A New Retainer
Cowperwood, who had rebuffed Schryhart so courteously but firmly, was
to learn that he who takes the sword may well perish by the sword. His
own watchful attorney, on guard at the state capitol, where
certificates of incorporation were issued in the city and village
councils, in the courts and so forth, was not long in learning that a
counter-movement of significance was under way. Old General Van Sickle
was the first to report that something was in the wind in connection
with the North Side company. He came in late one afternoon, his dusty
greatcoat thrown loosely about his shoulders, his small, soft hat low
over his shaggy eyes, and in response to Cowperwood's "Evening,
General, what can I do for you?" seated himself portentously.
"I think you'll have to prepare for real rough weather in the future,
Captain," he remarked, addressing the financier with a courtesy title
that he had fallen in the habit of using.
"What's the trouble now?" asked Cowperwood.
"No real trouble as yet, but there may be. Some one--I don't know
who--is getting these three old companies together in one. There's a
certificate of incorporation been applied for at Springfield for the
United Gas and Fuel Company of Chicago, and there are some directors'
meetings now going on at the Douglas Trust Company. I got this from
Duniway, who seems to have friends somewhere that know."
Cowperwood put the ends of his fingers together in his customary way
and began to tap them lightly and rhythmically.
"Let me see--the Douglas Trust Company. Mr. Simms is president of
that. He isn't shrewd enough to organize a thing of that kind. Who are
the incorporators?"
The General produced a list of four names, none of them officers or
directors of the old companies.
"Dummies, every one," said Cowperwood, succinctly. "I think I know,"
he said, after a few moments' reflection, "who is behind it, General;
but don't let that worry you. They can't harm us if they do unite.
They're bound to sell out to us or buy us out eventually."
Still it irritated him to think that Schryhart had succeeded in
persuading the old companies to combine on any basis; he had meant to
have Addison go shortly, posing as an outside party, and propose this
very thing. Schryhart, he was sure, had acted swiftly following their
interview. He hurried to Addison's office in the Lake National.
"Have you heard the news?" exclaimed that individual, the moment
Cowperwood appeared. "They're planning to combine. It's Schryhart. I
was afraid of that. Simms of the Douglas Trust is going to act as the
fiscal agent. I had the information not ten minutes ago."
"So did I," replied Cowperwood, calmly. "We should have acted a little
sooner. Still, it isn't our fault exactly. Do you know the terms of
agreement?"
"They're going to pool their stock on a basis of three to one, with
about thirty per cent. of the holding company left for Schryhart to
sell or keep, as he wants to. He guarantees the interest. We did that
for him--drove the game right into his bag."
"Nevertheless," replied Cowperwood, "he still has us to deal with. I
propose now that we go into the city council and ask for a blanket
franchise. It can be had. If we should get it, it will bring them to
their knees. We will really be in a better position than they are with
these smaller companies as feeders. We can unite with ourselves."
"That will take considerable money, won't it?"
"Not so much. We may never need to lay a pipe or build a plant. They
will offer to sell out, buy, or combine before that. We can fix the
terms. Leave it to me. You don't happen to know by any chance this
Mr. McKenty, who has so much say in local affairs here--John J.
McKenty?"
Cowperwood was referring to a man who was at once gambler, rumored
owner or controller of a series of houses of prostitution, rumored
maker of mayors and aldermen, rumored financial backer of many saloons
and contracting companies--in short, the patron saint of the political
and social underworld of Chicago, and who was naturally to be reckoned
with in matters which related to the city and state legislative
programme.
"I don't," said Addison; "but I can get you a letter. Why?"
"Don't trouble to ask me that now. Get me as strong an introduction as
you can."
"I'll have one for you to-day some time," replied Addison, efficiently.
"I'll send it over to you."
Cowperwood went out while Addison speculated as to this newest move.
Trust Cowperwood to dig a pit into which the enemy might fall. He
marveled sometimes at the man's resourcefulness. He never quarreled
with the directness and incisiveness of Cowperwood's action.
The man, McKenty, whom Cowperwood had in mind in this rather disturbing
hour, was as interesting and forceful an individual as one would care
to meet anywhere, a typical figure of Chicago and the West at the time.
He was a pleasant, smiling, bland, affable person, not unlike
Cowperwood in magnetism and subtlety, but different by a degree of
animal coarseness (not visible on the surface) which Cowperwood would
scarcely have understood, and in a kind of temperamental pull drawing
to him that vast pathetic life of the underworld in which his soul
found its solution. There is a kind of nature, not artistic, not
spiritual, in no way emotional, nor yet unduly philosophical, that is
nevertheless a sphered content of life; not crystalline, perhaps, and
yet not utterly dark--an agate temperament, cloudy and strange. As a
three-year-old child McKenty had been brought from Ireland by his
emigrant parents during a period of famine. He had been raised on the
far South Side in a shanty which stood near a maze of railroad-tracks,
and as a naked baby he had crawled on its earthen floor. His father
had been promoted to a section boss after working for years as a
day-laborer on the adjoining railroad, and John, junior, one of eight
other children, had been sent out early to do many things--to be an
errand-boy in a store, a messenger-boy for a telegraph company, an
emergency sweep about a saloon, and finally a bartender. This last was
his true beginning, for he was discovered by a keen-minded politician
and encouraged to run for the state legislature and to study law. Even
as a stripling what things had he not learned--robbery, ballot-box
stuffing, the sale of votes, the appointive power of leaders, graft,
nepotism, vice exploitation--all the things that go to make up (or did)
the American world of politics and financial and social strife. There
is a strong assumption in the upper walks of life that there is nothing
to be learned at the bottom. If you could have looked into the
capacious but balanced temperament of John J. McKenty you would have
seen a strange wisdom there and stranger memories--whole worlds of
brutalities, tendernesses, errors, immoralities suffered, endured, even
rejoiced in--the hardy, eager life of the animal that has nothing but
its perceptions, instincts, appetites to guide it. Yet the man had the
air and the poise of a gentleman.
To-day, at forty-eight, McKenty was an exceedingly important personage.
His roomy house on the West Side, at Harrison Street and Ashland
Avenue, was visited at sundry times by financiers, business men,
office-holders, priests, saloon-keepers--in short, the whole range and
gamut of active, subtle, political life. From McKenty they could
obtain that counsel, wisdom, surety, solution which all of them on
occasion were anxious to have, and which in one deft way and
another--often by no more than gratitude and an acknowledgment of his
leadership--they were willing to pay for. To police captains and
officers whose places he occasionally saved, when they should justly
have been discharged; to mothers whose erring boys or girls he took out
of prison and sent home again; to keepers of bawdy houses whom he
protected from a too harsh invasion of the grafting propensities of the
local police; to politicians and saloon-keepers who were in danger of
being destroyed by public upheavals of one kind and another, he seemed,
in hours of stress, when his smooth, genial, almost artistic face
beamed on them, like a heaven-sent son of light, a kind of Western god,
all-powerful, all-merciful, perfect. On the other hand, there were
ingrates, uncompromising or pharasaical religionists and reformers,
plotting, scheming rivals, who found him deadly to contend with. There
were many henchmen--runners from an almost imperial throne--to do his
bidding. He was simple in dress and taste, married and (apparently)
very happy, a professing though virtually non-practising Catholic, a
suave, genial Buddha-like man, powerful and enigmatic.
When Cowperwood and McKenty first met, it was on a spring evening at
the latter's home. The windows of the large house were pleasantly
open, though screened, and the curtains were blowing faintly in a light
air. Along with a sense of the new green life everywhere came a breath
of stock-yards.
On the presentation of Addison's letter and of another, secured through
Van Sickle from a well-known political judge, Cowperwood had been
invited to call. On his arrival he was offered a drink, a cigar,
introduced to Mrs. McKenty--who, lacking an organized social life of
any kind, was always pleased to meet these celebrities of the upper
world, if only for a moment--and shown eventually into the library.
Mrs. McKenty, as he might have observed if he had had the eye for it,
was plump and fifty, a sort of superannuated Aileen, but still showing
traces of a former hardy beauty, and concealing pretty well the
evidences that she had once been a prostitute. It so happened that on
this particular evening McKenty was in a most genial frame of mind.
There were no immediate political troubles bothering him just now. It
was early in May. Outside the trees were budding, the sparrows and
robins were voicing their several moods. A delicious haze was in the
air, and some early mosquitoes were reconnoitering the screens which
protected the windows and doors. Cowperwood, in spite of his various
troubles, was in a complacent state of mind himself. He liked
life--even its very difficult complications--perhaps its complications
best of all. Nature was beautiful, tender at times, but difficulties,
plans, plots, schemes to unravel and make smooth--these things were
what made existence worth while.
"Well now, Mr. Cowperwood," McKenty began, when they finally entered
the cool, pleasant library, "what can I do for you?"
"Well, Mr. McKenty," said Cowperwood, choosing his words and bringing
the finest resources of his temperament into play, "it isn't so much,
and yet it is. I want a franchise from the Chicago city council, and I
want you to help me get it if you will. I know you may say to me why
not go to the councilmen direct. I would do that, except that there
are certain other elements--individuals--who might come to you. It
won't offend you, I know, when I say that I have always understood that
you are a sort of clearing-house for political troubles in Chicago."
Mr. McKenty smiled. "That's flattering," he replied, dryly.
"Now, I am rather new myself to Chicago," went on Cowperwood, softly.
"I have been here only a year or two. I come from Philadelphia. I
have been interested as a fiscal agent and an investor in several gas
companies that have been organized in Lake View, Hyde Park, and
elsewhere outside the city limits, as you may possibly have seen by the
papers lately. I am not their owner, in the sense that I have provided
all or even a good part of the money invested in them. I am not even
their manager, except in a very general way. I might better be called
their promoter and guardian; but I am that for other people and myself."
Mr. McKenty nodded.
"Now, Mr. McKenty, it was not very long after I started out to get
franchises to do business in Lake View and Hyde Park before I found
myself confronted by the interests which control the three old city gas
companies. They were very much opposed to our entering the field in
Cook County anywhere, as you may imagine, although we were not really
crowding in on their field. Since then they have fought me with
lawsuits, injunctions, and charges of bribery and conspiracy."
"I know," put in Mr. McKenty. "I have heard something of it."
"Quite so," replied Cowperwood. "Because of their opposition I made
them an offer to combine these three companies and the three new ones
into one, take out a new charter, and give the city a uniform gas
service. They would not do that--largely because I was an outsider, I
think. Since then another person, Mr. Schryhart"--McKenty nodded--"who
has never had anything to do with the gas business here, has stepped in
and offered to combine them. His plan is to do exactly what I wanted to
do; only his further proposition is, once he has the three old
companies united, to invade this new gas field of ours and hold us up,
or force us to sell by obtaining rival franchises in these outlying
places. There is talk of combining these suburbs with Chicago, as you
know, which would allow these three down-town franchises to become
mutually operative with our own. This makes it essential for us to do
one of several things, as you may see--either to sell out on the best
terms we can now, or to continue the fight at a rather heavy expense
without making any attempt to strike back, or to get into the city
council and ask for a franchise to do business in the down-town
section--a general blanket franchise to sell gas in Chicago alongside
of the old companies--with the sole intention of protecting ourselves,
as one of my officers is fond of saying," added Cowperwood, humorously.
McKenty smiled again. "I see," he said. "Isn't that a rather large
order, though, Mr. Cowperwood, seeking a new franchise? Do you suppose
the general public would agree that the city needs an extra gas
company? It's true the old companies haven't been any too generous. My
own gas isn't of the best." He smiled vaguely, prepared to listen
further.
"Now, Mr. McKenty, I know that you are a practical man," went on
Cowperwood, ignoring this interruption, "and so am I. I am not coming
to you with any vague story concerning my troubles and expecting you to
be interested as a matter of sympathy. I realize that to go into the
city council of Chicago with a legitimate proposition is one thing. To
get it passed and approved by the city authorities is another. I need
advice and assistance, and I am not begging it. If I could get a
general franchise, such as I have described, it would be worth a very
great deal of money to me. It would help me to close up and realize on
these new companies which are entirely sound and needed. It would help
me to prevent the old companies from eating me up. As a matter of
fact, I must have such a franchise to protect my interests and give me
a running fighting chance. Now, I know that none of us are in politics
or finance for our health. If I could get such a franchise it would be
worth from one-fourth to one-half of all I personally would make out of
it, providing my plan of combining these new companies with the old
ones should go through--say, from three to four hundred thousand
dollars." (Here again Cowperwood was not quite frank, but safe.) "It is
needless to say to you that I can command ample capital. This
franchise would do that. Briefly, I want to know if you won't give me
your political support in this matter and join in with me on the basis
that I propose? I will make it perfectly clear to you beforehand who my
associates are. I will put all the data and details on the table
before you so that you can see for yourself how things are. If you
should find at any time that I have misrepresented anything you are at
full liberty, of course, to withdraw. As I said before," he concluded,
"I am not a beggar. I am not coming here to conceal any facts or to
hide anything which might deceive you as to the worth of all this to
us. I want you to know the facts. I want you to give me your aid on
such terms as you think are fair and equitable. Really the only
trouble with me in this situation is that I am not a silk stocking. If
I were this gas war would have been adjusted long ago. These gentlemen
who are so willing to reorganize through Mr. Schryhart are largely
opposed to me because I am--comparatively--a stranger in Chicago and
not in their set. If I were"--he moved his hand slightly--"I don't
suppose I would be here this evening asking for your favor, although
that does not say that I am not glad to be here, or that I would not be
glad to work with you in any way that I might. Circumstances simply
have not thrown me across your path before."
As he talked his eye fixed McKenty steadily, almost innocently; and the
latter, following him clearly, felt all the while that he was listening
to a strange, able, dark, and very forceful man. There was no beating
about the bush here, no squeamishness of spirit, and yet there was
subtlety--the kind McKenty liked. While he was amused by Cowperwood's
casual reference to the silk stockings who were keeping him out, it
appealed to him. He caught the point of view as well as the intention
of it. Cowperwood represented a new and rather pleasing type of
financier to him. Evidently, he was traveling in able company if one
could believe the men who had introduced him so warmly. McKenty, as
Cowperwood was well aware, had personally no interest in the old
companies and also--though this he did not say--no particular sympathy
with them. They were just remote financial corporations to him, paying
political tribute on demand, expecting political favors in return.
Every few weeks now they were in council, asking for one gas-main
franchise after another (special privileges in certain streets), asking
for better (more profitable) light-contracts, asking for dock
privileges in the river, a lower tax rate, and so forth and so on.
McKenty did not pay much attention to these things personally. He had
a subordinate in council, a very powerful henchman by the name of
Patrick Dowling, a meaty, vigorous Irishman and a true watch-dog of
graft for the machine, who worked with the mayor, the city treasurer,
the city tax receiver--in fact, all the officers of the current
administration--and saw that such minor matters were properly
equalized. Mr. McKenty had only met two or three of the officers of
the South Side Gas Company, and that quite casually. He did not like
them very well. The truth was that the old companies were officered by
men who considered politicians of the McKenty and Dowling stripe as
very evil men; if they paid them and did other such wicked things it
was because they were forced to do so.
"Well," McKenty replied, lingering his thin gold watch-chain in a
thoughtful manner, "that's an interesting scheme you have. Of course
the old companies wouldn't like your asking for a rival franchise, but
once you had it they couldn't object very well, could they?" He smiled.
Mr. McKenty spoke with no suggestion of a brogue. "From one point of
view it might be looked upon as bad business, but not entirely. They
would be sure to make a great cry, though they haven't been any too
kind to the public themselves. But if you offered to combine with them
I see no objection. It's certain to be as good for them in the long
run as it is for you. This merely permits you to make a better bargain."
"Exactly," said Cowperwood.
"And you have the means, you tell me, to lay mains in every part of the
city, and fight with them for business if they won't give in?"
"I have the means," said Cowperwood, "or if I haven't I can get them."
Mr. McKenty looked at Mr. Cowperwood very solemnly. There was a kind
of mutual sympathy, understanding, and admiration between the two men,
but it was still heavily veiled by self-interest. To Mr. McKenty
Cowperwood was interesting because he was one of the few business men
he had met who were not ponderous, pharasaical, even hypocritical when
they were dealing with him.
"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Cowperwood," he said, finally.
"I'll take it all under consideration. Let me think it over until
Monday, anyhow. There is more of an excuse now for the introduction of
a general gas ordinance than there would be a little later--I can see
that. Why don't you draw up your proposed franchise and let me see it?
Then we might find out what some of the other gentlemen of the city
council think."
Cowperwood almost smiled at the word "gentlemen."
"I have already done that," he said. "Here it is."
McKenty took it, surprised and yet pleased at this evidence of business
proficiency. He liked a strong manipulator of this kind--the more
since he was not one himself, and most of those that he did know were
thin-blooded and squeamish.
"Let me take this," he said. "I'll see you next Monday again if you
wish. Come Monday."
Cowperwood got up. "I thought I'd come and talk to you direct, Mr.
McKenty," he said, "and now I'm glad that I did. You will find, if you
will take the trouble to look into this matter, that it is just as I
represent it. There is a very great deal of money here in one way and
another, though it will take some little time to work it out."
Mr. McKenty saw the point. "Yes," he said, sweetly, "to be sure."
They looked into each other's eyes as they shook hands.
"I'm not sure but you haven't hit upon a very good idea here,"
concluded McKenty, sympathetically. "A very good idea, indeed. Come
and see me again next Monday, or about that time, and I'll let you know
what I think. Come any time you have anything else you want of me.
I'll always be glad to see you. It's a fine night, isn't it?" he
added, looking out as they neared the door. "A nice moon that!" he
added. A sickle moon was in the sky. "Good night."