Garrett portrays Wall Street at the time of this monetary crisis as a place filled with people who had lost faith in what they were doing with no plan of how to renew their faith. Into the breach steps Henry M. Galt. Galt had been quietly buying devalued shares of the struggling Great Midwestern railroad and making himself a general nuisance to the complacent and hopeless board of directors. Privately Galt had been studying everything about the railroad business in general and in particular the potential of the Great Midwestern line. When, like every other major government-subsidized railroad at the time, the Great Midwestern went into bankruptcy, Galt was the only major shareholder with a plan to make the Great Midwestern profitable again.
