Hammond incidentally gathered from what he heard here and there that Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., president of the North Star Company, was a big man in Kam City, but he also discovered a general impression abroad that he was really a figure-head—that his every move in the commercial world was dictated by a power behind, mysterious as it was ingenious and powerful. Even the policies which he espoused in the House of Commons were attributed to master minds somewhere back of the scenes. No one had ever been able to place a finger on the source of his inspiration, but wiseacre socialist leaders maintained it was that much-abused, vague quantity known as “the big interests,” and the mob were contented to accept it as a good enough theory.
Hon. J. J. Slack, M.P., who held a place in the cabinet at Ottawa without portfolio, it seemed, was a tricky politician, a hail fellow and well met—and nothing more. Before his election to the Commons he was a struggling barrister whose battle for a mere existence was a case of Greek meet Greek; afterwards, he suddenly blossomed forth as president of the North Star Towing and Contracting Company, which those on the inside claimed was the parent of some twenty-seven flourishing subsidiary enterprises, including a fleet of grain-carrying freighters on the upper lakes, a grain storage trust operating elevators half way across the continent, a fur-trading company that had gradually dominated the adjacent districts to the exclusion of all rivals and a string of powerful newspapers in various cities and towns all the way from the head of the great lakes to the Pacific coast.
The North Star Towing and Contracting Company and its leading subsidiaries had at one time and another been accused of the boldest commercial piracies, gigantic briberies and glaring steals. If there was a big campaign “barrel” in evidence during an election it was usually set down as North Star money—and always, it seemed, the men the North Star backed had the most votes when the ballot counting was over. But never did the North Star Company or its satellites appear in the courts of law as defendants or face a commission of inquiry. There were settlements of a quiet nature—if there had to be. They wielded a long arm of retribution when their self-appropriated privileges were interfered with—wielded it with such cunning and far-reaching effect that even powerful rival corporations and high government officials learned, not without cost to themselves at times, it was the better part of wisdom not to stand in their way.