Atlas Shrugged – Day 022 – pp. 214-223
The Equalization of Opportunity Act, as I recall, stipulated that businessmen could not own more than one business. It was designed so that others could have a chance at some success. Hank, who owns pretty much his whole line of production from the ore mines to the steel factory is facing some serious trouble.
As usual, he’s working past midnight. And a first glimpse of human weakness.
“He slumped down, halfway still holding onto some shred of resistance, and sat, his chest pressed to the edge of the desk to stop him, his head hanging down, as if the only achievement still possible to him was not to let his head drop down on the desk.”
In fact, what frightens him the most facing this challenge, is his inability to act. Action is a big deal for Rand apparently. Francisco was described as driven by pruposeful action. Dagny is always taking action. Action is a virtue.
No matter what he was facing, he always took refuge in the notion that he could take some kind of action.
“Now he was contemplating, impersonally and for the first time, the real heart of terror” being delivered to destruction with one’s hands tied behind ones’s back”
He thinks about how he has been the rock and source of hope for the likes of Gwen (his secretary) and the Mr. Wards of the world. But who, in this hour, would be his source of hope?
His mind shifted to Francisco d’Anconia. (Believe it or not . . . Apparently something somewehre in Hanks mind or subconscious understands what Francisco is all about.)
And now a flashback to his early days in the mines. The day he bought the steel mill. The day he…
“…thought that a bridge could be made to carry incredible loads on just a few bars of metal. If one combined a truss with an arch, one built diagonal bracing with the top members curved to -”
He stopped and stood still. He had not thought of combining a truss with an arch, that day.
A light has gone on and he has something to take action on. Designing yet another new bridge.
At once he’s on the phone with Dagny.
And chapter . . . Chapter VIII — The John Galt Line
Eddie Willers is back in the cafeteria. Apparently he hasn’t had the nerve to eat there since his “promotion.” He’s talking to the silent guy who he sits with and gives us an exposition of how things are developing.
Apparently quite well. “She’s winning!” he announces.
Against all odds, Dagny is kicking ass and taking names. She’s become Eddie’s rock and source of hope as he confides to his dinner partner.
“I wouln’t be afraid if I knew of what, I could do something about it. But this . . . “
Eddie also realizes the virtue of action. He’s just confused as to what action needs to be taken in the situation. But once more for the Randian theme — Action Trumps Fear.
Now we shift scenes to the John Galt Offices.
“Her new headquarters were two rooms on the ground floor of a half collapsed structure. The structure still stood, but its upper stories were boarded off as unsafe for occupancy. Such tenants as it sheltered were half-bankrupt, existing, as it did, on the inertia of the momentum of the past.”
And now as she’s sitting there working past midnight — before catching a 3am flight back to Colorado — She sees a figure appearing to look into her office window. Then disappears.
Shift scenes to Hank Rearden signing over the deed of Rearden Ore to Paul Larkin. A sticky meeting, Paul is signing the ownership papers for one of Hanks critical properties via the EoO Act.
“Two thirds of the sum [for the ore mines] was money which Larkin had obtained as a loan from the government; the new law made provisions for such loans ‘in order to give a fair opportunity to the new owners who have never had a chance.’ Two thrids of the rest was a loan he himself had granted to Larkin, a mortgage he had accepted on his own mines. . . And the governmetn money he thought suddenly, the money now given to him as payment for his property, where had that come from? Whose work had provided it?”
Despite the situation, Paul wants to make Hank understand that he’ll always be taken care of.
“You know that you can count on me.”
“I don’t know it. I hope I can.”
“But I’ve given you my word.”
“I’ve never been at the mercy of anyone’s word before.”
There you have it. Your word is shit unless it’s backed by prior good acts.
As Larkin rises to go, an image of the past flashes through his mind and almost instantly he is taken by a transformation. . .