He is completely indifferent to the “practical” side of the [State Science] Institute. He is very satisfied with his “abstract” isolation. Dr. Ferris “takes care” of everything—and he prizes Ferris for this reason. (He thinks Ferris is his servant—he doesn’t know that it’s the other way around.) The Institute was established for Dr. Stadler, on his endorsement and agreement, on the glory of his name. But it is Dr. Ferris who established it, who “put it through” the legislature. Ferris is the “Washington man” of the Institute. (“Washington” leaves Dr. Stadler strictly alone—and kowtows to him as to an idol. So he doesn’t think that politicians are “difficult” or “a problem.” Does he like dealing with them at all? “Oh, dear me, no—but what can one do in this world? One has to accept some sort of ugliness.” (He [prefers] politicians to businessmen.)

  He is uneasy with Dagny—he wants to enjoy her visit, to be the brilliant man to an appreciative audience, as he used to be with her—but he can’t. There are a few sharp little touches of annoyance, impatience, evasion in his manner. [...]

  August 12, 1947

  Philosophical Note

  If man forms his own character through the basic premises he accepts (his character being the result and consequence of the premises), does this mean that he has no permanent character at all, no fixed entity, since it is subject to and open to constant change? No. Here is the permanence of man’s entity: those of his basic premises which are true cannot change (since premises come from convictions about observed reality); it is only the mistaken premises which are open to change, are constantly challenged by reality and should be changed. The “fluidity” or impermanence of his character corresponds to the number of mistaken premises he holds; to the extent of such mistakes, he lacks “entity” or is not a complete, perfect, integrated entity, therefore, does not actually exist completely. His permanence, his full reality, his existence depend upon his right premises. The perfect man would hold nothing but the right premises.

  This process is the key to the secret of man’s character and of the incompleteness of his existence. This is the process of man creating himself, becoming man—the illustration of: “Being a man is given to him, remaining a man is not.” (“Everything is something.” Everything that exists must be an entity. Physical objects are set as entities by nature. Only man has to create himself; his body is only the means; his essential entity is his soul—and that he must create himself. There is the god-like aspect of man. What is his starting point, his tool for creating himself? The rational mind. All the rest is only a development of it, a matter of remaining true to his rational mind.)

  When I say that a man holds a true premise, I mean that he holds it with complete rational conviction, as far as his knowledge goes. Therefore, such a premise cannot be changed in his mind; further knowledge would only amplify it—it cannot contradict or destroy it. The case of a man who had a right premise, then dropped it because of some erroneous new conclusion, is not relevant here: such a case merely means that the man did not hold or understand the right premise, or any part of it, in the first place. My statement here applies only to actual, full, rational conviction about a basic premise—not to a psychological illusion of conviction, nor to any sort of “faith,” nor to any partially, provisionally accepted hypothesis.

  An important point here: the “acting on the most likely hypothesis” rule applies to and is proper only in relation to the specific and the concrete, such as any one person, event or course of action, but not to basic premises. In regard to basic premises, no halfway is possible; anything short of absolute conviction is worthless, is no conviction at all. (In connection with this, I must define the nature and content of basic premises.)

  Note for Rearden

  Both Lillian and Stacey want Rearden to succumb to an affair with a mistress. Their motives and attitudes are basically identical, both being expressions of the parasite, but they are two different variations of the same theme, about equally vicious.

  Lillian wants to see Rearden’s strict moral purity broken, so that she can torture him through his own guilt, so that she can feel the satisfaction of seeing a great man degraded, and so that she can assume moral superiority over him, thus becoming the representative of morality. Therefore, Lillian’s game includes an over-stressed, over-grim recognition of morality—in order to hold Rearden through his guilt at having betrayed the moral code.

  Stacey wants to see Rearden abandoning morality so that she and he can be united like gangsters or criminal conspirators against the moral world, a kind of relationship expressed by a wise wink at each other. She wants him to become immoral in her way, to hold morality as a convenient hypocrisy with which to fool others, but to acknowledge that he and she know better, are wiser than that—in fact, are rotters and satisfied with it. This, in effect, would also hold him through guilt—the guilt of being self-confessedly and boastfully evil. Thus Stacey’s scheme includes morality only as the thing to defy; she and Rearden would be bound together, not within and by morality, but against it.

  Of the two women, Lillian is smarter: she knows that Rearden is essentially great and pure, that his essence cannot be changed, that she can merely make him suffer through his recognition of his own sin. Stacey thinks that sensual indulgence can actually turn Rearden into a rotter, become his essence and make him pleased with, not tortured by, depravity, in the same way that she is.

  It is important to stress and make clear how wrong both women are: on their malevolent, parasite’s premise, they can expect a man’s happiness (as represented by sex, its highest expression) to become the means of his degradation, of evil, of torture and of their acquiring power over him. The truth is that happiness (in the real sense of the word) cannot do this and cannot be used in this way. It is and does the opposite: it is both the means and the expression of man’s elevation, of his good, his joy, his freedom, and his independence.

  That is what Rearden learns from his affair with Dagny. Any suffering involved for him in that affair (and only superficially, never tragically or essentially) came only from the fact of his own error about the nature of the relationship and his right to it; it came only from his own ignorance and mistake —not from anything done by Lillain or Stacey. Only he made his suffering possible—they, the parasites, could not make him suffer—and he set himself free of the suffering, when he understood the truth.

  This is a very important point—an important illustration of the theme, of the fact that any evil done to a good man is done only because, and to the extent to which, he permits it. (Rearden permitted it by accepting the parasite’s view of morality, happiness, and sex.)

  Regarding Rearden and Lillian: In their sex life, she held her impotence as virtue, his desire as vice. This is impotence held as superior to life energy.

  1947

  [AR prepared the following list of questions prior to visiting three steel companies. Short answers to some of the questions were added after her interviews. ]

  Questions Re: Steel

  Regarding Rearden Metal: What qualities would be most valuable in a new metal alloy, besides: tougher, cheaper and longer lasting than steel? Heat resisting.

  What would Dagny have to see besides “Rearden’s formula and the tests he showed her”?

  General description of Rearden Steel mills. Watch for characteristic details.

  What sort of tests and research would be done to achieve Rearden

  Metal (in a general way)?

  “Today, the first heat of the first order of Rearden Metal had been poured.” (Do they call it heat? Yes. Do they call it order? Yes.) Do they pour alloys—is the procedure approximately the same as for making steel, or is it entirely, basically different—and how much leeway do I have on this? Yes, [they pour alloys.]

  Difference between mill, foundry and scrap business? (Who manufactures what?) (Mill: sheet steel and plate steel.)

  Could the bracelet be made from that poured metal that same day? Yes.

  Would Rearden Ore be referred to as a “mining company”? “Rearden’s started rolling the rails.” Yes. “The first shipment of rail will get to the site in a few weeks, the last in six months.” (?) (Time element of order okay.)

  Is it machine tools they need and lack to make Diesels?

  The time schedule for the Rearden rails order: seven months for the whole order—first delivery in two months, second in another two months, last in three months after that. Dagny has him cut last five months to three. (?) (About 300 miles for line up to Wyatt Oil, more for whole line, though not all of track is being replaced.)

  What is the proper extra price per ton that Rearden would charge for the rush? (10%) What is the price of the best ton of rail now? What would be a steep extra for rush? What has been the increase in cost of steel rail per each decade?

  What is the longest credit Rearden would give Dagny on the rail order?

  What kind of crane would load rails on flat cars? Would it have a jaw that snaps open and drops the rails? Or a hook, with the rails tied in bunches by chains? Or are rails loaded singly? Overhead crane, rails are tied with chains.

  September, 1947

  [AR made the following notes on an interview with Carleton B. Tibbets, CEO of Los Angeles Steel Casting Company.]

  The key men in a steel mill are: general manager; superintendent; rolling superintendent. (Superintendent coordinates the melting department.)

  U.S. Steel employs 15,000 men in the largest plant; 300,000 men in all their plants.

  Rearden’s plant would employ about 5,000 to 6,000. Plant would disintegrate in about a month after Rearden leaves.

  Example of destructive inefficiency: somebody taps steel too soon, which is known as “taps a cold heat.” Examples of looting: selling cranes, selling rolling equipment. Example of inefficient management: steel is insufficiently purified; this causes “progressive fracture” —steel breaks.

  Oil Pipe Line: Would be ordered from steel mills up to size of 12 inches. If larger, it has to be ordered from a special foundry. Wyatt’s pipe line would be ready in about six months normally, one or two years in present circumstances.

  Suggestions for Rearden Metal: Main interest of steel makers at present is heat-resisting steel. Have Rearden metal be able to stand temperatures up to 3000° (this is almost the melting point of steel). Present limit is 1800°. Have metal hold its strength and ductility at the same time. This type of metal would revolutionize the manufacture of internal-combustion engines. Elements to use in Rearden metal: molybdenum or vanadium. Both are rare elements, particularly vanadium. It can be obtained from only one company in this country. Molybdenum is now used in the amount of .4 to .6 percent of steel mixture, or 8 to 12 pounds per ton of steel. Vanadium is now used in the amount of .2 percent of steel mixture, or 4 pounds per ton of steel.

  Main customers of steel mills are railroads, oil companies, building industries, and a huge number of manufacturing companies such as agricultural implements, automobiles, etc.

  October, 1947

  Notes on Visit to Kaiser Steel Plant

  Site of steel mill [in Fontana, California]: 13,000 acres or about 3/4 square mile.

  Plant was completed in 13 months. First coke ovens were in operation in six months.

  Cost of plant: $123,000,000 in wartime. Present value or normal cost: $35,000,000 to $40,000,000.

  Geneva plant built in wartime by government. Cost $200,000,000.

  U.S. Steel bought it from the Government for $40,000,000 (about 20 percent of original value). Defense Corporation’s return on all its war plants which were sold averages about 17 percent.

  Price of steel in East is $50-$55 per ton. Eastern steel costs about $15 per ton more in the West, the difference being the cost of transportation. The Kaiser Company owns an iron ore mine and a limestone quarry in California. It leases a coal mine in Utah and operates it.

  Miscellaneous Information: Blast furnaces are usually named after women. The one at Kaiser’s is named “Bess” after Mrs. Kaiser and is referred to by the workers as “Old Bess.”

  The big pipe around the belly of the blast furnace is referred to by the workers as the “Bustle” pipe.

  Possible Technical Trouble: Gas explosions—caused by combustible gases, air or oxygen in a confined space and high enough temperature to set it off.

  Heat going through the floor of the furnace—this is known as a “breakout.” It can happen either to the blast or open-hearth furnaces. It is usually caused by closing the tap-hole improperly.

  Possibilities for Inefficient Management: Buying strip coal instead of coking coal—the blast furnace will go cold.

  Foreman stops charging coke for six hours—furnace will freeze up.

  Foreman feeds nothing but limestone for a whole turn—furnace will become lime-set.

  Possibilities for Looting: Selling raw materials; selling pig iron and scrap; selling turning rolls from rolling mills; selling spare tuyeres on blast furnace.

  The Essential Staff of a Steel Mill: About 12 percent of the total employees (Kaiser Plant employs 3300 people). The essential jobs are: vice-president in charge of operations; general superintendent; assistant superintendent; department superintendents; department assistant superintendents ; general foreman; turn foreman; blower; open hearth melter. There are about 100 men in Metallurgical Department.

  October-November, 1947

  [AR made brief notes in a memo book while on a train trip from California to New York and back to Cheyenne, Wyoming. On this trip, she interviewed employees of the New York Central Railroad and visited facilities of Inland Steel.]

  Trip to New York

  The hood of a black car looks like a mirror and reflects objects ahead and the sky.

  The effect of rocks at sunset—a dark gray, flat silhouette of rocks against shadows of mountains which are dark gray and barely suggested.

  The mountains. The approach to a small town. The train and sparks at night. The fireflies.

  The mountains in Wyoming. A base of rock, rising from a green slope, with brush, pines and a smooth green cover that looks like moss rising up on the rock. The moss and brush vanish gradually, and the pines go on struggling up, in thinning strands, till only a few drops of single trees are left, going up. At the top, there is a naked rock, with snow in the crevices. The snow looks as if a handful had been thrown violently into a crevice and had splattered up the sides, in single rays.

  The mountain peaks look very close, as if rising a very short distance from the road—until one sees the tiny size of the pine trees near the top.

  A small town is seen in the distance, rising from the plain, as a solid line of bushy green trees, with roof tops among them—and, rising above trees and roofs, a few round, silver water-tanks that look like huge pearls. The water tanks compete in height with the church spires. The water tanks win.

  A train moving at night looks like a solid streak of lighted glass—the band of the windows—and a streak of sparks flying above them in the opposite direction.

  The fireflies rise from the grass at dusk like slow sparks, moving at floating angles, just a bit slower than sparks of fire, and paler—they have a cold, white, metallic sparkle.

  New York skyscrapers look like solid structures of lighted glass, in the evening, when all the windows are lighted. As it gets later, the buildings assume black shapes again, with only a few lighted windows scattered among them, and an occasional row of vertical lights, like a row of buttons—the lights of a stairwell.

  New York skyscrapers in the fog look as if the closest ones can be seen in every detail, but behind a thin blue smoke; in the next row, the details are blurred, simplified to essentials; farther on, the buildings are simplified to mere shapes; and beyond that, they become blue shadows, in faint silhouettes.

  A plain and town, seen from the height, with the unusual effect of long, straight, thick bands of clouds low in the sky above them, at twilight, so that it looks as if part of the sky were a lake beyond the town, and the clouds were the strip of the other shore.

  Trip back

  The steel mills. When a heat is being poured, the smoke is semitransparent, like waves of heat, and the outlines of smokestacks behind it look as if they were shimmering.

  There is red smoke, orange-yellow smoke, blue smoke—and thick, rich, satin-lustrous coils of smoke rising out of smokestacks, that look like mother-of-pearl.

  There is a great abundance of power lines in steel mills, long, many-stranded bands of wire.

  The silhouette of the steel mills in Lorain, Ohio, standing against the sky.

  The rust colored water of the river at the steel mills in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

  The odor of sulfur and the constant metallic clatter, like the sound of grinding wheels.

  The approach to Pittsburgh (on the way east): From the parkways, to the old, vertical houses on steep hillsides, to the slums, with narrow, cobblestone streets—then the sudden view of the river and the blurred silhouettes of skyscrapers—the rise to the triumphant goal and spirit of the place, of the great effort that made it. Pennsylvania—green mountains, some plains, many hills. Ohio-hills and some plains. (The Patrick Henry University should be on a bluff over Lake Erie.)

  Indiana—flat plains, dull.

  Illinois—flat plains.

  Wisconsin—hills in the eastern part, more plains in the west. Wisconsin has a great many pines; also some birch trees. The road goes up and down, more than in curves. The road going up a hill rises straight up, almost vertically, before the driver, then lowers as one approaches, almost as if folding over and lying down like a bridge being lowered before you.