Posted on 05/09/2009 7:41:37 AM PDT by Publius
Synopsis
Eddie Willers sits down with the Anonymous Rail Worker in the Taggart corporate cafeteria and updates him.
The Anonymous Rail Worker says he’ll be gone for a month; he has taken a month off every summer for the past twelve years.
Hank Rearden walks from his mill down a dark road to Philadelphia where his new apartment is located. He is intercepted by a man of proud bearing who asks to speak with him. He is not there to rob Hank but to give him money that was taken from him by force – and it’s a bar of gold! If robbery is done in open daylight, then restitution must be done at night. The money has been held in trust for Hank for years, and the man took an oath to wait. But after seeing what had been done to Hank, he felt he needed to violate that oath and approach him now. It’s Ragnar Danneskjøld!
He tells Hank one can be a looter or a victim, but he chooses neither. He is merely complying with the system the looters have established. He’s a pirate working for the day when Hank can make a profit from Rearden Metal. Hank doesn’t see that day ever coming; he sees Ragnar as a criminal and prefers that Ragnar had chosen to disappear like the Colorado industrialists and Ken Danagger. Ragnar smiles, lighting up the night, and tells Hank he has a special mission of his own: to destroy Robin Hood. Robin stole from the rich to give to the poor; Ragnar is stealing from the thieving poor and giving back to the productive rich. Robin Hood is the symbol of need, not achievement. Ragnar is the cop who retrieves stolen property and returns it to its rightful owner; he deals in gold, deposited in a gold standard bank, held in the names of victims like Hank. Ragnar’s goal is to return the last twelve years of income taxes to Hank; he has sources in high places and knows just how much the government has taken. The gold is deposited in the Mulligan Bank, which is not in Chicago; Ragnar thinks that Hank will soon know its true location. The gold is intended to start the rebuilding of the world out of the ruins after the final collapse.
Ragnar confirms that the story about the destruction of Orren Boyle’s steel mill in Maine is true. No looter will be permitted to make Rearden Metal – ever.
Hank decides not to take the gold and threatens to call the police if Ragnar ever appears again. Hank says he will live by his own standards, but he is interrupted by the arrival of the police who are making sure Hank is safe; Ragnar backs into the woods. The police say they are looking for a man who is driving a beat up old car with a million dollar engine; Hank says he hasn’t seen him. The cop spots Ragnar, and Hank passes him off as his bodyguard; the police leave. Ragnar smiles, says he hopes to meet Hank again soon, and vanishes. Hank picks up the gold bar and walks on.
Kip Chalmers, a government bureaucrat running for the California legislature, sits with his campaign manager, mistress and a British novelist in a private car attached to the Comet as it goes through Colorado. Chalmers is unhappy with the condition of the track and decides it’s time to campaign for the nationalization of the railroads. He is due in San Francisco the next day for a rally, and his train is now six hours late. Everything comes to a screeching halt as a split rail causes a derailment; the engine is flat on its side. Chalmers approaches hysteria as he encounters a train crew that is doing its job but not fast enough to get him to San Francisco on time.
At the Winston station, the station superintendent, who had been a drifter only a few days before, gets word of the problem and passes the buck to the night supervisor at Silver Springs, who passes the buck to his boss. Division manager Dave Mitchum is the brother-in-law of Claude Slagenhop and owes his job to a bit of blackmail between Jim Taggart and Wesley Mouch involving Mouch’s sister. Clifton Locey had moved Mitchum into his present position at Silver Springs when the former division head quit over the issue of Chick Morrison’s train getting the reserve locomotive. Mitchum is an old railroad hand who blames a conspiracy of the Big Boys for his many career failures, and once again he is at a loss as to what actions to take in this emergency.
Bill Brent, the chief dispatcher, says they aren’t going to send a coal burning steam locomotive into a tunnel built for diesels. They don’t dare delay the Army munitions train to use its diesel to haul the Comet. Nobody wants to take responsibility and make a decision with Locey and the Unification Board watching. Brent says they need to take the diesel from an eastbound freight, which is on its way, after it exits the tunnel, and use that diesel to move the Comet through the tunnel. Then they can use a coal burner to get the Comet to the West Coast; it will be eighteen hours late. Everyone knows that blame is going to be delegated from New York; Brent asks rhetorically, “Who is John Galt?”
When the Comet reaches Winston, hauled by a switching engine, and Chalmers gets the bad news, he goes ballistic. The conductor takes Chalmers to the station, where the bureaucrat orders the station supervisor and call boy to get his train through the tunnel – or else. They explain that Mitchum has told them to hold the train until morning, and Chalmers orders them to send a telegram to Jim Taggart himself. In New York, Jim passes the buck to Clifton Locey, who orders Mitchum to send the Comet through the tunnel “safely” with whatever motive power is available. Mitchum knows he is being framed for the Unification Board. He contacts Omaha to find that the regional boss has disappeared. The Iowa-Minnesota regional boss doesn’t want to hear about it, lest he become involved in the rapidly expanding debacle, and the chief engineer of the Central Region tells him to follow orders. Mitchum types up the train orders, and every employee down the line who executes them knows that the orders are wrong, but if the Unification Board rules against them, they and their families will starve to death.
Mitchum tells Brent he is taking a track motor up the line to Fairmount, where he thinks there may be a diesel engine available. It is clear to Brent that Mitchum is trying to make himself scarce. Mitchum tells Brent to wait thirty minutes and then send the Comet through the tunnel with a coal burning steam locomotive. Brent refuses, demanding a written order, which Mitchum won’t provide. Brent realizes Mitchum is framing him for the Unification Board, so he quits. Mitchum screams that he will bring the law down on him. Brent demands that Mitchum repeat his train order in front of witnesses, and Mitchum assaults him. Brent leaves, and Mitchum gives his orders to the call boy, who executes them after major misgivings.
At Winston, the engineer of the coal burner refuses to drive the train and vanishes into the night. The station agent hands the job to a drunk employee who is a friend of Fred Kinnan and who has already survived a bout with the Unification Board. As the train departs with Chalmers’ car in the consist, the conductor slips off the train and disappears. By amazing coincidence, the passengers in the first class section of the Comet include a professor of sociology who teaches collectivism, a journalist supporting the use of compulsion because his feelings dictate, a schoolteacher who has corrupted the minds of innocents, a newspaper publisher who believes in fascism, and a businessman who received his big break from the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. This is just a short sample of the long list of miscreants Rand lists as passengers on this Train of Fools. As the train enters the tunnel, the last living vision of its passengers is of Wyatt’s Torch.
Railroad Technology
Taggart Transcontinental’s tunnel is based on the real life Moffat Tunnel, opened in 1926, and built by the Denver and Rio Grande. Thanks to multiple mergers, it is owned today by the Union Pacific.
A track motor is a powered handcar, now replaced by the ubiquitous high railer, which is a truck or SUV fitted with railroad wheels. Today, even large trucks, such as vacuum trucks that clean rights-of-way and culverts, carry high railer technology, and railroads designate them as trains on their dispatching systems.
Telegraphers, local dispatchers and call boys disappeared with the addition of radio to the railroads’ arsenal in the Fifties. Today, data telemetry and the Internet permit railroads to have up-to-the-minute information, which is why railroads utilize single location dispatching.
Discussion Topics
Mick, I always enjoy reading your posts.
The only other alternative I can think of for a “restart” is from Asimov’s Foundation where they shorten an oncoming dark age from 30k years to a few thousand (I forget the actual #). They do this by enscribing all knowledge in a giant encyclopedia, as well as by seeding an alternate civilization on the other side of the galaxy. This other civilization acts as a capsule to safeguard all human knowledge.
The cause of the dark ages isn’t Randian looting persay (but I should re-read it to be sure) but is tied to corruption and an bureaucracy imploding under its own weight.
Interesting observation about the randian looters not being the direct cause of the collapse in Asimov's book. I've read a little Asimov’s Sci Fi and his Annotated Paradise Lost. Prolific writer. Smart guy. But I don't know the book you reference
But if we don't go crazy and actually physically destroy the accumulated capital of our civilization I don't think we need a Asimov type capsule containing all our knowledge to restart our society.
Today I just don't see the level of decadence and hopelessness present in the America of Atlas Shrugged. As I've said before I know plenty of men and women as tough and smart as our ancestors...but crippled by a monstrous dead hand of corruption and bureaucracy ( as you put it from Asimov's book )
And the poison the seeps into every crevice of our culture is the Fiat Money. I know I am starting to sound like a one tune band, but I believe this. All I know is that the immorality of having men create our money out of thin air, at their will, has given the national government such immense power over this society that nothing, not laws, not new leaders, can give us back our independence from their tyranny. We must destroy this beast. Or one by one every State in the Union will fall into insolvency. And the final pin to fall will be the Federal Gov. itself.
And I am afraid to say that you in California seem to be destined to be the first to reap the whirlwind. Kind of like a trial run through the Hurricane. Looks like you will get to try out some ideas before the rest of us after the vote on Tuesday for The Day After The Collapse. Good luck, FRiend.
Yeah I know what you mean about the Fiat Money. The Anconia speech about how money is really a valuation of man’s productivity really hit it home for me. If we could actually find an alternate currency that only us producers use amongst ourselves it would be a way to avoid this poison you speak of.
Now I finally understand why there are such strict laws about not allowing other legal tender in the U.S. And also why FDR confiscated everyone’s gold in the 1930s. Once the government controls money, they control how a man can measure his own worth. How scary.
Yeah thanks for the good wishes about being in CA. We’ll need it... The one good thing about it is that maybe finally the libs here will get “mugged” by their own stupid policies and finally wisen up.
Ah, but stealing is not always stealing. The enemy in Robin Hood was the government. It used its power to take what it did not deserve. When the government is the thief, there is no redress. One can either throw up one’s hands, or take back what was stolen in the first place. Robin of Loxley was a landowner whose lands were stolen by the Sheriff, with the monarch’s approval. Robin used similarly disenfranchised men as his troops. I call it justice.
Method one is to use robotics and computer controlled systems to maximize efficiency.
Method two is to manufacture a simpler product. This would not sell, or be allowed to be sold, in the first world. But if the first world went to hell, you could build a Model T with the technology that existed at the beginning of the 20th century. Given the things we've learned since then, you could actually build a very nice Model T, which would be safer and more reliable than the original. The cost of this plant wouldn't be prohibitive, especially if competition was limited.
What's the capital? I doubt it would be gold. Gold has a value only in societies that can afford it. Food and shelter would be the most obvious barter commodities, but I expect a system of money would spring up on it's own. The system of credits and debits to granaries goes back to Mesopotamia, which also began the use of coins and fixed the value of precious metals. It is in the nature of human beings to crave value. Something would become the currency of the realm.
I understand what you're saying and if I were to sit on a jury at Robin Hoods trial, I would invoke jury nullification and not convict him. That is one of the reasons that we have trial by jury here. It's not saying that he wasn't stealing, it is nullifying the law against stealing because of extenuating circumstances in a particular instance.
Justice, well yes, but partial at best. Complete justice would have restored to him his land, wealth and reputation.
You wouldn’t be on that jury. The trial would be arranged by the same people who stole the land. There wouldn’t be any justice through the courts because they were controlled by thieves.
That’s what I took away from Robin Hood.
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This week's events in Congress brought this scene to mind once again, and todays push through on the vote...well...which miscreants are the republican elite?
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