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THE TITAN
caught one. Cowperwood missed by a fraction, but drove the fi sh
she did catch into her hands.
«Oh», she exclaimed, jumping up, «how wonderful! It’s alive.
I caught it».
She danced up and down, and Cowperwood, standing before
her, was sobered by her charm. He felt an impulse to speak to her of
his affection, to tell her how delicious she was to him.
«You», he said, pausing over the word and giving it special emphasis —»you are the only thing here that is wonderful to me».
She looked at him a moment, the live fi sh in her extended hands,
her eyes keying to the situation. For the least fraction of a moment
she was uncertain, as he could see, how to take this. Many men had
been approximative before. It was common to have compliments
paid to her. But this was different. She said nothing, but fi xed him
with a look which said quite plainly, «You had better not say anything more just now, I think». Then, seeing that he understood,
that his manner softened, and that he was troubled, she crinkled
her nose gaily and added: «It’s like fairyland. I feel as though I had
caught it out of another world». Cowperwood understood. The direct approach was not for use in her case; and yet there was something, a camaraderie, a sympathy which he felt and which she felt.
A girls’ school, conventions, the need of socially placing herself, her
conservative friends, and their viewpoint — all were working here.
If he were only single now, she told herself, she would be willing to
listen to him in a very different spirit, for he was charming. But this
way — And he, for his part, concluded that here was one woman
whom he would gladly marry if she would have him.
CHAPTER XLVII
AMERICAN MATCH
Following Cowperwood’s coup in securing cash by means of
his seeming gift of three hundred thousand dollars for a telescope
his enemies rested for a time, but only because of a lack of ideas
wherewith to destroy him. Public sentiment — created by the newspapers — was still against him. Yet his franchises had still from
eight to ten years to run, and meanwhile he might make himself
unassailably powerful. For the present he was busy, surrounded by
his engineers and managers and legal advisers, constructing his several elevated lines at a whirlwind rate. At the same time, through
Videra, Kaffrath, and Addison, he was effecting a scheme of loaning
money on call to the local Chicago banks — the very banks which
were most opposed to him — so that in a crisis he could retaliate.
By manipulating the vast quantity of stocks and bonds of which he
was now the master he was making money hand over fi st, his one
rule being that six per cent. was enough to pay any holder who had
merely purchased his stock as an outsider. It was most profi table
to himself. When his stocks earned more than that he issued new
ones, selling them on ’change and pocketing the difference. Out of
the cash-drawers of his various companies he took immense sums,
temporary loans, as it were, which later he had charged by his humble servitors to «construction», «equipment», or «operation». He was
like a canny wolf prowling in a forest of trees of his own creation.
The weak note in this whole project of elevated lines was that
for some time it was destined to be unprofi table. Its very compe-
412
THE TITAN
tition tended to weaken the value of his surface-line companies.
His holdings in these as well as in elevated-road shares were immense. If anything happened to cause them to fall in price immense
numbers of these same stocks held by others would be thrown on
the market, thus still further depreciating their value and compelling him to come into the market and buy. With the most painstaking care he began at once to pile up a reserve in government bonds
for emergency purposes, which he decided should be not less than
eight or nine million dollars, for he feared fi nancial storms as well
as fi nancial reprisal, and where so much was at stake he did not propose to be caught napping.
At the time that Cowperwood fi rst entered on elevated-road
construction there was no evidence that any severe depression in
the American money-market was imminent. But it was not long
before a new diffi culty began to appear. It was now the day of
the trust in all its watery magnifi cence. Coal, iron, steel, oil, machinery, and a score of other commercial necessities had already been
«trustifi ed», and others, such as leather, shoes, cordage, and the like,
were, almost hourly, being brought under the control of shrewd and
ruthless men. Already in Chicago Schryhart, Hand, Arneel, Merrill,
and a score of others were seeing their way to amazing profi ts by underwriting these ventures which required ready cash, and to which
lesser magnates, content with a portion of the leavings of Dives’s
table, were glad to bring to their attention. On the other hand, in
the nation at large there was growing up a feeling that at the top
there were a set of giants — Titans — who, without heart or soul, and
without any understanding of or sympathy with the condition of
the rank and fi le, were setting forth to enchain and enslave them.
The vast mass, writhing in ignorance and poverty, fi nally turned
with pathetic fury to the cure-all of a political leader in the West.
This latter prophet, seeing gold becoming scarcer and scarcer and
the cash and credits of the land falling into the hands of a few who
were manipulating them for their own benefi t, had decided that
what was needed was a greater volume of currency, so that cred-
413
THEODORE DREISER
its would be easier and money cheaper to come by in the matter of
interest. Silver, of which there was a superabundance in the mines,
was to be coined at the ratio of sixteen dollars of silver for every
one of gold in circulation, and the parity of the two metals maintained by fi at of government. Never again should the few be able
to make a weapon of the people’s medium of exchange in order to
bring about their undoing. There was to be ample money, far beyond the control of central banks and the men in power over them.
It was a splendid dream worthy of a charitable heart, but because of
it a disturbing war for political control of the government was
shortly threatened and soon began. The money element, sensing
the danger of change involved in the theories of the new political leader, began to fi ght him and the element in the Democratic
party which he represented. The rank and fi le of both parties — the
more or less hungry and thirsty who lie ever at the bottom on both
sides — hailed him as a heaven-sent deliverer, a new Moses come
to lead them out of the wilderness of poverty and distress. Woe to
the political leader who preaches a new doctrine of deliverance, and
who, out of tenderness of heart, offers a panacea for human ills. His
truly shall be a crown of thorns.
Cowperwood, no less than other men of wealth, was opposed to
what he deemed a crack-brained idea — that of maintaining a parity
between gold and silver by law. Confi scation was his word for it —
the confi scation of the wealth of the few for the benefi t of the many.
Most of all was he opposed to it because he feared that this unrest,
which was obviously growing, foreshadowed a class war in which
investors would run to cover and money be locked in strong-boxes.
At once he began to shorten sail, to invest only in the soundest securities, and to convert all his weaker ones into cash.
To meet current emergencies, however, he was compelled to
borrow heavily here and there, and in doing so he was quick to note
that those banks representing his enemies in Chicago and elsewhere
were willing to accept his various stocks as collateral, providing he
would accept loans subject to call. He did so gladly, at the same time
414
THE TITAN
suspecting Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill of some scheme to
wreck him, providing they could get him where the calling of his
loans suddenly and in concert would fi nancially embarrass him.
«I think I know what that crew are up to», he once observed to
Addison, at this period. «Well, they will have to rise very early in
the morning if they catch me napping».
The thing that he suspected was really true. Schryhart, Hand,
and Arneel, watching him through their agents and brokers, had
soon discovered — in the very earliest phases of the silver agitation and before the real storm broke — that he was borrowing in
New York, in London, in certain quarters of Chicago, and elsewhere.
«It looks to me», said Schryhart, one day, to his friend Arneel, «as if
our friend has gotten in a little too deep. He has overreached himself. These elevated-road schemes of his have eaten up too much
capital. There is another election coming on next fall, and he knows
we are going to fi ght tooth and nail. He needs money to electrify
his surface lines. If we could trace out exactly where he stands, and
where he has borrowed, we might know what to do».
«Unless I am greatly mistaken», replied Arneel, «he is in a tight
place or is rapidly getting there. This silver agitation is beginning
to weaken stocks and tighten money. I suggest that our banks here
loan him all the money he wants on call. When the time comes, if
he isn’t ready, we can shut him up tighter than a drum. If we can
pick up any other loans he’s made anywhere else, well and good».
Mr. Arneel said this without a shadow of bitterness or humor.
In some tight hour, perhaps, now fast approaching, Mr. Cowperwood would be promised salvation —»saved» on condition that he
should leave Chicago forever. There were those who would take
over his property in the interest of the city and upright government
and administer it accordingly.
Unfortunately, at this very time Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, and
Arneel were themselves concerned in a little venture to which
the threatened silver agitation could bode nothing but ill. This
concerned so simple a thing as matches, a commodity which at this
415
THEODORE DREISER
time, along with many others, had been trustifi ed and was yielding a fi ne profi t. «American Match» was a stock which was already
listed on every exchange and which was selling steadily around one
hundred and twenty.
The geniuses who had fi rst planned a combination of all match
concerns and a monopoly of the trade in America were two men,
Messrs. Hull and Stackpole — bankers and brokers, primarily. Mr.
Phineas Hull was a small, ferret-like, calculating man with a sparse
growth of dusty-brown hair and an eyelid, the right one, which was
partially paralyzed and drooped heavily, giving him a characterful
and yet at times a sinister expression.
His partner, Mr. Benoni Stackpole, had been once a stagedriver in Arkansas, and later a horse-trader. He was a man of great
force and calculation — large, oleaginous, politic, and courageous.
Without the ultimate brain capacity of such men as Arneel, Hand,
and Merrill, he was, nevertheless, resourceful and able. He had
started somewhat late in the race for wealth, but now, with all his
strength, he was endeavoring to bring to fruition this plan which,
with the aid of Hull, he had formulated. Inspired by the thought of
great wealth, they had fi rst secured control of the stock of one match
company, and had then put themselves in a position to bargain with
the owners of others. The patents and processes controlled by one
company and another had been combined, and the fi eld had been
broadened as much as possible.
But to do all this a great deal of money had been required, much
more than was in possession of either Hull or Stackpole. Both of
them being Western men, they looked fi rst to Western capital.
Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill were in turn appealed to,
and great blocks of the new stock were sold to them at inside fi gures. By the means thus afforded the combination proceeded apace.
Patents for exclusive processes were taken over from all sides, and
the idea of invading Europe and eventually controlling the market of the world had its inception. At the same time it occurred
to each and all of their lordly patrons that it would be a splendid
416
THE TITAN
thing if the stock they had purchased at forty-fi ve, and which was
now selling in open market at one hundred and twenty, should go
to three hundred, where, if these monopolistic dreams were true,
it properly belonged. A little more of this stock — the destiny of
which at this time seemed sure and splendid — would not be amiss.
And so there began a quiet campaign on the part of each capitalist to
gather enough of it to realize a true fortune on the rise.
A game of this kind is never played with the remainder of the fi nancial community entirely unaware of what is on foot. In the inner
circles of brokerage life rumors were soon abroad that a tremendous boom was in store for American Match. Cowperwood heard of
it through Addison, always at the center of fi nancial rumor, and
the two of them bought heavily, though not so heavily but that they
could clear out at any time with at least a slight margin in their favor.
During a period of eight months the stock slowly moved upward, fi nally crossing the two-hundred mark and reaching two-twenty, at
which fi gure both Addison and Cowperwood sold, realizing nearly
a million between them on their investment.
In the mean time the foreshadowed political storm was brewing.
At fi rst a cloud no larger than a man’s hand, it matured swiftly in
the late months of 1895, and by the spring of 1896 it had become
portentous and was ready to burst. With the climacteric nomination of the »Apostle of Free Silver» for President of the United
States, which followed in July, a chill settled down over the conservative and fi nancial elements of the country. What Cowperwood
had wisely proceeded to do months before, others less far-seeing,
from Maine to California and from the Gulf to Canada, began to
do now. Bank-deposits were in part withdrawn; feeble or uncertain
securities were thrown upon the market. All at once Schryhart, Arneel, Hand, and Merrill realized that they were in more or less of
a trap in regard to their large holdings in American Match. Having gathered vast quantities of this stock, which had been issued in
blocks of millions, it was now necessary to sustain the market or
sell at a loss. Since money was needed by many holders, and this
417
THEODORE DREISER
stock was selling at two-twenty, telegraphic orders began to pour in
from all parts of the country to sell on the Chicago Exchange, where
the deal was being engineered and where the market obviously
existed. All of the instigators of the deal conferred, and decided to
sustain the market. Messrs. Hull and Stackpole, being the nominal
heads of the trust, were delegated to buy, they in turn calling on
the principal investors to take their share, pro rata. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill, weighted with this inpouring fl ood of
stock, which they had to take at two-twenty, hurried to their favorite
banks, hypothecating vast quantities at one-fi fty and over, and using
the money so obtained to take care of the additional shares which
they were compelled to buy.
At last, however, their favorite banks were full to overfl owing
and at the danger-point. They could take no more.
«No, no, no!» Hand declared to Phineas Hull over the ’phone.
«I can’t risk another dollar in this venture, and I won’t! It’s a perfect
proposition. I realize all its merits just as well as you do. But enough
is enough. I tell you a fi nancial slump is coming. That’s the reason all
this stock is coming out now. I am willing to protect my interests in
this thing up to a certain point. As I told you, I agree not to throw
a single share on the market of all that I now have. But more than
that I cannot do. The other gentlemen in this agreement will have
to protect themselves as best they can. I have other things to look
out for that are just as important to me, and more so, than American
Match».
It was the same with Mr. Schryhart, who, stroking a crisp, black
mustache, was wondering whether he had not better throw over
what holdings he had and clear out; however, he feared the rage of
Hand and Arneel for breaking the market and thus bringing on
a local panic. It was risky business. Arneel and Merrill fi nally agreed
to hold fi rm to what they had; but, as they told Mr. Hull, nothing
could induce them to «protect» another share, come what might.
In this crisis naturally Messrs. Hull and Stackpole — estimable
gentlemen both — were greatly depressed. By no means so wealthy
418
THE TITAN
as their lofty patrons, their private fortunes were in much greater jeopardy. They were eager to make any port in so black a storm.
Witness, then, the arrival of Benoni Stackpole at the offi ce of Frank
Algernon Cowperwood. He was at the end of his tether, and Cowperwood was the only really rich man in the city not yet involved in
this speculation. In the beginning he had heard both Hand and
Schryhart say that they did not care to become involved if Cowperwood was in any way, shape, or manner to be included, but that had
been over a year ago, and Schryhart and Hand were now, as it were,
leaving both him and his partner to their fates. They could have no
objection to his dealing with Cowperwood in this crisis if he could
make sure that the magnate would not sell him out. Mr. Stackpole
was six feet one in his socks and weighed two hundred and thirty
pounds. Clad in a brown linen suit and straw hat (for it was late
July), he carried a palm-leaf fan as well as his troublesome stocks in
a small yellow leather bag. He was wet with perspiration and in
a gloomy state of mind. Failure was staring him in the face — giant
failure. If American Match fell below two hundred he would have
to close his doors as banker and broker and, in view of what he was
carrying, he and Hull would fail for approximately twenty million
dollars. Messrs. Hand, Schryhart, Arneel, and Merrill would lose in
the neighborhood of six or eight millions between them. The local
banks would suffer in proportion, though not nearly so severely,
for, loaning at one-fi fty, they would only sacrifi ce the difference between that and the lowest point to which the stock might fall.
Cowperwood eyed the new-comer, when he entered, with
an equivocal eye, for he knew well now what was coming. Only a few
days before he had predicted an eventual smash to Addison.
«Mr. Cowperwood», began Stackpole, «in this bag I have fi fteen
thousand shares of American Match, par value one million fi ve
hundred thousand dollars, market value three million three hundred thousand at this moment, and worth every cent of three hundred dollars a share and more. I don’t know how closely you have
been following the developments of American Match. We own all
419
THEODORE DREISER
the patents on labor-saving machines and, what’s more, we’re just
about to close contracts with Italy and France to lease our machines
and processes to them for pretty nearly one million dollars a year
each. We’re dickering with Austria and England, and of course we’ll
take up other countries later. The American Match Company will
yet make matches for the whole world, whether I’m connected with
it or not. This silver agitation has caught us right in mid-ocean, and
we’re having a little trouble weathering the storm. I’m a perfectly
frank man when it comes to close business relations of this kind,
and I’m going to tell you just how things stand. If we can scull over
this rough place that has come up on account of the silver agitation
our stock will go to three hundred before the fi rst of the year. Now,
if you want to take it you can have it outright at one hundred and
fi fty dollars — that is, providing you’ll agree not to throw any of it
back on the market before next December; or, if you won’t promise that» (he paused to see if by any chance he could read Cowperwood’s inscrutable face) «I want you to loan me one hundred and
fi fty dollars a share on these for thirty days at least at ten or fi fteen,
or whatever rate you care to fi x».
Cowperwood interlocked his fi ngers and twiddled his thumbs
as he contemplated this latest evidence of earthly diffi culty and uncertainty. Time and chance certainly happened to all men, and here
was one opportunity of paying out those who had been nagging him.
To take this stock at one-fi fty on loan and peddle it out swiftly and
fully at two-twenty or less would bring American Match crumbling
about their ears. When it was selling at one-fi fty or less he could
buy it back, pocket his profi t, complete his deal with Mr. Stackpole,
pocket his interest, and smile like the well-fed cat in the fable. It was
as simple as twiddling his thumbs, which he was now doing.
«Who has been backing this stock here in Chicago besides
yourself and Mr. Hull?» he asked, pleasantly. «I think that I already
know, but I should like to be certain if you have no objection».
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