"John Kessel - Buffalo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kessel John)

sways like a bucking bronco, and Kessel holds on for dear
life.

He comes down with the intention of saying something to
Wells, telling him how much he admires him, but when he gets
down the sight of the two men in suits and his awareness of
his own sweaty chest make him timid. He heads down to the
next tree. After another ten minutes the men get back in
the car, drive away. Kessel curses himself for the
opportunity lost.

------------------------------------------------


THAT EVENING at the New Willard hotel, Wells dines with
his old friends Clarence Darrow and Charles Russell. Darrow
and Russell are in Washington to testify before a congressional
committee on a report they have just submitted to the
administration concerning the monopolistic effects of the
National Recovery Act. The right wing is trying to
eviscerate Roosevelt's program for large scale industrial
management, and the Darrow Report is playing right into
their hands. Wells tries, with little success, to convince
Darrow of the short-sightedness of his position.

"Roosevelt is willing to sacrifice the small man to the
huge corporations," Darrow insists, his eyes bright.

"The small man? Your small man is a romantic fantasy,"
Wells says. "It's not the New Deal that's doing him
in--it's the process of industrial progress. It's the
twentieth century. You can't legislate yourself back into
1870."

"What about the individual?" Russell asks. Wells
snorts. "Walk out into the streets. The individual is out
on the streetcorner selling apples. The only thing that's
going to save him is some co-ordinated effort, by
intelligent, selfless men. Not your free market."
 Darrow puffs on his cigar, exhales, smiles. "Don't get
exasperated, H.G. We're not working for Standard Oil. But
if I have to choose between the bureaucrat and the man
pumping gas at the filling station, I'll take the pump
jockey."

Wells sees he's got no chance against the American
mythology of the common man. "Your pump jockey works for
Standard Oil. And the last I checked, the free market
hasn't expended much energy looking out for his interests."