Butler, Mollenhauer, and
Simpson. Just now it was without important fuel or ammunition; and this
assignment of Cowperwood, with its attendant crime, so far as the city
treasury was concerned, threatened, as some politicians and bankers saw
it, to give it just the club it was looking for.
However, the decisive conference took place between Cowperwood and the
reigning political powers some five days after Cowperwood's failure, at
the home of Senator Simpson, which was located in Rittenhouse Square--a
region central for the older order of wealth in Philadelphia. Simpson
was a man of no little refinement artistically, of Quaker extraction,
and of great wealth-breeding judgment which he used largely to satisfy
his craving for political predominance. He was most liberal where money
would bring him a powerful or necessary political adherent. He fairly
showered offices--commissionerships, trusteeships, judgeships, political
nominations, and executive positions generally--on those who did his
bidding faithfully and without question. Compared with Butler and
Mollenhauer he was more powerful than either, for he represented the
State and the nation.
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