The Clarion

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE VIC­TO­RY

Na­tion-​wide sped the news, brand­ing Wor­thing­ton as a pest-​rid­den city. Ev­ery news­pa­per in the coun­try had a con­spic­uous dis­patch about it. The bul­letin of the Unit­ed States Pub­lic Health Ser­vice, as in du­ty bound, gave of­fi­cial and sta­tis­ti­cal cur­ren­cy to the town's mis­for­tune. Oth­er cities in the State threat­ened a quar­an­tine against Wor­thing­ton. Com­mer­cial trav­el­ers and buy­ers post­poned their lo­cal vis­its. The ho­tel reg­is­ters thinned out no­tably. Busi­ness drooped. For all of which the “Clar­ion” was ve­he­ment­ly blamed by those most con­cerned.

Con­verse­ly, the pa­per should have re­ceived part cred­it for the ex­treme­ly vig­or­ous cam­paign which the health au­thor­ities, un­der Dr. Mer­ritt, set on foot at once. Us­ing the “Clar­ion” ex­po­sure as a lever, the health of­fi­cer pried open the Coun­cil-​guard­ed city tills for an ini­tial ap­pro­pri­ation of ten thou­sand dol­lars, got a hasty or­di­nance passed pe­nal­iz­ing, not the di­ag­nos­ing of ty­phus, but fail­ure to di­ag­nose and re­port it,--not a man from the Sur­taine army of sup­pres­sion had the temer­ity to op­pose the mea­sure,--or­ga­nized a med­ical in­spec­tion and de­tec­tion corps, threw a con­ta­gion-​proof quar­an­tine about ev­ery in­fect­ed build­ing, hunt­ed down and iso­lat­ed the fugi­tives from the dan­ger-​points who had scat­tered at the first alarm, in­spired the coun­ty med­ical so­ci­ety to an en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port, bul­lied the po­lice in­to a state of rea­son­able ef­fi­cien­cy, and with a com­bined vol­un­teer and reg­ular force faced the epi­dem­ic in mil­itary form. Not least con­spic­uous among the vol­un­teers were Miss Es­mé El­liot and Miss Kath­leen Pierce, who had been re­leased from quar­an­tine quite as ear­ly as the law al­lowed, be­cause of the need for them at the front.

“We could nev­er have done our job with­out you,” said Dr. Mer­ritt to Hal, meet­ing him by chance one morn­ing ten days af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of the “spread.” “If the city is saved from a reg­ular pesti­lence, it'll be the Clar­ion's' do­ing.”

“That doesn't seem to be the opin­ion of the busi­ness men of the place,” said Hal, with a rather drea­ry smile. He had just been go­ing over with the lugubri­ous Shear­son a batch of ad­ver­tis­ing can­cel­la­tions.

“Oh, don't look for any cred­it from this town,” re­tort­ed the health of­fi­cer. “I'm prac­ti­cal­ly os­tra­cized, al­ready, for my share in it.”

“But are you beat­ing it out?”

“God knows,” an­swered the oth­er. “I thought we'd traced all the fo­ci of in­fec­tion. But two new lo­cal­ities broke out to-​day. That's the way an epi­dem­ic goes.”

And that is the way the Wor­thing­ton ty­phus went for more than a month. Through­out that month the “Clar­ion” was car­ry­ing on an an­ti-​epi­dem­ic cam­paign of its own, with the slo­gan “Don't Give up Old Home Week.” Wise strat­egy this, in a dou­ble sense. It ral­lied pub­lic ef­fort for vic­to­ry by a def­inite date, for the Com­mit­tee on Ar­range­ments, de­spite the ar­gu­ments of the weak-​kneed among its num­ber, and large­ly by virtue of the mil­itant op­ti­mism of its chair­man, had de­cid­ed to go on with the cen­ten­ni­al cel­ebra­tion if the city could show a clean bill of health by Au­gust 30, thus giv­ing six weeks' lee­way.

Fur­ther­more, it put the “Clar­ion” in the po­si­tion of cham­pi­on of the city's com­mer­cial in­ter­ests and dai­ly bade de­fi­ance to those who de­clared the pa­per an en­emy and a traitor to busi­ness. In ed­ito­ri­als, in in­ter­views, in ed­uca­tion­al ar­ti­cles on hy­giene and san­ita­tion, in a course of free lec­tures cov­er­ing the whole city and fi­nanced by the pa­per it­self, the “Clar­ion” car­ried on the fight with un­flag­ging zeal. Slow­ly it be­gan to win back gen­er­al con­fi­dence and much of the pop­ular­ity which it had lost. One of its re­porters in the course of his work con­tract­ed the fever and bare­ly pulled through alive, there­by lend­ing a fla­vor of pos­si­ble mar­tyr­dom to the cause. McGuire El­lis's des­per­ate fight for life al­so added to the ro­man­tic el­ement which is so po­tent an as­set with the sen­ti­men­tal Amer­ican pub­lic. Busi­ness, how­ev­er, still sulked. The de­fi­ance to its prin­ci­ples was too fla­grant to be passed over. If the “Clar­ion” pulled through, the press would lose re­spect for the best in­ter­ests and the vest­ed priv­ileges of com­mer­cial Wor­thing­ton. In­deed, oth­ers of the pa­pers, since the “Clar­ion's” dec­la­ra­tion of in­de­pen­dence, had ex­hib­it­ed a de­plorable ten­den­cy to dis­re­gard hints hith­er­to hav­ing the au­thor­ity of ab­so­lutism over them.

In with­hold­ing ad­ver­tis­ing pa­tron­age from the Sur­taine dai­ly, the busi­ness men were not on­ly seek­ing reprisals, but al­so fol­low­ing a sound busi­ness prin­ci­ple. For ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion sed­ulous­ly spread abroad, it was doubt­ful whether the “Clar­ion” would long sur­vive. Elias M. Pierce's boast that he would put it out of busi­ness gained lit­er­al in­ter­pre­ta­tion, as he had in­tend­ed that it should. Con­trary to his ac­cus­tomed habit of ret­icence, he had sought oc­ca­sion to in­form his friends that he ex­pect­ed ver­dicts against the li­bel­er of his daugh­ter which would throw the con­cern in­to bankrupt­cy, and, per­haps, its pro­pri­etor in­to jail. No ad­ver­tis­er cares to put mon­ey in­to a pub­li­ca­tion which may fail next week. Hence, though the cir­cu­la­tion of the “Clar­ion” went up pret­ty steadi­ly, the ad­ver­tis­ing pa­tron­age did not keep pace. Hal found him­self hard put to it, at times, to cling to his dogged hopes. But it was worth while fight­ing it out to the last dol­lar. So much he was as­sured of by the mes­sages of praise and sup­port which be­gan to come in to him, not from “rep­re­sen­ta­tive cit­izens,” but from the earnest, thought­ful, and of­ten ob­scure toil­ers and thinkers of the city: cler­gy­men, physi­cians, la­bor­ing-​men, work­ing-​wom­en, so­ci­olog­ical work­ers--his peers.

Then, too, there was the pro­found sat­is­fac­tion of promised vic­to­ry over the pest. For at the end of six weeks the bat­tle was prac­ti­cal­ly won; by what hero­isms, at the cost of what sac­ri­fices, through what dis­ap­point­ments, re­ver­sals, and set-​backs, against the sub­tleties of what un­der­ground op­po­si­tion of po­lit­ical in­flu­ence and twelve per cent fi­nance, is not to be set down here. The gov­ern­ment pub­li­ca­tions tell, in their brief and preg­nant records, this sto­ry of one of the most com­plete and bril­liant vic­to­ries in the his­to­ry of Amer­ican hy­giene. My con­cern is with the sto­ry, not of the ty­phus epi­dem­ic, but of a man who fought for and sur­ren­dered and fi­nal­ly re­trieved his own man­hood and the hon­or of the pa­per which was his hon­or. His share, no small one, in the wip­ing-​out of the pesti­lence was, to him, but part of the war for which he had en­list­ed.

But though the news­pa­pers, with one joy­ous voice, were able to an­nounce ear­ly in Au­gust, on the au­thor­ity of the fed­er­al re­ports, “No new case in a week,” the suc­cess of Old Home Week still swayed in the bal­ance. Out­side news­pa­pers, which had not for­got­ten the scan­dal of the small­pox sup­pres­sion years be­fore, hint­ed that the record might not be as clear as it ap­peared. The Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, they point­ed out, who was to be the guest of hon­or and the chief fea­ture of the cel­ebra­tion, would not be jus­ti­fied in go­ing to a city over which any sus­pi­cion of pesti­lence still hov­ered. In fact, the suc­cess or fail­ure of the event prac­ti­cal­ly hung up­on the Chief Ex­ec­utive's ac­tion. If, now, he de­cid­ed to with­draw his ac­cep­tance, on what­ev­er ground, the coun­try would im­pute it to a jus­ti­fied cau­tion, and would main­tain against the city that in­tan­gi­ble moral quar­an­tine which is so dis­as­trous to its vic­tim. Through­out, Hal Sur­taine in his ed­ito­ri­al columns had vig­or­ous­ly main­tained that the Pres­ident would come. It was most­ly “bluff.” He had noth­ing but hope to build on.

Two more “clean” weeks passed. At the close of the sec­ond, Hal stopped one day at the hos­pi­tal to see McGuire El­lis, who was fi­nal­ly con­va­les­cent and was to be dis­charged on the fol­low­ing week. At the door of El­lis's room he met Dr. El­liot. Some­what em­bar­rassed, he stepped aside. The physi­cian stopped.

“Er--Sur­taine,” he said hes­itant­ly.

“Well?”

“I've had time to think things over. And I've had some talks with Mac. I--I guess I was wrong.”

“You were right enough from your point of view.”

“Think so?” said the oth­er, sur­prised.

“Yes. And I know I was right, from mine.”

“Humph!” There was an un­com­fort­able pause. Then: “I called names. I apol­ogize.”

“That's all right, then,” re­turned Hal hearti­ly.

“Woof!” ex­haled the physi­cian. “That's off my chest. Now, I've got an item for you.”

“For the 'Clar­ion'?”

“Yep. The Pres­ident's com­ing.”

“Com­ing? To Old Home Week?”

“To Old Home Week.”

“An item! Great Cæsar! A spread! A splurge!! A blurb!!! Where did you get it?”

“From Wash­ing­ton. Just been there.”

“Tell me all of it.”

“Know Red­ding? He and I saw some tough ser­vice to­geth­er in the old M.H.S. That's the Unit­ed States Pub­lic Health Ser­vice now. Red­ding's the head of it; Sur­geon-​Gen­er­al. First-​class man, ev­ery way. So I went to see him and told him we had to have the Pres­ident, and why. He saw it in a minute. Knew all about the 'Clar­ion's' fight, too. He went to the White House and ex­plained the whole busi­ness. The Pres­ident said that a clean bill of health from the Ser­vice was good enough for him, and he'd come, sure. Here's his let­ter to the Sur­geon-​Gen­er­al. It goes out for pub­li­ca­tion to-​mor­row. There's a line in it speak­ing of the 'Clar­ion's' good work.”

“Great Cæsar!” said Hal again, rather weak­ly.

“Does that square ac­counts be­tween us?”

“More! A hun­dred times more! That's the biggest in­dorse­ment any pa­per in this town ev­er had. Old Home Week's safe. Did you tell Mac?”

“Yes. He's up there curs­ing now be­cause they won't let him go to the of­fice to plan out the ar­ti­cle.”

To the “Clar­ion,” the pres­iden­tial en­comi­um was a tremen­dous boom pro­fes­sion­al­ly. Fi­nan­cial­ly, how­ev­er, it was of no im­me­di­ate avail. It did not bring lo­cal ad­ver­tis­ing, and ad­ver­tis­ing was what the pa­per sore­ly need­ed. Still, it did call at­ten­tion to the pa­per from out­side. A few good con­tracts for “for­eign” ad­ver­tis­ing, a de­part­ment which had fall­en off to al­most noth­ing when Hal dis­card­ed all med­ical “copy,” came in. With these, and a rea­son­able in­crease in lo­cal sup­port which could be count­ed up­on, now that com­mer­cial bit­ter­ness against the pa­per was some­what mol­li­fied, Hal reck­oned that he could pull through--if it were not for the Pierce suits. There was the crux of the sit­ua­tion. Noth­ing was be­ing done about them. They had been post­poned more than once, on mo­tion of Pierce's coun­sel. Now they hung over Hal's head in a sus­pense fast be­com­ing un­bear­able. At length he de­cid­ed that, in fair­ness to his staff, he should warn them of the sit­ua­tion.

He chose, for the ex­pla­na­tion, one of the Talk-​It-​Over Break­fasts, the first one which McGuire El­lis, re­leased tem­porar­ily from the hos­pi­tal for the oc­ca­sion, had at­tend­ed since his wound. He sat at Hal's right, still pale and thin, but with his look of bull­dog ob­sti­na­cy undi­min­ished; en­hanced, rather, by the fact that one ear had been sharp­ened to a ca­nine point­ed­ness by the mis­sile which had so nar­row­ly grazed his life. El­lis had been goad­ed to a pitch of high ex­as­per­ation by the so­lic­itude and at­ten­tions of his fel­lows. It was his em­phat­ical­ly ex­pressed opin­ion that the whole gath­er­ing lay un­der a blight of su­perla­tive youth­ful­ness. In his mind he ex­empt­ed Hal, over whose si­lence and dis­trac­tion he was se­cret­ly wor­ried. The cause was ex­plained when the chair­man rose to close the meet­ing.

“There is some­thing I have to say,” he said. “I've put it off longer than I should. I may have to give up the 'Clar­ion.' It de­pends up­on the out­come of the li­bel suits brought by E.M. Pierce. If, as we fear, Miss Cleary, the nurse who was run over, tes­ti­fies for the pros­ecu­tion, we can't win. Then it's on­ly a ques­tion of the size of the dam­ages. A big ver­dict would mean the ru­in of the pa­per, I'm telling you this so that you may have time to look for new jobs.”

There was a long si­lence. Then a melan­choly, mus­ing voice said: “Gee! That's tough! Just as the pa­per pulled off the Home Week stunt, too.”

“How much of a ver­dict would bust us?” asked an­oth­er.

“Twen­ty-​five thou­sand dol­lars,” said Hal, “to­geth­er with lawyers' fees. I couldn't go on.”

“Say, I know that old hen of a nurse,” said one of the sport­ing writ­ers, with en­tire se­ri­ous­ness. “Won­der if it'd do any good to mar­ry her?”

A roar went up from the ta­ble at this, some­what re­liev­ing the ten­sion of the at­mo­sphere.

Shear­son, the ad­ver­tis­ing man­ag­er, lolling deep in his chair, spoke up dif­fi­dent­ly, as soon as he could be heard:

“I ain't rich. But I've put a lit­tle wad aside. I could chip in three thou' if that'd help.”

“I've got five hun­dred that isn't do­ing a stitch of work,” de­clared Wain­wright.

“Some of my re­la­tions have wads of mon­ey,” sug­gest­ed young Den­ton. “I wouldn't won­der if--”

“No, no, no!” cried Hal, in a shak­en voice. “I know how well you fel­lows mean it. But--”

“As a loan,” said Wain­wright hope­ful­ly. “The pa­per's good enough se­cu­ri­ty.”

“_Not_ good enough,” replied Hal firm­ly. “I can't take it, boys. You--you're a mighty good lot, to of­fer. Now, about look­ing for oth­er places--”

“All those that want to quit the 'Clar­ion,' stand up,” shout­ed McGuire El­lis.

Not a man moved.

“Unan­imous,” ob­served the con­va­les­cent. “I thought no­body'd rise to that. If any­body had,” he added, “I'd have punched him in the eye.”

The gath­er­ing ad­journed in gloom.

“All this on­ly makes it hard­er, Mac,” said Hal to his right-​hand man af­ter­ward. “They can't af­ford to stick till we sink.”

“If a sailor can do it, I guess a news­pa­per man can,” re­tort­ed the oth­er re­sent­ful­ly. “I wish I could poi­son Pierce.”

At din­ner that night Hal found his fa­ther dis­trait. Since the younger man's re­turn, the old re­la­tions had been re­sumed, though there were still, of ne­ces­si­ty, dif­fi­cult re­straints and reser­va­tions in their talk. The “Clar­ion,” how­ev­er, had ceased to be one of the tabooed sub­jects. Since the pub­li­ca­tion of the Pres­ident's let­ter and the sav­ing of Old Home Week, Dr. Sur­taine had be­come an avowed Clar­ion­ite. Al­so he kept in per­son­al touch with the of­fice. This evening, how­ev­er, it was with an ob­vi­ous ef­fort that he asked how af­fairs were go­ing. Hal an­swered list­less­ly that mat­ters were go­ing well enough.

“No, they aren't, Boy-​ee. I heard about your talk to-​day.”

“Did you? I'm sor­ry. I don't want to wor­ry you.”

“Boy-​ee, let me back you.”

“I can't, Dad.”

“Be­cause of that old agree­ment?”

“Part­ly.”

“Call it a loan, then. I can't stand by and see the pa­per licked by Pierce. Fifty thou­sand won't touch me. And it'll save you.”

“Please, Dad, I can't do it.”

“Is it be­cause it's Certi­na mon­ey?”

Hal turned mis­er­able eyes on his fa­ther. “Hadn't we bet­ter keep away from that?”

“I don't get you at all on that,” cried the char­la­tan. “Why, it's busi­ness. It's le­gal. If I didn't sell 'em the stuff, some­body else would. Why shouldn't I take the mon­ey, when it's there?”

“There's no use in my try­ing to ar­gue it with you, Dad. We're miles apart.”

“That's just it,” sighed the old­er man. “Oh, well! You couldn't help my pay­ing the dam­ages if Pierce wins,” he sug­gest­ed hope­ful­ly.

“Yes. I could even do that.”

“What do you want me to do, Boy-​ee?” cried his fa­ther, in des­per­ation. “Give up a busi­ness worth half a mil­lion a year, net?”

“I'm not ask­ing any­thing, sir. On­ly let me do the best I can, in the way that looks right to me. I've got to go back to the of­fice now. Good-​night, Dad.”

The arch-​quack looked af­ter his son's re­treat­ing fig­ure, and his big, an­imal-​like eyes were very ten­der.

“I don't know,” he said to him­self un­cer­tain­ly,--“I don't know but what he's worth it.”