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attractive and less brilliant. Jacob Harmon was a thick wit socially, but no fool financially. He
was big and rather doleful to look upon, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes, but fairly
intelligent, and absolutely willing to approve anything which was not too broad in its
crookedness and which would afford him sufficient protection to keep him out of the clutches of
the law. He was really not so cunning as dull and anxious to get along.
Thomas Wycroft, the last of this useful but minor triumvirate, was a tall, lean man, candle-waxy,
hollow-eyed, gaunt of face, pathetic to look at physically, but shrewd. He was an iron-molder by
trade and had gotten into politics much as Stener had--because he was useful; and he had
managed to make some money--via this triumvirate of which Strobik was the ringleader, and
which was engaged in various peculiar businesses which will now be indicated.
The companies which these several henchmen had organized under previous administrations,
and for Mollenhauer, dealt in meat, building material, lamp-posts, highway supplies, anything
you will, which the city departments or its institutions needed. A city contract once awarded was
irrevocable, but certain councilmen had to be fixed in advance and it took money to do that. The
company so organized need not actually slaughter any cattle or mold lamp-posts. All it had to
do was to organize to do that, obtain a charter, secure a contract for supplying such material to
the city from the city council (which Strobik, Harmon, and Wycroft would attend to), and then
sublet this to some actual beef-slaughterer or iron-founder, who would supply the material and
allow them to pocket their profit which in turn was divided or paid for to Mollenhauer and
Simpson in the form of political donations to clubs or organizations. It was so easy and in a way
so legitimate. The particular beef-slaughterer or iron-founder thus favored could not hope of his
own ability thus to obtain a contract. Stener, or whoever was in charge of the city treasury at the
time, for his services in loaning money at a low rate of interest to be used as surety for the
proper performance of contract, and to aid in some instances the beef-killer or iron-founder to
carry out his end, was to be allowed not only the one or two per cent. which he might pocket
(other treasurers had), but a fair proportion of the profits. A complacent, confidential chief clerk
who was all right would be recommended to him. It did not concern Stener that Strobik, Harmon,
and Wycroft, acting for Mollenhauer, were incidentally planning to use a little of the money
loaned for purposes quite outside those indicated. It was his business to loan it.
However, to be going on. Some time before he was even nominated, Stener had learned from
Strobik, who, by the way, was one of his sureties as treasurer (which suretyship was against the
law, as were those of Councilmen Wycroft and Harmon, the law of Pennsylvania stipulating that
one political servant might not become surety for another), that those who had brought about
this nomination and election would by no means ask him to do anything which was not perfectly
legal, but that he must be complacent and not stand in the way of big municipal perquisites nor
bite the hands that fed him. It was also made perfectly plain to him, that once he was well in
office a little money for himself was to be made. As has been indicated, he had always been a
poor man. He had seen all those who had dabbled in politics to any extent about him heretofore
do very well financially indeed, while he pegged along as an insurance and real-estate agent.
He had worked hard as a small political henchman. Other politicians were building themselves
nice homes in newer portions of the city. They were going off to New York or Harrisburg or
Washington on jaunting parties. They were seen in happy converse at road-houses or country
hotels in season with their wives or their women favorites, and he was not, as yet, of this happy
throng. Naturally now that he was promised something, he was interested and compliant. What
might he not get?
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