enoch gib’s knowledge of human nature in the uses of business was deep and exact. he was not mistaken in aaron’s son. john breakspeare could sell iron rails. he could sell anything.
selling ability in its highest development is a strange gift. there is no accounting for it. one has it or one has it not. he had it in that all-plus-x degree, which is the indefinite part of genius. the final irony was that gib should have discovered it, for it belonged to the steel age and was destined to be turned against him. in this young man who could sell iron rails he prepared a weapon for his invincible adversary.
the steel age always knew in advance what it needed. salesmanship was its very breath. why? because when it came suddenly, like a natural event, men found themselves in command of means for producing wealth,—that is to say, goods, enormously beyond any scale of human wants previously imaginable. production attended to itself. it ran utterly wild. there was a chronic excess of producing capacity because the supply of steel had been magically increased one hundred fold and steel was the basis of an endless profusion of new goods.
the dilemma that presented itself was unique. its[120] name was over-production. it occurred simultaneously in great britain, germany, france and the united states. they all had the same goods to sell, the very same goods, rising from steel, and they sold them to each other in mad competition. prices fell steadily for many years, continuously, until goods were preposterously cheap, and always there was a surplus still. rails fell from $125 to $18 a ton, and the face of two continents was netted with railways. yet there was a surplus of rails.
never before in the history of mankind did goods increase faster than wants. it is not likely ever to happen again.
in a way that becomes clear with a little reflection, a surplus of steel caused a surplus of nearly everything else—food to begin with. there was a great surplus of food because steel rails opened suddenly to the world the virgin lands of the american west. the iron age had foreshortened time and distance. the steel age annihilated them.
it made no difference how far a thing was hauled. transportation was cheap because steel was cheap. kansas wheat was sold in minneapolis, chicago and in liverpool. minneapolis made flour and sent it to new york, europe and back to kansas.
the great availability of food released people from agriculture. they went to the industrial centers to make more steel and things rising of steel, so that there were more of such goods to sell.
more, more, more of everything.
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sell! sell! sell!
that was the voice of the steel age.
but we overrun the thread of the story. it lies still in the iron age.
how did john breakspeare sell iron rails for enoch?
it is to be mentioned that he founded the art of messianic advertising. he took the message of iron rails to the people. he dramatized the subject.
after four weeks of study and reflection, going to and fro in the mill, absorbing all the technical literature there was, acquainting himself with the way of the trade,—gib watching and letting him alone,—he outlined a plan of campaign. it involved a considerable outlay of money. gib approved it nevertheless and the young evangel set forth.
at philadelphia he arranged an exhibit the first feature of which was a pair of new damascus iron rails that had bridged a perilous gap twelve feet wide and twelve feet deep washed out under a railway track at night. a locomotive and six passenger cars passed safely over those rails in the dark. the miracle was discovered the next morning. steel rails under that strain would have snapped. this was very effective. he reproduced in public the breaking tests applied to steel and iron rails alternately in the new damascus mill yard. he collected data on railway accidents, which were then numerous and terrifying, and published regularly in the newspapers a cumulative record of those that were caused by the failure of imported[122] steel rails, at the same time offering $10,000 for proof of the failure of a new damascus iron rail under any conditions. he handled his facts in a sensational manner. public sentiment was aroused. in several state legislatures bills were introduced requiring all new railway mileage to be laid with iron rails and all steel rails in use to be replaced with iron. none of these bills was passed. still, they were useful for purposes of propaganda. a committee of congress made an extensive inquiry at which the young elias from new damascus appeared and made a worthy impression. this was the beginning of his familiarity with the lawmaking mentality. without asking for it directly he got what the iron people had prayed for in vain. that was a punitive tariff against foreign steel rails. he had moved public opinion; the rest was automatic.
thus he sold first the idea of iron rails. next he proceeded to sell the rails.
railway building at that time was the enchanted field of creative speculation. railways were made in hope, rejoicing and sheer abandon of wilful energy. once they were made they served economic ends, as a navigable waterway will, no matter where or how it goes, but for one that was intelligently planned for the greatest good of the greatest need four or five others derived their existence fantastically from motives of emulation, spite, greed, combat and civic vaingloriousness. when in the course of events all these separate translations of the ungoverned imagination were linked up the result was that incomprehensible crazy quilt[123] which the great american railway system was and is in the geographical sense. it was more exciting and more profitable to build railways than wagon roads. that is how we came to have the finest railways and the worst highways of any country in the civilized world.
into this field of sunshine and quicksand marched the young man from new damascus. he could scent a new railway project from afar, up or down wind, and then he stalked it day and night. he sold it the rails. without fail he furnished the rails. he sold them for cash when he could, and when he couldn’t get cash he took promissory notes, i o u’s, post-dated checks, bonds and stocks. he took all he could get of what he could find, but whatever it was he sold the rails.
enoch gib, greatly startled at first, was willing to see how merchandising by this principle would work out. but as he was unused to excursions in finance and as the notes and stocks and bonds of railways in the gristle piled up in his safe he called in his banker for consultation. john was present.
“it’s not so much of a gamble if you go far enough,” said john. “there’s a principle of insurance in it. it would be risky to sell insurance on one ship. nobody does that. it is perfectly safe to sell insurance on a thousand ships. this is the same thing. some of these railways will bust of course. but if we sell rails to all of them we can afford to lose on the few that go[124] down. the whole question is: do you believe in railways?”
the two old men looked at their youthful instructor with anxious wonder.
“is that your own idea?” the banker asked.
“it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” john answered.
“when you mention it, yes,” said the banker. “i should never have thought of it that way.”
later the banker spoke privately with gib.
“that’s a very dangerous young man.”
“very,” said gib.
yet it worked out rather well, owing partly to the principle and partly to john’s uncanny instinct for making a safe leap. he could smell bankruptcy before it happened. moving about as he did continually in the surge of the railway excitement he had access to much private information. he knew pretty well how it fared with the companies that owed the mill for rails. if one were verging toward trouble he knew how and where to get rid of its paper at a discount. there were losses; but the losses were balanced by profits in those cases where a company that had been charged a very high price for rails because it was short of cash and nobody else would take its notes was able at length to redeem its paper in full.
in john’s mind was no thought of either loyalty to iron or disloyalty to steel. it was a question of american rails against foreign rails. steel rails were entirely of foreign origin. the steel age had not crossed the ocean. his work justified itself. it was immediately[125] creative and greatly assisted railway building. it was speculative also, and this is to be remembered. a collateral and very important result was that it hastened the advent of the american steel rail, since the punitive tariff against foreign rails gave the american steel people the incentive of greater profit. that presently changed the problem.
meanwhile, never had the new damascus mill been so active. never had its profits been greater. yet enoch gib was uneasy. he had offered the young man a partnership. john had flatly declined it.
what did that mean?
