Theodore Dreiser - The Titan

Mr. Gilgan blinked his eyes solemnly. He rubbed his knees, put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, took out a cigar, lit it, and gazed poetically at the ceiling. He was thinking very, very hard. Mr. Cowperwood and Mr. McKenty, as he knew, were very powerful men. He had always managed to down the McKenty opposition in his ward, and several others adjacent to it, and in the Eighteenth Senatorial District, which he represented. But to be called upon to defeat him in Chicago, that was different. Still, the thought of a large amount of cash to be distributed through him, and the chance of wresting the city leadership from McKenty by the aid of the so-called moral forces of the city, was very inspiring. Mr. Gilgan was a good politician. He loved to scheme and plot and make deals—as much for the fun of it as anything else. Just now he drew a solemn face, which, however, concealed a very light heart.

“I have heard,” went on Hand, “that you have built up a strong organization in your ward and district.”

“I’ve managed to hold me own,” suggested Gilgan, archly. “But this winning all over Chicago,” he went on, after a moment, “now, that’s a pretty large order. There are thirty-one wards in Chicago this election, and all but eight of them are nominally Democratic. I know most of the men that are in them now, and some of them are pretty shrewd men, too. This man Dowling in council is nobody’s fool, let me tell you that. Then there’s Duvanicki and Ungerich and Tiernan and Kerrigan—all good men.” He mentioned four of the most powerful and crooked aldermen in the city. “You see, Mr. Hand, the way things are now the Democrats have the offices, and the small jobs to give out. That gives them plenty of political workers to begin with. Then they have the privilege of collecting money from those in office to help elect themselves. That’s another great privilege.” He smiled. “Then this man Cowperwood employs all of ten thousand men at present, and any ward boss that’s favorable to him can send a man out of work to him and he’ll find a place for him. That’s a gre-a-eat help in building up a party following. Then there’s the money a man like Cowperwood and others can contribute at election time. Say what you will, Mr. Hand, but it’s the two, and five, and ten dollar bills paid out at the last moment over the saloon bars and at the polling-places that do the work. Give me enough money”—and at this noble thought Mr. Gilgan straightened up and slapped one fist lightly in the other, adjusting at the same time his half-burned cigar so that it should not burn his hand—“and I can carry every ward in Chicago, bar none. If I have money enough,” he repeated, emphasizing the last two words. He put his cigar back in his mouth, blinked his eyes defiantly, and leaned back in his chair.

“Very good,” commented Hand, simply; “but how much money?”

“Ah, that’s another question,” replied Gilgan, straightening up once more. “Some wards require more than others. Counting out the eight that are normally Republican as safe, you would have to carry eighteen others to have a majority in council. I don’t see how anything under ten to fifteen thousand dollars to a ward would be safe to go on. I should say three hundred thousand dollars would be safer, and that wouldn’t be any too much by any means.”

Mr. Gilgan restored his cigar and puffed heavily the while he leaned back and lifted his eyes once more.

“And how would that money be distributed exactly?” inquired Mr. Hand.

“Oh, well, it’s never wise to look into such matters too closely,” commented Mr. Gilgan, comfortably. “There’s such a thing as cutting your cloth too close in politics. There are ward captains, leaders, block captains, workers. They all have to have money to do with—to work up sentiment—and you can’t be too inquiring as to just how they do it. It’s spent in saloons, and buying coal for mother, and getting Johnnie a new suit here and there. Then there are torch-light processions and club-rooms and jobs to look after. Sure, there’s plenty of places for it. Some men may have to be brought into these wards to live—kept in boarding-houses for a week or ten days.” He waved a hand deprecatingly.

Mr. Hand, who had never busied himself with the minutiae of politics, opened his eyes slightly. This colonizing idea was a little liberal, he thought.

“Who distributes this money?” he asked, finally.

“Nominally, the Republican County Committee, if it’s in charge; actually, the man or men who are leading the fight. In the case of the Democratic party it’s John J. McKenty, and don’t you forget it. In my district it’s me, and no one else.”

Mr. Hand, slow, solid, almost obtuse at times, meditated under lowering brows. He had always been associated with a more or less silk-stocking crew who were unused to the rough usage of back-room saloon politics, yet every one suspected vaguely, of course, at times that ballot-boxes were stuffed and ward lodging-houses colonized. Every one (at least every one of any worldly intelligence) knew that political capital was collected from office-seekers, office-holders, beneficiaries of all sorts and conditions under the reigning city administration. Mr. Hand had himself contributed to the Republican party for favors received or about to be. As a man who had been compelled to handle large affairs in a large way he was not inclined to quarrel with this. Three hundred thousand dollars was a large sum, and he was not inclined to subscribe it alone, but fancied that at his recommendation and with his advice it could be raised. Was Gilgan the man to fight Cowperwood? He looked him over and decided—other things being equal—that he was. And forthwith the bargain was struck. Gilgan, as a Republican central committeeman—chairman, possibly—was to visit every ward, connect up with every available Republican force, pick strong, suitable anti-Cowperwood candidates, and try to elect them, while he, Hand, organized the money element and collected the necessary cash. Gilgan was to be given money personally. He was to have the undivided if secret support of all the high Republican elements in the city. His business was to win at almost any cost. And as a reward he was to have the Republican support for Congress, or, failing that, the practical Republican leadership in city and county.

“Anyhow,” said Hand, after Mr. Gilgan finally took his departure, “things won’t be so easy for Mr. Cowperwood in the future as they were in the past. And when it comes to getting his franchises renewed, if I’m alive, we’ll see whether he will or not.”

The heavy financier actually growled a low growl as he spoke out loud to himself. He felt a boundless rancor toward the man who had, as he supposed, alienated the affections of his smart young wife.

In the first and second wards of Chicago at this time—wards including the business heart, South Clark Street, the water-front, the river-levee, and the like—were two men, Michael (alias Smiling Mike) Tiernan and Patrick (alias Emerald Pat) Kerrigan, who, for picturequeness of character and sordidness of atmosphere, could not be equaled elsewhere in the city, if in the nation at large. “Smiling” Mike Tiernan, proud possessor of four of the largest and filthiest saloons of this area, was a man of large and genial mold—perhaps six feet one inch in height, broad-shouldered in proportion, with a bovine head, bullet-shaped from one angle, and big, healthy, hairy hands and large feet. He had done many things from digging in a ditch to occupying a seat in the city council from this his beloved ward, which he sold out regularly for one purpose and another; but his chief present joy consisted in sitting behind a solid mahogany railing at a rosewood desk in the back portion of his largest Clark Street hostelry—“The Silver Moon.” Here he counted up the returns from his various properties—salons, gambling resorts, and houses of prostitution—which he manipulated with the connivance or blinking courtesy of the present administration, and listened to the pleas and demands of his henchmen and tenants.