Kitabı oku: «The Boss, and How He Came to Rule New York», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XV – THAT GAS COMPANY INJUNCTION
YOUNG MORTON was president of Mulberry Traction. When the franchise came sound and safe into the hands of Mulberry, young Morton evolved a construction company and caused himself to be made president and manager thereof. These affairs cleared up, he went upon the building of his road with all imaginable spirit. He was still that kid-gloved, eve-glassed exquisite of other hours, but those who dealt with him in his road-building knew in him a hawk to see and a lion to act in what he went about. Big Kennedy was never weary of his name, and glowed at its merest mention.
“He’s no show-case proposition!” cried Big Kennedy exultantly. “To look at him, folks might take him for a fool. They’d bring him back, you bet! if they did. You’ve got to see a party in action before you can tell about him. A mudscow will drift as fast as an eight-oared shell; it’s only when you set ‘em to goin’ endwise, an’ give ‘em a motive, you begin to get onto th’ difference.”
One day young Morton told me how the Gas Company had lodged suit against Mulberry.
“They’ve gotten a beastly injunction, they have, really!” said he. “They say we’re digging, don’t y’ know, among their pipes and mains. The hearing is put down for one week from to-day.”
“The Gas Company goes vastly out of its way in this!” observed the reputable old gentleman indignantly.
He had arrived in company with young Morton. When now the franchise was obtained, and those more devious steps for Mulberry advancement had been taken, the reputable old gentleman began to feel a vigorous interest in his son’s enterprise. The reputable old gentleman had grown proud of his son, and it should be conceded that young Morton justified the paternal admiration.
“Let us go over to Tammany Hall,” said I, “and talk with Big Kennedy.”
We found Big Kennedy in cheerful converse with the Reverend Bronson, over the latter’s Five Points Mission. He and the dominie were near Big Kennedy’s desk; in a far corner lolled a drunken creature, tattered, unshorn, disreputable, asleep and snoring in his chair. As I entered the room, accompanied by the reputable old gentleman and young Morton, Big Kennedy was giving the Reverend Bronson certain hearty assurances of his good will.
“I’ll see to it to-day,” Big Kennedy was saying. “You go back an’ deal your game. I’ll have two cops detailed to every meetin’, d’ye see, an’ their orders will be to break their night-sticks over th’ head of th’ first duck that laughs or makes a row. You always come to me for what you want; you can hock your socks I’ll back you up. What this town needs is religious teachin’ of an elevated kind, an’ no bunch of Bowery bums is goin’ to give them exercises th’ smother. An’ that goes!”
“I’m sure I’m much obliged,” murmured the Reverend Bronson, preparing to take himself away. Then, turning curious: “May I ask who that lost and abandoned man is?” and he indicated the drunkard, snoring in his chair.
“You don’t know him,” returned Big Kennedy, in a tone of confident, friendly patronage. “Just now he’s steeped in bug juice to th’ eyes, an’ has been for a week. But I’m goin’ to need him; so I had him brought in.”
“Of what earthly use can one who has fallen so low be put to?” asked the Reverend Bronson. Then, with a shudder: “Look at him!”
“An’ that’s where you go wrong!” replied Big Kennedy, who was in one of his philosophical humors. “Now if it was about morals, or virtue, or th’ hereafter, I wouldn’t hand you out a word. That’s your game, d’ye see, an’ when it’s a question of heaven, you’ve got me beat. But there’s other games, like Tammany Hall for instance, where I could give you cards an’ spades. Now take that sot there: I know what he can do, an’ what I want him for, an’ inside of a week I’ll be makin’ him as useful as a corkscrew in Kentucky.”
“He seems a most unpromising foundation upon which to build one’s hope,” said the Reverend Bronson dubiously.
“He aint much to look at, for fair!” responded Big Kennedy, in his large tolerant way. “But you mustn’t bet your big stack on a party’s looks. You can’t tell about a steamboat by th’ coat of paint on her sides; you must go aboard. Now that fellow” – here he pointed to the sleeping drunkard – “once you get th’ booze out of him, has a brain like a buzzsaw. An’ you should hear him talk! He’s got a tongue so acid it would eat through iron. The fact is, th’ difference between that soak an’ th’ best lawyer at the New York bar is less’n one hundred dollars. I’ll have him packed off to a Turkish bath, sweat th’ whisky out of him, have him shaved an’ his hair cut, an’ get him a new suit of clothes. When I’m through, you won’t know him. He’ll run sober for a month, which is as long as I’ll need him this trip.”
“And will he then return to his drunkenness?” asked the Reverend Bronson.
“Sure as you’re alive!” said Big Kennedy. “The moment I take my hooks off him, down he goes.”
“What you say interests me! Why not send him to my mission, and let me compass his reform.”
“You might as well go down to th’ morgue an’ try an’ revive th’ dead. No, no, Doctor; that duck is out of humanity’s reach. If you took him in hand at your mission, he’d show up loaded some night an’ tip over your works. Better pass him up.”
“If his case is so hopeless, I marvel that you tolerate him.”
The Reverend Bronson was a trifle piqued at Big Kennedy for thinking his influence would fall short of the drunkard’s reform.
“You aint onto this business of bein’ Chief of Tammany,” responded Big Kennedy, with his customary grin. “I always like to do my work through these incurables. It’s better to have men about you who are handicapped by some big weakness, d’ye see! They’re strong on th’ day you need ‘em, an’ weak when you lay ‘em down. Which makes it all the better. If these people were strong all th’ year ‘round, one of ‘em, before we got through, would want my job, an’ begin to lay pipes to get it. Some time, when I wasn’t watchin’, he might land th’ trick at that. No, as hands to do my work, give me fellows who’ve got a loose screw in their machinery. They’re less chesty; an’ then they work better, an’ they’re safer. I’ve only one man near me who don’t show a blemish. That’s him,” and he pointed to where I sat waiting with young Morton and the reputable old gentleman. “I’ll trust him; because I’m goin’ to make him Boss when I get through; an’ he knows it. That leaves him without any reason for doin’ me up.”
Big Kennedy called one of his underlings, and gave him directions to have the sleeping drunkard conveyed instantly to a bath-house.
“Get th’ kinks out of him,” said he; “an’ bring him back to me in four days. I want to see him as straight as a string, an’ dressed as though for a weddin’. I’m goin’ to need him to make a speech, d’ye see! at that mugwump ratification meetin’ in Cooper Union.”
When the Reverend Bronson, and the drunken Cicero, in care of his keeper, had gone their several ways, Big Kennedy wheeled upon us. He was briefly informed of the troubles of Mulberry Traction.
“If them gas crooks don’t hold hard,” said he, when young Morton had finished, “we’ll have an amendment to th’ city charter passed at Albany, puttin’ their meters under th’ thumb an’ th’ eye of th’ Board of Lightin’ an’ Supplies. I wonder how they’d like that! It would cut sixty per cent, off their gas bills. However, mebby th’ Gas Company’s buttin’ into this thing in th’ dark. What judge does the injunction come up before?”
“Judge Mole,” said young Morton.
“Mole, eh?” returned Big Kennedy thoughtfully. “We’ll shift th’ case to some other judge. Mole won’t do; he’s th’ Gas Company’s judge, d’ye see.”
“The Gas Company’s judge!” exclaimed the reputable old gentleman, in horrified amazement.
Big Kennedy, at this, shone down upon the reputable old gentleman like a benignant sun.
“Slowly but surely,” said he, “you begin to tumble to th’ day an’ th’ town you’re livin’ in. Don’t you know that every one of our giant companies has its own judge? Why! one of them Captains of Industry, as th’ papers call ‘em, would no more be without his judge than without his stenographer.”
“In what manner,” snorted the reputable old gentleman, “does one of our great corporations become possessed of a judge?”
“Simple as sloppin’ out champagne!” returned Big Kennedy. “It asks us to nominate him. Then it comes up with his assessment, d’ye see! – an’ I’ve known that to run as high as one hundred thousand – an’ then every year it contributes to our various campaigns, say fifty thousand dollars a whirl. Oh! it comes high to have your own private judge; but if you’re settin’ into a game of commerce where th’ limit’s higher than a cat’s back, it’s worth a wise guy’s while.”
“Come, come!” interposed young Morton, “we’ve no time for moral and political abstractions, don’t y’ know! Let’s get back to Mulberry Traction. You say Judge Mole won’t do. Can you have the case set down before another judge?”
“Easy money!” said Big Kennedy. “I’ll have Mole send it over to Judge Flyinfox. He’ll knock it on th’ head, when it comes up, an’ that’s th’ last we’ll ever hear of that injunction.”
“You speak of Judge Flyinfox with confidence,” observed the reputable old gentleman, breaking in. “Why are you so certain he will dismiss the application for an injunction?”
“Because,” retorted Big Kennedy, in his hardy way, “he comes up for renomination within two months. He’d look well throwin’ the harpoon into me right now, wouldn’t he?” Then, as the double emotions of wrath and wonder began to make purple the visage of the reputable old gentleman: “Look here: you’re more’n seven years old. Why should you think a judge was different from other men? Haven’t you seen men crawl in th’ sewer of politics on their hands an’ knees, an’ care for nothin’ only so they crawled finally into th’ Capitol at Albany? Is a judge any better than a governor? Or is either of ‘em any better than other people? While Tammany makes th’ judges, do you s’ppose they’ll be too good for th’ organization? That last would be a cunnin’ play to make!”
“But these judges,” said the reputable old gentleman. “Their terms are so long and their salaries so large, I should think they would defy you and your humiliating orders.”
“Exactly,” returned Big Kennedy, with the pleasant air of one aware of himself, “an’ that long term an’ big salary works square th’ other way. There’s so many of them judges that there’s one or two to be re-elected each year. So we’ve always got a judge whose term is on th’ blink, d’ye see! An’ he’s got to come to us – to me, if you want it plain – to get back. You spoke of th’ big salary an’ th’ long term. Don’t you see that you’ve only given them guys more to lose? Now th’ more a party has to lose, th’ more he’ll bow and scrape to save himself. Between us, a judge within a year or so of renomination is th’ softest mark on th’ list.”
The reputable old gentleman expressed unbounded indignation, while Big Kennedy laughed.
“What’re you kickin’ about?” asked Big Kennedy, when he had somewhat recovered. “That’s the ‘Boss System.’ Just now, d’ye see! it’s water on your wheel, so you oughtn’t to raise th’ yell. But to come back to Mulberry Traction: We’ll have Mole send th’ case to Flyinfox; an’ Flyinfox will put th’ kybosh on it, if it comes up. But I’ll let you into a secret. Th’ case’ll never come up; th’ Gas Company will go back to its corner.”
“Explain,” said young Morton eagerly.
“Because I’ll tell ‘em to.”
“Do you mean that you’ll go to the Gas Company,” sneered the reputable old gentleman, “and give its officers orders the same as you say you give them to the State’s and the City’s officers?”
“Th’ Gas Company’ll come to me, an’ ask for orders.”
The reputable old gentleman drew a long breath, while his brows worked up and down.
“And dare you tell me,” he cried, “that men of millions – our leading men of business, will come to you and ask your commands?”
“My friend,” replied Big Kennedy gravely, “no matter how puffed up an’ big these leadin’ men of business get to be, th’ Chief of Tammany is a bigger toad than any. Listen: th’ bigger the target th’ easier th’ shot. If you’ll come down here with me for a month, I’ll gamble you’ll meet an’ make th’ acquaintance of every business king in th’ country. An’ you’ll notice, too, that they’ll take off their hats, an’ listen to what I say; an’ in th’ end, they’ll do what I tell ‘em to do.” Big Kennedy glowered impressively upon the reputable old gentleman. “That sounds like a song that is sung, don’t it?” Then turning to me: “Tell th’ Street Department not to give th’ Gas Company any more permits to open streets until further orders. An’ now” – coming back to the reputable old gentleman – “can’t you see what’ll come off?”
The reputable old gentleman looked mystified. Young Morton, for his part, began to smile.
“He sees!” exclaimed Big Kennedy, pointing to young Morton. “Here’s what’ll happen. Th’ Gas Company has to have two hundred permits a day to tear open th’ streets. After that order reaches the Street Commissioner, it won’t get any.”
“‘Better see the Boss,’ the Street Commissioner will whisper, when the Gas Company asks what’s wrong.
“The next day one of th’ deck hands will come to see me. I’ll turn him down; th’ Chief of Tammany don’t deal with deck hands. The next day th’ Gas Company will send th’ first mate. The mate’ll get turned down; th’ Chief of Tammany deals with nobody less’n a captain, d’ye see! On th’ third day, or to put it like a prophet, say next Friday – since this is Tuesday – th’ president of th’ Gas Company will drive here in his brougham. I’ll let him wait ten minutes in the outer room to take the swell out of his head. Then I’ll let him in, an’, givin’ him th’ icy eye, I’ll ask: ‘What’s th’ row?’ Th’ Gas Company will have been three days without permits to open th’ streets; – its business will be at a standstill; – th’ Gas Company’ll be sweatin’ blood. There’ll be th’ Gas Company’s president, an’ here’ll be Big John Kennedy. I think that even you can furnish th’ wind-up. As I tell you, now that I’ve had time to think it out, th’ case will be withdrawn. Still, to make sure, we’ll have Mole send th’ papers over to Flyinfox, just as though we had nowhere except th’ courts to look for justice.”
On Monday, the day before the case was to have been called, the Gas Company, humbled and made penitent with a stern paucity of “permits,” dismissed its petition for an injunction against Mulberry Traction, and young Morton returned to his career, unchecked of a court’s decree.
“Father,” said young Morton, as we came from our interview with Big Kennedy, “I’m not sure that the so-called Boss System for the Government of Cities is wholly without its advantages, don’t y’ know!” And here young Morton puffed a complacent, not to say superior, cigarette.
“Humph!” retorted the reputable old gentleman angrily. “Every Esau, selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, would speak the same.”
“Esau with a cigarette – really!” murmured young Morton, giving a ruminative puff. “But I say, father, it isn’t a mess of pottage, don’t y’ know, it’s a street railway.”
As Mulberry Traction approached completion, the common stock reached forty. At that point Big Kennedy closed out his interest. Snapping the catchlock behind us, to the end that we be alone, he tossed a dropsical gray envelope on the table.
“There’s two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Uncle Sam’s bonds,” said he. “That’s your end of Mulberry Traction.”
“You’ve sold out?”
“Sold out an’ got one million two hundred thousand.”
“The stock would have gone higher,” said I. “You would have gotten more if you’d held on.”
“Wall Street,” returned Big Kennedy, with a cautious shake of the head, “is off my beat. I’m afraid of them stock sharps; I feel like a come-on th’ minute I begin to talk with one, an’ I wouldn’t trust ‘em as far as I could throw a dog by th’ tail. I break away as fast as ever I can, an’ chase back to Fourteenth Street, where I’m wise to th’ game. I’ve seen suckers like me who took a million dollars into Wall Street, an’ came out in a week with nothin’ but a pocket full of canceled postage stamps.”
“I’ve been told,” said I with a laugh, and going with Big Kennedy’s humor, “that two hundred years ago, Captain Kidd, the pirate, had his home on the site of the present Stock Exchange.”
“Did he?” said Big Kennedy. “Well, I figger that his crew must have lived up an’ down both sides of the street from him, an’ their descendants are still holdin’ down th’ property. An’ to think,” mused Big Kennedy, “that Trinity Church stares down th’ length of Wall Street, with th’ graves in th’ Trinity churchyard to remind them stock wolves of th’ finish! I’m a hard man, an’ I play a hard game, but on th’ level! if I was as big a robber as them Wall Street sharps, I couldn’t look Trinity Church in th’ face!” Then, coming back to Mulberry Traction and to me: “I’ve put it in bonds, d’ye see! Now if I was you, I’d stand pat on ‘em just as they are. Lay ‘em away, an’ think to yourself they’re for that little Blossom of yours.”
At the name of Blossom, Big Kennedy laid his heavy hand on mine as might one who asked a favor. It was the thing unusual. Big Kennedy’s rough husk gave scanty promise of any softness of sentiment to lie beneath. Somehow, the word and the hand brought the water to my eyes.’
“It is precisely what I mean to do,” said I. “Blossom is to have it, an’ have it as it is – two hundred thousand dollars in bonds.”
Big Kennedy, with that, gave my hand a Titan’s grip in indorsement of my resolve.
Blossom was growing up a frail, slender child, and still with her frightened eyes. Anne watched over her; and since Blossom lacked in sturdiness of health, she did not go to a school, but was taught by Anne at home. Blossom’s love was for me; she clung to me when I left the house, and was in my arms the moment the door opened upon my return. She was the picture of my lost Apple Cheek, wanting her roundness, and my eyes went wet and weary with much looking upon her.
My home was quiet and, for me, gloomy. Anne, I think, was happy in a manner pensive and undemonstrative. As for Blossom, that terror she drew in from her mother when the latter was struck by the blow of my arrest for the death of Jimmy the Blacksmith, still held its black dominion over her fancy; and while with time she grew away from those agitations and hysterias which enthralled her babyhood, she lived ever in a twilight of melancholy that nothing could light up, and from which her spirit never emerged. In all her life I never heard her laugh, and her smile, when she did smile, was as the soul of a sigh. And so my house was a house of whispers and shadows and silences as sad as death – a house of sorrow for my lost Apple Cheek, and fear for Blossom whose life was stained with nameless mourning before ever she began to live at all.
Next door to me I had brought my father and mother to dwell. Anne, who abode with me, could oversee both houses. The attitude of Big Kennedy towards Old Mike had not been wanting in effect upon me. The moment my money was enough, I took my father from his forge, and set both him and my mother to a life of workless ease. I have feared more than once that this move was one not altogether wise. My people had been used to labor, and when it was taken out of their hands they knew not where to turn with their time. They were much looked up to by neighbors for the power and position I held in the town’s affairs; and each Sunday they could give the church a gold piece, and that proved a mighty boon to their pride. But, on the whole, the leisure of their lives, and they unable to employ it, carked and corroded them, and it had not a little to do in breaking down their health. They were in no sense fallen into the vale of years, when one day they were seized by a pneumonia and – my mother first, with her patient peasant face! and my father within the week that followed – passed both to the other life.
And now when I was left with only Blossom and Anne to love, and to be dear and near to me, I went the more among men, and filled still more my head and hands and heart with politics. I must have action, motion. Grief walked behind me; and, let me but halt, it was never long in coming up.
Sundry years slipped by, and the common routine work of the organization engaged utterly both Big Kennedy and myself. We struggled heartily, and had our ups and our downs, our years of black and our years of white. The storm that wrecked Big Kennedy’s predecessor had left Tammany in shallow, dangerous waters for its sailing. Also Big Kennedy and I were not without our personal enemies. We made fair weather of it, however, particularly when one considers the broken condition of Tammany, and the days were not desolate of their rewards.
Now ensues a great heave upward in my destinies.
One evening I came upon Big Kennedy, face gray and drawn, sitting as still as a church. Something in the look or the attitude went through me like a lance.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“There was a saw-bones here,” said he, “pawin’ me over for a life-insurance game that I thought I’d buy chips in. He tells me my light’s goin’ to flicker out inside a year. That’s a nice number to hand a man! Just as a sport finds himself on easy street, along comes a scientist an’ tells him it’s all off an’ nothin’ for it but the bone-yard! Well,” concluded Big Kennedy, grimly lighting a cigar, “if it’s up to me, I s’ppose I can hold down a hearse as good as th’ next one. If it’s th’ best they can do, why, let her roll!”
