Theodore Dreiser - The Titan

The banking hostility to Cowperwood, which in its beginning had made necessary his trip to Kentucky and elsewhere, finally reached a climax. It followed an attempt on his part to furnish funds for the building of elevated roads. The hour for this new form of transit convenience had struck. The public demanded it. Cowperwood saw one elevated road, the South Side Alley Line, being built, and another, the West Side Metropolitan Line, being proposed, largely, as he knew, in order to create sentiment for the idea, and so to make his opposition to a general franchise difficult. He was well aware that if he did not choose to build them others would. It mattered little that electricity had arrived finally as a perfected traction factor, and that all his lines would soon have to be done over to meet that condition, or that it was costing him thousands and thousands to stay the threatening aspect of things politically. In addition he must now plunge into this new realm, gaining franchises by the roughest and subtlest forms of political bribery. The most serious aspect of this was not political, but rather financial. Elevated roads in Chicago, owing to the sparseness of the population over large areas, were a serious thing to contemplate. The mere cost of iron, right of way, rolling-stock, and power-plants was immense. Being chronically opposed to investing his private funds where stocks could just as well be unloaded on the public, and the management and control retained by him, Cowperwood, for the time being, was puzzled as to where he should get credit for the millions to be laid down in structural steel, engineering fees, labor, and equipment before ever a dollar could be taken out in passenger fares. Owing to the advent of the World’s Fair, the South Side ‘L’—to which, in order to have peace and quiet, he had finally conceded a franchise—was doing reasonably well. Yet it was not making any such return on the investment as the New York roads. The new lines which he was preparing would traverse even less populous sections of the city, and would in all likelihood yield even a smaller return. Money had to be forthcoming—something between twelve and fifteen million dollars—and this on the stocks and bonds of a purely paper corporation which might not yield paying dividends for years to come. Addison, finding that the Chicago Trust Company was already heavily loaded, called upon various minor but prosperous local banks to take over the new securities (each in part, of course). He was astonished and chagrined to find that one and all uniformly refused.

“I’ll tell you how it is, Judah,” one bank president confided to him, in great secrecy. “We owe Timothy Arneel at least three hundred thousand dollars that we only have to pay three per cent. for. It’s a call-loan. Besides, the Lake National is our main standby when it comes to quick trades, and he’s in on that. I understand from one or two friends that he’s at outs with Cowperwood, and we can’t afford to offend him. I’d like to, but no more for me—not at present, anyhow.”

“Why, Simmons,” replied Addison, “these fellows are simply cutting off their noses to spite their faces. These stock and bond issues are perfectly good investments, and no one knows it better than you do. All this hue and cry in the newspapers against Cowperwood doesn’t amount to anything. He’s perfectly solvent. Chicago is growing. His lines are becoming more valuable every year.”

“I know that,” replied Simmons. “But what about this talk of a rival elevated system? Won’t that injure his lines for the time being, anyhow, if it comes into the field?”

“If I know anything about Cowperwood,” replied Addison, simply, “there isn’t going to be any rival elevated road. It’s true they got the city council to give them a franchise for one line on the South Side; but that’s out of his territory, anyhow, and that other one to the Chicago General Company doesn’t amount to anything. It will be years and years before it can be made to pay a dollar, and when the time comes he will probably take it over if he wants it. Another election will be held in two years, and then the city administration may not be so unfavorable. As it is, they haven’t been able to hurt him through the council as much as they thought they would.”

“Yes; but he lost the election.”

“True; but it doesn’t follow he’s going to lose the next one, or every one.”

“Just the same,” replied Simmons, very secretively, “I understand there’s a concerted effort on to drive him out. Schryhart, Hand, Merrill, Arneel—they’re the most powerful men we have. I understand Hand says that he’ll never get his franchises renewed except on terms that’ll make his lines unprofitable. There’s going to be an awful smash here one of these days if that’s true.” Mr. Simmons looked very wise and solemn.

“Never believe it,” replied Addison, contemptuously. “Hand isn’t Chicago, neither is Schryhart, nor Arneel. Cowperwood is a brainy man. He isn’t going to be put under so easily. Did you ever hear what was the real bottom cause of all this disturbance?”

“Yes, I’ve heard,” replied Simmons.

“Do you believe it?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Yes, I suppose I do. Still, I don’t know that that need have anything to do with it. Money envy is enough to make any man fight. This man Hand is very powerful.”

Not long after this Cowperwood, strolling into the president’s office of the Chicago Trust Company, inquired: “Well, Judah, how about those Northwestern ‘L’ bonds?”

“It’s just as I thought, Frank,” replied Addison, softly. “We’ll have to go outside of Chicago for that money. Hand, Arneel, and the rest of that crowd have decided to combine against us. That’s plain. Something has started them off in full cry. I suppose my resignation may have had something to do with it. Anyhow, every one of the banks in which they have any hand has uniformly refused to come in. To make sure that I was right I even called up the little old Third National of Lake View and the Drovers and Traders on Forty-seventh Street. That’s Charlie Wallin’s bank. When I was over in the Lake National he used to hang around the back door asking for anything I could give him that was sound. Now he says his orders are from his directors not to share in anything we have to offer. It’s the same story everywhere—they daren’t. I asked Wallin if he knew why the directors were down on the Chicago Trust or on you, and at first he said he didn’t. Then he said he’d stop in and lunch with me some day. They’re the silliest lot of old ostriches I ever heard of. As if refusing to let us have money on any loan here was going to prevent us from getting it! They can take their little old one-horse banks and play blockhouses with them if they want to. I can go to New York and in thirty-six hours raise twenty million dollars if we need it.”

Addison was a little warm. It was a new experience for him. Cowperwood merely curled his mustaches and smiled sardonically.

“Well, never mind,” he said. “Will you go down to New York, or shall I?”

It was decided, after some talk, that Addison should go. When he reached New York he found, to his surprise, that the local opposition to Cowperwood had, for some mysterious reason, begun to take root in the East.

“I’ll tell you how it is,” observed Joseph Haeckelheimer, to whom Addison applied—a short, smug, pussy person who was the head of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co., international bankers. “We hear odd things concerning Mr. Cowperwood out in Chicago. Some people say he is sound—some not. He has some very good franchises covering a large portion of the city, but they are only twenty-year franchises, and they will all run out by 1903 at the latest. As I understand it, he has managed to stir up all the local elements—some very powerful ones, too—and he is certain to have a hard time to get his franchises renewed. I don’t live in Chicago, of course. I don’t know much about it, but our Western correspondent tells me this is so. Mr. Cowperwood is a very able man, as I understand it, but if all these influential men are opposed to him they can make him a great deal of trouble. The public is very easily aroused.”