A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! by Harry Harrison Page A

pene-trating eye that belied any impres-sion of laxity or softness that the ex-terior might suggest.
    “You’ll hear me out, Gould, and stay silent. There are some things that cannot be forgotten—”
    “There are some things that are better off forgotten,” came the interruption again. “It is almost two hun-dred years now and you are still try-ing to fight the rebellion over again. Enough I say. Your ancestors were Tories, very nice for them, they picked the winning side. If they had lost we would be calling them trai-tors now and maybe George Wash-ington would have had them shot the way they squeezed poor old German George to shoot him. Maybe you got guilt feelings about that, huh?, which is why you keep scratching all the time at this same itch. For the record I got ancestors, too, and one of them was involved, a Haym Solomon, poor fellow lost everything he had financing the revolution and ended up selling pickles out of a barrel on the east side. Does this bother me? Not a bit. I vote the straight Tory ticket now because that is the party of the big money and I got big money. Let bygones be bygones.”
    “Then you were as unlucky in your choice of ancestors as Washington was,” Stratton snapped back, bristling and crackling with anger and shooting his cuffs in a manner which suggested that he wished there were some real shooting of certain people involved. “I wouldn’t brag about it if I were you. In any case the public at large is not aware of your indecorous lineage whereas the name Washington has an in-eradicable taint. The American pub-lic will rise in arms against anything connected with a name so odious.”
    “Yore full of hogwash, Henry,” a leathery Texas voice drawled out from a large man far down the table who wore a wide-brimmed hat, des-pite the fact the others were all bare-headed. “In the west we have a hard job rememberin‘ where New En-gland is much less the details of all your Yankee feudin’. If this engineer feller can sell the stock fer us, I say hire him and be done with it.”
    “Me, too,” a deep voice boomed in answer from a copper skinned in-dividual even further along the Board. “All that the Indians know is that all white men are no good. Too many of us were shot up before the Peace of 1860. If oil hadn’t been dis-covered on Cherokee lands, I wouldn’t be sitting here now. I say hire him.”
    There was more spirited crosstalk after this that was finally hammered into silence by the chairman’s gavel. He nodded to Gus who rose and faced them all.
    “What Mr. Stratton has to say is very important. If the name of Washington will do injury to the tun-nel this fact must be taken into con-sideration, and if true I will with-draw at once from the position that is under discussion. But I feel, as oth-ers here apparently do as well, that old hatreds are best forgotten in the new era. Since the original thirteen states attempted to form their own government and failed, this country has grown until now it numbers thirty-one states and the California Territory. Living in these states are the various Indian tribes who care little, as Chief Sunflower has told you, of our ancient squabbles. Also in these states are refugees from the Baltic Wars, Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms, Dutch refu-gees from the Dike disaster, Swedish refugees from the Danish occupa-tion, people from many different states and nations who also do not care about these same ancient squabbles. I say that they will be far more interested in the percentage of return upon their investment than they will in my grandfather’s name. It is unimportant and not relevant at this time.
    “What is important is the plan I have conceived that will attract investors, and it is my wish that you hear this plan before voting upon my qualifications for the position. You will be buying a pig in a poke if you do anything else. Let me tell you what I want to do, then, if you agree that my plans have merit, vote for them and