The Financier a novel by Theodore Dreiser

 
 

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Chapter XIV 
The development of Cowperwood as Cowperwood & Co. following his 
arresting bond venture, finally brought him into relationship with one man 
who was to play an important part in his life, morally, financially, and in 
other ways. This was George W. Stener, the new city treasurer-elect, who, to 
begin with, was a puppet in the hands of other men, but who, also in spite 
of this fact, became a personage of considerable importance, for the simple 
reason that he was weak. Stener had been engaged in the real estate and 
insurance business in a small way before he was made city treasurer. He 
was one of those men, of whom there are so many thousands in every large 
community, with no breadth of vision, no real subtlety, no craft, no great 
skill in anything. You would never hear a new idea emanating from Stener. 
He never had one in his life. On the other hand, he was not a bad fellow. He 
had a stodgy, dusty, commonplace look to him which was more a matter of 
mind than of body. His eye was of vague gray-blue; his hair a dusty light-
brown and thin. His mouth—there was nothing impressive there. He was 
quite tall, nearly six feet, with moderately broad shoulders, but his figure 
was anything but shapely. He seemed to stoop a little, his stomach was the 
least bit protuberant, and he talked commonplaces—the small change of 
newspaper and street and business gossip. People liked him in his own 
neighborhood. He was thought to be honest and kindly; and he was, as far 
as he knew. His wife and four children were as average and insignificant as 
the wives and children of such men usually are. 
Just the same, and in spite of, or perhaps, politically speaking, because of 
all this, George W. Stener was brought into temporary public notice by 
certain political methods which had existed in Philadelphia practically 
unmodified for the previous half hundred years. First, because he was of the 
same political faith as the dominant local political party, he had become 
known to the local councilman and ward-leader of his ward as a faithful 
soul—one useful in the matter of drumming up votes. And next—although 
absolutely without value as a speaker, for he had no ideas—you could send 
him from door to door, asking the grocer and the blacksmith and the 
butcher how he felt about things and he would make friends, and in the 
long run predict fairly accurately the probable vote. Furthermore, you could 
dole him out a few platitudes and he would repeat them. The Republican