"Speaking frankly, it"s tawdry. It"s lurid. It"s--well, yellow."
"A matter of method. You"re really more interested, then, in the way we present news than in the news we present."
"I don"t know anything about news, itself. But I don"t see why a newspaper run by a gentleman shouldn"t be in good taste."
"Nor do I. Except that those things take time. I suppose I"ve got to get in touch with my staff before I can reform their way of writing the paper."
"Haven"t you done that yet?"
"I simply haven"t had time."
"Then I"ll make you a nice present of a very valuable suggestion. Give a luncheon to your employees, and invite all the editors and reporters.
Make a little speech to them and tell them what you intend to do, and get them to talk it over and express opinions. That"s the way to get things done. I do it with my mission cla.s.s. And, by the way, don"t make it a grand banquet at one of the big hotels. Have it in some place where the men are used to eating. They"ll feel more at home and you"ll get more out of them."
"Will you come?"
"No. But you shall come up to the house and report fully on it."
Had Miss Esme Elliot, experimentalist in human motives, foreseen to what purpose her ingenious suggestion was to work out, she might well have retracted her complaint of lack of real influence; for this casual conversation was the genesis of the Talk-it-Over Breakfast, an inst.i.tution which potently affected the future of the "Clarion" and its young owner.
CHAPTER XI
THE INITIATE
Within a month after Hal"s acquisition of the "Clarion," Dr. Surtaine had become a daily caller at the office. "Just to talk things over," was his explanation of these incursions, which Hal always welcomed, no matter how busy he might be. Advice was generally the form which the visitor"s talk took; sometimes warning; not infrequently suggestions of greater or less value. Always his counsel was for peace and policy.
"Keep in with the business element, Boyee. Remember all the time that Worthington is a business city, the liveliest little business city between New York and Chicago. Business made it. Business runs it.
Business is going to keep on running it. Anybody who works on a different principle, I don"t care whether it"s in politics or journalism or the pulpit, is going to get hurt. I don"t deny you"ve braced up the "Clarion." People are beginning to talk about it already. But the best men, the moneyed men, are holding off. They aren"t sure of you yet.
Sometimes I"m not sure myself. Every now and then the paper takes a stand I don"t like. It goes too far. You"ve put ginger into it. I have to admit that. And ginger"s a good thing, but sugar catches more flies."
The notion of a breakfast to the staff met with the Doctor"s instant approval.
"That"s the idea!" said he "I"ll come to it, myself. Lay down your general scheme and policy to "em. Get "em in sympathy with it. If any of "em aren"t in sympathy with it, get rid of those. Kickers never did any business any good. You"ll get plenty of kicks from outside. Then, when the office gets used to your way of doing things, you can quit wasting so much time on the news and editorial end."
"But that"s what makes the paper, Dad."
"Get over that idea. You hire men to get out the paper. Let "em earn their pay while you watch the door where the dollars come in.
Advertising, my son: that"s the point to work at. In a way I"m sorry you let Sterne out."
The ex-editor had left, a fortnight before, on a basis agreeable to himself and Hal, and McGuire Ellis had taken over his duties.
"Certainly you had no reason to like Sterne, Dad."
"For all that, he knew his job. Everything Sterne did had a dollar somewhere in the background. Even his blackmailing game. He worked with the business office, and he took his orders on that basis. Now if you had some man whom you could turn over this news end to while you"re building up a sound advertising policy--"
"How about McGuire Ellis?"
Dr. Surtaine glanced over to the window corner where the a.s.sociate editor was somnambulantly fighting a fly for the privilege of continuing a nap.
"Too much of a theorist: too much of a knocker."
"He"s taught me what little I know about this business," said Hal. "Hi!
Wake up, Ellis. Do you know you"ve got to make a speech in an hour? This is the day of the Formal Feed."
"Hoong!" grunted Ellis, arousing himself. "Speech? I can"t make a speech. Make it yourself."
"I"m going to."
"What are you going to talk about?"
"Well, I might borrow your text and preach them a sermon on honesty in journalism. Seriously, I think the whole paper has degenerated to low ideals, and if I put it to them straight, that every man of them, reporter, copy-reader, or editor, has got to measure up to an absolutely straight standard of honesty--"
"They"ll throw the tableware at you," said McGuire Ellis quietly: "at least they ought to, if they don"t."
The two Surtaines stared at him in surprise.
"Who are you," continued the journalist, "to talk standards of honesty in journalism to those boys?"
"He"s their boss: that"s all he is," said Dr. Surtaine weightily.
"Let him set the example, then, jack the paper up where it belongs, and there"ll be no difficulty with the men who write it."
"But, Mac, you"ve been hammering at me about the crookedness of journalism in Worthington from the first."
"All right. Crookedness there is. Where does it come from? From the men in control, mostly. Let me tell you something, you two: there"s hardly a reporter in this city who isn"t more honest than the paper he works for."
"Hifalutin nonsense," said Dr. Surtaine.
"From your point of view. You"re an outsider. It"s outsiders that make the newspaper game as bad as it is. Look at "em in this town. Who owns the "Banner"? A political boss. Who owns the "News"? A brewer. The "Star"? A promoter, and a pretty scaly one at that. The "Observer"
belongs body and soul to an advertising agency, and the "Telegraph" is controlled by the banks. And one and all of "em take their orders from the Dry Goods Union, which means Elias M. Pierce, because they live on its advertising."
"Why not? That"s business," said Dr. Surtaine.
"Are we talking about business? I thought it was standards. What do those men know about the ethics of journalism? If you put the thing up to him, like as not E.M. Pierce would tell you that an ethic is something a doctor gives you to make you sleep."
"How about the "Clarion," Mac?" said Hal, smiling. "It"s run by an outsider, too, isn"t it?"
"That"s what I want to know." There was no answering smile on Ellis"s somber and earnest face. "I"ve thought there was hope for you. You"ve had no sound business training, thank G.o.d, so your sense of decency may not have been spoiled."
"You don"t seem to think much of business standards," said the Doctor tolerantly.
"Not a great deal. I"ve b.u.mped into "em too hard. Not so long ago I was publisher of a paying daily in an Eastern city. The directors were all high-cla.s.s business men, and the chairman of the board was one of those philanthropist-charity-donator-pillar-of-the-church chaps with a permanent crease of high respectability down his front. Well, one day there turned up a double murder in the den of one of these venereal quacks that infest every city. It set me on the trail, and I had my best reporter get up a series about that gang of vampires. Naturally that necessitated throwing out their ads. The advertising manager put up a howl, and we took the thing to the board of directors. In those days I had all my enthusiasm on tap. I had an array of facts, too, and I went at that board like a revivalist, telling "em just the kind of devil-work the "men"s specialists" did. At the finish I sat down feeling pretty good. n.o.body said anything for quite a while. Then the chairman dropped the pencil he"d been puttering with, and said, in a kind of purry voice: "Gentlemen: I thought Mr. Ellis"s job on this paper was to make it pay dividends, and not to censor the morals of the community.""
"And, by crikey, he was right!" cried Dr. Surtaine.