DONNYBROOK
Worthington began to find the "Clarion" amusing. It blared a new note.Common matter of everyday acceptance which no other paper in town hadever considered as news, became, when trumpeted from between the rampantroosters, vital with interest. And whithersoever it directed the publicattention, some highly respectable private privilege winced and snarled.Worthington did not particularly love the "Clarion" for the enemies itmade. But it read it.
Now, a newspaper makes its enemies overnight. Friends take months oryears in the making. Hence the "Clarion," whilst rapidly broadening itscircle of readers, owed its success to the curiosity rather than to theconfidence which it inspired. Meantime the effect upon its advertisingincome was disastrous. If credence could be placed in the lamentingShearson, wherever it attacked an abuse, whether by denunciation orridicule, it lost an advertiser. Moreover the public, not yet ready tocredit any journal with honest intentions, was inclined to regard the"Clarion" as "a chronic kicker." The "Banner's" gibing suggestion of areversal of the editorial motto between the triumphant birds to read"With malice toward all," stuck.
But there were compensations. The blatant cocks had occasionalopportunity for crowing. With no small justification did they shrilltheir triumph over the Midland & Big Muddy Railroad. The "Mid and Mud"had declared war upon the "Clarion," following the paper's statement ofthe true cause of the Walkersville wreck, as suggested by Marchmont, thereporter, at the breakfast. Marchmont himself had been banished fromthe railroad offices. All sources of regular news were closed to him.Therefore, backed by the "Clarion," he proceeded to open up a line ofirregular news which stirred the town. For years the "Mid and Mud" hadgiven to Worthington a passenger service so bad that no community lessenslaved to a laissez-faire policy would have endured it. Throughtrains drifted in anywhere from one to four hours late. Local trains,drawn by wheezy, tin-pot locomotives of outworn pattern, arrived anddeparted with such casualness as to render schedules a joke, and notinfrequently "bogged down" between stations until some antediluvianengine could be resuscitated and sent out to the rescue. The day coacheswere of the old, dangerous, wooden type. The Pullman service was utterlyunreliable, and the station in which the traveling populace ofWorthington spent much of its time, a draft-ridden barn. Yet Worthingtonsuffered all this because it was accustomed to it and lacked any meansof making protest vocal.
Then the "Clarion" started in publishing its "Yesterday's Time-Table ofthe Midland & Big Muddy R.R. Co." to this general effect:
Day Express Due 10 A.M. Arrived 11.43 A.M. Late 1 hour 43 min. Noon Local Due 12 A.M. Arrived 2.10 P.M. Late 2 hrs. 10 min. Sunrise Limited Due 3 P.M. Arrived 3.27 P.M. Late 0 hrs. 27 min.
And so on. From time to time there would appear, underneath, a specialitem, of which the following is an example:
"The Eastern States Through Express of the Midland & Big Muddy Railroadarrived and departed on time yesterday. When asked for an explanation ofthis phenomenon, the officials declined to be interviewed."
Against this "persecution," the "Mid and Mud" authorities at firstmaintained a sullen silence. The "Clarion" then went into statistics. Itgave the number of passengers arriving and departing on each delayedtrain, estimated the value of their time, and constructed tables of themoney value of time lost in this way to the city of Worthington, perday, per month, and per year. The figures were not the less inspiring ofthought, for being highly amusing.
People began to take an interest. They brought or sent in personalexperiences. A commercial traveler, on the 7.50 train (arriving at10.01, that day), having lost a big order through missing anappointment, told the "Clarion" about it. A contractor's agent, gazingfrom the windows of the stalled "Limited" out upon "fresh woods andpastures new" twenty miles short of Worthington, what time he shouldhave been at a committee meeting of the Council, forfeited a $10,000contract and rushed violently into "Clarion" print, breathing slaughterand law-suits. Judge Abner Halloway and family, arriving at the New Yorkpier in a speeding taxi from the Eastern Express (five hours late out ofWorthington), just in time to see the Lusitania take his forwardedbaggage for a pleasant outing in Europe, hired a stenographer (male) totell the "Clarion" what he thought of the matter, in words of sevensyllables. Professor Beeton Trachs, the globe-trotting lecturer, whoarrived via the "M. and M." for an eight o'clock appearance, at 9.54,gave the "Clarion" an interview proper to the occasion of having toabjure a $200 guaranty, wherein the mildest and most judicial opinionexpressed by Professor Trachs was that crawling through a tropicaljungle on all fours was speed, and being hurtled down a mountain on thebosom of a landslide, comfort, compared to travel on the "Mid and Mud."
All these and many similar experiences, the "Clarion" published in its"News of the M. and M." column. It headed them, "Stories of Survivors."For six weeks the railroad endured the proddings of ridicule. Then theFourth Vice-President of the road appeared in Mr. Harrington Surtaine'ssanctum. He was bland and hinted at advertising. Two weeks later theThird Vice-President arrived. He was vague and hinted at reprisals. TheSecond Vice-President presented himself within ten days thereafter,departed after five unsatisfactory minutes, and reported atheadquarters, with every symptom of an elderly gentleman suffering fromshock, that young Mr. Surtaine had seemed bored. The FirstVice-President then arrived on a special train.
"What do you want, anyway?" he asked.
"Decent passenger service for Worthington," said the editor. "Just whatI've told every other species and number of Vice-President on yourlist."
"You get it," said the First Vice-President.
Thus was afforded another example of that super-efficiency which, we areassured, marks the caste of the American railroad as superior to allothers, and which consists in sending four men and spending severalweeks to do what one could do better in a single day. In the course of afew weeks the Midland & Big Muddy did bring its service up to areasonable standard, and the owner of the "Clarion" savored his firstpleasant proof of the power of the press.
Vastly less important, but swifter and more definite in results and morepopular in effect, was the "Clarion's" anti-hat-check campaign. TheStickler, Worthington's newest hotel, had established a coat-room withthe usual corps of girl-bandits, waiting to strip every patron of hisouter garments before admitting him to the restaurant, and returningthem only upon the blackmail of a tip. All the other good restaurantshad followed suit. Worthington resented it, as it resented mostinnovations; but endured the imposition, for lack of solidarity, untilthe "Clarion" took up the subject in a series of paragraphs.
"Do you think," blandly inquired the editorial roosters, "that when youtip the hat-check girl she gets the tip? She doesn't. It goes to a manwho rents from the restaurant the privilege of bullying you out of adime or a quarter. The girl holds you up, because if she doesn't extortfifteen dollars a week, she loses her job and her own munificent wagesof seven dollars. The 'Clarion' takes pleasure in announcing a series ofportraits of the high-minded pirates of finance whom you support inluxury, when you 'give up' to the check-girl. Our first portrait, ladiesand gentlemen, is that of Mr. Abe Hotzenmuller, race-track bookmaker andwhiskey agent, who, in the intervals of these more reputableoccupations, extracts alms from the patrons of the Hotel Stickler."
Next in line was "Shirty" MacDonough, a minor politician, "appropriatelyframed in silver dimes," as the "Clarion" put it. He was followed byEddie Perkins, proprietor of a dubious resort on Mail Street. By thistime coat-room franchises had suffered a severe depreciation. Theydropped almost to zero when the newspaper, having clinched the lessonhome with its "Photo-graft Gallery of Leading Dime-Hunters," exhortedits readers: "If you think you need your change as much as these men do,watch for the coupon in to-morrow's 'Clarion,' and Stick it in YourHat." The coupon was as follows:
I READ THE CLARION. I WILL NOT GIVE ONE CENT IN TIPS TO ANY COAT-ROOM GRAFTER.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
The enterprise hit upon the psychological moment. Every check-roombristled with hats proclaiming defiance, and, incidentally, advertisingthe "Clarion." The "cut-out coupon" ran for three weeks. In one monththe Stickler check-room, last to surrender, gave up the ghost, and Mr.Hotzenmuller sued the proprietor for his money back!
Over the theatrical managers the paper's victory was decisive in this,that it established honest dramatic criticism in Worthington. But onlyat a high cost. Not a line of theater advertising appeared in thecolumns after the editorial announcement of independence. Press ticketswere cut off. The "Clarion's" dramatic reporter was turned back from thegate of the various theaters, after paying for admittance. Nevertheless,the "Clarion" continued to publish frank criticism of current drama,through a carefully guarded secret arrangement with the critic of the"Evening News." About this time a famous star, opening a three days'engagement, got into difficulties with the scene-shifters' union over anunjust demand for extra payment, refused to be blackmailed, and canceledthe second performance. One paper only gave the facts, and that was the"Clarion," generally regarded as the defender and mouthpiece of thelaboring as against the capitalistic interests. Great was the wrath ofthe unions. Boycott was threatened; even a strike in the office. Inresponse, the editorial page announced briefly that its policy of givingthe news accurately and commenting upon it freely exempted no man ororganization. The trouble soon died out, but, while making new enemiesamongst the rabid organization men, strengthened the "Clarion's" growingrepute for independence. One of the most violent objectors was MaxVeltman, whose protest, delivered to Hal and McGuire Ellis, was sovehement that he was advised curtly and emphatically to confine hisactivities and opinions to his own department.
"Look out for that fellow," advised Ellis, as the foreman went awayfuming. "He hates you."
"Only his fanaticism," said Hal.
"More than that. It's personal. I think," added the associate editorafter some hesitancy, "it's 'Kitty the Cutie.' He's jealous, Hal. And Ithink he's right. That girl's getting too much interested in you."
Hal flushed sharply. "Nonsense!" he said, and the subject lapsed.
Meantime the manager of the Ralston Opera House, where the labortrouble had occurred, made tentative proffer of peace in the form ofsending in the theater advertising again. Hal promptly refused to acceptit, by way of an object-lesson, despite the almost tearful protest ofhis own business office. This blow almost killed Shearson.
In fact, the unfortunate advertising manager now lived in an atmosphereof Stygian gloom. Two of the most extensive purchasers of newspaperspace, the Boston Store and the Triangle Store, had canceled theircontracts immediately after the attack on the Pierces, through a "joker"clause inserted to afford such an opportunity. All the other departmentstores threatened to follow suit when the "Clarion" took up the cause ofthe Consumers' League.
Mrs. Festus Willard was president of the organization, which had beenpractically moribund since its inception, for the sufficient reason thatno mention of its activities, designs, or purposed reforms could gainadmission to any newspaper in Worthington. The Retail Union saw to thatthrough its all-potent Publication Committee. Perceiving the crescentemancipation of the "Clarion," Mrs. Willard, after due consultation withher husband, appealed to Hal. Would he help the League to obtain certainreforms? Specifically, seats for shopgirls, and extra pay for extrawork, as during Old Home Week, when the stores kept open until 10 P.M.?Hal agreed, and, in the face of the dismalest forecasts from Shearson,prepared several editorials. Moreover, "Kitty the Cutie" took up thecampaign in her column, and her series of "Lunch-Time Chats," with theirslangy, pungent, workaday flavor, presented the case of the overworkedsaleswomen in a way to stir the dullest sympathies. The event fullyjustified Shearson in his r鬺e of Cassandra. Half of the remainingstores represented in the Retail Union notified the "Clarion" of thewithdrawal of their advertising. Thus some twelve hundred dollars a weekof income vanished. Moreover, the Union, it was hinted, would probablyblacklist the "Clarion" officially. And the shop-folk gained nothing bythe campaign. The merchants were strong enough to defeat the League andits sole backer at every point. This was one of the "Clarion's"failures.
Coincident with the ebb of the store advertising occurred a lapse incirculation, inexplicable to the staff until an analysis indicated thatthe women readers were losing interest. It was young Mr. Surtaine whosolved the mystery, by a flash of that newspaper instinct with whichEllis had early credited him.
"Department store advertising is news," he decided, in a talk with Ellisand Shearson.
"How can advertising be news?" objected the manager.
"Anything that interests the public is news, on the authority of no lessan expert than Mr. McGuire Ellis. Shopping is the main interest in lifeof thousands of women. They read the papers to find out where thebargains are. Watch 'em on the cars any morning and you'll see themstudying the ads. The information in those ads. is what they most want.Now that we don't give it to them, they are dropping the paper. So we'vegot to give it to them."
"Now you're talking," cried Shearson. "Cut out this Consumers' Leagueslush and I'll get the stores back."
"We'll cut out nothing. But we'll put in something. We'll print news ofthe department stores as news, not as advertising."
"Well, if that ain't the limit!" lamented Shearson. "If you give 'emadvertising matter free, how can you ever expect 'em to pay for it?"
"We're not giving it to the stores. We're giving it to our readers."
"In which case," remarked McGuire Ellis with a grin, "we can afford tofurnish the real facts."
"Exactly," said Hal.
From this talk developed a unique department in the "Clarion." Anexpert woman shopper collected the facts and presented them daily underthe caption, "Where to Find Real Bargains," and with the prefatory note,"No paid matter is accepted for this column." The expert had anallowance for purchasing, where necessary, and the utmost freedom ofopinion was granted her. Thus, in the midst of a series of items, suchas--"The Boston Store is offering a special sale of linens atadvantageous prices"; "The necktie sale at the Emporium contains somegood bargains"; and "Scheffler and Mintz's 'furniture week' is worthattention, particularly in the rocking-chair and dining-setlines"--might appear some such information as this: "In the specialbargain sale of ribbons at the Emporium the prices are slightly higherthan the same lines sold for last week, on the regular counter"; or,"The heavily advertised antique rug collection at the Triangle is mostlyfraudulent. With a dozen exceptions the rugs are modern and of poorquality"; or, "The Boston Shop's special sale of rain coats are mostlydamaged goods. Accept none without guarantee."
Never before had mercantile Worthington known anything like this.Something not unlike panic was created in commercial circles. Lawyerswere hopefully consulted, but ascertained in the first stages ofinvestigation, that wherever a charge of fraud was brought, the"Clarion" office actually had the goods, by purchase. All this wascostly to the "Clarion." But it added nearly four thousand solidcirculation, of the buying class, a class of the highest value to anyadvertiser. Only with difficulty and by exercise of pressure on the partof E.M. Pierce, were the weaker members among the withdrawingadvertisers dissuaded from resuming their patronage of the "Clarion."
"I wouldn't have thought it possible," said the dictator, angrily, tohis associates. "The thing is getting dangerous. The damned paper is outfor the truth."
"And the public is finding it out," supplemented Gibbs, hisbrother-in-law.
"Wait till my libel suit comes on," said Pierce grimly. "I don't believeyoung Mr. Surtaine will have enough money left to indulge in the luxuryof muckraking, after that."
"Won't the old man back him up?"
"Tells me that the boy is playing a lone hand," said Pierce withsatisfaction.
Herein he spoke the fact. While the "Clarion's" various campaigns werestill in mid-career, Dr. Surtaine had made his final appeal to his sonin vain, ringing one last change upon his P鎍n of Policy.
"What good does it all do you or anybody else? You're stirring up muck,and you're getting the only thing you ever get by that kind of activity,a bad smell." He paused for his effect; then delivered himself of acharacteristically vigorous and gross aphorism:
"Boyee, you can't sell a stink, in this town."
"Perhaps I can help to get rid of it," said Hal.
"Not you! Nobody thanks you for your pains. They take notice for awhile, because their noses compel 'em to. Then they forget. What thanksdoes the public give a newspaper? But the man you've roasted--he's afteryou, all the time. A sore toe doesn't forget. Look at Pierce."
"Pierce has bothered me," confessed Hal. "He's shut me off from thebanks. None of them will loan the 'Clarion' a cent. I have to go out oftown for my money."
"Can you blame him? I'd have done the same if he'd roasted you as youroasted his girl."
"News, Dad," said Hal wearily. "It was news."
"Let's not go over that again. You'll stick to your policy, I suppose,till it ruins you. About finances, by the way, where do you stand?"
"Stand?" repeated Hal. "I wish we did. We slip. Downhill; and prettyfast."
"Why wouldn't you? Fighting your own advertisers."
"Some advertising has come in, though. Mostly from out of town."
"Foreign proprietary," said Dr. Surtaine, using the technical term forpatent-medicine advertising from out of town, "isn't it? I've been doinga little missionary work among my friends in the trade, Hal; persuadedthem to give the 'Clarion' a try-out. The best of it is, they're gettingresults."
"They ought to. Do you know we're putting on circulation at the rate ofnearly a thousand a week?"
"Expensive, though, isn't it?"
"Pretty bad. The paper costs a lot more to get out. We've enlarged ourstaff. Now we need a new press. There's thirty-odd thousand dollars, inone lump."
"How long can you go on at this rate?"
"Without any more advertising?"
"You certainly aren't gaining, by your present policy."
"Well, I can stick it out through the year. By that time the advertisingwill be coming in. It's got to come to the paper that has thecirculation, Dad."
"Hum!" droned the big doctor, dubiously. "Have you reckoned the Piercelibel suits in?"
"He can't win them."
"Can't he? I don't know. He intends to try. And he feels pretty cockyabout it. E.M. Pierce has something up his sleeve, Boyee."
"That would be a body-blow. But he can't win," repeated Hal. "Why, I sawthe whole thing myself."
"Just the same you ought to have the best libel lawyer you can get fromNew York. All the good local men are tied up with Pierce or afraid ofhim."
"Can't afford it."
To this point the big man had been leading up. "I've been thinking overthis Pierce matter, Hal, and I've made up my mind. Pierce is getting tothink he's the whole thing around here. He's bullied this town all hislife, just as he's bullied his employees until they hate him likepoison. But now he's gone up against the wrong game. Roast Certina, willhe? The pup! Why, if he'd ever run his factories or his store or hisConsolidated Employees' Organization one hundredth part as decently asI've run our business, he wouldn't have to stay in nights for fear someone might sneak a knife into him out of the dark."
This was something less than just to Elias M. Pierce, who, whatever hisother faults, had never been a fearful man.
"Libel, eh?" continued the genius of Certina, quietly but formidably."We'll teach him a few things about libel, before he's through. Here'smy proposition, Boyee. You can fight Pierce, but you can't fight allWorthington. Every enemy you make for the 'Clarion' becomes an ally ofPierce. Quit all these other campaigns. Stop roasting the business menand advertisers. Drop your attack on the Mid and Mud: you've got 'emlicked, anyway. Let up on the street railway: I notice you're taking afall out of them on their overcrowding. Treat the theaters decently:they're entitled to a fair chance for their money. Cut out thisConsumers' League foolishness (I'm surprised at Milly Neal--the wayshe's lost her head over that). Make friends instead of foes. And goafter Elias M. Pierce, to the finish. Do this, and I'll back you withthe whole Certina income. Come on, now, Boyee. Be sensible."
Hal's reply came without hesitation. "I'm sorry, Dad: but I can't do it.I've told you I'd stand or fall on what you've already given me. If Ican't pull through on that, I can't pull through at all. Let'sunderstand each other once and for all, Dad. I've got to try this thingout to the end. And I won't ask or take one cent from you or any oneelse, win or lose."
"All right, Boyee," returned his father sorrowfully. "You're wrong, deadwrong. But I like your nerve. Only, let me tell you this. You thinkyou're going to keep on printing the news and the whole news and allthat sort of thing. I tell you, it can't be done."
"Why can't it be done?"
"Because, sooner or later, you'll bump up against your own interests sohard that you'll have to quit."
"I don't see that at all, sir."
"No, you don't. But one of these days something in the news line willcome up that'll hit you right between the eyes, if ever it gets intoprint. Then see what you'll do."
"I'll print it."
"No, you won't, Boyee. Human nature ain't built that way. You'll smotherit, and be glad you've got the power to."
"Dad, you believe I'm honest, don't you?"
"Too blamed honest in some ways."
"But you'd take my word?"
"Oh, that! Yes. For anything."
"Then I put my honor on this. If ever the time comes that I have tosuppress legitimate news to protect or aid my own interests, I'll own upI'm beaten: I'll quit fighting, and I'll make the 'Clarion' a verysucking dove of journalism. Is that plain?"
"Shake, Boyee. You've bought a horse. Just the same, I hate to let up onPierce. Sure you won't let me hire a New York lawyer for the libelsuit?"
"No. Thank you just as much, Dad. That's a 'Clarion' fight, and the'Clarion's' money has got to back it."
It was the gist of this decision which, some days later, had reachedE.M. Pierce, and caused him such satisfaction. With the "Clarion"depending upon its own resources, unbacked by the great reserve wealthof Certina's proprietor, he confidently expected to wreck it and forceits suspension by an overwhelming verdict of damages. For, as Dr.Surtaine had surmised, he held a card up his sleeve.