The condition of the Republican party at this time in Philadelphia, its
relationship to George W. Stener, Edward Malia Butler, Henry A.
Mollenhauer, Senator Mark Simpson, and others, will have to be briefly
indicated here, in order to foreshadow Cowperwood’s actual situation.
Butler, as we have seen, was normally interested in and friendly to
Cowperwood. Stener was Cowperwood’s tool. Mollenhauer and Senator
Simpson were strong rivals of Butler for the control of city affairs.
Simpson represented the Republican control of the State legislature,
which could dictate to the city if necessary, making new election laws,
revising the city charter, starting political investigations, and the
like. He had many influential newspapers, corporations, banks, at his
beck and call. Mollenhauer represented the Germans, some Americans, and
some large stable corporations—a very solid and respectable man. All
three were strong, able, and dangerous politically. The two latter
counted on Butler’s influence, particularly with the Irish, and a
certain number of ward leaders and Catholic politicians and laymen, who
were as loyal to him as though he were a part of the church itself.
Butler’s return to these followers was protection, influence, aid, and
good-will generally. The city’s return to him, via Mollenhauer and
Simpson, was in the shape of contracts—fat ones—street-paving, bridges,
viaducts, sewers. And in order for him to get these contracts the
affairs of the Republican party, of which he was a beneficiary as well
as a leader, must be kept reasonably straight. At the same time it was
no more a part of his need to keep the affairs of the party straight
than it was of either Mollenhauer’s or Simpson’s, and Stener was not
his appointee. The latter was more directly responsible to Mollenhauer
than to any one else.
As Butler stepped into the buggy with his son he was thinking about
this, and it was puzzling him greatly.
“Cowperwood’s just been here,” he said to Owen, who had been rapidly
coming into a sound financial understanding of late, and was already a
shrewder man politically and socially than his father, though he had
not the latter’s magnetism. “He’s been tellin’ me that he’s in a rather
tight place. You hear that?” he continued, as some voice in the
distance was calling “Extra! Extra!” “That’s Chicago burnin’, and
there’s goin’ to be trouble on the stock exchange to-morrow. We have a
lot of our street-railway stocks around at the different banks. If we
don’t look sharp they’ll be callin’ our loans. We have to ’tend to that
the first thing in the mornin’. Cowperwood has a hundred thousand of
mine with him that he wants me to let stay there, and he has some money
that belongs to Stener, he tells me.”
“Stener?” asked Owen, curiously. “Has he been dabbling in stocks?” Owen
had heard some rumors concerning Stener and others only very recently,
which he had not credited nor yet communicated to his father. “How much
money of his has Cowperwood?” he asked.
Butler meditated. “Quite a bit, I’m afraid,” he finally said. “As a
matter of fact, it’s a great deal—about five hundred thousand dollars.
If that should become known, it would be makin’ a good deal of noise,
I’m thinkin’.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Owen in astonishment. “Five hundred thousand dollars!
Good Lord, father! Do you mean to say Stener has got away with five
hundred thousand dollars? Why, I wouldn’t think he was clever enough to
do that. Five hundred thousand dollars! It will make a nice row if that
comes out.”
“Aisy, now! Aisy, now!” replied Butler, doing his best to keep all
phases of the situation in mind. “We can’t tell exactly what the
circumstances were yet. He mayn’t have meant to take so much. It may
all come out all right yet. The money’s invested. Cowperwood hasn’t
failed yet. It may be put back. The thing to be settled on now is
whether anything can be done to save him. If he’s tellin’ me the
truth—and I never knew him to lie—he can get out of this if
street-railway stocks don’t break too heavy in the mornin’. I’m going
over to see Henry Mollenhauer and Mark Simpson. They’re in on this.
Cowperwood wanted me to see if I couldn’t get them to get the bankers
together and have them stand by the market. He thought we might protect
our loans by comin’ on and buyin’ and holdin’ up the price.”
Owen was running swiftly in his mind over Cowperwood’s affairs—as much
as he knew of them. He felt keenly that the banker ought to be shaken
out. This dilemma was his fault, not Stener’s—he felt. It was strange
to him that his father did not see it and resent it.
“You see what it is, father,” he said, dramatically, after a time.
“Cowperwood’s been using this money of Stener’s to pick up stocks, and
he’s in a hole. If it hadn’t been for this fire he’d have got away with
it; but now he wants you and Simpson and Mollenhauer and the others to
pull him out. He’s a nice fellow, and I like him fairly well; but
you’re a fool if you do as he wants you to. He has more than belongs to
him already. I heard the other day that he has the Front Street line,
and almost all of Green and Coates; and that he and Stener own the
Seventeenth and Nineteenth; but I didn’t believe it. I’ve been
intending to ask you about it. I think Cowperwood has a majority for
himself stowed away somewhere in every instance. Stener is just a pawn.
He moves him around where he pleases.”
Owen’s eyes gleamed avariciously, opposingly. Cowperwood ought to be
punished, sold out, driven out of the street-railway business in which
Owen was anxious to rise.
“Now you know,” observed Butler, thickly and solemnly, “I always
thought that young felly was clever, but I hardly thought he was as
clever as all that. So that’s his game. You’re pretty shrewd yourself,
aren’t you? Well, we can fix that, if we think well of it. But there’s
more than that to all this. You don’t want to forget the Republican
party. Our success goes with the success of that, you know”—and he
paused and looked at his son. “If Cowperwood should fail and that money
couldn’t be put back—” He broke off abstractedly. “The thing that’s
troublin’ me is this matter of Stener and the city treasury. If
somethin’ ain’t done about that, it may go hard with the party this
fall, and with some of our contracts. You don’t want to forget that an
election is comin’ along in November. I’m wonderin’ if I ought to call
in that one hundred thousand dollars. It’s goin’ to take considerable
money to meet my loans in the mornin’.”
It is a curious matter of psychology, but it was only now that the real
difficulties of the situation were beginning to dawn on Butler. In the
presence of Cowperwood he was so influenced by that young man’s
personality and his magnetic presentation of his need and his own
liking for him that he had not stopped to consider all the phases of
his own relationship to the situation. Out here in the cool night air,
talking to Owen, who was ambitious on his own account and anything but
sentimentally considerate of Cowperwood, he was beginning to sober down
and see things in their true light. He had to admit that Cowperwood had
seriously compromised the city treasury and the Republican party, and
incidentally Butler’s own private interests. Nevertheless, he liked
Cowperwood. He was in no way prepared to desert him. He was now going
to see Mollenhauer and Simpson as much to save Cowperwood really as the
party and his own affairs. And yet a scandal. He did not like
that—resented it. This young scalawag! To think he should be so sly.
None the less he still liked him, even here and now, and was feeling
that he ought to do something to help the young man, if anything could
help him. He might even leave his hundred-thousand-dollar loan with him
until the last hour, as Cowperwood had requested, if the others were
friendly.
“Well, father,” said Owen, after a time, “I don’t see why you need to
worry any more than Mollenhauer or Simpson. If you three want to help
him out, you can; but for the life of me I don’t see why you should. I
know this thing will have a bad effect on the election, if it comes out
before then; but it could be hushed up until then, couldn’t it? Anyhow,
your street-railway holdings are more important than this election, and
if you can see your way clear to getting the street-railway lines in
your hands you won’t need to worry about any elections. My advice to
you is to call that one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan of yours in the
morning, and meet the drop in your stocks that way. It may make
Cowperwood fail, but that won’t hurt you any. You can go into the
market and buy his stocks. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would run to
you and ask you to take them. You ought to get Mollenhauer and Simpson
to scare Stener so that he won’t loan Cowperwood any more money. If you
don’t, Cowperwood will run there and get more. Stener’s in too far now.
If Cowperwood won’t sell out, well and good; the chances are he will
bust, anyhow, and then you can pick up as much on the market as any one
else. I think he’ll sell. You can’t afford to worry about Stener’s five
hundred thousand dollars. No one told him to loan it. Let him look out
for himself. It may hurt the party, but you can look after that later.
You and Mollenhauer can fix the newspapers so they won’t talk about it
till after election.”
“Aisy! Aisy!” was all the old contractor would say. He was thinking
hard.