Common Cause

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  Jeremy’s money was in the Fenchester Trust Company, of which Robert Wanser was president. No difficulty whatsoever was made by him when Jeremy called. Wanser was an anomaly in national sentiment. The grandson of a leader of the Young German movement who had found refuge in this country from the rigorous repression of Germany in ’48,1 the son of a major who fought with distinction for the Union through the Civil War, he remained impregnably Teutonic in thought, sentiment, and prejudice. He was a large, softish man who suggested in his appearance a sleek and benignant walrus. He sat back in his chair and listened and puffed and nodded, and when the applicant was through, made a notation on a bit of paper. The rest was merely a matter of “Jeremy Robson” at the bottom of a dated form, and “Do you wish to draw it now or leave it on deposit, Mr. Robson?” To the borrower it seemed like the nearest thing to magic since his great-aunt’s bequest.

  “And how is the paper getting on, Mr. Robson?” asked Wanser benevolently.

  “First-rate. We can feel it taking hold harder and harder every day.”

  “Ah!” Robert Wanser’s “Ah” had just the faintest touch of a medial “c” in it; just a hint of the guttural, the only relic left in his speech of a Teutonicism which three generations have failed to Americanize. “That must be a great satisfaction.”

  “It is.”

  “And a great responsibility. What a power for good a newspaper may be, even in a small community such as this! Or for evil. Or for evil,” he repeated sorrowfully.

  Jeremy waited.

  “It can radiate enlightenment. Or it can scatter poison. The poison of class hatred, of political unrest, of radical dissension.” He sighed.

  Always for the direct method Jeremy asked, “You think The Guardian is too radical?”

  “A(c)h!” said Robert Wanser. “I have not assumed to criticize.”

  “I’m asking for information. That’s the only way I can make the paper better. By finding out what people think of it.”

  “A(c)h, yes! There is much to commend in your paper. Much! But it is not always quite kindly, is it? Not quite kindly.”

  “Probably not. What have you got in mind?”

  “Nothing in particular,” disclaimed the banker. “I feel that in our complicated system there is room for all classes of thought, and that all of us who are, in a sense, leaders should set the example of a broad tolerance. The imputation of unworthy motives, for example, can do nothing but harm. A community such as this should be a brotherhood, all working for the common good of the town. Don’t you agree with me, Mr. Robson?”

  To agree with so pious a banality would have been easy; was, in fact, almost a requirement of politeness. But Jeremy was wondering what lay behind all these words. “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds all right. But I don’t get your real meaning.”

  Mr. Wanser hastily disclaimed any real meaning, and the interview proceeded in a mist of steamy generalities contributed by the banker, of which one alone impressed the editor as embodying a kernel of a thought.

  “You may gain temporary circulation by making enemies, but you lose support.”

  “But a newspaper has got to take sides on public questions,” protested Jeremy.

  “Why so? Why should it not be a lens, to collect and focus facts for the public’s attention?”

  “It should, in the news columns. But editorially?”

  “Comment,” said Wanser blandly. “Simple, explanatory, enlightening comment.”

  “It won’t do the business. Take this tax matter—”

  “A(c)h! Very unfortunate! Very unfortunate!” murmured the banker.

  “Of course it’s unfortunate,” returned Jeremy warmly. “It’s unfortunate that those best able to pay taxes should get off light at the expense of those less able to pay.”

  “That is not what I meant. These attacks upon property—”

  “They’re not attacks on property, when property plays fair. Would a simple comment have brought old Madam Taylor to time?”

  “Perhaps. Why not?”

  Jeremy rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Perhaps it would. The facts were enough just as they stood.”

  Madam Taylor, the daughter of the dead statesman who had founded The Guardian, was not only the richest woman in Fenchester, but was also a highly respected and considerably feared local institution. Because of that her taxes had not been raised in thirty years, though her property had quadrupled in value, until The Guardian shocked the community by running afoul of her.

  “You might have so enraged her that she would have left Fenchester forever,” accused Wanser.

  “Small loss, then,” returned Jeremy heatedly, he having been the victim of the old lady’s spiciest line of commentary, after publication of the article.

  “A(c)h! It would be a misfortune to the town,” said the banker, thinking, on his part, of the heavy balance in the name of Taylor at his bank.

  “Anyway, Mr. Wanser,” said Jeremy, rising to go, “I’m not neutral. I’m for or against. And, in reason, The Guardian will be the same. Maybe I’m wrong. But it’s the only way I know. If it makes enemies, I’m sorry.”

  Indeed it had seemed to the young editor that circulation for The Guardian and enmities for its owner were inevitable concomitants in the making. Every local question upon which he took sides landed him upon somebody’s tender toes. Much of the news that he printed—such as had not been printed for fear of hurting some more or less influential person’s feelings, before The Guardian espoused the policy that news is a commodity to which the public is entitled by virtue of its purchase of the paper—exasperated and even alienated the sympathies of the formerly favored elements. But it didn’t cause them to stop buying the paper, because they shrewdly hoped to find equally interesting and annoying items, later, about their friends. Then there was the matter of special consideration to the advertising patrons; a principle by which the mercantile crowd resolutely held, despite Jeremy’s pronunciamento at the luncheon. At least three fourths of the advertisers in town, Jeremy estimated, were fitfully concerned either in getting into The Guardian matters which didn’t belong there, or in keeping out matters which did; or, if not they, themselves, then their wives, children, or intimate associates. With respect to all these requests, he cultivated a determined and expensive habit of saying “No.” Thereby, if the paper became newsier and scored more than occasional “beat” on its rival, The Record, it also became a heavier burden to carry, as the wrath of the afflicted gathered stormily about its head.

  Through local advertisers resented the policy of the paper, they appreciated its value. That is all that kept them in. Verrall, in his activities as advertising manager, was constantly reporting evidences of a hostile spirit. Half of the big stores in town, he said, would knife The Guardian in a minute if they dared. He resented himself as being obliged to spend more time in diplomatic soothings than he could well spare from the routine of his work, and while advocating the utmost freedom of criticism in public matters, as befitted a follower of Embree, was mildly deprecatory of what he termed “Mr. Robson’s hedgehoggishness toward advertisers.” Malicious tongues, moreover, had been at work among the Germans, who formed an important part of the local mercantile world, spreading the report that The Guardian was secretly anti-German. If Mr. Robson could see his way clear to giving the German-Americans an editorial pat on the back occasionally, it would aid Verrall considerably in building up his space. Mr. Robson replied that, as it was, he was publishing a fair amount of German press-stuff, and he saw no reason to do any editorial soft-sawdering for Mr. Bausch and his faction.

  Foreign advertising, such as the nationally exploited automobiles, soaps, razors, breakfast foods, and the like was now coming in in good volume, a most encouraging development, for these big advertisers exercise a keen discrimination in the matter of newspaper space, and their general support not only makes a paper “look good” to the technical eye, but also gives it a certain cachet among lesser concerns. To the high-grade national businesse
s The Guardian had made special appeal by expelling from its columns2 the fake financial, oil, gold, rubber, and real-estate dollar-traps, and the quack cure-alls, whose neighborhood in print the reputable concerns resent.

  To offset this, the paper had lost in volume of local advertising. Several of the large stores had cut down their space, in token of resentment over the raise in rates, and had restored it only gradually and not to the full. Barclay & Bull had stayed out for more than six months. But this helped more than it hurt The Guardian, for their business showed a marked falling-off and their being obliged to come back in, rather shamefully, was testimony to the paper’s value. Turnbull Brothers, of The Emporium, the largest of the department stores, had, however, cut off The Guardian wholly, in consequence of reporting a fire in the local freight yard, with the detail that a large consignment to The Emporium of the bankrupt stock of Putz & Lewin, of Chicago, was included in the losses. As the arrival of this consignment was coincident with the announcement of The Emporium’s annual “Grand Clearance Sale,” the effect was, as their advertising manager passionately stated to Jeremy, “derogatory as hell.” He demanded a retraction. The editor politely regretted that facts were both untractable and unretractable matter to deal with. The Turnbulls threatened libel. Jeremy told them to go ahead and promised to print daily accounts of the proceedings. The Turnbulls resorted to violent names and called off their contract for advertising. Jeremy dismissed them with his blessing, and told them not to come back until they had learned the distinction between advertising and news. Thereupon Verrall bewailed the sad fate of the advertising manager of a paper whose chief was an irreconcilable stiff-neck, and appealed to Andrew Galpin, but got nothing by that step other than unsympathetic advice to confine his troubles to his own department lest a worse thing befall him.

  There was the case of Aaron Levy, of The Fashion, who, starting on the proverbial shoestring, was building up a wide low-class trade, and spreading his gospel through the columns of The Guardian, to the extent of occasionally one-eighth pages. One phase of the Levy trade was a legal but unsavory installment business, the details of which were frequently threshed out in petty civil court actions. One of these, with a “human interest” end, was reported in The Guardian. Mr. Levy promptly called on Jeremy.

  “What do you want to do? Ruin my business?” he demanded.

  “Is that account true?” asked Jeremy.

  “Neffer mind if it’s true. It didn’t have to get printed.”

  “Your business ought to be ruined, from what the court thinks of it.”

  “You take my money for advertising it all right,” the protestant pointed out with justice.

  “So we do. We won’t anymore. The Guardian won’t carry your installment business, Mr. Levy.”

  “Maybe you’re too good to have my ads in your paper at all!”

  “Oh, no. We’ll be glad to have everything but that one line.”

  “You can’t run my business for me, don’t you think it!” adjured Mr. Levy in one emphatic breath, and departed with a righteous conviction of unmerited injury.

  The Fashion’s one-eighth pages no longer graced The Guardian. Too shrewdly devoted to his trade to stay out entirely, Mr. Levy confided himself to terse announcements in the briefest and cheapest possible space. He also helped spread the evil rumor that young Robson was “sore on the business men of Fenchester.” Business men there were, however, shrewd, fair-minded, and far-seeing enough to appreciate The Guardian’s one-standard policy, even while they deprecated what they regarded as its abuse of independence. These formed a strong minority of defenders and supporters. Andrew Galpin’s optimism, and the debt which represented it, seemed fairly justified as the election of the fall of 1913 drew near.

  Already The Guardian had far outstripped The Record in circulation and in advertising revenue. The rival paper was being hard pressed to make a respectable showing, and had adopted a decidedly acidulous tone toward Jeremy and his publication, letting no opportunity pass to impugn its motives and jeer at its principles. Ever ready for a fight, Jeremy was for joining issue on the editorial page, but Galpin’s wiser counsel withheld him.

  “Nobody cares for newspaper squabbles but newspaper men,” said that sage. “We’re not making a newspaper for newspaper men. We’re making a newspaper for Bill Smith and Jim Jones and their missises. And we’re getting ’em!”

  But Jeremy Robson was making a newspaper to meet another, more demanding, more changeful standard which was yet in a great measure the same. He was making a newspaper for Jeremy Robson; for Jeremy Robson, who, with a surprised and humble and hungry mind, was being educated by that very newspaper which he himself was making. More and more Jeremy Robson, editor of The Guardian, was identifying himself in mind and spirit with Bill Smith and Jim Jones and their missises, readers and followers of The Guardian. Because of that fellowship, because of the implied link of faith and trust that had grown up, impalpable, between them, evidenced in hundreds of letters to and scores of calls upon “the editor,” there had been established standards to which The Guardian was inviolably if tacitly committed. There were things which The Guardian might not do. There were things which, when the time came, it might not refrain from doing. An implicit faith was pledged. So and not otherwise does a newspaper become an institution.

  Yet The Guardian was Jeremy’s very own. He felt for it the proprietary pride and interest of a man with a growing business and a growing influence to wield, and, added to that the affection of a child for a toy machine—which actually goes! He coddled his paper and petted it, and treated it, when he could, to new and better equipment, and awoke one day to the unpleasant realization that the editorials which he so enjoyed writing, and the growing, widening response to which constituted his most satisfactory reward, were physically a blotch and a blur and an affront to the staggering and baffled eye. The Guardian needed a new dress and needed it badly!

  Now the garmenture of a newspaper is of a costliness to make Paquin, Caillot, and their Parisian congeners of the golden needle appear like unto ragpickers when the bills come in. Jeremy bought The Guardian a new dress of type. It made a hideous hole, a chasm, an abyss in the loan negotiated from the Trust Company. But the paper became a festival to the proud eye of its owner. Galpin helped salve his chief’s conscience by agreeing that they would have had to do it sooner or later anyway.

  Well advised of the loan, the status of the paper’s finances, and the new plunge, Montrose Clark and his legal satellite, Judge Dana, held consultation. Now, they decided, was the providentially appointed time for trying out the transfer ordinance in the City Council. The Guardian, whose opposition they had feared, had put itself in a position where it must “be good.”

  “That young cub,” said Montrose Clark confidently, “will have to come into line.”

  “With management. With careful management,” amended Judge Dana.

  “Anyway!” returned the public utilitarian. “He’ll need every cent he can get and when he sees five or six hundred dollars as his share of our advertising campaign of education, with more to follow, he’ll take his orders like the others. I’ll send for him in a day or two.”

  “What, again?” said Judge Dana.

  The puffy jowl of Montrose Clark deepened in color. “I shall not tolerate any more of his impudence,” he declared. “He will come when sent for or—”

  “Now, Mr. Clark, this is a case for diplomacy.”

  “For you, you mean, Dana.”

  “What do you employ me for?” soothed the lawyer. “Just you have a copy of the ordinance drawn up. Tell Garson to get up the advertising figures and give them to me. I’ll talk to young Mr. Robson.”

  The magnate assented, though with an ill grace. “Will you take up the matter of your candidacy with him at the same time?”

  Matters were so shaping themselves in politics, that with the figure of Martin Embree looming and the probability of a strong radical vote in the Legislature, the P.-U. and its allied traction in
terests in the State deemed it advisable to place a safe representative on the Court of Appeals bench, where much may be done by “interpretation” to offset destructive legislation. Dana had been selected as the man. In his early days the Judge had weathered, with difficulty and not without damage to his reputation, two or three legal tempests, one of which had all but caused his disbarment. Had not Montrose Clark, already finding him valuable as a clever quasher of damage suits in their early stages, employed his influence, the Judge would have ceased to ornament the legal profession. He had since gone far to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public, by sticking close to the high-class, quiet (not to say secret) corporation work. But the better men of his own profession, while recognizing his abilities, were still suspicious of him, though not to the point where any protest was likely to be made in the face of such powerful interests as were backing him.

  Judge Dana pondered his patron’s question. “That depends on how he takes the transfer plan,” he replied.

  “You gave me advice about him,” said Montrose Clark rather maliciously; “to handle him with gloves. You see how it came out. Now I’ll give you some in return. Put the screws on the young fool!”

  “Not my way. And not his description. He’s got a lot to learn. I’m going there as his teacher. I wouldn’t be, if he was a fool.”

  Channels of communication bring information (and even more misinformation) from many sources into an editor’s office. Through one of these Jeremy had learned of the projected transfer plan’s recrudescence. Therefore he was prepared when Judge Dana, having called by appointment, stated the case flatly.

  “We want your support,” he said.

  “This is a pretty raw deal, Judge Dana,” remarked Jeremy.

  The lawyer’s thin and solemn face did not alter its expression of bland disinterestedness. “Not if looked at in the right light.”

  “What is the right light?’

  “The P.-U. needs the new arrangement in order to perfect its service to the public. The greatest good to the greatest number.”