Now just at this time, it so chanced, Cowperwood was feeling rather secure as to his place in the Chicago financial world, although he was still smarting from the bitterness of the aspersions recently cast upon him from various quarters. Under such circumstances it was his temperament to evince a rugged contempt for humanity, rich and poor alike. He was well aware that Schryhart, although introduced, had never previously troubled to notice him.
Mr. Cowperwood begs me to say, wrote Miss Antoinette Nowak, at his dictation, that he finds himself very much pressed for time at present, but he would be glad to see Mr. Schryhart at his office at any time.
This irritated the dominating, self-sufficient Schryhart a little, but nevertheless he was satisfied that a conference could do no harm in this instance was advisable, in fact. So one Wednesday afternoon he journeyed to the office of Cowperwood, and was most hospitably received. <>
Well, to tell the truth, replied Schryhart, staring at the financier, I am interested in this local gas situation myself. It offers a rather profitable field for investment, and several members of the old companies have come to me recently to ask me to help them combine. (This was not true at all.) I have been wondering what chance you thought you had of winning along the lines you are now taking.
Cowperwood smiled. I hardly care to discuss that, he said, unless I know much more of your motives and connections than I do at present. Do I understand that you have really been appealed to by stockholders of the old companies to come in and help adjust this matter?
Exactly, said Schryhart.
And you think you can get them to combine? On what basis?
Oh, I should say it would be a simple matter to give each of them two or three shares of a new company for one in each of the old. We could then elect one set of officers. have one set of offices, stop all these suits, and leave everybody happy.
He said this in an easy, patronizing way, as though Cowperwood had not really thought it all out years before. It amazed the latter no little to see his own scheme patronizingly brought back to him, and that, too, by a very powerful man locally one who thus far had chosen to overlook him utterly.
On what basis, asked Cowperwood, cautiously, would you expect these new companies to come in?
On the same basis as the others, if they are not too heavily capitalized. I havent thought out all the details. Two or three for one, according to investment. Of course, the prejudices of these old companies have to be considered.
Cowperwood meditated. Should or should he not entertain this offer? Here was a chance to realize quickly by selling out to the old companies. Only Schryhart, not himself, would be taking the big end in this manipulative deal. Whereas if he waited even if Schryhart managed to combine the three old companies into one he might be able to force better terms. He was not sure. Finally he asked, How much stock of the new company would be left in your hands or in the hands of the organizing group after each of the old and new companies had been provided for on this basis?
Oh, possibly thirty-five or forty per cent. of the whole, replied Schryhart, ingratiatingly. The laborer is worthy of his hire.
Quite so, replied Cowperwood, smiling, but, seeing that I am the man who has been cutting the pole to knock this persimmon it seems to me that a pretty good share of that should come to me; dont you think so?
Just what do you mean?
Just what I have said. I personally have organized the new companies which have made this proposed combination possible. The plan you propose is nothing more than what I have been proposing for some time. The officers and directors of the old companies are angry at me merely because I am supposed to have invaded the fields that belong to them. Now, if on account of that they are willing to operate through you rather than through me, it seems to me that I should have a much larger share in the surplus. My personal interest in these new companies is not very large. I am really more of a fiscal agent than anything else. (This was not true, but Cowperwood preferred to have his guest think so.)
Schryhart smiled. But, my dear sir, he explained, you forget that I will be supplying nearly all the capital to do this.
You forget, retorted Cowperwood, that I am not a novice. I will guarantee to supply all the capital myself, and give you a good bonus for your services, if you want that. The plants and franchises of the old and new companies are worth something. You must remember that Chicago is growing.
I know that, replied Schryhart, evasively, but I also know that you have a long, expensive fight ahead of you. As things are now you cannot, of yourself, expect to bring these old companies to terms. They wont work with you, as I understand it. It will require an outsider like myself someone of influence, or perhaps, I had better say, of old standing in Chicago, someone who knows these people to bring about this combination. Have you anyone, do you think, who can do it better than I?
It is not at all impossible that I will find someone, replied Cowperwood, quite easily.
I hardly think so; certainly not as things are now. The old companies are not disposed to work through you, and they are through me. Dont you think you had better accept my terms and allow me to go ahead and close this matter up?
Not at all on that basis, replied Cowperwood, quite simply. We have invaded the enemies country too far and done too much. Three for one or four for one whatever terms are given the stockholders of the old companies is the best I will do about the new shares, and I must have one-half of whatever is left for myself. At that I will have to divide with others. (This was not true either.)
No, replied Schryhart, evasively and opposingly, shaking his square head. It cant be done. The risks are too great. I might allow you one-fourth, possibly I cant tell yet.
One-half or nothing, said Cowperwood, definitely.
Schryhart got up. Thats the best you will do, is it? he inquired.
The very best.
Im afraid then, he said, we cant come to terms. Im sorry. You may find this a rather long and expensive fight.
I have fully anticipated that, replied the financier.
Chapter XII
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[58]. 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. <>
Someone I dont know who is getting these three old companies together in one. Theres 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 isnt shrewd enough to organize a thing of that kind. Who are the incorporators?
Let me see the Douglas Trust Company. Mr. Simms is president of that. He isnt 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 dont let that worry you. They cant harm us if they do unite. Theyre 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 Addisons office in the Lake National.
Have you heard the news? exclaimed that individual, the moment Cowperwood appeared. Theyre planning to combine. Its 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 isnt our fault exactly. Do you know the terms of agreement?
Theyre 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[59]. 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, wont 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 dont 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 dont, said Addison; but I can get you a letter. Why?
Dont trouble to ask me that now. Get me as strong an introduction as you can.
Ill have one for you to-day some time, replied Addison, efficiently. Ill 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 mans resourcefulness. He never quarreled with the directness and incisiveness of Cowperwoods 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[60] 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 latters 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 Addisons 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. <>