“Unification” of railroads.

  “Unification” of steel.

  Crash of d‘Anconia Copper.

  “Soybean project”—freight cars—collapse of Minnesota.

  Closing of Minnesota Line.

  End of Rearden Steel.

  Collapse of Taggart Bridge (which is end of TT and of New York).

  This is the rule of the brute—the economics of gangsters, the mixture of production and guns, the “expediency of the moment,” the plain, crude attempt to seize whatever’s still available, with no pretense of any plan or thought of the future.

  March 24, 1951

  Chapter I: Atlantis

  Dagny-John Galt.

  The music of Halley’s Fifth Concerto.

  The sign of the dollar.

  The car coming to meet them—Hugh Akston, Midas Mulligan. (“You’re in the arms of the inventor of the motor.”)

  Ellis Wyatt passing them on the street.

  Galt’s house—the famous surgeon—the breakfast.

  Quentin Daniels.

  The industries of the valley.

  The restaurant and the shop.

  The Mulligan Bank.

  The power plant (Galt’s motor). (Mind and body.)

  The grocery store and general store.

  Dwight Sanders undertakes to fix her plane.

  The dinner at Mulligan’s house: Galt, Akston, Mulligan, Richard Halley, Ellis Wyatt, Ken Danagger, Quentin Daniels, Judge Narragansett, Dr. Hendricks. Her feeling about heaven and meeting all the great men. Galt’s explanation: “We’re on strike.”

  Galt drives her back to his house. She asks, on the way: “What do you call this place?” “I call it Mulligan’s Valley. The others call it Galt’s Gulch.” “I’d call it—” but she doesn’t finish.

  He takes her into his guest bedroom. Hands her the gun. “Have you forgotten that you wanted to shoot me on sight?” (The contradiction in her premises, which she will have to resolve.)

  She notices the inscriptions on the wall: “You’ll get over it—Ellis Wyatt.” “It will be all right by morning—Ken Danagger.” “It’s worth it—Roger Holt.” She asks him about it, he explains and adds: “This is the room you were never intended to see.... Good night, Miss Taggart.”

  Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed

  The next morning: Galt is called out, she is fixing breakfast, when the blond stranger rushes in. “Oh, have you joined us?” “No, I’m a scab.” Galt comes in, introduces them—Ragnar Danneskjöld. Explanation about her account.

  She becomes Galt’s paid cook and servant—for a month.

  The arrival of Owen Kellogg. He tells her about the Comet’s trip, he has arranged a job for Jeff Allen with the Taggart man at Laurel, she is thought to be lost in plane crash, he has spoken on the phone to Rearden. She asks Galt to let Rearden know—he answers: No, there is no communication with the outside world for a month.

  Francisco’s arrival. The scene between them.

  The progression of the Galt-Dagny romance. The scene where she has to make her choice. He tells her about the universal longing for the ideal: “It’s real. It’s possible. Here it is—and it’s yours—but at the price of dropping every delusion of mankind’s vicious past, every error of the centuries of self-immolation, including the willingness to suffer unnecessary pain and to endure injustice.” Her reasons: her last hope for the power of rationality and of man’s self-interest, which will make her win over the looters. He tells her she will have to discover whether those men really want reason or life.

  He flies her out of the valley. “Don’t look for me. You won’t find me until you really want me—with no contradictions and for what I really am. And when you’ll want me, I’ll be the easiest man to find.”

  July 6, 1951

  For Mulligan’s Dinner

  1. Richard Halley (new symphony)

  2. Judge Narragansett (book on the philosophy of law)

  3. Dr. Hendricks (medical research—disinfectant)

  4. Ellis Wyatt (shale-oil research)

  5. Ken Dannager (mine prospecting)

  6. Midas Mulligan

  7. Hugh Akston (book on the philosophy of reason—“the single absolute”)Quentin Daniels

  John Galt (his laboratory is in N.Y.)

  Dagny Taggart

  “Gentlemen—Taggart Transcontinental.”

  Mulligan’s house—selection, not accumulation.

  “We don’t make assertions”—Akston.

  Daniels on the floor—Gait apart, on the arm of Akston’s chair—Akston’s gesture—the abnormality of it all being so natural.

  Galt: “We’re on strike.” The only group of men that has never struck before—who can’t get along without whom—the penalizing of ability—the penalizing of virtue for being virtue—the torture of the best by means of the best within them.

  1. Akston: he quit in protest against intellectuals who teach that there is no intellect; he did not want to make that possible for them; let them try to exist without the intellect.

  2. Mulligan: he quit because, when he saw money handed to need, he saw the bright faces and eyes of men like young Rearden being tied and bleeding on altars at the feet of Lee Hunsacker.

  3. Judge Narragansett: he quit because he could not accept the opposite of the function he had chosen: he could not accept the position of ajudge dispensing injustice—the vilest injustice conceivable to his judicial mind.

  4. Richard Halley: he quit because he would not be a martyr to those whom he benefited. He had been willing to accept anything and give them anything; if they had said: “Sorry to be so late—thank you for waiting,” he would have asked nothing else. But it was the smug cannibals who claimed that it was his duty to accept the torture inflicted on him by their stupidity, for their sake—the cannibals who make a virtue of spiritual impotence, just as they make a virtue of material impotence—the cannibals who demanded the unearned in spirit, just as they demand it in money—that made him quit.

  5. Dr. Hendricks: “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation?”—the kind of skill and devotion required—he quit because he could not let that be at the mercy, command and disposal of men whose sole qualification and right to rule him rest on their cowardly, evasive brutality. In all the discussions of socialized medicine, men discussed everything, except the wishes, will, and choice of the doctors. Men considered nothing but the “welfare” of the patients. Well, let them cure themselves and exist without him.

  6. Ellis Wyatt: he quit because he knew that it was his blood—his carcass—they needed in order to survive.

  7. Ken Danagger: he quit because he did not need them.

  8. Quentin Daniels: he quit because he could not deal with unreason. The scientist who deals with unreason is the guiltiest man of all.

  9. Galt: he abandoned the motor, because he knew that it would do men no good without a mind able to understand it.

  The history of the valley: first, just Mulligan’s private retreat, then Judge Narragansett joined him, then Richard Halley. The others stayed outside, [living by] their rule: do not work in your true profession, do not exercise your ability, do not give men the use of your mind. Their assignment outside: to watch men of ability, to approach them when they’re ready and to pull them out. They all went on working at their professions, but sharing nothing with men, giving nothing. The yearly vacation—one month to rest and to live in a human world, in society as it should be.

  Then, particularly since the destruction of Colorado, they began to join Mulligan and settle in the valley, because they had to hide. They converted their wealth into gold or machines. The valley is not a state, not an organization of any kind; it is a voluntary association held together by nothing but every man’s self-interest. Mulligan owns the valley and leases the land to the others. Judge Narragansett is the arbiter, in case of disagreements; there haven’t been many. (This code of principles is the Constitution of the United States, without the contradictions: the code of inalienable individual rights.)

  The valley is now almost self-supporting, so that most of them can live there full-time and earn their living (Dr. Akston, Owen Kellogg, the young porter). Mulligan takes care of dealing with the outside world for the purchase of goods that they cannot produce in the valley; he has a special agent for that (Ragnar Danneskjöld). Soon they will all have to live in the valley exclusively—because the world is falling apart so fast that the outside will be starving; but they will be able to support themselves here. (The frozen trains, etc., are not part of the strike—they’re the natural response of whatever rational element is left in people, the same kind of protest, the natural, inevitable break-up.)

  [The strikers] had started with no time limit in view, but now they think that they will see, and soon, the day of their triumph and their return. When? When the road is clear, when the looters have collapsed. Let the looters collapse without the mind—let them get out of the way—then Galt will call off the strike and they will return to the world.

  They speak of their professions which they are still pursuing, each naming his particular work.

  Galt points to the roads of the valley—“the most expensive roads in the world.” The men who could do only physical labor or road-building are now starving for lack of jobs which they cannot originate—while the men who could have provided jobs, factories, automobiles, radios, if they were free and their time were released, have, instead, been building roads. “We can survive without them. They can’t survive without us.”

  June 30, 1951

  Notes on Emotions

  All emotions are [responses to] judgments of value.

  The fundamental division is: pleasure and pain. This applies to physical sensations and to emotions; the emotional equivalent of pleasure and pain is joy and sorrow.

  Classification of Emotions

  I. Emotions toward oneself Positive: Self-respect, pride, confidence, assurance

  Negative: Self-contempt, shame, guilt, self-doubt

  II. Emotions toward objective reality (toward events) Positive: Joy, hope (?), interest (?)

  Negative: Sorrow, fear, disappointment, frustration, boredom (?)

  III. Emotions toward other people Positive: Admiration, respect, affection, love

  Negative: Contempt, anger, hatred (Fear—? Fear is felt toward an event or an action of the person, not toward the person)

  The single emotion toward an objective to be reached-desire.

  Compassion—don’t know where to classify. (?)

  Analyze which are primary, which are combined emotions—and define the kind of valuations that are involved in the primary emotions. This could be a basic chart for the specific provisions of a code of ethics.

  Question to analyze: since all valuations pertain to a realm of choice and are acts of choice, perhaps emotions can be felt only toward actions, not toward static entities. This may clarify the exact connection between one’s emotions and one’s actions. Emotions toward people are toward the entity of a person—but they come from one’s estimate of that person’s actions. We feel the emotion toward that quality of a person’s character which was responsible for the action. The same applies to emotions toward oneself. Emotions toward objective reality are all estimates of events, past, present or future, which [are] means of actions. The emotion of desire (to reach an objective) is toward action. (The one exception seems to be esthetic pleasure—which is admiration for an attribute of a static entity: physical beauty.)

  December II, 1951

  Elements of Chapter II

  Three main lines: Galt-Dagny, Francisco-Galt, and Dagny-the valley.

  Scenes: 1. Dagny-Richard Halley.

  2. Dagny-Kay Ludlow, after the theater performance.

  3. Galt’s lectures.

  4. Dagny-young mother.Dagny—plan of railroad.

  5. Dr. Akston, his three pupils, and Dagny. (Akston on emotions as the philosophical “summary” of a man. The essence of being: identification—the joke on the body and soul preachers—the “bottling up” of the soul in a jail—why his three pupils have accomplished everything.) [This paragraph is crossed out.]

  6. “From where have you watched me all these years?” “What is your job in the world? Don’t tell me that you’re a second-assistant bookkeeper!” “No, I’m not.”The “sensual” pleasure of cooking for Galt, the relationship of being his servant. (“You could hold me here.” “I know it.”)

  7. Rearden’s plane.

  8. Scene where Francisco guesses Galt-Dagny romance. (Francisco asks Dagny to move to his house; Galt refuses.) (Scene where Francisco passes by Galt’s house.) [The last sentence was crossed out.]

  9. Scene where Dagny decides to go back.

  January 4, 1952

  Scenes for Chapter II (Tentative)

  Scene where Dagny decides to go back (two days before last, June 28): here the dialogue between Dagny and Galt is about love, but never directly. It is their declaration that they love each other—they both understand, but nothing is said openly. In her mind, interspersed with the things she says aloud, are the lines of her speech of dedication: “You whom I have always loved and never found ...” He tells her that the ideal is here, it’s real, it’s possible, but...

  (Write the two themes in counterpoint, so that his words underscore and answer the words in her mind—so that the whole is clear and is a declaration of love, but only as a whole, not in what either of them says aloud.)

  Scene where Francisco discovers Galt-Dagny romance (toward end of month). “And you said that I was the one who took the hardest beating! ... I should have known it. I should have known it twelve years ago, before you ever saw her. I have stated it myself. You were everything that he was seeking, everything he told us to live for or die, if necessary.”

  [Added later:] Galt had said to Francisco, in sending him to Dagny: “If you want your chance, take it. You’ve earned it.” Francisco says: “Take it. You’ve earned it—and it wasn’t chance.”

  Here, too, the counterpoint dialogue. Nothing is said openly—everything is said through their mutual understanding. Francisco’s attitude: I understand, I approve, it’s as it ought and had to be. Galt’s attitude: I’d give anything not to hurt you—anything but this, because this, as you know, is beyond sacrifice. Dagny’s attitude: It’s true, but I’ll only hurt him as I’ve hurt you, and my price for it is that I’m hurting myself right now as much as both of you have suffered—but it is a price that I have to pay. Yet, through this, simultaneously, she feels “the sense of enormous rightness” and a sense of joy—for all three of them, for being alive. (It’s Galt who expresses this last, who gives voice for all three of them to the sense of joy, to their sense of existence.)

  Scene of the “non-sacrifice. ” Elements for it: Francisco tells Dagny about Galt sending him to her in the country. Galt refuses to let Dagny move to Francisco’s house. Dagny is set free of the fear of sacrifice—she sees what ugliness this would have been if they had acted on the moral standards of the outside world.

  [Note on the writer who was a fishwife in the valley:] Galt tells Dagny that the girl is in love with him—and mentions the contemptible paradox of the outside world’s attitude toward unrequited love: men hold love to be a supreme virtue, yet a woman who loves a man without answer is supposed to be ridiculous, she is supposed to hide her feeling as some sort of disgrace or shame, in order to protect her “pride,” or else she makes a claim and a burden upon the man out of her unrequited feeling and pursues him, half as a begger, half as a sheriff. But here, love is [held to be] what it actually is by its nature: a recognition of values and the greatest tribute one human being can give another, gratefully to be accepted, whether one returns it or not.

  Scene of Rearden’s plane. This comes after some scene where Dagny is violently happy about her relationship with Gait—after some clear indication of his love for her and of her happiness with him. The plane serves as the climax or last incident of the contest among the three men in her mind. It is Galt who wins—the scene must end on some indication of this.

  Scene of Dr. Akston, his three pupils, and Dagny. (For philosophical theme—“emotions as the philosophical summary of a man.”) [This last sentence was crossed out.] For personal theme—Akston’s reminiscences about Galt, Francisco, and Danneskjöld in college. This will show us what sort of men they were and how they faced their future. Francisco—the richest heir in the world; Danneskjöld—the European aristocrat, without money, but with the sternest tradition of honor and nobility; Galt—a wholly self-made man, out of nowhere, penniless, family-less, tie-less, son of a factory worker in Ohio, left his home at the age of twelve and has been on his own ever since. (Akston refers to him as “Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, who was born ready and whole out of Jupiter’s brain.”) Akston mentions their choice of physics and philosophy as their major subjects—and their reasons: the union of mind and body.

  (This might be the place to state their attitude on religion—the atheism of all four of them. “Do you believe in God, Miss Taggart?” “God, no!” “That’s about all that one needs to say on the subject. We are here concerned with reason. It is a big enough job—enough for the life of any man.”)

  Show Akston’s love for his three pupils, his paternal devotion to them—past and present. For present, such touches as: “Don’t sit on the ground, Francisco. It’s getting chilly. You’ve always been careless about taking chances.” Akston calls Dagny “Miss Taggart”—then, after a specific reference to the three men as his sons (and after some hint of the Dagny-Galt relationship), he suddenly addresses her as “Dagny” and she sees him looking at Galt. This is Akston’s acceptance of Dagny as his daughter—as Galt’s wife.