"That is hard to believe, Mr. Lindsay."
"Not if you understand the situation. Suppose I roast a show like "The Nymph in the Nightie" that played here last week. It"s vapid and silly, and rotten with suggestiveness. I wouldn"t let my kid sister go within gunshot of it. But I"ve got to tell everybody else"s kid sister, through our columns, that it"s a delightful and enlivening _melange_ of high cla.s.s fun and frolic. To be sure, I can praise a fine performance like "Kindling" or "The Servant in the House," but I"ve got to give just as clean a bill of health to a gutter-and-brothel farce. Otherwise, the high-minded gentlemen that run our theaters will cut off my tickets."
"Buy them at the box-office," said Hal.
"No use. They wouldn"t let me in. The courts have killed honest criticism by deciding that a manager can keep a critic out on any pretext or without any. Besides, there"s the advertising. We"d lose that."
"Speaking of advertising,"--now it was Lynch, a young reporter who had risen from being an office boy,--"I guess it spoils some pretty good stories from the down-town district. Look at that accident at Scheffer and Mintz"s; worth three columns of anybody"s s.p.a.ce. Tank on the roof broke, and drowned out a couple of hundred customers. Panic, and broken bones, and all kinds of things. How much did we give it? One stick! And we didn"t name the place: just called it "a Washington Street store."
There were facts behind _that_ news, all right. But I guess Mr.
Shearson wouldn"t have been pleased if we"d printed "em."
In fact, Shearson, the advertising manager, looked far from pleased at the mention.
"If you think a one-day story would pay for the loss of five thousand a year in advertising, you"ve got another guess, young man," he growled.
"He"s right, there," said Dr. Surtaine, on one side of Hal; and from the other, McGuire Ellis chirped:--
"Things are beginning to open up, all right, Mr. Editor."
Two aspirants were now vying for the floor, the winner being the political reporter for the paper.
"Would you like to hear some facts about the news we don"t print?" he asked.
"Go ahead," replied Hal. "You have the floor."
"You recall a big suffrage meeting here recently, at which Mrs. Barkerly from London spoke. Well, the chairman of that meeting didn"t get a line of his speech in the papers: didn"t even get his name mentioned. Do you know why?"
"I can"t even imagine," said Hal.
"Because he"s the Socialist candidate for Governor of this State. He"s blackballed from publication in every newspaper here."
"By whom?" inquired Hal.
"By the hinted wish of the Chamber of Commerce. They"re so afraid of the Socialist movement that they daren"t even admit it"s alive."
"Not at all!" Dr. Surtaine"s rotund ba.s.s boomed out the denial. "There are some movements that it"s wisest to disregard. They"ll die of themselves. Socialism is a destructive force. Why should the papers help spread it by noticing it in their columns?"
"Well, I"m no Socialist," said the political reporter, "but I"m a newspaper man, and I say it"s news when a Socialist does a thing just as much as when any one else does it. Yet if I tried to print it, they"d give me the laugh on the copy-desk."
"It"s a fact that we"re all tied down on the news in this town,"
corroborated Wayne; "what between the Chamber of Commerce and the Dry Goods Union and the theaters and the other steady advertisers. You must have noticed, Mr. Surtaine, that if there"s a shoplifting case or anything of that kind you never see the name of the store in print. It"s always "A State Street Department Store" or "A Warburton Avenue Shop."
Ask Ellis if that isn"t so."
"Correct," said Ellis.
"Why shouldn"t it be so?" cried Shearson. "You fellows make me tired.
You"re always thinking of the news and never of the advertising. Who is it pays your salaries, do you think? The men who advertise in the "Clarion.""
"Hear! Hear!" from Dr. Surtaine.
"And what earthly good does it do to print stuff like those shoplifting cases? Where"s the harm in protecting the store?"
"I"ll tell you where," said Ellis. "That McBurney girl case. They got the wrong girl, and, to cover themselves, they tried to railroad her. It was a clear case. Every paper in town had the facts. Yet they gave that girl the reputation of a thief and never printed a correction for fear of letting in the store for a damage suit."
"Did the "Clarion" do that?" asked Hal.
"Yes."
"Get me a full report of the facts."
"What are you going to do?" asked Shearson.
"Print them."
"Oh, my Lord!" groaned Shearson.
The circle was now drawing in and the talk became brisker, more detailed, more intimate. To his overwhelming amazement Hal learned some of the major facts of that subterranean journalistic history which never gets into print; the ugly story of the blackmail of a President of the United States by a patent medicine concern (Dr. Surtaine verified this with a nod); the inside facts of the failure of an important senatorial investigation which came to nothing because of the drunken debauchery of the chief senatorial investigator; the dreadful details of the death of a leading merchant in a great Eastern city, which were so glossed over by the local press that few of his fellow citizens ever had an inkling of the truth; the obtainable and morally provable facts of the conspiracy on the part of a mighty financier which had plunged a nation into panic; these and many other strange narratives of the news, known to every old newspaper man, which made the neophyte"s head whirl. Then, in a pause, a young voice said:
"Well, to bring the subject up to date, what about the deaths in the Rookeries?"
"Shut up," said Wayne sharply.
There followed a general murmur of question and answer. "What about the Rookeries?"--"Don"t know."--"They say the death-rate is a terror."--"Are they concealing it at the City Hall?"--"No; Merritt can"t find out."--"Bet Tip O"Farrell can."--"Oh, he"s in on the game."--"Just another fake, I guess."
In vain Hal strove to catch a clue from the confused voices. He had made a note of it for future inquiry, when some one called out: "Mac Ellis hasn"t said anything yet." The others caught it up. "Speech from Mac!"--"Don"t let him out."--"If you can"t speak, sing a song."--"Play a tune on the _bazoo_."--"Hike him up there, somebody."--"Silence for the MacGuire!!"
"I"ve never made a speech in my life," said Ellis, glowering about him, "and you fellows know it. But last night I read this in Plutarch: "Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious.""
Ellis paused, lifting one hand. "Fellows," he said, and he turned sharply to face Hal Surtaine, "I don"t know how the devil old Themistocles ever could do it--unless he owned a newspaper!"
Silence followed, and then a quick acclaiming shout, as they grasped the implicit challenge of the corollary. Then again silence, tense with curiosity. No doubt of what they awaited. Their expectancy drew Hal to his feet.
"I had intended to speak but once," he said, in a constrained voice, "but I"ve learned more here this afternoon--more than--than I could have thought--" He broke off and threw up his hand. "I"m no newspaper man,"
he cried. "I"m only an amateur, a freshman at this business. But one thing I believe; it"s the business of a newspaper to give the news without fear or favor, and that"s what the "Clarion" is going to do from this day. On that platform I"ll stand by any man who"ll stand by me.
Will you help?"
The answer rose and rang like a cheer. The gathering broke into little, excited, chattering groups, sure symptom of the success of a meeting.
Much conjecture was expressed and not a little cynicism. "Compared to us Ishmael would be a society favorite if Surtaine carries this through,"
said one. "It means suspension in six months," prophesied Shearson. But most of the men were excitedly enthusiastic. Your newspaper man is by nature a romantic; otherwise he would not choose the most adventurous of callings. And the fighting tone of the new boss stimulated in them the spirit of chance and change.
Slowly and reluctantly they drifted away to the day"s task. At the close Hal sat, thoughtful and spent, in a far corner when Ellis walked heavily over to him. The a.s.sociate editor gazed down at his bemused princ.i.p.al for a time. From his pocket he drew the thick blue pencil of his craft, and with it tapped Hal thrice on the shoulder.
"Rise up, Sir Newspaper Man," he p.r.o.nounced solemnly. "I hereby dub thee Knight-Editor."
CHAPTER XII