Posted on 01/17/2009 11:27:40 AM PST by Publius
Synopsis
“Who is John Galt?” The words come from the mouth of a bum to Eddie Willers, as he walks down the streets of New York. Willers notes the un-maintained spire of a building, whose gold leaf has pealed off and never been fixed. It’s September 2.
Eddie enters the office of Jim Taggart, president of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad (“From ocean to ocean!”) to inform him that there has been another wreck on the Rio Norte Line. The track is shot, and people are giving up on using the line. Jim says that eventually there will be new track. “It’s a...temporary national condition.” Eddie points out that Orren Boyle of Associated Steel has failed to deliver rail for the past thirteen months. Jim forbids Eddie to approach Rearden Steel. The Phoenix-Durango Railroad is eating Taggart’s lunch, and Taggart is failing to serve Wyatt Oil, which has brought the Colorado oil fields back to life. Jim is furious that all Wyatt cares about is money and that his oil has “dislocated the economy of the entire country...How can we have any security or plan anything if everything changes all the time?”
As Eddie leaves Jim’s office, he notes that Pop Harper’s typewriter is broken and has not been fixed. Pop won’t requisition a new one because they’re substandard, and he recites a litany of bankruptcies and mechanical failures in New York. Pop doesn’t care any longer.
We first meet Dagny Taggart in the coach section of the Taggart Comet, not the sleeper section. (The description of Dagny no doubt matches what Ayn Rand wanted to look like; it’s the description of a movie star.) Dagny hears a brakeman whistling a tune that she recognizes immediately as something by Richard Halley, but a piece she hasn’t heard before. The brakeman mentions that it’s Halley Fifth Concerto. Dagny informs him that Halley has only written four concertos. (This is a significant plot point.)
After dozing restlessly, Dagny awakes to discover that the train has been shunted onto a siding at a red block signal for about an hour. The Comet has never been late before, but the crew doesn’t care. Their sole intent is to avoid blame for anything, and they want to wait for somebody else to take responsibility. Dagny orders them to move to the next block signal and stop at the next open office. At the crew’s insistence she agrees to take responsibility.
Arriving in New York, Dagny, with Eddie in attendance, tells Jim that she has ordered from Rearden, not Boyle, to rebuild the Rio Norte Line. Jim is furious but will not take the responsibility for canceling the Rearden order. He whines that it’s unfair to give all the railroad’s business to Rearden just because he produces on schedule. He is horrified when Dagny tell him that the order is for Rearden Metal, not conventional steel. “But...but...but nobody’s ever used it before!” Dagny then turns to Jim’s noble experiment of the San Sebastian Line which Dagny states will be nationalized shortly by People’s State of Mexico. Jim comes unglued. It’s more moral to spend money on an underprivileged nation that never had a chance than to spend it on Ellis Wyatt, who simply wants to make money. “Selfish greed for profit is a thing of the past.”
Dagny interviews Owen Kellogg of the Taggart Terminal Division in order to give him the top spot at the Ohio Division, replacing an incompetent who is a personal friend of Jim’s. But Kellogg won’t take the job, resigns from Taggart Transcontinental and nothing Dagny says can keep him on the railroad. When Dagny asks why, Kellogg answers, “Who is John Galt?” Thus the plot is set in motion.
New York and the Railroads
New York was a railroader’s nightmare in the19th Century. The Hudson River was an insurmountable barrier. Approaching from the west, the Pennsylvania, Reading, Baltimore & Ohio, Jersey Central, Erie, Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley railroads all terminated at Jersey City or Hoboken, and each railroad operated its own private navy to get people across the Hudson to downtown Manhattan. From the east, the Long Island Railroad ended at Brooklyn, and passengers for Manhattan took a ferry across the East River. Only the New York Central and the New Haven had direct access to New York into midtown’s Grand Central Station, a wooden structure built in 1871.
After the War Between the States, the Pennsylvania made two attempts to bridge the Hudson, one killed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the other by its exorbitant cost. A tunnel project was impossible using the technology available at the time. A coal-fired steam locomotive hauling a passenger train under the Hudson from New Jersey would arrive in New York with its passengers and crew dead from asphyxiation. This could cause problems with return business.
In 1899, Pennsylvania Railroad president Alexander Cassatt visited Paris to see his sister, the famous impressionist artist Mary Cassatt, and while in Paris he dropped by the newly opened Gare du Quai Dorsai. This station had been built for electric railroading with an approach via a tunnel under the Seine. Cassatt saw the solution to his Hudson River problem.
Unlike the New York Central and the Great Northern, two railroads that were run under a cult of personality, the Pennsylvania Railroad was an arch-conservative company run by faceless gray men in Philadelphia who just happened to know how to run a railroad. It was the most financially successful railroad in America, and its bonds were as good as gold. The Pennsy never did anything without a lot of planning and advance work; the quality of the accountants in its Planning Department was legendary. In 1900, Cassatt acquired the Long Island Railroad, put the main stem on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue underground and electrified most of the system, causing its ridership to double.
In 1906, Cassatt announced that the Pennsylvania Railroad would build two tubes suspended in the Hudson River silt. These tunnels would carry electric trains powered by DC third rail, which would run from a location in the New Jersey meadowlands (Manhattan Transfer) into the new Pennsylvania Station in midtown Manhattan. This station would be designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White and would be modeled on the Basilica of Constantine and the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, creating a true temple of the American railroad. This architectural monument opened in 1910 and was one of America’s great railroad stations until its demolition in 1963. Its replacement, Penn Station, is an underground warren sitting under the latest version of Madison Square Garden. The destruction of Pennsylvania Station created an uproar, was considered an act of corporate vandalism and was directly responsible for the movement to preserve America’s great railway stations.
With the opening of Pennsylvania Station, the railroad hooked the Long Island Railroad in by tunneling under the East River and also provided a connection to the New Haven Railroad via a high-rise bridge over the Hell Gate in Queens.
The Pennsy’s arch-rival, the New York Central, had a terrible accident in 1902 when two steam trains collided in the Park Avenue Cut, killing many. New York City banned steam trains on the island of Manhattan, and the New York Central was dragged kicking and screaming into the electric age, along with its partner, the New Haven.
Upset by the presence of a greater temple of railroading, the New York Central built a station to replace the 1871 wooden structure, which had become rather dowdy with age. Atop two levels of underground tracks would stand the New York Central’s temple of railroading, Grand Central Terminal, which opened in 1913. (Corporate egos!)
In Rand’s book, there is only one great railroad station in New York, Taggart Terminal, which has characteristics of both Pennsylvania and Grand Central. As a combination of the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads, it’s as though Nat Taggart created the Penn Central a century before 1968.
America and the Railroads
Today there are seven Class I railroads in North America: Union Pacific, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Kansas City Southern, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. Only the Canadian National is truly transcontinental, although the Canadian Pacific has achieved a degree of transcontinental status by purchasing trackage rights on the CSX in the US. The Kansas City Southern is more Mexican than American, and the remainder are large regional carriers. All were created by a series of mergers and acquisitions spanning nearly 150 years.
At the time of Rand’s book there were a vast number of Class I railroads, but none were transcontinental.
In Atlas Shrugged, there are two transcontinental railroads: Taggart Transcontinental dominates the northern half of the US and the Atlantic Southern dominates the south.
Railroad baron Nat Taggart founded his railroad in the 19th Century, and it was transcontinental in scope from the very beginning, not achieving that status by a process of slow merger and acquisition. This is a serious departure from railroad history. It would appear that after creating the Penn Central and buying a whole slew of other lines, Taggart created his own version of the Union Pacific to go transcontinental. Taggart did not rely on Lincoln’s government land grants for financing but did it the hard way, which makes his model the real life James Jerome Hill, the man who built the Great Northern. Like Hill, Taggart worked his way up from the bottom in railroading and was not a financial operator.
One story about Jim Hill might give an insight into Nat Taggart. Jay Gould had been using political leverage in DC to prevent Hill from laying tracks across Montana. So Hill charged into the Western Union Building in New York where Gould’s fortress of an office was located, lifted Gould bodily out of his chair and dangled him by the ankles outside his office window six stories above Wall Street until Gould agreed to call off his lobbyists. (They made ‘em tough in those days!)
Dagny Taggart and Richard Halley
Classical musicians and people who are heavily involved in classical music have a technique, called “dittersdorfing”, where they hear a piece with which they are unfamiliar and guess the composer. It is named after Karl von Dittersdorf, a contemporary of Franz Joseph Haydn, whose music sounds a lot like Haydn, but lacks Haydn’s facility with musical architecture.
In the book, there is no indication that Dagny Taggart had ever taken music lessons or that her interest in classical music extended beyond contemporary composer Richard Halley. Yet a brakeman on a train whistles a melody, and Dagny immediately recognizes it as Halley, but unpublished Halley. For an old classical music person like myself, this is a stretch.
Some Discussion Topics
Question for our members: Should this thread go up next Saturday or sooner? Give it some time for thought and get back to me.
I see this starting to happen in the "green" movement. Suddenly the highest purpose for both individuals and companies is "saving" the planet (from something unspecified at that).
That always brings to mind the words of my mountain climbing guide years ago: "Never say you conquered the mountain. The mountain let you climb it today - you might not be so lucky next time." Nature is a lot tougher than we give it credit for. But suddenly we must spend tons of money and give up many conveniences all for the sake of saving the planet. Of course, we know that that is just a smoke screen for more government control of our lives. But people really seem to buy (literally) into it. And the people telling us to pay money and give up stuff are the ones riding around in private jets.
LOL - I'm not sure what my point is. That's just what came to mind when I read that question.
Ah, James Taggart. One of my favorite villains in all of literature and, I tentatively suggest, Rand's greatest character creation. I'd place Reardon second, actually. He's an exception to my general rule that Rand's villains are more finely-drawn than her heroes and heroines. In Reardon she captures the conflict that will certainly occur in real people if Atlas really does shrug. More on him later.
But James Taggart - stem to stern, first chapter to last, you always know exactly what motivates him and you always want to choke the b@stard. The fellow who plays him on screen will have the meatiest role in the thing, IMHO. Infuriating, despicable, and delicious. Full marks to Rand on this one.
On the general topic of indifference - this is a different emotion from fear of involvement, actually, or fear of taking responsibility. Anyone who has ever worked in a large corporation has probably noticed that risk is regarded as something to be managed, to be evaluated on a more or less cost/benefit basis by persons paid to do so. That's why initiative tends to be discouraged. It has a cost. The challenge in managing a large organization is to allow for the toleration of a certain level of risk by absorbing the cost on its failure without penalizing the risk-taker. As organizations grow this tends to be more difficult to accomplish, one reason why a really good CEO is worth his or her weight in gold.
In the case of Taggart Transcontinental, one has to empathize a little with the listless employees. They'll be paid anyway, so why take the risk? Out of pride? That's the key to this one (and to any organization into which a really committed member commits more than time). Dagny certainly had her pride in it, as was only right inasmuch as her name was on it. But why should the employees? Lousy management has sucked it out of them.
Back to James Taggart and my comment about CEO's. And Dagny's astonishment at the whole thing does not reflect well on her own management abilities - if that's news to her, why? If her employees are risk-averse and intimidated, what has she done about it? The answer, that it's somebody else's job, is precisely the difficulty she notices in her people.
Could it be that Rand's fierce commitment to individualism gave her a bit of a blind spot on the issue? In Reardon especially (sorry to get a bit ahead of the chapter) we see an individual struggling to balance his own pride against the exigencies of family and a deck that is stacked firmly against him. But the object of his pride is, after all, his own creation. And so we return to the question of why Taggart's employees should have acted other than they did? Out of (shudder) altruism?
One of the complaints against Rand is that to her, only the people capable of the personal act of grand creation fully qualify as human beings deserving of respect. We see this in characters such as Eddie Willers - more of him in later chapters as I think he's a critical character in this narrative. Who will really be welcome in Galt's Gulch? How much of a god does one have to be to merit a place at the table in Valhalla?
I'd love to hear your comments on the above. May not be able to check back for awhile but it doesn't mean indifference. ;-)
Please add me to the ping list. Thx!
Every 4-5 years I buy a new copy of this book and read it again. I always find something new that I somehow missed before. It was the first book that I deliberately did not speed read through and still don’t when I buy my copy to read again. There is something about it that inspires me and gives me hope that maybe there are people who understand what makes a man (or a woman) that person who can accomplish something important and not be ashamed by being “better” than others.
Not everyone is a sheep to be lead around; though that is somewhat hard to believe after the last election. People want to be lead and be free of responsibility. This book show shows what will happen when the vast majority of Americans are sheep.
Very good!
It's been over two decades since I read this book and I was too young and silly at the time to really get it. Reading it now I realize I don't even remember much about it other than some character names and the general idea - it's like reading it for the first time. Except I do remember how it ends, but this time I can savor getting there. This is fun!
Which brings us to the parable of the frog and the pot of boiling water.
I am going to be back later to post my thoughts
That is the key (as you obviously well know) to good service and doing a good job at something...to take responsibility and ownership for it.
I feel the same way you do, simply because it doesn't have to be that way.
A chapter a week also leaves room for late comers to jump in and catch up.
Thanks for doing this!
Anyone who has ever worked in a large corporation has probably noticed that risk is regarded as something to be managed, to be evaluated on a more or less cost/benefit basis by persons paid to do so. That's why initiative tends to be discouraged. It has a cost. The challenge in managing a large organization is to allow for the toleration of a certain level of risk by absorbing the cost on its failure without penalizing the risk-taker. As organizations grow this tends to be more difficult to accomplish, one reason why a really good CEO is worth his or her weight in gold.
I've seen this first hand, as have you. I worked in a company where the fear of risk was so pervasive that it was impossible for people to do their jobs. One-line code changes in programs had to be cleared in meetings involving some of the highest players in the shop, and I'm not talking about simple change control meetings. Managers were not managing but doing the job of the person one step above them in the food chain. When we were merged out of existence and the shop closed down, it was more in the line of euthanasia than murder one.
And Dagny's astonishment at the whole thing does not reflect well on her own management abilities - if that's news to her, why? If her employees are risk-averse and intimidated, what has she done about it? The answer, that it's somebody else's job, is precisely the difficulty she notices in her people.
Good point, and you're the first to bring it up. Example comes from the top and flows down. Dagny puts the time and effort into doing it right, but the people under her, other than Eddie and Owen Kellogg, haven't gotten the message. It's as though Jim Taggart's malaise and inability to get things done have bypassed Dagny and contaminated the entire railroad.
Could it be that Rand's fierce commitment to individualism gave her a bit of a blind spot on the issue?...And so we return to the question of why Taggart's employees should have acted other than they did? Out of (shudder) altruism?
I look at Eddie Willers and Owen Kellogg, and I don't see altruism so much, but a certain pride in doing the job right. They aren't timeservers, and they aren't doing it for charity. It's an exchange for labor and quality in return for money.
We see this in characters such as Eddie Willers - more of him in later chapters as I think he's a critical character in this narrative. Who will really be welcome in Galt's Gulch? How much of a god does one have to be to merit a place at the table in Valhalla?
The kissoff of Eddie at the end is one of the most heartrending scenes in literature, next to the hanging of Esmerelda at the end of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame. He isn't even good enough to be one of Dagny's lovers. Francisco, Hank and John get the honors, but not poor Eddie. Dagny comes across as the top alpha female, and beta males like Eddie don't make the grade. The thought of who gets into Galt's Gulch has always bothered me. The prime creators get in, but those who make the work of the prime creators achieve reality don't.
There needs to be more than one Galt's Gulch.
Got The Fountainhead, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal and We, The Living.
May have loaned my copy to somebody and never gotten it back. (He says again. Sigh.)
Because accepting a paycheck for giving less effort than you should have is immoral, in my opinion.
This parable highlights my point of view on this:
A man came across three masons who were working at chipping chunks of granite from large blocks. The first seemed unhappy at his job, chipping away and frequently looking at his watch. When the man asked what it was that he was doing, the first mason responded, rather curtly, "I'm hammering this stupid rock, and I can't wait 'til 5 when I can go home."
A second mason, seemingly more interested in his work, was hammering diligently and when asked what it was that he was doing, answered, "Well, I'm molding this block of rock so that it can be used with others to construct a wall. It's not bad work, but I'll sure be glad when it's done."
A third mason was hammering at his block fervently, taking time to stand back and admire his work. He chipped off small pieces until he was satisfied that it was the best he could do. When he was questioned about his work he stopped, gazed skyward and proudly proclaimed, "I...am building a cathedral."
Three men, three different attitudes, all doing the same job
The way I see it, we owe it to God to do the best we can. Now, I know this is some form of sacrilege to mention God in the same breath as Ayn Rand, but...there you have it.
Double ping for later. Great book.
Great discussions. Please ping me! Thanks.
And, as you both well know, NEVER EVER allow the boss to even consider the idea that you might be smarter than him!
If that ever happens you had better polish up the old resume!
You forgot STUPID! To me that is the word most descriptive of Taggart!
Why does it not surprise me that you should show up on this thread old buddy?
A book club (well, most of 'em that I've tried) is supposed to go a chapter at a time. Mea maxima culpa.
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