Well, Mr. McKenty, said Cowperwood, choosing his words and bringing the finest resources of his temperament into play, it isnt 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 wont 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. <> 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. <> Now, Mr. McKenty, I know that you are a practical man. <> 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 need advice and assistance, and I am not begging it. <> Briefly, I want to know if you wont 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. <> I want you to give me your aid on such terms as you think are fair and equitable. <>
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[61], no squeamishness of spirit, and yet there was subtlety the kind McKenty liked. While he was amused by Cowperwoods casual reference to the silk stockings who were keeping him out, it appealed to him. <> 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. <> 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 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, Ill tell you what Ill do, Mr. Cowperwood, he said, finally. Ill 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 dont 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. Ill see you next Monday again if you wish. Come Monday.
Chapter XIII
The Die Is Cast[62]
The significance of this visit was not long in manifesting itself. At the top, in large affairs, life goes off into almost inexplicable tangles of personalities. Mr. McKenty, now that the matter had been called to his attention, was interested to learn about this gas situation from all sides whether it might not be more profitable to deal with the Schryhart end of the argument, and so on. But his eventual conclusion was that Cowperwoods plan, as he had outlined it, was the most feasible for political purposes, largely because the Schryhart faction, not being in a position where they needed to ask the city council for anything at present, were so obtuse as to forget to make overtures of any kind to the buccaneering forces at the City Hall[63].
When Cowperwood next came to McKentys house the latter was in a receptive frame of mind. Well, he said, after a few genial preliminary remarks, Ive been learning whats going on. Your proposition is fair enough. Organize your company, and arrange your plan conditionally. Then introduce your ordinance, and well see what can be done. They went into a long, intimate discussion as to how the forthcoming stock should be divided, how it was to be held in escrow by a favorite bank of Mr. McKentys until the terms of the agreement under the eventual affiliation with the old companies or the new union company should be fulfilled, and details of that sort. It was rather a complicated arrangement, not as satisfactory to Cowperwood as it might have been, but satisfactory in that it permitted him to win. It required the undivided services of General Van Sickle, Henry De Soto Sippens, Kent Barrows McKibben, and Alderman Dowling for some little time. But finally all was in readiness for the coup.
On a certain Monday night, therefore, following the Thursday on which, according to the rules of the city council, an ordinance of this character would have to be introduced, the plan, after being publicly broached but this very little while, was quickly considered by the city council and passed. There had been really no time for public discussion. This was just the thing, of course, that Cowperwood and McKenty were trying to avoid. On the day following the particular Thursday on which the ordinance had been broached in council as certain to be brought up for passage, Schryhart, through his lawyers and the officers of the old individual gas companies, had run to the newspapers and denounced the whole thing as plain robbery; but what were they to do? There was so little time for agitation. True the newspapers, obedient to this larger financial influence, began to talk of fair play to the old companies, and the uselessness of two large rival companies in the field when one would serve as well. Still the public, instructed or urged by the McKenty agents to the contrary, were not prepared to believe it. They had not been so well treated by the old companies as to make any outcry on their behalf.
Standing outside the city council door, on the Monday evening when the bill was finally passed, Mr. Samuel Blackman, president of the South Side Gas Company, a little, wispy man with shoe-brush whiskers, declared emphatically:
This is a scoundrelly piece of business. If the mayor signs that he should be impeached. There is not a vote in there to-night that has not been purchased not one. This is a fine element of brigandage to introduce into Chicago; why, people who have worked years and years to build up a business are not safe!
Its true, every word of it, complained Mr. Jordan Jules, president of the North Side company, a short, stout man with a head like an egg lying lengthwise, a mere fringe of hair, and hard, blue eyes. He was with Mr. Hudson Baker, tall and ambling, who was president of the West Chicago company. All of these had come to protest.
Its that scoundrel from Philadelphia. Hes the cause of all our troubles. Its high time the respectable business element of Chicago realized just what sort of a man they have to deal with in him. He ought to be driven out of here. Look at his Philadelphia record. They sent him to the penitentiary down there, and they ought to do it here.
Mr. Baker, very recently the guest of Schryhart, and his henchman, too, was also properly chagrined. The man is a charlatan, he protested to Blackman. He doesnt play fair. It is plain that he doesnt belong in respectable society.
Nevertheless, and in spite of this, the ordinance was passed. It was a bitter lesson for Mr. Norman Schryhart, Mr. Norrie Simms, and all those who had unfortunately become involved. A committee composed of all three of the old companies visited the mayor; but the latter, a tool of McKenty, giving his future into the hands of the enemy, signed it just the same. Cowperwood had his franchise, and, groan as they might, it was now necessary, in the language of a later day, to step up and see the captain. Only Schryhart felt personally that his score with Cowperwood was not settled. He would meet him on some other ground later. The next time he would try to fight fire with fire. But for the present, shrewd man that he was, he was prepared to compromise.
Thereafter, dissembling his chagrin as best he could, he kept on the lookout for Cowperwood at both of the clubs of which he was a member; but Cowperwood had avoided them during this period of excitement, and Mahomet would have to go to the mountain. So one drowsy June afternoon Mr. Schryhart called at Cowperwoods office. He had on a bright, new, steel-gray suit and a straw hat. From his pocket, according to the fashion of the time, protruded a neat, blue-bordered silk handkerchief, and his feet were immaculate in new, shining Oxford ties[64].
Im sailing for Europe in a few days, Mr. Cowperwood, he remarked, genially, and I thought Id drop round to see if you and I could reach some agreement in regard to this gas situation. The officers of the old companies naturally feel that they do not care to have a rival in the field, and Im sure that you are not interested in carrying on a useless rate war[65] that wont leave anybody any profit. I recall that you were willing to compromise on a half-andhalf basis with me before, and I was wondering whether you were still of that mind.
Sit down, sit down, Mr. Schryhart, remarked Cowperwood, cheerfully, waving the new-comer to a chair. Im pleased to see you again. No, Im no more anxious for a rate war than you are. As a matter of fact, I hope to avoid it; but, as you see, things have changed somewhat since I saw you. The gentlemen who have organized and invested their money in this new city gas company are perfectly willing rather anxious, in fact to go on and establish a legitimate business. They feel all the confidence in the world that they can do this, and I agree with them. A compromise might be effected between the old and the new companies, but not on the basis on which I was willing to settle some time ago. A new company has been organized since then, stock issued, and a great deal of money expended. (This was not true.) That stock will have to figure in any new agreement. I think a general union of all the companies is desirable, but it will have to be on a basis of one, two, three, or four shares whatever is decided at par for all stock involved.
Mr. Schryhart pulled a long face. Dont you think thats rather steep? he said, solemnly.
Not at all, not at all! replied Cowperwood. You know these new expenditures were not undertaken voluntarily. (The irony of this did not escape Mr. Schryhart, but he said nothing.)
I admit all that, but dont you think, since your shares are worth practically nothing at present, that you ought to be satisfied if they were accepted at par?
I cant see why, replied Cowperwood. Our future prospects are splendid. There must be an even adjustment here or nothing. What I want to know is how much treasury stock you would expect to have in the safe for the promotion of this new organization after all the old stockholders have been satisfied?
Well, as I thought before, from thirty to forty per cent. of the total issue, replied Schryhart, still hopeful of a profitable adjustment. I should think it could be worked on that basis.
And who gets that?
Why, the organizer, said Schryhart, evasively.
Yourself, perhaps, and myself.
And how would you divide it? Half and half, as before?
I should think that would be fair.
It isnt enough, returned Cowperwood, incisively. Since I talked to you last I have been compelled to shoulder obligations and make agreements which I did not anticipate then. The best I can do now is to accept three-fourths.
Schryhart straightened up determinedly and offensively. This was outrageous, he thought, impossible! The effrontery of it!
It can never be done, Mr. Cowperwood, he replied, forcefully. You are trying to unload too much worthless stock on the company as it is. The old companies stock is selling right now, as you know, for from one-fifty to two-ten. Your stock is worth nothing. If you are to be given two or three for one for that, and three-fourths of the remainder in the treasury, I for one[66] want nothing to do with the deal. You would be in control of the company, and it will be water-logged, at that. Talk about getting something for nothing! The best I would suggest to the stockholders of the old companies would be half and half. And I may say to you frankly, although you may not believe it, that the old companies will not join in with you in any scheme that gives you control. They are too much incensed. Feeling is running too high. It will mean a long, expensive fight, and they will never compromise. Now, if you have anything really reasonable to offer I would be glad to hear it. Otherwise I am afraid these negotiations are not going to come to anything.
Share and share alike, and three-fourths of the remainder, repeated Cowperwood, grimly. I do not want to control. If they want to raise the money and buy me out on that basis I am willing to sell. I want a decent return for investments I have made, and I am going to have it. I cannot speak for the others behind me, but as long as they deal through me that is what they will expect.
Mr. Schryhart went angrily away. He was exceedingly wroth. This proposition as Cowperwood now outlined it was bucaneering at its best. He proposed for himself to withdraw from the old companies if necessary, to close out his holdings and let the old companies deal with Cowperwood as best they could. So long as he had anything to do with it, Cowperwood should never gain control of the gas situation. Better to take him at his suggestion, raise the money and buy him out, even at an exorbitant figure. Then the old gas companies could go along and do business in their old-fashioned way without being disturbed. This buccaneer! This upstart! What a shrewd, quick, forceful move he had made! It irritated Mr. Schryhart greatly.