CRYSTALLIZING politics left but two figures in the field for the campaign of 1913. That Martin Embree would carry the radical banner was a foregone conclusion. Magnus Laurens was logically the man to oppose him. To the Clark-Wanser-Dana wing of the party, who owned the then Governor, a weak-kneed, feeble-spirited, oratorical creature, Laurens was distasteful. He was far more prone to give orders than to take them. But on fundamental issues he was “right”; a sound conservative, reliably hostile to all the quasi-socialistic theories threatening the control of the State. Moreover his personal and political rectitude was beyond suspicion. Like or dislike him, he was the only man in sight with a chance of beating Embree.
Meantime “Deutschtum,” that world-wide, subterranean propaganda of German influence, German culture, German hopes and ambitions and future dominations which had for a quarter of a century established itself reproductively as the ichneumon parasite affixes its eggs to the body of the helpless host which, later, their brood will prey upon and destroy—Deutschtum was scheming out the peaceable and subtle conquest of Centralia through capture of the minds of the coming generations of citizens. The Cultural Language Bill was quite harmless in appearance, so astutely had it been drawn. Under pretense of giving parents of public school pupils the right to secure for their children, by petition, instruction in foreign languages, it actually established German as a “preferred study” with the heaviest ratio of credits, and, in the advanced schools, as practically a compulsory subject. This meant the addition of some four to five hundred teachers of German throughout the State, every one of whom would be a propagandist of Deutschtum. As a side issue, the determination of the textbooks on European history was left to the German staff. The school boards of the State being already pretty well Teutonized, it was evident that, should the bill pass, history as taught in the Centralia school system would be censored agreeably to the purposes of His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm of Germany.
Originally it was intended to present the measure, backed by a formidable list of names from the academic world, with a sprinkling of “prominent citizens,” and push it quietly through as a purely educational and technical matter into which, the professionals and professors having said their say in advocacy, the public need not trouble itself to examine. Leave these esoteric matters to the specialists! The list of endorsers was prepared. It was comprehensive, as regards the colleges and schools, the pedagogic element being influenced by the natural academic sympathy for the German educational system which honors scholarship so highly. Prominent citizens lent their names as prominent citizens always will when a petition not affecting their own pockets (though it may affect the national integrity of their country) is presented. A committee, graced by the presence of Emil Bausch, Professor Brender, head of the German Department of the local university, Professor Rappelje, of the Economics Department, Judge Dana, the Reverend Mr. Merserole, Farley of The Record, and others, with Robert Wanser as chairman, made a formal appearance as sponsors. It was a solemn, dull, and impressive occasion, and The Guardian representative sent to report it almost yawned his head off. He sadly envied his boss whom he had met coming out of the office juggling two white and gleaming golf-balls. He wished he owned a paper and could devote a morning to pure sport whenever so minded!
The golf-balls did not indicate unmingled recreation for the boss of The Guardian. He was responding to a telephone challenge for a match with Magnus Laurens. Since the agreement in the editor’s den, the water-power magnate had made rather a habit of dropping in upon Jeremy when he came to Fenchester. He would stretch his powerful figure in Jeremy’s easy-chair, open the friendly hostilities by proposing to him that, since he believed in other people’s property being taken over for the public good, he should deliver The Guardian to Nick Milliken and the real Socialists; shrewdly discuss politics and the practitioners thereof; and invariably wind up on the main interest which the two men held in common, the Americanization of their hybrid State.
Even at its best, Laurens’s golf-game was not redoubtable to a player of Jeremy’s caliber. On this particular morning it was far from its best. Turning to his opponent after a flagrant flub on the ninth green, the older man said: “My mind isn’t on the game to-day. Let’s get an early lunch, and talk.” As soon as they were seated at the table, he opened up the subject.
“You’re against me, of course, in the campaign.”
“Certainly. We’re for Embree.”
“That’s all right. What I’m going to say does n’t contemplate any possibility of your changing. Have you read the Cultural Language Bill?”
“No. I’ve sent a man up to cover the hearing.”
“Why did n’t you read it?”
“I understood it was n’t of any special importance.”
“From whom? Embree? Never mind,” added Laurens, smiling. “You need n’t answer. Remember our conversation about Deutschtum in the schools?”
“Yes.”
“This is it.”
“As this bill was explained to me, it is n’t at all the measure you described in outline.”
“Not on the surface. They’ve changed it. But it’s even worse in intent.”
“You’ve made a study of it?”
“They asked me to sign it. I refused.”
“Who asked you?”
“In confidence, Robert Wanser.”
“Why, he was one of the leaders in the movement for your nomination.”
“As he took pains to remind me.”
“Is this likely to be made a political issue?”
“I don’t think so. Not in the party sense. The German crowd want to push the bill through as quietly as possible.”
“That’s natural. Once they get their system fastened on the schools—”
“It’s there to stay.”
“I guess I’ll get back to the office, Mr. Laurens. I want to get in touch with our reporter at the hearing.” Olin, the reporter in question, abruptly ceased yawning his head off upon receipt of instructions to follow closely the representations made for the bill. His story, edited by Jeremy himself with illuminating side touches, turned that innocent-seeming measure inside out and revealed some interesting phenomena on the inner side. One remark of Magnus Laurens—“I got my first schooling in the Corner School-House and I want to see it stay as American as it was in my day”—stuck in Jeremy’s mind. Out of it he constructed an editorial on the Corner School-House as the keystone of Americanism, never for an instant foreboding that the phrase would become the catchword of a bitter campaign. The first effect of the editorial was to bring Embree around to the Club at dinner-time to find Jeremy.
“What on earth did you make that break for?” cried the harassed statesman.
“Break? It wasn’t a break. That bill means more than you think.”
“It means nothing serious. Or it would n’t have, if you had n’t made an issue of it. Now, the Lord knows what we’re in for!”
“An open discussion is my guess. That was the object of the editorial.”
“Oh, you’ll get that! If that were all—or half!”
“We have n’t killed the bill, have we?” asked the editor hopefully.
“No. But it will have to be cut and pruned a good deal, to meet arguments.”
“Will that hurt your feelings?”
“I care nothing about the bill. It’s only a sop to the harmless vanity of the Germans. But you’ve got them down on you again. And they blame me for it.”
“Dothey! Why?”
The Senator laughed in a half-embarrassed way. “Well, you know, Jem, I’m credited with having some influence with The Guardian. I wish I had half I’m credited with.”
“You mean that you ‘re supposed to control the paper’s policies.”
“Don’t get disturbed over it. I can’t help it.”
“Nor can I, apparently,” returned the editor, frowning. “People absolutely refuse to believe that a man is responsible for his own paper—except when there’s something to kick on.”
“What are you going to do now about the bill?”
“Let it simmer. Take another shot at it when it comes up again.”
“Do you want to lose me the election?”
“Come out on the other side if you want to, Martin.”
“I am for the bill.”
“Make a speech and say so, then. We’ll report you in full, and give you a leading editorial courteously regretting that so brilliant and far-seeing and sturdily American a statesman should be in error on this one point.”
An answering smile came into Martin Embree’s expressive face. “Go a little light on the sturdy American feature.”
“But you are that, are n’t you?”
“Of course I am. Just on this bill, though, I don’t care to ram it down the Germans’ throats.”
“You’ll never teach me politics, Mart,” sighed the other. “I’m too single-barreled and one-ideaed.”
“One-eyed, my boy, one-eyed. Try to see the thing from the other fellow’s point of view.”
“Your point of view at present is that I ‘ve gone astray from your good influence. Is that it?”
“There are other influences, Jem.” The Senator’s smile was broad and golden as a bar of sunlight. “I hear you were out at the swell Country Club this morning with Magnus Laurens.”
“Your information is O.K.”
“Did he talk to you about this bill?”
“He did.”
“Is he against it?”
“He is. Refused to sign the memorial.”
Embree’s face grew heavy and thoughtful. “Did he so! I wonder if we could get him on record?”
“Magnus Laurens is n’t likely to dodge an issue.”
“He’s a queer associate for the editor of The Guardian.”
“I pick my own associates,” retorted Jeremy shortly. “Or let them pick you. Until they get ready to drop you again. That’s the way with those fellows that have got too much money.”
“He isn’t likely to buy me away, Martin,” replied Jeremy, recovering his temper.
“I’m not worrying.” The Embree smile was on duty again. “What bothers me is what the Germans will do to you for to-day’s paper.”
What the Germans did to Jeremy Robson was, in the terse slang of the day, a plenty. The German press, religious and lay, attacked The Guardian as an exponent of a narrow and blighting Know-Nothingism. One or two small German organizations passed high-sounding resolutions of reprehension. There was a flood of letters and enough “stop-the-paper” orders to afflict the soul of the much-tried Verrall. The most definite response came from Bernard Stockmuller, the jeweler, a generous advertising patron of The Guardian. On the morning following the hearing on the bill he met Jeremy on the street and stopped him.
“Vot you got against the Chermans, Mr. Robson?” he demanded truculently.
“Not a thing in the world.”
“Emil Bausch told alretty how you turned down Prinds Henry’s ledder.”
“I did not.”
“He says you are a Cherman-hater. If you are a Cher-man-hater,” continued the irate jeweler, overriding the other’s protest, “I guess a Cherman’s money ain’t good enough for you. My advertising you don’d get any more.”
“I don’t need it on those terms,” replied the owner of The Guardian. “And you may tell Mr. Bausch from me that he lies.”
No other advertiser actually deserted the paper, though Verrall reported much ill-feeling among the German mercantile element. The sturdy jeweler alone was enough a man of principle to make his nationalism superior to his business.
“Is it worth while?” was the argument posed by Embree, a fortnight later when the bill, in re-amended form, was coming up again, and Jeremy was whetting his pen for another tilt at it. “You’ve done the job. Can’t you drop it now?”
“Have we done the job, though?”
“Surely. Look at the bill now. Practically everything you objected to is out. I’ll guarantee it harmless, myself.”
What he said was in a sense true. Practically every point made in The Guardian had been speciously met in the new draft of the bill. But, in essence, it remained the same, an instrument of Deutschtum. Jeremy did not look at the amended measure more than to give it a hasty glance. He accepted it on the Honorable Martin Embree’s word; and as he did so he was conscious deep within himself that he was dodging responsibility; that he really did not want to know too much about the new form. The Stockmuller incident had disturbed him, for he liked the little, impetuous jeweler. Then, too, the accusation that he could endure with the least equanimity was that of narrow-mindedness. Men whose sound Americanism was as trustworthy as their technical judgment had endorsed the measure. The Guardian went off guard. The bill became a law.
Unforeseen concomitants marked its political course. Embree, playing expert politics, so arranged matters that Magnus Laurens was challenged repeatedly on the “Corner School-House” issue. It did not lie within Laurens’s vigorous and frank nature to refrain from declaring any principle which he held. He replied in speeches which, slightly and cleverly distorted by the trained German-language press, gave profound and bitter offense to the German-Americans, even the best of them. Taking up the controversy at the politically effective moment, Embree pushed it, making the most of his adversary’s alleged prejudice and narrowness, particularly in the foreign-born districts. Long before the election it was evident that the school-house slogan alone would beat Laurens. He was heavily defeated. That morning’s golf with Jeremy did it.
In honor, The Guardian had refrained from making use of the “Corner School-House” issue against Laurens. Jeremy at least would not play the turncoat. He persuaded himself that, in resisting Embree’s arguments for a strategic change of base, he was doing all that could be required of him. Nevertheless, it was with an inner qualm that he met Magnus Laurens, a week after the election, their first interview since the golf-game.
“Well, Mr. Laurens,” he said, “you made a good fight. We can’t all win.”
“But some of us can stand by our colors even if we lose,” said the downright Laurens, and passed on.
“Can’t stand defeat,” said Jeremy to himself.
But the explanation did not satisfy his inner self. Deep down he was conscious of his first surrender.
SIX weeks after Martin Embree’s triumphant election to the governorship, the owner of The Guardian visited the Fenchester Trust Company for the formality of renewing his note. He was referred to President Robert Wanser. More walrus-like than ever, the president of the institution looked this morning as if he might have eaten a fish that did n’t quite agree with him. Jeremy stated his errand. Mr. Wanser ruminated.
“Difficulties have arisen,” he presently announced. “What difficulties?” asked Jeremy, startled.
“The Trust Company does not see its way to renewing your note at this time, Mr. Robson.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have not said that anything is wrong. It is merely a matter of business policy. The loan is a heavy one.”
“It is well secured.”
“I do not question that.”
“The paper has turned the corner. We are making money to-day.”
“To-day—you are.”
“And we shall make more from now on.”
“A(c)h!” observed the banker with his buried guttural. “That is prophecy.”
“Based on facts and figures. I can show them to you.”
“No need.”
Jeremy reflected, with an unpleasant sensation of being spied upon, that probably the local banks knew as much of the financial side of his business as he himself did; perhaps more.
“Do you consider The Guardian weaker security than it was?” he inquired.
“I have not said so,” replied the impassive walrus.
“You have n’t said anything. Do you intend to, or am I wasting my time?”
Jeremy arose, looking at the financier with a lively eye. This was not at all what Wanser desired. He intended to read this young sprig of journalism an impressive and costly lesson, after first reducing him to a condition of affliction suitable for the punitive exercise. It annoyed him to find that Jeremy did not reduce; on the contrary, that he was likely to escape uninstructed in that discipline to which he, Wanser, was leading by gradual stages. Forced to a shorter cut he said oracularly:
“A newspaper’s best asset is its friends.”
The editor’s regard continued intent.
“Its heaviest liability is enemies.”
Still no response from the beneficiary of these pearls of wisdom.
“A newspaper is on the down-grade when it makes unfair and prejudiced attacks upon—upon any class of people.”
“Talk plain, Mr. Wanser. You mean the Germans.”
The walrus, startled by this abruptness, began to bark. “That’s what I mean. That’s exactly what I mean. You’ve got a grudge against the Germans.”
“Not I.”
“You have. It proves itself. The Germans are the best citizens in the State.”
Jeremy laughed not quite pleasantly. “I was betting myself you’d say that next.”
“Say what? I don’t understand you.”
“Every German-American I’ve ever talked with tells me sooner or later that the German-Americans are the solidest or the best or the most representative citizens in the country. If not the most modest,” added he maliciously.
Like most retorts inspired by annoyance it was a tactless speech. The walrus bristled. “You see!” he growled. “There’s your prejudice.”
“No prejudice at all. The Germans considered as people are all very well. I like them and respect them. But there are other people in America, you know,—Americans, for instance.”
“We all know how you feel. We all know why you fought our school bill.”
“I did n’t fight it. I let up on it.”
“You let up when you were afraid to go on,” taunted the other.
Jeremy’s face flamed. “You’re a—” he began, and stopped short, swallowing hard. “You’re right,” he said with quiet bitterness. “I was a quitter. It serves me right that you should be the second man to tell me so.”
“You quit too late.” The walrus was enjoying himself now.
“Evidently. All right, Mr. Wanser. The note will be paid when due. At least I’m glad we understand each other.”
The walrus, briefly meditant upon this, did n’t like it. “Don’t be so sure you understand it all,” was his parting word, by which he really meant that he failed to understand Jeremy. There was a large leaven of timidity in his imposing bulk.
To Andrew Galpin the interview as detailed by his boss proved no great surprise. “Dutch Bob”—thus he irreverently dubbed Fenchester’s leading banker—“is sore on two counts. You mussed up his bill. That’s the first and worst. The other is our support of Mart Embree.”
“But Embree and Wanser worked for the bill together.”
“Ay-ah. That’s all right. Wanser is all for Embree when he’s a German booster. He’s all against him when he’s a radical. It’s one of the twists of politics.”
“Why are they so hot about this school business anyway? It almost makes me believe that Wymett and Laurens are right in their Deutschtum theory.”
“Don’t you go seeing ghosts, Boss,” advised the general manager, good-humoredly.
“Then you don’t take any stock in the notion.”
“About the Germans? Oh, I don’t know. Let ’em play with their little Dutch toys. I guess we’re a big enough country to absorb all the sauerkraut and Wienerwursts they can put into our system. What’s the use of being cranky about it? It only gets the paper in wrong.”
“We’re certainly in wrong with Wanser. And now we’re out. Got twenty thousand dollars up your sleeve, Andy?”
“No. I’ve spent my week’s salary,” answered the other with a grin. “The Drovers’ Bank would be my best guess.”
To the Drovers’ Bank went the owner of the Fenches-ter Guardian, a daily with a rapidly rising circulation of eleven thousand, an increasing advertising patronage, and a fair plant. He was courteously received by the president of the institution, an old, glossy, and important looking nonentity named Warrington. Mr. Warrington listened with close attention, made some thoughtful figures on a blotter, and requested Mr. Robson to return that afternoon when a positive answer would be given. But Mr. Warrington thought—he was quite of the opinion—he confidently believed—that there would be no difficulty.
“There’s one thing that worries me, Boss,” commented Andrew Galpin as the pair sat absorbing coffee and pie into their systems at a five-cent, time-saving lunch-counter near the office.
“Pass me the sugar—and the worry,” requested Jeremy.
“Why should Wanser close down just at this time?”
“Why not?”
“Well, safely secured loans of twenty thousand dollars aren’t the kind of business a bank chucks to another bank.”
“Did n’t I indicate to you that his loyal German heart was sore?”
“Why was n’t it sore last summer, when the bill was up?”
“Do you think somebody’s been stirring him up to go after us?”
“More likely he’s got some reason to think we’re up against it.”
“Hoots! We were never in such good shape.”
“That’s our view. I’m wondering if, maybe, Bausch and his lot are putting up some kind of a game.”
“What kind of a game can they be putting up?”
“I’d have to understand German to read their minds. Maybe they’ll stir up the advertisers against us. Like Stockmuller.”
“Any local advertiser that thinks he can do business without The Guardian,” stated the owner arrogantly, “is suffering from an aggravated form of fool-in-the-head.”
“That’s good doctrine. If only you can make ’em believe it.”
“They believe it all right.”
“Say, Boss. Why not get Mart Embree’s view on it?”’
“Good idea.”
Jeremy went to the Governor-elect. “What did you expect?” asked that acute commentator on men and events. “Can’t you understand that you insulted every good German-American by attacking them on the point where their pride is most involved, the superiority of their educational system?”
“Allowing that, is this just a belated revenge on Wanser’s part?”
“No. It’s business.”
“To drop $1400 a year interest on a good note?”
“It would have cost the Trust Company more than that to carry you.”
“I don’t get the point, Martin.”
“Deutscher Club account. Emil Bausch’s account. Henry Vogt. Arndt & Niebuhr. Stockmuller—Have I said enough?”
“They would have withdrawn? Are they as sore as that?”
“One of these days you’ll realize the truth of what I told you about committing hara-kiri, Jem. There’s only one safe way with the Germans. Let them alone and they’ll let you alone.”
“Oh! Will they! That shows how one-sidedly you look at it. They’ve begun flooding the office already with their press-work for the winter Singing Society festival.”
“Perfectly harmless. You certainly can’t see anything objectionable in that.”
“No; I can’t,” admitted Jeremy.
“Run a lot of it, then. It costs nothing, and it will help square you for the school bill break.”
Which Jeremy found good advice and resolved to follow. He said as much and was approved as one coming to his senses after regrettable errancy.
“How much pull do you think the Deutscher Club crowd have with the Drovers’ Bank?” asked Jeremy.
“Not so much. If you do have difficulty there, let me know. I could probably fix you up in some of the out-of-town banks.”
The Drovers’ Bank made no difficulty. Mr. Warrington was most amenable when Jeremy returned. This helped to reassure the borrower that no financial plot threatened his newspaper. He would have felt less happy had he known that the interval between his visits had been utilized by Mr. Warrington to pay a call of consultation upon a certain florid and self-important gentleman, no lover of The Guardian or its editor since he had suffered indignities of print as “President Puff” from Jeremy’s satiric and not always well-advised pen.
“Let him have it,” directed the public utilitarian. “Three months’ note.”
Montrose Clark smiled puffily upon Judge Selden Dana later at the club.
“I thought he would come around to us,” he stated. “What will you do now?” asked the lawyer.
“Wait,” replied the magnate.
Which might have been regarded either as direction, threat, or declaration of intent, and partook of the nature of all three.
BUDDY HIGMAN, prosperous in a new blue-and-yellow mackinaw (Christmas), a pair of fur mittens (New Year’s), and high snow-boots (accumulated savings), entered the Fenchester Post-Office with the mien of one having important business with the Government. Four dollars a week was now Buddy’s princely stipend from The Guardian, for working before and after school hours at a special job of clipping and sorting advertisements from the press of the State, for purposes of comparison.
Occasionally Buddy brought in an item of news, with all the pride of a puppy bringing in a mouse, and beat it out with two fingers on a borrowed typewriter. Such of these contributions as got into print were paid for extra. Thereby Buddy was laboriously building up a bank account. It was young Mr. Higman’s intention to be, one day, Governor of the State. But in his wilder and more untrammeled flights, he hoped to be an editor like Mr. Robson. Buddy was an enthusiastic, even a hiero-phantic worker at his job. He was worth all that The Guardian paid him. Even had he not been, the Boss would have kept him on. For he was, all unknowing, a link; decidedly a tenuous link, but the only permanent and reliable one, between Jeremy and a foregone past.
At the stamp window Mr. Burton Higman, dealing with the United States Government, produced a silver dollar and gave his order in a firm and manly voice.
“Hullo, Buddy,” greeted the clerk. “Still got that girl in Yurrup, I see.”
A fire sprang and spread in Mr. Higman’s face. “And the rest in postal-cards,” he directed with dignity.
“You’re our best little customer,” continued the flippant clerk. (The little customer murderously contemplated arranging with The Guardian, later, to write an editorial about him and get him fired!) “Write to her every day, don’t che?”
“Shuttup, y’ ole fool!” retorted the infuriate youth, stepping aside to reckon up his purchase, lest it might be short.
“Yessir,” continued the blatant gossip, to the next comer. “He sure is the ready letter-writer, onlyan’’original. Don’t see how he has time to help you edit your paper, Mr. Robson.”
Mr. Robson! The shock diverted Buddy at the twenty-eighth count. He looked up into the friendly face of the Boss.
He hastened to defend himself.
“I yain’t, either, Mr. Robson. ’Tain’t letters at all. They’re fer noospapers.”
“Are they?” said his chief, walking out into the wintry air with him. “I did n’t know we had so much foreign circulation, Buddy.”
“No, sir; we ain’t. Say, Boss,” he added after a pause, “we gained five new ads on The Record this week, an’ they only got one that we did n’t.”
“Good business, Buddy.”
“An’ I had two sticks in the paper yesterday. Dje see it? Story of the kid that fell through the ice.”
“You’ll be a reporter one of these days, son.”
“Oh, gee!” said Buddy ecstatically. Then, with resentment, “What’s the good of school, anyway?”
“If you’re going to be a real newspaper man you’ll need all the education you can get.”
“Yes, sir.” The aspiring neophyte sighed. “That’s what She says.”
There was but one “She” in the vocabulary of the exclusive and worshiping Buddy. Her name was never pronounced in the conversations on the subject between himself and his Boss. There was no need of being more specific, for either of them.
“It’s good advice.”
Buddy marched along beside his employer, obviously wriggling upon the hook of some pointed thought. Presently further reticence became impossible.
“Mr. Robson!”
“Well?”
“Them stamps—”
“What would the blue pencil do to a sentence beginning that way, Buddy?”
“Thosestamps—it’s like I told the fresh guy at the window.”
“They’re for the circulation department?”
“No, sir. But they’re for circulation all right. I been sendin’ the paper every day to Hamburg.”
Jeremy’s pulses quickened. “Your own idea, Buddy?”
“Nope. I’m sendin’ it to Her. It ’s Her idear. She reads it reg’lar. She’s deeply int’rusted in my cay-reer.”
“Where did you get that? It doesn’t sound like Her.”
“It ain’t. Got it out of a book,” confessed the boy. “I write to Her, too,” he added happily. “She ast me to.”
“What does she think of your work?” inquired the Boss gravely.
“I ain’t heard from Her since I began gettin’ my stuff in the paper. But I guess She likes the paper all right. She tells me in most every letter what a big thing it is to help make a noospaper.”
“Does She? What else does She say?”
“I dunno.” The boy lost himself in thought. “It’s just a little here an’ a little there. She never says much; not any one time. But you can see She thinks a lot of the Business.”
“Now, you would n’t suppose that, would you?” said the artful Jeremy, feeding his hunger for the mere, dear memory of her brought back and made real by speech. “It must be because you told her you were going to be a newspaper man.”
“That’s it. She thinks it’s like being a preacher, only more so. She says you must n’t ever be mean or give away a friend or take advantage of having a noospaper to write for. An’ She says you got to always write what you honest-to-God think, because it’s yella to do the other thing. I guess She would n’t stand for a fake, not for a second! I bet She’d take the hide off’n some o’ them—o’ those Record guys. An’ She says the hardest thing ’ll be some time when there’s somethin’ a fella oughta write an’ that ’ll get him in wrong if he does write it, for him not to lay down an’ quit on it. An’ She says never, never to be afraid o’ your job, because that makes the job your boss an’ not you the job’s boss. An’ She says unless a guy can’t trust himself nobuddy can trust him an’ be safe, no matter how much they want to. I guess that’s about all right! Ain’t it, Boss?”
“It’s about all right, Buddy,” said Jeremy with an effort. That final bit of philosophy had stabbed.
After the presses had stopped and the offices had emptied, that evening, the editor of The Guardian sat at his desk with the little photograph of Marcia Ames before him. He looked into the frank and radiant face; into the eyes that met the world and its perplexities so steadily, with so pure and single-minded a challenge.
“You did n’t ask much, did you, my dear!” he said softly to the picture. “You only asked that I should be straight and honest; not a shifter and a coward. Well, it was too much. Buddy may do better. I’ll help him as far as I can. That’s a promise, my dear.”
He heard the departing Buddy whistling outside. His footsteps approached the door. Jeremy slipped a hand over the picture.
“Anythin’ more you want me for, Boss?” asked the boy, appearing in the doorway.
“No, Buddy. Good-night.”
“‘Night.” He paused. “I dunno’s She would have wanted me to tell you about the paper,” he said. “She never told me not to, though. I kinda thought you’d wanta know. I guess we got a man-size job makin’ a paper good enough for Her to read, ain’t we, Boss!”
“I guess we have,” said Jeremy steadily.
The door shut and he returned to his contemplation of the picture. “You read me, my dear,” he said. “You were reading me all the time. You read me in the Eli Wade story. And in the golf story. And perhaps in others I did n’t realize. You knew I’d come eventually to do just such a wretched crawl as I did on the German school bill. You knew that you never could trust yourself to me. You’d seen me go back on myself. You knew that a man who would go back on himself would go back on you when the test came.” He mused bitterly. “As I would have done,” said Jeremy Robson.
No man ever pronounced upon himself a harsher judgment.
BOSS,” said Andrew Galpin.
He had come in and perched himself upon a corner of Jeremy’s desk, swinging his long legs. A folded copy of that day’s Guardian served him for a fan, which he plied languidly, for it was the early hot spell of June, 1914. The regard with which he favored his chief was both affectionate and quizzical.
“Well?” queried Jeremy.
“D’ you know we’re pretty near two years old?”
“That’s right, Andy. We are.”
“D’ you feel it?”
“Yes, and a couple of hundred years on top of it.”
“So bad as that! We’re some old for our age, I’ll admit. But I don’t see any signs of senile decay, yet.”
“Oh, we can still stir our bones enough to get off the press on time.”
“What do you think of this feller’s paper, anyway, Boss?”
“What doyou?”
“Pretty well satisfied, thank you. We’ve got fourteen thousand circulation that you could n’t pry loose with a crow-bar.”
“Could n’t we? I’m not going to try.”
“Not going to? Youhavetried. You’ve stepped on every cussed one of their cussed toes, one time or another. Dam’ fi don’t think you’ve got ’em so theylikeit.”
“Queer way they’ve got of showing it, then. Do you ever read the editorial correspondence?”
“Oh, that’s all right!” The general manager waved such matters loftily away. “They quit the paper, sore. Then they get over it and come back. If they don’t, there’s plenty of others to take their places. Even the Dutchers”—this being, at the time, Mr. Galpin’s term indicative of that powerful and flourishing organization, the Deutscher Club—“have come around.”
“Not all of them. Stockmuller is out still.”
“He’s a stiff-neck. He’s the only one.”
“Not the only advertiser. The Laundry Association have never got over Wong Kee, the yellow peril. The Emporium takes as little space as possible. And I don’t notice the P.-U. crowding any contracts on us, Andy.”
“Verrall tells me they’re coming back. At least, they’re showing flirtatious signs.”
“No! I wonder what kind of a bargain they’ll offer now.”
“You ought to curb that mean, suspicious nature of yours, Boss,” reproved Galpin solemnly. “Now,Iset it down to force of habit on the P.-U.‘s part. Something’s in the air. Therefore they begin to advertise. It’s the cuttle-fish principle. Only they use printer’s ink.”
“What’s their little game?”
“Self-defense, I guess. The Governor is sharpening up his Corporation Control Bill.”
“We’ll be for it. The P.-U. advertising won’t make any difference. Montrose Clark ought to know that by this time. If he knows anything,” qualified Jeremy.
“Don’t worry about President Puff. He knows a lot of things he did n’t know before The Guardian tackled the job of his education. One of ’em is that the P.-U. is going to need just as much friendship and just as little enmity as it can get when this bill comes up.”
“And Clark is going to smooth us down with his advertising, eh?”
Andy lifted up his voice in pertinent song:
“There was a young man who said, ‘Why
Can’t I look in my Ear with my Eye?
If I set my mind to it
I’m sure I could do it.
You never can tell till you try.’
“There’s the P.-U. motto,” he added; “and a noble one it is. ‘You never can tell till you try.’”
“Let ’em try somewhere else than in The Guardian.”
“Not so, Boss,” argued Galpin. “This bill is rough stuff. It’ll pretty near wipe out the P.-U. They’re entitled to a yell, at least. Even Verrall admits that. And what Verrall won’t swallow whole, when it comes from Mart Embree, must be tough swallowing.”
“Verrall wants to make his advertising total as big as possible.”
“Being human—although an advertising manager—he does. Well, he’s got no kick coming. Look at the clippings of your young friend and disciple, Mr. Buddy Higman. The Record is nowhere. Respected Sir and Editor, as your correspondents from the cheese district write; we’re making money this year. Real, guaranteed money.”
“Enough to take up our note?”
“Why worry? The bank does n’t. Old Warrington purrs like a cat every time he meets me. You can read in any witch-book that a banker purring like a cat is a sure sign of prosperity.”
“What’s it in your scheme-hatching mind to do with all this prosperity, Andy?”
“New press,” returned the general manager, who had been leading up to this point.
Pro and con they argued it, the owner finally agreeing. “We really owe it to the advertisers as well as the readers” had been Andy’s best argument. “Look how they’ve stuck.”
“They’ve had to,” returned Jeremy grimly. “Half of ’em would have got out at every bump if they had n’t been afraid.”
“Well, we’re solid with ’em now. Look what we did to ’em in April. Hiked the rates a clean ten per cent all around. And did they peep?”
“They did not. They howled.”
“Force of habit again. They all came through, did n’t they? We’re making it pay ’em.”
“We’re giving them all the return they’re entitled to,” agreed the editor. “I wish I were as sure that we’re giving the reading public as good.”
“Don’t hear many kicks, do you?”
“Lots. If I did n’t I’dknowwe were rotten.”
“Ay-ah. That was a fool question of mine. But I mean, you can feel the paper taking hold all the time, can’t you? We’re certainly putting it over. We’ve made a Governor already. What do you expect? Want to elect a President and Congress?”
“The Governor is one of my troubles, Andy.”
“Butting in?”
“You can’t call it that.”
“What can you call it?” demanded the downright Galpin.
“Well, boosting. Without him we would n’t be where we are.”
“Nor anywhere else,” added the other with emphasis. “Probably not. I appreciate that. I’dgivehim the paper, if he needed it, as far as that goes. But as long as my name is on it, I want it to be my paper.”
“Well, ‘Smiling Mart’ isn’t trying to pry it away from you, is he?’
“Of course not. It’s hard to put into words. But I feel as if I—we—The Guardian were being surrounded by a sort of political web.”
“The Governor being the spider?”
“No. It’s his web, in a way; but he is n’t spinning it. It’s being spun for him and for us. All our readers identify us completely with his policies. If I say anything editorially, it commits the Governor. People take it for granted that we ‘re his mouthpiece. It is n’t fair to him or to us.”
“Does he take advantage of it?”
“We—ell; I don’t know. He does n’t mean to. Every now and then, though, something will come up where he wants us to do this or not to do that—always some unimportant thing—because of its influence on more important things that we ‘re both interested in.”
“As for instance?”
“Take all this boosting, press-agent stuff that comes along and that Embree wants in,” replied Jeremy. “Sometimes it’s political. Sometimes it’s personal. Sometimes it’s the German stuff that Wymett used to talk about. I’ve got to admit that Embree’s view is always for the practical good of the paper. By following his advice, we’ve held sulky advertisers more than once. But I know this, I’m doing for him—and for the politics of it—and for the paper itself, in a way, I guess—what I would n’t do for any advertiser. And sometimes it’s been a matter of principles. Not very important, maybe, but principles just the same. Compromise, Andy.”
“Life’s mostly compromise, I guess. There’s a little more of it in the newspaper game than in other lines because the newspaper touches life at more points than any other business.”
“I’ve always thought,” pursued Jeremy, “that when I came to own a newspaper it would be independent if it was n’t anything else. Well, look at The Guardian!”
“Ay-ah. I’m looking at it. What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s ducking a little here, and dodging a little there, and trying to be cautious about this issue and polite about that man, and so on. That is n’t my notion of being independent.”
“What is? I guess we’re as cocky as any paper in the country. You can’t tell all the people to go to hell all the time,” pointed out the general manager, reasonably.
“I don’t want to. But I want to be able to if I do want to. Am I talking like a fool, Andy?”
“I don’t know,” answered the other, troubled.
A silence fell between them. Galpin whittled a pencil to so careful and delicate a point that it immediately broke. He repeated the experiment with like result before he spoke.
“Say, Jem.”
The other looked up, attentive. Seldom, since their new relationship had the older man employed any formula of address other than the half-jocular, half-official, “Boss.”
“Say it, Andy.”
“Who are you making this paper for?”
Across the editor’s face passed a swift shock, as of thought surprised and betrayed.
“Making it for?” he said slowly.
“Ay-ah. For yourself, I guess. Huh?”
“Yes.”
“And it don’t suit?”
“Not altogether.”
“Not good enough?”
“No.”
“Ay-ah. I see.” One of those extraordinary flashes of intuitive insight which sometimes pass electrically between surcharged and kindred minds, culminated in the general manager’s next question. “What does she think of it?”
“Who?” The startled counter-question represented less than Jeremy’s normal frankness.
Andy rose and stood above the other. “How should I know who? If I did I’d know more about the paper.”
“You’re right.” For the moment Jeremy was as intuitive as his friend. “You think it would have been more honest of me, as I’m making a paper for some one else, to let you in on it.”
“What does she think of The Guardian?” persisted Andy.
Jeremy stared out into the gray and bleak spaces. “God knows,” he said. “I’ve no way of finding out.” Andy turned and went to the door. “Forget it,” he said. The tone was his sufficient apology.
That night of June, 1914, two years after Marcia Ames’s lips had pressed themselves to his cheek, and he had felt her sobbing breath on his face, Jeremy went again to the bridge where they had stood. A barge filled with young people passed the turn of the lake. A canoe bearing a boy and a girl—how young they seemed to lonely Jeremy, and how enviable!—floated beneath him, and their speech came up to him, dim, tender, and murmurous. Then, sped by a poignant magic, the blended voices of Marcia’s song were wafted to him across the waters:
“Who wins his love shall lose her,
Who loses her shall gain,
For still the spirit wooes her,
A soul without a stain,
And Memory still pursues her
With longings not in vain!”
He could hear in the distance the faint plash of the oars that drove the boat of song. The fairy voices, fainter, sang:
“He loses her who gains her,
Who watches, day by day,
The dust of time...”
The words were blurred as the unseen boat passed behind some unseen cape; then the music died on the breeze. Jeremy bent over the railing, where Marcia’s hand had rested.
Half a world away an obscure fanatic, unknown to the world and to-day almost forgotten by it, was gloomily, lonelily, dreamily blending those common, inexpensive, terrific chemicals whereby he was to plunge civilization in carnage. The happy boats passed on. The happy voices blended again and were silenced. The busy presses chronicled the events of unsuspecting nations to little folk of souls yet untouched who, sleeping, “rose up to buy and sell again.” Then the bomb of the dreamy fanatic was flung, and in the force of that explosion, the wave of war, which had hung crested and suspended, broke and whelmed the world in such flood that the quicksands upon its edges spread even to far-away Fenchester.