Investment into an accidental but none the less criminal mire of failure and exposure and public calumny and what not.

He paused and gazed at the jury, adjusting his sleeves as he And then they get to the place where the more vulnerable did so, and looking as though he knew for certain that he was individual of the two—the man in the most dangerous posion the trail of a slippery, elusive criminal who was in a fair way tion, the city treasurer of Philadelphia, no less—can no longer to foist himself upon an honorable and decent community reasonably or, let us say, courageously, follow the other fel-and an honorable and innocent jury as an honest man.

low; and then you have such a spectacle as was described Then he continued:

here this afternoon in the witness-chair by Mr. Stener—that is, you have a vicious, greedy, unmerciful financial wolf stand-

“Now, gentlemen, what are the facts? You can see for your-ing over a cowering, unsophisticated commercial lamb, and selves exactly how this whole situation has come about. You saying to him, his white, shiny teeth glittering all the while, are sensible men. I don’t need to tell you. Here are two men,

‘If you don’t advance me the money I ask for—the three one elected treasurer of the city of Philadelphia, sworn to hundred thousand dollars I now demand—you will be a guard the interests of the city and to manipulate its finances convict, your children will be thrown in the street, you and to the best advantage, and the other called in at a time of your wife and your family will be in poverty again, and there 342

Dreiser

will be no one to turn a hand for you.’ That is what Mr.

hired broker, or doesn’t it sound like a hard, defiant, con-Stener says Mr. Cowperwood said to him. I, for my part, temptuous master—a man in control and ready to rule and haven’t a doubt in the world that he did. Mr. Steger, in his win by fair means or foul?

Very guarded references to his client, describes him as a nice,

“Gentlemen, I hold no brief for George W. Stener. In my kind, gentlemanly agent, a broker merely on whom was prac-judgment he is as guilty as his smug co-partner in crime—if tically forced the use of five hundred thousand dollars at two not more so—this oily financier who came smiling and in and a half per cent. when money was bringing from ten to sheep’s clothing, pointing out subtle ways by which the city’s fifteen per cent. in Third Street on call loans, and even more.

money could be made profitable for both; but when I hear But I for one don’t choose to believe it. The thing that strikes Mr. Cowperwood described as I have just heard him de-me as strange in all of this is that if he was so nice and kind scribed, as a nice, mild, innocent agent, my gorge rises. Why, and gentle and remote—a mere hired and therefore subser-gentlemen, if you want to get a right point of view on this vient agent—how is it that he could have gone to Mr. Stener’s whole proposition you will have to go back about ten or office two or three days before the matter of this sixty-thou-twelve years and see Mr. George W. Stener as he was then, a sand-dollar check came up and say to him, as Mr. Stener rather poverty-stricken beginner in politics, and before this testifies under oath that he did say to him, ‘If you don’t give very subtle and capable broker and agent came along and me three hundred thousand dollars’ worth more of the city’s pointed out ways and means by which the city’s money could money at once, to-day, I will fail, and you will be a convict.

be made profitable; George W. Stener wasn’t very much of a You will go to the penitentiary.’? That’s what he said to him.

personage then, and neither was Frank A. Cowperwood when

‘I will fail and you will be a convict. They can’t touch me, he found Stener newly elected to the office of city treasurer.

but they will arrest you. I am an agent merely.’ Does that Can’t you see him arriving at that time nice and fresh and sound like a nice, mild, innocent, well-mannered agent, a young and well dressed, as shrewd as a fox, and saying: ‘Come 343

The Financier

to me. Let me handle city loan. Loan me the city’s money at that gentleman anything about finance or this wonderful two per cent. or less.’ Can’t you hear him suggesting this?

manipulation that followed? I ask you, does he look clever Can’t you see him?

enough to suggest all the subtleties by which these two sub-

“George W. Stener was a poor man, comparatively a very sequently made so much money? Why, the statement of this poor man, when he first became city treasurer. All he had man Cowperwood made to his creditors at the time of his was a small real-estate and insurance business which brought failure here a few weeks ago showed that he considered him-him in, say, twenty-five hundred dollars a year. He had a self to be worth over one million two hundred and fifty thou-wife and four children to support, and he had never had the sand dollars, and he is only a little over thirty-four years old slightest taste of what for him might be called luxury or com-to-day. How much was he worth at the time he first entered fort. Then comes Mr. Cowperwood—at his request, to be business relations with the ex-city treasurer? Have you any sure, but on an errand which held no theory of evil gains in idea? I can tell. I had the matter looked up almost a month Mr. Stener’s mind at the time—and proposes his grand ago on my accession to office. Just a little over two hundred scheme of manipulating all the city loan to their mutual ad-thousand dollars, gentlemen—just a little over two hundred vantage. Do you yourselves think, gentlemen, from what you thousand dollars. Here is an abstract from the files of Dun have seen of George W. Stener here on the witness-stand,

& Company for that year. Now you can see how rapidly our that it was he who proposed this plan of ill-gotten wealth to Caesar has grown in wealth since then. You can see how prof-that gentleman over there?”