“Who distributes this money?” he asked, finally.
“Nominally, the Republican County Committee, if it’s in charge; actually, the man or men who are leading the fight. In the case of the Democratic party it’s John J. McKenty, and don’t you forget it. In my district it’s me, and no one else.”
Mr. Hand, slow, solid, almost obtuse at times, meditated under lowering brows. He had always been associated with a more or less silk-stocking crew who were unused to the rough usage of back-room saloon politics, yet every one suspected vaguely, of course, at times that ballot-boxes were stuffed and ward lodging-houses colonized. Every one (at least every one of any worldly intelligence) knew that political capital was collected from office-seekers, office-holders, beneficiaries of all sorts and conditions under the reigning city administration. Mr. Hand had himself contributed to the Republican party for favors received or about to be. As a man who had been compelled to handle large affairs in a large way he was not inclined to quarrel with this. Three hundred thousand dollars was a large sum, and he was not inclined to subscribe it alone, but fancied that at his recommendation and with his advice it could be raised. Was Gilgan the man to fight Cowperwood? He looked him over and decided—other things being equal—that he was. And forthwith the bargain was struck. Gilgan, as a Republican central committeeman—chairman, possibly—was to visit every ward, connect up with every available Republican force, pick strong, suitable anti-Cowperwood candidates, and try to elect them, while he, Hand, organized the money element and collected the necessary cash. Gilgan was to be given money personally. He was to have the undivided if secret support of all the high Republican elements in the city. His business was to win at almost any cost. And as a reward he was to have the Republican support for Congress, or, failing that, the practical Republican leadership in city and county.
“Anyhow,” said Hand, after Mr. Gilgan finally took his departure, “things won’t be so easy for Mr. Cowperwood in the future as they were in the past. And when it comes to getting his franchises renewed, if I’m alive, we’ll see whether he will or not.”
The heavy financier actually growled a low growl as he spoke out loud to himself. He felt a boundless rancor toward the man who had, as he supposed, alienated the affections of his smart young wife.
CHAPTER XXXV.
A Political Agreement
In the first and second wards of Chicago at this time—wards including the business heart, South Clark Street, the water-front, the river-levee, and the like—were two men, Michael (alias Smiling Mike) Tiernan and Patrick (alias Emerald Pat) Kerrigan, who, for picturequeness of character and sordidness of atmosphere, could not be equaled elsewhere in the city, if in the nation at large. “Smiling” Mike Tiernan, proud possessor of four of the largest and filthiest saloons of this area, was a man of large and genial mold—perhaps six feet one inch in height, broad-shouldered in proportion, with a bovine head, bullet-shaped from one angle, and big, healthy, hairy hands and large feet. He had done many things from digging in a ditch to occupying a seat in the city council from this his beloved ward, which he sold out regularly for one purpose and another; but his chief present joy consisted in sitting behind a solid mahogany railing at a rosewood desk in the back portion of his largest Clark Street hostelry—“The Silver Moon.” Here he counted up the returns from his various properties—salons, gambling resorts, and houses of prostitution—which he manipulated with the connivance or blinking courtesy of the present administration, and listened to the pleas and demands of his henchmen and tenants.
The character of Mr. Kerrigan, Mr. Tiernan’s only rival in this rather difficult and sordid region, was somewhat different. He was a small man, quite dapper, with a lean, hollow, and somewhat haggard face, but by no means sickly body, a large, strident mustache, a wealth of coal-black hair parted slickly on one side, and a shrewd, genial brown-black eye—constituting altogether a rather pleasing and ornate figure whom it was not at all unsatisfactory to meet. His ears were large and stood out bat-wise from his head; and his eyes gleamed with a smart, evasive light. He was cleverer financially than Tiernan, richer, and no more than thirty-five, whereas Mr. Tiernan was forty-five years of age. Like Mr. Tiernan in the first ward, Mr. Kerrigan was a power in the second, and controlled a most useful and dangerous floating vote. His saloons harbored the largest floating element that was to be found in the city—longshoremen, railroad hands, stevedores, tramps, thugs, thieves, pimps, rounders, detectives, and the like. He was very vain, considered himself handsome, a “killer” with the ladies. Married, and with two children and a sedate young wife, he still had his mistress, who changed from year to year, and his intermediate girls. His clothes were altogether noteworthy, but it was his pride to eschew jewelry, except for one enormous emerald, value fourteen thousand dollars, which he wore in his necktie on occasions, and the wonder of which, pervading all Dearborn Street and the city council, had won him the soubriquet of “Emerald Pat.” At first he rejoiced heartily in this title, as he did in a gold and diamond medal awarded him by a Chicago brewery for selling the largest number of barrels of beer of any saloon in Chicago. More recently, the newspapers having begun to pay humorous attention to both himself and Mr. Tiernan, because of their prosperity and individuality, he resented it.
The relation of these two men to the present political situation was peculiar, and, as it turned out, was to constitute the weak spot in the Cowperwood-McKenty campaign. Tiernan and Kerrigan, to begin with, being neighbors and friends, worked together in politics and business, on occasions pooling their issues and doing each other favors. The enterprises in which they were engaged being low and shabby, they needed counsel and consolation. Infinitely beneath a man like McKenty in understanding and a politic grasp of life, they were, nevertheless, as they prospered, somewhat jealous of him and his high estate. They saw with speculative and somewhat jealous eyes how, after his union with Cowperwood, he grew and how he managed to work his will in many ways—by extracting tolls from the police department, and heavy annual campaign contributions from manufacturers favored by the city gas and water departments. McKenty—a born manipulator in this respect—knew where political funds were to be had in an hour of emergency, and he did not hesitate to demand them. Tiernan and Kerrigan had always been fairly treated by him as politics go; but they had never as yet been included in his inner council of plotters. When he was down-town on one errand or another, he stopped in at their places to shake hands with them, to inquire after business, to ask if there was any favor he could do them; but never did he stoop to ask a favor of them or personally to promise any form of reward. That was the business of Dowling and others through whom he worked.
Naturally men of strong, restive, animal disposition, finding no complete outlet for all their growing capacity, Tiernan and Kerrigan were both curious to see in what way they could add to their honors and emoluments. Their wards, more than any in the city, were increasing in what might be called a vote-piling capacity, the honest, legitimate vote not being so large, but the opportunities afforded for colonizing, repeating, and ballot-box stuffing being immense. In a doubtful mayoralty campaign the first and second wards alone, coupled with a portion of the third adjoining them, would register sufficient illegitimate votes (after voting-hours, if necessary) to completely change the complexion of the city as to the general officers nominated. Large amounts of money were sent to Tiernan and Kerrigan around election time by the Democratic County Committee to be disposed of as they saw fit. They merely sent in a rough estimate of how much they would need, and always received a little more than they asked for. They never made nor were asked to make accounting afterward. Tiernan would receive as high as fifteen and eighteen, Kerrigan sometimes as much as twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars, his being the pivotal ward under such circumstances.