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degrees this last, owing to the untiring efforts of the newspapers,

was being whipped into a wild foam. To come into council at this

time and ask for a twenty-year extension of franchises not destined

to expire for seven years was too much. It could not be done.

Even suborned councilmen would be unwilling to undertake it just

now. There are some things which even politically are impossible.

To make matters worse, the twenty-year-franchise limit was really

not at all sufficient for his present needs. In order to bring

about the consolidation of his North and West surface lines, which

he was now proposing and on the strength of which he wished to

issue at least two hundred million dollars' worth of

one-hundred-dollar-six-per-cent. shares in place of the seventy

million dollars current of ten and twelve per cents., it was

necessary for him to secure a much more respectable term of years

than the brief one now permitted by the state legislature, even

providing that this latter could be obtained.

" Peeble are not ferry much indrested in tees short-time frangizes, "

observed Mr. Gotloeb once, when Cowperwood was talking the matter

over with him. He wanted Haeckelheimer & Co. to underwrite the

whole issue. " Dey are so insigure. Now if you couldt get, say,

a frangize for fifty or one hunnert years or something like dot

your stocks wouldt go off like hot cakes. I know where I couldt

dispose of fifty million dollars off dem in Cermany alone. "

He was most unctuous and pleading.

Cowperwood understood this quite as well as Gotloeb, if not better.

He was not at all satisfied with the thought of obtaining a

beggarly twenty-year extension for his giant schemes when cities

like Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Pittsburg were apparently

glad to grant their corporations franchises which would not expire

for ninety-nine years at the earliest, and in most cases were given

in perpetuity. This was the kind of franchise favored by the great

moneyed houses of New York and Europe, and which Gotloeb, and even

Addison, locally, were demanding.

" It is certainly important that we get these franchises renewed

for fifty years, " Addison used to say to him, and it was seriously

and disagreeably true.

The various lights of Cowperwood's legal department, constantly

on the search for new legislative devices, were not slow to grasp

the import of the situation. It was not long before the resourceful

Mr. Joel Avery appeared with a suggestion.

" Did you notice what the state legislature of New York is doing

in connection with the various local transit problems down there? "

asked this honorable gentleman of Cowperwood, one morning, ambling

in when announced and seating himself in the great presence. A

half-burned cigar was between his fingers, and a little round felt

hat looked peculiarly rakish above his sinister, intellectual,

constructive face and eyes.

" No, I didn't, " replied Cowperwood, who had actually noted and

pondered upon the item in question, but who did not care to say

so. " I saw something about it, but I didn't pay much attention

to it. What of it? "

" Well, it plans to authorize a body of four or five men--one branch

in New York, one in Buffalo, I presume--to grant all new franchises

and extend old ones with the consent of the various local communities

involved. They are to fix the rate of compensation to be paid to

the state or the city, and the rates of fare. They can regulate

transfers, stock issues, and all that sort of thing. I was

thinking if at any time we find this business of renewing the

franchises too uncertain here we might go into the state legislature

and see what can be done about introducing a public-service

commission of that kind into this state. We are not the only

corporation that would welcome it. Of course, it would be better

if there were a general or special demand for it outside of

ourselves. It ought not to originate with us. "

He stared at Cowperwood heavily, the latter returning a reflective

gaze.

" I'll think it over, " he said. " There may be something in that. "

Henceforth the thought of instituting such a commission never left

Cowperwood's mind. It contained the germ of a solution--the

possibility of extending his franchises for fifty or even a hundred

years.

This plan, as Cowperwood was subsequently to discover, was a thing

more or less expressly forbidden by the state constitution of

Illinois. The latter provided that no special or exclusive

privilege, immunity, or franchise whatsoever should be granted to

any corporation, association, or individual. Yet, " What is a

little matter like the constitution between friends, anyhow? " some

one had already asked. There are fads in legislation as well as

dusty pigeonholes in which phases of older law are tucked away and

forgotten. Many earlier ideals of the constitution-makers had

long since been conveniently obscured or nullified by decisions,

appeals to the federal government, appeals to the state government,

communal contracts, and the like--fine cobwebby figments, all, but

sufficient, just the same, to render inoperative the original

intention. Besides, Cowperwood had but small respect for either

the intelligence or the self-protective capacity of such men as

constituted the rural voting element of the state. From his lawyers

and from others he had heard innumerable droll stories of life in

the state legislature, and the state counties and towns--on the

bench, at the rural huskings where the state elections were won,

in country hotels, on country roads and farms. " One day as I was

getting on the train at Petunkey, " old General Van Sickle, or Judge

Dickensheets, or ex-Judge Avery would begin--and then would follow

some amazing narration of rural immorality or dullness, or political

or social misconception. Of the total population of the state at

this time over half were in the city itself, and these he had

managed to keep in control. For the remaining million, divided

between twelve small cities and an agricultural population, he had

small respect. What did this handful of yokels amount to, anyhow?

--dull, frivoling, barn-dancing boors.

The great state of Illinois--a territory as large as England proper

and as fertile as Egypt, bordered by a great lake and a vast river,

and with a population of over two million free-born Americans

--would scarcely seem a fit subject for corporate manipulation and

control. Yet a more trade-ridden commonwealth might not have been

found anywhere at this time within the entire length and breadth

of the universe. Cowperwood personally, though contemptuous of

the bucolic mass when regarded as individuals, had always been

impressed by this great community of his election. Here had come

Marquette and Joliet, La Salle and Hennepin, dreaming a way to the

Pacific. Here Lincoln and Douglas, antagonist and protagonist of

slavery argument, had contested; here had arisen " Joe" Smith,

propagator of that strange American dogma of the Latter-Day Saints.

What a state, Cowperwood sometimes thought; what a figment of the

brain, and yet how wonderful! He had crossed it often on his way

to St. Louis, to Memphis, to Denver, and had been touched by its

very simplicity--the small, new wooden towns, so redolent of

American tradition, prejudice, force, and illusion. The white-steepled

church, the lawn-faced, tree-shaded village streets, the long

stretches of flat, open country where corn grew in serried rows

or where in winter the snow bedded lightly--it all reminded him a

little of his own father and mother, who had been in many respects

suited to such a world as this. Yet none the less did he hesitate

to press on the measure which was to adjust his own future, to

make profitable his issue of two hundred million dollars' worth

of Union Traction, to secure him a fixed place in the financial

oligarchy of America and of the world.

The state legislature at this time was ruled over by a small group

of wire-pulling, pettifogging, corporation-controlled individuals

who came up from the respective towns, counties, and cities of the

state, but who bore the same relation to the communities which

they represented and to their superiors and equals in and out of

the legislative halls at Springfield that men do to such allies

anywhere in any given field. Why do we call them pettifogging and

dismiss them? Perhaps they were pettifogging, but certainly no

more so than any other shrewd rat or animal that burrows its way

onward--and shall we say upward? The deepest controlling principle

which animated these individuals was the oldest and first, that

of self-preservation. Picture, for example, a common occurrence

--that of Senator John H. Southack, conversing with, perhaps,

Senator George Mason Wade, of Gallatin County, behind a legislative

door in one of the senate conference chambers toward the close of

a session--Senator Southack, blinking, buttonholing his well-dressed

colleague and drawing very near; Senator Wade, curious, confidential,

expectant (a genial, solid, experienced, slightly paunchy but

well-built Senator Wade--and handsome, too).

" You know, George, I told you there would be something eventually

in the Quincy water-front improvement if it ever worked out. Well,

here it is. Ed Truesdale was in town yesterday. " (This with a

knowing eye, as much as to say, " Mum's the word. " ) " Here's five

hundred; count it. "

A quick flashing out of some green and yellow bills from a vest

pocket, a light thumbing and counting on the part of Senator Wade.

A flare of comprehension, approval, gratitude, admiration, as

though to signify, " This is something like. " " Thanks, John. I

had pretty near forgot all about it. Nice people, eh? If you see

Ed again give him my regards. When that Bellville contest comes

up let me know. "

Mr. Wade, being a good speaker, was frequently in request to stir

up the populace to a sense of pro or con in connection with some

legislative crisis impending, and it was to some such future

opportunity that he now pleasantly referred. O life, O politics,

O necessity, O hunger, O burning human appetite and desire on every

hand!

Mr. Southack was an unobtrusive, pleasant, quiet man of the type

that would usually be patronized as rural and pettifogging by men

high in commercial affairs. He was none the less well fitted to

his task, a capable and diligent beneficiary and agent. He was

well dressed, middle-aged, --only forty-five--cool, courageous,

genial, with eyes that were material, but not cold or hard, and a

light, springy, energetic step and manner. A holder of some C.

W. & I. R. R. shares, a director of one of his local county banks,

a silent partner in the Effingham Herald, he was a personage in

his district, one much revered by local swains. Yet a more game

and rascally type was not to be found in all rural legislation.

It was old General Van Sickle who sought out Southack, having

remembered him from his earlier legislative days. It was Avery

who conducted the negotiations. Primarily, in all state scheming

at Springfield, Senator Southack was supposed to represent the C.

W. I., one of the great trunk-lines traversing the state, and

incidentally connecting Chicago with the South, West, and East.

This road, having a large local mileage and being anxious to extend

its franchises in Chicago and elsewhere, was deep in state politics.

By a curious coincidence it was mainly financed by Haeckelheimer,

Gotloeb & Co., of New York, though Cowperwood's connection with

that concern was not as yet known. Going to Southack, who was

the Republican whip in the senate, Avery proposed that he, in

conjunction with Judge Dickensheets and one Gilson Bickel, counsel

for the C. W. I., should now undertake to secure sufficient support

in the state senate and house for a scheme introducing the New

York idea of a public-service commission into the governing

machinery of the state of Illinois. This measure, be it noted,

was to be supplemented by one very interesting and important little

proviso to the effect that all franchise-holding corporations

should hereby, for a period of fifty years from the date of the

enactment of the bill into law, be assured of all their rights,

privileges, and immunities--including franchises, of course. This

was justified on the ground that any such radical change as that

involved in the introduction of a public-service commission might

disturb the peace and well-being of corporations with franchises

which still had years to run.

Senator Southack saw nothing very wrong with this idea, though he

naturally perceived what it was all about and whom it was truly

designed to protect.

" Yes, " he said, succinctly, " I see the lay of that land, but what

do I get out of it? "

" Fifty thousand dollars for yourself if it's successful, ten

thousand if it isn't--provided you make an honest effort; two

thousand dollars apiece for any of the boys who see fit to help

you if we win. Is that perfectly satisfactory? "

" Perfectly, " replied Senator Southack.

Chapter LV

Cowperwood and the Governor

A Public-service-commission law might, ipso facto, have been quietly

passed at this session, if the arbitrary franchise-extending proviso

had not been introduced, and this on the thin excuse that so novel

a change in the working scheme of the state government might bring

about hardship to some. This redounded too obviously to the benefit

of one particular corporation. The newspaper men--as thick as

flies about the halls of the state capitol at Springfield, and

essentially watchful and loyal to their papers--were quick to sense

the true state of affairs. Never were there such hawks as

newspapermen. These wretches (employed by sniveling, mud-snouting

newspapers of the opposition) were not only in the councils of

politicians, in the pay of rival corporations, in the confidence

of the governor, in the secrets of the senators and local

representatives, but were here and there in one another's confidence.

A piece of news--a rumor, a dream, a fancy--whispered by Senator

Smith to Senator Jones, or by Representative Smith to Representative

Jones, and confided by him in turn to Charlie White, of the Globe,

or Eddie Burns, of the Democrat, would in turn be communicated to

Robert Hazlitt, of the Press, or Harry Emonds, of the Transcript.

All at once a disturbing announcement in one or other of the papers,

no one knowing whence it came. Neither Senator Smith nor Senator

Jones had told any one. No word of the confidence imposed in

Charlie White or Eddie Burns had ever been breathed. But there

you were--the thing was in the papers, the storm of inquiry,

opinion, opposition was on. No one knew, no one was to blame, but

it was on, and the battle had henceforth to be fought in the open.

Consider also the governor who presided at this time in the executive

chamber at Springfield. He was a strange, tall, dark, osseous man

who, owing to the brooding, melancholy character of his own

disposition, had a checkered and a somewhat sad career behind him.

Born in Sweden, he bad been brought to America as a child, and

allowed or compelled to fight his own way upward under all the

grinding aspects of poverty. Owing to an energetic and indomitable

temperament, he had through years of law practice and public labors

of various kinds built up for himself a following among Chicago

Swedes which amounted to adoration. He had been city tax-collector,

city surveyor, district attorney, and for six or eight years a

state circuit judge. In all these capacities he had manifested a

tendency to do the right as he saw it and play fair--qualities

which endeared him to the idealistic. Honest, and with a hopeless

brooding sympathy for the miseries of the poor, he had as circuit

judge, and also as district attorney, rendered various decisions

which had made him very unpopular with the rich and powerful

--decisions in damage cases, fraud cases, railroad claim cases,

where the city or the state was seeking to oust various powerful

railway corporations from possession of property--yards,

water-frontages, and the like, to which they had no just claim.

At the same time the populace, reading the news items of his doings

and hearing him speak on various and sundry occasions, conceived

a great fancy for him. He was primarily soft-hearted, sweet-minded,

fiery, a brilliant orator, a dynamic presence. In addition he was

woman-hungry--a phase which homely, sex-starved intellectuals the

world over will understand, to the shame of a lying age, that

because of quixotic dogma belies its greatest desire, its greatest

sorrow, its greatest joy. All these factors turned an ultra-conservative

element in the community against him, and he was considered

dangerous. At the same time he had by careful economy and investment

built up a fair sized fortune. Recently, however, owing to the

craze for sky-scrapers, he had placed much of his holdings in a

somewhat poorly constructed and therefore unprofitable office

building. Because of this error financial wreck was threatening

him. Even now he was knocking at the doors of large bonding

companies for assistance.

This man, in company with the antagonistic financial element and

the newspapers, constituted, as regards Cowperwood's

public-service-commission scheme, a triumvirate of difficulties

not easy to overcome. The newspapers, in due time, catching wind

of the true purport of the plan, ran screaming to their readers

with the horrible intelligence. In the offices of Schryhart,

Arneel, Hand, and Merrill, as well as in other centers of finance,

there was considerable puzzling over the situation, and then a

shrewd, intelligent deduction was made.

" Do you see what he's up to, Hosmer? " inquired Schryhart of Hand.

" He sees that we have him scotched here in Chicago. As things

stand now he can't go into the city council and ask for a franchise

for more than twenty years under the state law, and he can't do

that for three or four years yet, anyhow. His franchises don't

expire soon enough. He knows that by the time they do expire we

will have public sentiment aroused to such a point that no council,

however crooked it may be, will dare to give him what he asks

unless he is willing to make a heavy return to the city. If he

does that it will end his scheme of selling any two hundred million

dollars of Union Traction at six per cent. The market won't back

him up. He can't pay twenty per cent. to the city and give

universal transfers and pay six per cent. on two hundred million

dollars, and everybody knows it. He has a fine scheme of making

a cool hundred million out of this. Well, he can't do it. We

must get the newspapers to hammer this legislative scheme of his

to death. When he comes into the local council he must pay twenty

or thirty per cent. of the gross receipts of his roads to the city.

He must give free transfers from every one of his lines to every

other one. Then we have him. I dislike to see socialistic ideas

fostered, but it can't be helped. We have to do it. If we ever

get him out of here we can hush up the newspapers, and the public

will forget about it; at least we can hope so. "

In the mean time the governor had heard the whisper of " boodle"

--a word of the day expressive of a corrupt legislative fund. Not

at all a small-minded man, nor involved in the financial campaign

being waged against Cowperwood, nor inclined to be influenced

mentally or emotionally by superheated charges against the latter,

he nevertheless speculated deeply. In a vague way he sensed the

dreams of Cowperwood. The charge of seducing women so frequently

made against the street-railway magnate, so shocking to the yoked

conventionalists, did not disturb him at all. Back of the onward

sweep of the generations he himself sensed the mystic Aphrodite

and her magic. He realized that Cowperwood had traveled fast--that

he was pressing to the utmost a great advantage in the face of

great obstacles. At the same time he knew that the present street-car

service of Chicago was by no means bad. Would he be proving

unfaithful to the trust imposed on him by the great electorate of

Illinois if he were to advantage Cowperwood's cause? Must he not

rather in the sight of all men smoke out the animating causes

here--greed, over-weening ambition, colossal self-interest as

opposed to the selflessness of a Christian ideal and of a democratic

theory of government?

Life rises to a high plane of the dramatic, and hence of the

artistic, whenever and wherever in the conflict regarding material

possession there enters a conception of the ideal. It was this

that lit forever the beacon fires of Troy, that thundered eternally

in the horses' hoofs at Arbela and in the guns at Waterloo. Ideals

were here at stake--the dreams of one man as opposed perhaps to

the ultimate dreams of a city or state or nation--the grovelings

and wallowings of a democracy slowly, blindly trying to stagger

to its feet. In this conflict--taking place in an inland

cottage-dotted state where men were clowns and churls, dancing

fiddlers at country fairs--were opposed, as the governor saw it,

the ideals of one man and the ideals of men.

Governor Swanson decided after mature deliberation to veto the

bill. Cowperwood, debonair as ever, faithful as ever to his logic

and his conception of individuality, was determined that no stone

should be left unturned that would permit him to triumph, that

would carry him finally to the gorgeous throne of his own construction.

Having first engineered the matter through the legislature by a

tortuous process, fired upon at every step by the press, he next

sent various individuals--state legislators, representatives of

the C. W. & I., members of outside corporations to see the governor,

but Swanson was adamant. He did not see how he could conscientiously

sanction the bill. Finally, one day, as he was seated in his

Chicago business office--a fateful chamber located in the troublesome

building which was subsequently to wreck his fortune and which was

the raison d'etre of a present period of care and depression--enter

the smug, comfortable presence of Judge Nahum Dickensheets, at

present senior counsel of the North Chicago Street Railway. He

was a very mountain of a man physically--smooth-faced, agreeably

clothed, hard and yet ingratiating of eye, a thinker, a reasoner.

Swanson knew much of him by reputation and otherwise, although

personally they were no more than speaking acquaintances.

" How are you, Governor? I'm glad to see you again. I heard you

were back in Chicago. I see by the morning papers that you have

that Southack public-service bill up before you. I thought I would

come over and have a few words with you about it if you have no

objection. I've been trying to get down to Springfield for the

last three weeks to have a little chat with you before you reached

a conclusion one way or the other. Do you mind if I inquire whether

you have decided to veto it? "

The ex-judge, faintly perfumed, clean and agreeable, carried in

his hand a large-sized black hand-satchel which he put down beside

him on the floor.

" Yes, Judge, " replied Swanson, " I've practically decided to veto

it. I can see no practical reason for supporting it. As I look

at it now, it's specious and special, not particularly called for

or necessary at this time. "

The governor talked with a slight Swedish accent, intellectual,

individual.

A long, placid, philosophic discussion of all the pros and cons

of the situation followed. The governor was tired, distrait, but

ready to listen in a tolerant way to more argument along a line

with which he was already fully familiar. He knew, of course,

that Dickensheets was counsel for the North Chicago Street Railway

Company.

" I'm very glad to have heard what you have to say, Judge, " finally

commented the governor. I don't want you to think I haven't given

this matter serious thought--I have. I know most of the things

that have been done down at Springfield. Mr. Cowperwood is an

able man; I don't charge any more against him than I do against

twenty other agencies that are operating down there at this very

moment. I know what his difficulties are. I can hardly be accused

of sympathizing with his enemies, for they certainly do not

sympathize with me. I am not even listening to the newspapers.

This is a matter of faith in democracy--a difference in ideals

between myself and many other men. I haven't vetoed the bill yet.

I don't say that something may not arise to make me sign it. My

present intention, unless I hear something much more favorable in

its behalf than I have already heard, is to veto it.

" Governor, " said Dickensheets, rising, " let me thank you for your

courtesy. I would be the last person in the world to wish to

influence you outside the line of your private convictions and

your personal sense of fair play. At the same time I have tried

to make plain to you how essential it is, how only fair and right,

that this local street-railway-franchise business should be removed

out of the realm of sentiment, emotion, public passion, envy,

buncombe, and all the other influences that are at work to frustrate

and make difficult the work of Mr. Cowperwood. All envy, I tell

you. His enemies are willing to sacrifice every principle of

justice and fair play to see him eliminated. That sums it up.

" That may all be true, " replied Swanson. " Just the same, there

is another principle involved here which you do not seem to see

or do not care to consider--the right of the people under the state

constitution to a consideration, a revaluation, of their contracts

at the time and in the manner agreed upon under the original

franchise. What you propose is sumptuary legislation; it makes

null and void an agreement between the people and the street-railway

companies at a time when the people have a right to expect a full

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