In his own
limited field he was a bigger man than the President of the United
States, for he was not only the chief executive of the Interurban
Express Company, but he made its laws as well. He could issue general
orders turning the whole operation of the road other end to as easily as
a national executive could order the use of, let us say, a simplified
form of spelling in a few departments of the Government. He sat in the
head office of the company at Franklin and said "Let this be done," and,
in every suburban town where the Interurban had offices, that thing was
done, under pain of dismissal from the service of the company. Even
Flannery, who was born rebellious, would scratch his red hair in the
Westcoate office and grumble and then follow orders.
Old Simon Gratz came into the president's office one morning and sat
himself into a vacant chair with a grunt of disapprobation, the same
grunt of disapprobation that had been like saw-filing to the nerves of
the president for many years, and the president immediately prepared to
contradict him, regardless of what it might be that Simon Gratz
disapproved of.
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