XV.--CLARK CONVERTS TORONTO
It is probable that Clark's invasion of the State of Michigan made moreimpression on the people of St. Marys than any other of his activities,even though it came in the midst of great undertakings. Here was thedefinite impression of a central power that stretched octopus arms fromout of their own town. Even Manson, who was recognized as the championpessimist, seemed impressed. But St. Marys remained for the most partstill inactive. The people looked on, admired the works, discussedeach new development, read much about their home town in outsidepapers, and that was in a general way about all. They saw in Clark aconstantly more arresting and suggestive figure. They had noddedapprovingly when he secured a private car for the use of himself, hisdirectors and shareholders, and considered it a natural thing when itwas announced that he was building upon the hill a large and expensiveresidence. The blockhouse, they pointed out, had long since become toosmall to accommodate his many and important visitors.
St. Marys had physically changed. Old streets were paved with asphaltand new ones opened. The car line that ran up to the works branchedout across the railway into ground that a few years before was solidbush, but was now covered with substantial houses, occupied by a newpopulation. Parts of old St. Marys were left in the lurch because theowners refused to sell, Dibbott amongst them, and Worden, whose broadriver-fronting lawn was surrounded by the commercial section of therejuvenated town. Filmer's store had been enlarged twice, and socomplete was the popularity of the mayor that, with his sound businessinstinct, it still held place as the local emporium.
At the terminus of the car line a new town had sprung up. In Ironvilledwelt the brawn and bone of the works. The place was not restful likeSt. Marys, but a heterogeneous collection of sprawling cabins, cornersaloons and grocery stores where the food was piled on sidewalk standsand gathered to itself the smoke and grime of the works when the windcame up from the south. Here were the Poles and Hungarians and Swedes,with large and constantly increasing families, and to them the sun roseand set in pulp mills and machine shops, blast furnaces and the like.They were mostly big men and strong, who sweated all day and came back,grimy, to eat and then spend the long evenings at the corner saloons orfishing in the upper bay, or sometimes taking the car down to St.Marys, and walking about surveying the comfortable old houses andcarefully kept lawns. And of Ironville, St. Marys did not think verymuch, save that it was dirty and unattractive and, unfortunately, quitea necessary evil.
Back in the country new farms were cleared on heavily timbered land andthe farmers found instant market for all they could raise. But thebush still stretched unbroken a little further to the north, and whileClark's engineers spent millions to harness the mighty flow ofSuperior, the beaver were building their dams in a tamarac swamp notfive miles from the works.
All this was indissolubly linked with Philadelphia. Parties ofshareholders, large and small, came up in special cars to inspect theplant. These visits were well organized. They found everything goingat full blast, everything was explained by the magnetic Clark and therefollowed banquets at the new hotel, when both shareholders anddirectors spoke and Filmer voiced the sentiments and pride of the town,and the shareholders went away a little staggered by the size andpotentiality of their business but determined to back Clark to thelimit and carrying away with them ineffaceable impressions of hisstrong and hypnotic personality. It was, after all, as they said, aone man show.
Interest grew in Philadelphia, and thousands, swayed as though by thecompelling voice of the rapids, plunged deeper. The discovery of ironwas but one of the inviting incentives which, from time to time,stimulated support. Million after million was subscribed and sent tothis man who inspired such abounding faith in himself and his giganticplans. It may be that in one of those moments of profound insightwhich Clark periodically experienced, he became finally convinced thatlife was short and there must be, in his case at any rate, compressedinto it the maximum of human effort ere the day ran out. His brainoscillated between the actual work itself and those extraneous affairswhich might at some time affect it.
Amongst those to whom his attention turned was Semple, member of theprovincial parliament, in whom he recognized the official voice of thedistrict in certain regions of authority. As the works grew in sizeand their importance increased, Semple found himself more and more thesubject of attention. It flattered him, as well it might, for at thistime the Consolidated Company was the largest single undertaking in thecountry. It did Semple good to refer to "my constituency" with thereflection that in the midst of that wilderness was an undertakingwhose capital surpassed that of the greatest railway in the Dominion.In the house of parliament he was listened to attentively, and in St.Marys his office took on a new significance. It was on one of hisinformal visits to the works that Clark expressed pleasure at the wayin which the community was represented.
"I'm all right as far as this company is concerned," said Semple, "butyou know the Liberal majority in Ontario is mighty slim--and I'm aLiberal. It's here to-day and gone to-morrow."
"Not for you," answered Clark impressively, "and you haven't had muchtrouble in getting what we wanted."
"No," grinned Semple, "our majority is too small. The Premier couldn'tvery well refuse. But," he added with a little hesitation, "opinionsdiffer down there."
"About the works?"
Semple nodded. "Yes, and about you--they're not true believers by anymeans, you must understand."
Clark grunted a little. "What do they say?"
"It's more what they don't say, since they're mostly Scotch. I meanthe financial crowd--most of Toronto is like that. The Scotch gottheir hooks in long ago and it was a good thing for the country. Theyreckon it should take twenty-five years to build up a concern likethis--not five. You're too fast for that lot."
"Ah! Perhaps I'd better go down and see them."
Semple gazed in astonishment, then concluded he had not made the othersufficiently aware of the criticism as to himself and his affairs thatwas now so widely spread.
"What's the object?" he blurted; "you've got all you want."
Clark shook his head. "You don't understand me--and these people don'tunderstand their own country,--that's all. They don't believe itbecause they don't know it. They've never tried to know it. ToToronto the district of Algoma is a howling wilderness where there'sgood fishing and shooting. You may call Canadians pioneers, but someof them are the stickiest lot imaginable. I'm an American, but I havemore faith in their country than they have."
"Just what do you propose to do?"
"What would you say was the most influential body of business andfinancial men?"
"The Toronto Board of Trade--without question; bankers, and, by theway, the president of your bank here is the president of the Board;manufacturers, brokers, commission men,--oh, most every one who isworth anything."
"Then I'd better go and talk to them. There ought to be some Canadianmoney in this concern and there isn't a cent. The only thing we got inCanada was one hundred and thirty thousand dollars--but that wasdebt--St. Marys' debt--" laughed Clark. "We'll get some Canadiandirectors, too; I don't know but that new blood would be good for us."
"Well," hazarded Semple, "I'd like to be there."
"You will. We'll go together as soon as it's arranged. You ought tobe there. They'll probably ask you to confirm what I assert." Hetouched a bell and a moment later said to his secretary, "See Mr.Bowers and ask him to get in touch with our Toronto solicitors at once.I want them to arrange that I address the Toronto Board of Trade assoon as convenient to that body. I'll speak of developments inNorthern Ontario. You understand that this will not be a suggestionfrom me, but will come from them. Get the idea going in the Torontopapers. You might let it be known that a special car will leave forSt. Marys the evening of the address--with the Company's guests--that'sall."
The door closed and he turned again to Semple. "I'm no prophet, but Idon't mind saying that a month from
to-day your Conservative oppositionwon't be so stiff necked. Man alive! it's nothing but ignorance. Thisdistrict of yours--" he added very slowly, "is a bigger, richer thingthan even I imagined."
Semple went away shaking his head doubtfully. He knew better thanClark that chilling regard with which Toronto financiers contemplatedan undertaking in which they had little faith. They were a cold-nosedgroup, immune, he considered, to the dramatic and strangers to anysudden impulse. And Clark, to their minds, was tarred with the samebrush as his undertakings. He might be big and imaginative, but he wasover impetuous and haphazard.
Clark himself was disturbed by no discomfort, nor did he make anyspecial preparations for that address, and gave it as arranged some twoweeks later, and the manner and substance and effect of it will bevividly remembered by every man who was a member of that Board of Tradesome twenty-five years ago. There were the bankers and the rest ofthem, just as Semple had said, and Clark, surveying them from theplatform with steady gray eyes, knew what make of men they were andknew also that they had come there not so much with a thirst forknowledge about their own country as that they might coldly analyze himand that vast undertaking of which they had, as yet, but a fantasticand fragmentary knowledge.
It is without question that the speaker had to an infinitely greaterextent than any of the men who stared at him through a blue haze ofcigar smoke, a fluid mind and the capacity for instantly seizing upon asituation and determining how to meet it. He possessed as well a voiceunrivaled in magnetic power and above all an unshakable faith in thepotentiality of the district in which he labored, so that, estimatingthe mental and professional characteristics of those he faced, Clarkbegan to talk in the coolest and most level way possible without anytrace of flamboyant enthusiasm. Touching first of all on thedevelopment of the far West, a subject with which, since much Torontomoney was involved, they were directly familiar, he diverted to St.Marys, describing Arcadia as he found it, the apparently unpromisingnature of the surrounding territory and his own conclusion as to itspossible future. Then the rapids became woven into his speech, thenucleus of power which made so many things possible. From this hemoved into the wilderness and before his listeners there began tounroll the north country in its primeval silence, broken only by theoccasional tap of a prospector's pick or the heavy crash of a moosethrough a cluster of saplings. And with the story of the wildernesscame that of pulp wood and great areas now tributary to St. Marys. Andafter the pulp mills came the discovery of iron.
At this a stir went through the audience. In another part of the northcountry was Cobalt, that prodigious reservoir of silver, and it wasrealized that while Cobalt lay almost next door to Toronto, theCanadian investor had for the most part looked on incredulously, till,too late, he realized that the American had seized and acted withcharacteristic energy. And now the thing had happened again.
"The iron was there," went on Clark's voice with a subtle and impellingnote, "and it only took a year or so to find it. The country wasunexplored, that is, in a scientific manner, and no geological mapsworth anything were in existence. We have proved by now not less thanfifteen million tons of excellent ore. The formation near St. Maryscarries an abundance of limestone and the rapids furnish ample power.I think you will admit, gentlemen, that this is non-speculative."
Then one by one he spoke of various phases of the works. In every casethe product was there--the merchantable produce--to prove the point;and the evident fact that Clark was actually selling goods over hisgigantic counter, coupled with the cool confidence of the man, was allthat was needed to convert an audience of critics into one of friendlybelievers.
He saw the change as it took place. His voice lifted a little andbecame that of one crying in the wilderness.
"What I have been able to do any man can do. If you don't believe init, other people do; if you don't develop it, other people will. FromCanada we have moved across to Michigan and are developing power on thesouth side of the river. You Canadians could have done all this. In afew months Canadian railways will be buying steel rails made of Ontarioore, but the rails will be made and sold by Americans in Ontario.Gentlemen, all I ask is that you have faith in your own country, asmuch faith as has been shown by your neighbors across the line. YourDominion is now what the United States was fifty years ago and we didnot waver. The capital of our allied companies is twenty-seven milliondollars. It comes, every cent of it, from Philadelphia. We do notneed your money, but will welcome any who wish to join us. Once again,gentlemen, and last of all, have faith in your own country!" Then,with a graceful acknowledgment of the assistance of Semple and theOntario Government, he sat down.
For a moment there was silence, till came applause, moderate at first,as befitted the meeting, but swelling presently into great volume.Louder and deeper it grew while Clark sat still with the least flush onhis usually colorless cheek and a keen light in his gray eyes. He hadtouched them to the quick, touched them not only by his own evidentfaith and courage, but also by his superlative energy and theinexorable comparison he had made. It was true! Cobalt was nearlylost to them, and now the iron of Algoma had passed into other hands.Old bankers and financiers cast their minds back and were surprised atthe number of similar instances they recalled. And here was Clark, theprotagonist, Clark the speculator, Clark the wild man fromPhiladelphia, demonstrating in the cold language to which they wereaccustomed and which they perfectly understood, that he had done thesame thing over again and on a more imposing scale than ever before.
The denouement was what he had anticipated and what invariably takesplace when men with calculating and professionally critical brains arefor the first time profoundly stirred by a supremely magnetic spiritthat appeals not to their emotions but to those instincts in which thememory of lost opportunities is effaced by confidence in futuresuccess. There was, too, a general feeling that Clark in the past wasmisunderstood. They had been hard on him. It was strange for men whowere daily besought to invest in this or that to be told that theirmoney was not asked for; that, as Clark had put in--the job was nearlydone, capital expenditure nearly over and steady returns about tobegin. And these returns, they reflected, would go straight out of thecountry to Philadelphia. All this and much more was moving throughtheir minds when the president moved a vote of thanks which wastumultuously carried, whereupon Clark announced that the private carwould leave that night for St. Marys, and that he and Mr. Semple wouldaccompany such visitors as cared to spend a day or two at the works.
That afternoon he sent a short letter to his mother. "I have beengiving a talk on Toronto--it went quite well," he wrote in closing."Canadians do not attract, but certainly interest me. There's muchunderneath that needs work to discover, and I have so little time forwork of that kind."
He glanced at the last sentence and nodded approvingly. PerhapsCanadians were too Scotch to be spontaneous. They were worthy, headmitted, but the word implied to him certain attributes that made lifea little difficult, and, he silently concluded, a little cold. Hewould have desired them to be a trifle less deliberate and a shade moreresponsive. He felt that, however, he might persuade they would neverfundamentally understand him, and perceived in this the cause of thatcondescension he had observed in so many Canadians toward the American.It did not worry him in the slightest as an American. He put it downto that self-satisfaction which is not infrequently acquired byself-made men in the process of their own manufacture, and to remnantsof that cumulative British arrogance of forebears who had for centuriesled the world.
Early next morning the private car swung through the mining district ofSudbury. Clark's Toronto visitors were still asleep, but he was up anddressed and on the rear platform. The district, covered once by agreen blanket of trees, now seemed blasted and dead. Close by weregreat piles of nickel ore, from which low clouds of acrid vapor roseinto the bright air. Clark knew that the ore was being laboriouslyroasted in order to dissipate the sulphur it contained, prior tofurther treatment.
The scene, naked and forbidding, struck him forcibly, and the greatmining buildings towering in the midst of the desolation they hadcreated looked like ugly castles of destruction. He had noted theplace often before, but this morning, refreshed by the incidents of theprevious day, his mind was working with unexampled ease and insight.Here, he reflected, two things of value--sulphur and vegetation--werebeing arduously obliterated. It suddenly appeared fundamentallyagainst nature, and whatever violated nature was, he held,fundamentally wrong.
The train stopped for a few moments and, jumping from the platform, heran across to the nearest pile. Here he picked up several pieces ofore fresh from the mine, inhaling as he stood the sharp and killingfumes. At St. Marys he made but one kind of pulp--mechanical pulp--inwhich the soft wood was disintegrated by revolving stones against whichit was thrust under great pressure. But he had always desired to makeanother kind of pulp, so now he thrust the ore samples in his pocketand climbed back into the private car.
Two days later the chief chemist of the works stood beside the generalmanager's desk looking from the nickel samples into Clark's animatedface.
"These are from Sudbury," the latter was saying, "where they wastethousands of tons of sulphur a year, and it costs them a lot to wasteit. I want the sulphur to make sulphite pulp."
"Yes?" The reply was a little uncertain.
"To buy what we want is out of the question at the present price. InAlabama and Sicily they are spending a lot of money to get sulphur; inSudbury they're spending a lot of money to get rid of it. The thing isall wrong."
"Have we any nickel mine, sir?"
"No, but that's the small end of it. I want you to analyze this oreand see if you can devise a commercial process for the separation ofnickel from sulphur and save both. If you can, I'll buy a mine.Incidentally we'll produce some pretty cheap nickel. Get busy!"
The chemist nodded and went out, and Clark, glancing after him, fellinto profound contemplation. He himself was neither engineer, chemistnor scientist, but had a natural instinct for the suitable uses ofphysical things. Thus, though without any advanced technical training,his brain was relieved from any consciousness of difficulties whichmight be encountered in the working out of the problems he set forothers with such remarkable facility. He was, in truth, a practicalidealist, who, ungrafted to any particular branch of effort, embarkedon them all, radiating that magnetic confidence which is the chiefincentive toward accomplishment.
The visit of the Toronto financiers had been a success. Clark wentround with them, unfolding the history of the works. Nor was this byany means the first tour he had made with similar intent. It was nowan old story with him to watch the faces of men reflect their gradualsurrender to the spell of his mesmeric brain. What the Torontonianssaw was physical and concrete, and, as their host talked, theyperceived the promise of that still greater future which he had putbefore them. Here, they decided, was not a speculation, but aninvestment of growing proportions. Then from the works to thebackwoods by the new railway, where was iron by millions of tons andpulp by millions of cords, the foundations on which were built thegigantic structures at St. Marys. So they had gone back in the glow ofthat sudden conversion which in its nature is more emotional than theslow march of a purely intellectual process, Clark smiled a little atthe thought. He had seen it all so often before.
A little later a knock sounded at his door and Fisette entered,stepping up to the desk, one brown hand in his pocket. Clark glancedat him.
"Well, mon vieux?"
The half-breed laid on the desk half a dozen pieces of bluish grayrock. They were sharp, angular and freshly broken. Through them ranyellow threads, and floating in their semi-translucent depths were fineyellow flakes.
"Gold," said Fisette quietly.