The Driver - Part XIII; Ayn Rand; Calumet K; Secret of the League

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of my review of The Driver.

The Driver is many things. A casual observer will blast through its pages and conclude that it is simply a story about railroads - or a fictionalized account of the Panic of 1893 - or an Ayn Rand relic. In fact, The Driver is all of these things and more.

(1) I know of very few sources of information about the Panic of 1893 (aside from the standard high school history book obligatory anti-capitalist boilerplate). I know of no fictionalized account of this Panic (aside from modern speculation about the origins of The Wizard of OZ). By remembering and fictionalizing this event despite the passage of 30 years, Garrett gave to us and future generations something to relate to as we endure the events of 2009 (and beyond). Millions of Americans have no experience or other information to place today's events in context. Government schools have completely misinformed their students about all things economic and political. Americans find themselves adrift amidst current circumstances with no context and no framework to understand what is happening.

Most fictionalized accounts of the Depression of the 1930's focus only on poverty and misery as some sort of indictment of capitalism. The Driver differs from these standard stories by focusing on capitalism itself as a solution. The Driver differs simply by presenting a solution at all.

(2) In recent years, the Ayn Rand connection to The Driver has overshadowed the real importance of this book and other Garrett writings. Commenters miss the real importance of Garrett's books and articles while seeking some basis to attack Ayn Rand. The Wikipedia (!?) entry about Garet Garrett refers to The Driver as Garrett's "most influential work." This assertion is false, as that distinction belongs to The People's Pottage. Regardless of the relative merits of these books, People's Pottage is Garrett's most often quoted work. I have noted many references to People's Pottage over many decades among other writers. The Driver was unheard of in modern times until Bruce Ramsey published Salvos Against the New Deal in 2002. The anonymous writers at Wikipedia attribute undue influence to The Driver probably as part of a backdoor attack on Ayn Rand. The Randian angle is the context in which The Driver is usually quoted.

But these attacks are unfair. Even though one character has a similar name as in Rand's most popular novel and Garrett's plot involves similar business themes, the stories are not similar enough to cry "plagiarism," and there is no language that matches in both books (except for one famous line with completely different meanings and contexts). The similarities are more complex than I am explaining here, but not in a way that constitutes plagiarism.

Ayn Rand appears to have built upon Garrett's work and improved upon it with her own elements. Numerous fictional works contributed to Ayn Rand's writings, including Calumet K (Merwin-Webster, 1901) and probably Secret of the League (Ernest Bramah, 1907). Ayn Rand even wrote an introduction in 1967 to a republication of Calumet K. The tragedy of this situation is that Secret of the League and The Driver were never republished during Ayn Rand's lifetime. Had they been republished as was Calumet K, Rand might very well have endorsed those books as well and deprived the Rand-haters of ammunition.

Rand's words in 1967 regarding Calumet K could apply equally to The Driver:

But it has one element that I have never found in any other novel: the portrait of an efficacious man.

Calumet K, p i. (1993 edition) (emphasis in original)

Whether Rand did not consider The Driver's hero to be "efficacious" or whether Rand simply forgot having read The Driver some 45 years earlier is a matter for another article. The fact remains that Rand saw in Charlie Bannon (from Calumet K) the same features that exist in The Driver's hero and in the heroes of Rand's novels.

Those who attack Rand ignore Calumet K and Secret of the League because it becomes absurd to accuse a writer of plagiarizing the same story from three different books by three different authors. The proposition almost denies itself. Yet that is what Rand's detractors must do if they are to account for the contributions of all three books while maintaining their attacks on Rand.



Rand's plots also trace themselves to Rand's early works, including Red Pawn. One who reads Red Pawn, We the Living and The Fountainhead in succession (all Randian works) will learn the origin of the plots that Rand used in her later fiction. Such a reader would lose much of his appetite for finding mischief in the pages of The Driver.

While I disagree with those who use The Driver as a weapon against Rand, The Driver does have its place as an influence upon Rand's writings. Far from serving as some sort of smoking gun, The Driver is part of a larger picture. The Driver, Secret of the League and Calumet K deserve equal billing as early influences upon Ayn Rand, even though these books take a back seat to the plot development in Rand's own early works.

The attacks upon Rand do a disservice not only to Rand, but to The Driver and other works. The Driver deserves to be known as more than a weapon to use against Ayn Rand. Those who think of The Driver in this way marginalize the book and miss the novel's role as one of our few connections to the Panic of 1893. The Driver's Panic of 1893 backdrop is more topical in 2009 than at any point in recent memory.

The Panic of 1893 demands recognition, especially since the American government now uses today's crisis to advance its own political agenda. That Panic ranks behind only The Great Depression in historical importance when evaluating today's crisis. The Driver is our window into that Panic and the solutions that would serve us today in 2009 and beyond.

The proper role of The Driver today would not merely be historical, but inspirational. Rand was correct (in her Calumet K introduction) to point out the barren wasteland that constitutes modern fiction. Today's economic and political crises cry out for a fictionalized version that captures the essence of the moment. While there is no doubt that modern writers will write such stories using the old anti-capitalist boilerplate, such propaganda misses the point. We need new Garretts to fictionalize today's events so that the true context of the headlines will not be lost upon modern observers. Renewed interest in The Driver and Garrett's other works may help spark just such an effort.

The Driver - part XII - The Driver shows the way out.

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of my review of The Driver.

In Chapter 15, the main character testified before a Congressional committee in the aftermath of the battle described in Chapter 14. He provided a lesson in free market economics and the true resolution to any panic/recession/depression. I provide some plot spoilers here because the following exchange provides lessons for today:

Q [from the committee counsel]: But you will admit that you are very rich? . . .

[The left has been against wealth for so long, they are finally getting their wish as the "very rich" are disappearing in our own time. Being rich is something one "admits" to, much like alcoholism or crime. - editor]

A: Yes . . . I suppose I am.
Q: Well, as briefly as possible, will you tell this Committee how you made it?
A: . . . . I'll tell you. I made it buying things nobody else wanted. I bought Great Midwestern when it was bankrupt and people thought no railroad was worth its weight as junk. When I took charge of the property I bought equipment when it was cheap because nobody else wanted it and the equipment makers were hungry, and rails and ties and materials and labor to improve the road with, until everybody thought I was crazy. When the business came we had a railroad to handle it. I've done that same thing with every property I have taken up. . . . . In the next twelve months the Great Midwestern properties will spend five hundred million dollars for double tracking, grade reductions, new equipment and larger terminals. . .
Q: . . . [D]o you realize what it means for one man to say he will spend five hundred millions in a year? That is half the national debt.
A: I know exactly what it means . . . It means for once a Wall Street panic won't be followed by unemployment and industrial depression. . .

pp. 269-270 (original edition)

In the decades since publication of The Driver, the government has rigged the game so that the above scenario could never rescue the economy:

1. The government will not allow prices to fall to the point where a risk-taking entrepreneur could purchase assets and make the best use of those assets. The current administration is, at this moment, trying to reinflate the bubble.


2. Regulatory burdens prevent companies and investors from making necessary investments like those set forth in our main character's testimony.


3. Tax burdens serve as a major disincentive against new investment. This is especially true for the taxes that will be needed to finance the spending bills of just the past few weeks.

The government has removed the "driver" from the economy. We are left with unfocused public "investments," limitless public borrowing and gradual devaluation of the currency. Entrepreneurs have been marginalized and blamed for the actions of the government. They have been taxed and regulated into virtual non-existence. It is no coincidence that with the "driver" in chains, a reference to 500 million dollars as "half the national debt" would now seem quaint. Public borrowing is no substitute for a driver.
Click here for part 13 (the conclusion).

The Driver - Part XI - the climax

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of my review of The Driver.


Chapter XIV of The Driver is the real climax of the novel. In this chapter, the main character's success, achievement and ability provoke the final conflict between the main character and various forces aligned against him.

This chapter will remind one of a much more simplistic version of Gail Wynand's battle to save his newspaper near the end of The Fountainhead, or the battles of various heroes in Atlas Shrugged. Lest Ayn Rand's detractors see another opportunity to cry "plagiarism," Rand's plots were much more intricate, complex and operated on a deeper moral and philosophical level.

Chapter XIV also operates as a more concrete version of Chapter 5 of Garrett's Blue Wound (1921) ("The Wages of Thrift"). That the theme of the successful man attacked because of his success appeared at all in Garrett's pre-New Deal writings reinforces Garrett's image as a prophet. That Rand explored, deepened and perfected this theme in numerous novels, articles and essays has provided moral support and fortitude to today's victims.
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See Part 12 - The way out..

The Driver - Part X - Panic of 1893; Grover Cleveland; Gold; the recovery.

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of my review of The Driver.

Pages 136 - 225 [original edition] of The Driver focused less on the Panic of 1893 and focused more the individuals and their fight to overcome the Panic and its consequences.

This portion of the book begins with a brief explanation of steps taken by President Cleveland to stop the run on gold. pp. 136-137. These steps occurred prior to the election of 1896 and the administration of President McKinley, events that I have credited with restoring the gold standard and putting the crisis to its final rest.

Much of the plot that follows in the next 90 pages describes the actions one man takes to reinvigorate one business following the Panic. If we are to benefit from any lesson of The Driver [and these 90 pages in particular], it is the lesson that panics are not resolved by government spending. They are resolved by the entrepreneurship of individuals. Individuals lead us out of hard economic times. Individuals rescue depressed businesses, take risks and buy into down markets. The individual is the true "driver" of the free economy. The individual is the driver of freedom itself. As a result, the individual is often also made the victim of those he has benefitted/liberated - as we shall see in upcoming parts of The Driver.

See part 11 of my review here.

The Driver - Part IX - a run on the U.S. Treasury - Panic of 1893

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of my review of The Driver.














Late in Chapter VI, Garrett describes a run on gold at the U.S. Treasury. In Part 7 of my review, I described the causes of the Panic of 1893:

A main factor in precipitating that crisis was the federal government's decree that Gold and Silver trade at parity with each other. The two metals were treated by Congress as equal in value, the laws of economics notwithstanding. "Naive trust in the power of words to command reality is found in all mass delusions." [p. 89].

The forced parity between the metals caused a run on gold, leading to a general credit collapse.

Garrett creates a fictionalized account of this run:

For several weeks uninterruptedly there had been a run on the government's gold fund. People were frantic to exchange white money [silver] for gold. They waited in a writhing line that kept its insatiable head inside the doors of the sub-Treasury. Its body flowed down the long steps, lay along the north side of Wall Street and terminated in a wriggling tail around the corner in William Street, five minutes' walk away. It moved steadily forward by successive movements of contraction and elongation. Each day at 3 o'clock the sub-Treasury, slamming its doors, cut off the monster's head. Each morning at 10 o'clock there was a new and hungrier head waiting to push its way in the instant the doors opened. Its food was gold and nothing else, for it lived there night and day. . . . . . It grew. Steadily it ate its way deeper into the nation's gold reserve, and there was no controlling it, for Congress had said that white money and gold were of equal value and could not believe it was not so. The paying tellers worked very slowly to gain time. . . . . the officers of the sub-Treasury had just telegraphed to Washington saying they could hold out only a few hours more. That meant the gold was nearly gone. It meant that the United States Treasury might at any moment put up its shutters . . . . Never had the line been so excited, so terribly ophidian in its aspect. Its writhings were sickening. The police handled it as the zoo keepers handle a great serpent. That is, they kept it straight. If once it should begin to coil the panic would be uncontrollable. Particles detached themselves from the tail and ran up and down the body trying to buy places nearer the head. Those nearest the head hotly disputed the right of substitution. . . . In the tense babel of voices there came sudden fissures of stillness, so that one heard one's own breathing or the far-off sounds of river traffic. At those moments what was passing before the eyes had the phantastic reality of a dream.

[pp. 127-129]

This story provides background for the main plot. It may become a reality in our own lives as the government further devalues our currency in its attempts to wish away the fundamental problems in our economy.



The Driver is not a history lesson on gold or an economics essay. For a nonfiction treatment of the government's attack on gold during the New Deal (and some history of gold in the U.S.), see Garrett's "Pieces of Money" from the Saturday Evening Post, April 20, 1935 [reprinted as Chapter 7 of Salvos Against the New Deal].
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See Part X.

The Driver - Part VIII - Insider Trading

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of my review of The Driver.

Chapter V featured another Ayn Rand relic - a character similar in some ways (although not in name) to one of the main characters from one of Rand's big novels. Once again I will not say too much for fear of giving away the plot. And once again Rand's character enjoyed fundamental improvements in complexity and depth. Rand's character was more thoroughly integrated into the plot than Garrett's character.

In Chapter VI, the reader is treated to the drama from inside the corporate board room, as the reality of the Panic (of 1893) becomes undeniable. In the midst of the action, as the corporate directors meet to decide the fate of the railroad, Garrett includes a passage that would be almost unthinkable to modern investors:

There is no law forbidding a director to part with his shares when the omens foretell disaster. It is commonly done in fact in the anonymous mist of the stock market, only you never mention it. The convention is that all stockholders have equal rights of parnership. But as directors are the few who have been elected by many to act as managing partners, and since it is necessary for managing partners to have first access to all information, it follows from the nature of circumstances that they are inside stockholders and that the others are outside stockholders; and it follows no less from the nature of mankind that the outsiders invariably suspect the insiders of selling out in time to save themselves.

[p. 117]

Garrett could not know that he was describing something - "insider trading" - that would later become the scapegoat used by every political analyst as the New Deal and its stepchildren programs would careen from one economic disaster to another throughout the 20th century (and into the 21st). While Garrett discussed insider trading as an element of the Panic, he recognized that such trading was a result - not a cause - of the general chaos.
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Part IX - a run on the U.S. Treasury.

The Driver - Part VII - Panic of 1893

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and part 6 of my review of The Driver.

Garrett's focus on the Panic of 1893 can be better understood in light of a brief explanation of that crisis. A main factor in precipitating that crisis was the federal government's decree that Gold and Silver trade at parity with each other. The two metals were treated by Congress as equal in value, the laws of economics notwithstanding. "Naive trust in the power of words to command reality is found in all mass delusions." [p. 89].

The forced parity between the metals caused a run on gold, leading to a general credit collapse. The story is more complicated, but the government's populist attack against gold (and previously against silver in 1873) was the root cause of the panic. The situation was not rectified until the government returned to the gold standard after the election of 1896.

Much of this information does not appear in The Driver except by passing reference.

There were other similarities with today's bubble. Just as today's elected officials have received favorable treatment from mortgage companies at the heart of the financial meltdown, "United States Senators were discovered speculating in the stock of corporations that were interested in tariff legislation, particularly the Sugar Trust." [p. 93]

Another similarity relates to Wall Street:

The name of Wall Street became accursed, not that morality was lower in Wall Street than anywere else, but because the consequences of its sins were conspicuous.

[p. 93]

It is always easy to blame "Wall Street" for the consequences of the government's currency devaluation.

A principle difference between the two crises can be seen in the solutions. While President McKinley returned the country to sound money, our government seems determined to devalue our currency to the point where U.S. Treasury bonds will be unmarketable. (This devaluation is in addition to increased political controls that will further cripple the economy, censor political opponents and ensure one party rule.) A century of currency devaluation has enshrined the power of mass delusion.

A by-product of the Panic of 1893 has been the lasting effect on American culture. The Driver's plot was based on the Panic. The Driver was one of many influences on the writings of Ayn Rand - writings that remain powerful and influential to this day.

Others have speculated about the influence of the Panic and the gold-silver controversy on the original book version of the Wizard of Oz in 1900. I have also read that the Panic, due to the rapid abandonment of newly built homes by suddenly insolvent individuals, created the legend of the abandoned, victorian haunted house that appears in so many movies, television programs and amusement parks. I will leave that speculation for others.

I will comment only that for the present crisis to have a lasting effect on our culture such that writers, readers and viewers in 100 years will see elements in fiction that grew out of this crisis, policies will have to change. We cannot bankrupt the United States and expect literature and culture to thrive in the future. Vibrant culture grows out of vibrant civilizations, not decaying, balkanized people mired in chaos over a destroyed currency. If the U.S. is reduced to a third world country, no one will remember the allegedly "historical" political events that have been celebrated in recent months, and no mythology equivalent to the Wizard of Oz/haunted house legends will emerge to commemorate our economic woes.
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Click here for Part VIII.