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their utility bills as about their dividends."

Van Buren followed the reporter's gaze to where a small crowd surrounded

an accounts service desk. Knowing that many shareholders were also its

customers, GSP & L set up the desk at annual meetings so that any queries

about gas and electric charges could be dealt with on the spot. Behind

the desk a trio of clerks was handling complaints while a lengthening

line waited. A wornan's voice protested, "I don't care what you say, that

bill can't be right. I'm living alone, not using

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any more power than I did two years ago, but the charge is double."

Consulting a video display connected to billing computers, a young male

clerk continued explaining the bill's details. The woman remained

unmollified.

"Sometimes," Van Buren told Nancy Molineaux, "the same people want lower

rates and a bigger dividend. It's hard to explain why you can't have both."

Without commenting, the reporter moved on.

At 1:40, twenty minutes before the meeting would begin, there was standing

room only in the second hall and new arrivals were still appearing.

"I'm worried as hell," Harry London confided to Nim Goldman. The two were

midway between the ballroom and overflow room where the din from both made

it hard to hear each other.

London and several of his staff had been "borrowed" for the occasion to

beef up GSP & L's regular security force. Nim had been sent, a few minutes

ago, by J. Eric Humphrey to make a personal appraisal of the scene.

The chairman, who usually mingled informally with stockholders before the

annual meeting, had been advised by the chief security officer not to do so

today because of the hostile crowd. At this moment Humphrey was closeted

behind scenes with senior officers and directors who would join him on the

ballroom platform at 2 P.m.

"I'm worried," London repeated, "because I think we'll see some violence

before all this is through. Have you been outside?"

Nim shook his head, then, as the other motioned, followed him toward the

hotel's outer lobby and the street. They emerged through a side door and

walked around the building to the front.

The St. Charles Hotel had a forecourt which normally accommodated hotel

traffic-taxis, private cars and buses. But now all traffic movement was

prevented by a crowd of several hundred placard-waving, shouting

demonstrators. A narrow entryway for pedestrians was being kept open by

city police officers who were also restraining demonstrators from advancing

further.

The TV crews which had been refused admittance to the stockholders' meeting

had come outside to film the action.

Some signs being held aloft read:

Support

power & light

for people

ne People Demand

Lower Gas/Electric

Rates

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Kill The Capitalist

Monster

GSP&L

p & lfP

Urges

Public Ownership

Of GSP&L

Put People

Ahead of Profits

Groups of GSP & L stockholders, still arriving and moving through the

police lines, read the signs indignantly. A small, casually dressed,

balding man with a hearing aid stopped to cry angrily at the demon-

strators, "I'm just as much 'people' as you are, and I worked hard all

my life to buy a few shares . . ."

A pale, bespectacled youth in a Stanford University sweatshirt jeered,

"Get stuffed, you greedy capitalist!"

Another among the arrivals-a youngish, attractive woman-retorted, "Maybe

if some of you worked harder and saved a little .

She was drowned out by a chorus of, "Screw the profiteers!" and "Power

belongs to the people!"

The woman advanced on the shouters, a fist raised. "Listen, you bums! I'm

no profiteer. I'm a worker, in a union, and . . ."

"Profiteer!" . . . "Bloodsucking capitalistl" . . . One of the waving

signs descended near the woman's bead. A police sergeant stepped forward,

shoved the sign away and hurried the woman, along with the man with the

hearing aid, into the hotel. The shouts and jeering followed them. Once

more the demonstrators surged forward; again the police held firm.

Ile TV crews had now been joined by reporters from other mediaamong them,

Nim saw, Nancy Molineaux. But he had no wish to meet her.

Harry London observed quietly, "You see your friend Birdsong over there,

masterminding this?"

"No friend of mine," Nim said. "But yes, I see him."

The bulky, bearded figure of Davey Birdsong-a broad smile on his face as

usual-was visible at the demonstration's rear. As the two watched,

Birdsong raised a walkie-talkie radio to his lips.

"He's probably talking to someone inside," London said, "He's already

been in and out twice; be has one share of stock in his name. I checked."

"One share is enough," Nim pointed out. "It gives anyone a right to be

at the annual meeting."

129

"I know. And probably some more of his people have the same. They've

something else planned. I'm sure of it."

Nim and London returned inside the hotel unnoticed. Outside, the

demonstrators seemed noisier than before.

In a small private meeting room off a corridor behind the ballroom stage,

J. Eric Humphrey paced restlessly, still reviewing the speech he would

shortly make. Over the past three days a dozen drafts had been typed and

retyped, the latest an hour ago. Even now, as be moved, silently mouthing

words and turning pages, be would pause occasionally to pencil in a change.

Out of deference to the chairman's concentration, the others present

-Sharlett Underhill, Oscar O'Brien, Stewart Ino, Ray Paulsen, a halfdozen

directors-bad fallen silent, one or two of the directors mixing drinks at

a portable bar.

Heads turned as an outside door opened. It framed a security guard and,

behind him, Nim, who came in, closing the door.

Humphrey put down the pages of his speech. "Well?"

"It's a mob scene out there." Nim described tersely his observations in the

ballroom, overflow hall and outside the hotel.

A director inquired nervously, "Is there any way we can postpone the

meeting?"

Oscar O'Brien shook his head decisively. "Out of the question. It's been

called legally. It must go on."

"Besides," Nim added, "if you did there'd be a riot."

The same director said, "We may have that anyway."

The chairman crossed to the bar and poured himself a plain soda water,

wishing it were a scotch but observing his own rule of no drinking by

officers during working hours. He said testily, "We knew in advance this

was going to happen so any talk of postponement is pointless. We simply

have to do the best we can." As he sipped his soda: "Those people out there

have a right to be angry-at us, and about their dividends. I'd feel the

same way myself. What can you tell people who put their money where they

believed it was safe, and suddenly find it isn't after all?"

"YOU could try telling them the truth," Sharlett Underhill said, her face

flushing with emotion. "The truth that there isn't any place in this

country were the thrifty and hard-working can put their money with an

assurance of preserving its value. Not in companies like ours any more;

certainly not in savings accounts or bonds where the interest doesn't keep

pace with government-provoked inflation. Not since those charlatans and

crooks in Washington debased the dollar and keep right on doing it,

grinning like idiots while they ruin us. They've given us a dishonest fiat

paper currency, unbacked by anything but politicians'

130

worthless promises. Our financial institutions are crumbling. Bank in-

surance-the FDIC-is a fagade. Social Security is a bankrupt fraud; if it

were a private concern those running it would be in jail. And good,

decent, efficient companies like ours are pushed to the wall, forced into

doing what we've done, and taking the blame unfairly."

There were murmurs of approval, someone applauded, and the chairman said

drily, "Sbarlett, maybe you should make the speech instead of me." He

added thoughtfully, "Everything you say is true, of course. Unfortunately

most citizens aren't ready to listen and accept the truthnot yet."

"As a matter of interest, Sharlett," Ray Paulsen asked, "where do you

keep your savings?"

The financial vice president snapped back, "In Switzerland-one of the few

countries where there's still financial sanity-and the Bahamas -in gold

coins and Swiss francs, the only honest currencies left. If you haven't

already, I advise the rest of you to do the same."

Nim was looking at his watch. He went to the door and opened it. "It's

a minute to the hour. Time to go."

"Now I know," Eric Humphrey said as he led the way out, "how the

Christians felt when they had to face the lions."

The management representatives and the directors filed quickly onto the

platform, the chairman going directly to a podium with a lectern, the

others to chairs on his right. As they did so the hubbub in the ballroom

stilled briefly. Then, near the front, a few scattered voices shouted,

"Boo!" Instantly the cry was taken up until a cacophony of boos and

catcalls thundered through the hall. On the podium J. Eric Humphrey stood

impassively, waiting for the disapproving chorus to subside. When it

lessened slightly he leaned forward to the microphone in front of him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my opening remarks on the state of our company

will be brief. I know that many of you are anxious to ask questions . .

."

His next words were drowned out in another uproar. Amid it were cries of

"You're damned right!" . . . "Take questions now!" "Cut the horseshit!"

. . . "Talk dividend!"

When he could make himself heard again, Humphrey countered, "I certainly

do intend to talk about dividends but first there are some matters which

must . . ."

"Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, on a point of order!"

A new, unseen voice was booming through the PA system. Simultaneously a

red light glowed on the chairman's lectern, indicating that a microphone

in the overflow room was being used.

131

Humphrey spoke loudly into his own mike. "What is your point of order?"

"I object, Mr. Chairman, to the manner in which .

Humphrey interrupted. "State your name, please."

"My name is Homer F. Ingersoll. I am a lawyer and I hold three hundred

shares for myself, two hundred for a client."

"What is your point of order, Mr. Ingersoll?"

"I started to tell you, Mr. Chairman. I object to the way in which in-

adequate, inefficient arrangements were made to hold this meeting, with the

result that I and many others have been relegated, like secondclass

citizens, to another hall where we cannot properly participate . . ."

"But you are participating, Mr. Ingersoll. I regret that the unexpectedly

large attendance today . . ."

"I am raising a point of order, Mr. Chairman, and I hadn't finished."