izona in May. It was just such a situation as the "System" might
have brought about to accomplish its fell designs had it possessed the
power to work miracles.

And the "System" took care of its advantage. At a tense moment in that
soul and nerve trying period, with Wall and State streets full of talk
about General Electric's probable absorption of Westinghouse, General
Electric being then at its highest price, $119 per share, the Westinghouse
companies held their annual meetings and the big inventor, confidently
facing his stockholders, quite regardless of conditions which he thought
could have no possible bearing on his concern's splendid prospects, came
forward with his demand for the millions required to complete the projects
already under way. This was the signal. From all the stock-market
sub-cellars and rat-holes of State, Broad, and Wall streets crept those
wriggling, slimy snakes of bastard rumors which, seemingly fatherless and
motherless, have in reality multi-parents who beget them with a deviltry
of intention: "George Westinghouse had mismanaged his companies"; "George
Westinghouse, because of gross extravagance, had spread himself and his
companies until they were involved beyond extrication unless by
consolidation with General Electric"; these and many more seeped through
the financial haunts of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, and kept hot
the wires into every financial centre in America and Europe, where aid
must be sought to relieve the crisis. There came a crash in Westinghouse
stocks, and their price melted. From amidst the thunder and lowering
clouds emerged the "System." "Notwithstanding the black eye the name of
everything Westinghouse had received, it would stand by and consolidate
and save the day!" But the "System" and its everything-gauged-by-machinery
votaries had reckoned without their host. George Westinghouse was too
strong a man to be thus easily shaken down. He threw back his mighty
shoulders, shook his big head, and flung his great private fortune into
the market to stay the falling prices of his securities. The movement was
too strong against him at the moment, and his millions were but a
temporary help. He got on the firing-line himself and did a thousand and
one things that only a brave, honest, and democratic Yankee would or could
do--everything but accept the cunning aid offered him by the "System" or
its votaries. He knew too well that the friendly mask concealed a foe and
that