Unsanctioned Voice; Individualism and the Garrett novels; Harangue; Lincoln Steffens; Emma Goldman; Wobblies - IWW; American Omen; Rockefeller Center

Click these links for discussions of the Writer's Note , Chapters 1 and 2, Chapter 3, Chapters 4-6, Chapters 7-10 , Chapters 11 and 12 , Chapter 13 , Chapter 14 and Chapters 15 and 16 of Bruce Ramsey's Unsanctioned Voice.




Chapter 17 focuses on individual self-reliance and its relation to capitalism and Christianity. Ramsey expands on this focus with discussions of three of Garrett's novels - The Driver, Cinder Buggy and Satan's Bushel. Click here for the first part of my 2008 recap/review of The Driver, here for the beginning of my 2004/2005 recap/review of Satan's Bushel and here for part 1 of my recap/review of Cinder Buggy.

Ramsey discusses the Ayn Rand connection with The Driver, including alternative origins for the name "Galt." (p. 121, n. 4). My own belief is that there is enough Garrett material that influenced the Rand novels that the name "Galt" doesn't matter. Even if Rand got the idea for the name "Galt" from The Driver, there is nothing wrong with that. There was no plagiarism. Rand wrote very different books than Garrett, partially by building on some of Garrett's ideas and integrating those ideas into a philosophically-based plot.

Garrett, failing to foresee the plot of Atlas Shrugged, had written in 1913 that "Capital cannot strike." (p. 121, n. 4).

Ramsey writes that "The Driver is not a good novel." (p. 117). I am sure that it does not measure up to the classic fiction works of the past and would not hold the attention of a modern audience. But the story does have merit. The plot of an investor fighting to gain and remain in control of a struggling company despite attacks from all sides is compelling. Gail Wynand's struggle in The Fountainhead is more compelling because Rand was better at integrating philosophical issues into the plot. Modern fiction regarding large companies is spiced with sexual content and/or violence to appease modern audiences. But The Driver serves as an example where the plot turns on a company's value without relying on modern plot devices extraneous to capitalist considerations. Rand's plot elements were definitely based on capitalist issues, but also involved far deeper and more basic philosophical issues.

Ramsey quotes one noncommittal statement about The Driver from Bernard Baruch (p. 117), but Baruch also made a very positive statement here, in which he referred to The Driver as "one of the great novels of the day." Also click here for Time Magazine's review from March 17, 1923.

Ramsey barely mentions Cinder Buggy, except to say that it is similar to The Driver. (p. 117). I think Cinder Buggy showed growth, as the personal stories were more closely integrated into the capitalist message than in The Driver. Garrett did a better job of demonstrating the importance of the underlying industrial activity (iron and steel) and such activity's role in the history of mankind.

Ramsey also quotes Cinder Buggy on the issue of luck as it relates to individualism (p. 119) - a quote that I did not mention in my review. The quote appeared at a point where luck played a role in the advancement of the plot and the characters' fortunes (pp. 201-202 of Cinder Buggy). I had criticized the use of luck as a plot device without realizing that Garrett might have used the concept of luck to help explain individualism.

Ramsey quotes Weaver's speech from Satan's Bushel and compares Dreadwind to Mered from Blue Wound (pp. 117-119).

Ramsey provides clues to the roots of Garrett's economic beliefs (pp. 119-121), citing Herbert Spencer, Simon Newcomb and Francis Amasa Walker.

Garrett understood inflation as confiscatory theft based on his own reporting from post-WWI Germany. (p. 120). This writing shows how far down modern "conservatives" have sunk when they criticize this or that president for "failing to control" or "failing to stop" inflation.

Most importantly, Garrett understood that capitalism was not merely a "system" imposed upon a nation or a people, but was a natural part of life. Capitalism "grew out of life . . . gradually, and is therefore one of the great natural designs." (pp. 119-120). Reading even Ramsey's brief quotation from Garrett's writing is refreshing in light of modern conservatives who fumble in attempting to justify capitalism as merely the best among many "systems."

Chapter 18 begins with the statement that "[a]ll of Garrett's fiction is about work, industry and making a living." [p. 123]. [I made a similar comment in August 2007.]

Most of Chapter 18 is about Garrett's 1927 novel, Harangue and his fictional socialist takeover of North Dakota. Ramsey speculates that the title was conceived by the publisher, and that the subtitle (used as the title in the Saturday Evening Post serialization) was more descriptive. Ramsey identifies this subtitle as having come from the Book of Judges. [p. 123].

Ramsey identifies Harangue as Garrett's best novel. [p. 124]. Ramsey includes a more detailed description of the plot than he does for Garrett's other novels. [pp. 124-127]. Part of the plot overlaps real life events surrounding the Wobblies (IWW) [pp. 125-126].

Ramsey notes that Garrett's condemnation of socialism "lacks the bite" of his later attacks on the New Deal. [p. 127]. I have noted many times before that the New Deal would focus Garrett's writing. In the post-1932 world, Garrett wrote with the understanding that the battle against the New Deal was the only relevant issue.

Ramsey also discusses (and cites sources for) Garrett's association with Emma Goldman and Lincoln Steffens. [pp. 127-129]. Footnote 12 [p. 129] is one example that gives the reader some appreciation for Ramsey's task in ferreting out the various pieces of information that he would string together to create Unsanctioned Voice.

Chapter 19 focuses on American Omen and Garrett's travels around the United States. It begins with the sentence, "The 1920's was the last decade in which Garrett was optimistic about America." [p. 131]. I suspect that this statement applied to many people in addition to Garrett, although many people since the 1920's would display "optimism" about superficial matters far different than what Garrett marvelled at in the passages referenced in Chapter 19.

Ramsey focused on the portions of American Omen (1928) that described innovations in business training and management, the role of profit and the relation of technology to labor. [pp. 131-133].

The rest of Chapter 19 quotes Garrett's first-hand descriptions (in various articles) of American highways, Kansas City rail yards, Birmingham steel plants, California redwood forests and the softening effects of mild climates on the work ethic and ambition of the inhabitants. [pp. 133 - 137]. Much of this chapter has the feel of small portions of the old "Route 66" television series (without the drama). There was much about America that justified optimism at that time. Industry was growing and beginning to show its full potential. The changes in American life were visible and inspiring. Today, "urban explorers" seek out and examine the ruins and rubble that once created so much optimism before the government began its scorched earth policy of destruction known as the New Deal (and all that followed).

The chapter ends with curious quotes about the economic justification for skyscrapers in New York and the entire cities of Los Angeles and Wichita. Garrett speculates that these items were not economically motivated, but were created solely as a showcase for American economic power. The final quotation is from a 1929 Garrett article that applies this theory to Rockefeller center, which was under construction at that time. [p. 137].

Click here for a discussion of Chapter 20 and the shooting incident.

The Cinder Buggy - part 24 - Chapter XLIII - Damascene; resolution of the triangle; 122 years.

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapter XLIII is the final chapter of the novel and ties up the remaining loose ends of the story.   The plot is resolved in somewhat the same way as The Driver. The triangle is resolved in a much less philosophical way than the Randian triangles. Garrett's resolution helps one appreciate the Randian novels that incorporate the personal storylines more thoroughly into the philosophical conflicts. 

Page 357 indicates that the story ends in 1901.  The story thus spans 122 years (not including Garrett's description of modern New Damascus in Chapter I). 

The final word in the book is the term "Damascene," which means "to decorate metal with wavy patches of inlay or etching." American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1976.  The "Damascene" reference in the novel was the name of a boat, but it is symbolic of the story.  The personal story of the characters is etched upon the story of iron and steel as sort of a decoration.  My own opinion is that the characters' stories are much more than decoration, but are not so integrated as the characters' stories in the Randian novels. 

In the next segment I will summarize Cinder Buggy's legacy and its proper place in American history.

Click here for part 25.

The Cinder Buggy - part 23 - Chapters XLI and XLII - steel wealth and stock bubbles

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

      After reading Chapter XLI, I have a better feel of the entire scope of Cinder Buggy.  While the Enoch-Aaron conflict played a major role in the story, Cinder Buggy was about much more. The birth and growth of the American steel industry is one of the most consequential events in the history of mankind.  That fact is lost on most people today for a variety of reasons:

• The near destruction of the steel industry in the past 40 + years and the American establishment's rationalization thereof.
• The anti-capitalist, anti-industrialist orthodoxy that dominates establishment education, entertainment and information media.
• Modern western life is defined by the debased currency. government dependency, bread-and-circuses culture that prevents the victims (all of us) from recognizing long term trends and historic events - even as those events change our lives forever.

      Cinder Buggy fictionalizes steel's birth and growth and inserts Enoch and Aaron (and their families) into that story. But the reader never loses focus on the historic larger context in which those characters exist. By reading the story, one gains a greater appreciation of steel's place in history.  Garrett, especially in Chapter XLI, shows the breadth and scope of this story.  Chapter XLI also continues plotlines that first appeared in Chapter XXXVI.   While Garrett based much of the steel story on the Enoch-Aaron conflict, he went beyond that conflict to show the steel industry reaching the pinnacle of success. 

      Garrett, writing metaphorically, attributes the events of Chapter XLI to a "sign" in the "financial heavens" [p. 336] and "that sign which stood higher and higher in the money firmament." [p. 339].  This reference is as close as Cinder Buggy comes to expressing a religious view - although he writes more explicitly on religious matters in the "Apologue" to American Story.  Garrett appears - over three decades - to have sharpened his focus on God and America's relationship to God.  The New Deal and its transformation of America is reflected in Garrett's sharpened focus between Cinder Buggy (1923) and American Story more than three decades later.  

      Chapter XLII tells the reader about wealthy people with more money than they know how to spend. They cannot decide how to spend their money or enjoy their wealth. They bounce from one pointless luxury to another.  Garrett had not yet encountered the tax free foundation that uses the immense wealth of an industrialist to fight capitalism long after its industrialist-benefactor has died. 




This is another example of the story being less focused because Garrett wrote in pre-New Deal times.  Had Garrett written Cinder Buggy post-New Deal, he would have depicted the newly created wealth of Chapter XLII in a far different light. 

       In discussing the public's rush to purchase the new steel stock shares, Garrett refers to "panics inverted . . . [that] have a large displacement in the lierature of popular delusions." [p. 345].  Garrett writes as if he had lived through the 1990's stock market bubble.  Fifteen years ago, the world's only copies of Cinder Buggy sat ignored in library archive rooms while investors (unaware of history) poured their retirement money into a large bubble. 

      That a novelist would  write of panic buying in 1923 - just as the bubble that would ultimately burst in 1929 was beginning - should be sufficient reason to study his books.  That the same novelist would be shelved for decades while generations of new Americans would pursue new inverted panics is worse than a tragedy. 

Click here for Part 24. 

The Cinder Buggy - part 22 - Chapters XXXIX and XL - The Homestead Strike; Geisinger Medical Center; Danville, PA

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapter XXXIX contains much to think about while providing mostly a narrative of continuing action. 

The story revolves around a violent labor confrontation that is loosely based on the Homestead Strike of June 1892.  There were a number of similarities with (1) the events of the confrontation, (2) the physical setting and (3) the people involved (including an unnamed thinly veiled version of H.C. Frick). I will avoid writing more about the story to avoid plot spoilers.

The use of the Homestead type story is significant for several reasons.

• The story involves the labor movement for the first time in Cinder Buggy.
• While not identifying the year, the use of an event from 1892 helps show the passage of time.  About two decades have elapsed since the main characters began operating their first factory in Pittsburgh.
• Garrett is telling a fictional story, while tying that story as much as possible to specific historic events. Garrett wants his story to be thought of in the context of the real history. While he writes of fictional characters, he uses those characters to tell the story of American industry.

Chapter XXXIX presents a challenge for followers of Garrett, as Garrett uses language that today would be considered very un-PC and derogatory toward eastern Europeans.   Establishment followers would undoubtedly use these passages to denigrate the entire capitalist message, even though Garrett wrote very sympathetically of the workers in this particular dispute.  Notwithstanding this potential controversy, Garrett's comments were not uncommon in that era.  The prevailing attitudes toward eastern Europeans at that time are exemplified in other sources, including a geography book entitled Carpenter's New Geographical Reader, American Book Company (New York 1928).

Chapter XL provides the long aftermath of the events of Chapter XXXIX. (I will be brief to avoid plot spoilers).  Garrett further indicates the passage of time by explaining how the characters, were it not for their relationship, "would have missed the Autumn and gone directly from Midsummer to the Winter of their lives."  (p. 334).

One of the characters returns to New Damascus and funds the creation of  "the finest hospital in the state."  (p. 335). This passage is a thinly veiled reference to Geisinger Medical Center. The previous owner of my book copy (the nearly anonymous tour guide from Part IV) noted in pencil in the margin (@ 1927) that this passage was a reference to "Geisinger Memorial Hospital" - as it was then known.  As I wrote in Part IV:

Danville [New Damascus] is known today primarily for Geisinger Medical Center, which opened in 1915 from the proceeds of the iron business of George Geisinger. Geisinger is today one of the premier health systems in all of Pennsylvania.

These circumstances form a rough parallel with the events of Chapter XL, but there is no known historical connection with the Homestead strike or its aftermath.  This reference helps establish the timing of Chapter XL's end as roughly the early 20th century. 

The creation and continued prominence of Geisinger allows the American iron age and the industrial revolution to live on despite the serious decline of all American industry.  Early American industry made Geisinger (and many other modern institutions) possible. The long forgotten real-life counterparts of the Gibs and the Breakspeares, through Geisinger, continue to influence individuals across Pennsylvania who have no knowledge or appreciation of how their medical treatment was made possible.  One drives by the blue historical marker on the highway where an iron mill once stood, but fails to realize that the words on this marker describe long forgotten events that, even today, make our lives possible.   Those of us who bother to read the marker might scoff at iron "T-rails" while taking medicine for granted.  While few of us place actual trust in government plans to nationalize health care, we fail to appreciate how much we owe to America's early industrialists for the health care that we will soon lose.

- - - - - 1915 - Dedication ceremony for Geisinger Memorial Hospital

- - - - - Danville iron rail marker [click to enlarge]

- - - - - Geisinger today

Garrett finishes Chapter XL with a flexible time reference -  "And so the Autumn stole upon them"  (p. 335). Garrett means, of course, the advancing age of the characters - not the changing seasons of the year. 

Click here for Part 23.

The Cinder Buggy - part 21 - Chapters XXXVI, XXXVII and XXXVIII; F. A. Hayek; W.H. Hutt; Capitalism and the Historians

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

      I had written in part 20 that the end of Chapter XXXV seemed to deviate from the plot with apparently unrelated matter that leads the story in a new direction with new characters.  From reading Chapter XXXVI, it appears that these concerns were unfounded, as Chapter XXXV appears to have set the stage for Chapter XXXVI, which takes the original story to a new level. 

      Between Chapters XXXV and XXXVI, Garrett bridges the gap between (1) compulsive gamblers that cannot stop betting on horses and (2) owners of large companies, where the company's incredible value does not truly enrich the owner because the company is too large to be sold.  Both types of people are trapped:

. . . and there seemed no way either to quit or get out.  If you had all the wealth in the world you could not sell it.  There would be no one to buy it.  In principle that was their problem.  If they could sell out they would be millionaires.  But where was there anybody with money enough to buy them out?

[p. 301].  Garrett's (and John's) solution was intended to take the story of steel in America to new heights.  A modern reader would lament that steel companies of the past 40 years have achieved the opposite of what John was attempting.    However it would turn out for John, it was obvious that the characters had come a long way from the original iron furnaces of New Damascus. 

      At this point Garrett also introduces the concept of the Wall Street speculator.  Speculators and stock/commodity price manipulators played a major role in the plots of both Satan's Bushel and The Driver.  Despite the complexity involved in speculation, Garrett was very comfortable with this subject and the type of events depicted in Chapter XXXVI .  Speculators have served as both the heroes and neutral characters in Garrett's works.  They often, as here, play the role of advancing the action toward a conclusion more quickly. 

      Chapter XXXVII integrates the events of Chapter XXXVI into the old plot involving the old characters .  It becomes apparent at this point that Garrett, instead of taking the plot in a new direction, has continued the plot in a more complicated fashion with a new element. Chapter XXXVII gives the reader the feeling of experiencing the "calm before the storm," as the book proceeds to its final few chapters with good things happening to the major characters.

      Chapter XXXVIII is a continuation of Chapter XXXVII, only on a broader scale.  The financial prospects for the major characters look better than ever, as the steel industry continues to grow.  Garrett tries to place steel in perspective with a statement that could not be fully comprehended until our own time:

Nobody knew how big it should be nor could tell by looking at it what stage it was in.  Not until afterward.

[p. 322] [emphasis added].  This quote might fall into the category of unintended irony.  I am not sure if Garrett has an "afterward" planned for some point in the rest of the book.  I know that since the mid-1970's, the United States has been living in the "afterward" of the steel industry.  I lament that Garrett is not around to place the 1970's and beyond into the proper context. 

      Garrett's description of the growth of the steel industry stands in sharp contrast to the accepted doctrine in modern textbooks.  Textbooks describe steel (and other) "trusts" creating monopolies and being somehow "bad."  The modern student is left with a vague impression of big business needing government regulation to avoid the dreaded "monopoly."   Garrett's pre-New Deal description of events would surprise those whose only exposure to industrialism came from modern textbooks:

  Minor groups were continuously springing up at preciesly the wrong time.  They generally smashed up or had to be bought out by the others to save themselves from ruinous competition. The steel age cared nothing about profits.  All it wanted was steel - more and more and more. 

[p. 323].  Garrett goes on to write that specialization in the steel industry began and "only intensified the competition."  [p. 323]. But the specialty steel companies began to form trusts for the sake of preserving profitability:

So there came to be a steel pipe trust, a sheet steel trust, a bridge and structural steel trust, a tin plate trust, a trust for everything; and matters became a great deal worse because some of the biggest mills, such as John's, were never in a trust and if the pipe trust or the structural steel trust got prices too high the independent mills would begin to make pipe or structural steel. 

 [p. 324]. Garrett makes the same point as a few modern writers that have recognized the effect that competition and potential competition had on prices over the long term.  Large companies might have enjoyed large profits for a short time, but high prices always attracted the threat of competition that would drive or hold down prices.  Companies would come and go, but prices would ultimately reflect the threat of more competition.

      The main characters did their part by producing steel rails at a lower cost than their competition. This ability gave them the "whip hand." [p. 322]. 

      Establishment historians have long remained vague on the movement of actual prices and the effects of competition, while focusing on labor disputes and the supposed evils of wealth accumulation. One book I have seen cited (but have not read) for the purpose of refuting these attacks is Hayek's (and W.H. Hutt's) Capitalism and the Historians:






      I know from experience the treatment that modern text writers give to this era.  I spent my high school (and junior high school) years being bombarded with propaganda.  The text writers were consumed by vague attacks using buzzwords such as "monopoly."  I am curious as to how pervasive was this tone during the early 1920's, when Garrett wrote his books. Was he writing in response to an increasingly shrill anti-capitalist movement?  Hayek's book might help with the answer. 

      Chapter XXXVIII is important for a complete understanding of the industrial revolution and the steel industry. Chapters VII, XIII, XXXIV and XXXVIII should be required reading in history classes.  Even though Cinder Buggy is fiction, there is more truth in those chapters than in most allegedly nonfiction history textbooks.   These chapters would serve as a supplement and a practical application of a free market based economic treatise.  Without Garrett's writing, Americans will never fully understand what they lost when the steel industry shrank to its present level. 

      Chapter XXXVIII ends with mild foreshadowing of a continuation of the triangle plot.  

      Update - Click here for part 22.         

The Cinder Buggy - part 20 - Chapters XXXIII, XXXIV and XXXV; H. G. Wells; Things to Come; new plot developments and the expansion of the steel industry

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapter XXXIII appears to an anti-climax both for the triangle (see part 15) and for New Damascus.  "And New Damascus unawares was delivered to its fate (p. 287)."  The triangle resolution did not include the elements that Ayn Rand usually included in her triangles.

Chapter XXXIV contains descriptions of new technology and new machines.  These machines and the prosperity they brought were the result of the conclusion of the Enoch-Aaron conflict.

Fancy a tool larger than an elephant keeping vigil before a row of furnaces, pacing slowly up and down, apparently brooding, and then at the right moment opening a door and plucking forth a block of incandescent steel weighing many tons, neatly, with not the slightest effort, and nowhere in sight a human being!

Fancy another tool to drudge and fag for this one!  It comes running up, stands still while the other gently lays upon its back the white-hot slab, then runs and dumps it on a train of rollers.

     [p. 290]

These descriptions are reminiscent of the film sequences in H. G. Wells' Things to Come (1936) that showed miraculous new machines bringing new prosperity at the end of that film's thirty + year war.  [Cinder Buggy preceeded Things to Come by 13 years and the novel upon which it was based by nearly a decade.]  The difference was that H.G. Wells' machines truly were a miracle, as Wells' entire post-war world was created by conquest and was based on the dream of one-world socialism.  By contrast, Garrett's machine descriptions in Chapter XXXIV resulted predictably from the profits generated by innovation and competition in the iron and steel industries.

The world of today has moved away from the competitive, profit driven scenarios described by Garrett and is coming very close to the vision of H.G. Wells.  Yet  the only miracle machines we see enable new forms of texting while improved manufacturing takes a back seat.   The western world has seen an unprecedented decline in manufacturing in the time since the world began moving toward the Wells' utopian vision.

Garrett describes the world that Wells' utopia would ultimately replace: 
    

     Man's  environment was made over twice in one generation.  Nothing was built but to be built again on a greater scale.  It seemed impossible to make anything big enough.  Wonders were of a day's duration. 
     In twenty-five years the country's population doubled. [see Part 9 and Part 11]. In the same time the production of things unto the use, happiness and discontent of people increased five, ten, twenty fold.  Man had now in his hand the universal power of steel.  It extended his arms and legs unimaginably, grotesquely.
     The production of metallic fibre increased more than one hundred fold.  Railways were built which if placed end to end and run around the globe would have circled it six times.  Those already grown when the steel age came were not yet old when a ton of freight was transported more than 2,500 miles annually for each man, woman and child living on American soil.  Food was cheaper and more abundant than ever before in the life of man because the railways, pursuing the sun, had suddenly opened a virgin continent to bonanza farming.    

[p. 288.]   

     The balance of Chapter XXXIV is not a narrative, but an essay on the type of men that brought the steel revolution to America. 

      Chapter XXXV returns the focus to the activities of John and Thane.  In describing the changing fortunes of steel companies, Garrett provides a new way to present the idea of buying low and selling high:

The time to buy steel plants was when the sky was visible at Pittsburgh; the time to sell them was when the smoke was so dense that the sun at midday resembled a pickled beet.

[p. 293.]

       Garrett generally moved effortlessly between historical essay and narrative, as he did in Chapter XXXV:

The barbaric invasion that overturned Roman civilization was more obvious as a spectacle but no more extraordinary, no more unexpected, and perhaps as it shall turn out, no more significant, than America's economic invasion of the world in the steel age.

[p. 294].  Garrett could write as if he lived 1,000 years in the future, summarizing the rise and fall of his own civilization.  These passages have more impact today - 90 years later.  We have seen the rise and the fall of our steel (and every other) industry and are beginning to place those events into the broader context of the life of western civilization.  When Garrett wrote these words (and this story) in 1923, the steel industry remained strong and was relatively new in the United States.  Today we have seen it come and go (it is more accurate to say it was cast out).  Garrett's words now resonate louder because we are learning what we have lost.  Garrett's words achieve more impact with the perspective of time. 

      The balance of Chapter XXXV introduces three new characters and includes them in new activities with the old characters.  These pages appear to make the narrative awkward, as new conflicts arise with little apparant connection to the prior conflicts.  My own conclusion is that Garrett enjoyed the historical essay portion as the main focus of his work and sought to fit a plot into his essays.  He did not succeed in fitting the plots to his essays as seamlessly as did Ayn Rand.   As I have written before, the New Deal had not yet arrived to give Garrett's plots the same clarity from which Rand's plots benefitted. 

      Click here for part 21.

The Cinder Buggy - part 19 - Chapters XXXI and XXXII; Sir John Edward Millais; Daguerreotype

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

The mystery from Chapter XXX appears to deepen in Chapter XXXI.  Certain questions are answered, while other questions may never be answered. 

Garrett uses (in Chapter XXXI) the concept of the gatekeeper (without using that term). He describes an employee that manages to separate her boss from his other employees - thus exercising increased control over his affairs.

The term "daguerreotype" (p. 274)  refers to an old style of photography, the use of which is consistent with the timeline for the earlier chapters of the book. 

Chapter XXXII provides the escalation of the Thane-Agnes relationship.  Garrett describes this escalation in a way that was very reminiscent of the relationships in Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The similarity is based on the fact that the relationship escalated as a result of industrial activity.  One needs to read the actual passages to appreciate the meaning of my explanation. 

Garrett supplements his descriptions with the following wisdom:

In his power with ideas man is dimly admirable to woman; in his power over circumstances he inspires her with trust; in his power over people he satisfies her taste for grandeur; but in his power over elements,  - in that aspect he wrecks her completely, for she is herself an element.  In that moment he is god-like; she cannot comprehend him.

(p. 280).

Garrett writes that a pencil sketch by Sir John Everett Millais caught the spirit of the moment - "Marrying and Giving in Marriage at the Deluge."  (p. 280).  Millais was a 19th century illustrator.  I could not find more information about that particular sketch.  One of Millais' paintings was entitled "Esther," thus indicating that Millais' influence upon Garrett extended beyond a single drawing.

Click here for Part 20.

The Cinder Buggy - part 18 - Chapters XXVIII, XXIX, XXX; the conflict appears to end.

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.


In Chapters XXVIII through XXX, Cinder Buggy increases in intensity. 

Chapter XXVIII, Garrett continues the story of the dawn of the steel age, as the main characters grow their business:

Steel wire was indispensable to the steel age.  There were bridges  to be cast in the air like cobwebs, chasms to be spanned, a thousand giants to be snared in their sleep with threads of steel wire, single, double, or twisted by hundreds into cables.  Enough of them would make a rope strong enough to halt the world in its flight if one end could be made fast in space.  There could never have been a steel age without steel wire.  But the steele age required first of all steel rails to run on . . . . [p. 244]. 

When other people were thinking railroad building had been overdone he said it had not really begun.  He imagined the possibility that the locomotive would double in size.

It did. Then it doubled again.  It could not have done so without steel rails under its feet, and if it had not doubled and then doubled again this now would be a German world.  Democracy even then was shaping its weapons for Armageddon through men who knew nothing about it.  They were free egoists, seeking profit, power, personal success,  everyone attending to his own greatness.  Never before in the world had the practise of individualism been so reckless, so purely dynamic, so heedless of the Devil's harvest.  Yet it happened, - it precisely happened, - that they forged the right weapons.  It seems sometimes to matter very little what men think.  They very often do the right thing for wrong reasons.  It seems to matter even less why they work.  All that the great law of becoming requires is that men shall work.  They cannot go wrong really.  They cannot make wrong things.  The pattern is foreordained.  [pp. 245-246].

Garrett writes metaphorically and with an eye on the long arc of history. In these two sections covering parts of 3 pages, Garrett helps the reader to see the entire Earth and a fifty year historical timeline.  In these few lines, Garrett imagines possibilities that never occurred and consequences that were never imagined. 

The essays that Garrett inserts into his stories are the most thought provoking portions of his books.   When he returns to the specifics of his plot, the plot remains fixed on the action and does not provide much detail to explore the eloquont metaphors and prose of the essay portion of Chapter XXVIII.  Cinder Buggy, like Garrett's other novels, was written before the New Deal.  There was less of an urgent need for Garrett to focus his essays into a spirited advocacy of individualism and freedom or to explore these themes by integrating the plot to a degree that later appears in the Randian novels. 

Chapter XXVIII also features another discussion of how the characters financed a corporation in such a way that would bore the writiers (and possibly readers or viewers) of modern business based fiction.  But the discussion works, advances the plot and is interesting in the context of the plot.

Chapters XXIX and XXX see the return of the main characters to New Damascus.

The mystery of the Thane-Agnes marriage is revealed.  Garrett often presented plot points with narrative explanation instead of with dialogue.  Reading the dialogue in the Randian novels gives us an idea of the true potential of the Garrett novels.  Integrating more dialogue between Agnes and Thane might have provided for a more thorough exploration of their story.

I will be vague here so as to avoid plot spoilers.  The main conflict of Cinder Buggy appears to come to an end in Chapters XXVIII - XXX.  While one mystery appears to be resolved, another one appears to begin in Chapter XXX.  Regardless of how far the new potential mystery goes, the discussion in this Chapter fosters a deeper appreciation of factories and their importance to all of our lives.  I cannot be more specific without spoiling one aspect of the plot.

Click here for part 19. 

The Cinder Buggy - part 17 - Chapters XXV, XXVI and XXVII; sham marriages in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapter XXV is relatively simple and straightforward, but powerful.  Much of the plot and drama of Chapter XXV is a continuation of Aaron's prior efforts to make steel as Garrett described in Chapter VII. I found it refreshing that any fictional plot would be based on attempts by industrialists to perfect and complete an industrial process.  Today, fiction writers simply assume that the evil capitalists have the power to build or make whatever they want.  The only room for drama involves some illegality that the capitalist commits while making or building his products. 

I do not know if Garrett's description of the Bessemer process or its resolution is accurate.  

It is ironic and appropriate that Garrett describes the process for turning pig iron into steel just as we begin more chapters that likely served as raw material for the complex finished product found in Ayn Rand's most famous novels.

Chapters XXVI and XXVII feature a return to the triangle. These chapters focus on the marriage of Thane and Agnes.  The marriage seems like a less developed version of the Randian marriages of Peter and Dominique Keating (Fountainhead) and Hank and Lillian Rearden (Atlas Shrugged).  While I am convinced that the Thane-Agnes marriage influenced Rand in the depiction of her characters' marriages, Garrett's depiction is much less developed. 

Rand created the above sham marriages for the purpose of proving her philosophical points.  I predict that the Agnes-Thane marriage will not address underlying philosophy.  Instead, it will be unique to Cinder Buggy and the John-Agnes-Thane triangle. 

Garrett has created a mystery surrounding this marriage.  Garrett hints at the solution to this mystery with reference to Agnes' black book.  "The black book was the ledger of her spirit's solvency."  (p. 242). 

In the Randian novels, there was no mystery at which the audience would guess - just philosophical points that would be explained and demonstrated.

As with the other areas of Garrett/Rand overlap, Garrett's writing would serve as an allegory that Garrett could not have anticipated.  While Garrett wrote of using pig iron as a raw material, the real story of Cinder Buggy is its own function as raw material for Ayn Rand. In the same way, Cinder Buggy and the other forgotten Garrett novels served as the motor that Dagny and Hank Rearden found among the ruins of the factory in Atlas Shrugged. By studying and comparing Garrett with Rand, we can watch that relic being converted into a working motor.

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Update - Click here for Part 18 of my Cinder Buggy review.

The Cinder Buggy - part 16 - Chapters XXIII and XXIV; Birthing the steel industry; Wood Street; "law of self-interest;" vertical integration; steel nails

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

In Chapter XXIII, John begins to build the nail business in Pittsburgh. The old Enoch-Aaron dispute is hinted at and foreshadowed, but does not dominate the story. The same is true of the "triangle" developed in the previous several chapters. It is apparent that both of these conflicts will gather strength and play a major role in the final @ 130 pages of the book.

On page 212, Garrett writes of the building of the business - "[O]ne's capital may exist in the idea."

The method by which John financed the acquisition of the new company's assets is explained in relatively simple and straightforward terms. This explanation (pp. 214, 217-218) stands in sharp contrast to modern literature and fiction, in which "Wall Street finance" is compared to wizardry or sorcery. Modern corporate finance is today portrayed as something dark, mysterious and always dishonest and illegal. Modern fictional corporate officers (especially on television) are portrayed as staying one step ahead of some regulatory agency, while their actual business is never fully explained. (Does any viewer really know what Conrad Grayson, Chester Tate, Mr. Big or Carlos Solis actually do for a living except sit in large offices, make mysterious deals, drink expensive liquor and cheat on their wives?) Corporate business is now the great unknowable activity that serves only as a backdrop for sexual impropriety or other ratings-driven stories.  But in Cinder Buggy, understanding how John financed the company is key to understanding the conflicts that will soon re-emerge. And maybe this realistic approach to business plots helps to explain why Garrett's influence continues into the 21st century, while those characters mentioned in the last paranthetical will be forgotten by the next generation of fiction fans.

Chapter XXIII also provides historical background by describing the infancy of the steel industry in Pittsburgh during (I believe) the 1870's.  (See part 10 of my review for details of this time estimate.)  Garrett describes the business climate of that time and place, the bankers and financiers that operated on "Wood Street" at that time and the importance of those bankers to the entreprenuers that gave birth to the steel industry:

There is the legend of a man, afterward one of the great millionaires, who drove one mare so often to Wood Street and from one bank to another in a zigzag course that the animal came to know the stops by heart, made them automatically, and would not be made to go in a straight line through this lane of money doors.

(pp. 215-216).

While Wood Street is an actual street in downtown Pittsburgh, I do not know if the banking characters described by Garrett (including Lemuel Slaymaker) are based on actual historical figures.

Earlier in the chapter, Garrett made an analogy to describe the chaotic nature of the changes facing Pittsburgh and the economy of the United States (and the world) in the 1870's:

Pittsburgh at this time was not a place prepared.  It was a sign, a pregnant smudge, a state of phenomena. The great mother was undergoing a Caesarian operation. An event was bringing itself to pass,  The steel age was about to be delivered.

(p, 214).  Garrett continues for another paragraph with the birthing analogy.  The analogy works.

Garrett goes on to narrate the sequence of events involving John presenting his idea for the nail business to a banker on Wood Street - Lemuel Slaymaker. I found Garrett's characterization of John's presentation to be helpful for purposes beyond this book:

When he had finished the idea was lucid, complete in every part and self-evident.  Therein lay the secret of his extraordinary power of persuasion.  He seemed never to argue his case.  He expressed no opinion of his own to be combatted.  He merely laid down a state of facts with an air of looking at them from the other man's point of view. 

(p. 217).  Garrett closed Chapter XXIII with a quotation that has been lost to generations of people that, not coincidentally, have no understanding of economics, philosophy or government - "There is a law of self-interest one takes for granted." (p. 219).  That concept would play a pivotal role the re-emergence of the main conflict in Cinder Buggy. 

Chapter XXIV consisted more of a narrated sequence of events than the philosophical summaries and quotes that enlivened Chapter XXIII.  On page 221, Garrett described improvements in John and Thane's nail factory in terms that would make a modern union leader froth with rage:

Everything else had been relocated with one aim in view, which was to eliminate all unnecessary human motion and shorten the train of events from the raw material straight through to the finished nail packed in the keg and stored.

On page  223, the old Aaron-Enoch battle began again.  This time, the nail industry of the world was affected.  At this point (p. 225), Garrett introduces the concept of vertical integration - not as some evil to be regulated or destroyed, but as a means of achieving efficiency and saving the nail industry.  John then introduces steel nails (p. 226) as an alternative to iron nails.  As a result, the foreshadowing on p. 188 comes another step closer to fruition.

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update - click here for part 17.

The Cinder Buggy - Part 15 - chapters XXI and XXII - The Flying Triangle

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapters XXI and XXII take place exclusively in Pittsburgh, as the characters begin their life outside of New Damascus and the reader anticipates their role in the coming supremacy of steel.

Chapter XXI begins on an exciting note for any true Ayn Rand fan, as Garrett refers to the Agnes-Thane-John love triangle as the "flying triangle." I do not fully understand the reference to the term "flying" in this context, but it appears that the concept of an enduring love triangle will be important to the plot. The outcome of this triangle remains unclear at the end of Chapter XXII and beyond.

Ayn Rand placed some version of the Roark-Dominique-Wynand love triangle in the center of the plot of most of her fictional works. This triangle appeared in various forms in Red Pawn, We the Living, The Fountainhead and even Atlas Shrugged - each one more complicated than the last until it was modified almost beyond recognition in Atlas Shrugged. Through these love triangles, Rand developed her broader philosophical points. There was no separation of her philosophy from the resolution of her fictional plots, including the resolution of the love triangles. Rand's love triangles (especially Red Pawn, We the Living and Fountainhead) enjoyed common characteristics:

• The love triangles were resolved ultimately on philosophical grounds.



• The female in the love triangle knew that she ultimately would not stay with her current man.



• The female was with the "wrong" man in the triangle for the benefit of the other man (or, as in Fountainhead, because of her loyalty to the ideals of the other man).



• The "wrong" man in the triangle had (1) committed some moral or philosophical error that necessitated or justified the secret triangle and (2) had enabled (and provided strength to) the evil forces against which the main characters fought.



• The female was driven by larger forces to be with the "wrong" man in the triangle while the right man's problems were resolved in the context of the larger plot.



• The female was lying to the "wrong" man while the "right" man suffered in silence as long as the triangle existed.



• As the "wrong" man discovered the triangle in a climactic scene, the female threw Rand's philosophy in his face and more than justified her actions.

Rand used these plot pieces to create ever more complicated stories as her career continued. Each telling of this "triangle" story found more creative, surprising, painful and beautiful ways to present these scenarios. I do not anticipate this level of complexity in Garrett's Thane-Agnes-John triangle. Most of the above elements do not yet exist as of Chapter XXII.

At most, Rand was intrigued by Garrett's triangle in Cinder Buggy and added her own unique elements set forth above. Those above elements form the link between the personal stories and the larger historical/philosophical/economic issues. Rand's love triangles enable her to personify her philosophy. This link is largely missing in Garrett's books. While Garrett provides compelling personal stories and philosophy, there was always a separation between those two elements. Garrett's philosophy did not sufficiently drive his characters' romantic stories.

Rand wrote Red Pawn in 1931. If you understand the triangle in that story, you have found the basic skeleton of the plot of We the Living and Fountainhead (although Fountainhead is much richer philosophically). If Rand's triangles were influenced by Garrett, there was only a short window of eight years between Cinder Buggy and Red Pawn for such influence to take place. Rand's detractors accuse Rand of having discovered long-dormant Garrett works decades later and then stealing the name "Galt" in the belief that no reader would remember the original Garrett work. But if Rand's romantic triangles (the very basis of her plots) were influenced by Garrett, such influence took place during the height of Garrett's career. Rand did not plagiarize from a long dormant writer. At most, she provided unique philosophical insight while building upon a love triangle, the original form of which was much simpler than her own nearly contemporary version in Red Pawn.

Rand's life after publication of The Fountainhead was characterized by her own love triangle. While all accounts of this episode are more bland than her own fictional creations, one cannot help but speculate on the influence that her own fictional triangles (and Garrett's) played on her own life. Rand's own triangle had serious consequences not only for her own life but for the objectivist movement. Those consequences are outlined in numerous books and even one nonfiction movie. Were these consequences influenced (even created) not only by Rand's own fiction, but by a scenario that began near midnight on the streets of New Damascus among the "flying triangle" of The Cinder Buggy?

We will never know the answer to that question, but the question itself must be asked as long as Garrett's fiction works remain unknown.

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Click here for part 16
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The Cinder Buggy - part 14 - Chapter XX - the turning point

Click here for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 of my review of The Cinder Buggy.

Chapter XX appears to be the turning point of the plot of Cinder Buggy. The accident/misunderstandings/mistakes of the previous chapters were mostly corrected. The personal stories related to Thane and Agnes became interwoven into both the (1) Enoch v. Aaron plot and (2) the iron v. steel story. On page 183, Aaron's son John realizes the connection and explains it to Thane and Agnes.

I have not mentioned John before because explaining his presence would have given away too much of the plot of the early chapters. While I do not like plot spoilers, apparently Garrett does not mind using them. Garrett notes that the events of Chapter XX "sealed the fate of New Damascus." (p. 188). As became apparent in Chapter XX, the plot will reach its conclusion not by way of accidents or simple misunderstandings, but by the decisions of the characters pursuing their interests and responding to the developing conflicts. Ultimately, Enoch forced the events of Chapter XX and beyond in a manner consistent with his character and his own role in the conflicts. I have always believed that the best plots result from difficult choices made by the characters. In this case, it appears that the underlying conflicts will be resolved by those choices and will not be diminished by mere accidents.

While I am glad that the plot will not depend on accidents and misunderstandings, I remain disappointed that the plot developments reflect only personal (albeit important) disputes instead of broader philosophical issues. The broader historical landscape is painted using this story as a brush, but this story is not influenced by the historical landscape in the way that a Randian story would be so influenced. Click here for part 15.

The Cinder Buggy - part 13 - Chapters XVII, XVIII and XIX - Agnes and Alex

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

I wrote in part 12 that the conflict appeared to be turning violent. Violence did occur, but not in the way I expected and did not involve the characters I expected.

Chapter XVII provided some history of Agnes Gib, filling in some blanks and explaining some of the mystery surrounding her existence. Her dispute with her father and her isolation is explained. As part of that explanation, Garrett provides the following insight:

. . . . in that kind of contest he had the advantage of age. Age has all the time there is. Youth has neither past nor future, - only the present.

p. 146

Chapter XVIII placed Alex Thane in the middle of the action (after Garrett introduced him in earlier chapters describing the iron puddling process).

Much of the action and fateful consequences in Chapters XVIII and XIX result from misunderstandings among the characters. That the plot turned on mistakes, accidents and misunderstandings reminded me of Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native (1878). In this way, Cinder Buggy differs both from Ayn Rand and from Garrett's other works.

Rand's (and usually Garrett's) story plots are resolved on the basis of actions consistent with the character traits of the main characters. The plots are resolved not by accident, but by the logical extensions of the character flaws or strengths of the characters. Especially in the world of Ayn Rand, justice is eventually done. The conclusion of the story is the justice that results from the characters' choices. But Cinder Buggy seems to be heading in the direction of a plot resolution that results from accident as much as from the strengths and weaknesses of the main characters.

Click here for part 14.

The Cinder Buggy - part 12 - chapters XIV, XV, XVI; Agnes Gib

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

In Chapter XIV, the personal conflict among the characters intensifies subtly.

In Chapter XV, the stage is set for that conflict to intensify more dramatically. Enoch's reclusive daughter Agnes takes center stage in Chapter XV. That her role is rooted in factual history was hinted at in the hand-written inscription that I copied in part 4. A major difference between Garrett's and Rand's fiction is the nature of the personal stories and conflicts. In Cinder Buggy, the personal conflicts are at least partially rooted in history. They do not appear to be an extension or objectification of the main philosophical point of the book. With Rand, every action of the characters demonstrates a philosophical point. In Cinder Buggy, Garrett's ability to summarize and illustrate grand historic trends served as a landscape, a canvas and a backdrop for the personal conflict that continues building and increasing in complexity throughout the middle chapters of the book. History and philosophy served as more than these elements in Randian fiction.

The party scene in Chapter XVI is reminiscent of Dagny Taggart's (from Atlas Shrugged) debutante ball (even though Agnes appears to be headed for a very different future than was Dagny). With Garrett, the failure of the ball was due to circumstances unique to the Cinder Buggy story. In Atlas Shrugged, the ball flopped because the men who attended, having been softened by decades of New Deal paternalism, were not worthy of Dagny.

The different treatment of these "coming out" parties reflects the different times in which the books were written. Garrett wrote pre-New Deal, and thus could truthfully develop stories that were not overshadowed and influenced by the ever-growing federal leviathan. Once the New Deal became entrenched in the United States, any fictional story, in order to be credible, would be forced to use characters that either were forged and strengthened in resistance to the ever growing socialist state or that were weakened and pacified by it. The all-powerful state has become so pervasive that even a fictional story must recognize the effects of such influence on its characters. Without such recognition, modern fiction often seems unrealistic. Such recognition was not necessary for Garrett in the 1920's, so he was free to resolve his plots solely on bases traditionally recognized by literary analysis.

It becomes harder to analyze and discuss the plot without spoiling it at this point, but Chapter XVI hints that the main conflict that has dominated the story is about to turn violent. This is the old Aaron-Enoch conflict in a new form and results from Agnes' "coming out" party instead of any issue related to iron or steel.

Click here for part 13.

The Cinder Buggy - part 11 - chapters XII and XIII - iron rails vs. steel rails

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

In Chapter XII, the iron vs. steel conflict took center stage. Steel was demonstrated to be more brittle than iron and thus more dangerous for rails. That iron would be less breakable than steel surprised me. I know that my understanding of metallurgy is incomplete, but I am still expecting some form of clarification later in the story.

Chapter XIII focuses on the economic benefits of steel. Rails made from steel are cheaper than those made from iron. This cheapness allows the railroads to extend to new areas. Civilization thus extends far beyond its previous boundaries, as food can now be brought great distances from where it is grown. (pp. 114, 120):

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.

p. 120

The consequences were such as become fate. They were tremendous, uncontrollable, unimaginable. They changed the face of civilization. Vertical cities, suburbs, subways, industrialism, the rise of a wilderness in two generations to be the paramount nation in the world, victory in the World War, - those were consequences.

p. 114

Aaron's speech (part 9, pp. 67 - 71) thus comes to fruition. But modern professors, bureaucrats, "journalists" and politicians think only of "exploitation of the worker," "American imperialism," "global warming," "obscene profits," etc. when they consider the consequences of the steel revolution.

Enoch and the iron industry fight steel. The fight is described in a sequence (pp. 121-122) that is eerily similar to the fight to stop Rearden Metal in Atlas Shrugged (although no language was copied). Steel is denounced publicly as unsafe. Public hysteria is aroused. Laws are passed. The difference in Atlas Shrugged is that Rearden Metal is superior to steel and iron in every way. The fight in Atlas Shrugged demonstrated the evil of government interference in the market. The fight in Cinder Buggy was merely an extension of the personal battles among the characters. (pp. 112-113). To the extent that Garrett made a deeper point, he was demonstrating the historic role of invention and progress in the survival and prosperity of mankind. Aaron's speech (part 9, pp. 67-71) seems to be emerging as Garrett's main philosophical point. It is a point that, while basic to the message of Atlas Shrugged, is far more simple and rudimentary than the themes that Ayn Rand explored (although far more complex and advanced than the history lessons that modern education and culture are capable of teaching today).

Garrett's more fundamental emphasis reflects Cinder Buggy's status as being written before the New Deal drew the battle lines between capitalism and anti-capitalism in every aspect of culture. That the importance of the discussion on pp. 67-71, 114 and 120 would be lost on modern Americans reflects 80 years of post-New Deal education.

The battles on pages 121-122 also demonstrate how fundamentally Ayn Rand's detractors miss the point. Rand's enemies accuse Rand of plagiarism because one of the main characters in The Driver is named "Galt," even though the plot of Driver differs greatly from anything Rand ever wrote. But those same detractors miss the great similarity between the Rearden Metal storyline and Cinder Buggy's iron vs. steel storyline. Perhaps if there was a character named "Galt," "Taggart" or "Rearden" in Cinder Buggy, Rand's simplistic detractors would have noticed Cinder Buggy (but probably still failed to recognize the similar subplots).

At the end of Chapter XII (p. 118), Garrett identifies the date as 1883 when the steel rail superseded the iron rail. But before New Damascus and the characters reach that point and that date, much is still left to happen in Cinder Buggy .

Click here to see part 12, as the conflict among the characters intensifies.

The Cinder Buggy - Part 10 - Chapters VIII through XI - Purification and the breaking point; the roots of Gail Wynand

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

Chapter VIII of Cinder Buggy further explores the theme of purification at which the book hinted in the early pages. Much of the chapter develops the plot as it relates to Enoch. Some of that plot deals with his treatment of the workers at the iron mill. The anti-capitalists will seize upon this material as an indictment of the working conditions of the early industrial revolution. Garrett did not intend that meaning. As Cinder Buggy predated the New Deal, Garrett was less focused on the capitalist-socialist battles than he was on the greater themes of his books.

The trials that Enoch forced his men to endure - especially those described on pages 79-80 - were a continuation of the conflict that Enoch and Aaron endured beginning on pages 18 and 19. Enoch continually searched for the "breaking point" of his men. The men feared his " . . . contempt for the man who broke." "They could stand his cruelty; they could not bear his scorn." (page 80). Many men broke. Others did not.

Enoch found the breaking point for his laborers, materials and his junior business partners:

In time the town of New Damascus, like the yard of his mill, was littered with things Enoch Gib had strained to the breaking point. Some, like Tom McAntee [mill worker], were decently covered up in the cemetery. Others were aimlessly walking about.

[p. 81]

This element of Enoch's character may have been a precursor to some of Gail Wynand's (from The Fountainhead) traits. The cold businessman who uses his power to "break" people is one possible (but very incomplete) description of Wynand. But, as with every Rand-Garrett connection, the story is not so simple. Wynand had much greater philosophical reasons for his actions than Gib. Wynand was a complex character with deep roots in Randian fiction.

I have always believed that Gail Wynand's character is the culmination of a progression that began with early Rand characters Commandant Kareyev and Andrei Taganov (that Rand almost diverted into Vesta Dunning). After contemplating Chapter VIII of Cinder Buggy, I now believe that Gail Wynand's character is a little bit more than that. I believe Rand supplemented the Kareyev-Taganov-Wynand character progression with the cruelty of Enoch Gib. But Wynand's cruelty demonstrated and was intertwined with a specific philosophical point. Gib's cruelty is unique to Gib and this story.

Chapter VIII ends by describing a twenty year period of prosperity for New Damascus - which period includes the Civil War (p. 81).

Chapter XI describes the process by which finished iron is made. The reader can follow the purification process as the molten iron makes its way through the mill to the puddling process. (pp. 100-103). I found this description refreshing, as most fiction writers today could not describe an industrial process. Modern entertainment focuses on places with which the writers are familiar (law firms, hospitals, advertising agencies) or on characters whose jobs are described in only the vaguest terms.

These chapters thus advance the "purification" concept - both for the iron process (XI) and for the people of New Damascus (VIII).

It is difficult to describe the plot while avoiding plot spoilers. So I will conclude my discussion of Chapters IX - XI by saying only that the Enoch-Aaron conflict continued, but in a new and different way. Chapters IX, X and XI take place in 1869.

Click here for part 11.