Chapter 12

Chapter 12 — "The Aristocracy of Pull"

TL;DR: James Taggart marries Cherryl Brooks at a Wayne-Falkland reception that becomes a parade of bureaucrats trading favors, where Francisco d'Anconia uncoils a long, savage speech in defense of money — and reveals, smiling, that three of his copper ships have just been sunk by the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld.

Summary: James Taggart's wedding to Cherryl Brooks, the dime-store clerk who once approached him in awe as the great hero of the John Galt Line, is staged at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel. The flashback shows how Jim — humiliated by his sister's success — picked Cherryl up after she stopped him on the street to congratulate him for the railroad's triumph, and let her keep believing he had built it. The reception is a parade of Washington bureaucrats, "aristocrats of pull" who exchange favors and influence as if they were currency. Bertram Scudder makes a sneering remark about money. Francisco d'Anconia, present and immaculate, answers him at length — the famous "money speech" — defending money as the made-thing of producers and the only honest medium of exchange among free men. The room is silenced and infuriated. A guest then asks Francisco, half-mocking, what is happening with his copper. Francisco grins and announces that the copper bound from Chile has just been sunk at sea — three d'Anconia ore ships, by the pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld. Hank Rearden, who has lost a fortune on the missing copper, is in the room and absorbs the blow without changing expression.

Key scenes:

• The Wayne-Falkland ballroom — chandeliers, champagne towers, evening gowns, white-tie tuxedos, rows of bureaucrats
• Cherryl in white as bride beside an embarrassed-proud Jim
• Flashback: Cherryl's dingy dime store, Jim Taggart in expensive overcoat allowing her to mistake him for the great man of the John Galt Line
• Francisco standing alone in the center of the floor delivering the money speech, glass in hand, contempt and elegance braided
• The casual revelation about Danneskjöld and the sinking of three d'Anconia copper ships
• Rearden's still face across the room as he calculates the loss

Characters present: James Taggart, Cherryl Brooks Taggart, Francisco d'Anconia, Hank Rearden, Lillian Rearden, Bertram Scudder, Wesley Mouch, Mr. Mowen and other industrialists, Dagny Taggart (briefly), other Washington figures

Locations / settings:

• Wayne-Falkland Hotel ballroom — gilded plaster, chandeliers, marble columns, mirrored walls
• Flashback: a dingy Manhattan dime-store counter — neon signage, pasteboard displays, cheap blouse on a young clerk

Visual motifs: a young woman in white veil beside a portly man in white tie, a single tuxedoed figure speaking in the center of a polished floor as the crowd parts, a thin column of champagne, a sudden silence; in flashback a fluorescent-lit dime store and a girl staring up at a man in an overcoat

Emotional tone: ceremonial, corrupt, then incandescent and contemptuous, then quietly catastrophic for Rearden

Confidence: high — the money speech and the Danneskjöld revelation are among the most-quoted scenes in the novel.