________________________________________________
_ 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
and free consideration of this matter aside from state legislative
influence and control. To persuade the state legislature, by
influence or by any other means, to step in at this time and
interfere is unfair. The propositions involved in those bills
should be referred to the people at the next election for approval
or not, just as they see fit. That is the way this matter should
be arranged. It will not do to come into the legislature and
influence or buy votes, and then expect me to write my signature
under the whole matter as satisfactory.
Swanson was not heated or antipathetic. He was cool, firm,
well-intentioned.
Dickensheets passed his hand over a wide, high temple. He seemed
to be meditating something--some hitherto untried statement or
course of action.
Well, Governor," he repeated, "I want to thank you, anyhow. You
have been exceedingly kind. By the way, I see you have a large,
roomy safe here." He had picked up the bag he was carrying. "I
wonder if I might leave this here for a day or two in your care?
It contains some papers that I do not wish to carry into the country
with me. Would you mind locking it up in your safe and letting
me have it when I send for it?"
"With pleasure," replied the governor.
He took it, placed it in lower storage space, and closed and locked
the door. The two men parted with a genial hand-shake. The
governor returned to his meditations, the judge hurried to catch
a car.
About eleven o'clock the next morning Swanson was still working
in his office, worrying greatly over some method whereby he could
raise one hundred thousand dollars to defray interest charges,
repairs, and other payments, on a structure that was by no means
meeting expenses and was hence a drain. At this juncture his
office door opened, and his very youthful office-boy presented him
the card of F. A. Cowperwood. The governor had never seen him
before. Cowperwood entered brisk, fresh, forceful. He was as
crisp as a new dollar bill--as clean, sharp, firmly limned.
"Governor Swanson, I believe?"
"Yes, sir."
The two were scrutinizing each other defensively.
"I am Mr. Cowperwood. I come to have a very few words with you.
I will take very little of your time. I do not wish to go over
any of the arguments that have been gone over before. I am
satisfied that you know all about them."
"Yes, I had a talk with Judge Dickensheets yesterday."
"Just so, Governor. Knowing all that you do, permit me to put one
more matter before you. I know that you are, comparatively, a
poor man--that every dollar you have is at present practically
tied in this building. I know of two places where you have applied
for a loan of one hundred thousand dollars and have been refused
because you haven't sufficient security to offer outside of this
building, which is mortgaged up to its limit as it stands. The
men, as you must know, who are fighting you are fighting me. I
am a scoundrel because I am selfish and ambitious--a materialist.
You are not a scoundrel, but a dangerous person because you are
an idealist. Whether you veto this bill or not, you will never
again be elected Governor of Illinois if the people who are fighting
me succeed, as they will succeed, in fighting you."
Swanson's dark eyes burned illuminatively. He nodded his head in
assent.
"Governor, I have come here this morning to bribe you, if I can.
I do not agree with your ideals; in the last analysis I do not
believe that they will work. I am sure I do not believe in most
of the things that you believe in. Life is different at bottom
perhaps from what either you or I may think. Just the same, as
compared with other men, I sympathize with you. I will loan you
that one hundred thousand dollars and two or three or four hundred
thousand dollars more besides if you wish. You need never pay me
a dollar--or you can if you wish. Suit yourself. In that black
bag which Judge Dickensheets brought here yesterday, and which is
in your safe, is three hundred thousand dollars in cash. He did
not have the courage to mention it. Sign the bill and let me beat
the men who are trying to beat me. I will support you in the
future with any amount of money or influence that I can bring to
bear in any political contest you may choose to enter, state or
national."
Cowperwood's eyes glowed like a large, genial collie's. There was
a suggestion of sympathetic appeal in them, rich and deep, and,
even more than that, a philosophic perception of ineffable things.
Swanson arose. "You really don't mean to say that you are trying
to bribe me openly, do you?" he inquired. In spite of a conventional
impulse to burst forth in moralistic denunciation, solemnly phrased,
he was compelled for the moment to see the other man's viewpoint.
They were working in different directions, going different ways,
to what ultimate end?
"Mr. Cowperwood," continued the governor, his face a physiognomy
out of Goya, his eye alight with a kind of understanding sympathy,
"I suppose I ought to resent this, but I can't. I see your point
of view. I'm sorry, but I can't help you nor myself. My political
belief, my ideals, compel me to veto this bill; when I forsake
these I am done politically with myself. I may not be elected
governor again, but that does not matter, either. I could use
your money, but I won't. I shall have to bid you good morning."
He moved toward the safe, slowly, opened it, took out the bag and
brought it over.
"You must take that with you," he added.
The two men looked at each other a moment curiously, sadly--the
one with a burden of financial, political, and moral worry on his
spirit, the other with an unconquerable determination not to be
worsted even in defeat.
"Governor," concluded Cowperwood, in the most genial, contented,
undisturbed voice, "you will live to see another legislature pass
and another governor sign some such bill. It will not be done
this session, apparently, but it will be done. I am not through,
because my case is right and fair. Just the same, after you have
vetoed the bill, come and see me, and I will loan you that one
hundred thousand if you want it."
Cowperwood went out. Swanson vetoed the bill. It is on record
that subsequently he borrowed one hundred thousand dollars from
Cowperwood to stay him from ruin. _
Read next: chapter LVI - The Ordeal of Berenice
Read previous: chapter LIV - Wanted--Fifty-year Franchises
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