There was no understanding between them on this score.
If they had thought at all on the matter they would
have decided that they did not want any outsider to
interfere. As a matter of fact the street-railway
business in Philadelphia was not sufficiently developed
at this time to suggest to any one the grand scheme
of union which came later. Yet in connection
with this new arrangement between Stener and Cowperwood,
it was Strobik who now came forward to Stener with
an idea of his own. All were certain to make
money through Cowperwood—he and Stener,
especially. What was amiss, therefore, with himself
and Stener and with Cowperwood as their—or
rather Stener’s secret representative, since
Strobik did not dare to appear in the matter—buying
now sufficient street-railway shares in some one line
to control it, and then, if he, Strobik, could, by
efforts of his own, get the city council to set aside
certain streets for its extension, why, there you
were—they would own it. Only, later,
he proposed to shake Stener out if he could. But
this preliminary work had to be done by some one,
and it might as well be Stener. At the same time,
as he saw, this work had to be done very carefully,
because naturally his superiors were watchful, and
if they found him dabbling in affairs of this kind
to his own advantage, they might make it impossible
for him to continue politically in a position where
he could help himself just the same. Any outside
organization such as a street-railway company already
in existence had a right to appeal to the city council
for privileges which would naturally further its and
the city’s growth, and, other things being equal,
these could not be refused. It would not do for
him to appear, however, both as a shareholder and president
of the council. But with Cowperwood acting privately
for Stener it would be another thing.
The interesting thing about this proposition as finally
presented by Stener for Strobik to Cowperwood, was
that it raised, without appearing to do so, the whole
question of Cowperwood’s attitude toward the
city administration. Although he was dealing
privately for Edward Butler as an agent, and with
this same plan in mind, and although he had never met
either Mollenhauer or Simpson, he nevertheless felt
that in so far as the manipulation of the city loan
was concerned he was acting for them. On the
other hand, in this matter of the private street-railway
purchase which Stener now brought to him, he realized
from the very beginning, by Stener’s attitude,
that there was something untoward in it, that Stener
felt he was doing something which he ought not to do.
“Cowperwood,” he said to him the first
morning he ever broached this matter—it
was in Stener’s office, at the old city hall
at Sixth and Chestnut, and Stener, in view of his
oncoming prosperity, was feeling very good indeed—“isn’t
there some street-railway property around town here
that a man could buy in on and get control of if he
had sufficient money?”