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Chapter XXIV
The condition of the Republican party at this time in Philadelphia, its
relationship to George W. Stener, Edward Malia Butler, Henry A.
Mollenhauer, Senator Mark Simpson, and others, will have to be briefly
indicated here, in order to foreshadow Cowperwood's actual situation.
Butler, as we have seen, was normally interested in and friendly to
Cowperwood. Stener was Cowperwood's tool. Mollenhauer and Senator
Simpson were strong rivals of Butler for the control of city affairs. Simpson
represented the Republican control of the State legislature, which could
dictate to the city if necessary, making new election laws, revising the city
charter, starting political investigations, and the like. He had many
influential newspapers, corporations, banks, at his beck and call.
Mollenhauer represented the Germans, some Americans, and some large
stable corporations—a very solid and respectable man. All three were strong,
able, and dangerous politically. The two latter counted on Butler's influence,
particularly with the Irish, and a certain number of ward leaders and
Catholic politicians and laymen, who were as loyal to him as though he were
a part of the church itself. Butler's return to these followers was protection,
influence, aid, and good-will generally. The city's return to him, via
Mollenhauer and Simpson, was in the shape of contracts—fat ones—street-
paving, bridges, viaducts, sewers. And in order for him to get these contracts
the affairs of the Republican party, of which he was a beneficiary as well as
a leader, must be kept reasonably straight. At the same time it was no more
a part of his need to keep the affairs of the party straight than it was of
either Mollenhauer's or Simpson's, and Stener was not his appointee. The
latter was more directly responsible to Mollenhauer than to any one else.
As Butler stepped into the buggy with his son he was thinking about this,
and it was puzzling him greatly.
"Cowperwood's just been here," he said to Owen, who had been rapidly
coming into a sound financial understanding of late, and was already a
shrewder man politically and socially than his father, though he had not the
latter's magnetism. "He's been tellin' me that he's in a rather tight place. You
hear that?" he continued, as some voice in the distance was calling "Extra!
Extra!" "That's Chicago burnin', and there's goin' to be trouble on the stock
exchange to-morrow. We have a lot of our street-railway stocks around at
the different banks. If we don't look sharp they'll be callin' our loans. We
have to 'tend to that the first thing in the mornin'. Cowperwood has a
hundred thousand of mine with him that he wants me to let stay there, and
he has some money that belongs to Stener, he tells me."
"Stener?" asked Owen, curiously. "Has he been dabbling in stocks?" Owen
had heard some rumors concerning Stener and others only very recently,
which he had not credited nor yet communicated to his father. "How much
money of his has Cowperwood?" he asked.
Butler meditated. "Quite a bit, I'm afraid," he finally said. "As a matter of
fact, it's a great deal—about five hundred thousand dollars. If that should
become known, it would be makin' a good deal of noise, I'm thinkin'."
"Whew!" exclaimed Owen in astonishment. "Five hundred thousand dollars!
Good Lord, father! Do you mean to say Stener has got away with five
hundred thousand dollars? Why, I wouldn't think he was clever enough to
do that. Five hundred thousand dollars! It will make a nice row if that comes
out."
"Aisy, now! Aisy, now!" replied Butler, doing his best to keep all phases of
the situation in mind. "We can't tell exactly what the circumstances were
yet. He mayn't have meant to take so much. It may all come out all right yet.
The money's invested. Cowperwood hasn't failed yet. It may be put back.
The thing to be settled on now is whether anything can be done to save him.
If he's tellin' me the truth—and I never knew him to lie—he can get out of
this if street-railway stocks don't break too heavy in the mornin'. I'm going
over to see Henry Mollenhauer and Mark Simpson. They're in on this.
Cowperwood wanted me to see if I couldn't get them to get the bankers
together and have them stand by the market. He thought we might protect
our loans by comin' on and buyin' and holdin' up the price."
Owen was running swiftly in his mind over Cowperwood's affairs—as much
as he knew of them. He felt keenly that the banker ought to be shaken out.
This dilemma was his fault, not Stener's—he felt. It was strange to him that
his father did not see it and resent it.
"You see what it is, father," he said, dramatically, after a time.
"Cowperwood's been using this money of Stener's to pick up stocks, and he's
in a hole. If it hadn't been for this fire he'd have got away with it; but now he
wants you and Simpson and Mollenhauer and the others to pull him out.
He's a nice fellow, and I like him fairly well; but you're a fool if you do as he
wants you to. He has more than belongs to him already. I heard the other
day that he has the Front Street line, and almost all of Green and Coates;
and that he and Stener own the Seventeenth and Nineteenth; but I didn't
believe it. I've been intending to ask you about it. I think Cowperwood has a
majority for himself stowed away somewhere in every instance. Stener is just
a pawn. He moves him around where he pleases."
Owen's eyes gleamed avariciously, opposingly. Cowperwood ought to be
punished, sold out, driven out of the street-railway business in which Owen
was anxious to rise.
"Now you know," observed Butler, thickly and solemnly, "I always thought
that young felly was clever, but I hardly thought he was as clever as all that.
So that's his game. You're pretty shrewd yourself, aren't you? Well, we can
fix that, if we think well of it. But there's more than that to all this. You
don't want to forget the Republican party. Our success goes with the
success of that, you know"—and he paused and looked at his son. "If
Cowperwood should fail and that money couldn't be put back—" He broke
off abstractedly. "The thing that's troublin' me is this matter of Stener and
the city treasury. If somethin' ain't done about that, it may go hard with the
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