The Octopus : A Story of California

rick sat dictating letters to his typewriter, on a certain morning early in the spring of the year. The

herewith your favour of the 14th i

upon New Orleans to be appli

e case of the City and County of San Francisco agai

d forth in his leather swivel chair, his elbows resting on the arms, his pop eyes fixed vaguely

the present," he

thrusting her pencil into the coil of her hair,

e walls, the few choice engravings-portraits of Marshall, Taney, Field, and a coloured lithograph-excellently done-of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado-the deep-seated leather chairs, the large and crowded bookcase (topped with a bust of James Lick, and a huge greenish globe)

reign expression, quite unusual and unexpected. His hair was black, and he wore a small, tight, pointed mustache, which he was in the habit of pushing delicately upward from the corners of his lips with the ball of his

f very rough black cheviot, his double-breasted waistcoat of tan covered cloth with buttons of smoked pearl. An Ascot scarf-a grea

ne of these, Lyman selected a cigarette from his curved box of oxydized silver, lit it and s

r-like affair of white stone, that stood on the corner of Market Street near

d glass windows. Drays and carts clattered over the cobbles, and an incessant shuffling of thousands of feet rose from the pavement. Around Lotta's fountain t

ing to consider serious matters-good-natured, allowing themselves to be imposed upon, taking life easily-generous, companionable, enthusiastic; living, as it were, from day to day, in a place where the luxuries of life we

, about to resume his work, the

thograph company, si

anded Lyman, adding, however,

e, which he deposited on a chair, with a ga

ndard Lithogr

at

plied the other.

he cover from the top of the package, drawing out one of a great many huge sh

the label of the package: "Take them to that address," he went on. "I'll keep this one here. The others go to that address. If you see Mr. Darrell,

yman, spreading out the map upon the table, r

a vast, complicated network of red lines marked P. and S. W. R. R. These centralised at San Francisco and thence ramified and spread north, east, and south, to every quarter of the State. From Coles, in the topmost corner of the map, to Yuma in the lowest, from Reno on one side to San Francisco on the other, ran the plexus of red, a veritable system of blood circulation, complicated, dividing, and reunit

rganism, with its ruddy arteries converging to a central point. It was as though the State had been sucked white and colourless, and against this pallid background the red arteries of t

e three new commissioners: Jones McNish for the first district,

together with Darrell, the candidate of the Pueblo and Mojave road, and McNish, the avowed candidate of the Pacific and Southwestern. Darrell was rabidly against the P. and S. W., McNish rabidly for it. Lyman

reat he had resigned the chairmanship of this committee, thus leaving Magnus at its head. Precisely as Osterman had planned, Magnus was now one of them. The new committee accordingly had two objects in view: to resist the attempted grabbing of their lands by the Railroad, and to push forward their own secret scheme of electing a board of railroad commissioners who should regulate wheat rates so as to favour the ranchers o

e had never been identified with them. He was city-bred. The Railroad would not be over-suspicious of him. He was a good lawyer, a good business man, keen, clear-headed, far-sighted, had already some practical knowledge of politics, having served a te

imaries had to be captured at all costs and by any means, and when the convention assembled it was found necessary to buy outright the votes of certain d

gue, ignoring ways and means, supposed as a matter

esolved to break with the whole affair, resigning his position, allowing the others to proceed without him. But now it was too late. He was pledged. He had joined the League. He was its chief, and his defection might mean its disintegration at the very time when it needed all its strength to fight the land cases. More than a mere deal in bad politics was involved. There was the lan

sition on the part of the railroad heelers,

dest hopes had not dared to fix themselves upon so easy a victory as this. It was not believable that the co

eble cheer. Even Magnus beamed satisfaction. The other members of the League, present at the time, shook hands

The thing is yellow, I tell you. There's a big fish in these waters somewheres. I don't know his name, and I don't know his g

as Darrell and Lyman Derrick, both pledged to the ranches. Good Lord, he was never satisfied. He'd be obstina

ss left over by the old board and in the completion of the railway map. But now, the decks were cleared. It was about to address

an average ten per cent. cut of the g

ok up his morning's routine of business, wondering, the while, what would become of his pr

siphon that stood at his elbow, there was an interruption. Some one rapped vigorously upon th

y, here's a surprise. I didn't expect you all till to-night. Come

ague had received a despatch from the lawyers it had retained to fight the Railroad, that the judge of the court

rejected, and the Railroad had put up the lands for sale at Ruggles's office in Bonneville. At the exorbitant price named, buyers promptly appeared-dummy buyers, beyond shadow of doubt, acting either for the Railroad

ad guaranteeing them possession. The League refused to allow the supposed buyers to come upon the land, and the Railroad, faithful to its ple

each other's strength, willing to proceed with caution, postponing the actual deat

e trial itself, after tedious preliminaries, was brief. The ranchers lost. The test cases were immediately carr

ent; "I did not expect them to be so prompt. I was in court only last week an

side him. His coat of black broad-cloth that had been tightly packed in his valise, was yet wrinkled and creased; his tro

oking, resourceful. He was intensely proud of them. He was never happier, never more nearly jovial, never more erect, more military, more alert, and

complete than in the Visalia trial. Our case this time is too good. It has made too much talk. The court would not dare render a decisi

know in a few hours

d, "it is for this morning, the

," answered the Governor. "

when there is promise of an enormous crop of wheat. And it is not only us. There are over half a million acres of the San Joaquin involved. In some cases of the smaller ranches, it is the confi

," remarked Lyman. "Are any of the ranchers taking

as for leasing-leasing land they virtually own-no, there's precious few are doing that, thank God! That would be acknowledging the railroa

just romping right along to a crisis these days. It's a make or break for the wheat growers of the State now, no mistake. Here are the land cases and the new grain tariff drawing to a head at abo

lists, the railroads, each of them in turn hoodwinks us into some new and wonderful scheme, only to betray us in the end. W

s and settled himself

capable of governing the United States. What with main lines, and leased lines, and points of transfer, and the laws governing common carriers, and the rulings of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, the whole matter has become so confused that Vanderbilt himself couldn't straighten it out. And how can it be expected that railroad commissions who are chosen-well, let's be frank-as ours was, for instance, from out a number of men who

ou will be fair to the railroad. That is all we want. Fairness to the corporation is fairness to the farmer

sion is a railroad board, an

ble poker player of Calaveras County, permi

e. We will, all of us, have

acter. Magnus was by nature a public man, judicious, deliberate, standing firm for principle, yet upon rare occasion, by some such r

true California spirit that found expression through him, the spirit of the West, unwilling to occupy itself with details, refusing to wait, to be patient, to achieve by legitimate plodding; the miner's instinct of wealth acquired in a single night prevailed, in spite of all. It was in this frame of mind that Magnus and the multitude of other ranchers of whom he was a type, farmed their ranches. They had no love for their land. They were not attached to the soil. Th

willing to change the subject. He ro

b. It is close by. You can wait there for news of the court's decision as well

es was very apparent. Hardly a man entered that did not call out a salutation to him, some even coming over to shake his hand. He s

hair long, who was afflicted with sore eyes, and the collar of whose velvet coat was sprinkled with dandruff, "that'

o you do" to Lyman, Lyman was as eager in his cor

y with him, then?" observed Har

ell-met. His ambition was not trivial. In his disregard for small things, he resembled his father. Municipal office had no attraction for him. His goal was higher. He had planned his life twenty years ahead. Already Sheriff's Attorney, Assistant District Attorney and Railroad Commissioner, he could, if he desired, attain the office of District Attorney itself. Just now, it was a question with him whether or not it would be politic to fill this office. Would it advance or sidetrack him in the career he

round window was occupied. A middle-aged man, with iron grey hair and moustache, who wore a frock coat and a white waistcoat, and in some indefinable manner s

that Mr. C

esentative men. You would enjoy talking to him. He was the head of the big Atlas Iron Works. They have shut down recently, you know. Not failed e

Cedarquist, as he took the Governor's hand. "I've known you by repute for some time, sir. This is a great pleasure, I a

wn. "In fact, I've about given up the idea. There's so much interest in what you might call 'l

"I'm watching your fight with Shelgrim, Mr. Derrick, with every degree of i

illion-Dollar Fair and Flower Festival, which at that moment was the talk of the city, certain statues were to be erected, and Hartrath bespoke Lyman's influence to further the pretensions of a sculptor friend of his

away. We will have Eastern visitors here by the thousands-capitalists-men with money to invest. The million we spend on our fair will be money in our pockets. Ah, you should see how the women of this city are taking hold of the matter. They are giving all ki

, fixed the artist with a gl

gingerbread women and public-spirited capitalists, towar

nd fountains, and park extensions and gingerbread fetes. We want business enterprise. Isn't it like us? Isn't it like us?" he exclaimed sadly. "What a melancholy comment! San Francisco! It is not a city-it is a Midway Plaisance. California likes to be fooled. Do you suppose Shelgrim could convert the whole San Joaquin Valley into his back yard otherwise? Indifference to public affairs-absolute indifference, it stamps us all. Our State is the very paradise of fakirs. You and your Million-Dollar Fair!" He turned to Hartrath with a quiet smile. "It is just such men as you, Mr. Hartrath, that are the ruin of us. You organis

e warring elements. But Hartrath, unwilling to face the enmity that he felt accumulating against him, took himself away. A picture of his-"A Study of

tive interest. Then, turning to Magnus, ex

after all, only a little more addle-headed than other Americans." It was his

t is not a railroad trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil trust, or an industrial trust, that exploits the People, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE ALLOW IT. The indifference of the People is the opportunity of the despot. It is as true as that the whole is greater than the part, and the maxim is so old that it is trite-it is laughable. It is negl

pproved, nodding their heads in si

to meet you. You and your League are trying to say 'No' to the trust. I hope you will succeed

served Magnus. "My sons and myself are expecting hourly ne

deed, the farmer and the manufacturer, both in the same grist between the two millstones of the lethargy of the Public and

able an opportunity present itself for explaining his theorie

California wheat goes to Liverpool, and from that port is distributed over the world. But a change is coming. I am sure of it. You young men," he turned to Presley, Lyman, and Harran, "will live to see it. Our century is about done. The great word of this nineteenth century has been Production. The great word of the twentieth century will be-listen to me,

ty. The Asiatics, though, must be fed; if not on rice, then on wheat. Why, Mr. Derrick, if only one-half the population of China ate a half ounce of flour per man per day all the wheat areas in California could not feed them. Ah, if I could only hammer that into the brains of every rancher of the San Joaquin, yes, and of every owner of every bonanza farm in Dakota and Minnesota. Send your wheat to China; handle it yourselves; do away with the middleman; break up the Chicago wheat

idea was new to the Governor. He was greatly interested. He withdrew from the conversation. Thoughtf

wers of the San Joaquin. Lyman still maintained an attitude of polite aloofness, yawning o

scene in Annixter's harness room had thrilled and uplifted him. He was palpitating with excitement all through the succeeding months. He abandoned the idea of an epic poem. In six months he had not written a single verse. Day after day he trembled with excitement as the relations between the Trust and League became mo

only three or four times a month. Also he flung aside his books of poems-Milton, Tennyson, Browning, even Homer-and addressed himself to Mill, Malthus, Young, Poushkin, Henry George, Schopenhauer. He attacked the subject of Social Inequality with un

he glanced across the room and was surprised to see two very prettily dressed young women in the company of an ol

e of women within its doors, except on special occasions, was not tolerated. He turned to Ly

en about it. Why, this is

year, you remember, and this is a double occasion. They are going to raffle Hartrath's picture,-for the benefit of the

ck coat-Lyman twisted his cuffs into sight with an impatient, nervous movement of his wrists, glancing a second time at his brother's pink face, forward curling, yellow hair and clothes of a country cut. But there was no help for it. He wondered what were the club regulations in the matter of bringing

nd my daughters," sa

s going to give myself the pleasure of calling up

e, Pres," said Cedarquist

arrived in an almost unbroken stream. From their point of vantage in the round window of the main room, Magnus, his two sons

h a certain show of hesitancy and little, nervous, oblique glances, moving their heads from side to side like a file of hens venturing into a strange barn. They came in groups, ushered by

d rapidly. A murmur of conversation arose, subdued, gracious, mingled with the soft rustle of silk, grenadines, velvet. The scent of delicate perfumes spread in the air, Violet de Parme, Peau d'Espa

rward easily and naturally, without break or interruption, witty, engaging, the couple never at a loss for repartee. A third party was gracefully included, then a fourth. Little groups were formed,-groups that divided themselves, or m

sing hum. Waiters, with brass buttons on their full dress coats, wen

a live-oak, stood a couple of reddish cows, knee-deep in a patch of yellow poppies, while in the right-hand corner, to balance the composition, was placed a girl in a pink dress and white sunbonnet, in which the shadows were indicated by broad dashes of pale blue paint. The ladies and young girls examined the production with little murmurs of admiration, hazarding remembered p

that the handling of the masses reminded her strongly of Corot, her comp

perhaps, bu

hat carried conviction at once. It was decided formally that the reddish brown cows in the picture were reminiscent o

craning his head over the shoulders of the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of the reddish cows, the milk-maid and the blue painted foothills. He was

eing his aunt. Mrs. Cedarquist and her two daughters declared that the air of Los Muertos must certainly have done him a world of good. He was stouter, there could be no doubt of it. A little pale, perhaps.

now a widow of some Mohammedan of Bengal or Rajputana, who had a blue spot in the middle of her forehead and who solicited contributions for her sisters in affliction; now a certain bearded poet, recently back from the Klondike; now a decayed musician who had been ejected from a young ladies' musical conservatory of Europe because of certain surprising pamphlets on free love, and who had come to San Francisco to introduce the community to the music of Brahms; now a Japanese youth who wore spectacles and a grey flannel shirt and who, at intervals, delivered himself of the most astonishing poems, vague, unrhymed, unmetrical lucubrations, inc

outh, in the silk robes of the Samurai two-sworded nobles, read from his own works-"The flat-bordered earth, nailed down at night, rusting under the darkness," "The brave, upright rains that came down like errands from iron-bodied yore-time." The Christian Scientist, in funereal, impressive black, discussed the contra-will and pan-psychic hylozoism. The university professor put on a full dress suit and lisle thread gloves at three in the afternoon and before literary clubs and circles bellowed extracts from Goethe and Schiler in the German, shaking

s, reading circles, and culture organisations. The attention the Fake received, the time devoted to it, the money which it absorbed, were incredible. It was all one that impostor after impostor was exposed; it was all one that the clubs, the circles, the societies were proved beyond doubt to ha

arting with bursting pocket-books, passing on the word to the next in line, assu

of gala for the entire Fake. The decayed professors, virtuosi, litterateurs, and artists thronged to the place en masse. Their clamour filled all the air. On every hand one heard the scraping of violins, the tinkling of mandolins, the suave accents of "art talks," the incoherencies of poe

er, she was introduced to newly arrived fakirs. To each poet, to e

you known you h

the city were awakening to a Realisation of the Beautiful, to a sense of the higher needs of life. This

helgrim himself and on familiar terms with the great financier and his family. Her husband, while deploring the policy of the railroad, saw no good reason for quarrelling with

ve so much in comm

artist, murmuring conventionalities,

see so much that is alike in your modes of interpreting nature. In Mr. Presley's sonnet, 'The Better Part,' there

m a mere bungler. You don't mean quite that, I am sure. I am too sensitive. It is my cro

e fixed on the artist's luxuriant hair, a thick and

mured- "leonine! L

irring herself, she ex

way, I have such good news. You know I am one of the lady members of the subscription committee for our Fair, and you know we approached Mr. Shelgrim for a donation to help along. Oh, such a li

ed Presley. "The fairs and festivals bri

turned on him

edarquist. "And this from YOU!, Presl

, Mr. Presley," declared Hartrath

s and fetes," said a voice at Presley's elbow, "b

erved in time to catch the drift of the talk. But he spoke witho

but because it amuses the people, distracts their attention from the doings of his railroad. When Beatrice was a baby and had

, nevertheless, and Mrs. Cedarquist shook her

nes be upon t

hange the subject, "I hear you are on the Fam

photographs of them are simply dreadful. I had the committee to luncheon the other day and we passed them

ld had been struck with horror at the reports of suffering and mortality in the affected districts, and had hastened to send aid. Certain women of San Francisco, with Mrs. Cedarquist at their head, had organised a number of

s guests. The drawing of the numbers in the raffle was about to be made. Hartrat

id. "Come into the wine room and I w

sed eagerly about the table near the picture, upon which one of the hall boys had just placed a ballot box containing the numbers. The ladies, holding thei

his younger son had retired to the library of the club on the floor

n, "there is a deal, there, in what Cedar

nly worth thi

t have so wide an outlook as our friend Cedarquist, but I am quick to see my chance. Boy, the whole East is opening, disintegrating before the Anglo-Saxon. It is time that bread

excited murmur from the main room of the club, the soprano chatt

looking into, Govern

at was to be diverted, flowing back upon itself in a sudden, colossal eddy, stranding the middleman, the ENTRE-PRENEUR, the elevator-and mixing-house men dry and despairing, their occupation gone. He saw the farmer suddenly emancipated, the world's food no longer at the mercy of the speculator, thousands upon thousands of men set free of the grip of Trust and ring and monopoly acting for themselves, selling their own wheat, organising into one gigantic trust, themselves, sending their agents to all the entry ports of China. Himself, Annix

e the eye of his mind, Magnus, with Ha

blocked the hallway and the entrance to the main room, where the numbers of the raffle were being drawn. N

o talk further upon the great subject, interested as to details, but Cedarquist was vague in his replies. He was no farmer, he

side. He saw only the grand coup, the huge results, the East conquered, the march of empi

the ranch; first gold, now wheat. Once again he became the pioneer, hardy, brilliant, taking colossal chances, blazing the way, grasping a fortune-a million in a single day. All the bigness of his nature leaped up again within him. At the magnitud

had not seen him. One of them was reading aloud to his companion from an evening edition of that day's newspaper. It was in the course of this reading that Magnus caught the sound of his name. He paused, listening, and Presley, Harran and Cedarquist followed his example. Soon they all understood. They were listening to the

c and Southwestern Railroad, and the defendants have no title, and their possession is

he flimsiest mockery. With a brusque wrench, they were snatched back to reality. Between them and the vision, between the fecund San Joaquin, reeking with fruitfulness, and the millions of Asia crowding toward the verge of starvation, lay the iron-hearted mo

of Hartrath's picture was over, and as Presley turned about he saw Mrs. Cedarquist and her two daughters signalling eagerly

on. I'v

nd Harran went down the marble steps leading to the street d

good-bye to Presley, looked first at the retreating figures of the ranchers, then at the gayly dressed throng of beauti

y, not a city, but