"Bought the paper."
"You needn"t have gone down town to do that. It comes to the office."
"You don"t understand. I"ve bought the "Clarion," presses, plant, circulation, franchise, good-will, ill-will, high, low, jack, and the game."
"You! What for?"
"Why," said Hal thoughtfully; "mainly because I lost my temper, I believe."
"Sounds like a pretty heavy loss, Boy-ee."
"Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Oh, the prodigal son hasn"t got anything on me, Dad, when it comes to scattering patrimonies," he concluded a little ruefully.
"What are you going to do with it, now you"ve got it?"
"Run it. I"ve bought a career."
"Now you"re talking." The big man jumped up and set both hands on Hal"s shoulders. "That"s the kind of thing I like to hear, and in the kind of way it ought to be said. You go to it, Hal. I"ll back you, as far as you like."
"No, sir. I thank you just the same: this is my game."
"Want to play it alone, do you?"
"How else can I make a career of it?"
"Right you are, Boyee. But it takes something behind money to build up a newspaper. And the "Clarion" "ll take some building up."
"Well, I"ve got aspiration enough, if it comes to that," smiled Hal.
"Aspiration"s a good starter: but it"s perspiration that makes a business go. Are you ready to take off your coat and work?"
"I certainly am. There"s a lot for me to learn."
"There is. Everything. Want some advice from the Old Man?"
"I most surely do, Dad."
"Listen here, then. A newspaper is a business proposition. Never forget that. All these hifalutin" notions about its being a palladium and the voice of the people and the guardian of public interests are good enough to talk about on the editorial page. Gives a paper a following, that kind of guff does. But the duty of a newspaper is the duty of any other business, to make money. There"s the principle, the policy, the politics, ethics, and religion of the newspaper in a nutsh.e.l.l. Now, how are you going to make money with the "Clarion"?"
"By making it a better paper than the others."
"Hm! Better. Yes: that"s all right, so long as you mean the right thing by "better." Better for the people that want to use it and can pay for using it."
"The readers, you mean?"
"The advertisers. It"s the advertisers that pay for the paper, not the readers. You"ve got to have circulation, of course, to get the advertising. But remember this, always: circulation is only a means to an end. It never yet paid the cost of getting out a daily, and it never will."
"I know enough of the business to understand that."
"Good! Look at the "Clarion," as it is. It"s got a good circulation. And that lets it out. It can"t get the advertising. So it"s losing money, hand over fist."
"Why can"t it?"
"It"s yellow. It doesn"t treat the business interests right."
"Sterne says they always look after their own advertisers."
"Oh, that! Naturally they have to. Any newspaper will do that. But they print a lot of stuff about strikes and they"re always playing up to the laboring man and running articles about abuses and pretending to be the friend of the poor and all that slush, and the better cla.s.s of business won"t stand for it. Once a paper gets yellow, it has to keep on.
Otherwise it loses what circulation it"s got. No advertiser wants to use it then. The department stores do go into the "Clarion" because it gets to a public they can"t reach any other way. But they give it just as little s.p.a.ce as they can. It isn"t popular."
"Well, I don"t intend to make the paper yellow."
"Of course you don"t. Keep your mind on it as a business proposition and you won"t go wrong. Remember, it"s the advertiser that pays. Think of that when you write an editorial. Frame it and hang it where every sub-editor and reporter can"t help but see it. Ask of every bit of news, "Is this going to get me an advertiser? Is that going to lose me an advertiser?" Be on the lookout to do your advertisers favors. They appreciate little things like special notices and seeing their names in print, in personals, and that kind of thing. And keep the paper optimistic. Don"t knock. Boost. Business men warm up to that. Why, Boy-ee, if you"ll just stick to the policy I"ve outlined, you"ll not only make a big success, but you"ll have a model paper that"ll make a new era in local journalism; a paper that every business man in town will swear by and that"ll be the pride of Worthington before you"re through."
Fired by the enthusiasm of his fair vision of a higher journalism, Dr.
Surtaine had been walking up and down, enlivening, with swinging arms, the chief points of his Paean of Policy. Now he dropped into his chair and with a change of voice said:
"Never mind about that retraction, Hal."
"No?"
"No. Forget it. When do you start in work?"
"To-morrow."
"You must save to-morrow evening."
"For what?"
"You"re invited to the Festus Willards". Mrs. Willard was particularly anxious you should come."
"But I don"t know them, Dad."
"Doesn"t matter. It"s about the most exclusive house in town. A cut above me, I can tell you. I"ve never so much as set foot in it."
"Then I won"t go," declared his son, flushing.
"Yes: you must," insisted his father anxiously. "Don"t mind about me.
I"m not ambitious socially. I told you some folks don"t like the business. It"s too noisy. But you won"t throw out any echoes. You"ll go, Boyee?"
"Since you want me to, of course, sir. But I shan"t find much time for play if I"m to learn my new trade."
"Oh, you can hire good teachers," laughed his father. "Well, I"m sleepy. Good-night, Mr. Editor."
"Good-night, Dad. I could use some sleep myself." But thought shared the pillow with Hal Surtaine"s head. Try as he would to banish the contestants, Dr. Surtaine"s Paean of Policy and McGuire Ellis"s impa.s.sioned declaration of faith did battle for the upper hand in his formulating professional standards. The Doctor"s theory was the clean-cut, comprehensible, and plausible one. But something within Hal responded to the hot idealism of the fighting journalist. He wanted Ellis for a fellow workman. And his last waking notion was that he wanted and needed Ellis mainly because Ellis had told him to go to h.e.l.l.