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→Criticism
[[Whittaker Chambers]], in his infamous review of ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', at one point stated that Ayn Rand's message to all who disagreed with her might as well be:{{cquote|To a gas chamber—go!<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009.<http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp></ref>}}
[[Whittaker Chambers]], in his infamous review of ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', at one point stated that Ayn Rand's message to all who disagreed with her might as well be:{{cquote|To a gas chamber—go!<ref name=chambers>Chambers W, "Big Sister Is Watching You," ''National Review'', December 28, 1957. Hosted at National Review Online, published January 5, 2005. Accessed May 1, 2009.<http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp></ref>}}
He might have been speaking of a detailed sample of the attitudes of the passengers of the ill-fated Comet shortly before it entered the tunnel for the last time. That part of the narrative began thus:{{cquote|It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were in no way guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.}}
He might have been speaking of a detailed sample of the attitudes of the passengers of the ill-fated Comet shortly before it entered the tunnel for the last time. That part of the narrative began thus:{{cquote|It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were in no way guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.}}
The narrative continued with a description of one passenger in each of the fourteen cars of the Comet (other than Kip Chalmers' private car attached to the rear). In each case, that passenger was described as being in sympathy with either the government's policies or with the guiding [[philosophy]], such as it was, behind them. This description closed with the observation that {{cquote|there was not a passenger aboard the train that did not share one or more of their ideas.}}
The narrative continued with a description of one passenger in each of the fourteen cars of the Comet (other than Kip Chalmers' private car attached to the rear). In each case, that passenger was described as being in sympathy with either the government's policies or with the guiding [[philosophy]], such as it was, behind them. Jason Lee Steorts, writing in ''National Review'', provided some examples:<ref name=Steorts>Steorts JL, "The Greatly Ghastly Rand," ''National Review,'', August 30, 2010, pp. 48. <http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/244381/greatly-ghastly-rand-jason-lee-steorts></ref>
{{cquote|The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence. . . .
. . . The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, "I don’t care, it’s only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children."
The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities. . . . }}
This description closed with the observation that {{cquote|there was not a [passenger] aboard the train that did not share one or more of their ideas.}}
Those passengers died by asphyxiation, and this might have been the "gas chamber" to which Whittaker Chambers was referring.
Those passengers died by asphyxiation, and this might have been the "gas chamber" to which Whittaker Chambers was referring.