"Let me have time to think it over," said Sylvia. "Get him to wait till to-morrow, and meantime I can see you."
So it was arranged. I think I told Sylvia the truth when I said that I had never before heard of a committee member who was unwilling to have his purposes discussed in the newspapers. To influence newspapers was one of the main purposes of committees, and I did not see how she could expect either editors or readers to take any other view.
"Let me tell the man about your trip down town," I suggested, "then I can go on to discuss the bill and how it bears on the evils you saw.
Such a statement can"t possibly do you harm."
She consented, but with the understanding that she was not to be quoted directly. "And don"t let them make me picturesque!" she exclaimed.
"That"s what my husband seems most to dread."
I wondered if he didn"t think she was picturesque, when she sat in a splendid, shining coach, and took part in a public parade through Central Park. But I did not say this. I went off, and swore my reporter to abstain from the "human touch," and he promised and kept his word.
There appeared next morning a dignified "write-up" of Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver"s interest in child-labour reform. Quoting me, it described some of the places she had visited, and some of the sights which had shocked her; it went on to tell about our committee and its work, the status of our bill in the legislature, the need of activity on the part of our friends if the measure was to be forced through at this session. It was a splendid "boost" for our work, and everyone in the office was in raptures over it. The social revolution was at hand! thought my young stenographer.
But the trouble with this business of publicity is that, however carefully you control your interviewer, you cannot control the others who use his material. The "afternoon men" came round for more details, and they made it clear that it was personal details they wanted. And when I side-stepped their questions, they went off and made up answers to suit themselves, and printed Sylvia"s pictures, together with photographs of child-workers taken from our pamphlets.
I called Sylvia up while she was dressing for dinner, to explain that I was not responsible for any of this picturesqueness. "Oh, perhaps I am to blame myself!" she exclaimed. "I think I interviewed a reporter."
"How do you mean?"
"A woman sent up her card--she told the footman she was a friend of mine. And I thought--I couldn"t be sure if I"d met her--so I went and saw her. She said she"d met me at Mrs. Harold Cliveden"s, and she began to talk to me about child-labour, and this and that plan she had, and what did I think of them, and suddenly it flashed over me: "Maybe this is a reporter playing a trick on me!""
I hurried out before breakfast next morning and got all the papers, to see what this enterprising lady had done. There was nothing, so I reflected that probably she had been a "Sunday" lady.
But then, when I reached my office, the "phone rang, and I heard the voice of Sylvia: "Mary, something perfectly dreadful has happened!"
"What?" I cried.
"I can"t tell you over the "phone, but a certain person is furiously angry. Can I see you if I come down right away?"
26. Such terrors as these were unguessed by me in the days of my obscurity. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, uneasy also, lies the wife of that head, and the best friend of the wife. I dismissed my stenographer, and spent ten or fifteen restless minutes until Sylvia appeared.
Her story was quickly told. A couple of hours ago the acting-manager of Mr. van Tuiver"s office had telephoned to ask if he might call upon a matter of importance. He had come. Naturally, he had the most extreme reluctance to say anything which might seem to criticise the activities of Mr. van Tuiver"s wife, but there was something in the account in the newspapers which should be brought to her husband"s attention. The articles gave the names and locations of a number of firms in whose factories it was alleged that Mrs. van Tuiver had found unsatisfactory conditions, and it happened that two of these firms were located in premises which belonged to the van Tuiver estates!
A story coming very close to melodrama, I perceived. I sat dismayed at what I had done. "Of course, dear girl," I said, at last, "you understand that I had no idea who owned these buildings."
"Oh, don"t say that!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I am the one who should have known!"
Then for a long time I sat still and let her suffer. "Tenement sweat-shops! Little children in factories!" I heard her whisper.
At last I put my hand on hers. "I tried to put it off for a while," I said. "But I knew it would have to come."
"Think of me!" she exclaimed, "going about scolding other people for the way they make their money! When I thought of my own, I had visions of palatial hotels and office-buildings--everything splendid and clean!"
"Well, my dear, you"ve learned now, and you will be able to do something--"
She turned upon me suddenly, and for the first time I saw in her face the pa.s.sions of tragedy. "Do you believe I will be able to do anything?
No! Don"t have any such idea!"
I was struck dumb. She got up and began to pace the room. "Oh, don"t make any mistake, I"ve paid for my great marriage in the last hour or two. To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of being found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been "muckraked," as he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over their plight; he was the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat, whom the worries of traders and money-changers didn"t concern. Now perhaps he"s caught, and his name is to be dragged in the mire, and it"s my flightiness, my lack of commonsense that has done it!"
"I shouldn"t let that trouble me," I said. "You could not know--"
"Oh, it"s not that! It"s that I hadn"t a single courageous word to say to him--not a hint that he ought to refuse to wring blood-money from sweat-shops! I came away without having done it, because I couldn"t face his anger, because it would have meant a quarrel!"
"My dear," I said gently, "it is possible to survive a quarrel."
"No, you don"t understand! We should never make it up again, I know--I saw it in his words, in his face. He will never change to please me, no, not even a simple thing like the business-methods of the van Tuiver estates."
I could not help smiling. "My dear Sylvia! A simple thing!"
She came and sat beside me. "That"s what I want to talk about. It is time I was growing up. It it time that I knew about these things. Tell me about them."
"What, my dear?"
"About the methods of the van Tuiver estates, that can"t be changed to please me. I made out one thing, we had recently paid a fine for some infraction of the law in one of those buildings, and my husband said it was because we had refused to pay more money to a tenement-house inspector. I asked him: "Why should we pay any money at all to a tenement-house inspector? Isn"t it bribery?" He answered: "It"s a custom--the same as you give a tip to a hotel waiter." Is that true?"
I could not help smiling. "Your husband ought to know, my dear," I said.
I saw her compress her lips. "What is the tip for?"
"I suppose it is to keep out of trouble with him."
"But why can"t we keep out of trouble by obeying the law?"
"My dear, sometimes the law is inconvenient, and sometimes it is complicated and obscure. It might be that you are violating it without knowing the fact. It might be uncertain whether you are violating it or not, so that to settle the question would mean a lot of expense and publicity. It might even be that the law is impossible to obey--that it was not intended to be obeyed."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, maybe it was pa.s.sed to put you at the mercy of the politicians."
"But," she protested, "that would be blackmail."
"The phrase," I replied, "is "strike-legislation.""
"But at least, that wouldn"t be our fault!"
"No, not unless you had begun it. It generally happens that the landlord discovers it"s a good thing to have politicians who will work with him.
Maybe he wants his a.s.sessments lowered; maybe he wants to know where new car lines are to go, so that he can buy intelligently; maybe he wants the city to improve his neighbourhood; maybe he wants influence at court when he has some heavy damage suit."
"So we bribe everyone!"
"Not necessarily. You may simply wait until campaign-time, and then make your contribution to the machine. That is the basis of the "System."."
"The "System "?"
"A semi-criminal police-force, and everything that pays tribute to it; the saloon and the dive, the gambling h.e.l.l the white-slave market, and the Arson trust."
I saw a wild look in her eyes. "Tell me, do you _know_ that all these things are true? Or are you only guessing about them?"
"My dear Sylvia," I answered, "you said it was time you grew up. For the present I will tell you this: Several months before I met you, I made a speech in which I named some of the organised forces of evil in the city. One was Tammany Hall, and another was the Traction Trust, and another was the Trinity Church Corporation, and yet another was the van Tuiver estates."