azoned with the query: "Are we going to
be robbed?" On sign-boards, fences, and dead walls huge posters, four
by six feet in dimension, were displayed.

WALDEN H. LUCAS

against the

BOODLERS
===========================
Every citizen of Chicago should
come down to the City Hall

TO-NIGHT
MONDAY, DEC. 12
===========================
and every Monday night
thereafter while the Street-car
Franchises are under consideration,
and see that the interests
of the city are protected against

BOODLEISM
=========
Citizens, Arouse and Defeat the Boodlers!

In the papers were flaring head-lines; in the clubs, halls, and
churches fiery speeches could nightly be heard. Men were drunk now
with a kind of fury of contest. They would not succumb to this Titan
who was bent on undoing them. They would not be devoured by this
gorgon of the East. He should be made to pay an honest return to the
city or get out. No fifty-year franchise should be granted him. The
Mears law must be repealed, and he must come into the city council
humble and with clean hands. No alderman who received as much as a
dollar for his vote should in this instance be safe with his life.

Needless to say that in the face of such a campaign of intimidation
only great courage could win. The aldermen were only human. In the
council committee-chamber Cowperwood went freely among them, explaining
as he best could the justice of his course and making it plain that,
although willing to buy his rights, he looked on them as no more than
his due. The rule of the council was barter, and he accepted it. His
unshaken and unconquerable defiance heartened his followers greatly,
and the thought of thirty thousand dollars was as a buttress against
many terrors. At the same time many an alderman speculated solemnly as
to what he would do afterward and where he would go once he had sold
out.

At last the Monday night arrived which was to bring the final test of
strength. Picture the large, ponderous structure of black
granite--erected at the expense of millions and suggesting somewhat the
somnolent