just seeing you here. Just knowing that you had to come to me.” Rand describes Jim’s thinking: “Even from within that unstated, unnamed, undefined muck which represented his code of values, he was able to realize which one of them was the more dependent on the other and the more contemptible.” Lillian is the more contemptible because she truly enjoys looting off of other people’s goodness. She is more dependent upon Jim because Jim represents a pathway towards utilizing the goodness which she loots from her husband.
(524) Lillian decides to set a trap for her husband. She has flowers sent to Hank aboard the Comet, but the florist calls and says that Hank was not listed as being aboard the Comet. She then calls Hank’s secretary, Miss Ives, and double checks
jthat he was aboard the Comet. Miss Ives confirms and Lillian realizes that Hank must be travelling under an assumed name and that he is not alone. “Her facial muscles went flowing slowly into a smile of satisfaction; this was an opportunity she had not expected.” It is an opportunity of destruction and looting.
P525. Lillian waits at the platform, scanning the crowd. She sees Hank emerge from the train alone and is shocked. Then she sees Dagny emerge from another car and she knows she is his mistress. Hank approaches Lillian and tersely asks why she came. Lillian is still stunned but she forces small talk. She speaks slowly so that Dagny will catch up with them and when she does, Lillian says, “I am so sorry, Miss Taggart…you must forgive me if I don’t know the appropriate formula of condolences for the occasion…You’re returning from what was, in e
ffect, the funeral of your child by my husband, aren’t you?” Dagny does not respond and walks on.
(527) Hank and Lillian return to his apartment at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. For Lillian, “…some uncustomary violence was raging within her.” She confirms that Dagny is his mistress and says that she will not allow him to continue his relationship with her. He won’t agree and reminds her that he told her before that she could demand anything but for him to give it up (P430). Lillian goes i
nto a blind rage: “But I have the right to demand it! I own your life! It’s my property. My property – by your own oath. You swore to serve my happiness. Not yours – mine! What have you done for me? You’ve given me nothing, you’ve sacrificed nothing, you’ve never been concerned with anything but yourself – your work, your mills, your talent, your mistress! What about me? I hold first claim! I’m presenting it for collection! You’re the account I own!” {Underlining TMP.}
(529) Hank watches her tantrum with objective in
terest. He sees “…the spectacle of pleas for pity delivered, in snarling hatred, as threads and as demands.” He tells her, “Whatever claim you may have on me…no human being can hold on another a claim demanding that he wipe himself out of existence.” Lillian slowly recovers from her rage and begins formulating a plan. Although Hank wants a divorce, he agrees to stand by his word. “By every standard of mine, you should have divorced me long ago. By every standard of mine, to maintain our marriage will be a vicious fraud. But my standards are not yours.” {Underlining TMP. He will later discover what a huge mistake it was to continue his marriage.} He tells her that he could get a divorce anytime he wants, but he will not. Lillian abuses Dagny, saying “I should have known that she was just a bitch who wanted you in the same way as any bitch would want you – because you are fully as expert in bed as you are at a desk, if I am a judge of such matters. But she would appreciate that better than I, s
ince she worships expertness of any kind and since she has probably been laid by every section hand on her railroad.” Lillian delivers these words and sees the look on her husband which tells her that he is “capable of killing.” Hank thinks back to the nasty comments he made to Dagny the morning after they first made love (P253). “…He saw, with the clarity of direct perception, in the shock of a single instant, the terrible ugliness of that which had once been his own belief.” Where Lillian is lifeless, Dagny is thankful to be alive. Where Lillian sees sex as dirty, Dagny looks at sex as an expression of all that you love and hold dear. Hank tells Lillian never to speak again of Dagny or risk getting beaten. Lillian decides to stay in the marriage, but tells Hank that she will degrade him wherever she can. “See whether you can flout all moral principles and get away with it!” Lillian leaves for their house outside the city and Hank feels
wonderful. He is free of guilt about what Lillian may think. Moreover, he realizes that nothing has to matter because he knows it is within his power to prevent others from making him feel guilty.

Chapter VI – Miracle Metal

P532. The country’s key politicians and a few businessmen are meeting in Washington. They are discussing a law they are proposing called Directive Number 10-289. Mouch asks, “But can we get away with it?” Lawson wants to talk about the law in terms of the public good, but everyone in the room knows they are really talking about power and so no one follows his lead. The President of the State, Mr. Thompson, is also in attendance. Thompson is a non-descript man who has risen to power because of chance. Jim Taggart tells the group that things are desperate
5 and that something radical must be done. Mouch knows that there’s an emergency, but pleads with the group that it’s not his fault and that he needs “wider powers” to control the situation. Weatherby tells the group that business failures have significantly risen in the past year. Ferris, one of the most fundamentally evil politicians, advises the group not to apologize for any of their actions, but instead to make sure that the citizens feel guilty. Lawson again tries to discuss the public good: “They refuse to recognize that production is not a private choice, but a public duty.” Thompson wants to make sure the press is on their side, more so than the capitalists. Ferris doesn’t worry about “the wise and the honest” because “they’re out of date.”
(534) The meeting participants can see the Washingto
n Monument in the background. Most don’t notice it, but Jim, who understands what it stands for, cannot look at it. When Lawson objects to some of Ferris’ comments, Mouch responds, “Keep still…Dr. Ferris is not talking theory, but practice.” {When the dominant theory is public good over individual interest, then the practice becomes shaping individual behavior through the use of guilt and coercion.} The union man, Fred Kinnan, wants a law established requiring more workers on every payroll. Jim Taggart objects, but says he’d trade
an extra worker law for a doubling of his freight rates. Orren Boyle objects to the freight increase. Taggart tells Boyle the standard socialist mantra, “You have to be prepared to make some sacrifices. The public needs railroads. Need comes first – above your profits.” Boyle responds, “What profits?…When did I ever make any profits? Nobody can accuse me of running a profit-making business.” Boyle then says he’ll take a freight rate increase if he can get a subsidy. Weatherby asks where the money will come from, to which Boyle says that they’ll have to find some people who still have money.
(535) Thompson interrupts the discourse to tell Mouch to go ahead with 10-289. Mouch says they’ll have “to declare a state of total emergency” and, furthermore, he’s not sure if they have the power to issue the directive. Thompson assures him it will be all right and leaves. Those remaining, except for Ferris, secretly want the directive to simply go into effect so that they don’t have to face the rea
lity of what they are doing. Nevertheless, Mouch will introduce and read the directive to the group. He says that the people of the country have demonstrated their inability to solve their own problems and, therefore, the government must do it for them. The plan, he says, is to get everyone to “stand still.”
(537) Wesley Mouch comes from a family which has been college educated, although their degrees have given them only spiritual value, not material. Mouch lost his uncle’s money through incompetence. His career has been filled with marginal products and marginal successes. He got promoted because his averageness was a threat to no one. Others in Washington think Mouch is powerful, but, actually, “Wesley Mouch was the zero at the meeting point of forces unleashed in destruction against one another.”
(538) Directive Number 10-289 contains the following points:
#1 No one will be allowed to change jobs without government
approval.
#2 All businesses will be required to stay open.
#3 All patents and trademarks will become property of the government.
#4 No new products shall be made or developed or patented.
#5 Every business will be required to produce the same amount every year.
#6 Every individual must spend the same amount every year.
#7 All wages and prices will be frozen.
#8 The Unification Board will rule on any other issue arising.
(539) Everyone in attendance, except for Ferris, feels sick. They all begin speaking angrily and maliciously about ‘them.’ The directive will be good for the people and bad from ‘them.’ Says Taggart, “Why should they have it, if we don’t?…If we are to perish, let’s make sure that we all perish together.” The people they are talking about, ‘them,’ are the producers, the people who add positive value to the country, whether by their actions or emotions. Lawson, who continues to believe his socialist theory, says, “There once was an Age of Reason, but we’ve progressed beyond
it. This is the Age of Love.” Jim is terrorized by where things are going. Ferris, who published Why Do You Think You Think? (see P339), calms the others with mystical words like “Genius is a superstition. If we do away with the genius, we’ll have a fairer distribution of ideas.”
(540) The participants begin discussing the implications of 10-289. Kinnan says he wants control of the Unification Board. Boyle objects. Kinnan reminds Boyle that under point #3 Boyle will have full use of Rearden Metal
. Kinnan tells the others that the name of the game is robbing each other. Taggart takes the high road and asks Kinnan what happened to the public good. Kinnan smartly asks how one knows what is the public good. Is it the quality of people in the country…defined by what? Is it the quantity of people under governance? Or is it something else? Rand’s point is that the best results are achieved when individuals are allowed to produce and be directly rewarded for their value. The alternative is to force people into producing and then to strip them of the value they created. Kinnan is the most honest of the looters: “…I’m not going to say that I’m working for the welfare o
f my public, because I know I’m not. I know that I’m delivering the poor bastards into slavery, and that’s all there is to it…Do you think that outside of your college-bred pansies there’s one village idiot whom you’re fooling? I’m a racketeer – but I know it and my boys know it, and they know that I’ll pay off. Not out of the kindness of my heart, either…so I’m playing the game as you’ve set it up and I’m going to play it for as long it lasts…”
(542) Taggart points out that all research and development labs will close under #4, although the State Science Institute will be allowed to stay open. Kinnan asks what will happen to all the scientists. Weatherby responds that there’s not enough of them to raise a squawk, so they
won’t get any welfare. Says Mouch, “There’s got to be some victims in times of national emergency. It can’t be helped.” Taggart goes on another whining tirade against ‘them.’ He wants no building or growth to occur. He wants nothing to get better. “Nobody will push us out of business or steal our markets or undersell us or make us obsolete…Should we sacrifice the contentment of the whole of mankind to the greed of a few non-conformists?…They’ve kept mankind running a wild race, with no breathing spell, no rest, no ease, no security.”
(544) Kinnan sarcastically says, “Well, this, I guess…is the anti-industrial revolution.” Ferris says, “Every expert has conceded long ago that a planned economy achieves the maximum of productive efficiency and that centralization leads to super-industrialization.” Boyle is convinced that it is socially beneficial for him to be able to produce Rearden Metal. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to manufacture that metal and why shouldn’t the people get it w
hen they need it? Just because of the private monopoly of one selfish individual?” Rand’s point is that people like Rearden will not do great things if they know they won’t be individually rewarded.
(545) Ferris knows that the worst threat to the country is losing the producers. He supports point #2 and doesn’t understand to where the industrialists are disappearing. Just like military deserters, Ferris thinks that economic deserters should also be shot.
(545) Lawson remarks that it looks like #3 and #4 mean that no new books will be allowed to be published. Ferris says that it is the truth, but that they shouldn’t use the word “censorship.” Mouch says, “There are many very worthy books that have never had a fair chance.” Lawson worries about losing the support of the intellectuals, but Kinnan tells him not to worry, “Your kind of intellectuals are the first to scream when it’s safe – and the first to shut their traps at the first sign of danger. Th
ey spend years spitting at the man who feeds them – and they lick the hand of the man who slaps their drooling faces.” Ferris agrees and speaks about his major concern: getting Hank Rearden to sign the gift certificate giving Rearden Metal to the government. Most industrialists will sign out of duty, guilt or peer pressure. Rearden, however, will take more work. Taggart hears this and smiles, because he knows that Lillian is going to get the goods on Hank. Ferris continues discussing the difficulty of coercing a man who does not feel guilt, “If we teach a man that it’s evil to look at spring flowers and he believes us and then does it – we’ll be able to do whatever we please with him. He won’t defend himself. He won’t feel he’s worth it. He won’t fight. But save us from the man who lives up to his own standards. Save us from the man of clean conscience. He’s the man who’ll beat us.” Taggart says that he could “deliver” Hank
Rearden, but before he makes that agreement, he bargains for a rate increase. Mouch tells Kinnan that under #7, the only thing that won’t be frozen will be taxes. It is determined that 10-289 will go into effect May 1st.
P549. Dagny awakes in her office the morning after 10-289 has gone into effect, over a week after the committee met and approved the directive. She does not yet know about 10-289. “No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind – because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life.” Her reports tell her that her railroad system is in disrepair. Jim had gotten approval for a rate increase a week earlier. Nevertheless, their tonnage is decreasing so quickly that the rate hike will not do much good. The ta
Bking up of the John Galt Line track has commenced and decisions are being made as to where the track will be used on the main line. With anger and disgust, she reads a report from an engineer requesting to replace track on a non-crucial route frequented by politicians rather than a worse section in the crucial mountainous sections of the main line at Winston, Colorado.
(551) She gets a call from Francisco. He asks her if she has read in the newspapers about “the moratorium on brains.” She gets a newspaper and reads Directive Number 10-289. Immediately, and with “full certainty,” Dagny walks into Jim’s office and quits. She tells him, “I won’t work as a slave or as a slave-driver.” Her life has been given to the pursuit of “her love of rectitude,” the quality of being correct in her judgement. She tells Eddie that
H she is going up into the mountains, but that she doesn’t want anyone except Hank to know where she is. Eddie understands. He says that he too would like to quit, but that he can’t. He doesn’t have a reason for not quitting. Instead, Eddie simply can’t let go of his paradigm. Dagny calls Hank to tell him what she has done. “Nobody came to get me, no destroyer, perhaps there never was any destroyer, after all.” She says she’ll be back in two weeks, but he convinces her to wait until he comes for her. As she leaves the Taggart Terminal, she feels no regret or remorse.
P554. The first man to quit at Rearden Steel because of 10-289 is the union man, Tom Colby. Although he had never led his men on any violent conflict with management, his men were the highest paid in the country. He will not lead his men into slaughter.
Colby asks Rearden, “Are you going to sign your brains over to them?” Rearden says no, he is not going to sign the gift certificate giving Rearden Metal to the government. Colby tells Rearden that he can now see who the real enemy is, “They’ve been telling us for years that it’s you against me, Mr. Rearden. But it isn’t. It’s Orren Boyle and Fred Kinnan against you and me.” Rand, through Colby, is saying that a person can be either a laborer or a part of management and still have the same philosophy. The real issue which ought to divide people is whether they are a producer or some type of destroyer.
(555) The Wet Nurse has never fully understood Rearden’s moral code, but supports it and tells Hank that he can do whatever he wants in the plant without fearing retribution. Rearden asks him why he wants to help and the Nurse replies, “Because I want, for once, to do something moral.” This is a twisted notion of morality: that an act of b
reaking the law will be doing something moral.
(556) Directive 10-289 has a devastating effect on the economy. At Rearden Metal, many people quit immediately. The company hires anyone it can, mostly long-unemployed workers. In order to comply with 10-289, the new workers are callied by the old workers’ names. Elsewhere, at least ten owners of businesses which bought Rearden Metal have “retired and vanished.” Lillian seems to have had a premonition about the issuance of the directive. She took an unexpected vacation to Florida in the middle of April, one-half month before the directive was issued.
(557) On the morning of May 15th, Rearden is visited, unannounced, by Dr. Ferris. At midnight that night, the government has required all the gift certificates to be signed. Ferris wants Rearden’s signature early in the day because they know that other industrialists will capitulate once they see that
Rearden has given in. Ferris tells Rearden that Rearden Metal will be renamed “Miracle Metal.” Rearden is amused at the name because his metal was anything but a miracle; it was the result of effort, intelligence and persistence. Ferris tells Rearden that the reason why Rearden will sign the gift certificate is because he, Ferris, has detailed knowledge of Rearden’s affair with Dagny. Ferris knows that exposure of the affair won’t hurt Rearden, but he tells Rearden that it will hurt Dagny.
(559) Rearden takes the situation as an opportunity to question and understand the true nature of his enemy. He tells Ferris that “…all your calculations rest on the fact that Miss Taggart is a virtuous woman, not the slut you’re going to call her.” Rearden now understands that a person must be virtuous for this type of blackmail to work. He thinks to himself for quite some time:
o “…if I had not made it my highest moral purpose to exercise
the best of my effort and the fullest capacity of my mind in order to support and expand my life, you would have found nothing to loot from me, nothing to support your own existence. It is not my sins that you’re using to injure me, but my virtues – my virtues by your own acknowledgement, since your own life depends on them, since you need them, since you do not seek to destroy my achievement but to seize it.”
o “We regarded productive ability as virtue – and we let the degree of his virtue be the measure of a man’s reward…But you need the products of a man’s ability – yet you proclaim that productive ability is a selfish evil and you turn the degree of a man’s productiveness into the measure of his loss. We lived by that which we held to be good and punished that which we held to be evil. You live by that which you denounce as evil and punish that which you know to be good.”
o “Such was the code that the world had accepted and such was the key to the code: that it hooked m
an’s love of existence to a circuit of torture, so that only the man who had nothing to offer would have nothing to fear, so that the virtues which made life possible and the values which gave it meaning became the agents of its destruction, so that one’s best became the tool of one’s agony, and man’s life on earth became impractical.” {Is Rand stretching here? Can a person love existence and not want to be productive? Can a person truly love life and be a complete slug, leech or looter…at the same time? Can you love life and be a complete couch potato? No. You can be alive and do nothing in your life, but Rand is right: Loving life means doing something positive or productive.}
o Rearden realizes his own failings, especially how he condemned Dagny after their first night together (P253) and how he viewed sex as depravity.
o He thinks about the first time he met Dagny. He had initially asked to speak with Jim Taggart, but then was told that “if he wished to get any sense or action out of
Taggart Transcontinental, he’d better speak to Jim’s sister.” He met her out in the field, where he witnessed a vision, which is Rand’s picture of someone who is in love with life: “Her posture had the lightness and unself-conscious precision of an arrogantly pure self-confidence. She was watching the work, her glance intent and purposeful, the glance of competence enjoying its own function…she seemed unaware of her body except as of a taut instrument ready to serve her purpose in any manner she wished.” Rearden was completely won over just by looking at her. He wanted her immediately and, when she looked at him and understood his look, he felt guilt instantly. He looked at and felt attracted to something beautiful and intelligent…and yet he had called it depravity. He decided that he must never let her know that his attraction is really a depravity. When they first spoke, “his manner was more harshly abrupt than it had ever been with any of his masculine customers.”
o Rearden viewed himself as
`guilty. “I damned the fact that my mind and body were a unit, and that my body responded to the values of the mind.” He didn’t find her attractive for her body; he liked her because of the complete being that she was. He can now see that “…I accepted their code…” He damned himself and not the moral code which had made him feel guilty. That code holds that the values of the mind, or spirit, can never be fully expressed in action and that the values of the body are shameful and must continually be repressed.
o On his relationship with Dagny, “…I hid my happiness as a shameful secret. I sho
uld have lived it openly, as of our right – or made her my wife, as in truth she was.”
o On his relationship with Lillian, “the most contemptible woman I know…I believed that one person owes a duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my duty to love a woman who gave me nothing.” He knows he is guilty of having accepted her standards; “I placed pity above my own conscience, and this is the core of my guilt.” (See P527.)
o The looters think of love and wealth as static gifts, but in truth they are both earned over time.
o Rearden looks at the gift certificate on his desk as representing the standard which he wrongfully accepted. “…I’ve sacrificed the noblest woman to the vilest.” He sees his signature as “the pun
0ishment for accepting as proper that hideous evil which is self-immolation.” “Self-immolation” means self-sacrifice. “When one acts on pity against injustice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer.” Rearden believes that someone must now pay. His choice is whether it should be the one who is guilty (himself) or the one who is innocent (Dagny). He cannot let “…her existence be turned into a hell he would have no way of sharing…” He decides to sign away Rearden Metal and “…remain faithful to the one commandment of my code which I have never broken: to be the man who pays his own way.”

Chapter VII – The Moratorium On Brains

P567. Eddie is speaking to the track laborer in the undergroun
d cafeteria. The best men have been vanishing from all industries. These men did not want to quit. {Force people to stay and they will leave by the force of their own will; allow people to leave and they will stay by the force of their own will.} The people who take the jobs of the producers who have vanished are basically loafers. These are the men who actually like the way things have become. Says Eddie, “…they get the jobs and they know that we can’t throw them out once they’re in, so they make it clear that they don’t in
tend to work for their pay and never did intend.” Eddie keeps waiting for Dagny to come back…in vain. Jim and others in Taggart Transcontinental have decided to hide the fact that Dagny has quit in order to try to maintain public confidence. Jim and others have been pressuring Eddie to tell where Dagny is, but he will not budge. A new person, Clifton Locey, has been put in Dagny’s position. Locey is a friend of Jim’s who “…works very hard at making sure that no decision can ever be pinned down on him, so that he won’t be blamed for anything…His purpose is not to operate a railroad, but to hold a job. He doesn’t want to run trains – he wants to please Jim.” Locey has tried to make things different from when Dagny was there, but he is only confident to change th
e things that don’t matter. Locey tells his people that “Nat Taggart…belongs to a dark past, to the age of selfish greed…” Eddie almost quit a week ago, but again he could not force himself to leave. The situation revolved around a request by a politician, Chick Morrison, who demanded a special train with absolution from all speed rules. He wanted to have a diesel for his train, but there was nothing available, except the one which was kept at the entrance to the eight-mile-long tunnel in Winston, Colorado. It was Dagny’s rule to always have the extra Diesel. Locey disregarded that rule and used the extra Diesel for Chick Morrison. This action caused the superintendent of the Colorado Division of Taggart Transcontinental to quit and Locey then gave the job to a friend of his and Wesley Mouch, Dave Mitchum. Eddie relates how people are wondering what forced Hank Rearden to sign the gift certificate. Eddie happily tells the story of
Orren Boyle’s new mill along the coast of Maine. On the day he was to make his first heat of Rearden Metal, his mill was destroyed by Ragnar. Finally, Eddie discloses to the track laborer the location of Dagny’s retreat in Woodstock. The track laborer tells Eddie that he will be taking a month off, as he has every summer for the past twelve years.
P571. Rearden is walking along an empty and dark rural road, from his plant to his apartment in Philadelphia. He no longer lives in his house which he had shared with Lillian, his mother and his brother Philip. Rearden told his attorney to get him a divorce at any cost and he gave his lawyer a blank check. Rearden feels nothing but emptiness. His “belief” in trade, his “respect” for his fellow man and his “desire” to hold on to property rights were all gone. He carries a gun with him. Rearden has made two promises to himself: first, he will not tell Dagny why he gave Rearden Metal away. Second, he will tell her
what he should have told her the first night they made love, that he loves her.
(572) A man approaches Rearden, a man described as “…not a bandit…not a beggar…efficiently trim…long, slender figure…gold-blond hair.” It is clear that this man is a producer. The man tells Hank that he is here to repay a debt to Hank, but can only give a token of the repayment at this moment. The man tells Rearden that he has collected money over a long period of time on behalf of Rearden and that the money has been collected from those who took money from Rearden by force. Rearden finds it humorous that the man “…had to stalk me at night, on a lonely road, in order, not to rob me, but to hand me a bar of gold…” The man replies, “When robbery is done in open daylight by sanction of the law, as it is done today, then any act of honor or restitution has to be hidden underground.” The man wants Hank to not use the gold for his business, which is beneficial to others besides Re
arden, but instead to either spend it on himself or save it. When the man reveals himself to be Ragnar Danneskjöld, Rearden drops the bar of gold. Ragnar goes on to describe his personal philosophy and why he has taken to using force. “There are only two modes of living left to us today: to be a looter who robs disarmed victims or to be a victim who works for the benefit of his own despoilers. I did not choose to be either.” The looters believe in dealing in force and Ragnar has decided to deal the same way, except that he does not carry the righteousness of the laws of the state behind his actions. Ragnar is “…working for the day when [he] won’t have to be a pirate any longer…the day when [Rearden will] be free to make a profit on Rearden Metal.”
(576) Rearden has a hard time accepting Ragnar’s actions. He doesn’t want to accept the activities of a criminal, but he also does not approve of those who have quit and vanished.
Ragnar is out to destroy the myth of Robin Hood, who is remembered for being “…a champion of need…” and a “…provider of the poor…”, despite the fact that Robin Hood originally “…fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed…” Robin Hood “…is the man who became the symbol the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does.” Ragnar is “…the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.” Part of Ragnar’s justification is that he has only taken from looter ships. He sells his cargoes to former productive members of society, now known as lawbreakers, who then pay him in gold. “…When robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not the protection, but the plunder of property – then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.” Rearden listens to Rag
nar and feels the pride of having earned his way through life; however, the fact that Ragnar’s violence is behind the bar of gold makes Rearden want to reject it.
(579) Ragnar lists all the things which the looters have taken from Rearden. He says that he can’t pay it all back, but he has made it his purpose to pay Rearden back his income taxes for the past twelve years. Ragnar hopes that through his actions and his associates, people “…might learn to hold, not death and taxes, but life and production as their two absolutes and as the base of their moral code.” Ragnar has other clients who have already received their money from him. Rearden’s money is waiting for him at the Mulligan Bank, located in a spot that Ragnar says Rearden will learn about shortly.
(580) Ragnar is aware that not everyone approves of his actions, “…But we all choose different ways to fight the same battle – and
this is mine.” Rearden asks if Ragnar is not really an altruist. No, says Ragnar, he is trying to give the world the jump start it will need when the time comes for rebuilding. Also, Ragnar is furthering his one true love: men of ability. Rearden can see that Ragnar, whom many think of as austere and beyond feeling, can actually feel very deeply. {Anyone can feel pleasure or terror, but a true depth of feeling comes through discipline and an understanding of one’s moral code.}
(581) Ragnar then tells Rearden that the reason he came was to let him know, “…in your most hopeless hour, that the day of deliverance is much closer than you think.” Ragnar tells how he blew up Orren Boyle’s attempt to make Rearden Metal at the plant in Maine and that no one else will make
/ Rearden Metal. Hank wants to rejoice and laugh at the audacity of Ragnar’s actions, but he knows that his laughter would make him Ragnar’s partner. Rearden decides not to accept the gold. He tells Ragnar that he’ll call the police if Ragnar approaches him again. Rearden admits that with no standards left, it’s hard to judge people. He concludes, “If this is your manner, I will let you go to hell in your own way, but I want no part of it.” Rearden says that he has “…no hope left…” but that he gets some solace in the notion that he has lived his life “by my own standards.”
(582) Just then, a police car with two officers approaches, asking Rearden if he has seen “a tall man with blond hair.” Rearden, aware of Ragnar standing relaxed next to him, tells the officers that he has not seen such a ma
un. As the policemen leave, one of them asks Rearden who the other man standing next to him is, to which Rearden replies, “my new bodyguard.” When the officers are gone, Rearden realizes that he had been holding his gun concealed in his pocket and trained on the policemen. Ragnar leaves and Rearden picks up the bar of gold.
P584. It is late on the night of May 27th. A politician named Kip Chalmers is riding in a private car aboard the Taggart Transcontinental train headed for San Francisco. Chalmers is a “cat-burglar” politician who is running for office and going to see his constituents for the first time. His travelling companions include: Lester Tuck, a sleezy lawyer and his campaign manager; Laura Bradford, his current mistress and the ex-mistress of Wesley Mouch; Gilbert Keith-Worthing, a British novelist who is famous for having said “Freedom is impossible.”
Gilbert looks out his window and says, “Mountains…It is a spectacle of this kind that makes one feel the insignificance of man.” Chalmers complains about the terrible ride of the railroad and wants to either fire someone or nationalize the railroads. Gilbert wonders why America hasn’t already nationalized the railroads, like England: “After all, it doesn’t make any difference to the poor whether their livelihood is at the mercy of an industrialist or of a bureaucrat.” It’s just after midnight and Chalmers is supposed to be in San Francisco sometime the next day for his rally. The next stop is Winston, Colorado, where the extra diesel engine used to be kept but is now being used for a political purpose (see P567). Suddenly, the train lurches to a stop. Chalmers gets out and discovers that a worn out rail has caused their diesel engine to go off the track. No one has been hurt
. The rail was supposed to be replaced, but Clifton Locey had cancelled the repair order. The diesel engine is irrecoverable and the train is now perched on the side of a mountain.
(589) The news of the derailment travels through the Taggart system, which is populated by many new workers because of all the defections. The news finally gets to the new superintendent of the Colorado Division, Dave Mitchum (see P567). Mitchum is a looter, complainer and whiner. He believes there is a conspiracy amongst the higher-ups and that seniority should be the sole measure of a worker’s value. Mitchum got this job because he is a friend of Mouch and was bounced from another railroad. When Jim Taggart traded his knowledge of Dagny’s affair for permission to raise Taggart’s freight rates, Mouch
A got Taggart to throw in a job for Mitchum as a part of the deal.
(590) At the main office in Winston, Mitchum is discussing the situation with three men, including Bill Brent. Someone asks, “…How [does management] expect us to move trains without engines?” The road foreman replies, “Miss Taggart didn’t…Mr. Locey does.” Their problem is that they don’t want to keep the train waiting all night, but the only engine they have to take the Comet through the eight-mile tunnel is coal-burning. Using a coal-burning engine would be tantamount to sending the train crew and the passengers to certain death, because of asphyxiation. A government Freight Special carrying explosives is coming through from the East in a couple hours, but they all know that any attempts to slow a government train will receive severe retribution.
The next Taggart train with a diesel engine is not coming for seven hours, from the West. Brent, who is clearly a producer, describes the rational plan: wait seven hours for the next Taggart train; take the Comet through with that train’s diesel; let the Comet then go on with the best coal-burning engine available. Mitchum is not happy because he knows that this solution will mean considerable delay and that he is going to be blamed.
(592) Two hours later, the Comet is pulled into the station in Winston. Chalmers finds out that the plan is for them to wait an additional five hours and he goes into a rage. The conductor says any other plan is not practical. Chalmers threatens the conductor and anyone else who will listen with their jobs if they don’t get the Comet through the tunnel immediately. “Years ago, in college, [Chalmers] had been taught that the only effective means to impel men to action was fear.” Chalmers sends a message t
o Jim Taggart in New York, demanding an engine and threatening unknown consequences. Taggart gets the message, calls Locey and chews him out. Locey, who has been out carousing and lies to cover this up, is apologetic and subservient. He rushes around his office appearing busy before sending a message to Dave Mitchum. His message is vague in certain spots and direct in others: “Give an engine to Mr. Chalmers at once. Send the Comet through safely and without unnecessary delay. If you are unable to perform your duties, I shall hold you responsible before the Unification Board.” Mitchum cannot abide by these instructions given that he does not have a diesel and that the lives of the passengers are important. After sending the message, Locey goes out again with his girlfriend and makes sure that no one can find him. Mitchum receives the order and understands what is happening: Locey has
made it clear that its every man for himself. Like playing hot potato, the question is not what will happen to the lives of the passengers, but who will get the blame for the situation.
(595) Mitchum tries to call other Taggart Divisions to get help, but finds that the people are either out or have quit. He finally reaches one man who won’t help him because he knows that he is likely to get framed by the situation. He reaches another engineer who clearly knows, with his judgement, the answer to the mechanical issue, but when he hears the political issue involved, he tells Mitchum to do exactly as he has been told. Mitchum considers hooking up Chalmer’s car to single coal-burning engine, but he realizes that Chalmers would see the danger and refuse. Finally, Mitchum issues two orders. The first is to the trainmaster to get a crew; the second is to the road foreman to get an engine.
(597) The road foreman is an honest and solid producer with a wife and two kids. He knows he will be sending three hu
ndred passengers to their deaths with a coal-burning engine; he also knows that the UB will rule against him if he defies his order and that this will mean the end of his family’s livelihood. “There had been a time when the self-interest of his employers had demanded that he exercise his utmost ability…Now, they did not want him to think, only to obey…He saw, in astonished horror, that the choice which he now had to make was between the lives of his children and the lives of the passengers on the Comet.” The road foreman carries out his orders.
(598) The trainmaster is forty-eight years old, unmarried and with no friends and no ties. He had a smart younger brother who he had raised. This brother had shown exceptional ability and promise as an inventor. On the evening of May 1st, the day that 10-289 was issued, his brother had committed suicide. The trainmaster had tried to get his brother’s story published in the paper, but the editor of the paper had sta
ted that such a story would “be bad for the country’s morale.” On that day, the trainmaster “…lost all concern for the life or death of any human being…” The trainmaster numbly summons two men to run the train through the tunnel.
(600) Dave Mitchum announces to Bill Brent and the two other railroaders that he’s going to go up to Fairmont to see if he can find another diesel. He tells Brent that if he doesn’t call within half an hour, then Brent should sign the order sending the train through the tunnel. Brent will not do it. Mitchum is enraged. Brent asks for the order in writing, but Mitchum will not comply. Brent understands that Mitchum doesn’t really need to go to Fairmont. He could simply make a phone call, but by leaving, Mitchum guarantees that after the train is sent through, the debate in front of the UB will simply be Mitchum’s word against Brent’s. “Brent knew that he could play the same game and pass the frame-up on to another victim, he knew that he had the brains to work it
out – except that he would rather be dead than do it.” Brent is a producing man who believes in paying his own way through life. “…He had never assumed an obligation unless he was certain that he could fulfill it.” Brent knew that “…man must live by his own rational perception of reality, that he cannot act against it or escape it or find a substitute for it – and that there is no other way for him to live.” For all these reasons, Bill Brent quits. Mitchum again becomes enraged, threatens the law an
|d the UB, but Brent will not stay. As Brent attempts to leave, Mitchum knocks Brent down with a single punch to his face. Brent dusts himself off and walks out.
(602) Mitchum finds a young boy to take Brent’s spot and then departs for Fairmont. When a half hour has passed, the boy, with serious trepidation, issues the order to send the train through the tunnel. The order goes to the station agent, who trembles, but nevertheless gives the orders to a conductor and an engineer. The conductor, who knows he’s sending the passengers (and potentially himself) to their deaths, says nothing and goes to the train; the engineer quits. Another engineer, who had brought the coal-burning engine into Winston, says the engineer that quit is just “chicken” and that he, Joe Scott, will drive the train through the tunnel. Joe Scott is drunk. He had been fired three months ago for safety
reasons, but had been reinstated because he was a friend of Fred Kinnan. The fireman on the train {later named as Luke Beal} is a man who is strong, but not smart. He knows something dangerous might happen, but he trusts the judgement of his superiors and does not make any waves. The conductor will think about warning the passengers, but will decide against it and jump off the train before it enters the tunnel.
{All the railroad employees at the station have cared at one time or another about the railroad and everything it represents. They have taken pride in their judgement. Now, however, the railroad only seems to want people to obey orders. Fear is the major tool the railroad uses to manage. In this defining scene, these virtuous men react in one of two ways: some will quit and vanish; others will numbly obey their orders.}
(604) The train starts moving out of the station
and Kip Chalmers remarks to his friends, “See?…Fear is the only practical means to deal with people.” Rand then paints a collage of the people who are on the train and will die. In Atlas Shrugged, it is not pure chance who lives and who dies. All the people on the train are looters, leeches, lemmings, moochers, moronics or destroyers of one kind or another. The people on board include:
o “…a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence…”
o “…a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion ‘for good cause’…”
o “…an elderly school-teacher who had spent her life…teaching [children] that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil…”
o “…a financier who had made a fortune by buying ‘frozen’ railroad bonds and getting his friends in Washington to ‘defreeze’ them…”
o “…a worker who believed that he had ‘a right’ to a job, whether his employer wanted him or
not…”
A woman, with two children and a husband working for the government enforcing its directives, who defended her husband’s job by saying, “I don’t care, it’s only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.”
o “…a businessman who acquired his business…with the help of a government loan under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill…” {This person being included is an example of Rand’s ruthless righteousness. She would most likely not have favored SBA loans to company’s unable to receive loans through conventional means.}

Chapter VIII – By Our Love

P608. On May 28th, Dagny is at her remote cabin outside of Woodstock. Her purpose in coming had been threefold: “…rest – learn to live without the railroad – get the pain out of the way…” Dagny finds it exceedingly difficult to not let her moral code enter into her thinking. The cabin is very rustic and she has found some contentment in fixing up the grounds and the house. “…She understo
od that what she needed was the motion to a purpose, no matter how small or in what form, the sense of an activity going step by step to some chosen end across a span of time.” While many people have said that life is all about circles, she concludes that for man it is more about straight lines: “It is not proper for man’s life to be a circle, she thought, or a string of circles, dropping off like zeros behind him – man’s life must be a straight line of motion from goal to farther goal, each leading to the next and to a single growing sum…”
(609) She visits the small and decaying town of Woodstock on several occasions. She can’t help but see opportunities for the town to develop itself and improve its standard of living. She sees how a shopkeeper could stop her vegetables from rotting, how the town could build a hydroelectric plant to give it electricity and an apple orchard, how a road could be rebuilt to stop it from being flooded. The problem is that the people are not motivat
ed to make their lives better.
(610) She refuses to listen to news on the radio from the city, and yet she still can’t get her mind off her work. She knows that she is right, that evil is what remains in society and that her greatest achievement has been lost to an evil power. Society’s problems stem from the apathy which is gripping almost every individual. Dagny thinks of Rearden and longs for him. She does not want him to pity her. She knows that their relationship must be based on mutual merit. She must figure out her purpose in life and she knows that he can not help her with that.
(612) Dagny wonders what to do about the Quentin Daniels project to rebuild the motor. She is supposed to send Daniels his monthly check by June 1st. “T
o kill [her project] seemed like an act, not of murder, but of suicide…” She feels better when she reminds herself that evil is temporary and that opportunity is permanent.
(613) Just then she hears a motor coming up the driveway. She thinks it is Rearden, but it turns out to be Francisco, who is in high spirits. To Dagny the scene seems like something from her childhood, or something which would have happened if not for Francisco’s actions during the last twelve years. He gives her a huge kiss, but she will proceed no further. Francisco thinks that Dagny is ready to quit. He tells her that the past doesn’t matter and that he can tell her everything now. He says that he would’ve come sooner, “…but I didn’t think y
ou were ready to quit.” Dagny is actually only close to quitting. She thinks that Francisco is amused about how twelve years they broke up and now she has lost everything else in her life.
(616) She tells him how she has almost wished for a destroyer to come for her. She knows that if she had stayed at Taggart Transcontinental, she would have been betraying Nat Taggart. Francisco tells her that their last night together (see P111) was the night when he gave up d’Anconia Copper. He tells her how he has, over the past twelve years, systematically destroyed his own company so that the looters would have nothing to take. In reality, Francisco was one of the first to quit, but he could not vanish
because he had to complete his task.
(618) Dagny still can’t figure out what to do. “It seems monstrously wrong to surrender the world to the looters, and monstrously wrong to live under their rule. I can neither give up nor go back.” She finds it ironic that she’s fixing the house in Woodstock and Francisco has been destroying his own company. She says, “If this is what we let it come to, then then it must have been our own guilt.” Francisco agrees, “The error was made centuries ago…by every man who fed the world and received no thanks in return…We produced the wealth of the world – but we let our enemies write its moral code…That was our guilt – that we were willing to pay. We kept mankind alive, yet we allowed men to despise us and to worship our destroyers. We allowed them to worship incompetence and brutality, the recipients and the dispensers of the unearned…They know you’ll bear a
nything in order to work and produce, because you know that achievement is man’s highest moral purpose, that he can’t exist without it, and your love of virtue is your love of life…They know it. You don’t.”
(620) Francisco continues, “…we who’ve been called ‘materialists’ by the killers of the human spirit, we’re the only ones who know how little value or meaning there is in material objects as such, because we’re the ones who create their value and meaning…Wherever you are, you will always be able to produce. But the looters…are in desperate, permanent, congential need and at the blind mercy of matter.” Dagny is on the verge of fully quitting and Francisco continues, “Leave them the carcass of that railroad…but don’t leave them your mind!…The fate of the world rests on that decision!” Just then a voice on the radio announces the greatest disaster in railroad history, the collapse of the Taggart Tunnel. The story has been relayed by Luke Beal, the fireman on the Comet a
nd sole survivor. The train was three miles into the eight mile tunnel when the smoke and fumes became so great that a passenger pulled the emergency brake. The coal engine could not be restarted. The passengers were suffocated. Beal ran towards the Western portal of the tunnel. As Beal approached the opening, he heard and was knocked down by the explosion of the Army Special freight train which had run into the stalled Comet from behind. The Army Special was carrying explosives and had not been warned that the Comet was ahead. Thus, it was running at full speed. Dagny hears the news and immediately runs to her car and back to Taggart Transcontinental.
P622. Jim Taggart is sitting at his desk, looking at his letter of resignation. He doesn’t want to commit to it and has never wanted to commit to anything, but somehow this letter seems right. He had received notice of the ac
cident at eight in the morning and was not in the office until noon. As he drove to work, he had heard a voice on the radio screaming for the nationalization of the railroads. The other key Taggart employees, including Clifton Locey, are all hiding or avoiding coming in to work. Jim had locked himself into his office and instructed his secretary to allow no one to disturb him. He has no idea what to do. Of the people he does not want to see, including his employees and his Directors, the group of which he is most afraid is the politicians, who truly control his business. He carries the “…sneaking little hope…” that all of Ta
ggart Transcontinental would be destroyed and that he would thus be freed of all responsibility. Taggart keeps hoping that he won’t have to identify exactly what is happening. He does no analysis of the accident. He only feels terror and hatred, which take the form of finding Dagny. He needs her so that he can loot her, blame her, feed off her. He finds Eddie in the office and demands to know her whereabouts. Jim is enraged. Eddie remains calm and acknowledges that by not disclosing he is aiding a deserter and breaking the law. He is even willing to document his “illegal” behavior to the Unification Board. It is here that Eddie reaches what will probably be his peak of strength in the book. He has reached the point at which he is certain of what is right.
Taggart continues his rage: “It’s her duty to come back! It’s her duty to work! What do we care whether she wants to work or not? We need her!”
.
(626) And then, all of a sudden, Dagny appears, although now looking distinctly more “aged” and ruthless. Everyone at Taggart Transcontinental is relieved except Eddie, who breaks down into tears. He has worshipped Dagny his entire life and he knows that her return means her continued torture. He
had hoped to be her protector, but now she will be tortured with him. Dagny does not acknowledge Jim’s presence; to her he is non-existent. However, Jim quickly approaches her in her office, formerly the office of Clifton Locey, and says, “I couldn’t help it!” Then he recovers and tells her, “It was your fault! You did it! You’re to blame for it! Because you left!” She ignores him. He returns to his office and quickly destroys his resignation. With her back, he will prosper.
(627) Dagny discovers all the men who have quit. She also finds that absolutely nothing has been done since the catastrophe occurred. Everyone has been afraid that if they took any responsibility, they would have to take the blame for the incident. Dagny begins issuing orders and dictating plans to Eddie. She re-routes the Comet; she builds track and buys railroads where necessary; she makes decisions and contingencies; she tells Eddie to break the “laws” wherever necessary. Because the Taggart Tunnel can
not be reclaimed, she decides to use an old route through the mountains which was used before the Tunnel was built. She tells Eddie, “We’re going back…” As the economy crumbles, old methods of doing things begin to resurface all across the country. Eddie tells her about the new phenomena on the railroad of “frozen trains,” entire trains abandoned in the middle of nowhere by crews who no longer want to live under Directive 10-289.
(630) Dagny receives a call from Mouch welcoming her back. He tells her that she will receive “special exceptions” from 10-289 wherever she needs them. Dagny tells Mouch she will only speak with Weatherby, because Mouch was the person who had once double-crossed Rearden on the Equalization of Opportunity Bill (see P224). Weatherby is excited by his new-found power, but Dagny tells him not to get overly excited about her being indebted to him: “…I’m not going to trade favors, I’m simply going to start breaki
ng your laws right now – and you can arrest me when you feel that you can afford to.”
(631) While Dagny was away, Clifton Locey had put humanitarian magazines, like “The New Social Conscience” and “Our Duty to the Underprivileged,” on the coffee table in Dagny’s office. As Dagny is dictating plans to Eddie, she knocks these magazines from the table with an “abrupt, explosive movement of sheer physical brutality…” and then goes on dictating. Later in the day she calls Hank to tell him she is back and that she is going to be wanting Rearden Metal or any other steel he can pour for her. He tells her about the Gift Certificate and says, “I’ve given in.” She says that she doesn’t blame him and that she has also given in. She says that she is go
Ding on because of her love of her work. That love is so great that the price that the looters are extracting from her does not matter.

Chapter IX – The Face Without Pain Or Fear Or Guilt

P633. Dagny goes back to her apartment, happy to be away from the office. Her current course is similar to a person who goes on living, even though they know that they will never be with their one true love. She thinks that her love of production and life will never be returned by any human being, like “unrequited love.”
(634) Francisco arrives at her apartment, but he is no longer
happy as he was earlier that day in the mountains. He is “…direct, tightly disciplined…” He can see that she is feeling no pain. He asks whether there is a chance that he can stop her from going back to work. Dagny has resigned herself to go down with the ship, believing “If Taggart Transcontinental is to perish with the looters, then so am I.” Francisco, however, believes there will be a future. Dagny says that they both once believed “…that the only sin on earth was to do things badly.” Now, she says that she “…can’t stand by and watch…” and she “…can’t accept submission.” “So long as there’s a railroad left to run, I’ll run it.”
Francisco asks, “In order to maintain the looter’s worl
d?”
She answers, “In order to maintain the last strip of mine.”
But Francisco counters with, “…But you would not run them if they were empty. Dagny, what is it you see when you think of a moving train?”
She responds, “The life of a man of ability who might have perished in that catastrophe, but will escape the next one, which I’ll prevent – a man who has an intransigent mind and an unlimited ambition, and is in love with his own life…”
Francisco realizes that convincing her is futile, so he concludes by telling her, “…You will stop on the day when you’ll discover that your work has been placed in the service, not of that man’s life, but of his destruction.”
(635) They both see that they are of the same cloth, but one of them is fundamentally wrong. Then Francisco draws the battle lines. He tells Dagny that he will be fighting her, more than her brother Jim or Wesley Mouch. “While you’ll struggle to save Taggart Transcontinental, I will be w
orking to destroy it.” Francisco still loves Dagny and his looks give it away. He tells her, “I wish I could spare you what you’re going to go through…But I can’t. Every one of us has to travel that road by his own steps. But it’s the same road.” Francisco tells her that the road leads to Atlantis, “the lost city that only the spirits of heroes” could enter. Dagny realizes that Francisco is a part of the group which is trying to destroy the world. Francisco won’t tell her what has happened to all those who have vanished, but he does pledge himself to her, “I’ll always wait for you, no matter what we do, either of us.”
(638) Just then, Rearden unlocks the door and enters Dagny’s apartment. He is enraged at the sight of Francisco, whom he believes to be a playboy seeking another conquest. Rearden is unaware of the closeness between Francisco and Dagny. Francisco says he had
no dishonorable intentions. Rearden vebally attacks Francisco, but Francisco remains calm and composed. Dagny tries unsuccessfully to get Rearden to stop. Francisco asks to leave. Rearden accuses him of cowardice. Francisco says he doesn’t wish to fight in front of Dagny. Rearden says that Francisco has taken everything of value from him, but that he will not allow him to take his most prized possession, Dagny.
(640) Hank continues his invective. He calls Francisco a hypocrite for making an oath that he was Hank’s friend “by the only woman” he ever loved. Rearden realizes and asks Rearden if this was Dagny. Francisco answers yes and Rearden slaps Francisco’s face. Francisco fights himself
< to not fight back and kill Rearden. Dagny watches Francisco’s self control and knows that she is “…witnessing Francisco d’Anconia’s greatest achievement…”, his victory over himself, his ability to personally suffer for something in which he so strongly believed. Dagny wants to tell Rearden that Francisco was her first love, but Francisco will not let her. Before leaving, he says to Rearden, “Within the extent of your knowledge…you are right.”
(641) Rearden immediately wishes he had not hit Francisco. Dagny feels pity for someone and wishes the event had not occurred. She tells Rearden what she would not tell him both moments earlier and one night months before (P267), that Francisco was her first love. By telling this, she no longer feels like a victim, but instead feels like proud, ready “…to be su
bjected to violence…”, because “…she was one of the contestants, willing to bear the responsibility of action.” Rearden is suffering immensely. He turns his emotions into an incredibly violent love with Dagny which was “…the act of his victory over his rival and of his surrender to him…” Dagny understands that the violence of his love is caused by his wish to assert his hold on her “…as the last of his property.” {I certainly don’t agree that a woman is man’s property.} Afterwards, “She felt a great sense of peace between them…” Hank, who still respects Francisco, knows that Francisco demonstrated supreme self-control.
(643) A letter is delivered to Dagny from Quentin Daniels. In the letter, he tells her that he is quitting because of Directive 10-289. He refu
|ses to become a “slave” and knows that “…if we succeed, they will be only too eager to expropriate the motor…I’m tired of helping those who despise me…May they be damned, I will see them all die of starvation, myself included, rather than forgive them for this or permit it!”
(645) Dagny immediately jumps onto the phone to try to reach Daniels. She would do anything and give anything, just to know that “…somewhere in the world there’s still a great brain at work on a great attempt…” She knows that “…If the motor is abandoned again, then there’s nothing but Starnesville ahead of us.” The motor represents progress for the world. After many rings, Daniels answers the phone. Dagny is relieved and says that she wants to come to see him. She says she will take all the risk, but that he must promise not to leave before she comes. Dagny knows that she is racing against
the destroyers, whoever they are, as she did with Dannager (see P440). She makes arrangements to immediately board the Comet, knowing it will take her five days to reach Utah. Dagny asks Rearden if he will join her in a week out in Colorado. Rearden agrees. He decides that now is not the right time to tell Dagny that he loves her.
P648. Eddie is at Dagny’s apartment, going over plans. He’s already started laying the rail to re-route the Comet. The hardest part has been finding good men to lead the men. They had tried to get Dan Conway to lay just five and a half miles of track. Conway used to be President of the Phoenix-Durango and once laid rail at the rate of five miles a day. However, Conway refused, even though he had quit his business. He had been broken by despair and had not been taken by the destroyer.
(649) For most of his life, Eddie has not clearly recognized that he is in love with Dagny.
Then he sees Hank Rearden’s night-gown hanging in her closet and he tries to fight back the acknowledgement of what he is feeling: He knows that she has a lover and he also knows that he is in love with her. He fights himself not to damn her.
(651) After Eddie has seen Dagny off to her train, he doesn’t want to go home. With no friends and no other place outside of his apartment and work, he goes to talk with his Taggart Terminal cafeteria friend. The worker has been hanging around waiting for Eddie. Eddie knows that he’s got to stop thinking about Dagny. He looks at the worker, with whom he enjoys speaking, and says, “Do you know what’s strange about your face? You look as if you’ve never known pain or fear or guilt.” {See chapter title.} Eddie tells the worker about Dagny’s efforts to rebuild the motor and how Daniels had decided to quit, saying that “…he won’t be made a martyr to people in exchange for giving them an inestimable benefit…” The worker has not known about Dagny having a perso
nal relationship and Eddie doesn’t really want to talk about it, because he’s upset at himself for damning her for the relationship: “The whole world is going to pieces, she’s still fighting to save it, and I – I sit here damning her for something I had no right to know.” Until this evening, he had never known anything about her private life. Eddie is fatalistic and reflects upon his life: “It was so great, to be alive, it was such a wonderful chance, I didn’t know that I loved it and that that was our l
ove, hers and mine and yours – but the world is perishing and we cannot stop it. Why are we destroying ourselves?” He finally tells the track laborer that Dagny is sleeping with Hank. The worker immediately rushes off.

Chapter X – The Sign Of The Dollar
P654. Dagny is somewhere on the plains, heading towards Colorado, riding in her private car attached to the Comet. Like Eddie, she feels fatalistic, like an object being pulled down a drain. She feels some unknown enemy bearing down upon her. Once upon a time, riding a railroad had been glorious, because she was certain that her logic was the driving force causing the train to arrive safely and on time. Now riding on a railroad carries an element of danger and she finds herself wishing
the train to reach its destination. In one month, her workers have changed from being happy and proud to being downcast and shameful. The workers think Dagny is to blame because she had quit earlier.
(655) Riding past small towns, Dagny used to enjoy seeing the lights, but now she senses less lights than before, symbolizing the decay of civilization and the end of progress. Dagny understands the work and intelligence it takes to make a country great enough so that a little child can have an ice-cream cone on a summer’s night for only a quarter. {The core of progress is the proper moral code: that merit is rewarded, that the individual and his property-rights are sacred and supreme, that individuals maintain their morality, that force is not allowed to compel individuals into action.}
(656) Dagny decides to have dinner in the main dining car so that she can associate with other living beings. In the vestibule of h
er car, an old tramp is being yelled at by the conductor. The tramp is about to be thrown off the train by the conductor, an act which would most likely kill the tramp. The conductor carries “some long-repressed anger that broke out upon the first object available…” Dagny notices that the tramp is indifferent to living or dying. He has given up on life. She also notices that the tramp has a laundered shirt collar and demonstrates his “sense of property” by holding tightly to his small bundle of possessions. These two factors cause Dagny to tell the conductor that the tramp will be her guest at dinner. The tramp is just over fifty years old. He had once been intelligent and honest, although it is clear that he has experienced “incredible bitterness.” A noble man, the tramp hopes that he’s not getting Dagny into trouble.
(658) The tramp is not headed for any particular destination, but he doesn’t want any pity and tells her “I guess
I just wanted to keep moving till I saw some place that looked like there might be a chance to find work there.” This is the tramp’s “…attempt to assume the responsibility of a purpose, rather than to throw the burden of his aimlessness upon her mercy…” The tramp says he’s looking for factory work in a place where there are less laws. Once upon a time he would’ve been an honest man, but the laws have made him a criminal. Logic tells the tramp that it won’t be any better wherever he’s going, but he knows that he’s got to do something. He says, “I know it would be a lot easier…[to]…sit under some hedge and wait to die…Only I think that it’s a sin to sit down and let your life go, without making a try for it.” Dagny hears this and thinks, “The tramp’s last sentence was one of the most profoundly moral statements she had ever heard.” {Life is good, worthy of cherishing, worthy of valuing, worthy of having purpose, worthy of having meaning.}
(659) As they sit down to dinner,
Dagny sees how all niceties like “starched napkins and tinkling ice cubes” are the result of society’s wealth and are not found so commonly when society is more concerned about mere subsistence. The noble tramp, who is very hungry, controls himself and does “not pounce upon the food.” He behaves in “the manner proper to men.” The tramp tells Dagny that he most recently worked at the Hammond Car Company for only two weeks before the owner quit. The plant only lasted three months more. Before Hammond, the tramp had had many short jobs, except for his first, where he worked for twenty years, most of them with pride. The company was The Twentieth Century Motor Company, the same company where Dagny and Hank found the motor. The tramp thinks that he might be partially responsible for the desperate state of things in society and he launches into his story of Twentieth Century.
(660) When Mr. Starnes died, his two sons and daughter took over. The children, or heirs, sold the workers
a new plan. Says the tramp, “We thought it was good. No, that’s not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need.” There were six thousand people in the company. No one objected to the plan, because the Starnes heirs made anyone who might object feel guilty for being “less than a human being” and for being opposed to the “noble ideal.” The new plan lasted for four years and was true evil. The harder anyone worked, the more was demanded of them. “It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars…because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning…his work didn’t belong to him, it belonged to ‘the family’…and the only claim he had on them was his ‘need’ – so he had to beg in public for his needs…”
(662) Productivity went down immediately. The company then had a vote where they determined that the best workers hadn’t de
livered. The people singled out as the best workers were required to work overtime without pay to help make up for the difference. “We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow.”
{I find it extremely unrealistic that society would collapse because one company developed a socialistic and unprofitable operating basis. On the other hand, the rapid destruction of the economy can be viewed as a literary tool. The destruction of our economy from socialistic influences is still occurring today.}
(663) In one instance, a bright young kid with “good” intentions had a great idea and gave it selflessly to the company. “But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work…he shut his mouth and his brain.” The tramp had heard “about the vicious competition of the profit system”, but he saw far more viciousness in the Starnes hei
rs’ system. “There’s no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best…”
Regardless of whether or not people worked, they still received what they “needed” to live. How much they actually received depended upon the relative needs of everyone in the “family,” “…whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies.” It was impossible to fairly prioritize people’s needs. A man wanted to send his son to college, but was told that the family had to put everyone through high school first. An older man wanted to buy records, but the family decided that it was more important for a little girl to have braces for her teeth. People were deprived of healthy amusements and turned to alcoholism. “When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there’s always ways to get the rotten ones.”
(664) Following the Starnes heirs’ moral code led honest people to refuse every pleasure because someone else might need
what they were consuming. On the other hand, those who were “shiftless and irresponsible had a field day of it…They found more ways of getting in ‘need’ than the rest of us could ever imagine – they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.” It was a perverted moral code, “…which punished those who observed it – for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got…Within one year under the new plan, there wasn’t an honest man left among us. That was the evil…that it turned decent people into bastards.”
(665) People began hating each other for what they took. “We didn’t want anyone to marry, we didn’t want any more dependents to feed.” An kind old lady slipped and broke her hip. She stayed one night in Starnesville and was to go to a larger hospital the next day. Everyone knew that her treatment would be expensive. Mysteriously, she died during that night. The tr
amp had carried a secret wish, as had many others, that she die before getting to the hospital.
(666) The Starnes heirs were not after money. They were after destruction. They wanted to feel powerful and prey upon others. Eric Starnes “spent his time hanging around among us, showing how chummy he was and democratic. He wanted to be loved, it seems. The way he went about it was to keep reminding us that he had given us the factory. We couldn’t stand him.” Gerald Starnes was the Director of Production. He kept his office filled with magazines touting the factory and its “noble plan…calling him a great social crusader.” Ivy Starnes was the Director of Distribution, the person who decided between people’s needs. She divided the factory’s income out based upon whomever grovelled the most in front of her. She was a picture of “pure evil…when she watched some man who’d talked back to her once and who’d just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance.” Ivy wanted t
o see other people destroyed.
(668) The tramp believes that the decision to adopt this philosophy was not made by mistake or chance. The real motive was the free lunch. “There wasn’t a man voting for it who didn’t think that under a setup of this kind he’d muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself…But while he was thinking that he’d get unearned benefits from the men above he forgot about the men below who’d get unearned benefits, too.” Most of the good workers of the factory left within the first week of the new plan. The good kept leaving “…till we had nothing left except the men of need, but none of the men of ability.” Other employers wouldn’t hire Twentieth Century workers after a while because they could quickly see their lousy atti
tudes. The quality of Twentieth Century products quickly declined. Gerald Starnes demanded “…that businessmen place orders with us, not because our motors were good, but because we needed the orders so badly.” Of course, any business buying from Twentieth Century because of Twentieth Century’s need was reducing the return they would give to their own shareholders.
(670) Twentieth Century failed after four years. Ivy Starnes “said that the plan had failed because the rest of the country had not accepted it, that a single community could not succeed in the midst of a selfish, greedy world…”
(670) The tramp explains why it is so eery for him to hear anyone say “Who is John Galt?” On the first evening after the new plan had passed, a full company meeting was held.
Gerald Starnes told the crowd, “Remember…for each of us belongs to all the others by the moral law which we all accept!” A young engineer had stood up and said, “I don’t…I will put an end to this , once and for all.” With that, the engineer began walking out of the meeting. Starnes yelled out to him, “How?” And the engineer replied, “I will stop the motor of the world.” When things started crumbling in the world, the people remaining at Twentieth Century began asking questions about the engineer, whose name was John Galt.
P672. Dagny awakens in her car on the train, thinking about the tramp’s story and planning on asking him some more questions. Although she has important Taggar
wt Transcontinental issues with which she must deal, Dagny feels “the desperate need to hurry” and get to Daniels. Her reason is that “the motor was needed, not to move trains, but to keep her moving.” {In this statement is Dagny’s fatal flaw. She believes that material objects are keeping her moving, when her true motive power is her moral code, her sense of right and wrong, as well as her ability to act.} She falls asleep and awakens when the train stops. It’s just after midnight and nothing seems particularly wrong on the train. She sees red lanterns placed along the track behind the train and this sign of intelligence makes her feel re-assured. She begins walking up the train from her car in the rear. She sees no porters or members of the train crew, although she does notice that all the other passengers are simply sitting in their cars. “No one had wanted to ask
n the first question.” Then she sees a man venturing out of his compartment and it turns out to be Owen Kellogg, the productive man to whom she had once offered a future in the railroad (P18). Dagny and Kellogg immediately start working together to deal with the situation. When they get to the cab, they find that the crew has quit. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Dagny yells out, “Good for them! They’re human beings!” Ironically, they find that the engineer of the train had been Pat Logan, the same man who had run the first train on the John Galt Line (P227).
(675) Dagny and Kellogg find that they are thirty miles from the nearest town, Bradshaw. They decide that their best chance of getting a crew for the train is to find one of the phones which are spaced every five miles along the track and call Bradshaw for a replacement crew. Meanwhile, the passengers ha
ve come out from their compartments and gathered around the engine. “By some special instinct of their own, the men who had sat waiting knew that someone had taken charge, someone had assumed the responsibility and it was now safe to show signs of life.” The passengers, who are looters, feed off of the producers’ willingness to take responsibility and leadership.
(676) Dagny states the facts to the passengers. “A woman shrieked suddenly, with the demanding petulance of hysteria, ‘What are we going to do?’” Rand paints an extremely unflatteringly sloppy and lazy portrait of this woman, as well as the other passengers. Dagny tells them who she is and her plan of leaving the train to look for a phone, but the passengers are only concerned about themselves. Kellogg volunteers to go with Dagny because of the danger of travelling alone at night. As the passengers learn that they will be safe, their bitterness grows. “The demanding resentment was breaking loose, in small, crackling puffs, like chestnuts
popping open in the dark oven of the minds who now felt certain that they were taken care of.”
(677) Dagny and Kellogg begin walking and meet the tramp who is descending from the train. His name is Jeff Allen and Dagny decides to put him in charge of the passengers. She tells him that he doesn’t really need any proof of his authority. “They’ll obey anybody who expects obedience.” Before leaving, “She remembered that money inside a man’s pocket had the power to turn into confidence inside his mind; she took a hundred-dollar bill from her bag and slipped it into his hand. ‘As advance on wages,’ she said.”
(678) Walking down the tracks, Dagny can’t believe that Nat Taggart ever had to work with or serve people like the passengers on that train. Kellogg believes th
at it was a different time. “…He represented a code of existence which…drove slavery out of the civilized world.” Dagny notices that Kellogg is calmer than he was before. She asks him what he has been doing and he is evasive. She asks if any offer could bring him back to work for Taggart Transcontinental and he says “no.” The only job he will take is as a laborer. She wants his mind, but his mind is “not on the market any longer.” She senses that he is one of those who are aligned with the destroyer. She asks why he helped her and he replies that he has someplace important to get to, “a month’s vacation with some friends.”
(680) They find a phone after two miles, but it’s dead. As they walk on for the next phone five miles ahead, they begin leaving sight
of the headlight of the train and they feel like they are leaving both the producer’s and the looter’s world. “She felt as if the two of them were the sole survivors of…of reality, she thought – two lonely figures fighting, not through a storm, but worse: through non-existence.” It occurs to Dagny, thinking about the five miles she must now walk, that a railroad or any other aspect of productive society “…hung on the connections in the minds of the men who knew that the existence of a wire, of a train, of a job, of themselves and their actions was an absolute not to be escaped. When such minds were gone, a two-thousand-ton train was left at the mercy of her legs.”
(683) Kellogg gives her a cigarette and she is about to take it when she notices that it h
as the sign of the dollar on it. She wants to know what it stands for and Kellogg answers her literally. He says that a person can view it either as a “mark of damnation” “denoting a crook, a grafter, a scoundrel” or it can stand “for achievement, for success, for ability, for man’s creative power.” He speaks about the greatness of the United States, “…the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man’s right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself.” She takes a cigarette and wants to buy the pack from him, but he says he will only sell it to her for “five cents…in gold.” However, Kellogg gives the pack to her anyways because he says she has “…earned them many times over…” {Rand believes that the gold standard is better than paper-based
money systems.}
(685) One mile before they reach the second phone, they notice a blazing light beacon ahead. They reach the second phone and the beacon is about a half mile away. They call Bradshaw, one of the stations along the track of the Kansas Western, a railroad whose track which the Comet is using. The dispatcher who answers is a complete incompetent. Even though he’s speaking with Dagny, the person in charge of Taggart Transcontinental, he refuses to take any action because the rules don’t tell him what to do. He doesn’t want to be blamed and he doesn’t want to take any responsibility. After trying to use reason, Dagny decides to threaten him. This approach works. She gives him orders to do get another crew or lose his job. He complies by sending someone to find a crew, although he makes sure that she will take responsibility if anything goes wrong. Waiting for the dispatcher to return, Dagny thinks about why she works. “Her work
? What was her work: to move on to the fullest, most exacting use of her mind…Why had she chosen to work? Was it in order to remain where she had started – night operator of Rockdale Station?” The motor and her urgent desire to see Daniels are closely related to why she works.
(687) The dispatcher returns to the line and Dagny finally gets a crew coming to drive the Comet on. Then she learns that the beacon ahead is for an airfield. Kellogg agrees to take responsibility for getting the Comet back into Taggart Transcontinental hands. Dagny wants him to know that she’s not deserting. She meets another slacker running the airfield, where there is only one usable plane there, a plane which has not been used for some time. The slacker lets her have the plane because she looks and talks important, she pays $15,000 as a deposit on the plane and she gives him $200 personally. She gets a map which includes a landing field at Afton, Utah, the place where Daniels has b
een living.
(690) She parts with Kellogg, gets in the plane and takes off. Dagny is glorified once behind the wheel, feeling “the discovery that her life was now in her own hands, that there was no necessity to argue, to explain, to teach, to plead, to fight – nothing but to see and think and act.” She heads towards Utah in a dangerous path across Colorado, but, humorously, “no mountains seemed dangerous compared to the dispatcher at Bradshaw.” As she flies over “the lights of a town,” Dagny feels stirrings of pride. “That which others claimed to feel at the sight of the stars…she had felt at the sight of electric bulbs lighting the streets of a town.” She flies past Wyatt’s Torch and, after a long and arduous flight, the morning comes and she lands at Afton, Utah. She learns that Daniels has just left with a man in an airplane that was taking off moments before she landed. Dagny is determined to not let them slip away. She is carried
fby “the single resolve to follow the stranger, whoever he was, wherever he took her, to follow and…she added nothing in her mind, but, unstated, what lay at the bottom of the emptiness was: and give her life, if she could take his first.” She gains on the other plane because Dagny refuses to see or acknowledge the danger of their flight over the mountains. They travel through and over the remotest parts of Colorado, where “no landing was possible within a radius of a hundred miles.” Then she notices that her fuel tank only has a half hour of gas left. The other plane slows as it reaches what looks like a shallow rocky valley. The plane begins spiralling downward. It looks like this plane has no place to go down, that it will run into the rock of the valley, but it keeps descending and then it vanishes.
(695) Dagny approaches the same spot and begin
s spiralling downwards. She watches both the bottom and the rock walls, not wanting to hit either. She can feel her mind fighting the voices of defeat. As she spirals downward, the bottom appears to be the same distance away. Suddenly, her motor dies and her plane goes out of control. “She tried to pull for a rise, but the ship was going down – and what she saw flying at her face was not the spread of mangled boulders, but the green grass of a field where no field had been before.” She continues spiralling, now out of control, but somewhere she gains a moment’s confidence: “In a moment’s consecration to her love – to her rebellious denial of disaster, to her love of life an
d of the matchless value that was herself – she felt the fiercely proud certainty that she would survive.” Then, just before impact, she says, “Oh hell! Who is John Galt?”