The Titan 42 страница

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he? An excellent orator in a high falsetto way, and popular because

of good-fellowship, presence, force, he was by nature materially

and commercially minded--therefore without basic appeal to the

higher ranks of intelligence. In seeking the nomination for

governorship he had made the usual overtures and had in turn been

sounded by Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb, and various other corporate

interests who were in league with Cowperwood as to his attitude

in regard to a proposed public-service commission. At first he

had refused to commit himself. Later, finding that the C. W. &

I. and the Chicago & Pacific (very powerful railroads both) were

interested, and that other candidates were running him a tight

chase in the gubernatorial contest, he succumbed in a measure,

declaring privately that in case the legislature proved to be

strongly in favor of the idea and the newspapers not too crushingly

opposed he might be willing to stand as its advocate. Other

candidates expressed similar views, but Corporal Archer proved to

have the greater following, and was eventually nominated and

comfortably elected.

Shortly after the new legislature had convened, it so chanced that

a certain A. S. Rotherhite, publisher of the South Chicago Journal,

was one day accidentally sitting as a visitor in the seat of a

state representative by the name of Clarence Mulligan. While so

occupied Rotherhite was familiarly slapped on the back by a certain

Senator Ladrigo, of Menard, and was invited to come out into the

rotunda, where, posing as Representative Mulligan, he was introduced

by Senator Ladrigo to a stranger by the name of Gerard. The latter,

with but few preliminary remarks, began as follows:

" Mr. Mulligan, I want to fix it with you in regard to this Southack

bill which is soon to come up in the house. We have seventy votes,

but we want ninety. The fact that the bill has gone to a second

reading in the senate shows our strength. I am authorized to come

to terms with you this morning if you would like. Your vote is

worth two thousand dollars to you the moment the bill is signed. "

Mr. Rotherhite, who happened to be a newly recruited member of the

Opposition press, proved very canny in this situation.

" Excuse me, " he stammered, " I did not understand your name? "

" Gerard. G-er-ard. Henry A. Gerard, " replied this other.

" Thank you. I will think it over, " was the response of the presumed

Representative Mulligan.

Strange to state, at this very instant the authentic Mulligan

actually appeared--heralded aloud by several of his colleagues who

happened to be lingering near by in the lobby. Whereupon the

anomalous Mr. Gerard and the crafty Senator Ladrigo discreetly

withdrew. Needless to say that Mr. Rotherhite hurried at once to

the forces of righteousness. The press should spread this little

story broadcast. It was a very meaty incident; and it brought the

whole matter once more into the fatal, poisonous field of press

discussion.

At once the Chicago papers flew to arms. The cry was raised that

the same old sinister Cowperwoodian forces were at work. The

members of the senate and the house were solemnly warned. The

sterling attitude of ex-Governor Swanson was held up as an example

to the present Governor Archer. " The whole idea, " observed an

editorial in Truman Leslie MacDonald's Inquirer, " smacks of chicane,

political subtlety, and political jugglery. Well do the citizens

of Chicago and the people of Illinois know who and what particular

organization would prove the true beneficiaries. We do not want

a public-service commission at the behest of a private street-railway

corporation. Are the tentacles of Frank A. Cowperwood to envelop

this legislature as they did the last? "

This broadside, coming in conjunction with various hostile rumblings

in other papers, aroused Cowperwood to emphatic language.

" They can all go to the devil, " he said to Addison, one day at

lunch. " I have a right to an extension of my franchises for fifty

years, and I am going to get it. Look at New York and Philadelphia.

Why, the Eastern houses laugh. They don't understand such a

situation. It's all the inside work of this Hand-Schryhart crowd.

I know what they're doing and who's pulling the strings. The

newspapers yap-yap every time they give an order. Hyssop waltzes

every time Arneel moves. Little MacDonald is a stool-pigeon for

Hand. It's got down so low now that it's anything to beat Cowperwood.

Well, they won't beat me. I'll find a way out. The legislature

will pass a bill allowing for a fifty-year franchise, and the

governor will sign it. I'll see to that personally. I have at

least eighteen thousand stockholders who want a decent run for

their money, and I propose to give it to them. Aren't other men

getting rich? Aren't other corporations earning ten and twelve per

cent? Why shouldn't I? Is Chicago any the worse? Don't I employ

twenty thousand men and pay them well? All this palaver about the

rights of the people and the duty to the public--rats! Does Mr.

Hand acknowledge any duty to the public where his special interests

are concerned? Or Mr. Schryhart? Or Mr. Arneel? The newspapers be

damned! I know my rights. An honest legislature will give me a

decent franchise to save me from the local political sharks. "

By this time, however, the newspapers had become as subtle and

powerful as the politicians themselves. Under the great dome of

the capitol at Springfield, in the halls and conference chambers

of the senate and house, in the hotels, and in the rural districts

wherever any least information was to be gathered, were their

representatives--to see, to listen, to pry. Out of this contest

they were gaining prestige and cash. By them were the reform

aldermen persuaded to call mass-meetings in their respective

districts. Property-owners were urged to organize; a committee

of one hundred prominent citizens led by Hand and Schryhart was

formed. It was not long before the halls, chambers, and committee-rooms

of the capitol at Springfield and the corridors of the one principal

hotel were being tramped over almost daily by rampant delegations

of ministers, reform aldermen, and civil committeemen, who arrived

speechifying, threatening, and haranguing, and departed, only to

make room for another relay.

" Say, what do you think of these delegations, Senator? " inquired

a certain Representative Greenough of Senator George Christian,

of Grundy, one morning, the while a group of Chicago clergymen

accompanied by the mayor and several distinguished private citizens

passed through the rotunda on their way to the committee on

railroads, where the house bill was privily being discussed.

" Don't you think they speak well for our civic pride and moral

upbringing? " He raised his eyes and crossed his fingers over his

waistcoat in the most sanctimonious and reverential attitude.

" Yes, dear Pastor, " replied the irreverent Christian, without the

shadow of a smile. He was a little sallow, wiry man with eyes

like a ferret, a small mustache and goatee ornamenting his face.

" But do not forget that the Lord has called us also to this work. "

" Even so, " acquiesced Greenough. " We must not weary in well doing.

The harvest is truly plenteous and the laborers are few. "

" Tut, tut, Pastor. Don't overdo it. You might make me larf, "

replied Christian; and the twain parted with knowing and yet weary

smiles.

Yet how little did the accommodating attitude of these gentlemen

avail in silencing the newspapers. The damnable newspapers! They

were here, there, and everywhere reporting each least fragment of

rumor, conversation, or imaginary programme. Never did the citizens

of Chicago receive so keen a drilling in statecraft--its subtleties

and ramifications. The president of the senate and the speaker

of the house were singled out and warned separately as to their

duty. A page a day devoted to legislative proceeding in this

quarter was practically the custom of the situation. Cowperwood

was here personally on the scene, brazen, defiant, logical, the

courage of his convictions in his eyes, the power of his magnetism

fairly enslaving men. Throwing off the mask of disinterestedness

--if any might be said to have covered him--he now frankly came

out in the open and, journeying to Springfield, took quarters at

the principal hotel. Like a general in time of battle, he marshaled

his forces about him. In the warm, moonlit atmosphere of June

nights when the streets of Springfield were quiet, the great plain

of Illinois bathed for hundreds of miles from north to south in a

sweet effulgence and the rurals slumbering in their simple homes,

he sat conferring with his lawyers and legislative agents.

Pity in such a crisis the poor country-jake legislator torn between

his desire for a justifiable and expedient gain and his fear lest

he should be assailed as a betrayer of the people's interests.

To some of these small-town legislators, who had never seen as

much as two thousand dollars in cash in all their days, the problem

was soul-racking. Men gathered in private rooms and hotel parlors

to discuss it. They stood in their rooms at night and thought

about it alone. The sight of big business compelling its desires

the while the people went begging was destructive. Many a romantic,

illusioned, idealistic young country editor, lawyer, or statesman

was here made over into a minor cynic or bribe-taker. Men were

robbed of every vestige of faith or even of charity; they came to

feel, perforce, that there was nothing outside the capacity for

taking and keeping. The surface might appear commonplace--ordinary

men of the state of Illinois going here and there--simple farmers

and small-town senators and representatives conferring and meditating

and wondering what they could do--yet a jungle-like complexity was

present, a dark, rank growth of horrific but avid life--life at

the full, life knife in hand, life blazing with courage and dripping

at the jaws with hunger.

However, because of the terrific uproar the more cautious legislators

were by degrees becoming fearful. Friends in their home towns,

at the instigation of the papers, were beginning to write them.

Political enemies were taking heart. It meant too much of a

sacrifice on the part of everybody. In spite of the fact that the

bait was apparently within easy reach, many became evasive and

disturbed. When a certain Representative Sparks, cocked and primed,

with the bill in his pocket, arose upon the floor of the house,

asking leave to have it spread upon the minutes, there was an

instant explosion. The privilege of the floor was requested by a

hundred. Another representative, Disback, being in charge of the

opposition to Cowperwood, had made a count of noses and was satisfied

in spite of all subtlety on the part of the enemy that he had at

least one hundred and two votes, the necessary two-thirds wherewith

to crush any measure which might originate on the floor. Nevertheless,

his followers, because of caution, voted it to a second and a third

reading. All sorts of amendments were made--one for a three-cent

fare during the rush-hours, another for a 20 per cent. tax on

gross receipts. In amended form the measure was sent to the senate,

where the changes were stricken out and the bill once more returned

to the house. Here, to Cowperwood's chagrin, signs were made

manifest that it could not be passed. " It can't be done, Frank, "

said Judge Dickensheets. " It's too grilling a game. Their home

papers are after them. They can't live. "

Consequently a second measure was devised--more soothing and lulling

to the newspapers, but far less satisfactory to Cowperwood. It

conferred upon the Chicago City Council, by a trick of revising

the old Horse and Dummy Act of 1865, the right to grant a franchise

for fifty instead of for twenty years. This meant that Cowperwood

would have to return to Chicago and fight out his battle there.

It was a severe blow, yet better than nothing. Providing that he

could win one more franchise battle within the walls of the city

council in Chicago, it would give him all that he desired. But

could he? Had he not come here to the legislature especially to

evade such a risk? His motives were enduring such a blistering

exposure. Yet perhaps, after all, if the price were large enough

the Chicago councilmen would have more real courage than these

country legislators--would dare more. They would have to.

So, after Heaven knows what desperate whisperings, conferences,

arguments, and heartening of members, there was originated a second

measure which--after the defeat of the first bill, 104 to 49--was

introduced, by way of a very complicated path, through the judiciary

committee. It was passed; and Governor Archer, after heavy hours

of contemplation and self-examination, signed it. A little man

mentally, he failed to estimate an aroused popular fury at its

true import to him. At his elbow was Cowperwood in the clear light

of day, snapping his fingers in the face of his enemies, showing

by the hard, cheerful glint in his eye that he was still master of

the situation, giving all assurance that he would yet live to whip

the Chicago papers into submission. Besides, in the event of the

passage of the bill, Cowperwood had promised to make Archer

independently rich--a cash reward of five hundred thousand dollars.

Chapter LIX

Capital and Public Rights

Between the passage on June 5, 1897, of the Mears bill--so christened

after the doughty representative who had received a small fortune

for introducing it--and its presentation to the Chicago City Council

in December of the same year, what broodings, plottings, politickings,

and editorializings on the part of all and sundry! In spite of the

intense feeling of opposition to Cowperwood there was at the same

time in local public life one stratum of commercial and phlegmatic

substance that could not view him in an altogether unfavorable

light. They were in business themselves. His lines passed their

doors and served them. They could not see wherein his street-railway

service differed so much from that which others might give. Here

was the type of materialist who in Cowperwood's defiance saw a

justification of his own material point of view and was not afraid

to say so. But as against these there were the preachers--poor

wind-blown sticks of unreason who saw only what the current palaver

seemed to indicate. Again there were the anarchists, socialists,

single-taxers, and public-ownership advocates. There were the

very poor who saw in Cowperwood's wealth and in the fabulous stories

of his New York home and of his art-collection a heartless

exploitation of their needs. At this time the feeling was spreading

broadcast in America that great political and economic changes

were at hand--that the tyranny of iron masters at the top was to

give way to a richer, freer, happier life for the rank and file.

A national eight-hour-day law was being advocated, and the public

ownership of public franchises. And here now was a great

street-railway corporation, serving a population of a million and

a half, occupying streets which the people themselves created by

their presence, taking toll from all these humble citizens to the

amount of sixteen or eighteen millions of dollars in the year and

giving in return, so the papers said, poor service, shabby cars,

no seats at rush-hours, no universal transfers (as a matter of

fact, there were in operation three hundred and sixty-two separate

transfer points) and no adequate tax on the immense sums earned.

The workingman who read this by gas or lamp light in the kitchen

or parlor of his shabby flat or cottage, and who read also in other

sections of his paper of the free, reckless, glorious lives of the

rich, felt himself to be defrauded of a portion of his rightful

inheritance. It was all a question of compelling Frank A. Cowperwood

to do his duty by Chicago. He must not again be allowed to bribe

the aldermen; he must not be allowed to have a fifty-year franchise,

the privilege of granting which he had already bought from the

state legislature by the degradation of honest men. He must be

made to succumb, to yield to the forces of law and order. It was

claimed--and with a justice of which those who made the charge

were by no means fully aware--that the Mears bill had been put

through the house and senate by the use of cold cash, proffered

even to the governor himself. No legal proof of this was obtainable,

but Cowperwood was assumed to be a briber on a giant scale. By

the newspaper cartoons he was represented as a pirate commander

ordering his men to scuttle another vessel--the ship of Public

Rights. He was pictured as a thief, a black mask over his eyes,

and as a seducer, throttling Chicago, the fair maiden, while he

stole her purse. The fame of this battle was by now becoming

world-wide. In Montreal, in Cape Town, in Buenos Ayres and

Melbourne, in London and Paris, men were reading of this singular

struggle. At last, and truly, he was a national and international

figure. His original dream, however, modified by circumstances,

had literally been fulfilled.

Meanwhile be it admitted that the local elements in finance which

had brought about this terrific onslaught on Cowperwood were not

a little disturbed as to the eventual character of the child of

their own creation. Here at last was a public opinion definitely

inimical to Cowperwood; but here also were they themselves,

tremendous profit-holders, with a desire for just such favors as

Cowperwood himself had exacted, deliberately setting out to kill

the goose that could lay the golden egg. Men such as Haeckelheimer,

Gotloeb, Fishel, tremendous capitalists in the East and foremost

in the directorates of huge transcontinental lines, international

banking-houses, and the like, were amazed that the newspapers and

the anti-Cowperwood element should have gone so far in Chicago.

Had they no respect for capital? Did they not know that long-time

franchises were practically the basis of all modern capitalistic

prosperity? Such theories as were now being advocated here would

spread to other cities unless checked. America might readily become

anti-capitalistic--socialistic. Public ownership might appear as

a workable theory--and then what?

" Those men out there are very foolish, " observed Mr. Haeckelheimer

at one time to Mr. Fishel, of Fishel, Stone & Symons. " I can't

see that Mr. Cowperwood is different from any other organizer of

his day. He seems to me perfectly sound and able. All his companies

pay. There are no better investments than the North and West

Chicago railways. It would be advisable, in my judgment, that all

the lines out there should be consolidated and be put in his charge.

He would make money for the stockholders. He seems to know how

to run street-railways. "

" You know, " replied Mr. Fishel, as smug and white as Mr. Haeckelheimer,

and in thorough sympathy with his point of view, " I have been

thinking of something like that myself. All this quarreling should

be hushed up. It's very bad for business--very. Once they get

that public-ownership nonsense started, it will be hard to stop.

There has been too much of it already. "

Mr. Fishel was stout and round like Mr. Haeckelheimer, but much

smaller. He was little more than a walking mathematical formula.

In his cranium were financial theorems and syllogisms of the

second, third, and fourth power only.

And now behold a new trend of affairs. Mr. Timothy Arneel, attacked

by pneumonia, dies and leaves his holdings in Chicago City to his

eldest son, Edward Arneel. Mr. Fishel and Mr. Haeckelheimer,

through agents and then direct, approach Mr. Merrill in behalf of

Cowperwood. There is much talk of profits--how much more profitable

has been the Cowperwood regime over street-railway lines than that

of Mr. Schryhart. Mr. Fishel is interested in allaying socialistic

excitement. So, by this time, is Mr. Merrill. Directly hereafter

Mr. Haeckelheimer approaches Mr. Edward Arneel, who is not nearly

so forceful as his father, though he would like to be so. He,

strange to relate, has come rather to admire Cowperwood and sees

no advantage in a policy that can only tend to municipalize local

lines. Mr. Merrill, for Mr. Fishel, approaches Mr. Hand. " Never!

never! never! " says Hand. Mr. Haeckelheimer approaches Mr. Hand.

" Never! never! never! To the devil with Mr. Cowperwood! " But as

a final emissary for Mr. Haeckelheimer and Mr. Fishel there now

appears Mr. Morgan Frankhauser, the partner of Mr. Hand in a

seven-million-dollar traction scheme in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Why will Mr. Hand be so persistent? Why pursue a scheme of revenge

which only stirs up the masses and makes municipal ownership a

valid political idea, thus disturbing capital elsewhere? Why not

trade his Chicago holdings to him, Frankhauser, for Pittsburg

traction stock--share and share alike--and then fight Cowperwood

all he pleases on the outside?

Mr. Hand, puzzled, astounded, scratching his round head, slaps a

heavy hand on his desk. " Never! " he exclaims. " Never, by God--as

long as I am alive and in Chicago! " And then he yields. Life does

shifty things, he is forced to reflect in a most puzzled way.

Never would he have believed it! " Schryhart, " he declared to

Frankhauser, " will never come in. He will die first. Poor old

Timothy--if he were alive--he wouldn't either. "

" Leave Mr. Schryhart out of it, for Heaven's sake, " pleaded Mr.

Frankhauser, a genial American German. " Haven't I troubles enough? "

Mr. Schryhart is enraged. Never! never! never! He will sell out

first--but he is in a minority, and Mr. Frankhauser, for Mr. Fishel

or Mr. Haeckelheimer, will gladly take his holdings.

Now behold in the autumn of 1897 all rival Chicago street-railway

lines brought to Mr. Cowperwood on a platter, as it were--a golden

platter.

" Ve haff it fixed, " confidentially declared Mr. Gotloeb to Mr.

Cowperwood, over an excellent dinner in the sacred precincts of

the Metropolitan Club in New York. Time, 8. 30 P. M. Wine--sparkling

burgundy. " A telegram come shusst to-day from Frankhauser. A

nice man dot. You shouldt meet him sometime. Hant--he sells out

his stock to Frankhauser. Merrill unt Edward Arneel vork vit us.

Ve hantle efferyt'ing for dem. Mr. Fishel vill haff his friends

pick up all de local shares he can, unt mit dees tree ve control

de board. Schryhart iss out. He sess he vill resign. Very goot.

I don't subbose dot vill make you veep any. It all hintges now

on vether you can get dot fifty-year-franchise ordinance troo de

city council or not. Haeckelheimer sess he prefers you to all

utters to run t'ings. He vill leef everytink positifely in your

hands. Frankhauser sess de same. Vot Haeckelheimer sess he doess.

Now dere you are. It's up to you. I vish you much choy. It is

no small chop you haff, beating de newspapers, unt you still haff

Hant unt Schryhart against you. Mr. Haeckelheimer askt me to pay

his complimends to you unt to say vill you dine vit him next veek,

or may he dine vit you--vicheffer iss most conveniend. So. "

In the mayor's chair of Chicago at this time sat a man named Walden

H. Lucas. Aged thirty-eight, he was politically ambitious. He

had the elements of popularity--the knack or luck of fixing public

attention. A fine, upstanding, healthy young buck he was, subtle,

vigorous, a cool, direct, practical thinker and speaker, an eager

enigmatic dreamer of great political honors to come, anxious to

play his cards just right, to make friends, to be the pride of the

righteous, and yet the not too uncompromising foe of the wicked.

In short, a youthful, hopeful Western Machiavelli, and one who

could, if he chose, serve the cause of the anti-Cowperwood struggle

exceedingly well indeed.

Cowperwood, disturbed, visits the mayor in his office.

" Mr. Lucas, what is it you personally want? What can I do for you?

Is it future political preferment you are after? "

" Mr. Cowperwood, there isn't anything you can do for me. You do

not understand me, and I do not understand you. You cannot understand

me because I am an honest man. "

" Ye gods! " replied Cowperwood. " This is certainly a case of

self-esteem and great knowledge. Good afternoon. "

Shortly thereafter the mayor was approached by one Mr. Carker, who

was the shrewd, cold, and yet magnetic leader of Democracy in the

state of New York. Said Carker:

" You see, Mr. Lucas, the great money houses of the East are

interested in this local contest here in Chicago. For example,

Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. would like to see a consolidation

of all the lines on a basis that will make them an attractive

investment for buyers generally and will at the same time be fair

and right to the city. A twenty-year contract is much too short

a term in their eyes. Fifty is the least they could comfortably

contemplate, and they would prefer a hundred. It is little enough

for so great an outlay. The policy now being pursued here can

lead only to the public ownership of public utilities, and that

is something which the national Democratic party at large can

certainly not afford to advocate at present. It would antagonize

the money element from coast to coast. Any man whose political

record was definitely identified with such a movement would have

no possible chance at even a state nomination, let alone a national

one. He could never be elected. I make myself clear, do I not? "

" You do. "

" A man can just as easily be taken from the mayor's office in

Chicago as from the governor's office at Springfield, " pursued Mr.

Carker. " Mr. Haeckelheimer and Mr. Fishel have personally asked

me to call on you. If you want to be mayor of Chicago again for

two years or governor next year, until the time for picking a

candidate for the Presidency arrives, suit yourself. In the mean

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