The Clarion

CHAPTER XIX

DON­NY­BROOK

Wor­thing­ton be­gan to find the “Clar­ion” amus­ing. It blared a new note. Com­mon mat­ter of ev­ery­day ac­cep­tance which no oth­er pa­per in town had ev­er con­sid­ered as news, be­came, when trum­pet­ed from be­tween the ram­pant roost­ers, vi­tal with in­ter­est. And whith­er­so­ev­er it di­rect­ed the pub­lic at­ten­tion, some high­ly re­spectable pri­vate priv­ilege winced and snarled. Wor­thing­ton did not par­tic­ular­ly love the “Clar­ion” for the en­emies it made. But it read it.

Now, a news­pa­per makes its en­emies overnight. Friends take months or years in the mak­ing. Hence the “Clar­ion,” whilst rapid­ly broad­en­ing its cir­cle of read­ers, owed its suc­cess to the cu­rios­ity rather than to the con­fi­dence which it in­spired. Mean­time the ef­fect up­on its ad­ver­tis­ing in­come was dis­as­trous. If cre­dence could be placed in the lament­ing Shear­son, wher­ev­er it at­tacked an abuse, whether by de­nun­ci­ation or ridicule, it lost an ad­ver­tis­er. More­over the pub­lic, not yet ready to cred­it any jour­nal with hon­est in­ten­tions, was in­clined to re­gard the “Clar­ion” as “a chron­ic kick­er.” The “Ban­ner's” gib­ing sug­ges­tion of a re­ver­sal of the ed­ito­ri­al mot­to be­tween the tri­umphant birds to read “With mal­ice to­ward all,” stuck.

But there were com­pen­sa­tions. The bla­tant cocks had oc­ca­sion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for crow­ing. With no small jus­ti­fi­ca­tion did they shrill their tri­umph over the Mid­land & Big Mud­dy Rail­road. The “Mid and Mud” had de­clared war up­on the “Clar­ion,” fol­low­ing the pa­per's state­ment of the true cause of the Walk­ersville wreck, as sug­gest­ed by March­mont, the re­porter, at the break­fast. March­mont him­self had been ban­ished from the rail­road of­fices. All sources of reg­ular news were closed to him. There­fore, backed by the “Clar­ion,” he pro­ceed­ed to open up a line of ir­reg­ular news which stirred the town. For years the “Mid and Mud” had giv­en to Wor­thing­ton a pas­sen­ger ser­vice so bad that no com­mu­ni­ty less en­slaved to a _lais­sez-​faire_ pol­icy would have en­dured it. Through trains drift­ed in any­where from one to four hours late. Lo­cal trains, drawn by wheezy, tin-​pot lo­co­mo­tives of out­worn pat­tern, ar­rived and de­part­ed with such ca­su­al­ness as to ren­der sched­ules a joke, and not in­fre­quent­ly “bogged down” be­tween sta­tions un­til some an­te­dilu­vian en­gine could be re­sus­ci­tat­ed and sent out to the res­cue. The day coach­es were of the old, dan­ger­ous, wood­en type. The Pull­man ser­vice was ut­ter­ly un­re­li­able, and the sta­tion in which the trav­el­ing pop­ulace of Wor­thing­ton spent much of its time, a draft-​rid­den barn. Yet Wor­thing­ton suf­fered all this be­cause it was ac­cus­tomed to it and lacked any means of mak­ing protest vo­cal.

Then the “Clar­ion” start­ed in pub­lish­ing its “Yes­ter­day's Time-​Ta­ble of the 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 spe­cial item, of which the fol­low­ing is an ex­am­ple:

“The East­ern States Through Ex­press of the Mid­land & Big Mud­dy Rail­road ar­rived and de­part­ed on time yes­ter­day. When asked for an ex­pla­na­tion of this phe­nomenon, the of­fi­cials de­clined to be in­ter­viewed.”

Against this “per­se­cu­tion,” the “Mid and Mud” au­thor­ities at first main­tained a sullen si­lence. The “Clar­ion” then went in­to statis­tics. It gave the num­ber of pas­sen­gers ar­riv­ing and de­part­ing on each de­layed train, es­ti­mat­ed the val­ue of their time, and con­struct­ed ta­bles of the mon­ey val­ue of time lost in this way to the city of Wor­thing­ton, per day, per month, and per year. The fig­ures were not the less in­spir­ing of thought, for be­ing high­ly amus­ing.

Peo­ple be­gan to take an in­ter­est. They brought or sent in per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences. A com­mer­cial trav­el­er, on the 7.50 train (ar­riv­ing at 10.01, that day), hav­ing lost a big or­der through miss­ing an ap­point­ment, told the “Clar­ion” about it. A con­trac­tor's agent, gaz­ing from the win­dows of the stalled “Lim­it­ed” out up­on “fresh woods and pas­tures new” twen­ty miles short of Wor­thing­ton, what time he should have been at a com­mit­tee meet­ing of the Coun­cil, for­feit­ed a $10,000 con­tract and rushed vi­olent­ly in­to “Clar­ion” print, breath­ing slaugh­ter and law-​suits. Judge Ab­ner Hal­loway and fam­ily, ar­riv­ing at the New York pier in a speed­ing taxi from the East­ern Ex­press (five hours late out of Wor­thing­ton), just in time to see the Lusi­ta­nia take his for­ward­ed bag­gage for a pleas­ant out­ing in Eu­rope, hired a stenog­ra­pher (male) to tell the “Clar­ion” what he thought of the mat­ter, in words of sev­en syl­la­bles. Pro­fes­sor Bee­ton Tra­chs, the globe-​trot­ting lec­tur­er, who ar­rived 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 to ab­jure a $200 guar­an­ty, where­in the mildest and most ju­di­cial opin­ion ex­pressed by Pro­fes­sor Tra­chs was that crawl­ing through a trop­ical jun­gle on all fours was speed, and be­ing hur­tled down a moun­tain on the bo­som 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 the Fourth Vice-​Pres­ident of the road ap­peared in Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine's sanc­tum. He was bland and hint­ed at ad­ver­tis­ing. Two weeks lat­er the Third Vice-​Pres­ident ar­rived. He was vague and hint­ed at reprisals. The Sec­ond Vice-​Pres­ident pre­sent­ed him­self with­in ten days there­after, de­part­ed af­ter five un­sat­is­fac­to­ry min­utes, and re­port­ed at head­quar­ters, with ev­ery symp­tom of an el­der­ly gen­tle­man suf­fer­ing from shock, that young Mr. Sur­taine had seemed bored. The First Vice-​Pres­ident then ar­rived on a spe­cial train.

“What do you want, any­way?” he asked.

“De­cent pas­sen­ger ser­vice for Wor­thing­ton,” said the ed­itor. “Just what I've told ev­ery oth­er species _and_ num­ber of Vice-​Pres­ident on your list.”

“You get it,” said the First Vice-​Pres­ident.

Thus was af­ford­ed an­oth­er ex­am­ple of that su­per-​ef­fi­cien­cy which, we are as­sured, marks the caste of the Amer­ican rail­road as su­pe­ri­or to all oth­ers, and which con­sists in send­ing four men and spend­ing sev­er­al weeks to do what one could do bet­ter in a sin­gle day. In the course of a few weeks the Mid­land & Big Mud­dy did bring its ser­vice up to a rea­son­able stan­dard, and the own­er of the “Clar­ion” sa­vored his first pleas­ant proof of the pow­er of the press.

Vast­ly less im­por­tant, but swifter and more def­inite in re­sults and more pop­ular in ef­fect, was the “Clar­ion's” an­ti-​hat-​check cam­paign. The Stick­ler, Wor­thing­ton's newest ho­tel, had es­tab­lished a coat-​room with the usu­al corps of girl-​ban­dits, wait­ing to strip ev­ery pa­tron of his out­er gar­ments be­fore ad­mit­ting him to the restau­rant, and re­turn­ing them on­ly up­on the black­mail of a tip. All the oth­er good restau­rants had fol­lowed suit. Wor­thing­ton re­sent­ed it, as it re­sent­ed most in­no­va­tions; but en­dured the im­po­si­tion, for lack of sol­idar­ity, un­til the “Clar­ion” took up the sub­ject in a se­ries of para­graphs.

“Do you think,” bland­ly in­quired the ed­ito­ri­al roost­ers, “that when you tip the hat-​check girl she gets the tip? She doesn't. It goes to a man who rents from the restau­rant the priv­ilege of bul­ly­ing you out of a dime or a quar­ter. The girl holds you up, be­cause if she doesn't ex­tort fif­teen dol­lars a week, she los­es her job and her own mu­nif­icent wages of sev­en dol­lars. The 'Clar­ion' takes plea­sure in an­nounc­ing a se­ries of por­traits of the high-​mind­ed pi­rates of fi­nance whom you sup­port in lux­ury, when you 'give up' to the check-​girl. Our first por­trait, ladies and gen­tle­men, is that of Mr. Abe Hotzen­muller, race-​track book­mak­er and whiskey agent, who, in the in­ter­vals of these more rep­utable oc­cu­pa­tions, ex­tracts alms from the pa­trons of the Ho­tel Stick­ler.”

Next in line was “Shir­ty” Mac­Donough, a mi­nor politi­cian, “ap­pro­pri­ate­ly framed in sil­ver dimes,” as the “Clar­ion” put it. He was fol­lowed by Ed­die Perkins, pro­pri­etor of a du­bi­ous re­sort on Mail Street. By this time coat-​room fran­chis­es had suf­fered a se­vere de­pre­ci­ation. They dropped al­most to ze­ro when the news­pa­per, hav­ing clinched the les­son home with its “Pho­to-​graft Gallery of Lead­ing Dime-​Hunters,” ex­hort­ed its 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 Your Hat.” 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-​room bris­tled with hats pro­claim­ing de­fi­ance, and, in­ci­den­tal­ly, ad­ver­tis­ing the “Clar­ion.” The “cut-​out coupon” ran for three weeks. In one month the 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 on­ly at a high cost. Not a line of the­ater ad­ver­tis­ing ap­peared in the columns af­ter the ed­ito­ri­al an­nounce­ment of in­de­pen­dence. Press tick­ets were cut off. The “Clar­ion's” dra­mat­ic re­porter was turned back from the gate 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 an un­just de­mand for ex­tra pay­ment, re­fused to be black­mailed, and can­celed the sec­ond per­for­mance. One pa­per on­ly gave the facts, and that was the “Clar­ion,” gen­er­al­ly re­gard­ed as the de­fend­er and mouth­piece of the la­bor­ing as against the cap­ital­is­tic in­ter­ests. Great was the wrath of the unions. Boy­cott was threat­ened; even a strike in the of­fice. In re­sponse, the ed­ito­ri­al page an­nounced briefly that its pol­icy of giv­ing the news ac­cu­rate­ly and com­ment­ing up­on it freely ex­empt­ed no man or or­ga­ni­za­tion. The trou­ble soon died out, but, while mak­ing new en­emies amongst the ra­bid or­ga­ni­za­tion men, strength­ened the “Clar­ion's” grow­ing re­pute for in­de­pen­dence. One of the most vi­olent ob­jec­tors was Max Velt­man, whose protest, de­liv­ered to Hal and McGuire El­lis, was so ve­he­ment that he was ad­vised curt­ly and em­phat­ical­ly to con­fine his ac­tiv­ities and opin­ions to his own de­part­ment.

“Look out for that fel­low,” ad­vised El­lis, as the fore­man went away fum­ing. “He hates you.”

“On­ly his fa­nati­cism,” said Hal.

“More than that. It's per­son­al. I think,” added the as­so­ciate ed­itor af­ter some hes­itan­cy, “it's 'Kit­ty the Cutie.' He's jeal­ous, Hal. And I think 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 la­bor trou­ble had oc­curred, made ten­ta­tive prof­fer of peace in the form of send­ing in the the­ater ad­ver­tis­ing again. Hal prompt­ly re­fused to ac­cept it, by way of an ob­ject-​les­son, de­spite the al­most tear­ful protest of his own busi­ness of­fice. This blow al­most killed Shear­son.

In fact, the un­for­tu­nate ad­ver­tis­ing man­ag­er now lived in an at­mo­sphere of Sty­gian gloom. Two of the most ex­ten­sive pur­chasers of news­pa­per space, the Boston Store and the Tri­an­gle Store, had can­celed their con­tracts im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the at­tack on the Pierces, through a “jok­er” clause in­sert­ed to af­ford such an op­por­tu­ni­ty. All the oth­er de­part­ment stores threat­ened to fol­low suit when the “Clar­ion” took up the cause of the Con­sumers' League.

Mrs. Fes­tus Willard was pres­ident of the or­ga­ni­za­tion, which had been prac­ti­cal­ly mori­bund since its in­cep­tion, for the suf­fi­cient rea­son that no men­tion of its ac­tiv­ities, de­signs, or pur­posed re­forms could gain ad­mis­sion to any news­pa­per in Wor­thing­ton. The Re­tail Union saw to that through its all-​po­tent Pub­li­ca­tion Com­mit­tee. Per­ceiv­ing the cres­cent eman­ci­pa­tion of the “Clar­ion,” Mrs. Willard, af­ter due con­sul­ta­tion with her hus­band, ap­pealed to Hal. Would he help the League to ob­tain cer­tain re­forms? Specif­ical­ly, seats for shop­girls, and ex­tra pay for ex­tra work, 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 the cam­paign in her col­umn, and her se­ries of “Lunch-​Time Chats,” with their slangy, pun­gent, worka­day fla­vor, pre­sent­ed the case of the over­worked saleswom­en in a way to stir the dullest sym­pa­thies. The event ful­ly jus­ti­fied Shear­son in his rôle of Cas­san­dra. Half of the re­main­ing stores rep­re­sent­ed in the Re­tail Union no­ti­fied the “Clar­ion” of the with­draw­al of their ad­ver­tis­ing. Thus some twelve hun­dred dol­lars a week of in­come van­ished. More­over, the Union, it was hint­ed, would prob­ably black­list the “Clar­ion” of­fi­cial­ly. And the shop-​folk gained noth­ing by the cam­paign. The mer­chants were strong enough to de­feat the League and its sole back­er at ev­ery point. This was one of the “Clar­ion's” fail­ures.

Co­in­ci­dent with the ebb of the store ad­ver­tis­ing oc­curred a lapse in cir­cu­la­tion, in­ex­pli­ca­ble to the staff un­til an anal­ysis in­di­cat­ed that the wom­en read­ers were los­ing in­ter­est. It was young Mr. Sur­taine who solved the mys­tery, by a flash of that news­pa­per in­stinct with which El­lis had ear­ly cred­it­ed him.

“De­part­ment store ad­ver­tis­ing is news,” he de­cid­ed, in a talk with El­lis and Shear­son.

“How can ad­ver­tis­ing be news?” ob­ject­ed the man­ag­er.

“Any­thing that in­ter­ests the pub­lic is news, on the au­thor­ity of no less an ex­pert than Mr. McGuire El­lis. Shop­ping is the main in­ter­est in life of thou­sands of wom­en. They read the pa­pers to find out where the bar­gains are. Watch 'em on the cars any morn­ing and you'll see them study­ing 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've got to give it to them.”

“Now you're talk­ing,” cried Shear­son. “Cut out this Con­sumers' League slush and I'll get the stores back.”

“We'll cut out noth­ing. But we'll put in some­thing. We'll print news of the de­part­ment stores as news, not as ad­ver­tis­ing.”

“Well, if that ain't the lim­it!” lament­ed Shear­son. “If you give 'em ad­ver­tis­ing 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 to fur­nish the re­al facts.”

“Ex­act­ly,” said Hal.

From this talk de­vel­oped a unique de­part­ment in the “Clar­ion.” An ex­pert wom­an shop­per col­lect­ed the facts and pre­sent­ed them dai­ly un­der the cap­tion, “Where to Find Re­al Bar­gains,” and with the prefa­to­ry note, “No paid mat­ter is ac­cept­ed for this col­umn.” The ex­pert had an al­lowance for pur­chas­ing, where nec­es­sary, and the ut­most free­dom of opin­ion was grant­ed her. Thus, in the midst of a se­ries of items, such as--“The Boston Store is of­fer­ing a spe­cial sale of linens at ad­van­ta­geous prices”; “The neck­tie sale at the Em­po­ri­um con­tains some good bar­gains”; and “Schef­fler and Mintz's 'fur­ni­ture week' is worth at­ten­tion, par­tic­ular­ly in the rock­ing-​chair and din­ing-​set lines”--might ap­pear some such in­for­ma­tion as this: “In the spe­cial bar­gain sale of rib­bons at the Em­po­ri­um the prices are slight­ly high­er than the same lines sold for last week, on the reg­ular counter”; or, “The heav­ily ad­ver­tised an­tique rug col­lec­tion at the Tri­an­gle is most­ly fraud­ulent. With a dozen ex­cep­tions the rugs are mod­ern and of poor qual­ity”; or, “The Boston Shop's spe­cial sale of rain coats are most­ly dam­aged goods. Ac­cept none with­out guar­an­tee.”

Nev­er be­fore had mer­can­tile Wor­thing­ton known any­thing like this. Some­thing not un­like pan­ic was cre­at­ed in com­mer­cial cir­cles. Lawyers were hope­ful­ly con­sult­ed, but as­cer­tained in the first stages of in­ves­ti­ga­tion, that wher­ev­er a charge of fraud was brought, the “Clar­ion” of­fice ac­tu­al­ly had the goods, by pur­chase. All this was cost­ly to the “Clar­ion.” But it added near­ly four thou­sand sol­id cir­cu­la­tion, of the buy­ing class, a class of the high­est val­ue to any ad­ver­tis­er. On­ly with dif­fi­cul­ty and by ex­er­cise of pres­sure on the part of E.M. Pierce, were the weak­er mem­bers among the with­draw­ing ad­ver­tis­ers dis­suad­ed from re­sum­ing their pa­tron­age of the “Clar­ion.”

“I wouldn't have thought it pos­si­ble,” said the dic­ta­tor, an­gri­ly, to his as­so­ciates. “The thing is get­ting dan­ger­ous. The damned pa­per is out for the truth.”

“And the pub­lic is find­ing it out,” sup­ple­ment­ed Gibbs, his broth­er-​in-​law.

“Wait till my li­bel suit comes on,” said Pierce grim­ly. “I don't be­lieve young Mr. Sur­taine will have enough mon­ey left to in­dulge in the lux­ury of muck­rak­ing, af­ter that.”

“Won't the old man back him up?”

“Tells me that the boy is play­ing a lone hand,” said Pierce with sat­is­fac­tion.

Here­in he spoke the fact. While the “Clar­ion's” var­ious cam­paigns were still in mid-​ca­reer, Dr. Sur­taine had made his fi­nal ap­peal to his son in vain, ring­ing one last change up­on his Pæan 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 a char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly 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 a while, be­cause their noses com­pel 'em to. Then they for­get. What thanks does the pub­lic give a news­pa­per? But the man you've roast­ed--he's af­ter you, all the time. A sore toe doesn't for­get. Look at Pierce.”

“Pierce has both­ered me,” con­fessed Hal. “He's shut me off from the banks. None of them will loan the 'Clar­ion' a cent. I have to go out of town for my mon­ey.”

“Can you blame him? I'd have done the same if he'd roast­ed you as you roast­ed 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 pret­ty fast.”

“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 for patent-​medicine ad­ver­tis­ing from out of town, “isn't it? I've been do­ing a lit­tle mis­sion­ary work among my friends in the trade, Hal; per­suad­ed them to give the 'Clar­ion' a try-​out. The best of it is, they're get­ting re­sults.”

“They ought to. Do you know we're putting on cir­cu­la­tion at the rate of near­ly a thou­sand a week?”

“Ex­pen­sive, though, isn't it?”

“Pret­ty bad. The pa­per costs a lot more to get out. We've en­larged our staff. Now we need a new press. There's thir­ty-​odd thou­sand dol­lars, in one 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 ad­ver­tis­ing will be com­ing in. It's _got_ to come to the pa­per that has the cir­cu­la­tion, Dad.”

“Hum!” droned the big doc­tor, du­bi­ous­ly. “Have you reck­oned the Pierce li­bel suits in?”

“He can't win them.”

“Can't he? I don't know. He in­tends to try. And he feels pret­ty cocky about 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 saw the whole thing my­self.”

“Just the same you ought to have the best li­bel lawyer you can get from New York. All the good lo­cal men are tied up with Pierce or afraid of him.”

“Can't af­ford it.”

To this point the big man had been lead­ing up. “I've been think­ing over this Pierce mat­ter, Hal, and I've made up my mind. Pierce is get­ting to think he's the whole thing around here. He's bul­lied this town all his life, just as he's bul­lied his em­ploy­ees un­til they hate him like poi­son. But now he's gone up against the wrong game. Roast Certi­na, will he? The pup! Why, if he'd ev­er run his fac­to­ries or his store or his Con­sol­idat­ed Em­ploy­ees' Or­ga­ni­za­tion one hun­dredth part as de­cent­ly as I've run our busi­ness, he wouldn't have to stay in nights for fear some one might sneak a knife in­to him out of the dark.”

This was some­thing less than just to Elias M. Pierce, who, what­ev­er his oth­er 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's my propo­si­tion, Boy­ee. You can fight Pierce, but you can't fight all Wor­thing­ton. Ev­ery en­emy you make for the 'Clar­ion' be­comes an al­ly of Pierce. Quit all these oth­er cam­paigns. Stop roast­ing the busi­ness men and ad­ver­tis­ers. Drop your at­tack on the Mid and Mud: you've got 'em licked, any­way. Let up on the street rail­way: I no­tice you're tak­ing a fall out of them on their over­crowd­ing. Treat the the­aters de­cent­ly: they're en­ti­tled to a fair chance for their mon­ey. Cut out this Con­sumers' League fool­ish­ness (I'm sur­prised at Mil­ly Neal--the way she's lost her head over that). Make friends in­stead of foes. And go af­ter Elias M. Pierce, to the fin­ish. Do this, and I'll back you with the 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 I can't pull through on that, I can't pull through at all. Let's un­der­stand each oth­er once and for all, Dad. I've got to try this thing out to the end. And I won't ask or take one cent from you or any one else, win or lose.”

“All right, Boy­ee,” re­turned his fa­ther sor­row­ful­ly. “You're wrong, dead wrong. But I like your nerve. On­ly, let me tell you this. You think you're go­ing to keep on print­ing the news and the whole news and all that 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 so hard 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 will come up that'll hit you right be­tween the eyes, if ev­er it gets in­to print. Then see what you'll do.”

“I'll print it.”

“No, you won't, Boy­ee. Hu­man na­ture ain't built that way. You'll smoth­er it, 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 to sup­press le­git­imate news to pro­tect or aid my own in­ter­ests, I'll own up I'm beat­en: I'll quit fight­ing, and I'll make the 'Clar­ion' a very suck­ing dove of jour­nal­ism. Is that plain?”

“Shake, Boy­ee. You've bought a horse. Just the same, I hate to let up on Pierce. Sure you won't let me hire a New York lawyer for the li­bel suit?”

“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 reached E.M. Pierce, and caused him such sat­is­fac­tion. With the “Clar­ion” de­pend­ing up­on its own re­sources, un­backed by the great re­serve wealth of Certi­na's pro­pri­etor, he con­fi­dent­ly ex­pect­ed to wreck it and force its sus­pen­sion by an over­whelm­ing ver­dict of dam­ages. For, as Dr. Sur­taine had sur­mised, he held a card up his sleeve.