________________________________________________
_ It was during the earlier phases of his connection with Chicago
street-railways that Cowperwood, ardently interesting himself in
Stephanie Platow, developed as serious a sex affair as any that
had yet held him. At once, after a few secret interviews with
her, he adopted his favorite ruse in such matters and established
bachelor quarters in the down-town section as a convenient
meeting-ground. Several conversations with Stephanie were not
quite as illuminating as they might have been, for, wonderful as
she was--a kind of artistic godsend in this dull Western atmosphere
--she was also enigmatic and elusive, very. He learned speedily,
in talking with her on several days when they met for lunch, of
her dramatic ambitions, and of the seeming spiritual and artistic
support she required from some one who would have faith in her and
inspire her by his or her confidence. He learned all about the
Garrick Players, her home intimacies and friends, the growing
quarrels in the dramatic organization. He asked her, as they sat
in a favorite and inconspicuous resort of his finding, during one
of those moments when blood and not intellect was ruling between
them, whether she had ever--
"Once," she naively admitted.
It was a great shock to Cowperwood. He had fancied her refreshingly
innocent. But she explained it was all so accidental, so unintentional
on her part, very. She described it all so gravely, soulfully,
pathetically, with such a brooding, contemplative backward searching
of the mind, that he was astonished and in a way touched. What a
pity! It was Gardner Knowles who had done this, she admitted. But
he was not very much to blame, either. It just happened. She had
tried to protest, but-- Wasn't she angry? Yes, but then she was
sorry to do anything to hurt Gardner Knowles. He was such a charming
boy, and he had such a lovely mother and sister, and the like.
Cowperwood was astonished. He had reached that point in life where
the absence of primal innocence in a woman was not very significant;
but in Stephanie, seeing that she was so utterly charming, it was
almost too bad. He thought what fools the Platows must be to
tolerate this art atmosphere for Stephanie without keeping a sharp
watch over it. Nevertheless, he was inclined to believe from
observation thus far that Stephanie might be hard to watch. She
was ingrainedly irresponsible, apparently--so artistically nebulous,
so non-self-protective. To go on and be friends with this scamp!
And yet she protested that never after that had there been the
least thing between them. Cowperwood could scarcely believe it.
She must be lying, and yet he liked her so. The very romantic,
inconsequential way in which she narrated all this staggered,
amused, and even fascinated him.
"But, Stephanie," he argued, curiously, "there must been some
aftermath to all this. What happened? What did you do?"
"Nothing." She shook her head.
He had to smile.
"But oh, don't let's talk about it!" she pleaded. "I don't want
to. It hurts me. There was nothing more."
She sighed, and Cowperwood meditated. The evil was now done, and
the best that he could do, if he cared for her at all--and he
did--was to overlook it. He surveyed her oddly, wonderingly.
What a charming soul she was, anyhow! How naive--how brooding! She
had art--lots of it. Did he want to give her up?
As he might have known, it was dangerous to trifle with a type of
this kind, particularly once awakened to the significance of
promiscuity, and unless mastered by some absorbing passion.
Stephanie had had too much flattery and affection heaped upon her
in the past two years to be easily absorbed. Nevertheless, for
the time being, anyhow, she was fascinated by the significance of
Cowperwood. It was wonderful to have so fine, so powerful a man
care for her. She conceived of him as a very great artist in his
realm rather than as a business man, and he grasped this fact
after a very little while and appreciated it. To his delight, she
was even more beautiful physically than he had anticipated--a
smoldering, passionate girl who met him with a fire which, though
somber, quite rivaled his own. She was different, too, in her
languorous acceptance of all that he bestowed from any one he had
ever known. She was as tactful as Rita Sohlberg--more so--but so
preternaturally silent at times.
"Stephanie," he would exclaim, "do talk. What are you thinking
of? You dream like an African native."
She merely sat and smiled in a dark way or sketched or modeled
him. She was constantly penciling something, until moved by the
fever of her blood, when she would sit and look at him or brood
silently, eyes down. Then, when he would reach for her with seeking
hands, she would sigh, "Oh yes, oh yes!"
Those were delightful days with Stephanie.
In the matter of young MacDonald's request for fifty thousand
dollars in securities, as well as the attitude of the other
editors--Hyssop, Braxton, Ricketts, and so on--who had proved
subtly critical, Cowperwood conferred with Addison and McKenty.
"A likely lad, that," commented McKenty, succintly, when he heard
it. "He'll do better than his father in one way, anyhow. He'll
probably make more money."
McKenty had seen old General MacDonald just once in his life, and
liked him.
"I should like to know what the General would think of that if he
knew," commented Addison, who admired the old editor greatly.
"I'm afraid he wouldn't sleep very well."
"There is just one thing," observed Cowperwood, thoughtfully.
"This young man will certainly come into control of the Inquirer
sometime. He looks to me like some one who would not readily
forget an injury." He smiled sardonically. So did McKenty and
Addison.
"Be that as it may," suggested the latter, "he isn't editor yet."
McKenty, who never revealed his true views to any one but Cowperwood,
waited until he had the latter alone to observe:
What can they do? Your request is a reasonable one. Why shouldn't
the city give you the tunnel? It's no good to anyone as it is.
And the loop is no more than the other roads have now. I'm thinking
it's the Chicago City Railway and that silk-stocking crowd on State
Street or that gas crowd that's talking against you. I've heard
them before. Give them what they want, and it's a fine moral
cause. Give it to anyone else, and there's something wrong with
it. It's little attention I pay to them. We have the council,
let it pass the ordinances. It can't be proved that they don't
do it willingly. The mayor is a sensible man. He'll sign them.
Let young MacDonald talk if he wants to. If he says too much you
can talk to his father. As for Hyssop, he's an old grandmother
anyhow. I've never known him to be for a public improvement yet
that was really good for Chicago unless Schryhart or Merrill or
Arneel or someone else of that crowd wanted it. I know them of
old. My advice is to go ahead and never mind them. To hell with
them! Things will be sweet enough, once you are as powerful as
they are. They'll get nothing in the future without paying for
it. It's little enough they've ever done to further anything that
I wanted.
Cowperwood, however, remained cool and thoughtful. Should he pay
young MacDonald? he asked himself. Addison knew of no influence
that he could bring to bear. Finally, after much thought, he
decided to proceed as he had planned. Consequently, the reporters
around the City Hall and the council-chamber, who were in touch
with Alderman Thomas Dowling, McKenty's leader on the floor of
council, and those who called occasionally--quite regularly, in
fact--at the offices of the North Chicago Street Railway Company,
Cowperwood's comfortable new offices in the North Side, were now
given to understand that two ordinances--one granting the free use
of the La Salle Street tunnel for an unlimited period (practically
a gift of it), and another granting a right of way in La Salle,
Munroe, Dearborn, and Randolph streets for the proposed loop--would
be introduced in council very shortly. Cowperwood granted a very
flowery interview, in which he explained quite enthusiastically
all that the North Chicago company was doing and proposed to do,
and made clear what a splendid development it would assure to the
North Side and to the business center.
At once Schryhart, Merrill, and some individuals connected with
the Chicago West Division Company, began to complain in the newspaper
offices and at the clubs to Ricketts, Braxton, young MacDonald,
and the other editors. Envy of the pyrotechnic progress of the
man was as much a factor in this as anything else. It did not
make the slightest difference, as Cowperwood had sarcastically
pointed out, that every other corporation of any significance in
Chicago had asked and received without money and without price.
Somehow his career in connection with Chicago gas, his venturesome,
if unsuccessful effort to enter Chicago society, his self-acknowledged
Philadelphia record, rendered the sensitive cohorts of the
ultra-conservative exceedingly fearful. In Schryhart's Chronicle
appeared a news column which was headed, "Plain Grab of City Tunnel
Proposed." It was a very truculent statement, and irritated
Cowperwood greatly. The Press (Mr. Haguenin's paper), on the other
hand, was most cordial to the idea of the loop, while appearing
to be a little uncertain as to whether the tunnel should be granted
without compensation or not. Editor Hyssop felt called upon to
insist that something more than merely nominal compensation should
be made for the tunnel, and that "riders" should be inserted in
the loop ordinance making it incumbent upon the North Chicago
company to keep those thoroughfares in full repair and well lighted.
The Inquirer, under Mr. MacDonald, junior, and Mr. Du Bois, was
in rumbling opposition. No free tunnels, it cried; no free
ordinances for privileges in the down-town heart. It had nothing
to say about Cowperwood personally. The Globe, Mr. Braxton's
paper, was certain that no free rights to the tunnel should be
given, and that a much better route for the loop could be found--one
larger and more serviceable to the public, one that might be made
to include State Street or Wabash Avenue, or both, where Mr.
Merrill's store was located. So it went, and one could see quite
clearly to what extent the interests of the public figured in the
majority of these particular viewpoints.
Cowperwood, individual, reliant, utterly indifferent to opposition
of any kind, was somewhat angered by the manner in which his
overtures had been received, but still felt that the best way out
of his troubles was to follow McKenty's advice and get power first.
Once he had his cable-conduit down, his new cars running, the
tunnel rebuilt, brilliantly lighted, and the bridge crush disposed
of, the public would see what a vast change for the better had
been made and would support him. Finally all things were in readiness
and the ordinance jammed through. McKenty, being a little dubious
of the outcome, had a rocking-chair brought into the council-chamber
itself during the hours when the ordinances were up for consideration.
In this he sat, presumably as a curious spectator, actually as a
master dictating the course of liquidation in hand. Neither
Cowperwood nor any one else knew of McKenty's action until too
late to interfere with it. Addison and Videra, when they read
about it as sneeringly set forth in the news columns of the papers,
lifted and then wrinkled their eyebrows.
"That looks like pretty rough work to me," commented Addison. "I
thought McKenty had more tact. That's his early Irish training."
Alexander Rambaud, who was an admirer and follower of Cowperwood's,
wondered whether the papers were lying, whether it really could
be true that Cowperwood had a serious political compact with McKenty
which would allow him to walk rough-shod over public opinion.
Rambaud considered Cowperwood's proposition so sane and reasonable
that he could not understand why there should be serious opposition,
or why Cowperwood and McKenty should have to resort to such methods.
However, the streets requisite for the loop were granted. The
tunnel was leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years at the
nominal sum of five thousand dollars per year. It was understood
that the old bridges over State, Dearborn, and Clark streets should
be put in repair or removed; but there was "a joker" inserted
elsewhere which nullified this. Instantly there were stormy
outbursts in the Chronicle, Inquirer, and Globe; but Cowperwood,
when he read them, merely smiled. "Let them grumble," he said to
himself. "I put a very reasonable proposition before them. Why
should they complain? I'm doing more now than the Chicago City
Railway. It's jealousy, that's all. If Schryhart or Merrill had
asked for it, there would have been no complaint.
McKenty called at the offices of the Chicago Trust Company to
congratulate Cowperwood. "The boys did as I thought they would,"
he said. "I had to be there, though, for I heard some one say
that about ten of them intended to ditch us at the last moment."
"Good work, good work!" replied Cowperwood, cheerfully. "This row
will all blow over. It would be the same whenever we asked. The
air will clear up. We'll give them such a fine service that they'll
forget all about this, and be glad they gave us the tunnel."
Just the same, the morning after the enabling ordinances had passed,
there was much derogatory comment in influential quarters. Mr.
Norman Schryhart, who, through his publisher, had been fulminating
defensively against Cowperwood, stared solemnly at Mr. Ricketts
when they met.
"Well," said the magnate, who imagined he foresaw a threatened
attack on his Chicago City Street Railway preserves, "I see our
friend Mr. Cowperwood has managed to get his own way with the
council. I am morally certain he uses money to get what he is
after as freely as a fireman uses water. He's as slippery as an
eel. I should be glad if we could establish that there is a
community of interest between him and these politicians around
City Hall, or between him and Mr. McKenty. I believe he has set
out to dominate this city politically as well as financially, and
he'll need constant watching. If public opinion can be aroused
against him he may be dislodged in the course of time. Chicago
may get too uncomfortable for him. I know Mr. McKenty personally,
but he is not the kind of man I care to do business with."
Mr. Schryhart's method of negotiating at City Hall was through
certain reputable but somewhat slow-going lawyers who were in the
employ of the South Side company. They had never been able to
reach Mr. McKenty at all. Ricketts echoed a hearty approval.
"You're very right," he said, with owlish smugness, adjusting a
waistcoat button that had come loose, and smoothing his cuffs.
"He's a prince of politicians. We'll have to look sharp if we
ever trap him" Mr. Ricketts would have been glad to sell out to Mr.
Cowperwood, if he had not been so heavily obligated to Mr. Schryhart.
He had no especial affection for Cowperwood, but he recognized
in him a coming man.
Young MacDonald, talking to Clifford Du Bois in the office of the
Inquirer, and reflecting how little his private telephone message
had availed him, was in a waspish, ironic frame of mind.
"Well," he said, "it seems our friend Cowperwood hasn't taken our
advice. He may make his mark, but the Inquirer isn't through with
him by a long shot. He'll be wanting other things from the city
in the future."
Clifford Du Bois regarded his acid young superior with a curious
eye. He knew nothing of MacDonald's private telephone message to
Cowperwood; but he knew how he himself would have dealt with the
crafty financier had he been in MacDonald's position.
"Yes, Cowperwood is shrewd," was his comment. "Pritchard, our
political man, says the ways of the City Hall are greased straight
up to the mayor and McKenty, and that Cowperwood can have anything
he wants at any time. Tom Dowling eats out of his hand, and you
know what that means. Old General Van Sickle is working for him
in some way. Did you ever see that old buzzard flying around if
there wasn't something dead in the woods?"
"He's a slick one," remarked MacDonald. "But as for Cowperwood,
he can't get away with this sort of thing very long. He's going
too fast. He wants too much."
Mr. Du Bois smiled quite secretly. It amused him to see how
Cowperwood had brushed MacDonald and his objections aside--dispensed
for the time being with the services of the Inquirer. Du Bois
confidently believed that if the old General had been at home he
would have supported the financier.
Within eight months after seizing the La Salle Street tunnel and
gobbling four of the principal down-town streets for his loop,
Cowperwood turned his eyes toward the completion of the second
part of the programme--that of taking over the Washington Street
tunnel and the Chicago West Division Company, which was still
drifting along under its old horse-car regime. It was the story
of the North Side company all over again. Stockholders of a certain
type--the average--are extremely nervous, sensitive, fearsome.
They are like that peculiar bivalve, the clam, which at the slightest
sense of untoward pressure withdraws into its shell and ceases all
activity. The city tax department began by instituting proceedings
against the West Division company, compelling them to disgorge
various unpaid street-car taxes which had hitherto been conveniently
neglected. The city highway department was constantly jumping on
them for neglect of street repairs. The city water department,
by some hocus-pocus, made it its business to discover that they
had been stealing water. On the other hand were the smiling
representatives of Cowperwood, Kaifrath, Addison, Videra, and
others, approaching one director or stockholder after another with
glistening accounts of what a splendid day would set in for the
Chicago West Division Company if only it would lease fifty-one per
cent. of its holdings--fifty-one per cent. of twelve hundred and
fifty shares, par value two hundred dollars--for the fascinating
sum of six hundred dollars per share, and thirty per cent. interest
on all stock not assumed.
Who could resist? Starve and beat a dog on the one hand; wheedle,
pet, and hold meat in front of it on the other, and it can soon
be brought to perform. Cowperwood knew this. His emissaries for
good and evil were tireless. In the end--and it was not long in
coming--the directors and chief stockholders of the Chicago West
Division Company succumbed; and then, ho! the sudden leasing by
the Chicago West Division Company of all its property--to the North
Chicago Street Railway Company, lessee in turn of the Chicago City
Passenger Railway, a line which Cowperwood had organized to take
over the Washington Street tunnel. How had he accomplished it?
The question was on the tip of every financial tongue. Who were
the men or the organization providing the enormous sums necessary
to pay six hundred dollars per share for six hundred and fifty
shares of the twelve hundred and fifty belonging to the old West
Division company, and thirty per cent. per year on all the remainder?
Where was the money coming from to cable all these lines? It was
simple enough if they had only thought. Cowperwood was merely
capitalizing the future.
Before the newspapers or the public could suitably protest, crowds
of men were at work day and night in the business heart of the
city, their flaring torches and resounding hammers making a fitful
bedlamic world of that region; they were laying the first great
cable loop and repairing the La Salle Street tunnel. It was the
same on the North and West Sides, where concrete conduits were
being laid, new grip and trailer cars built, new car-barns erected,
and large, shining power-houses put up. The city, so long used
to the old bridge delays, the straw-strewn, stoveless horse-cars
on their jumping rails, was agog to see how fine this new service
would be. The La Salle Street tunnel was soon aglow with white
plaster and electric lights. The long streets and avenues of the
North Side were threaded with concrete-lined conduits and heavy
street-rails. The powerhouses were completed and the system was
started, even while the contracts for the changes on the West Side
were being let.
Schryhart and his associates were amazed at this swiftness of
action, this dizzy phantasmagoria of financial operations. It
looked very much to the conservative traction interests of Chicago
as if this young giant out of the East had it in mind to eat up
the whole city. The Chicago Trust Company, which he, Addison,
McKenty, and others had organized to manipulate the principal
phases of the local bond issues, and of which he was rumored to
be in control, was in a flourishing condition. Apparently he could
now write his check for millions, and yet he was not beholden, so
far as the older and more conservative multimillionaires of Chicago
were concerned, to any one of them. The worst of it was that this
Cowperwood--an upstart, a jail-bird, a stranger whom they had done
their best to suppress financially and ostracize socially, had now
become an attractive, even a sparkling figure in the eyes of the
Chicago public. His views and opinions on almost any topic were
freely quoted; the newspapers, even the most antagonistic, did not
dare to neglect him. Their owners were now fully alive to the
fact that a new financial rival had appeared who was worthy of
their steel. _
Read next: chapter XXVII - A Financier Bewitched
Read previous: chapter XXV - Airs from the Orient
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