vised and erected a
series of elevated roads calculated to relieve the congestion of
traffic on the lower portion of that long and narrow island, and they
had proved an immense success. Cowperwood had been interested in them,
along with everything else which pertained to public street traffic,
from the very beginning. In his various trips to New York he had made
a careful physical inspection of them. He knew all about their
incorporation, backers, the expense connected with them, their returns,
and so forth. Personally, in so far as New York was concerned, he
considered them an ideal solution of traffic on that crowded island.
Here in Chicago, where the population was as yet comparatively
small--verging now toward a million, and widely scattered over a great
area--he did not feel that they would be profitable--certainly not for
some years to come. What traffic they gained would be taken from the
surface lines, and if he built them he would be merely doubling his
expenses to halve his profits. From time to time he had contemplated
the possibility of their being built by other men--providing they could
secure a franchise, which previous to the late election had not seemed
probable--and in this connection he had once said to Addison: "Let them
sink their money, and about the time the population is sufficient to
support the lines they will have been driven into the hands of
receivers. That will simply chase the game into my bag, and I can buy
them for a mere song." With this conclusion Addison had agreed. But
since this conversation circumstances made the construction of these
elevated roads far less problematic.

In the first place, public interest in the idea of elevated roads was
increasing. They were a novelty, a factor in the life of New York; and
at this time rivalry with the great cosmopolitan heart was very keen in
the mind of the average Chicago citizen. Public sentiment in this
direction, however naive or unworthy, was nevertheless sufficient to
make any elevated road in Chicago popular for the time being. In the
second place, it so happened that because of this swelling tide of
municipal enthusiasm, this renaissance of the West, Chicago had finally
been chosen, at a date shortly preceding the present campaign, as the
favored city for an enormous international fair--quite the largest ever
given in America. Men such as Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel, to
say nothing of the various newspaper publis