Chapter 7
Royce’s Rebuttal

Silence fell over the street as everyone waited to see what would happen. Almeda remained where she was, watching him approach.

“Well, Mrs. Hollister,” said Royce in a loud but friendly voice, “that was a very moving speech. You wouldn’t deny your opponent equal time in front of the voters, would you?”

“Certainly not,” replied Almeda, obviously cooled by his appearance, but trying not to show it.

The banker climbed the steps to the small platform, where he joined Almeda. He flashed her a broad grin, and then, as if he was just going on with the conversation said, “But surely you do not mean to suggest that gold and the financial interests which accompany it are of lesser importance to this community than these other things you mention?”

“I did not use such a term, Mr. Royce,” said Almeda. “But now that you put it like that, I suppose I do believe that money is less important than people, than friendship, than churches and schools and families.”

“Come now, Mrs. Hollister,” said Royce with a patronizing smile. “You know as well as everyone here that gold drives this community. Without the gold Miracle Springs would not exist.”

“Perhaps not. But I believe it will exist in the years to come, with or without gold.”

“You are a businesswoman, Mrs. Hollister. You know that money is what makes everything work. Without money, you are out of business. Without money none of these people would have homes or clothes or wagons or horses. I’m all for friendship and schools and children and churches. But a community needs a solid financial base or all the rest will wither away. Money is what makes it go, money is what it is all based on.”

“Money . . . such as that represented by the Royce Miners’ Bank?”

Royce smiled, although he did not answer her question directly. “And all that is why I’m not sure I can agree with your statement that a Hollister vote is a vote for the best future of Miracle Springs. In my opinion, the future must rest upon a solid financial base.”

“In other words, with a vote for Royce,” she said.

The banker smiled broadly. “You said it, Almeda . . . not I.” Some of the men chuckled to see him getting the better of her. “Let’s be practical, Almeda,” he went on. “Everyone here may have done business with you at some time in the past. But I am the one who has financed their homes, their land, their businesses. Why, Almeda, I have even lent money to you to help your business through some difficult times! None of these people would even be here today if it weren’t for my bank and what I have done for them. And the future will be no different. If Miracle Springs is to have a future, even the kind of future you so glowingly speak of, it will be because of what I am able to give it, both as its banker and its mayor.”

Everyone was quiet, waiting to see what Almeda would do. Clearly, Mr. Royce meant his words as a direct challenge to everything she had said and hoped to accomplish with her speech.

When she spoke again, her voice contained a challenging tone of its own.

“Is the kind of future you have in mind for Miracle Springs the same kind as you’re imposing on Patrick Shaw and his family?” she asked in a cool tone. “That is hardly the kind of future I would judge to be in the best interest of this community, no matter how much your bank may have done for it in the past.”

A low murmur of agreement spread through the crowd. Her words had touched off the anger at Royce that had been circulating all week. A couple of men shouted out at him.

“The lady’s right, Royce,” cried one voice.

“Shaw’s a good man,” called out another. “You got no call to do what you done!”

Mr. Royce did not seem angered by her question. It almost seemed as though he had been expecting it, and was ready with a reply.

“Surely you must realize, Almeda,” he said, “that politics and business don’t necessarily mix.”

“Well maybe they should!” she shot back. “Perhaps the incident with the Shaws tells us what kind of mayor you would be. Is this how you envision looking out for the best interests of the people of Miracle Springs—making them leave the homes they have worked so hard for?”

By now Almeda had the support of the crowd. Although not a single one of the men present would have dared go to Mr. Royce in person and tell him what he thought, in a group, and stirred by Almeda’s words, all the anger that had been brewing in the community through the week spilled over into mumblings and shouts of complaint against what Royce had done.

“Listen to them, Franklin,” she said. “Every man and woman here is upset by what you have done. They want to know why. They want to know if this is what you mean when you say you have helped the community grow! Is this the future you offer Miracle Springs—a future whose road is strewn with failed loans and eviction notices? If so, I do not think it is the kind of future the people of Miracle Springs have in mind!”

By now everyone was getting into the argument, calling out questions and comments to the banker. From the look and sound of it, it didn’t seem that Royce could have any possible chance in the election! But as Pa had said earlier, Mr. Royce wasn’t the kind of man who should be underestimated.

He held up his hands to restore quiet. When he could be heard again, he turned to Almeda. “What I said, Mrs. Hollister,” he replied, still in a calm tone, “was that the future of Miracle Springs must rest upon a solid financial base. Without a financial base, there can be no future.”

He paused, looked into her face for a moment, then continued. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “As a businesswoman, have you ever extended credit to a bad account?”

He waited, but she did not answer.

“I’m sure you have,” he said. “And what did you do when a customer did not pay you? Did you continue to let him take merchandise from you, knowing in all probability he would never pay you?”

“There are plenty of people here today who know well enough that I have given them credit during some pretty tough times,” she answered at last. “When I trust someone, I do what I can to help them.”

“As do I,” countered Royce. “I have made loans and extended credit and helped nearly every man here. But in the face of consistent non-payment, I doubt very much if you would blithely let a man go on running up a bill at your expense. If you operated that way, you would not have survived in business so long. Well, in the case of the Shaws, I have been extremely lenient. I have done all that is in my power to keep it from coming to what has transpired this past week. You ask Patrick Shaw himself—he’s standing right back there.”

Royce pointed to the back of the crowd, and heads turned in that direction. “Ask him. What did I do when he missed his first payment . . . his second . . . his third? I did nothing. I continued to be patient, hoping somehow that he would be able to pull himself together and catch up and fulfill his obligations.”

Royce paused a moment, seemingly to allow Mr. Shaw to say something if he wanted. But Shaw only kept looking at the ground, kicking the dirt around with his boot.

“I would say that I have been extremely patient,” Mr. Royce went on. “I have done nothing that any honest businessman wouldn’t have done. If you were in my position, Almeda, you would have been forced into the same action.”

By now the crowd had begun to quiet down. They may not have liked it, but most knew Royce’s words were true. They didn’t know he was only telling them half the truth—that he had refused to rescind the note-call even if Mr. Shaw made up the four months.

Royce turned and squarely faced the crowd. He spoke as if Almeda were not even present beside him, and gave her no opportunity to get in another word.

“Let me tell you, my friends, a little about how banking works. Banking is like any other business. When my esteemed opponent here—” he indicated Almeda with a wave of his hand, without turning to look at her, “—offers you a gold pan or a saddle for sale, she has had to buy that pan or saddle from someone else. Now as a banker, the only commodity I have to offer is money. She sells mining equipment. I sell money. Now, I have to get that money from somewhere in order to have it to lend. And do you know where I get it?” He paused, but only for a second.

“I get it from the rest of you,” he went on. “The money I loaned Patrick Shaw for his house and land came from money that others of you put in my bank. I lend out your money to Mr. Shaw, he pays me interest, and then I pay you interest, keeping out a small portion as the bank’s share. Mr. Shaw didn’t borrow money from me. In a manner of speaking, he borrowed money from the rest of you! All of you who have borrowed money from the Royce Miners’ Bank have really borrowed it from one another. You who receive interest from the bank are in actuality getting that interest from your friends and neighbors.”

Everyone was quiet again and was listening carefully.

“If someone doesn’t pay the bank what he has agreed to pay, then how can the bank pay the rest of you the interest due you? What I have done is the most painful thing a banker ever has to face. The agonizing inner turmoil it causes a man like me to have to find himself in the odious position of calling a note due, it is so painful as to be beyond words. And yet I have a responsibility to the rest of you. How can I be faithful to the whole community and its needs if I ignore such problems? My bank would soon be out of business, and then where would this community be?”

He waited just a moment to let his question sink in, then answered it himself.

“I will tell you where it would be. When a loan gets behind and goes bad, the real injury is to you. As much as I don’t like to say it, Patrick Shaw really is indebted to the rest of you, his friends. His failure to make his payments hurts you as much as it hurts the bank. He has not paid you what he owes. And if that sort of thing is allowed to go unchecked, it puts the bank in a very serious position. Before long, I might have to call another loan due from another one of you, in order to raise the funds to make up for the note which has been defaulted upon. Do you see, my friends? Do you understand the problem? Do you see the dilemma I’m in?

“All the loans I have made are subject to a thirty-day call, just like Mr. Shaw’s. In other words, the bank can legally call any note due at any time. Now a banker hates to call a loan due, because it is a very painful experience, as painful for a sensitive man like me as it is to a family who must pack up and leave a home where they have invested years. But if a loan is allowed to go bad, then another loan must be called from someone else, to keep the bank healthy. And so it goes. One can never tell when circumstances may force a banker to begin calling many loans due, in order to carry out his wider obligations to the entire community.

“This is why I said earlier that if Miracle Springs is to have a future, it must rest upon the solid financial base that I and the Royce Miners’ Bank can give it. Without that solid base, I fear many loans may have to be called due, and Miracle Springs could become one of those ghost towns Mrs. Hollister spoke about. As your mayor, I hope and pray I will be able to keep that from happening.”

He stepped back and began to descend from the platform, then turned back for one final statement, as if wanting to avoid any possible confusion.

“I want it to be very clear that if I am elected mayor, I will work strenuously toward a strong financial base, to make sure that what has befallen our friend Mr. Shaw, with whom I deeply sympathize, does not happen to any of the rest of you. In other words, I do not see a string of foreclosures in any way as inevitable, so long as the bank, and I personally, are able to remain in a strong position in the community. I clarify this because I did not want any of you to misunderstand my words.”

No one did. Franklin Royce had made himself perfectly clear to everyone!