They sat in the courtroom in heavy silence and they looked at the tall, gray figure, not with hope—they were losing the capacity to hope —but with an impassive neutrality spiked by a faint question mark; the question mark was placed over all the pious slogans they had heard for years.
The newspapers had snarled that the cause of the country’s troubles, as this case demonstrated, was the selfish greed of rich industrialists; that it was men like Hank Rearden who were to blame for the shrinking diet, the falling temperature and the cracking roofs in the homes of the nation; that if it had not been for men who broke regulations and hampered the government’s plans, prosperity would have been achieved long ago; and that a man like Hank Rearden was prompted by nothing but the profit motive. This last was stated without explanation or elaboration, as if the words “profit motive” were the self-evident brand of ultimate evil.
The crowd remembered that these same newspapers, less than two years ago, had screamed that the production of Rearden Metal should be forbidden, because its producer was endangering people’s lives for the sake of his greed; they remembered that the man in gray had ridden in the cab of the first engine to run over a track of his own Metal; and that he was now on trial for the greedy crime of withholding from the public a load of the Metal which it had been his greedy crime to offer in the public market.
According to the procedure established by directives, cases of this kind were not tried by a jury, but by a panel of three judges appointed by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources; the procedure, the directives had stated, was to be informal and democratic.
The judge’s bench had been removed from the old Philadelphia courtroom for this occasion, and replaced by a table on a wooden platform; it gave the room an atmosphere suggesting the kind of meeting where a presiding body puts something over on a mentally retarded membership.
One of the judges, acting as prosecutor, had read the charges. “You may now offer whatever plea you wish to make in your own defense,” he announced.
Facing the platform, his voice inflectionless and peculiarly clear, Hank Rearden answered: “I have no defense.”
“Do you—” The judge stumbled; he had not expected it to be that easy. “Do you throw yourself upon the mercy of this court?”
“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”
“What?”
“I do not recognize this court’s right to try me.”
“But, Mr. Rearden, this is the legally appointed court to try this particular category of crime.”
“I do not recognize my action as a crime,”
“But you have admitted that you have broken our regulations controlling the sale of your Metal.”
“I do not recognize your right to control the sale of my Metal.”
“Is it necessary for me to point out that your recognition was not required?”
“No. I am fully aware of it and I am acting accordingly.”
He noted the stillness of the room. By the rules of the complicated pretense which all those people played for one another’s benefit, they should have considered his stand as incomprehensible folly; there should have been rustles of astonishment and derision; there were none; they sat still; they understood.
“Do you mean that you are refusing to obey the law?” asked the judge.
“No. I am complying with the law—to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter. I will not play the part of defending myself, where no defense is possible, and I will not simulate the illusion of dealing with a tribunal of justice.”
“But, Mr. Rearden, the law provides specifically that you are to be given an opportunity to present your side of the case and to defend yourself.”
“A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is an objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke.
The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, that I have no rights and that you may do with me whatever you please. Very well. Do it.”
“Mr. Rearden, the law which you are denouncing is based on the highest principle—the principle of the public good.”
“Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that the good’ was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it—well, so does any burglar. There is only this difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act.”
A group of seats at the side of the courtroom was reserved for the prominent visitors who had come from New York to witness the trial. Dagny sat motionless and her face showed nothing but a solemn attention, the attention of listening with the knowledge that the flow of his words would determine the course of her life. Eddie Willers sat beside her. James Taggart had not come. Paul Larkin sat hunched forward, his face thrust out, pointed like an animal’s muzzle, sharpened by a look of fear now turning into malicious hatred. Mr. Mowen, who sat beside him, was a man of greater innocence and smaller understanding; his fear was of a simpler nature; he listened in bewildered indignation and he whispered to Larkin, “Good God, now he’s done it! Now he’ll convince the whole country that all businessmen are enemies of the public good!”
“Are we to understand,” asked the judge, “that you hold your own interests above the interests of the public?”
“I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.”
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“I hold that there is no clash of interests among men who do not demand the unearned and do not practice human sacrifices.”
“Are we to understand that if the public deems it necessary to curtail your profits, you do not recognize its right to do so?”
“Why, yes, I do. The public may curtail my profits any time it wishes—by refusing to buy my product.”
“We are speaking of . . . other methods.”
“Any other method of curtailing profits is the method of looters —and I recognize it as such.”
“Mr. Rearden, this is hardly the way to defend yourself.”
“I said that I would not defend myself.”
“But this is unheard of! Do you realize the gravity of the charge against you?”
“I do not care to consider it.”
“Do you realize the possible consequences of your stand?”
“Fully.”
“It is the opinion of this court that the facts presented by the prosecution seem to warrant no leniency. The penalty which this court has the power to impose on you is extremely severe.”
“Go ahead.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Impose it.”
The three judges looked at one another. Then their spokesman turned back to Rearden. “This is unprecedented,” he said.
“It is completely irregular,” said the second judge. “The law requires you to submit a plea in your own defense. Your only alternative is to state for the record that you throw yourself upon the mercy of the court.”
“I do not.”
“But you have to.”
“Do you mean that what you expect from me is some sort of voluntary action?”
“Yes.”
“I volunteer nothing.”
“But the law demands that the defendant’s side be represented on the record.”
“Do you mean that you need my help to make this procedure legal?”
“Well, no . . . yes . . . that is, to complete the form.”
“I will not help you.”
The third and youngest judge, who had acted as prosecutor, snapped impatiently, “This is ridiculous and unfair! Do you want to let it look as if a man of your prominence had been railroaded without a—” He cut himself off short. Somebody at the back of the courtroom emitted a long whistle.
“I want,” said Rearden gravely, “to let the nature of this procedure appear exactly for what it is. If you need my help to disguise it—I will not help you.”
“But we are giving you a chance to defend yourself—and it is you who are rejecting it.”
“I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognized. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend that you are administering justice.”