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THE TITAN
ing that a strictly moral programme be adhered to in all the doings of council, and that no jobs, contracts, or deals of any kind be
entered into without the full knowledge of the newspapers and of
the public. Gilgan, even after the fi rst post-election conference with
his colleagues, had begun to feel that he was between the devil and
the deep sea, but he was feeling his way, and not inclined to be in
too much of a hurry.
«It’s rather a fl at proposition you’re makin’ me», he said softly,
after a time, «askin’ me to throw down me friends the moment I’ve
won a victory for ’em. It’s not the way I’ve been used to playin’ politics.
There may be a lot of truth in what you say. Still, a man can’t be jumpin’
around like a cat in a bag. He has to be faithful to somebody sometime».
Mr. Gilgan paused, considerably nonplussed by his own position.
«Well», replied Cowperwood, sympathetically, «think it over. It’s
diffi cult business, this business of politics. I’m in it, for one, only
because I have to be. If you see any way you can help me, or I can
help you, let me know. In the mean time don’t take in bad part what
I’ve just said. I’m in the position of a man with his hack to the wall.
I’m fi ghting for my life. Naturally, I’m going to fi ght. But you and
I needn’t be the worse friends for that. We may become the best of
friends yet».
«It’s well I know that», said Gilgan, «and it’s the best of friends
I’d like to be with you. But even if I could take care of the aldermen,
which I couldn’t alone as yet, there’s the mayor. I don’t know him at
all except to say how-do-ye-do now and then; but he’s very much
opposed to you, as I understand it. He’ll be running around most
likely and talking in the papers. A man like that can do a good deal».
«I may be able to arrange for that», replied Cowperwood. «Perhaps Mr. Sluss can be reached. It may be that he isn’t as opposed to
me as he thinks he is. You never can tell».
CHAPTER XXXIX
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION
Oliver Marchbanks, the youthful fox to whom Stimson had assigned the task of trapping Mr. Sluss in some legally unsanctioned
act, had by scurrying about fi nally pieced together enough of a story
to make it exceedingly unpleasant for the Honorable Chaffee in case
he were to become the too willing tool of Cowperwood’s enemies.
The principal agent in this affair was a certain Claudia Carlstadt —
adventuress, detective by disposition, and a sort of smiling prostitute
and hireling, who was at the same time a highly presentable and experienced individual. Needless to say, Cowperwood knew nothing of
these minor proceedings, though a genial nod from him in the beginning had set in motion the whole machinery of trespass in this respect.
Claudia Carlstadt — the instrument of the Honorable Chaffee’s
undoing — was blonde, slender, notably fresh as yet, being only
twenty-six, and as ruthless and unconsciously cruel as only the avaricious and unthinking type — unthinking in the larger philosophic meaning of the word — can be. To grasp the reason for her being, one would have had to see the spiritless South Halstead Street
world from which she had sprung — one of those neighborhoods of
old, cracked, and battered houses where slatterns trudge to and fro
with beer-cans and shutters swing on broken hinges. In her youth
Claudia had been made to «rush the growler», to sell newspapers at
the corner of Halstead and Harrison streets, and to buy cocaine at
the nearest drug store. Her little dresses and underclothing had always been of the poorest and shabbiest material — torn and dirty,
342
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her ragged stockings frequently showed the white fl esh of her thin
little legs, and her shoes were worn and cracked, letting the water
and snow seep through in winter. Her companions were wretched
little street boys of her own neighborhood, from whom she learned
to swear and to understand and indulge in vile practices, though,
as is often the case with children, she was not utterly depraved
thereby, at that. At eleven, when her mother died, she ran away
from the wretched children’s home to which she had been committed, and by putting up a piteous tale she was harbored on the West
Side by an Irish family whose two daughters were clerks in a large
retail store. Through these Claudia became a cash-girl. Thereafter
followed an individual career as strange and checkered as anything
that had gone before. Suffi cient to say that Claudia’s native intelligence was considerable. At the age of twenty she had managed —
through her connections with the son of a shoe manufacturer and
with a rich jeweler — to amass a little cash and an extended wardrobe. It was then that a handsome young Western Congressman,
newly elected, invited her to Washington to take a position in a government bureau. This necessitated a knowledge of stenography and
typewriting, which she soon acquired. Later she was introduced by
a Western Senator into that form of secret service which has no
connection with legitimate government, but which is profi table.
She was used to extract secrets by fl attery and cajolery where ordinary bribery would not avail. A matter of tracing the secret fi nancial
connections of an Illinois Congressman fi nally brought her back to
Chicago, and here young Stimson encountered her. From him she
learned of the political and fi nancial conspiracy against Cowperwood, and was in an odd manner fascinated. From her Congressmen
friends she already knew something of Sluss. Stimson indicated that
it would be worth two or three thousand dollars and expenses if
the mayor were successfully compromised. Thus Claudia Carlstadt
was gently navigated into Mr. Sluss’s glowing life.
The matter was not so diffi cult of accomplishment. Through
the Hon. Joel Avery, Marchbanks secured a letter from a political
343
THEODORE DREISER
friend of Mr. Sluss in behalf of a young widow — temporarily embarrassed, a competent stenographer, and the like — who wished
a place under the new administration. Thus equipped, Claudia presented herself at the mayor’s offi ce armed for the fray, as it were, in
a fetching black silk of a strangely heavy grain, her throat and fi ngers ornamented with simple pearls, her yellow hair arranged about
her temples in exquisite curls. Mr. Sluss was very busy, but made
an appointment. The next time she appeared a yellow and red velvet
rose had been added to her corsage. She was a shapely, full-bosomed
young woman who had acquired the art of walking, sitting, standing, and bending after the most approved theories of the Washington cocotte. Mr. Sluss was interested at once, but circumspect and
careful. He was now mayor of a great city, the cynosure of all eyes.
It seemed to him he remembered having already met Mrs. Brandon,
as the lady styled herself, and she reminded him where. It had been
two years before in the grill of the Richelieu. He immediately recalled details of the interesting occasion.
«Ah, yes, and since then, as I understand it, you married and
your husband died. Most unfortunate».
Mr. Sluss had a large international manner suited, as he thought,
to a man in so exalted a position.
Mrs. Brandon nodded resignedly. Her eyebrows and lashes
were carefully darkened so as to sweeten the lines of her face, and
a dimple had been made in one cheek by the aid of an orange stick.
She was the picture of delicate femininity appealingly distressful,
and yet to all appearance commercially competent.
«At the time I met you you were connected with the government service in Washington, I believe».
«Yes, I had a small place in the Treasury Department, but this
new administration put me out».
She lifted her eyes and leaned forward, thus bringing her torso
into a ravishing position. She had the air of one who has done many
things besides work in the Treasury Department. No least detail, as
she observed, was lost on Mr. Sluss. He noted her shoes, which were
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button patent leather with cloth tops; her gloves, which were glace
black kid with white stitching at the back and fastened by darkgamet buttons; the coral necklace worn on this occasion, and her
yellow and red velvet rose. Evidently a trig and hopeful widow, even
if so recently bereaved.
«Let me see», mused Mr. Sluss, «where are you living? Just let
me make a note of your address. This is a very nice letter from Mr.
Barry. Suppose you give me a few days to think what I can do? This is
Tuesday. Come in again on Friday. I’ll see if anything suggests itself».
He strolled with her to the offi cial door, and noted that her step
was light and springy. At parting she turned a very melting gaze
upon him, and at once he decided that if he could he would fi nd
her something. She was the most fascinating applicant that had yet
appeared.
The end of Chaffee Thayer Sluss was not far distant after this.
Mrs. Brandon returned, as requested, her costume enlivened this
time by a red-silk petticoat which contrived to show its ingratiating
fl ounces beneath the glistening black broadcloth of her skirt.
«Say, did you get on to that?» observed one of the doormen,
a hold-over from the previous regime, to another of the same vintage. «Some style to the new administration, hey? We’re not so slow,
do you think?»
He pulled his coat together and fumbled at his collar to give
himself an air of smartness, and gazed gaily at his partner, both of
them over sixty and dusty specimens, at that.
The other poked him in the stomach. «Hold your horses there,
Bill. Not so fast. We ain’t got a real start yet. Give us another six
months, and then watch out».
Mr. Sluss was pleased to see Mrs. Brandon. He had spoken to
John Bastienelli, the new commissioner of taxes, whose offi ces were
directly over the way on the same hall, and the latter, seeing that he
might want favors of the mayor later on, had volubly agreed to take
care of the lady.
345
THEODORE DREISER
«I am very glad to be able to give you this letter to Mr. Bastienelli», commented Mr. Sluss, as he rang for a stenographer, «not only
for the sake of my old friend Mr. Barry, but for your own as well. Do
you know Mr. Barry very well?» he asked, curiously.
«Only slightly», admitted Mrs. Brandon, feeling that Mr. Sluss
would be glad to know she was not very intimate with those who
were recommending her. «I was sent to him by a Mr. Amerman».
(She named an entirely fi ctitious personage.)
Mr. Sluss was relieved. As he handed her the note she once
more surveyed him with those grateful, persuasive, appealing eyes.
They made him almost dizzy, and set up a chemical perturbation in
his blood which quite dispelled his good resolutions in regard to
the strange woman and his need of being circumspect.
«You say you are living on the North Side?» he inquired, smiling
weakly, almost foolishly.
«Yes, I have taken such a nice little apartment over-looking Lincoln Park. I didn’t know whether I was going to be able to keep it up,
but now that I have this position — You’ve been so very kind to me,
Mr. Sluss», she concluded, with the same I-need-to-be-cared-for air.
«I hope you won’t forget me entirely. If I could be of any personal
service to you at any time —»
Mr. Sluss was rather beside himself at the thought that this
charming baggage of femininity, having come so close for the minute, was now passing on and might disappear entirely. By a great
effort of daring, as they walked toward the door, he managed to say:
«I shall have to look into that little place of yours sometime and see
how you are getting along. I live up that way myself».
«Oh, do!» she exclaimed, warmly. «It would be so kind. I am practically alone in the world. Perhaps you play cards. I know how to
make a most wonderful punch. I should like you to see how cozily
I am settled».
At this Mr. Sluss, now completely in tow of his principal weakness, capitulated. «I will», he said, «I surely will. And that sooner
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THE TITAN
than you expect, perhaps. You must let me know how you are
getting along».
He took her hand. She held his quite warmly. «Now I’ll hold you
to your promise», she gurgled, in a throaty, coaxing way. A few days
later he encountered her at lunch-time in his hall, where she had
been literally lying in wait for him in order to repeat her invitation.
Then he came.
The hold-over employees who worked about the City Hall in
connection with the mayor’s offi ce were hereafter instructed to
note as witnesses the times of arrival and departure of Mrs. Brandon
and Mr. Sluss. A note that he wrote to Mrs. Brandon was carefully
treasured, and suffi cient evidence as to their presence at hotels and
restaurants was garnered to make out a damaging case. The whole
affair took about four months; then Mrs. Brandon suddenly received
an offer to return to Washington, and decided to depart. The letters that followed her were a part of the data that was fi nally assembled in Mr. Stimson’s offi ce to be used against Mr. Sluss in case
he became too obstreperous in his opposition to Cowperwood.
In the mean time the organization which Mr. Gilgan had planned
with Mr. Tiernan, Mr. Kerrigan, and Mr. Edstrom was encountering
what might be called rough sledding. It was discovered that, owing
to the temperaments of some of the new aldermen, and to the selfrighteous attitude of their political sponsors, no franchises of any
kind were to be passed unless they had the moral approval of such
men as Hand, Sluss, and the other reformers; above all, no money of
any kind was to be paid to anybody for anything.
«Whaddye think of those damn four-fl ushers and come-ons,
anyhow?» inquired Mr. Kerrigan of Mr. Tiernan, shortly subsequent
to a conference with Gilgan, from which Tiernan had been unavoidably absent. «They’ve got an ordinance drawn up covering the whole
city in an elevated-road scheme, and there ain’t anything in it for
anybody. Say, whaddye think they think we are, anyhow? Hey?»
Mr. Tiernan himself, after his own conference with Edstrom, had
been busy getting the lay of the land, as he termed it; and his inves-
347
THEODORE DREISER
tigations led him to believe that a certain alderman by the name of
Klemm, a clever and very respectable German-American from
the North Side, was to be the leader of the Republicans in council,
and that he and some ten or twelve others were determined, because of moral principles alone, that only honest measures should
be passed. It was staggering.
At this news Mr. Kerrigan, who had been calculating on a number of thousands of dollars for his vote on various occasions, stared
incredulously. «Well, I’ll be damned!» he commented. «They’ve got
a nerve! What?»
«I’ve been talking to this fellow Klemm of the twentieth», said
Mr. Tiernan, sardonically. «Say, he’s a real one! I met him over at
the Tremont talkin’ to Hvranek. He shakes hands like a dead fi sh.
Whaddye think he had the nerve to say to me. ‘This isn’t the Mr.
Tiernan of the second?’ he says.
«‘I’m the same,’ says I.
«‘Well, you don’t look as savage as I thought you did,’ says he. Hawhaw! I felt like sayin’, ‘If you don’t go way I’ll give you a slight tap on
the wrist.’ I’d like just one pass at a stiff like that up a dark alley». (Mr.
Tiernan almost groaned in anguish.) «And then he begins to say he
doesn’t see how there can be any reasonable objection to allowin’
various new companies to enter the street-car fi eld. ‘It’s suffi ciently
clear,’ he says, ‘that the public is against monopolies in any form.’» (Mr.
Tiernan was mocking Mr. Klemm’s voice and language.) «My eye!» he
concluded, sententiously. «Wait till he tries to throw that dope into
Gumble and Pinski and Schlumbohm — haw, haw, haw!»
Mr. Kerrigan, at the thought of these hearty aldermen accustomed to all the perquisites of graft and rake-off, leaned back and
gave vent to a burst of deep-chested laughter. «I’ll tell you what it is,
Mike», he said, archly, hitching up his tight, very artistic, and almost
English trousers, «we’re up against a bunch of pikers in this Gilgan
crowd, and they’ve gotta be taught a lesson. He knows it as well as
anybody else. None o’ that Christian con game goes around where
I am. I believe this man Cowperwood’s right when he says them fel-
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THE TITAN
lows are a bunch of soreheads and jealous. If Cowperwood’s willing
to put down good hard money to keep ’em out of his game, let them
do as much to stay in it. This ain’t no charity grab-bag. We ought to
be able to round up enough of these new fellows to make Schryhart
and MacDonald come down good and plenty for what they want.
From what Gilgan said all along, I thought he was dealing with
live ones. They paid to win the election. Now let ’em pay to pull off
a swell franchise if they want it, eh?»
«You’re damn right», echoed Tiernan. «I’m with you to a T».
It was not long after this conversation that Mr. Truman Leslie
MacDonald, acting through Alderman Klemm, proceeded to make
a count of noses, and found to his astonishment that he was not as
strong as he had thought he was. Political loyalty is such a fi ckle
thing. A number of aldermen with curious names — Horback, Fogarty, McGrane, Sumulsky — showed signs of being tampered with.
He hurried at once to Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and Arneel with this
disconcerting information. They had been congratulating themselves that the recent victory, if it resulted in nothing else, would at
least produce a blanket ‘L’ road franchise, and that this would be
suffi cient to bring Cowperwood to his knees.
Upon receiving MacDonald’s message Hand sent at once for Gilgan. When he inquired as to how soon a vote on the General Electric franchise — which had been introduced by Mr. Klemm — could
reasonably be expected, Gilgan declared himself much grieved to
admit that in one direction or other considerable opposition seemed
to have developed to the measure.
«What’s that?» said Hand, a little savagely. «Didn’t we make
a plain bargain in regard to this? You had all the money you asked
for, didn’t you? You said you could give me twenty-six aldermen
who would vote as we agreed. You’re not going to go back on your
bargain, are you?»
«Bargain! bargain!» retorted Gilgan, irritated because of the spirit of the assault. «I agreed to elect twenty-six Republican aldermen,
and that I did. I don’t own ’em body and soul. I didn’t name ’em in
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THEODORE DREISER
every case. I made deals with the men in the different wards that had
the best chance, and that the people wanted. I’m not responsible
for any crooked work that’s going on behind my back, am I? I’m not
responsible for men’s not being straight if they’re not?»
Mr. Gilgan’s face was an aggrieved question-mark.
«But you had the picking of these men», insisted Mr. Hand,
aggressively. «Every one of them had your personal indorsement.
You made the deals with them. You don’t mean to say they’re going back on their sacred agreement to fi ght Cowperwood tooth and
nail? There can’t be any misunderstanding on their part as to what
they were elected to do. The newspapers have been full of the fact
that nothing favorable to Cowperwood was to be put through».
«That’s all true enough», replied Mr. Gilgan; «but I can’t be held
responsible for the private honesty of everybody. Sure I selected
these men. Sure I did! But I selected them with the help of the rest of
the Republicans and some of the Democrats. I had to make the best
terms I could — to pick the men that could win. As far as I can fi nd
out most of ’em are satisfi ed not to do anything for Cowperwood. It’s
passing these ordinances in favor of other people that’s stirring up
the trouble».
Mr. Hand’s broad forehead wrinkled, and his blue eyes surveyed
Mr. Gilgan with suspicion. «Who are these men, anyhow?» he inquired. «I’d like to get a list of them».
Mr. Gilgan, safe in his own subtlety, was ready with a toll of
the supposed recalcitrants. They must fi ght their own battles. Mr.
Hand wrote down the names, determining meanwhile to bring pressure to bear. He decided also to watch Mr. Gilgan. If there should
prove to be a hitch in the programme the newspapers should be
informed and commanded to thunder appropriately. Such aldermen
as proved unfaithful to the great trust imposed on them should be
smoked out, followed back to the wards which had elected them,
and exposed to the people who were behind them. Their names
should be pilloried in the public press. The customary hints as to
Cowperwood’s deviltry and trickery should be redoubled.
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