Common Cause

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  It was no easy task which Jeremy Robson had set himself, that of making his new property a vehicle for ideals. He was content that it should not be easy. He craved hard, exacting, stimulant work. The Guardian offered it in more generous measure than a better paper could have done. Jeremy purposed to save The Guardian’s soul. Perhaps he had some underlying notion that he might save his own, in the process.

  That bad name which, given to a dog, is proverbially alleged to bring down upon him a peculiarly un-canine fate at the hangman’s hands, had long attached to The Fenchester Guardian. But the paper’s ill-repute was no man’s gift. It had been justly earned. Once the stiffly high-minded personal organ of a stilted and honorable old-school statesman, it had fallen, under A. M. Wymett, to become a mongrel of journalism, a forlorn and servile whiner, fawning for petty favors, kicked about by the financial and political interests of the State, and not infrequently ornamented with a tin can of scandal to its tail in the form of dirty work performed for some temporary subsidizer in the background. Thanks to shrewd legal advice and his own editorial adroitness, its guiding spirit had contrived to escape the law, and, up to the episode of the disastrously imprudent “cheese-check” letter, open and public contumely. Further, he had, by dint of sheer ability of a low ethical order but high technical grade, maintained a fair circulation for his paper.

  Its only competitor in the bustling, growing State capital, with its seventy thousand inhabitants, was The Record. There was no morning newspaper. Several plans to start one had come to naught, because of the secret opposition of the local leaders of politics and industry, who were well content with the two mild and amenable specimens of journalism already in the field. The Record represented stolid, stodgy, profitable, and unprogressive respectability in a community now astir with new and uneasy fermentations. The Guardian had always represented what it was bidden to represent. What attitude it might adopt under the new control was a question not assumed to be troublesome by those whom a change might conceivably trouble in no small degree. It was comfortably taken for granted that The Guardian would “be good” when the time and test came. For the corruptible to put on incorruptibility, in the newspaper world, is a phenomenon so rare as to be practically negligible.

  Soon or late these questions would come to an issue between the new owner of The Guardian and those who had quietly controlled it for their own ends. So much Jeremy Robson apprehended. What he had not foreseen was a more immediate and imperative consideration. He had vaguely believed that he was taking possession of a semipublic agency of enlightenment. He found that he had bought a Struggle for Existence. Quite a number of shrewd and active citizens whose existence had not hitherto impressed him as important, loomed as figures and probably antagonists in the struggle. Jeremy found himself in the way of learning some new and important things about the newspaper business, with his local advertisers in the pedagogic chair.

  Newspapers do not live by the bread of circulation alone, but chiefly by the strong and sustaining meat of advertising patronage. This important fact had duly entered into Jeremy Robson’s calculations. On paper he had figured a clear profit for The Guardian, before purchasing. After taking over the property he found his estimates borne out by the formal accounts. But he also found, to his discomfiture, that The Guardian’s books had been kept by a sunny optimist with a taste for fiction. This gentleman had plugged up the discrepancies in the papers finances with ingenious figures, as a boat-jerry might doctor a leaky seam with putty and paint—for sale only.

  The book figures showed but one scale of advertising rates, with the normal discounts to heavy users of space. While the new toy was still agleam in the eyes of its proud possessor with all the glamour of novelty, he began to discover that instead of a standard price to advertisers, The Guardian had more scales than even so fishy a proposition was entitled to; that, in fact, A. M. Wymett had peddled about his precious advertising space like a man with stolen diamonds to sell, and covered the shady transactions by a system of ingenious and destructive rebates. Thus, the columns which young Mr. Robson had confidingly calculated at four to nine cents per line, were actually fetching from five cents downward.

  “That’s the first thing to be set right,” announced Jeremy after a profoundly unsatisfactory study of his property’s earning capacity as contrasted with its paper profits. “We’ll have a one-price-to-all system hereafter.”

  “Ay-ah,” drawled Andrew Galpin, to whom the decision was communicated. “Your advertisers’ll just love that!”

  “They ought to be satisfied. It’s the only square way.”

  “Oh, they’ll be satisfied if you put the scale low enough. But if you put the scale low enough you’ll go broke.”

  “Wymett didn’t go broke.”

  “The Guardian had other sources of revenue under Wymett.”

  “Such as the Cheese Bill fund?”

  “Occasionally. Also the steady, reliable revenue from the advertising matter that doesn’t bear the a-d-v sign.”

  “You mean store ‘readers’ and that sort of thing? I’m going to cut those out.”

  “Are you? They’re semi-legitimate. Compared with some of the stuff we’ve carried they’re so high-principled they’re almost holy.”

  “Well, what, for instance?”

  “Paid editorials. Paid political articles. Paid puffs and roasts. Brewery checks. Railroad checks. P.-U. checks. Paving and other contractors’ checks. You can read it all in the back files, if you’re newspaper man enough to read between the lines.”

  “I never saw any of that on The Record.”

  “It ain’t there. The Record don’t do it that way; a little more decent. The Record’s a kept-lady. We’re on the street—or were.”

  “‘Were’ is right.” Jeremy ran his hands through his hair and regarded his companion anxiously. “Andy?” he said.

  “Ay-ah?”

  “Were you—Did you—Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Ay-ah; it matters all right. You were going to ask me whether I had to write any of that bought-and-paid-for stuff. And you were afraid to. Is that right?”

  Jeremy turned red.

  “It’s right,” confirmed the other. “Well, I never did. I wouldn’t. I gave ’em notice that I was fired the noon of the morning I got one of those jobs. They were decent about it. But I had to do the next worse thing. I had to let myself be called off a story so that some other guy could write it, and write it crooked.”

  “Have we had any—any offers since we took hold of the paper?”

  “Give ’em time, Boss. It’s only a month, and in the slack period at that. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’re going to change the entire advertising policy, you’ll have to change your advertising manager, for Perley don’t know anything different from the news-selling and rebate game.”

  “Perley’s fired.”

  “So far, so good. Who’ve you got to take his place?”

  “Nobody, yet. Could you manage it, Andy?”

  “Temporarily, I might. But I’m going to have my hands too full re-making the old sheet on the news side to give much time to advertising, in the next year or so.”

  “Temporarily will do. I’m going to get the principal merchants together and talk it out with them. And I want to show ’em a change in the advertising managership that’ll convince ’em the change of policy is real.”

  “Ay-ah,” assented Galpin. “It sounds like the rumble of distant thunder to me.”

  “Not at all. All I want is a decent, living rate for the paper. Every merchant expects a living profit on his merchandise. Why shouldn’t a newspaper get the same?”

  “Logical. Perfectly logical. But can you get ’em to see it that way?” Andrew Galpin paused and then delivered himself of a characteristic bit of shrewdness. “The average storekeeper regards advertising outlay as a sort of accepted blackmail which he pays under protest; he don’t know exactly why, and he don’t know exactly for what. If you made him reason it out, he’d
probably say that he don’t believe it pays, but everybody does it. Of course, he don’t know whether it pays or not. Nobody does, really.”

  “Then why does he do it?”

  “Because his competitors do. He’s afraid not to. He has some dim sort of fear that the papers will soak him if he don’t. That’s where the blackmail comes in, if he had sense enough to figure it.”

  “There won’t be any blackmail with us.”

  “But the merchants won’t know it. They’ll advertise, and because they advertise they’ll think they’re entitled to a say in the paper. They’ll try to run it for you, too.”

  “Will they?” muttered Jeremy in a tone which suggested that there might be difficulties attending the fulfillment of the ambition.

  “Ay-ah. In good faith, too. There’s something in their theory—I guess—from their point of view.”

  “Well, I’ll give them a chance to explain it,” said the new owner. “My plan is to round ’em up at a lunch, and then have it out with ’em. What do you think?”

  “Fine! Feed ’em. Then kick ’em in the stomach.”

  “No, sir! pat ’em on the back and talk reason to them. That’s where you come in. They know you’re a real newspaper man. They’ve got to find it out yet, about me.”

  Out of thirty of the principal local advertisers in The Guardian, twenty-one accepted Jeremy Robson’s invitation to lunch with him at the Fenchester Club, with a “business conference” to follow. Their attitude toward the gustatory part of the proceedings was that of wary fish toward food which might conceal a hook. Very nice luncheon, but—what was behind it? They had never had confidence in The Guardian under A. M. Wymett. Why should they have more in an unknown quantity like young Robson?

  Sensing plainly this feeling, Jeremy perceived that here was the time and place for finesse. Unfortunately he lacked that particular quality. What was the next best thing to having it at call, he appreciated his want of it, and instead of blundering strategically around the point he went straight to it in the briefest of speeches.

  “Gentlemen: I’ve brought you here to state the new policy of The Guardian. The advertising rate will be that of the rate card. The same system of discounts to all. No rebates. I’d be glad to hear your views.”

  He sat down. A hum of surprise went about the table. Someone started applause: the effort was abortive. It was no occasion for empty courtesies. This was business!

  “Talks straight,” remarked Betts, of Kelter & Betts, dry goods, in a loud whisper, to his neighbor Arthur Turnbull, of the Emporium.

  “Bluff,” opined Turnbull.

  “Get up and call it,” suggested A. Friedland, proprietor of the Big Shop who had overheard.

  “Let Ellison do the talking,” returned Turnbull. “He’s president of our association.”

  Obedient to several suggestions, Matthew Ellison, head of Ellison Brothers’ department store1 and president of the Retailers’ Association, reared his ample form, and smiled his conscientious smile, from above a graying chin whisker, upon the assembled feasters. In a long and rambling talk which Andrew Galpin would have fairly slaughtered with an editorial blue pencil, Mr. Ellison referred to Jeremy something more than two dozen times as “our esteemed young friend” and at least a dozen as “my dear young friend”; both of which were equally accurate and sincere. The gist of his speech, so far as any one present could grasp it, seemed to indicate a guarded agnosticism concerning the announced policy of the paper. Upon the heels of the windy compliment with which he closed, Adolph Ahrens, junior partner and advertising manager of the Great Northwestern Stores, popped up. Mr. Ahrens was a young, blackish, combative-jawed man with twitchy eyes.

  “This don’t go,” he said belligerently. “I’ve got a letter in my files, stipulating a rebate, that’s as good as a contract.”

  “Signed by?” queried Jeremy suggestively.

  “Signed by The Guardian, per A. M. Wymett.”

  “So have I,” declared Turnbull, and was echoed by Lehn, of Stormont & Lehn, Betts, and half a dozen more.

  “It seems to have been a habit,” remarked Jeremy. “But, gentlemen, A. M. Wymett is no longer The Guardian. His secret rebates do not bind us indefinitely.”

  “The courts’ll have a word to say on that,” declared the combative Ahrens.

  “Easy, gentlemen! Let’s be friendly,” purred Matthew Ellison.

  “We needn’t go to the courts,” put in Andrew Galpin. “In the cases where rebates were offered, the rate will be raised to a point where it covers the rebates.”

  “Where do you come in?” demanded Ahrens.

  “As acting advertising manager of The Guardian.”

  “What becomes of your ‘one-rate-for-all’ claim?” Turnbull turned upon Jeremy.

  “Discarded,” said the owner, promptly accepting Galpin’s strategy.

  “Why ain’d I neffer gud any discound?” inquired Bernard Stockmuller, the leading jeweler of the town, in a powerful and plaintive voice.

  “Because you never had the sense to stick out for it, Barney,” retorted Betts. “You were easy.”

  “There you have the unfairness of the system,” Jeremy pointed out. “Mr. Stockmuller is as frequent a user of space as some of you who have taken rebates. Gentlemen, it doesn’t go anymore.”

  “Well, this is a hell of a note!” murmured a discontented voice which seemed to emanate from the depths of the abdominal curve of the senior partner of Arndt & Niebuhr, furniture dealers.

  “Did any of these private letters from Mr. Wymett mention reading notices as an extra inducement?” asked the host of the occasion.

  “There was no need,” stated Ellison. “‘Readers’ are a recognized courtesy to advertisers.”

  “They take up space,” Jeremy pointed out. “They cost money, for ink, paper, and setting up. From the newspaper’s viewpoint, they’re a dead loss.”

  “We pay for ’em in our advertising bills,” said Friedland, of the Big Shop.

  “Then you regard them as advertising?”

  “Certainly.”

  “But they don’t appear as advertising. They are in regular news type, made up to look like news items, and they carry no a-d-v mark.”

  Matthew Ellison took it upon his kindly self to enlighten this innocent young adventurer in untried fields. “If they appeared as advertising, the public would be less likely to read them.”

  “Then they’re a fraud on the public.”

  “Fraud? Oh, really, Mr. Robson,” deprecated the merchant. “A—a harmless—er—subterfuge.”

  “The Guardian cuts them out,” announced The Guardian’s revolutionary proprietor. “No more ‘readers’ except with the a-d-v sign, and paid for at full rates.”

  “What are you trying to do—insult us?” growled the saturnine Mr. Ahrens.

  “You would have to be mighty thin-skinned to find an insult in that.”

  “Well, drive us out of the paper, then?”

  “That would be pretty foolish of me, wouldn’t it?”

  “Would be? It is. First you violate an agreement—”

  “To which I was not a party.”

  “—and then you try to raise rates on us; and now you cut out the best advertising the department store gets.”

  “As for raising rates, I haven’t suggested it except as an offset to rebates.”

  “Comes to the same thing,” said several voices.

  “Gentlemen,” said Jeremy with an accession of positiveness, “you’re getting the best advertising rate in the State of Centralia today. With practically ten thousand circulation—”

  “Bunk!” interjected Turnbull.

  “Upwards of nine thousand, seven hundred.”

  “A good third of it pads and graft copies,” put in Betts.

  For the first time Jeremy was at a disadvantage. He glanced quickly at Galpin.

  “Nothing of the sort,” declared that gentleman readily.

  “How much is your list padded?” challenged Vogt the florist
, in his slightly thickened accent. “Come on, now! On the level.”

  “Tell them, Mr. Galpin,” directed Jeremy. “Our cards are on the table.”

  “I don’t know. But it’s padded all right,” confessed the general manager. “Not a third. Not a quarter. But—well, enough.”

  For the second time that day Jeremy Robson took a snap resolution. “Appoint a committee to go over the books, Mr. Ellison,” said he. “Make your estimate of bona fide circulation, and I’ll adjust my rate to make it as low per thousand as any daily in the State of equal size. Is that fair?”