against the growing influence of the
Consolidated. He had a few days before called together representative
men from all parts of the State to discuss a program of action against
the enemy, and Ridgway gave a dinner for them at the Quartzite, the
evening of Eaton's defection.

He was at the critical moment when any obvious irresolution would have
been fatal. His allies were ready to concede his defeat if he would let
them. But he radiated such an assured atmosphere of power, such an
unconquerable current of vigor, that they could not escape his own
conviction of unassailability. He was at his genial, indomitable best,
the magnetic charm of fellowship putting into eclipse the selfishness
of the man. He had been known to boast of his political exploits, of
how he had been the Warwick that had made and unmade governors and
United States senators; but the fraternal "we" to-night replaced his
usual first person singular.

The business interests of the Consolidated were supreme all over the
State. That corporation owned forests and mills and railroads and
mines. It ran sheep and cattle-ranches as well as stores and
manufactories. Most of the newspapers in the State were dominated by
it. Of a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, it controlled
more than half directly by the simple means of filling dinner-pails.
That so powerful a corporation, greedy for power and wealth, should
create a strong but scattered hostility in the course of its growth,
became inevitable. This enmity Ridgway proposed to consolidate into a
political organization, with opposition to the trust as its cohesive
principle, that should hold the balance of power in the State.

When he rose to explain his object in calling them together, Ridgway's
clear, strong presentment of the situation, backed by his splendid bulk
and powerful personality, always bold and dramatic, shocked dormant
antagonisms to activity as a live current does sluggish inertia. For he
had eminently the gift of moving speech. The issue was a simple one, he
pointed out. Reduced to ultimates, the question was whether the State
should control the Consolidated or the Consolidated the State. With
simple, telling force he faced the insidious growth of the big copper
company, showing how every independent in the State was fighting for
his business life against its encroachments, and was bound to lose
unless the opposition was a united one. Let the independents obtain and
keep control of