A certain amount of the
profitable proceeds would have to be set aside to assuage the feelings
of those who were not contractors. Funds would have to be loaned at
election time to certain individuals and organizations--but no matter.
The amount would be small. So Butler and Patrick Gavin Comiskey, the
councilman (the latter silently) entered into business relations. Butler
gave up driving a wagon himself. He hired a young man, a smart Irish boy
of his neighborhood, Jimmy Sheehan, to be his assistant, superintendent,
stableman, bookkeeper, and what not. Since he soon began to make between
four and five thousand a year, where before he made two thousand, he
moved into a brick house in an outlying section of the south side, and
sent his children to school. Mrs. Butler gave up making soap and feeding
pigs. And since then times had been exceedingly good with Edward Butler.
He could neither read nor write at first; but now he knew how, of
course. He had learned from association with Mr. Comiskey that there
were other forms of contracting--sewers, water-mains, gas-mains,
street-paving, and the like. Who better than Edward Butler to do it?
He knew the councilmen, many of them.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133