A Marauder Upon the Commonwealth
The spring and summer months of 1897 and the late fall of 1898
witnessed the final closing battle between Frank Algernon Cowperwood
and the forces inimical to him in so far as the city of Chicago, the
state of Illinois, and indeed the United States of America, were
concerned. When in 1896 a new governor and a new group of state
representatives were installed Cowperwood decided that it would be
advisable to continue the struggle at once. By the time this new
legislature should convene for its labors a year would have passed
since Governor Swanson had vetoed the original
public-service-commission bill. By that time public sentiment as
aroused by the newspapers would have had time to cool. Already through
various favorable financial interests--particularly Haeckelheimer,
Gotloeb & Co. and all the subsurface forces they represented--he had
attempted to influence the incoming governor, and had in part succeeded.
The new governor in this instance--one Corporal A. E. Archer--or
ex-Congressman Archer, as he was sometimes called--was, unlike Swanson,
a curious mixture of the commonplace and the ideal--one of those
shiftily loyal and loyally shifty who make their upward way by devious,
if not too reprehensible methods. He was a little man, stocky,
brown-haired, brown-eyed, vigorous, witty, with the ordinary
politician's estimate of public morality--namely, that there is no such
thing. A drummer-boy at fourteen in the War of the Rebellion, a
private at sixteen and eighteen, he had subsequently been breveted for
conspicuous military service. At this later time he was head of the
Grand Army of the Republic, and conspicuous in various stirring
eleemosynary efforts on behalf of the old soldiers, their widows and
orphans. A fine American, flag-waving, tobacco-chewing, foul-swearing
little man was this--and one with noteworthy political ambitions.
Other Grand Army men had been conspicuous in the lists for Presidential
nominations. Why not he? An excellent orator in a high falsetto way,
and popular because of good-fellowship, presence, force, he was by
nature materially and commercially minded--therefore without basic
appeal to the higher ranks of intelligence. In seeking the nomination
for governorship he had made the usual overtures and had in turn been
sounded by Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb, and various other corporate
interests who were in league with Cowperwood as to his attitude in
regard to a proposed public-service commission. At first he had
refused to commit himself. Later, finding that the C. W. & I. and the
Chicago & Pacific (very powerful railroads both) were interested, and
that other candidates were running him a tight chase in the
gubernatorial contest, he succumbed in a measure, declaring privately
that in case the legislature proved to be strongly in favor of the idea
and the newspapers not too crushingly opposed he might be willing to
stand as its advocate. Other candidates expressed similar views, but
Corporal Archer proved to have the greater following, and was
eventually nominated and comfortably elected.
Shortly after the new legislature had convened, it so chanced that a
certain A. S. Rotherhite, publisher of the South Chicago Journal, was
one day accidentally sitting as a visitor in the seat of a state
representative by the name of Clarence Mulligan. While so occupied
Rotherhite was familiarly slapped on the back by a certain Senator
Ladrigo, of Menard, and was invited to come out into the rotunda,
where, posing as Representative Mulligan, he was introduced by Senator
Ladrigo to a stranger by the name of Gerard. The latter, with but few
preliminary remarks, began as follows:
"Mr. Mulligan, I want to fix it with you in regard to this Southack
bill which is soon to come up in the house. We have seventy votes, but
we want ninety. The fact that the bill has gone to a second reading in
the senate shows our strength. I am authorized to come to terms with
you this morning if you would like. Your vote is worth two thousand
dollars to you the moment the bill is signed."
Mr. Rotherhite, who happened to be a newly recruited member of the
Opposition press, proved very canny in this situation.
"Excuse me," he stammered, "I did not understand your name?"
"Gerard. G-er-ard. Henry A. Gerard," replied this other.
"Thank you. I will think it over," was the response of the presumed
Representative Mulligan.
Strange to state, at this very instant the authentic Mulligan actually
appeared--heralded aloud by several of his colleagues who happened to
be lingering near by in the lobby. Whereupon the anomalous Mr. Gerard
and the crafty Senator Ladrigo discreetly withdrew. Needless to say
that Mr. Rotherhite hurried at once to the forces of righteousness.
The press should spread this little story broadcast. It was a very
meaty incident; and it brought the whole matter once more into the
fatal, poisonous field of press discussion.
At once the Chicago papers flew to arms. The cry was raised that the
same old sinister Cowperwoodian forces were at work. The members of
the senate and the house were solemnly warned. The sterling attitude
of ex-Governor Swanson was held up as an example to the present
Governor Archer. "The whole idea," observed an editorial in Truman
Leslie MacDonald's Inquirer, "smacks of chicane, political subtlety,
and political jugglery. Well do the citizens of Chicago and the people
of Illinois know who and what particular organization would prove the
true beneficiaries. We do not want a public-service commission at the
behest of a private street-railway corporation. Are the tentacles of
Frank A. Cowperwood to envelop this legislature as they did the last?"
This broadside, coming in conjunction with various hostile rumblings in
other papers, aroused Cowperwood to emphatic language.
"They can all go to the devil," he said to Addison, one day at lunch.
"I have a right to an extension of my franchises for fifty years, and I
am going to get it. Look at New York and Philadelphia. Why, the
Eastern houses laugh. They don't understand such a situation. It's
all the inside work of this Hand-Schryhart crowd. I know what they're
doing and who's pulling the strings. The newspapers yap-yap every time
they give an order. Hyssop waltzes every time Arneel moves. Little
MacDonald is a stool-pigeon for Hand. It's got down so low now that
it's anything to beat Cowperwood. Well, they won't beat me. I'll find
a way out. The legislature will pass a bill allowing for a fifty-year
franchise, and the governor will sign it. I'll see to that personally.
I have at least eighteen thousand stockholders who want a decent run
for their money, and I propose to give it to them. Aren't other men
getting rich? Aren't other corporations earning ten and twelve per
cent? Why shouldn't I? Is Chicago any the worse? Don't I employ twenty
thousand men and pay them well? All this palaver about the rights of
the people and the duty to the public--rats! Does Mr. Hand acknowledge
any duty to the public where his special interests are concerned? Or
Mr. Schryhart? Or Mr. Arneel? The newspapers be damned! I know my
rights. An honest legislature will give me a decent franchise to save
me from the local political sharks."
By this time, however, the newspapers had become as subtle and powerful
as the politicians themselves. Under the great dome of the capitol at
Springfield, in the halls and conference chambers of the senate and
house, in the hotels, and in the rural districts wherever any least
information was to be gathered, were their representatives--to see, to
listen, to pry. Out of this contest they were gaining prestige and
cash. By them were the reform aldermen persuaded to call mass-meetings
in their respective districts. Property-owners were urged to organize;
a committee of one hundred prominent citizens led by Hand and Schryhart
was formed. It was not long before the halls, chambers, and
committee-rooms of the capitol at Springfield and the corridors of the
one principal hotel were being tramped over almost daily by rampant
delegations of ministers, reform aldermen, and civil committeemen, who
arrived speechifying, threatening, and haranguing, and departed, only
to make room for another relay.
"Say, what do you think of these delegations, Senator?" inquired a
certain Representative Greenough of Senator George Christian, of
Grundy, one morning, the while a group of Chicago clergymen accompanied
by the mayor and several distinguished private citizens passed through
the rotunda on their way to the committee on railroads, where the house
bill was privily being discussed. "Don't you think they speak well for
our civic pride and moral upbringing?" He raised his eyes and crossed
his fingers over his waistcoat in the most sanctimonious and
reverential attitude.
"Yes, dear Pastor," replied the irreverent Christian, without the
shadow of a smile. He was a little sallow, wiry man with eyes like a
ferret, a small mustache and goatee ornamenting his face. "But do not
forget that the Lord has called us also to this work."
"Even so," acquiesced Greenough. "We must not weary in well doing. The
harvest is truly plenteous and the laborers are few."
"Tut, tut, Pastor. Don't overdo it. You might make me larf," replied
Christian; and the twain parted with knowing and yet weary smiles.
Yet how little did the accommodating attitude of these gentlemen avail
in silencing the newspapers. The damnable newspapers! They were here,
there, and everywhere reporting each least fragment of rumor,
conversation, or imaginary programme. Never did the citizens of
Chicago receive so keen a drilling in statecraft--its subtleties and
ramifications. The president of the senate and the speaker of the
house were singled out and warned separately as to their duty. A page
a day devoted to legislative proceeding in this quarter was practically
the custom of the situation. Cowperwood was here personally on the
scene, brazen, defiant, logical, the courage of his convictions in his
eyes, the power of his magnetism fairly enslaving men. Throwing off
the mask of disinterestedness--if any might be said to have covered
him--he now frankly came out in the open and, journeying to
Springfield, took quarters at the principal hotel. Like a general in
time of battle, he marshaled his forces about him. In the warm,
moonlit atmosphere of June nights when the streets of Springfield were
quiet, the great plain of Illinois bathed for hundreds of miles from
north to south in a sweet effulgence and the rurals slumbering in their
simple homes, he sat conferring with his lawyers and legislative agents.
Pity in such a crisis the poor country-jake legislator torn between his
desire for a justifiable and expedient gain and his fear lest he should
be assailed as a betrayer of the people's interests. To some of these
small-town legislators, who had never seen as much as two thousand
dollars in cash in all their days, the problem was soul-racking. Men
gathered in private rooms and hotel parlors to discuss it. They stood
in their rooms at night and thought about it alone. The sight of big
business compelling its desires the while the people went begging was
destructive. Many a romantic, illusioned, idealistic young country
editor, lawyer, or statesman was here made over into a minor cynic or
bribe-taker. Men were robbed of every vestige of faith or even of
charity; they came to feel, perforce, that there was nothing outside
the capacity for taking and keeping. The surface might appear
commonplace--ordinary men of the state of Illinois going here and
there--simple farmers and small-town senators and representatives
conferring and meditating and wondering what they could do--yet a
jungle-like complexity was present, a dark, rank growth of horrific but
avid life--life at the full, life knife in hand, life blazing with
courage and dripping at the jaws with hunger.
However, because of the terrific uproar the more cautious legislators
were by degrees becoming fearful. Friends in their home towns, at the
instigation of the papers, were beginning to write them. Political
enemies were taking heart. It meant too much of a sacrifice on the
part of everybody. In spite of the fact that the bait was apparently
within easy reach, many became evasive and disturbed. When a certain
Representative Sparks, cocked and primed, with the bill in his pocket,
arose upon the floor of the house, asking leave to have it spread upon
the minutes, there was an instant explosion. The privilege of the
floor was requested by a hundred. Another representative, Disback,
being in charge of the opposition to Cowperwood, had made a count of
noses and was satisfied in spite of all subtlety on the part of the
enemy that he had at least one hundred and two votes, the necessary
two-thirds wherewith to crush any measure which might originate on the
floor. Nevertheless, his followers, because of caution, voted it to a
second and a third reading. All sorts of amendments were made--one for
a three-cent fare during the rush-hours, another for a 20 per cent. tax
on gross receipts. In amended form the measure was sent to the senate,
where the changes were stricken out and the bill once more returned to
the house. Here, to Cowperwood's chagrin, signs were made manifest
that it could not be passed. "It can't be done, Frank," said Judge
Dickensheets. "It's too grilling a game. Their home papers are after
them. They can't live."
Consequently a second measure was devised--more soothing and lulling to
the newspapers, but far less satisfactory to Cowperwood. It conferred
upon the Chicago City Council, by a trick of revising the old Horse and
Dummy Act of 1865, the right to grant a franchise for fifty instead of
for twenty years. This meant that Cowperwood would have to return to
Chicago and fight out his battle there. It was a severe blow, yet
better than nothing. Providing that he could win one more franchise
battle within the walls of the city council in Chicago, it would give
him all that he desired. But could he? Had he not come here to the
legislature especially to evade such a risk? His motives were enduring
such a blistering exposure. Yet perhaps, after all, if the price were
large enough the Chicago councilmen would have more real courage than
these country legislators--would dare more. They would have to.
So, after Heaven knows what desperate whisperings, conferences,
arguments, and heartening of members, there was originated a second
measure which--after the defeat of the first bill, 104 to 49--was
introduced, by way of a very complicated path, through the judiciary
committee. It was passed; and Governor Archer, after heavy hours of
contemplation and self-examination, signed it. A little man mentally,
he failed to estimate an aroused popular fury at its true import to
him. At his elbow was Cowperwood in the clear light of day, snapping
his fingers in the face of his enemies, showing by the hard, cheerful
glint in his eye that he was still master of the situation, giving all
assurance that he would yet live to whip the Chicago papers into
submission. Besides, in the event of the passage of the bill,
Cowperwood had promised to make Archer independently rich--a cash
reward of five hundred thousand dollars.