The Lords of High Decision

Summary

Pittsburgh’s gilded boardroom exhales cigar smoke and predation; Colonel Craighill, industrial demigod, vows to throttle Gregory’s last flickering mine by starving it of rail and tide. Across the soot-laced Alleghenies, Gregory’s granddaughter Jean—palette in lieu of purse—barters canvases for bread while the Colonel’s privileged son Wayne chases football glory and, briefly, Adelaide’s gauzy smile. Sent to surveil the very town his father is strangling, Wayne collides with Jean: a collision of dynasties, pigments, and guilt. Railways remain cold, furnaces gutter, and Walsh’s goons orchestrate midnight desertions; Wayne quells one uprising only to discover his stepmother is the girl he once pined for. A library scuffle, a fatal fall, and Gregory’s corpse tilts the axis: the bank fails, mobs bay for blood, and the earth—almost indignant—rips open, vomiting black gold that liquefies bankruptcy into bonanza. Widowed Jean, Joe the chauffeur now martyred by dynamite, folds into Wayne’s arms as derricks replace tipples, turning tragedy into a gusher of ambiguous redemption.

Synopsis

Colonel Roger Craighill, a Pittsburgh millionaire, is seen presiding at a meeting in the directors' room of the Hercules Bank. He tells them that he intends to crush Gregory, an independent coal operator. He decides to use his accomplice, Walsh, for this purpose. In the next scene we see Gregory and his granddaughter, Jean. Gregory's mines have remained idle as the syndicate has refused him transportation to tidewater, and he has been rendered poor as the result of this oppression. Jean, who is an artist, earns a little money by the sale of her pictures for the upkeep of her family. Craighill's son, Wayne, while attending a football game, sees that Joe Denny, the son of an old miner of his home town, has been injured and goes to his assistance. He meets Adelaide Churchill and her mother. Wayne is very much taken with Adelaide, but when he sees her in a loving attitude with a student of his college at the last football game he decides to forget her. After his graduation, Craghill places Wayne in charge of Walsh, who takes him to the town where Gregory's plant is located. There he meets Jean. Gregory asks Wayne to use his influence with the Pittsburgh syndicate to have his coal mine put in operation. When he learns that he has been talking to the son of the man who had ruined him he is about to attack Wayne when Jean intercedes. We next see Jean in her cottage brooding over her grandfather's losses. She decides to take more active measures to assist him, and goes to the city to sell some of her pictures at an art store, where she happens to meet Wayne, who had gone to the city to plead with his father to cease throttling his competitors. He is unsuccessful, however. Wayne gives Joe Denny a job as his chauffeur. The scene shifts to the college town where Craighill is addressing a Chautauqua audience on the evils of the working classes. After the lecture, Addie and her mother are introduced to Craighill and he appears very much impressed with Addie. In the city Joe recognizes Jean while he is waiting in his capacity of chauffeur, before the Craighill office for Wayne to come out. Wayne invites Jean to enter the car, and Jean motors them to her home. Joe shows his suspicion as he observes Wayne's attitude toward Jean. Meanwhile, after a rapid courtship, Craighill and Adelaide are married. Brooks, a tool of Walsh, incites the men at the mills to strike and desert the furnaces at midnight, while Craighill is out of town. Wayne hears of the strike and rushes to the mills. He is successful in getting the men to return to the mills. Craighill returns from his honeymoon, and introduces Addie to Wayne as his wife, not aware that they had ever met. Subsequently we see Wayne making love to Jean, but Jean tells him that there is a gulf between them she fears can never be bridged. When Wayne reaches home, he stops to engage in conversation with Addie in front of the house and they overhear a bitter argument that is going on between Craighill and Gregory. Suddenly there is a sound of a fall. Rushing up to the library, they find Gregory with Craighill bending over him. Wayne stoops to examine the prostrate form upon the floor just as Joe enters. Wayne announces that Gregory is dead. Joe goes to Jean's house and tells her of her grandfather's death. Wayne goes to Jean's house for the same purpose and Jean tells him for the first time of her marriage to Joe. In the next scene we see the United States bank examiner at the Hercules Bank, where he discovers an overdraft of $100,000 together with other notes that have not been met. The bank is compelled to close its doors as Craighill cannot meet the required payments. Just as Jean and Joe are returning from the funeral of Gregory, news reaches the mining town that Craighill's bank has failed. A mob storms the Craighill home and tries to batter down its doors. Craighill pleads with the mob without avail. Then Wayne goes out and tells the people that just as he settled the steel strike, he now pledges his word that he will pay dollar for dollar owned by the wrecked institution. It is now pay day at the steel mills, but no money has arrived. At the bank in the city, crowds are swarming, trying to get into the institutions which have closed. In the mining towns we see the miners start to blow up the mines while Joe watches the men plant the fuse. Wayne starts from the city to try and pacify the workmen at the mills. When he gets there he finds that mine after mine has been destroyed. Joe has been seriously hurt and Wayne, seeing this, goes into one of the mines to get him. When Wayne comes out, the explosions have shaken the earth and from the interior oil has begun to spout. In the place of the wrecked coal mine we see geyser after geyser of shooting oil and natural gas, which greatly increases the value of Craighill's property. Meanwhile the banks which have been appealed to for assistance have refused financial aid, as Craighill's assets were not ample security. The discovery of oil and natural gas changes matters completely and the banks now decide to come to the relief of Wayne and his father. We see Jean mourning for the death of Joe and then as she leans her head on Wayne's shoulder, it is evident they have plighted their troth.