Then, after several years of this secret relationship, in which the
ties of sympathy and understanding grew stronger instead of weaker,
came the storm. It burst unexpectedly and out of a clear sky, and bore
no relation to the intention or volition of any individual. It was
nothing more than a fire, a distant one—the great Chicago fire, October
7th, 1871, which burned that city—its vast commercial section—to the
ground, and instantly and incidentally produced a financial panic,
vicious though of short duration in various other cities in America.
The fire began on Saturday and continued apparently unabated until the
following Wednesday. It destroyed the banks, the commercial houses, the
shipping conveniences, and vast stretches of property. The heaviest
loss fell naturally upon the insurance companies, which instantly, in
many cases—the majority—closed their doors. This threw the loss back on
the manufacturers and wholesalers in other cities who had had dealings
with Chicago as well as the merchants of that city. Again, very
grievous losses were borne by the host of eastern capitalists which had
for years past partly owned, or held heavy mortgages on, the
magnificent buildings for business purposes and residences in which
Chicago was already rivaling every city on the continent.
Transportation was disturbed, and the keen scent of Wall Street, and
Third Street in Philadelphia, and State Street in Boston, instantly
perceived in the early reports the gravity of the situation. Nothing
could be done on Saturday or Sunday after the exchange closed, for the
opening reports came too late. On Monday, however, the facts were
pouring in thick and fast; and the owners of railroad securities,
government securities, street-car securities, and, indeed, all other
forms of stocks and bonds, began to throw them on the market in order
to raise cash. The banks naturally were calling their loans, and the
result was a stock stampede which equaled the Black Friday of Wall
Street of two years before.
Cowperwood and his father were out of town at the time the fire began.
They had gone with several friends—bankers—to look at a proposed route
of extension of a local steam-railroad, on which a loan was desired. In
buggies they had driven over a good portion of the route, and were
returning to Philadelphia late Sunday evening when the cries of
newsboys hawking an “extra” reached their ears.
“Ho! Extra! Extra! All about the big Chicago fire!”
“Ho! Extra! Extra! Chicago burning down! Extra! Extra!”
The cries were long-drawn-out, ominous, pathetic. In the dusk of the
dreary Sunday afternoon, when the city had apparently retired to
Sabbath meditation and prayer, with that tinge of the dying year in the
foliage and in the air, one caught a sense of something grim and
gloomy.
“Hey, boy,” called Cowperwood, listening, seeing a shabbily clothed
misfit of a boy with a bundle of papers under his arm turning a corner.
“What’s that? Chicago burning!”
He looked at his father and the other men in a significant way as he
reached for the paper, and then, glancing at the headlines, realized
the worst.
ALL CHICAGO BURNING
FIRE RAGES UNCHECKED IN COMMERCIAL SECTION SINCE YESTERDAY EVENING.
BANKS, COMMERCIAL HOUSES, PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN RUINS. DIRECT TELEGRAPHIC
COMMUNICATION SUSPENDED SINCE THREE O’CLOCK TO-DAY. NO END TO PROGRESS
OF DISASTER IN SIGHT.
“That looks rather serious,” he said, calmly, to his companions, a
cold, commanding force coming into his eyes and voice. To his father he
said a little later, “It’s panic, unless the majority of the banks and
brokerage firms stand together.”
He was thinking quickly, brilliantly, resourcefully of his own
outstanding obligations. His father’s bank was carrying one hundred
thousand dollars’ worth of his street-railway securities at sixty, and
fifty thousand dollars’ worth of city loan at seventy. His father had
“up with him” over forty thousand dollars in cash covering market
manipulations in these stocks. The banking house of Drexel & Co. was on
his books as a creditor for one hundred thousand, and that loan would
be called unless they were especially merciful, which was not likely.
Jay Cooke & Co. were his creditors for another one hundred and fifty
thousand. They would want their money. At four smaller banks and three
brokerage companies he was debtor for sums ranging from fifty thousand
dollars down. The city treasurer was involved with him to the extent of
nearly five hundred thousand dollars, and exposure of that would create
a scandal; the State treasurer for two hundred thousand. There were
small accounts, hundreds of them, ranging from one hundred dollars up
to five and ten thousand. A panic would mean not only a withdrawal of
deposits and a calling of loans, but a heavy depression of securities.
How could he realize on his securities?—that was the question—how
without selling so many points off that his fortune would be swept away
and he would be ruined?
He figured briskly the while he waved adieu to his friends, who hurried
away, struck with their own predicament.
“You had better go on out to the house, father, and I’ll send some
telegrams.” (The telephone had not yet been invented.) “I’ll be right
out and we’ll go into this thing together. It looks like black weather
to me. Don’t say anything to any one until after we have had our talk;
then we can decide what to do.”
Cowperwood, Sr., was already plucking at his side-whiskers in a
confused and troubled way. He was cogitating as to what might happen to
him in case his son failed, for he was deeply involved with him. He was
a little gray in his complexion now, frightened, for he had already
strained many points in his affairs to accommodate his son. If Frank
should not be able promptly on the morrow to meet the call which the
bank might have to make for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the
onus and scandal of the situation would be on him.
On the other hand, his son was meditating on the tangled relation in
which he now found himself in connection with the city treasurer and
the fact that it was not possible for him to support the market alone.
Those who should have been in a position to help him were now as bad
off as himself. There were many unfavorable points in the whole
situation. Drexel & Co. had been booming railway stocks—loaning heavily
on them. Jay Cooke & Co. had been backing Northern Pacific—were
practically doing their best to build that immense transcontinental
system alone. Naturally, they were long on that and hence in a ticklish
position. At the first word they would throw over their surest
securities—government bonds, and the like—in order to protect their
more speculative holdings. The bears would see the point. They would
hammer and hammer, selling short all along the line. But he did not
dare to do that. He would be breaking his own back quickly, and what he
needed was time. If he could only get time—three days, a week, ten
days—this storm would surely blow over.
The thing that was troubling him most was the matter of the
half-million invested with him by Stener. A fall election was drawing
near. Stener, although he had served two terms, was slated for
reelection. A scandal in connection with the city treasury would be a
very bad thing. It would end Stener’s career as an official—would very
likely send him to the penitentiary. It might wreck the Republican
party’s chances to win. It would certainly involve himself as having
much to do with it. If that happened, he would have the politicians to
reckon with. For, if he were hard pressed, as he would be, and failed,
the fact that he had been trying to invade the city street-railway
preserves which they held sacred to themselves, with borrowed city
money, and that this borrowing was liable to cost them the city
election, would all come out. They would not view all that with a
kindly eye. It would be useless to say, as he could, that he had
borrowed the money at two per cent. (most of it, to save himself, had
been covered by a protective clause of that kind), or that he had
merely acted as an agent for Stener. That might go down with the
unsophisticated of the outer world, but it would never be swallowed by
the politicians. They knew better than that.
There was another phase to this situation, however, that encouraged
him, and that was his knowledge of how city politics were going in
general. It was useless for any politician, however loftly, to take a
high and mighty tone in a crisis like this. All of them, great and
small, were profiting in one way and another through city privileges.
Butler, Mollenhauer, and Simpson, he knew, made money out of
contracts—legal enough, though they might be looked upon as rank
favoritism—and also out of vast sums of money collected in the shape of
taxes—land taxes, water taxes, etc.—which were deposited in the various
banks designated by these men and others as legal depositories for city
money. The banks supposedly carried the city’s money in their vaults as
a favor, without paying interest of any kind, and then reinvested
it—for whom? Cowperwood had no complaint to make, for he was being well
treated, but these men could scarcely expect to monopolize all the
city’s benefits. He did not know either Mollenhauer or Simpson
personally—but he knew they as well as Butler had made money out of his
own manipulation of city loan. Also, Butler was most friendly to him.
It was not unreasonable for him to think, in a crisis like this, that
if worst came to worst, he could make a clean breast of it to Butler
and receive aid. In case he could not get through secretly with
Stener’s help, Cowperwood made up his mind that he would do this.
His first move, he decided, would be to go at once to Stener’s house
and demand the loan of an additional three or four hundred thousand
dollars. Stener had always been very tractable, and in this instance
would see how important it was that his shortage of half a million
should not be made public. Then he must get as much more as possible.
But where to get it? Presidents of banks and trust companies, large
stock jobbers, and the like, would have to be seen. Then there was a
loan of one hundred thousand dollars he was carrying for Butler. The
old contractor might be induced to leave that. He hurried to his home,
secured his runabout, and drove rapidly to Stener’s.
As it turned out, however, much to his distress and confusion, Stener
was out of town—down on the Chesapeake with several friends shooting
ducks and fishing, and was not expected back for several days. He was
in the marshes back of some small town. Cowperwood sent an urgent wire
to the nearest point and then, to make assurance doubly sure, to
several other points in the same neighborhood, asking him to return
immediately. He was not at all sure, however, that Stener would return
in time and was greatly nonplussed and uncertain for the moment as to
what his next step would be. Aid must be forthcoming from somewhere and
at once.
Suddenly a helpful thought occurred to him. Butler and Mollenhauer and
Simpson were long on local street-railways. They must combine to
support the situation and protect their interests. They could see the
big bankers, Drexel & Co. and Cooke & Co., and others and urge them to
sustain the market. They could strengthen things generally by
organizing a buying ring, and under cover of their support, if they
would, he might sell enough to let him out, and even permit him to go
short and make something—a whole lot. It was a brilliant thought,
worthy of a greater situation, and its only weakness was that it was
not absolutely certain of fulfillment.
He decided to go to Butler at once, the only disturbing thought being
that he would now be compelled to reveal his own and Stener’s affairs.
So reentering his runabout he drove swiftly to the Butler home.
When he arrived there the famous contractor was at dinner. He had not
heard the calling of the extras, and of course, did not understand as
yet the significance of the fire. The servant’s announcement of
Cowperwood brought him smiling to the door.
“Won’t you come in and join us? We’re just havin’ a light supper. Have
a cup of coffee or tea, now—do.”
“I can’t,” replied Cowperwood. “Not to-night, I’m in too much of a
hurry. I want to see you for just a few moments, and then I’ll be off
again. I won’t keep you very long.”
“Why, if that’s the case, I’ll come right out.” And Butler returned to
the dining-room to put down his napkin. Aileen, who was also dining,
had heard Cowperwood’s voice, and was on the qui vive to see him. She
wondered what it was that brought him at this time of night to see her
father. She could not leave the table at once, but hoped to before he
went. Cowperwood was thinking of her, even in the face of this
impending storm, as he was of his wife, and many other things. If his
affairs came down in a heap it would go hard with those attached to
him. In this first clouding of disaster, he could not tell how things
would eventuate. He meditated on this desperately, but he was not
panic-stricken. His naturally even-molded face was set in fine, classic
lines; his eyes were as hard as chilled steel.
“Well, now,” exclaimed Butler, returning, his countenance manifesting a
decidedly comfortable relationship with the world as at present
constituted. “What’s up with you to-night? Nawthin’ wrong, I hope. It’s
been too fine a day.”
“Nothing very serious, I hope myself,” replied Cowperwood, “But I want
to talk with you a few minutes, anyhow. Don’t you think we had better
go up to your room?”
“I was just going to say that,” replied Butler—“the cigars are up
there.”
They started from the reception-room to the stairs, Butler preceding
and as the contractor mounted, Aileen came out from the dining-room in
a frou-frou of silk. Her splendid hair was drawn up from the base of
the neck and the line of the forehead into some quaint convolutions
which constituted a reddish-gold crown. Her complexion was glowing, and
her bare arms and shoulders shone white against the dark red of her
evening gown. She realized there was something wrong.
“Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, how do you do?” she exclaimed, coming forward and
holding out her hand as her father went on upstairs. She was delaying
him deliberately in order to have a word with him and this bold acting
was for the benefit of the others.
“What’s the trouble, honey?” she whispered, as soon as her father was
out of hearing. “You look worried.”
“Nothing much, I hope, sweet,” he said. “Chicago is burning up and
there’s going to be trouble to-morrow. I have to talk to your father.”
She had time only for a sympathetic, distressed “Oh,” before he
withdrew his hand and followed Butler upstairs. She squeezed his arm,
and went through the reception-room to the parlor. She sat down,
thinking, for never before had she seen Cowperwood’s face wearing such
an expression of stern, disturbed calculation. It was placid, like
fine, white wax, and quite as cold; and those deep, vague, inscrutable
eyes! So Chicago was burning. What would happen to him? Was he very
much involved? He had never told her in detail of his affairs. She
would not have understood fully any more than would have Mrs.
Cowperwood. But she was worried, nevertheless, because it was her
Frank, and because she was bound to him by what to her seemed
indissoluble ties.
Literature, outside of the masters, has given us but one idea of the
mistress, the subtle, calculating siren who delights to prey on the
souls of men. The journalism and the moral pamphleteering of the time
seem to foster it with almost partisan zeal. It would seem that a
censorship of life had been established by divinity, and the care of
its execution given into the hands of the utterly conservative. Yet
there is that other form of liaison which has nothing to do with
conscious calculation. In the vast majority of cases it is without
design or guile. The average woman, controlled by her affections and
deeply in love, is no more capable than a child of anything save
sacrificial thought—the desire to give; and so long as this state
endures, she can only do this. She may change—Hell hath no fury,
etc.—but the sacrificial, yielding, solicitous attitude is more often
the outstanding characteristic of the mistress; and it is this very
attitude in contradistinction to the grasping legality of established
matrimony that has caused so many wounds in the defenses of the latter.
The temperament of man, either male or female, cannot help falling down
before and worshiping this nonseeking, sacrificial note. It approaches
vast distinction in life. It appears to be related to that last word in
art, that largeness of spirit which is the first characteristic of the
great picture, the great building, the great sculpture, the great
decoration—namely, a giving, freely and without stint, of itself, of
beauty. Hence the significance of this particular mood in Aileen.
All the subtleties of the present combination were troubling Cowperwood
as he followed Butler into the room upstairs.
“Sit down, sit down. You won’t take a little somethin’? You never do. I
remember now. Well, have a cigar, anyhow. Now, what’s this that’s
troublin’ you to-night?”
Voices could be heard faintly in the distance, far off toward the
thicker residential sections.
“Extra! Extra! All about the big Chicago fire! Chicago burning down!”
“Just that,” replied Cowperwood, hearkening to them. “Have you heard
the news?”
“No. What’s that they’re calling?”
“It’s a big fire out in Chicago.”
“Oh,” replied Butler, still not gathering the significance of it.
“It’s burning down the business section there, Mr. Butler,” went on
Cowperwood ominously, “and I fancy it’s going to disturb financial
conditions here to-morrow. That is what I have come to see you about.
How are your investments? Pretty well drawn in?”
Butler suddenly gathered from Cowperwood’s expression that there was
something very wrong. He put up his large hand as he leaned back in his
big leather chair, and covered his mouth and chin with it. Over those
big knuckles, and bigger nose, thick and cartilaginous, his large,
shaggy-eyebrowed eyes gleamed. His gray, bristly hair stood up stiffly
in a short, even growth all over his head.
“So that’s it,” he said. “You’re expectin’ trouble to-morrow. How are
your own affairs?”
“I’m in pretty good shape, I think, all told, if the money element of
this town doesn’t lose its head and go wild. There has to be a lot of
common sense exercised to-morrow, or to-night, even. You know we are
facing a real panic. Mr. Butler, you may as well know that. It may not
last long, but while it does it will be bad. Stocks are going to drop
to-morrow ten or fifteen points on the opening. The banks are going to
call their loans unless some arrangement can be made to prevent them.
No one man can do that. It will have to be a combination of men. You
and Mr. Simpson and Mr. Mollenhauer might do it—that is, you could if
you could persuade the big banking people to combine to back the
market. There is going to be a raid on local street-railways—all of
them. Unless they are sustained the bottom is going to drop out. I have
always known that you were long on those. I thought you and Mr.
Mollenhauer and some of the others might want to act. If you don’t I
might as well confess that it is going to go rather hard with me. I am
not strong enough to face this thing alone.”
He was meditating on how he should tell the whole truth in regard to
Stener.
“Well, now, that’s pretty bad,” said Butler, calmly and meditatively.
He was thinking of his own affairs. A panic was not good for him
either, but he was not in a desperate state. He could not fail. He
might lose some money, but not a vast amount—before he could adjust
things. Still he did not care to lose any money.
“How is it you’re so bad off?” he asked, curiously. He was wondering
how the fact that the bottom was going to drop out of local
street-railways would affect Cowperwood so seriously. “You’re not
carryin’ any of them things, are you?” he added.
It was now a question of lying or telling the truth, and Cowperwood was
literally afraid to risk lying in this dilemma. If he did not gain
Butler’s comprehending support he might fail, and if he failed the
truth would come out, anyhow.
“I might as well make a clean breast of this, Mr. Butler,” he said,
throwing himself on the old man’s sympathies and looking at him with
that brisk assurance which Butler so greatly admired. He felt as proud
of Cowperwood at times as he did of his own sons. He felt that he had
helped to put him where he was.
“The fact is that I have been buying street-railway stocks, but not for
myself exactly. I am going to do something now which I think I ought
not to do, but I cannot help myself. If I don’t do it, it will injure
you and a lot of people whom I do not wish to injure. I know you are
naturally interested in the outcome of the fall election. The truth is
I have been carrying a lot of stocks for Mr. Stener and some of his
friends. I do not know that all the money has come from the city
treasury, but I think that most of it has. I know what that means to
Mr. Stener and the Republican party and your interests in case I fail.
I don’t think Mr. Stener started this of his own accord in the first
place—I think I am as much to blame as anybody—but it grew out of other
things. As you know, I handled that matter of city loan for him and
then some of his friends wanted me to invest in street-railways for
them. I have been doing that ever since. Personally I have borrowed
considerable money from Mr. Stener at two per cent. In fact, originally
the transactions were covered in that way. Now I don’t want to shift
the blame on any one. It comes back to me and I am willing to let it
stay there, except that if I fail Mr. Stener will be blamed and that
will reflect on the administration. Naturally, I don’t want to fail.
There is no excuse for my doing so. Aside from this panic I have never
been in a better position in my life. But I cannot weather this storm
without assistance, and I want to know if you won’t help me. If I pull
through I will give you my word that I will see that the money which
has been taken from the treasury is put back there. Mr. Stener is out
of town or I would have brought him here with me.”
Cowperwood was lying out of the whole cloth in regard to bringing
Stener with him, and he had no intention of putting the money back in
the city treasury except by degrees and in such manner as suited his
convenience; but what he had said sounded well and created a great
seeming of fairness.
“How much money is it Stener has invested with you?” asked Butler. He
was a little confused by this curious development. It put Cowperwood
and Stener in an odd light.
“About five hundred thousand dollars,” replied Cowperwood.
The old man straightened up. “Is it as much as that?” he said.
“Just about—a little more or a little less; I’m not sure which.”
The old contractor listened solemnly to all Cowperwood had to say on
this score, thinking of the effect on the Republican party and his own
contracting interests. He liked Cowperwood, but this was a rough thing
the latter was telling him—rough, and a great deal to ask. He was a
slow-thinking and a slow-moving man, but he did well enough when he did
think. He had considerable money invested in Philadelphia
street-railway stocks—perhaps as much as eight hundred thousand
dollars. Mollenhauer had perhaps as much more. Whether Senator Simpson
had much or little he could not tell. Cowperwood had told him in the
past that he thought the Senator had a good deal. Most of their
holdings, as in the case of Cowperwood’s, were hypothecated at the
various banks for loans and these loans invested in other ways. It was
not advisable or comfortable to have these loans called, though the
condition of no one of the triumvirate was anything like as bad as that
of Cowperwood. They could see themselves through without much trouble,
though not without probable loss unless they took hurried action to
protect themselves.
He would not have thought so much of it if Cowperwood had told him that
Stener was involved, say, to the extent of seventy-five or a hundred
thousand dollars. That might be adjusted. But five hundred thousand
dollars!
“That’s a lot of money,” said Butler, thinking of the amazing audacity
of Stener, but failing at the moment to identify it with the astute
machinations of Cowperwood. “That’s something to think about. There’s
no time to lose if there’s going to be a panic in the morning. How much
good will it do ye if we do support the market?”
“A great deal,” returned Cowperwood, “although of course I have to
raise money in other ways. I have that one hundred thousand dollars of
yours on deposit. Is it likely that you’ll want that right away?”
“It may be,” said Butler.
“It’s just as likely that I’ll need it so badly that I can’t give it up
without seriously injuring myself,” added Cowperwood. “That’s just one
of a lot of things. If you and Senator Simpson and Mr. Mollenhauer were
to get together—you’re the largest holders of street-railway stocks—and
were to see Mr. Drexel and Mr. Cooke, you could fix things so that
matters would be considerably easier. I will be all right if my loans
are not called, and my loans will not be called if the market does not
slump too heavily. If it does, all my securities are depreciated, and I
can’t hold out.”
Old Butler got up. “This is serious business,” he said. “I wish you’d
never gone in with Stener in that way. It don’t look quite right and it
can’t be made to. It’s bad, bad business,” he added dourly. “Still,
I’ll do what I can. I can’t promise much, but I’ve always liked ye and
I’ll not be turning on ye now unless I have to. But I’m sorry—very. And
I’m not the only one that has a hand in things in this town.” At the
same time he was thinking it was right decent of Cowperwood to forewarn
him this way in regard to his own affairs and the city election, even
though he was saving his own neck by so doing. He meant to do what he
could.
“I don’t suppose you could keep this matter of Stener and the city
treasury quiet for a day or two until I see how I come out?” suggested
Cowperwood warily.
“I can’t promise that,” replied Butler. “I’ll have to do the best I
can. I won’t lave it go any further than I can help—you can depend on
that.” He was thinking how the effect of Stener’s crime could be
overcome if Cowperwood failed.
“Owen!”
He stepped to the door, and, opening it, called down over the banister.
“Yes, father.”
“Have Dan hitch up the light buggy and bring it around to the door. And
you get your hat and coat. I want you to go along with me.”
“Yes, father.”
He came back.
“Sure that’s a nice little storm in a teapot, now, isn’t it? Chicago
begins to burn, and I have to worry here in Philadelphia. Well, well—”
Cowperwood was up now and moving to the door. “And where are you
going?”
“Back to the house. I have several people coming there to see me. But
I’ll come back here later, if I may.”
“Yes, yes,” replied Butler. “To be sure I’ll be here by midnight,
anyhow. Well, good night. I’ll see you later, then, I suppose. I’ll
tell you what I find out.”
He went back in his room for something, and Cowperwood descended the
stair alone. From the hangings of the reception-room entryway Aileen
signaled him to draw near.
“I hope it’s nothing serious, honey?” she sympathized, looking into his
solemn eyes.
It was not time for love, and he felt it.
“No,” he said, almost coldly, “I think not.”
“Frank, don’t let this thing make you forget me for long, please. You
won’t, will you? I love you so.”
“No, no, I won’t!” he replied earnestly, quickly and yet absently.
“I can’t! Don’t you know I won’t?” He had started to kiss her, but a
noise disturbed him. “Sh!”
He walked to the door, and she followed him with eager, sympathetic
eyes.
What if anything should happen to her Frank? What if anything could?
What would she do? That was what was troubling her. What would, what
could she do to help him? He looked so pale—strained.