[Illustration: "Visions!" She said softly, "Do you behold them too?"]




THE AIR TRUST

By George Allan England

Author of
"Darkness and Dawn," "Beyond the Great Oblivion,"
"The Afterglow," etc., etc.

Illustrations by
John Sloan

1915




TO EUGENE V. DEBS

"Comrade 'Gene,"

Lover of All Mankind and
Apostle of the World's Emancipation,

I dedicate
THIS BOOK




FOREWORD


This book is the result of an attempt to carry the monopolistic
principle to its logical conclusion. For many years I have entertained
the idea that if a monopoly be right in oil, coal, beef, steel or what
not, it would also be right in larger ways involving, for example, the
use of the ocean and the air itself. I believe that, had capitalists
been able to bring the seas and the atmosphere under physical control,
they would long ago have monopolized them. Capitalism has not refrained
from laying its hand on these things through any sense of decency, but
merely because the task has hitherto proved impossible.

Granting, then, the premise that some process might be discovered
whereby the air-supply of the world could be controlled, the Air Trust
logically follows. I have endeavored to show how such a Trust would
inevitably lead to the utter enslavement of the human race, unless
overthrown by the only means then possible, i.e., violence. This book is
not a brief for "direct action." Doubtless the capitalist press (if it
indeed notice the work at all) will denounce it as a plea for
"bomb-throwing" and apply the epithet of "Anarchist" to me; but at this
the judicious and the intelligent will only smile; and as for our
friends the enemy, we esteem their opinion at its precise real value,
zero.

Given the conditions supposed in this book, I repeat--a complete
monopoly of the air, with an absolute suppression of all political
rights--no other outcomes are possible than slavery or violent, physical
revolution. As I have made Gabriel Armstrong say: "The masters would
have it so. Academic discussion becomes absurd, in the face of
plutocratic savagery. And in a case of self-defense, no measures are
unjustifiable."

I believe in political action. I hope for a peaceful and bloodless
revolution. But if that be impossible, then by all means let us have
revolution in its other sense. And with the hope that this book may
perhaps revive some fainting spirit or renew the vision of emancipation
in some soul where it has dimmed, I give "The Air Trust" to the workers
of America and of the world.

GEORGE ALLAN ENGLAND.

Boston, Mass., November 1, 1915.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


I. THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA
II. THE PARTNERS
III. THE BAITING OF HERZOG
IV. AN INTERLOPER
V. IN THE LABORATORY
VI. OXYGEN, KING OF INTOXICATORS
VII. A FREAK OF FATE
VIII. ONE UNBIDDEN, SHARES GREAT SECRETS
IX. DISCHARGED
X. A GLIMPSE OF THE PARASITES
XI. THE END OF TWO GAMES
XII. ON THE GREAT HIGHWAY
XIII. CATASTROPHE
XIV. THE RESCUE
XV. AN HOUR AND A PARTING
XVI. TIGER WALDRON "COMES BACK"
XVII. THOUGHTS
XVIII. FLINT AND WALDRON PLAN
XIX. CATHERINE'S DEFIANCE
XX. THE BILLIONAIRE'S PLOT
XXI. GABRIEL, GOOD SAMARITAN
XXII. THE TRAP IS SPRUNG
XXIII. THE BEAST GLOATS
XXIV. CATHERINE'S SUPREME DECISION
XXV. THROUGH STEEL BARS
XXVI. "GUILTY"
XXVII. BACK IN THE SUNLIGHT
XXVIII. IN THE REFUGE
XXIX. "APRES NOUS LE DELUGE!"
XXX. TRAPPED!
XXXI. ESCAPE!
XXXII. OMINOUS DEVELOPMENTS
XXXIII. "NOW COMES THE HOUR SUPREME"
XXXIV. THE ATTACK
XXXV. TERROR AND RETREAT
XXXVI. THE STORMING OF THE WORKS
XXXVII. DEATH IN THE PIT OF STEEL
XXXVIII. VISIONS




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"VISIONS!" SHE SAID SOFTLY, "DO YOU BEHOLD THEM TOO?"

"CAN'T BE DONE, EH?" SAID FLINT

HE GATHERED HER UP AS THOUGH SHE HAD BEEN A CHILD

AIMING AT THE BASE OF THE SKULL SHE STRUCK

THE SPY'S BODY BURST INTO A SHEAF OF FIRE

HIS FINGERS LOST THEIR HOLD--HE DROPPED LIKE A PLUMMET




THE AIR TRUST



CHAPTER I.

THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA.


Sunk far back in the huge leather cushions of his morris chair, old
Isaac Flint was thinking, thinking hard. Between narrowed lids, his
hard, gray eyes were blinking at the morning sunlight that poured into
his private office, high up in the great building he had reared on Wall
Street. From his thin lips now and then issued a coil of smoke from the
costly cigar he was consuming. His bony legs were crossed, and one foot
twitched impatiently. Now and again he tugged at his white mustache. A
frown creased his hard brow; and, as he pondered, something of the
glitter of a snake seemed reflected in his pupils.

"Not enough," he muttered, harshly. "It's not enough--there must be
more, more, more! Some way must be found. Must be, and shall be!"

The sunlight of early spring, glad and warm over Manhattan, brought no
message of cheer to the Billionaire. It bore no news of peace and joy to
him. Its very brightness, as it flooded the metropolis and mellowed his
luxurious inner office, seemed to offend the master of the world. And
presently he arose, walked to the window and made as though to lower
the shade. But for a moment he delayed this action. Standing there at
the window, he peered out. Far below him, the restless, swarming life of
the huge city crept and grovelled. Insects that were men and women
crowded the clefts that were streets. Long lines of cars, toy-like,
crept along the "L" structures. As far as the eye could reach, tufted
plumes of smoke and steam wafted away on the April breeze. The East
River glistened in the sunlight, its bosom vexed by myriad craft, by
ocean liners, by tugs and barges, by grim warships, by sailing-vessels,
whose canvas gleamed, by snow-white fruitboats from the tropics, by
hulls from every port. Over the bridges, long slow lines of traffic
crawled. And, far beyond to the dim horizon, stretched out the hives of
men, till the blue depths of distance swallowed all in haze.

And as Flint gazed on this marvel, all created and maintained by human
toil, by sweat and skill and tireless patience of the workers, a hard
smile curved his lips.

"All mine, more or less," said he to himself, puffing deep on his cigar.
"All yielding tribute to me, even as the mines and mills and factories I
cannot see yield tribute! Even as the oil-wells, the pipe-lines, the
railroads and the subways yield--even as the whole world yields it. All
this labor, all this busy strife, I have a hand in. The millions eat and
drink and buy and sell; and I take toll of it--yet it is not enough. I
hold them in my hand, yet the hand cannot close, completely. And until
it does, it is not enough! No, not enough for me!"

He pondered a moment, standing there musing at the window, surveying
"all the wonders of the earth" that in its fulness, in that year of
grace, 1921, bore tribute to him who toiled not, neither spun; and
though he smiled, the smile was bitter.

"Not enough, yet," he reflected. "And how--how shall I close my grip?
How shall I master all this, absolutely and completely, till it be mine
in truth? Through light? The mob can do with less, if I squeeze too
hard! Through food? They can economize! Transportation? No, the traffic
will bear only a certain load! How, then? What is it they all must have,
or die, that I can control? What universal need, vital to rich and poor
alike? To great and small? What absolute necessity which shall make my
rivals in the Game as much my vassals as the meanest slave in my steel
mills? What can it be? For power I must have! Like Caesar, who preferred
to be first in the smallest village, rather than be second at Rome, I
can and will have no competitor. I must rule _all_, or the game is
worthless! But how?"

Almost as in answer to his mental question, a sudden gust of air swayed
the curtain and brushed it against his face. And, on the moment,
inspiration struck him.

"What?" he exclaimed suddenly, his brows wrinkling, a strange and eager
light burning in his hard eyes. "Eh, what? Can it--could it be possible?
My God! If so--if it might be--the world would be my toy, to play with
as I like!

"If _that_ could happen, kings and emperors would have to cringe and
crawl to me, like my hordes of serfs all over this broad land. Statesmen
and diplomats, president and judges, lawmakers and captains of industry,
all would fall into bondage; and for the first time in history one man
would rule the earth, completely and absolutely--_and that man would be
Isaac Flint_!"

Staggered by the very immensity of the bold thought, so vast that for a
moment he could not realize it in its entirety, the Billionaire fell to
pacing the floor of his office.

His cigar now hung dead and unnoticed between his thinly cruel lips. His
hands were gripped behind his bent back, as he paced the priceless
Shiraz rug, itself having cost the wage of a hundred workmen for a
year's hard, grinding toil. And as he trod, up and down, up and down the
rich apartments, a slow, grim smile curved his mouth.

"What editor could withstand me, then?" he was thinking. "What clergyman
could raise his voice against my rule? Ah! Their 'high principles' they
prate of so eloquently, their crack-brained economics, their rebellions
and their strikes--the dogs!--would soon bow down before _that_ power!
Men have starved for stiff-necked opposition's sake, and still may do
so--but with my hand at the throat of the world, with the world's very
life-breath in my grip, what then? Submission, or--ha! well, we shall
see, we shall see!"

A subtle change came over his face, which had been growing paler for
some minutes. Impatiently he flung away his cigar, and, turning to his
desk, opened a drawer, took out a little vial and uncorked it. He shook
out two small white tablets, on the big sheet of plate-glass that
covered the desk, swallowed them eagerly, and replaced the vial in the
desk again. For be it known that, master of the world though Flint was,
he too had a master--morphine. Long years he had bowed beneath its whip,
the veriest slave of the insidious drug. No three hours could pass,
without that dosage. His immense native will power still managed to
control the dose and not increase it; but years ago he had abandoned
hope of ever diminishing or ceasing it. And now he thought no more of it
than of--well, of breathing.

Breathing! As he stood up again and drew a deep breath, under the
reviving influence of the drug, his inspiration once more recurred to
him.

"Breath!" said he. "Breath is life. Without food and drink and shelter,
men can live a while. Even without water, for some days. But without
_air_--they die inevitably and at once. And if I make the air my own,
then I am master of all life!"

And suddenly he burst into a harsh, jangling laugh.

"Air!" he cried exultantly, "An Air Trust! By God in Heaven, it can be!
It shall be!--it must!"

His mind, somewhat sluggish before he had taken the morphine, now was
working clearly and accurately again, with that fateful and undeviating
precision which had made him master of billions of dollars and uncounted
millions of human lives; which had woven his network of possession all
over the United States, Europe and Asia and even Africa; which had
drawn, as into a spider's web, the world's railroads and steamship
lines, its coal and copper and steel, its oil and grain and beef, its
every need--save air!

And now, keen on the track of this last great inspiration, the
Billionaire strode to his revolving book-case, whirled it round and from
its shelves jerked a thick volume, a smaller book and some pamphlets.

"Let's have some facts!" said he, flinging them upon his desk, and
seating himself before it in a costly chair of teak. "Once I get an
outline of the facts and what I want to do, then my subordinates can
carry out my plans. Before all, I must have facts!"

For half an hour he thumbed his references, noting all the salient
points mentally, without taking a single note; for, so long as the drug
still acted, his brain was an instrument of unsurpassed keenness and
accuracy.

A sinister figure he made, as he sat there poring intently over the
technical books before him, contrasting strangely with the beauty and
the luxury of the office. On the mantel, over the fireplace of Carrara
marble, ticked a Louis XIV clock, the price of which might have saved
the lives of a thousand workingmen's children during the last summer's
torment. Gold-woven tapestries from Rouen covered the walls, whereon
hung etchings and rare prints. Old Flint's office, indeed, had more the
air of an art gallery than a place where grim plots and deals
innumerable had been put through, lawmakers corrupted past counting, and
the destinies of nations bent beneath his corded, lean and nervous hand.
And now, as the Billionaire sat there thinking, smiling a smile that
boded no good to the world, the soft spring air that had inspired his
great plan still swayed the silken curtains.

Of a sudden, he slammed the big book shut, that he was studying, and
rose to his feet with a hard laugh--the laugh that had presaged more
than one calamity to mankind. Beneath the sweep of his mustache one
caught the glint of a gold tooth, sharp and unpleasant.

A moment he stood there, keen, eager, dominant, his hands gripping the
edge of the desk till the big knuckles whitened. He seemed the
embodiment of harsh and unrelenting Power--power over men and things,
over their laws and institutions; power which, like Alexander's, sought
only new worlds to conquer; power which found all metes and bounds too
narrow.

"Power!" he whispered, as though to voice the inner inclining of the
picture. "Life, air, breath--the very breath of the world in my
hands--power absolutely, at last!"




CHAPTER II.

THE PARTNERS.


Then, as was his habit, translating ideas into immediate action, he
strode to a door at the far end of the office, flung it open and said:

"See here a minute, Wally!"

"Busy!" came an answering voice, from behind a huge roll-top desk.

"Of course! But drop it, drop it. I've got news for you."

"Urgent?" asked the voice, coldly.

"Very. Come in here, a minute. I've got to unload!"

From behind the big desk rose the figure of a man about five and forty,
sandy-haired, long-faced and sallow, with a pair of the coldest,
fishiest eyes--eyes set too close together--that ever looked out of a
flat and ugly face. A man precisely dressed, something of a fop, with
just a note of the "sport" in his get-up; a man to fear, a man cool,
wary and dangerous--Maxim Waldron, in fact, the Billionaire's right-hand
man and confidant. Waldron, for some time affianced to his eldest
daughter. Waldron the arch-corruptionist; Waldron, who never yet had
been "caught with the goods," but who had financed scores of industrial
and political campaigns, with Flint's money and his own; Waldron, the
smooth, the suave, the perilous.

"What now?" asked he, fixing his pale blue eyes on the Billionaire's
face.

"Come in here, and I'll tell you."

"Right!" And Waldron, brushing an invisible speck of dust from the
sleeve of his checked coat, strolled rather casually into the
Billionaire's office.

Flint closed the door.

"Well?" asked Waldron, with something of a drawl. "What's the
excitement?"

"See here," began the great financier, stimulated by the drug. "We've
been wasting our time, all these years, with our petty monopolies of
beef and coal and transportation and all such trifles!"

"So?" And Waldron drew from his pocket a gold cigar-case, monogrammed
with diamonds. "Trifles, eh?" He carefully chose a perfecto. "Perhaps;
but we've managed to rub along, eh? Well, if these are trifles, what's
on?"

"Air!"

"Air?" Waldron's match poised a moment, as with a slight widening of the
pale blue eyes he surveyed his partner. "Why--er--what do you mean,
Flint?"

"The Air Trust!"

"Eh?" And Waldron lighted his cigar.

"A monopoly of breathing privileges!"

"Ha! Ha!" Waldron's laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's croak.
"Nothing to it, old man. Forget it, and stick to--"

"Of course! I might have expected as much from you!" retorted the
Billionaire tartly. "You've got neither imagination nor--"

"Nor any fancy for wild-goose chases," said Waldron, easily, as he sat
down in the big leather chair. "Air? Hot air, Flint! No, no, it won't
do! Nothing to it nothing at all."

For a moment the Billionaire regarded him with a look of intense
irritation. His thin lips moved, as though to emit some caustic answer;
but he managed to keep silence. The two men looked at each other, a long
minute; then Flint began again:

"Listen, now, and keep still! The idea came to me not an hour ago, this
morning, looking over the city, here. We've got a finger on everything
but the atmosphere, the most important thing of all. If we could control
_that_--"

"Of course, I understand," interrupted the other, blowing a ring of
smoke. "Unlimited power and so on. Looks very nice, and all. Only, it
can't be done. Air's too big, too fluid, too universal. Human powers
can't control it, any more than the ocean. Talk about monopolizing the
Atlantic, if you will, Flint. But for heaven's sake, drop--"

"Can't be done, eh?" exclaimed Flint, warmly, sitting down on the
desk-top and levelling a big-jointed forefinger at his partner. "That's
what every new idea has had to meet. It's no argument! People scoffed at
the idea of gas lighting when it was new. Called it 'burning smoke,' and
made merry over it. That was as recently as 1832. But ten years later,
gas-illumination was in full sway.

"Electric lighting met the same objection. And remember the objection to
the telephone? When Congress, in 1843, granted Morse an appropriation of
$30,000 to run the first telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington,
one would-be humorist in that supremely intelligent body tried to
introduce an amendment that part of the sum should be spent in surveying
a railroad to the moon! And--"

[Illustration: "Can't be done, Eh?" said Flint.]

"Granted," put in Waldron, "that my objection is futile, just what's
your idea?"

"This!" And Flint stabbed at him with his forefinger, while the other
financier regarded him with a fishily amused eye. "Every human being in
this world--and there are 1,900,000,000 of them now!--is breathing, on
the average, 16 cubic feet of air every hour, or about 400 a day. The
total amount of oxygen actually absorbed in the 24 hours by each person,
is about 17 cubic feet, or _over 30 billions of cubic feet of oxygen_,
each day, in the entire world. Get that?"

"Well?" drawled the other.

"Don't you see?" snapped Flint, irritably. "Imagine that we extract
oxygen from the air. Then--"

"You might as well try to dip up the ocean with a spoon," said Waldron,
"as try to vitiate the atmosphere of the whole world, by any means
whatsoever! But even if you could, what then?"

"Look here!" exclaimed the Billionaire. "It only needs a reduction of 10
per cent. in the atmospheric oxygen to make the air so bad that nobody
can breathe it without discomfort and pain. Take out any more and people
will die! We don't have to monopolize _all_ the oxygen, but only a very
small fraction, and the world will come gasping to us, like so many fish
out of water, falling over each other to buy!"

"Possibly. But the details?"

"I haven't worked them out yet, naturally. I needn't. Herzog will take
care of those. He and his staff. That's what they're for. Shall we put
it up to him? What? My God, man! Think of the millions in it--the
billions! The power! The--"

"Of course, of course!" interposed Waldron, calmly, eyeing his smoke.
"Don't get excited, Flint. Rome wasn't built in a day. There may be
something in this; possibly there may be the germ of an idea. I don't
say it's impossible. It looks visionary to me; but then, as you well
say, so has every new idea always looked. Let me think, now; let me
think."

"Go ahead and think!" growled the Billionaire. "Think and be hanged to
you! _I'm_ going to act!"

Waldron vouchsafed no reply, but merely eyed his partner with cold
interest, as though he were some biological specimen under a lens, and
smoked the while.

Flint, however, turned to his telephone and pulled it toward him, over
the big sheet of plate glass. Impatiently he took off the receiver and
held it up to his ear.

"Hello, hello! 2438 John!" he exclaimed, in answer to the query of
"Number, please?"

Silence, a moment, while Waldron slowly drew at his cigar and while the
Billionaire tugged with impatience at his gray mustache.

"Hello! That you, Herzog?"

*       *       *       *       *

"All right. I want to see you at once. Immediately, understand?"

*       *       *       *       *

"Very well. And say, Herzog!"

"Bring whatever literature you have on liquid air, nitrogen extraction
from the atmosphere, and so on. Understand? And come at once!"

*       *       *       *       *

"That's all! Good-bye!"

Smiling dourly, with satisfaction, he hung up and shoved the telephone
away again, then turned to his still reflecting partner, who had now
hoisted his patent leather boots to the window sill and seemed absorbed
in regarding their gloss through a blue veil of nicotine.

"Herzog," announced the Billionaire, "will be here in ten minutes, and
we'll get down to business."

"So?" languidly commented the immaculate Waldron. "Well, much as I'd
like to flatter your astuteness, Flint, I'm bound to say you're barking
up a false trail, this time! Beef, yes. Steel, yes. Railroads,
steamships, coal, iron, wheat, yes. All tangible, all concrete, all
susceptible of being weighed, measured, put in figures, fenced and
bounded, legislated about and so on and so forth. But _air_--!"

He snapped his manicured fingers, to show his well-considered contempt
for the Billionaire's scheme, and, throwing away his smoked-out cigar,
chose a fresh one.

Flint made no reply, but with an angry grunt flung a look of scorn at
the calm and placid one. Then, furtively opening his desk drawer, he
once more sought the little vial and took two more pellets--an action
which Waldron, without moving his head, complacently observed in a
heavily-bevelled mirror that hung between the windows.

"Air," murmured Waldron, suavely. "Hot air, Flint?"

No answer, save another grunt and the slamming of the desk-drawer.

And thus, in silence, the two men, masters of the world, awaited the
coming of the practical scientist, the proletarian, on whom they both,
at last analysis, had to rely for most of their results.




CHAPTER III.

THE BAITING OF HERZOG.


Herzog was not long in arriving. To be summoned in haste by Isaac Flint,
and to delay, was unthinkable. For eighteen years the chemist had
lickspittled to the Billionaire. Keen though his mind was, his character
and stamina were those of a jellyfish; and when the Master took snuff,
as the saying is, Herzog never failed to sneeze.

He therefore appeared, now, in some ten minutes--a fat, rubicund,
spectacled man, with a cast in his left eye and two fingers missing, to
remind him of early days in experimental work on explosives. Under his
arm he carried several tomes and pamphlets; and so, bowing first to one
financier, then to the other, he stood there on the threshold, awaiting
his masters' pleasure.

"Come in, Herzog," directed Flint. "Got some material there on liquid
air, and nitrogen, and so on?"

"Yes, sir. Just what is it you want, sir?"

"Sit down, and I'll tell you,"--for the chemist, hat in hand, ventured
not to seat himself unbidden in presence of these plutocrats.

Herzog, murmuring thanks for Flint's gracious permission, deposited his
derby on top of the revolving book-case, sat down tentatively on the edge
of a chair and clutched his books as though they had been so many
shields against the redoubted power of his masters.

"See here, Herzog," Flint fired at him, without any preliminaries or
beating around the bush, "what do you know about the practical side of
extracting nitrogen from atmospheric air? Or extracting oxygen, in
liquid form? Can it be done--that is, on a commercial basis?"

"Why, no, sir--yes, that is--perhaps. I mean--"

"What the devil _do_ you mean?" snapped Flint, while Waldron smiled
maliciously as he smoked. "Yes, or no? I don't pay you to muddle things.
I pay you to _know_, and to tell me! Get that? Now, how about it?"

"Well, sir--hm!--the fact is," and the unfortunate chemist blinked
through his glasses with extreme uneasiness, "the fact of the matter is
that the processes involved haven't been really perfected, as yet.
Beginnings have been made, but no large-scale work has been done, so
far. Still, the principle--"

"Is sound?"

"Yes, sir. I imagine--"

"Cut that! You aren't paid for imagining!" interrupted the Billionaire,
stabbing at him with that characteristic gesture. "Just what do you know
about it? No technicalities, mind! Essentials, that's all, and in a few
words!"

"Well, sir," answered Herzog, plucking up a little courage under this
pointed goading, "so far as the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen goes,
more progress has been made in England and Scandinavia, than here.
They're working on it, over there, to obtain cheap and plentiful
fertilizer from the air. Nitrogen _can_ be obtained from the air, even
now, and made into fertilizers even cheaper than the Chili saltpeter.
Oxygen is liberated as a by-product, and--"

"Oh, it is, eh? And could it be saved? In liquid form for instance?"

"I think so, sir. The Siemens & Halske interests, in Germany, are doing
it already, on a limited scale. In Norway and Austria, nitrogen has been
manufactured from air, for some years."

"On a paying, commercial basis?" demanded Flint, while Waldron, now a
trifle less scornful, seemed to listen with more interest as his eyes
rested on the rotund form of the scientist.

"Yes, sir, quite so," answered Herzog. "It's commercially feasible,
though not a very profitable business at best. The gas is utilized in
chemical combination with a substantial base, and--"

"No matter about that, just yet," interrupted Flint. "We can have
details later. Do you know of any such business as yet, in the United
States?"