Common Cause

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  “Scaled down to a net of about eleven hundred and fifty.”

  “Yes. With discounts and rebates.”

  “Wymett fooled Robson worse than I had supposed. The young fool bought on the basis of the book rates. Discounts and rebates are going to be an unpleasant surprise to him.”

  “All of which will make him the easier to handle.”

  “Maybe. With gloves.”

  “It is not my habit,” said the local potentate austerely, “to concern myself deeply with other people’s over-sensitiveness, when it is a matter of business.”

  “Go easy with him,” insisted the other. “He’s got a temper. There’s a kind of a you-be-damned-ness about him. He’s a little puffed up with his new sense of power, and we’ve got to allow for that.”

  “Sense of power?” The magnate looked puzzled for the moment. “Oh, you mean his paper!” He laughed. “All right, Dana. I’ll be tactful with him. But of course I shan’t tolerate any nonsense.”

  The retort, “I doubt if he will, either,” was on the tip of the lawyer’s tongue. He suppressed it. It would only have irritated Montrose Clark’s vanity which, under friction, was prone to develop prickly heat.

  Let him find out for himself how to handle human nettles if he couldn’t take cannier men’s advice!

  14

  Judge Dana’s surmise as to Senator Embree and The Guardian partook of the genius of prophecy. “Smiling Mart” had been waiting to assure himself about the new control of the paper. Conviction grew within him that Jeremy Robson was the man he was looking for: that the seed planted with forethought in the mind of the unimportant Record reporter was now bringing forth harvest in The Guardian. Embree decided upon open measures.

  Returning from a hasty luncheon one day, Jeremy found his den irradiated by the famous Embree smile. He was glad to see it. At the points of intersection where politics and newspaper work cross, he had encountered the leader from the Northern Tier perhaps half a dozen times since their first interview, and had liked him better each time, though their talks had been on the professional and impersonal order. No conversation with Martin Embree, however, was ever wholly impersonal. He was too intense a humanist for that. As the Legislature had adjourned for the summer, Jeremy was surprised to see Embree at the capital.

  “Hello, Senator,” he said, shaking hands. “What brings you down here in all this heat and dust?”

  “You,” smiled his visitor.

  “Well, I apologize. I didn’t do it purposely. But I’m glad to see you.”

  “So here you are, a real newspaper owner. Congratulations, by the way.” Jeremy nodded. “Do you remember a little talk we had in my room, one night?”

  “Very well.”

  “This is the next stage in the fairy-tale. Well, I talked pretty openly that evening. As a rule I don’t give myself away in chance conversation.”

  Harking back, Jeremy failed to recall that the rising politician had given himself away, in any sense. He leaned back in his chair and waited.

  “I’ve been watching your course with The Guardian,” continued the Senator earnestly. “I wanted to see which way you were going. Now I know.”

  “What convinced you?”

  “Your editorial on the tax-dodging railroads. That,” said Senator Embree, his brilliant smile playing again, “was a soaker. A soaker! I expect you heard from that.”

  “I did.”

  “Did they yelp?”

  “They did.”

  “Threaten?”

  “What could they threaten?”

  “That’s true; what could they?” repeated the other thoughtfully. “They wouldn’t know where to have you. You’re an undetermined quantity to them. And as such they don’t know your price. Have they tried to find it out?”

  “Not openly enough to be caught at it.”

  “They’ve been trying to get at mine ever since I came to the Legislature as a grass-green young kid of an Assemblyman. I guess they’ll find out yours about the time they find out mine. And, for a further guess, the two prices will be about the same. Eh?”

  “That also is possible,” conceded the editor demurely.

  “The Record didn’t spoil you. I was afraid it might. They’re so slick and respectable over there! But as soon as you began to get your muscle into The Guardian’s editorials, I saw which side you were on. And the tax attack settled it in my mind that you’re for the public and against the corporation grafters.”

  “I’m against the corporations when they don’t play fair.”

  “That’s good enough for me! They never do play fair. Not in politics.”

  “I don’t go that far,” said Jeremy.

  “You will,” smiled the other. “Give you time. You’ll come to it. You’re with us and you’re going to be with us stronger and stronger.”

  “It depends on who ‘us’ is, and what policies are involved,” replied the editor, not wholly pleased at being thus confidently catalogued.

  “The radicals. The clean, common voters who believe that the people should run their own government for themselves.”

  “So far, all right. I’m for that.”

  “I knew you were. And here I am.” The smile now fairly surcharged the little office.

  “And here you are. What can I do for you, Senator?”

  “Wrong, my boy! Wrong for once. It’s the other way around.”

  “What can you do for me, then?”

  The smile was replaced by a look of candor and earnestness. “Mr. Robson, you’ve got to increase the sale of this paper, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can boost the circulation of The Guardian a thousand copies. Perhaps fifteen hundred.”

  “Will you take the job of circulation manager?” asked Jeremy, smiling.

  “That’s another point. I’ll come to that later. Now, there’s no bluff about this, Robson. I’m in dead earnest.”

  “If you can tell me how to put on circulation without its costing all I’ve got—”

  “It’ll cost you nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Then it will be different from any circulation scheme I’ve heard of yet.”

  “Listen. Up in the Northern Tier I’m strong. They know me. They believe in me. If I pass the word that The Guardian is my organ—”

  “The Guardian is nobody’s organ.”

  “I understand. The mouthpiece of our policies, I should have said. The policies and principles you and I stand for, reform and anti-dollar-domination. If I pass that word about The Guardian they’ll take it like the Bible.”

  “There might be something in that,” conceded the editor, who knew the almost idolatrous quality of Embree’s following in his own district.

  “Make no mistake about it. It’ll mean four or five hundred copies in my own town, and it ought to run to a thousand more in the county outside.”

  “That won’t help much in getting local advertising, here in Fenchester.”

  “No. But it will help out your foreign advertising.”

  “How do you know so much about the newspaper game?” asked the editor, struck by the other’s use of the technical term. “Ever been in it?”

  “I study everything that has a bearing on politics in this State. I could pretty nearly tell you how much The Guardian stands to lose this year.”

  “Don’t!” said Jeremy, with a wry face.

  “Unless you can raise your rates. And I’m showing you the way. Right here in Fenchester, as soon as the common people are satisfied that you really represent their interests, subscriptions will flood you.”

  Suspicion of the phrase beset Jeremy. “I’m not going in for any demagogue, yellow journal stuff.”

  “Nobody wants you to. Just a decent, clean, fair-minded, progressive radicalism. If I can stand up in my next campaign and say honestly that there is a newspaper at the State capital, in the stronghold of old-line politics and graft, that represents what I stand for, that newspaper is going to boom. And I’m ready to do it
.”

  “On what terms?”

  “None.”

  “Just out of regard for my fascinating personality?”

  Martin Embree’s smile appeared again, conciliatory, persuasive, earnest. “Let’s understand each other, Robson. I’m convinced that you’re on the level. That’s the first point. I’m convinced that you’re honestly a radical, even if you’re a mild one. That’s the second. Barring differences on minor policies which are bound to arise between independent-minded men, you and I stand for the same principles. You know my motivating ambition?”

  “The governorship,” replied Jeremy innocently.

  A furrow of annoyance appeared between the lofty brows of the Senator. “The ambition of my life,” he said emphatically, “is to serve the people of this State by delivering our government out of the clutches of the corporations. To that end I will accept any office, high or low, within the gift of the voters.”

  Oratorical as was the delivery, there was a certain ring of enthusiasm which went far to convince the editor. In the years to come, of constant alliance with Martin Embree, Robson satisfied himself of the man’s essential devotion to the cause which he had made his own, a devotion second only to the monstrous egotism which subordinated all causes and all principles to his own rodent ambition, or, rather, merged and absorbed them in that ambition.

  “Of course; of course,” apologized the editor. “But you do want to be Governor, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to be Governor,” was the positive response. “Not all their money can stop me. This campaign of mine for reelection to the Senate is really a preliminary skirmish for the bigger thing. I could be reelected without lifting a finger, so far as that goes. But I want to hammer home the State issues. And if you and I hammer at the same time, it isn’t going to do either of us a bit of harm! By the way, you ought to have agents on the ground to boost your circulation in the places where I campaign. Who’s your circulation manager?”

  “A routine scrub. No good. I’m shipping him. Do you happen to know of anyone?”

  “Yes. I’ve got the very man for you, if he’ll come. Max Verrall, a live wire on The Forreston Tribune. He’s a youngster, but a hustler. I think I can get him for you.”

  “I’ll take him on your say-so.”

  “Now, let me give you a pointer or two on getting hold of the country districts.1 We’re streaky on nationalities out through this State. There’s a point to play for. Get after their feelings for the home country with a tactful editorial or a bit of translated matter now and then if you can lay your hands on it. Tickle their little vanities. That’s what I do on my speaking tours. If it’s a Swedish community, I tell ’em the Scandahoovians are the backbone of the Middle West. In a German district—and the State is thick with ’em—I boost German efficiency, the system to which the rest of the world goes to school.”

  “Speaking of Germans and schools,” remarked Robson; “I’m told that they don’t even teach in English in some of the country districts. I’ve been thinking of starting a campaign on that, one of these days. Americanization2—that ought to be a good slogan.”

  “Off it, my boy!” said the Senator emphatically. “Hara-kiri is cheaper. Nobody is so touchy as your German-American on the subject of language and race. Don’t butt into a stone wall.”

  “Wymett had a pet theory that Germany is getting ready for a world-war and the German-Americans are already at their propaganda to influence this country.”

  “Bosh! I never could quite make out whether Wymett was more crazy than crooked, or vice versa.”

  “Just the same, I’ve noticed that quite a little reprint stuff boosting Germany drifts into this office. Anecdotes about the Kaiser and that sort of thing.”

  “Print ’em! Print ’em all. It’ll make the paper solid just where you most need support.”

  “So I do, some of ’em, on their merits. It’s good stuff when fillers are needed. Only, when the propaganda side is too plain, I can it.”

  “Get your mind off this propaganda notion,” pleaded his adviser. “The Germans are the best element of our citizenship today, and any man or institution that goes up against them is through. Some lunatics are trying to make a political issue of it. Magnus Laurens is. And they’re talking of running him for Governor next time, because they think they’ll need a respectable figurehead rather than one of the old, discredited gang to beat me with. Lord! I’d ask nothing better than to have Laurens against me, with his crank Know-Nothing conservatism that he calls Americanism.”

  “I liked Mr. Laurens,” said Jeremy.

  “You won’t when you’ve fought him as long as I have. Speaking of Germans, do you know Emil Bausch?”

  “Only by sight.”

  “He’s president of the Fenchester Deutscher Club and a mighty good friend of mine. He wants to get in touch with you.”

  “He called once, but I was out.”

  “Bausch is a little ponderous at first, but he’s all right when you get used to his ways. And he’s a power among the Germans. Don’t forget that.”

  “Between you and Wymett and Eli Wade I’m not likely to forget the Germans,” laughed Jeremy.

  “Wade? Poor chap. That was an unfortunate thing, that row of his. Well, he’s good on the feet, but weak in the head. Do you know Milliken, his crony?”

  “Yes. He hasn’t much use for you.”

  “So he tells me every time he sees me. He considers me a slinker because he says I’m a Socialist at heart, but my heart is weak. Socialism is all right in its way. It’s a good vaccination, but a bad disease. Milliken’s working in your shop now, isn’t he?”

  “Is he? I didn’t know it.”

  “Stick to me and you’ll learn a lot of things,” smiled the politician. “Yes; he’s assistant to Big Girdner in the press-room. There’s another German for you, Girdner, and a good one. Well, I’ll tell Emil Bausch to come in again to see you.” At the door he paused. “By the way, are you likely to be interested personally in politics?”

  “Office for myself? No. I’ve got my hands full now.”

  “Later, perhaps. Well, if you should want anything for any of your friends, let me know. Perhaps I could manage it.”

  “Could you? Locally?”

  “I have a little influence locally, as a member of the Cities Improvement Committee.”

  “We were speaking of Eli Wade a moment ago,” said Jeremy. “Something I wrote in The Record helped to get him out of a job he was very proud of.”

  “The Public Schools Board? Yes: I know.”

  “It was tough on the old boy. I’d like to make that up to him. Do you think you could get him put back?”

  “Hardly that. You see, he got the Germans stirred up. He was out of place on the Board, anyway. Education is the special political bent of the German-Americans, you know. No; I’m afraid he’s finished there. But I might look around and see if there isn’t something else that would be just as good for him. It’s just the little honor of having an office that flatters his type of mind.”

  “I’d be mightily obliged if you could,” said Jeremy.

  Martin Embree lost no time on the Bausch matter. On the morrow of his interview with Jeremy, there stalked into the editorial den of The Guardian, a tall, plethoric form buttoned within the frock coat and wearing the silk hat of high ceremony. The form introduced itself with a pronounced guttural accent as President Bausch, of the Deutscher Club, removed the hat, unbuttoned the coat, took from the breast-pocket thereof a document formidable with seals and tape, dandled the precious thing reverently in its hands, and addressed the editor with solemnity.

  “I have here somedthing of grade importance for your paper.”

  “Take a seat,” offered the editor.

  The document-bearer complied. “Id is a ledder from Prindz Henry to the Cherman Singing Societies of America.”

  “The original?” asked Jeremy, regarding the waxed and tapered curio with interest.

  “Certainly not! The orichinal is
mounted and framed in New York. This is the official copy.”

  “It certainly looks official.”

  “Id iss to be printed on Ventzday.”

  “You mean that it is released for Wednesday.”

  “Id iss to be printed on Ventzday,” reiterated the solemn emissary. “It should appear on your frondt page.”

  Had Mr. Bausch but known it, this landed him full upon the editor’s pet toe: a toe, moreover, by this time angrily sore from over-frequent treadings. It was no time to be telling the new proprietor and editor of that free and untrammeled organ, The Guardian, what to and what not to print, or where to locate it.

  “It will if it’s worth it,” stated that gentleman briefly.

  “Wordth? Id iss most important,” his visitor assured him. “I have also here the material from which could be derifed a valuable editorial—”

  “I can’t really see that such a letter, even though it be news, is a subject for editorial comment in The Guardian,” said Jeremy impatiently.

  “Do you understand whoo this ledder iss from?” cried the other. “Prindz Henry! Our Kaiser’s brother. And you tell me—”

  “Whose Kaiser’s brother? Not mine.”

  An incredulous and pious shock passed over the face of Mr. Emil Bausch. “Not yours! What matters you? The Kaiser of all goodt Chermans.” He contemplated the young man with gloomy severity. “If id was the Prindz of Vales I will bet you prindt it.”

  Unversed in the carefully inbred German hatred and jealousy of all things British, Jeremy was mildly puzzled.

  “Why so?” he asked.

  “I bet you are a Inklish-lover. I bet you are a Cherman-hater. You would prindt the Prindz of Vales ledder. Hein?”

  “Just as much or as little as I shall print of this.”

  “As liddle? You will edit this; Prindz Henry’s own words?”

  “If there’s too much of it.”

  Dumbfounded at the proposed sacrilege, Mr. Bausch retrieved the precious roll and held it ready to thrust back into the pocket of the frock coat. “All or nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing, then.”

  “I will rebort this at the next meeting of the Deutscher Club,” growled the departing Teuton.