第219章 Chapter LXI The Cataclysm(5)

The Mayor. "I shall have to ask the audience in the gallery to keep quiet in order that the business in hand may be considered."

(Applause, and the gallery lapses into silence.)

Alderman Guigler (to Alderman Sumulsky). "Well trained, eh?"

Alderman Ballenberg (pro-Cowperwood, getting up--large, brown, florid, smooth-faced). "Before calling up an ordinance which bears my name I should like to ask permission of the council to make a statement. When I introduced this ordinance last week I said--"

A Voice. "We know what you said."

Alderman Ballenberg. "I said that I did so by request. I want to explain that it was at the request of a number of gentlemen who have since appeared before the committee of this council that now has this ordinance--"

A Voice. "That's all right, Ballenberg. We know by whose request you introduced it. You've said your little say."

Alderman Ballenberg. "If the chair pleases--"

A Voice. "Sit down, Ballenberg. Give some other boodler a chance."

The Mayor. "Will the gallery please stop interrupting."

Alderman Horanek (jumping to his feet). "This is an outrage. The gallery is packed with people come here to intimidate us. Here is a great public corporation that has served this city for years, and served it well, and when it comes to this body with a sensible proposition we ain't even allowed to consider it. The mayor packs the gallery with his friends, and the papers stir up people to come down here by thousands and try to frighten us. I for one--"

A Voice. "What's the matter, Billy? Haven't you got your money yet?"

Alderman Hvranek (Polish-American, intelligent, even artistic looking, shaking his fist at the gallery). "You dare not come down here and say that, you coward!"

A Chorus of Fifty Voices. "Rats!" (also) "Billy, you ought to have wings."

Alderman Tiernan (rising). "I say now, Mr. Mayor, don't you think we've had enough of this?"

A Voice. "Well, look who's here. If it ain't Smiling Mike."

Another Voice. "How much do you expect to get, Mike?"

Alderman Tiernan (turning to gallery). "I want to say I can lick any man that wants to come down here and talk to me to my face.

I'm not afraid of no ropes and no guns. These corporations have done everything for the city--"

A Voice. "Aw!"

Alderman Tiernan. "If it wasn't for the street-car companies we wouldn't have any city."

Ten Voices. "Aw!"

Alderman Tiernan (bravely). "My mind ain't the mind of some people."

A Voice. "I should say not."

Alderman Tiernan. "I'm talking for compensation for the privileges we expect to give."

A Voice. "You're talking for your pocket-book."

Alderman Tiernan. "I don't give a damn for these cheap skates and cowards in the gallery. I say treat these corporations right.

They have helped make the city."

A Chorus of Fifty Voices. "Aw! You want to treat yourself right, that's what you want. You vote right to-night or you'll be sorry."

By now the various aldermen outside of the most hardened characters were more or less terrified by the grilling contest. It could do no good to battle with this gallery or the crowd outside. Above them sat the mayor, before them reporters, ticking in shorthand every phrase and word. "I don't see what we can do," said Alderman Pinski to Alderman Hvranek, his neighbor. "It looks to me as if we might just as well not try."

At this point arose Alderman Gilleran, small, pale, intelligent, anti-Cowperwood. By prearrangement he had been scheduled to bring the second, and as it proved, the final test of strength to the issue. "If the chair pleases," he said, "I move that the vote by which the Ballenberg fifty-year ordinance was referred to the joint committee of streets and alleys be reconsidered, and that instead it be referred to the committee on city hall."

This was a committee that hitherto had always been considered by members of council as of the least importance. Its principal duties consisted in devising new names for streets and regulating the hours of city-hall servants. There were no perquisites, no graft. In a spirit of ribald defiance at the organization of the present session all the mayor's friends--the reformers--those who could not be trusted--had been relegated to this committee. Now it was proposed to take this ordinance out of the hands of friends and send it here, from whence unquestionably it would never reappear.

The great test had come.

Alderman Hoberkorn (mouthpiece for his gang because the most skilful in a parliamentary sense). "The vote cannot be reconsidered." He begins a long explanation amid hisses.

A Voice. "How much have you got?"

A Second Voice. "You've been a boodler all your life."

Alderman Hoberkorn (turning to the gallery, a light of defiance in his eye). "You come here to intimidate us, but you can't do it. You're too contemptible to notice."

A Voice. "You hear the drums, don't you?"

A Second Voice. "Vote wrong, Hoberkorn, and see. We know you."

Alderman Tiernan (to himself). "Say, that's pretty rough, ain't it?"

The Mayor. "Motion overruled. The point is not well taken."

Alderman Guigler (rising a little puzzled). "Do we vote now on the Gilleran resolution?"

A Voice. "You bet you do, and you vote right."

The Mayor. "Yes. The clerk will call the roll."

The Clerk (reading the names, beginning with the A's). "Altvast?"

(pro-Cowperwood).

Alderman Altvast. "Yea." Fear had conquered him.

Alderman Tiernan (to Alderman Kerrigan). "Well, there's one baby down."

Alderman Kerrigan. "Yep."

"Ballenberg?" (Pro-Cowperwood; the man who had introduced the ordinance.)

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "Say, has Ballenberg weakened?"

Alderman Kerrigan. "It looks that way."

"Canna?"

"Yea."

"Fogarty?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan (nervously). "There goes Fogarty."

"Hvranek?"

"Yea."

Alderman Tiernan. "And Hvranek!"

Alderman Kerrigan (referring to the courage of his colleagues).

"It's coming out of their hair."

In exactly eighty seconds the roll-call was in and Cowperwood had lost--41 to 25. It was plain that the ordinance could never be revived.