Obstacles
The impediments that can arise to baffle a great and swelling career
are strange and various. In some instances all the cross-waves of life
must be cut by the strong swimmer. With other personalities there is a
chance, or force, that happily allies itself with them; or they quite
unconsciously ally themselves with it, and find that there is a tide
that bears them on. Divine will? Not necessarily. There is no
understanding of it. Guardian spirits? There are many who so believe,
to their utter undoing. (Witness Macbeth). An unconscious drift in the
direction of right, virtue, duty? These are banners of mortal
manufacture. Nothing is proved; all is permitted.
Not long after Cowperwood's accession to control on the West Side, for
instance, a contest took place between his corporation and a citizen by
the name of Redmond Purdy--real-estate investor, property-trader, and
money-lender--which set Chicago by the ears. The La Salle and
Washington Street tunnels were now in active service, but because of
the great north and south area of the West Side, necessitating the
cabling of Van Buren Street and Blue Island Avenue, there was need of a
third tunnel somewhere south of Washington Street, preferably at Van
Buren Street, because the business heart was thus more directly
reached. Cowperwood was willing and anxious to build this tunnel,
though he was puzzled how to secure from the city a right of way under
Van Buren Street, where a bridge loaded with heavy traffic now swung.
There were all sorts of complications. In the first place, the consent
of the War Department at Washington had to be secured in order to
tunnel under the river at all. Secondly, the excavation, if directly
under the bridge, might prove an intolerable nuisance, necessitating
the closing or removal of the bridge. Owing to the critical, not to
say hostile, attitude of the newspapers which, since the La Salle and
Washington tunnel grants, were following his every move with a
searchlight, Cowperwood decided not to petition the city for privileges
in this case, but instead to buy the property rights of sufficient land
just north of the bridge, where the digging of the tunnel could proceed
without interference.
The piece of land most suitable for this purpose, a lot 150 x 150,
lying a little way from the river-bank, and occupied by a seven-story
loft-building, was owned by the previously mentioned Redmond Purdy, a
long, thin, angular, dirty person, who wore celluloid collars and cuffs
and spoke with a nasal intonation.
Cowperwood had the customary overtures made by seemingly disinterested
parties endeavoring to secure the land at a fair price. But Purdy, who
was as stingy as a miser and as incisive as a rat-trap, had caught wind
of the proposed tunnel scheme. He was all alive for a fine profit.
"No, no, no," he declared, over and over, when approached by the
representatives of Mr. Sylvester Toomey, Cowperwood's ubiquitous
land-agent. "I don't want to sell. Go away."
Mr. Sylvester Toomey was finally at his wit's end, and complained to
Cowperwood, who at once sent for those noble beacons of dark and stormy
waters, General Van Sickle and the Hon. Kent Barrows McKibben. The
General was now becoming a little dolty, and Cowperwood was thinking of
pensioning him; but McKibben was in his prime--smug, handsome, deadly,
smooth. After talking it over with Mr. Toomey they returned to
Cowperwood's office with a promising scheme. The Hon. Nahum
Dickensheets, one of the judges of the State Court of Appeals, and a
man long since attached, by methods which need not here be described,
to Cowperwood's star, had been persuaded to bring his extensive
technical knowledge to bear on the emergency. At his suggestion the
work of digging the tunnel was at once begun--first at the east or
Franklin Street end; then, after eight months' digging, at the west or
Canal Street end. A shaft was actually sunk some thirty feet back of
Mr. Purdy's building--between it and the river--while that gentleman
watched with a quizzical gleam in his eye this defiant procedure. He
was sure that when it came to the necessity of annexing his property
the North and West Chicago Street Railways would be obliged to pay
through the nose.
"Well, I'll be cussed," he frequently observed to himself, for he could
not see how his exaction of a pound of flesh was to be evaded, and yet
he felt strangely restless at times. Finally, when it became
absolutely necessary for Cowperwood to secure without further delay
this coveted strip, he sent for its occupant, who called in pleasant
anticipation of a profitable conversation; this should be worth a small
fortune to him.
"Mr. Purdy," observed Cowperwood, glibly, "you have a piece of land on
the other side of the river that I need. Why don't you sell it to me?
Can't we fix this up now in some amicable way?"
He smiled while Purdy cast shrewd, wolfish glances about the place,
wondering how much he could really hope to exact. The building, with
all its interior equipment, land, and all, was worth in the
neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars.
"Why should I sell? The building is a good building. It's as useful to
me as it would be to you. I'm making money out of it."
"Quite true," replied Cowperwood, "but I am willing to pay you a fair
price for it. A public utility is involved. This tunnel will be a
good thing for the West Side and any other land you may own over there.
With what I will pay you you can buy more land in that neighborhood or
elsewhere, and make a good thing out of it. We need to put this tunnel
just where it is, or I wouldn't trouble to argue with you.
"That's just it," replied Purdy, fixedly. "You've gone ahead and dug
your tunnel without consulting me, and now you expect me to get out of
the way. Well, I don't see that I'm called on to get out of there just
to please you."
"But I'll pay you a fair price."
"How much will you pay me?"
"How much do you want?"
Mr. Purdy scratched a fox-like ear. "One million dollars."
"One million dollars!" exclaimed Cowperwood. "Don't you think that's a
little steep, Mr. Purdy?"
"No," replied Purdy, sagely. "It's not any more than it's worth."
Cowperwood sighed.
"I'm sorry," he replied, meditatively, "but this is really too much.
Wouldn't you take three hundred thousand dollars in cash now and
consider this thing closed?"
"One million," replied Purdy, looking sternly at the ceiling. "Very
well, Mr. Purdy," replied Cowperwood. "I'm very sorry. It's plain to
me that we can't do business as I had hoped. I'm willing to pay you a
reasonable sum; but what you ask is far too much--preposterous! Don't
you think you'd better reconsider? We might move the tunnel even yet."
"One million dollars," said Purdy.
"It can't be done, Mr. Purdy. It isn't worth it. Why won't you be
fair? Call it three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars cash, and
my check to-night."
"I wouldn't take five or six hundred thousand dollars if you were to
offer it to me, Mr. Cowperwood, to-night or any other time. I know my
rights."
"Very well, then," replied Cowperwood, "that's all I can say. If you
won't sell, you won't sell. Perhaps you'll change your mind later."
Mr. Purdy went out, and Cowperwood called in his lawyers and his
engineers. One Saturday afternoon, a week or two later, when the
building in question had been vacated for the day, a company of three
hundred laborers, with wagons, picks, shovels, and dynamite sticks,
arrived. By sundown of the next day (which, being Sunday, was a legal
holiday, with no courts open or sitting to issue injunctions) this
comely structure, the private property of Mr. Redmond Purdy, was
completely razed and a large excavation substituted in its stead. The
gentleman of the celluloid cuffs and collars, when informed about nine
o'clock of this same Sunday morning that his building had been almost
completely removed, was naturally greatly perturbed. A portion of the
wall was still standing when he arrived, hot and excited, and the
police were appealed to.
But, strange to say, this was of little avail, for they were shown a
writ of injunction issued by the court of highest jurisdiction,
presided over by the Hon. Nahum Dickensheets, which restrained all and
sundry from interfering. (Subsequently on demand of another court this
remarkable document was discovered to have disappeared; the contention
was that it had never really existed or been produced at all.)
The demolition and digging proceeded. Then began a scurrying of
lawyers to the door of one friendly judge after another. There were
apoplectic cheeks, blazing eyes, and gasps for breath while the
enormity of the offense was being noised abroad. Law is law, however.
Procedure is procedure, and no writ of injunction was either issuable
or returnable on a legal holiday, when no courts were sitting.
Nevertheless, by three o'clock in the afternoon an obliging magistrate
was found who consented to issue an injunction staying this terrible
crime. By this time, however, the building was gone, the excavation
complete. It remained merely for the West Chicago Street Railway
Company to secure an injunction vacating the first injunction, praying
that its rights, privileges, liberties, etc., be not interfered with,
and so creating a contest which naturally threw the matter into the
State Court of Appeals, where it could safely lie. For several years
there were numberless injunctions, writs of errors, doubts, motions to
reconsider, threats to carry the matter from the state to the federal
courts on a matter of constitutional privilege, and the like. The
affair was finally settled out of court, for Mr. Purdy by this time was
a more sensible man. In the mean time, however, the newspapers had
been given full details of the transaction, and a storm of words
against Cowperwood ensued.
But more disturbing than the Redmond Purdy incident was the rivalry of
a new Chicago street-railway company. It appeared first as an idea in
the brain of one James Furnivale Woolsen, a determined young Westerner
from California, and developed by degrees into consents and petitions
from fully two-thirds of the residents of various streets in the
extreme southwest section of the city where it was proposed the new
line should be located. This same James Furnivale Woolsen, being an
ambitious person, was not to be so easily put down. Besides the
consent and petitions, which Cowperwood could not easily get away from
him, he had a new form of traction then being tried out in several
minor cities--a form of electric propulsion by means of an overhead
wire and a traveling pole, which was said to be very economical, and to
give a service better than cables and cheaper even than horses.
Cowperwood had heard all about this new electric system some time
before, and had been studying it for several years with the greatest
interest, since it promised to revolutionize the whole business of
street-railroading. However, having but so recently completed his
excellent cable system, he did not see that it was advisable to throw
it away. The trolley was as yet too much of a novelty; certainly it
was not advisable to have it introduced into Chicago until he was ready
to introduce it himself--first on his outlying feeder lines, he
thought, then perhaps generally.
But before he could take suitable action against Woolsen, that engaging
young upstart, who was possessed of a high-power imagination and a gift
of gab, had allied himself with such interested investors as Truman
Leslie MacDonald, who saw here a heaven-sent opportunity of mulcting
Cowperwood, and Jordan Jules, once the president of the North Chicago
Gas Company, who had lost money through Cowperwood in the gas war. Two
better instruments for goading a man whom they considered an enemy
could not well be imagined--Truman Leslie with his dark, waspish,
mistrustful, jealous eyes, and his slim, vital body; and Jordan Jules,
short, rotund, sandy, a sickly crop of thin, oily, light hair growing
down over his coat-collar, his forehead and crown glisteningly bald,
his eyes a seeking, searching, revengeful blue. They in turn brought
in Samuel Blackman, once president of the South Side Gas Company;
Sunderland Sledd, of local railroad management and stock-investment
fame; and Norrie Simms, president of the Douglas Trust Company, who,
however, was little more than a fiscal agent. The general feeling was
that Cowperwood's defensive tactics--which consisted in having the city
council refuse to act--could be easily met.
"Well, I think we can soon fix that," exclaimed young MacDonald, one
morning at a meeting. "We ought to be able to smoke them out. A little
publicity will do it."
He appealed to his father, the editor of the Inquirer, but the latter
refused to act for the time being, seeing that his son was interested.
MacDonald, enraged at the do-nothing attitude of the council, invaded
that body and demanded of Alderman Dowling, still leader, why this
matter of the Chicago general ordinances was still lying unconsidered.
Mr. Dowling, a large, mushy, placid man with blue eyes, an iron frame,
and a beefy smile, vouchsafed the information that, although he was
chairman of the committee on streets and alleys, he knew nothing about
it. "I haven't been payin' much attention to things lately," he
replied.
Mr. MacDonald went to see the remaining members of this same committee.
They were non-committal. They would have to look into the matter.
Somebody claimed that there was a flaw in the petitions.
Evidently there was crooked work here somewhere. Cowperwood was to
blame, no doubt. MacDonald conferred with Blackman and Jordan Jules,
and it was determined that the council should be harried into doing its
duty. This was a legitimate enterprise. A new and better system of
traction was being kept out of the city. Schryhart, since he was
offered an interest, and since there was considerable chance of his
being able to dominate the new enterprise, agreed that the ordinances
ought to be acted upon. In consequence there was a renewed hubbub in
the newspapers.
It was pointed out through Schryhart's Chronicle, through Hyssop's and
Merrill's papers, and through the Inquirer that such a situation was
intolerable. If the dominant party, at the behest of so sinister an
influence as Cowperwood, was to tie up all outside traction
legislation, there could be but one thing left--an appeal to the voters
of the city to turn the rascals out. No party could survive such a
record of political trickery and financial jugglery. McKenty, Dowling,
Cowperwood, and others were characterized as unreasonable
obstructionists and debasing influences. But Cowperwood merely smiled.
These were the caterwaulings of the enemy. Later, when young MacDonald
threatened to bring legal action to compel the council to do its duty,
Cowperwood and his associates were not so cheerful. A mandamus
proceeding, however futile, would give the newspapers great opportunity
for chatter; moreover, a city election was drawing near. However,
McKenty and Cowperwood were by no means helpless. They had offices,
jobs, funds, a well-organized party system, the saloons, the dives, and
those dark chambers where at late hours ballot-boxes are incontinently
stuffed.
Did Cowperwood share personally in all this? Not at all. Or McKenty?
No. In good tweed and fine linen they frequently conferred in the
offices of the Chicago Trust Company, the president's office of the
North Chicago Street Railway System, and Mr. Cowperwood's library. No
dark scenes were ever enacted there. But just the same, when the time
came, the Schryhart-Simms-MacDonald editorial combination did not win.
Mr. McKenty's party had the votes. A number of the most flagrantly
debauched aldermen, it is true, were defeated; but what is an alderman
here and there? The newly elected ones, even in the face of
pre-election promises and vows, could be easily suborned or convinced.
So the anti-Cowperwood element was just where it was before; but the
feeling against him was much stronger, and considerable sentiment
generated in the public at large that there was something wrong with
the Cowperwood method of street-railway control.