At once Schryhart, Merrill, and some individuals connected with the Chicago West Division Company, began to complain in the newspaper offices and at the clubs to Ricketts, Braxton, young MacDonald, and the other editors. Envy of the pyrotechnic progress of the man was as much a factor in this as anything else. It did not make the slightest difference, as Cowperwood had sarcastically pointed out, that every other corporation of any significance in Chicago had asked and received without money and without price. Somehow his career in connection with Chicago gas, his venturesome, if unsuccessful effort to enter Chicago society, his self-acknowledged Philadelphia record, rendered the sensitive cohorts of the ultraconservative exceedingly fearful. In Schryhart’s Chronicle appeared a news column which was headed, “Plain Grab of City Tunnel Proposed.” It was a very truculent statement, and irritated Cowperwood greatly. The Press (Mr. Haguenin’s paper), on the other hand, was most cordial to the idea of the loop, while appearing to be a little uncertain as to whether the tunnel should be granted without compensation or not. Editor Hyssop felt called upon to insist that something more than merely nominal compensation should be made for the tunnel, and that “riders” should be inserted in the loop ordinance making it incumbent upon the North Chicago company to keep those thoroughfares in full repair and well lighted. The Inquirer, under Mr. MacDonald, junior, and Mr. Du Bois, was in rumbling opposition. No free tunnels, it cried; no free ordinances for privileges in the downtown heart. It had nothing to say about Cowperwood personally. The Globe, Mr. Braxton’s paper, was certain that no free rights to the tunnel should be given, and that a much better route for the loop could be found—one larger and more serviceable to the public, one that might be made to include State Street or Wabash Avenue, or both, where Mr. Merrill’s store was located. So it went, and one could see quite clearly to what extent the interests of the public figured in the majority of these particular viewpoints.
Cowperwood, individual, reliant, utterly indifferent to opposition of any kind, was somewhat angered by the manner in which his overtures had been received, but still felt that the best way out of his troubles was to follow McKenty’s advice and get power first. Once he had his cable-conduit down, his new cars running, the tunnel rebuilt, brilliantly lighted, and the bridge crush disposed of, the public would see what a vast change for the better had been made and would support him. Finally all things were in readiness and the ordinance jammed through. McKenty, being a little dubious of the outcome, had a rocking-chair brought into the council-chamber itself during the hours when the ordinances were up for consideration. In this he sat, presumably as a curious spectator, actually as a master dictating the course of liquidation in hand. Neither Cowperwood nor anyone else knew of McKenty’s action until too late to interfere with it. Addison and Videra, when they read about it as sneeringly set forth in the news columns of the papers, lifted and then wrinkled their eyebrows.
“That looks like pretty rough work to me,” commented Addison. “I thought McKenty had more tact. That’s his early Irish training.”
Alexander Rambaud, who was an admirer and follower of Cowperwood’s, wondered whether the papers were lying, whether it really could be true that Cowperwood had a serious political compact with McKenty which would allow him to walk roughshod over public opinion. Rambaud considered Cowperwood’s proposition so sane and reasonable that he could not understand why there should be serious opposition, or why Cowperwood and McKenty should have to resort to such methods.
However, the streets requisite for the loop were granted. The tunnel was leased for nine hundred and ninety-nine years at the nominal sum of five thousand dollars per year. It was understood that the old bridges over State, Dearborn, and Clark streets should be put in repair or removed; but there was “a joker” inserted elsewhere which nullified this. Instantly there were stormy outbursts in the Chronicle, Inquirer, and Globe; but Cowperwood, when he read them, merely smiled. “Let them grumble,” he said to himself. “I put a very reasonable proposition before them. Why should they complain? I’m doing more now than the Chicago City Railway. It’s jealousy, that’s all. If Schryhart or Merrill had asked for it, there would have been no complaint.”
McKenty called at the offices of the Chicago Trust Company to congratulate Cowperwood. “The boys did as I thought they would,” he said. “I had to be there, though, for I heard someone say that about ten of them intended to ditch us at the last moment.”
“Good work, good work!” replied Cowperwood, cheerfully. “This row will all blow over. It would be the same whenever we asked. The air will clear up. We’ll give them such a fine service that they’ll forget all about this, and be glad they gave us the
