The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
There is another man high in Chicago financial circles. Men tip
their hats to him on the streets. His name appears on the
prospectuses and in the lists of directors in many powerful
institutions. He is a prominent figure at many social functions.
His hair is white with age, but he still has a lust for tender
maidenhood. This man has served a term in the penitentiary for
stealing from his government. As a result of that theft he has
many dollars.
When a man hears of Chicago he is pretty apt to hear of Yerkes.
Yerkes owns all of the north side street railways and is a
dictator in a dozen enormous enterprises. It is the fashion to
regard Yerkes as an octopus who has Chicago grasped in his
strangling arms. It is the custom to hurl abuse at Yerkes and
hold Yerkes responsible for all the many ills of the city. In the
popular mind Yerkes is the Chicago exemplar of the grasping,
soulless, blood-sucking monopolist. This is because the newspaper
trust does not like Yerkes. He began fighting it a long time ago,
holding war to be cheaper than tribute. Up to date Yerkes has a
long way the best of the contest. He has a thick skin. Abuse
glides off him like water off an oiled board. Yerkes, too, is a
jail bird. He has served, it is said, a term in a Pennsylvania
penitentiary. Yerkes went to the penitentiary, it is further
said, because he would not betray his fellow robbers. He took his
punishment, but he kept his mouth shut. In other words, he "did
not peach on his pals." It will be seen that there is a good deal
of a man in Yerkes--much more, in fact than is to be found in any
one of his newspaper publishing traducers; but even his fondest
intimates have never denied that he is a rascal.
There are women high in the society of Chicago who know more
about the services of unscrupulous midwives than they would care
to tell. There are girls still wearing their maiden names whose
white arms and throats flash with the ransoms of princes who will
feel no blush stealing over neck, cheek and chin when they lie
waiting in the bridal bed. Three are mothers of children--many of
them--who have "graduated" from Dwight and whose breaths still
reek with the fumes of whiskey. There are wives whose annual
flitting to the summer resorts means six weeks of unrestrained
lechery. Meanwhile the old man, who is left in the city to
wrestle for some more of the dollars, is not overlooking any
bets. It is possible that he knows his wife is unchaste.
Certainly he makes no pretensions to chastity himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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