PHENOMENA do not occur upon legislative flag-staffs without due process. The astonishing manifestation of a sardonic intent above the unconscious lawmakers of Centralia was not the fruit of magic, black or white, but of a simple and easy substitution. The legitimate ornament of the staff was lowered each evening into a box, where it lay, still attached to its halyards, and was raised therefrom in the morning by an assistant janitor who, operating the rope from within the dome, never saw the flag as it mounted to the peak. What more easy, since the dome was always open and unguarded, than for some demoniac-souled satirist to ascend to the repository and substitute an alien banner, always supposing him able to lay possessive hands upon such a thing? Since the Lusitania rejoicings, German flags had blossomed broadcast in the streets of Fenchester, and each new submarine success had brought them forth afresh. As a matter of fact, the satirical substituter had borrowed the Deutscher Club’s proud insignium.
How would the German-Americans take it? That was the first question in the minds of Jeremy Robson and Andrew Galpin alike. When the first shock of amazement wore off, it began to appear that they were taking it with a certain gusto. A joke? Oh, certainly! But a joke with a deserved sting in it for the “Know-Nothings,” the jingo-patriots who could admit no other nationality than their own to any rightful say in American affairs. Privately they were much inclined to chuckle. The forehanded among them hastened forth with cameras to perpetuate the spicy relish of their flag exalted in the high place of the State. While the click of shutters was at its height, the flag came down. Somebody in the Main Square shouted “Hoch der Kaiser!” and there was a burst of laughter and applause.
But for that, casual and insignificant as it was, Jeremy Robson might have treated the matter tactfully, or jocularly, as did The Record. But that heavy, Teutonic mirth roused a dogged wrath within him. What he composed for a “box” on that evening’s editorial page was unpleasant writing and extremely unpleasant reading. There were but few sentences, but they stung. And that which rankled was the suggestion that the insult to the State and the Nation was fittingly typified in the flag from that organization which had jubilated in wine and song over the murder of American women and children aboard the Lusitania.
Before the editorial had been out two hours there were rumors of a mob that was to be raised against The Guardian. Jeremy returned to the office. So did Galpin; also Verrall, white with consternation and chagrin over the reckless challenge of the editorial which could not fail to prejudice the circulation and advertising of the paper; and a dozen other of the staff. At eight o’clock the rhythm of marching feet sounded, and the tumult of voices. Five hundred undergraduates from Old Central massed in the street before the office and gave the University’s three times three for The Guardian and its owner. The rumor had come to them. They were there to tackle any mob that arrived seeking trouble. None materialized. The students stayed and sang and cheered until midnight, and then dispersed. More than the protection offered, to those of The Guardian, was the proof that Young America at least was still American to the core, without taint of doubt or hyphen!
The mob-rumor had been a canard. Organizations such as the Deutscher Club do not raise mobs. They sit in solemn conclave, when action is called for, and appoint proper committees. Insult gross and profound having been offered Fenchester’s leading social organization, its president summoned the Board of Governors, which in turn appointed a Special Committee with instructions. The first act of the committee was to advertise a liberal reward for the “apprehension of the criminal miscreant”—to such heights of expressiveness did righteous indignation run—who had filched the club’s flag. The second was to send a sub-committee to call upon Mr. Jeremy Robson, owner and responsible editor of that libertine sheet, The Guardian. Chance may or may not have dictated that two of the committee, Arnold Blasius, the hatter, and Nicholas Engel, the grocer, should be important local advertisers. The chairman was Emil Bausch.
Forewarned of their coming, Jeremy had Andrew Galpin on hand. The two young makers of The Guardian, shirt-sleeved and alert, received the black-coated delegation of clubmen, formal and accusing, in the inner den.
“We have come to demand a full retragtion,” Emil Bausch opened the ball.
Unhappily, since his first interview with that dignitary, Jeremy had been invariably afflicted with mingled exasperation and amusement at Bausch’s every action. The apostle of Deutschtum roused within Jeremy an impulse of perversity which flatly refused to take the heavy German seriously.
“All right. Go ahead and do it.”
“Do what?” Bausch’s eyes goggled at the editor suspiciously.
“Do what you came to do. Make your demand.”
“I do do it.”
“You make a formal demand on behalf of the Deutscher Club for a retraction of my editorial?”
“We do.”
“Declined, with the editor’s thanks.”
Mr. Bausch’s neck showed signs of swelling beyond the confines of his collar. “You refuse to accebd the rebre-sentations of this commiddee?” he inquired, with a thickening accent.
“Don’t know. Let’s hear ’em.”
The chairman produced from the official pocket a document which he proceeded to render vocally. It was quite grave and awful in verbiage, and there was a great deal of it, rising through a spiral of whereas-es to a climax of denunciation. At the conclusion the editor held out his hand.
“If you please.”
“You want this?” queried Mr. Bausch doubtfully. “What for?”
“For to-morrow’s paper.”
“You wish to publish it? Why?”
A glint appeared in Jeremy’s eye. “It’s so prettily worded,” he explained with sweet simplicity.
Bausch turned the characterization over in his heavy mind. “Pretty,” he said. “Pretty?I do not think—”
“He’s making a fool of you, Mr. Chairman,” broke in Engel, a little, neat, nervous man. He turned on Jeremy. “You insult our club and now you insult us.”
“Apropos of insults,” retorted Jeremy: “what about this document that Mr. Bausch has just read so expressively? Murder seems to be about the only thing that is n’t charged in it. Would you call that a testimonial of regard?”
“Consider the provocation,” said Blasius. “Be square about this thing, Mr. Robson.”
“Give me a chance,” returned the editor promptly. “Don’t begin by holding a gun to my head.”
“The case is blain,” stated Bausch in his heavy accents. “You cannot deny the editorial charching that we made a festivity over the Lusitania.”
“Evidently not.”
“We demand a retragtion of that.”
“On what ground?”
“Because it was an outrache on a high-toned, representative organization, a private—”
“Was n’t it true?” Andrew Galpin’s sharp-edged voice injected a new and brisker element.
“Huh?” The interrogation seemed to have been jolted out of Chairman Bausch’s volume from somewhere below the Adam’s apple.
“Was n’t it true that there was a dinner at the club to celebrate the Lusitania?”
“That is not the question.”
“It’s my question.”
“It’s the only question,” put in Jeremy.
“You refuse to apologize—”
“For commenting on fact? Certainly.”
“While we ’re on the subject,” pursued Galpin, “is n’t it true that Professor Brender, of Old Central, came in when the dinner was half over, and gave you all hell for pulling such a rotten stunt?”
“Gott im Himmel!” muttered Blasius. He turned to Bausch. “Is that true?”
“That he said his heart was all for Germany, and that if submarine warfare was necessary to her success it must go on; but that the man who rejoiced over its necessary tragedies was a reckless fool who put every decent German-American in a false light? Isn’t that true?” continued the relentless voice of Galpin.
“Are you going to prind that?” muttered Bausch.
“A newspaper does n’t print everything it hears. If we could have verified it, we’d have printed it, at the time.”
“We shall come back to the point,” said the chairman, recovering himself. “The Guardian editorial is an affront to a respected and valuable element of the community.”
“We don’t respect child-and-women murderers,” flashed Jeremy, “nor those who honor them.”
“It all comes to this, Mr. Robson.” This was Blasius. “Is your paper for or against Germany in this war?”
“The Guardian is neutral.”
“Neutral!” snorted Bausch. “A straddler.”
“Is that editorial neutral?” demanded Engel.
“Not neutral as regards piracy,” answered its writer steadily. “Neutral as regards legitimate warfare.”
“Of which you are the jutch,” sneered Bausch.
“So far as my paper is concerned.”
Bausch returned doggedly to the charge. “The Deutscher Club is a private organization of gentlemen. For what goes on within its doors we are not resbonsible to any outsider. The Guardian has traduced and defamed us—”
“Sounds like an action for libel,” interpolated Galpin. “Who drew that up: Judge Dana?”
Again the chairman gulped in unpleasant surprise. But he recovered and continued: “—and in the name of the club we demand a full and fitting apology—”
“Hold on!” cried Jeremy. “It was a retraction just now.”
“Retragtion or apology,” amended the baited chairman. “It is all the same.”
“Quite different. A retraction admits an untruth. An apology merely says we’re sorry.”
“I guess either will do,” muttered Engel uncertainly, perceiving that matters were not improving by discussion. “We’ll leave it to you which.”
Jeremy stood up significantly. “Neither,” said he.
The other two committeemen led out their chairman whose Adam’s apple, though pumping furiously, was missing fire so far as vocal result was concerned. Their excited interchange of views died away in the hall.
“I guess we’ve invited Old Miss Trouble in to tea this time, sure,” observed Galpin.
“You didn’t tellmeabout the Brender outbreak, Andy.”
“You were away at the time and had enough troubles, anyway. We could n’t get it in any such shape that I dared print it.”
“Would n’t Brender talk?”
“Tried him. Tight like a clam. Murray, who was assigned to tackle him, said he looked like a man who had lost something.”
“His country, maybe,” surmised Jeremy.
“Ay-ah. I would n’t wonder. I tell you, Boss, there’s a type of German-American that is going through hell and out the other end before this thing is over. Me, I’m glad I’m not one!”
“I’d rather be that kind than belong to the Bausch species, though. Let’s start a Back-to-Germany movement in The Guardian, Andy, and nominate Bausch for the first departure. Would n’t that qualify us for the Suicide Club!”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Boss. The Dutchers will save us the trouble of suicide, if they can.”
And on the following day, he bore the news of the first attack to his chief.
“Boss, prepare! The blow has fell!” he proclaimed tragically.
“Who’s been denouncing us now?”
“Worse. We’re excommunicated. The Deutscher Club has expelled the paper from its sacred precincts. Out we go, lock, stock, and barrel: bell, book, and candle. Two whole copies lost to circulation at one swoop.”
“Mild, Andy, mild! Verrall’s got a list of thirty-seven quits by this morning’s mail. He’ll die of heart-failure superinduced by bad circulation if you and I don’t stop running this paper into the ground.”
“Verrall’s an earnest soul,” observed the general manager, “but he’s always on the borderland of hysteria, and if an advertiser looks cross at him, over he flops.”
“Yes. He had an ‘attack’ this morning. Blasius is out.”
“Entirely?”
“Five inches double; three times a week. Gone glimmering into the jaws of Hun ruthlessness.”
“Any one else?”
“Threats of reduced space. If only they dared, Andy, what would n’t they do to us! But they need us in their business.”
Confirmation in part of Verrall’s dismal forebodings came from Arthur Betts, of Kelter & Betts, who dropped in to see Jeremy. Since the first struggle with the Retailers’ Association, Betts had proved himself a “good sport,” as he would have wished to have it put, in admitting The Guardian’s right to editorial independence, which did not in any measure inhibit him from trying to “put one over” on the paper whenever he thought that he saw a chance. That was part of the game. Though usually worsted, he sometimes succeeded in landing a bit of free advertising. But, like a sound opponent, he had become a strong partisan of Jeremy as against the field.
“You sure put it to the German lot in that editorial,” he observed with a shining eye.
“They had it coming to them,” returned Jeremy.
“Right! But they’re sore clean through. Any cancellations?”
“Blasius.”
“Yep. He’s a dachshund all right. Do you know what they’re stirring up in the Retailers’ Association?”
“No.”
“This is rank treason and betrayal of secrets and so on; but they’re talking down your circulation. Are you losing much?”
“Some.”
“Enough for ’em to demand a lower rate?”
“They can demand. They won’t get it. We’ve got a comfortable margin left.”
“Well, of course I’m for it, officially. Here’s another point. Some of our customers are beginning to talk to the salespeople and department heads about The Guardian. ‘Do you advertise in that paper? What do you do that for? It’s no good. Waste of money. I would n’t believe a thing I read in it, not even an ad.’ You know the line of stuff.”
Jeremy did know it and knew how dangerous it was. “Who are they?” he asked.
“Hans, Fritz, and Wilhelm,” grinned the other. “They are n’t scaring us. But you may get a kick-back from some of the other stores that are timider than we are.”
“I’ll keep an eye out, Betts,” said the editor.
Thus the anti-Guardian campaign simmered, bearing testimony to a steady fire and a slow boiling beneath the surface. Said Judge Selden Dana to Montrose Clark: “Our young cub of The Guardian is getting in wronger every day. I think a polite call is about due.”
DEUTSCHTUM moves slowly, because it moves methodically. No general and open manifestation against The Guardian had followed the Lusitania editorial. None retaliated for the attack on the “Surrender Bill.” But, little by little, there became apparent a guerrilla warfare upon the paper. Manufacturers of certain products widely circulated in the State, particularly beers and soft drinks, began to withdraw or decrease their advertising. In every instance it was noteworthy that these concerns bore German names. Furthermore, small and casual advertisers of Teutonic cast of name and mind—For Sale, Want Ads, and the general line of “classified”—switched from The Guardian to the more amenable Record.
Despite all this The Guardian made a clear and pretty profit in the busy year of 1915. Ups and downs marked the course of its circulation, but the general tendency was upward. The Retailers’ Association had given over any hopes of a successful drive against its advertising rates. Indeed, the best they could look for was that there would not be another increase. Success, however, had entailed special expenses. A new press had been installed. The working force was increased. An active and discontented element in the press-room, led by Milliken, had compelled an expensive readjustment of the wage scale, and the combative Socialist was already lining up his men for another raid. Thus Jeremy had found it expedient to renew from time to time the twenty-thousand-dollar note at the Drovers’ Bank. No difficulties had been made over the renewals. Nor was the owner of the paper much concerned with the matter. From the time that his property-had turned Prosperity Corner into Easy Street, to adopt Andrew Galpin’s term, Jeremy had been content to leave the business and financial details to the general manager and Verrall, reserving himself for editorial problems. Even Verrall, of the twittering nervous system, was now ready to admit that the paper was winning and would soon be an established property, if Jeremy would tactfully refrain from further and gratuitous depredations against Teutonic sensibilities. Verrall did not appreciate, to the full, the unforgiving tenacity of Deutschtum.
Fortunately for Jeremy Robson, the campaign for the State offices of Centralia, in the fall of 1915, took precedence over everything else in the public mind. The reelection of Governor Embree on the anti-corporation issue was all but conceded. But it was not the issue that insured him victory. The solid German vote did that. Orders had gone forth to the German-language press that Governor Embree, even where special conditions made it impracticable to support him, must be recognized as an authority on international complications and a statesman of national caliber. For Embree’s reelection meant that he would be next in line for the Senate vacancy, three years hence, and Deutschtum needed sympathetic souls, such as it deemed Martin Embree to be, in the high places of government. The real fight of the old-line crowd was for control of the State Legislature. For this they were quite ready to sacrifice their gubernatorial candidate, one Tellersen, a stock war-horse of the political stables. A safe representation in either legislative house would mean that Embree’s pet corporation measure, aimed specially at the P.-U. and its branches, but affecting all railroads in the State, was scotched. It might even mean that the Blanket Franchise Bill could be put through. As a further safeguard to corporate interests, the P.-U. intended to put forward, later, its own legal adviser for a place on the Court of Appeals bench.
The campaign drew the Governor and Jeremy Robson closer together than they had been since the Lusitania editorial. Where no vital matter of principle was involved, The Guardian was quite willing to keep off German toes. On his side, the campaigning Governor consented to emphasize Americanism while still maintaining his attitude of sympathy for the sentiments of the German-Americans. Embree won by a large majority, the German districts giving him a preponderance of votes which gravely troubled Jeremy when the figures were analyzed. But on the legislative side it was conceded that only the brilliant campaign of The Guardian in Fenchester and The Journal in Bellair had averted a signal defeat. Widespread “trading” of the German-American vote had favored the P.-U. plans. So close was the result that, when the figures were all in, no man could say which side had won. Taking both houses together there were at least ten indeterminate votes. Plainly the battle for control of the State would be fought out in the spring session between the corporation interests, locally represented by Montrose Clark and Judge Selden Dana, and the radicals led by Governor Embree. Through that winter Jeremy, scenting the lesser battle from afar, cried “Ha-ha!” editorially with frequency and fervor, relegating the greater cause to the background for the time. Herein he was honest enough, as well as politic. He believed that the action and course of the United States was in abeyance until the people should have opportunity of making themselves heard in the presidential decision of the coming year. Hence he was content to wait, always providing that no major issue imperatively called for an expression of policy. For a time, too, Germany seemed more inclined to respect the dictates of humanity. Locally, Jeremy found the atmosphere clearing. The Governor’s triumphant reëlection had pleased and appeased the Germans, and they were inclined to accord a certain measure of credit to The Guardian. Jeremy was sensible of an improved temper in many members of the Deutscher Club as he met them casually. But Blasius was still out of the paper; Stock-muller as well. And Emil Bausch, when he encountered Jeremy on the street, became absorbed in the contemplation of the Beautiful as exemplified in cloud-shapes.
Virtuously unconscious of any backsliding or suspicion thereof, Jeremy was surprised at being made the target of a direct attack by Miss Letitia Pritchard, whom he was passing with a bow on Bank Street one March day of 1916, when she held him up with a lowered umbrella.
“Mr. Robson, have you gone over?” she inquired, her eyes snapping fire into the query.
Naturally, Jeremy asked what she meant.
“I’ve been taking The Guardian again ever since the Lusitania editorial, because I just had to have an American newspaper in the house. Are you still that?”
“Do you doubt it?”
“Could anybody help but doubt it!” challenged the vigorous lady. “Politics, politics, politics! Nothing but stupid politics! Don’t you know the greatest war in history is coming closer to us every day?”
“I hope not closer to us.”
“A fool’s hope! Do you know your Bible, Mr. Robson?”
“Not as well as I ought.”
“Better read it more. Those writers were n’t afraid to speak their minds in a good cause.”
At the ugly adjective Jeremy flushed.
“But that’s beside the matter,” she pursued, twinkling at him suddenly. “I came across a quotation that the Deutscher Club ought to send you, suitably illuminated. Isaiah, 14, 8; the last sentence. Look it up.”
“I will,” promised the editor.
“And you can come and tell me how well it fits,” she threw back at him over her departing shoulder.
Important telegrams claimed Jeremy’s attention on his return. Having disposed of them, his mind reverted to Miss Pritchard’s suggestion for a Deutscher Club quotation for him.
‘“Buddy,” he said to the industrious Mr. Higman, “look up the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, copy the last sentence of the eighth verse and bring it to me.”
Protesting under his breath that this was no time for Sunday-School exercises, Buddy interrupted the composition of a Social Jotting, and set about the errand. When he returned there was a pleased expression upon his face. He presented his chief with a slip of paper thus inscribed:
“Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.”
“What’s this, Buddy?” demanded the chief sternly. “I said the Bible.”
“That’s where I got it,” returned the appreciative Buddy. “Some of those old guys could sure sling the up-to-date stuff.”
“Bring me the Old Testament.” Jeremy looked up the text and, to his surprise, verified the exact words. But when he saw the context he laughed. And that evening he made one of his rare calls.
“Isaiah is no prophet so far as The Guardian is concerned,” he declared to Miss Pritchard. “And the style of that sting rings familiar. Where did you get it?”
“It was written on the margin of an old Guardian.”
Jeremy raised questioning eyes to her face. Miss Pritchard nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “She was back in Berne when that was sent.”
“All right?” Jeremy was conscious that his voice was lessinsouciantthan he could have wished.
“Quite. She will go back to Germany after the war, I suppose.”
“Will you give her a message for me?”
“If you wish.”
The dry, slightly hesitant tone meant, “If youwillbe so foolish.”
“Tell her for The Guardian,” said Jem, “that this feller has n’t laid down. Tell her that he won’t lay down”—he paused, and then completed the paraphrase—“though Hell from beneath is moved for him to meet him at his coming.”
“Put that on your editorial page,” said Miss Pritchard, with a thrill in her voice. “I’d like Marcia to see it there.”
“Perhaps I will when the day comes,” he answered and took his leave.
It was the first message that he had sent to Marcia Ames since they had parted at the door of the Pritchard mansion nearly four years before. Every sense of her, every thought of her, was as vivid, unblurred, untainted by time as if she had gone from him yesterday: “the loveliness that wanes not, the Love that ne’er can wane.” Now, even by so tenuous a thread as his impersonal message for The Guardian, he held to her again. And in his heart sang something lesser but sweeter than hope.
WORDS occasionally take epidemic form. Such was the course of the word “hyphen” through the United States in the year 1916, with its alternate phases, “hyphenate” and “hyphenated.” Centralia, however, established a quarantine against the terms. They were checked at the borders of the State. Where they did creep in and break out into print, it was but a sporadic appearance, the references being both cautious and resentful that such a characterization should be allowed to the license of an unbridled Eastern press. None was willing to admit that the hyphen could be an issue in the future.
It fell to The Guardian to make the first use of “hyphenate” as a term carrying a suggestion of reproach. Quite casually, indeed carelessly, it was written in a sentence of no special import in one of Jeremy’s editorials. Where bolder and more direct offense might have passed with no more than the usual retaliation, this by-word was seized upon by the enemy. It came in the more pat in that, since Jeremy’s talk with Miss Pritchard, The Guardian had assumed a more positive tone upon war issues. Now the hyphenated press again fell upon him tooth and nail. The Marlittstown Herold und Zeitung sounded the keynote in declaring that The Guardian, not content with playing England’s game and misrepresenting Germany’s part in the war, had now descended to calling the loyal German-Americans foul names. “Hyphenate” did n’t seem to Jeremy a very villainously foul name. He was much inclined to dismiss the whole thing from mind as a petty excuse for renewed hostilities, had not the flood of letters in his mail apprised him that the chance word had been salt upon the raw surfaces of the Teutonic skin. Selecting a typical letter, he replied to it in a moderate and good-tempered editorial, pointing out that in the hyphen itself was no harm; but that essentially the Nation had a right to expect every German-American, Irish-American, Swedish-American, or other adoptive citizen, to consider the interests of this country as paramount in any crisis. Far from soothing the exacerbated press, this seemed rather to inflame them. Their principles were not clear (other than that they were not to be “dictated to” by Jeremy or any one else), but their temper was. That one misstep had landed The Guardian in a hornet’s nest.
Just about the time when the buzzing and whirring were the loudest, Judge Selden Dana called to see Jeremy, and requested the favor of half an hour’s uninterrupted conference upon a subject of importance. When the long-jawed, sleepy-eyed, crafty-spoken lawyer settled down to his topic, it manifested itself as the imminent fight in the Legislature over the public utilities bills. On behalf of certain clients, Judge Dana would be pleased to know what attitude The Guardian might be expected to assume.
“Don’t you read The Guardian, Judge?” inquired its editor.
“Always. I may add, carefully.”
“Then do you have to ask where we stand?”
“Circumstances change, Mr. Robson. Conditions also. Sometimes opinions.”
“Changed circumstances or conditions might alter The Guardian’s opinions. Is that the idea?”
“I suppose that The Guardian’s circumstances are changed,” murmured the lawyer.
Jeremy’s easy smile vanished. “The Guardian is able to take care of itself.”
“Up to a point. That I will concede. But, all things considered, would not the paper do well to make some friends now, instead of enemies?”
“That depends on the price to be paid.”
“Small. Ridiculously small.” Judge Dana spread out a pair of candid hands. “Mr. Robson, I’m not going to ask that The Guardian oppose the Corporation Control Bill when it comes up.”
“Indeed!”
“Nor that you’ll support the Blanket Franchise Bill.”
“I appreciate your forbearance.”
“But The Guardian has professed a profound regard for neutrality.”
“As to the war only.”
“Neutrality,” repeated the lawyer, “as to the war. Whether you have practiced what you preach is another matter. Some of our most influential citizens and business men—andbusiness men—appear to think not. I don’t know,” he continued with intent, “whether The Guardian’s note for a considerable amount—say, well, twenty thousand dollars—would be considered safe today by the best of our local banks. I say, I don’t know.”
“There’s very little you don’t know, isn’t there, Judge?” retorted the editor evenly.
“I try to keep informed; I try to keep informed.” The long jaw relaxed a trifle. “Now, Mr. Robson, a reasonable neutrality as to these pending measures would be greatly appreciated by us.”
“Appreciation is a vague sort of thing.”
“Don’t think you’re going to trap me, young man,” warned the visitor keenly. “I’m not here to make offers. Every man may have his price, but I don’t happen to be fool enough to think that I know yours or could pay it if I did. I want to appeal to your sense of fairness.”
Jeremy laughed, not unpleasantly. “Don’t scare me, Judge.”
“No. This is plain talk. The P.-U. intends to open up soon its extensive educational campaign of advertising, to instruct the public on these new issues.”
“Through the newspapers?”
“Through the newspapers. Would The Guardian refuse that advertising?”
“I don’t see any reason why it should.”
“Very good. Would it accept the advertising and take our money in payment for value received, and then turn about and destroy all the value to us by attacking our arguments editorially?”
“Very ingenious,” smiled Jeremy. “But we’ve been over that before, have n’t we?”
“Not ingenious. Simple fairness. Is n’t it?”
“Maybe it is.”
“Then—”
“Then it’s quite plain that we can’t take your ads. In other words, Judge Dana, you can’t buy our editorial opinions.”
“See, now, how you divert my meaning,” reproached the lawyer. “I’ve distinctly said that all we expected in The Guardian is neutrality.”
“You can’t buy our silence, either,”
“What’ll you take for The Guardian?” asked the lawyer abruptly.
“The Guardian’s not for sale.”
“It will be before the year’s end.”
“As a prophet you don’t qualify, Judge.”
“As a man who knows what is going on, I do. Figure out what the loss of the P.-U. advertising will cost you; the present advertising and the coming campaign. Figure on top of that the other railroad advertising affected by this strike bill of Embree’s. Add what you’re losing every day by your war-policy. Then figure out where you’re going to get your next loan. After that, come and see me. Delighted to have you call at any time. Good-bye.”
“Now, I wonder how much of that is bluff,” Jeremy communed with himself, after his caller had left.
He had not long to wonder. The P.-U. contract was cancelled on the following day: a sure sixteen hundred dollars and a potential twenty-five hundred dollars a year. On top of that every railroad company advertising in The Guardian gave notice of withdrawal.
At least four thousand dollars more, gone. True, Jeremy might have brought suit, but the contracts were so loosely drawn that the issue would have been doubtful. As if by a preconcerted signal, various concerns in Bellair and the other large cities, which had been consistent patrons of The Guardian for years, dropped out. One chum manufacturing company was quite frank as to the reason. So much criticism had poured in from the German farmers, against The Guardian and any one supporting it, that the concern deemed it wise to remove the cause of offense. Jeremy pondered upon the probability that the P.-U., represented for political reasons in the Deutscher Club by Judge Dana, was working with the hyphenate element to down the paper. He foresaw that he would need all his resources, editorial and financial, to weather the storm. No hope, for the present, of paying off that twenty-thou-sand-dollar note at the Drovers’ Bank. Upon the heels of the thought, he recalled Dana’s innuendo.
He went at once to the bank and asked for the president, Mr. Warrington. Mr. Warrington was gently regretful, but could not see his way to renew the note. No, not even for half the amount. Money was in great demand. Newspaper security was proverbially unstable. Finally: “One of our directors who is in a position to be informed strongly advises against continuing the loan.” Knowing beforehand what name he should find, Jeremy looked up a list of the directors. There it was, “Montrose Clark, President Fenchester Public Utilities Corporation.”
Pride, an excellent quality in an editor, is no asset to a borrower. Swallowing his, Jeremy made a pilgrimage of mortification to the offices of the P.-U. Corporation, where he presented to Garson, the hand-perfected secretary, his application to see Mr. Montrose Clark. Garson, discreetly and condescendingly smiling from above the carnation in his curvy black coat, said that he would see if it could be arranged. Thereafter Jeremy had leisure to do more swallowing, for he was kept waiting a humiliating and purposeful hour. Admitted, at length, to the presence, he went at once to the point.
“Mr. Clark, it is going to be very inconvenient not to have The Guardian note renewed.”
The president of the P.-U. was no foe to time-saving directness. “It would be very inconvenient for us to have The Guardian misrepresenting the new franchise plan.”
“That’s not a franchise. It’s a Hudson’s Bay Company charter. It would give you the right to do anything from conducting a revival to raising beans on the right of way. It is n’t even constitutional.”
“Lesser legal authorities than yourself venture to dissent,” returned the other, sardonically. “Such as Judge Dana.”
“He’s paid to.”
“As you are paid for your partisanship, in circulation among sensation-seekers, and in the favors of that blatherskite, Embree.”
“The Guardian stands by the Governor in this fight.”
“Go to him for your loan, then.”
“Am I to understand that unless I play the corporation game here, the banks are closed to me?”
“Not from anything I have said.”
“Said: no. It’s pretty plain what you mean. Well, the plant is good security. I can get money from the Chicago banks.”
“Probably not,” was the quiet retort.
It fell upon Jeremy’s consciousness, with chill foreboding, that this might be true. Little though he knew of banking, he guessed that any large, out-of-town banks would take counsel of the local institutions before making a loan. What information would thus be elicited would hardly be favorable. He rose.
“All right, Mr. Clark. If you ‘re going to fight that way, it can’t be helped. The Guardian is n’t going to back down. We’ll fight you on your own terms, to a finish.” The red face of the local great man grew redder. “With this difference, that we’ll fight fair.” The face turned purple. “I bid you good-day, sir.”
“What do you mean by talking to me about fairness?” burst out the other. “You don’t know what fairness is.”
“Call it patriotism, then. If I were in your position, Mr. Clark, I don’t think I’d care to make a deal with the Deutscher Club committee, to try and ruin a newspaper for daring to be American and not hyphen-American.” Montrose Clark bolted up out of his chair. “It’s a lie,” he roared.
“It’s the truth. Ask Judge Dana. You’re going to put him up for the Court of Appeals, I hear. Let me suggest that you read his record first. Or, you can read it later in The Guardian.”
“Don’t you threaten your betters, sir.” Jeremy laughed. “Let me tell you before you go,” pursued the exacerbated banker, “that I have n’t forgotten your impertinence in pretending to expect me to trot around to your wretched little newspaper office.”
Instead of annoying, this final flash of pettiness rather cheered Jeremy. After all, he reflected, on his way back, a man so small-souled could not be a very formidable opponent. Montrose Clark, he surmised, was powerful chiefly because nobody had ever boldly challenged his power. Nevertheless, Jeremy did not under-reckon the seriousness of his situation. Money the paper must have, and at once. By gutting his reserve and selling some high-grade stocks in an unfavorable market, he could pay off the note. But, in that case, The Guardian would have to continue on a shoe-string, and with obvious troubles looming ahead. He laid the problem in conference before Andrew Galpin and Max Verrall. Verrall, who for weeks had been prowling about the office with his pale and bony fingers plunged in his brickish hair, ready at any moment, one might infer, to pluck out some desperate handfuls, promptly made the same suggestion that Montrose Clark had proffered, though in a different tone.
“Go to the Governor.”
“How would he have any spare money?” demanded Galpin.
“He can get it easy enough. His name on a note would go with any bank in the Northern Tier.”
“No. That won’t do,” objected Jeremy. “We’re too close politically. That would compromise The Guardian if it were ever known.”
“Let him fix it up for you, then, without his endorsement,” insisted the other. “I’ll go up and see him now.”
Arrangements were quickly completed. Nothing easier, the Governor had said, smiling. He had sent Verrall up to Spencerville with letters. All was concluded that evening. The Spencerville Agricultural Savings Bank would be glad to loan to Mr. Robson, on the security of The Guardian plant, any sum up to twenty-five thousand dollars. Verrall brought back the glad news in the morning.
“Too easy,” grumbled Galpin. “Don’t close yet,” he advised his chief privately. “I’m taking a day off.”
The general manager made a flying trip to Spencerville. On his return, he held a long conference with Jeremy, the upshot of which was that the Governor was warmly thanked for his kind offices, but informed that the loan would not be needed as another arrangement had been made. The other arrangement was a second-mortgage loan on the building for fifteen thousand dollars. This, they hoped, would pull them through.
Andrew Galpin had won his point by a silent exhibit of a snap-shot taken in Spencerville. It showed the obliging bank, with its front window bearing this inscription:
“Landwirtschaftliche Spar-Bank.”
The lettering was German text.