Confirmation in part of Verrall’s dismal forebodings came from Arthur Betts, of Kelter & Betts, who dropped in to see Jeremy. Since the first struggle with the Retailers’ Association, Betts had proved himself a “good sport,” as he would have wished to have put it, in admitting The Guardian’s right to editorial independence, which did not in any measure inhibit him from trying to “put one over” on the paper whenever he thought that he saw a chance. That was part of the game. Though usually worsted, he sometimes succeeded in landing a bit of free advertising. But, like a sound opponent, he had become a strong partisan of Jeremy as against the field.
“You sure put it to the German lot in that editorial,” he observed with a shining eye.
“They had it coming to them,” returned Jeremy.
“Right! But they’re sore clean though. Any cancellations?”
“Blasius.”
“Yep. He’s a dachshund all right. Do you know what they’re stirring up in the Retailers’ Association?”
“No.”
“This is rank treason and betrayal of secrets and so on; but they’re talking down your circulation. Are you losing much?”
“Some.”
“Enough for ’em to demand a lower rate?”
“They can demand. They won’t get it. We’ve got a comfortable margin left.”
“Well, of course I’m for it, officially. Here’s another point. Some of our customers are beginning to talk to the salespeople and department heads about The Guardian. ‘Do you advertise in that paper? What do you do that for? It’s no good. Waste of money. I wouldn’t believe a thing I read in it, not even an ad.’ You know the line of stuff.”
Jeremy did know it and knew how dangerous it was. “Who are they?” he asked.
“Hans, Fritz, and Wilhelm,” grinned the other. “They aren’t scaring us. But you may get a kick-back from some of the other stores that are timider than we are.”
“I’ll keep an eye out, Betts,” said the editor.
Thus the anti-Guardian campaign simmered, bearing testimony to a steady fire and a slow boiling beneath the surface. Said Judge Selden Dana to Montrose Clark:
“Our young cub of The Guardian is getting in wronger every day. I think a polite call is about due.”
26
Deutschtum moves slowly, because it moves methodically. No general and open manifestation against The Guardian had followed the Lusitania editorial. None retaliated for the attack on the “Surrender Bill.” But, little by little, there became apparent a guerilla warfare upon the paper. Manufacturers of certain products widely circulated in the State, particularly beers and soft drinks, began to withdraw or decrease their advertising. In every instance it was noteworthy that these concerns bore German names. Furthermore, small and casual advertisers of Teutonic cast of name and mind—For Sale, Want Ads, and the general line of “classified”—switched from The Guardian to the more amendable Record.
Despite all this The Guardian made a clear and pretty profit in the busy year of 1915. Ups and downs marked the course of its circulation, but the general tendency was upward. The Retailers’ Association had given over any hopes of a successful drive against its advertising rates. Indeed, the best they could look for was that there would not be another increase. Success, however, had entailed special expenses. A new press had been installed. The working force was increased. An active and discontented element in the press-room, led by Milliken, had compelled an expensive readjustment of the wage scale, and the combative Socialist was already lining up his men for another raid. Thus Jeremy had found it expedient to renew from time to time the twenty-thousand-dollar note at the Drovers’ Bank. No difficulties had been made over the renewals. Nor was the owner of the paper much concerned with the matter. From the time that his property had turned Prosperity Corner into Easy Street, to adopt Andrew Galpin’s term, Jeremy had been content to leave the business and financial details to the general manager and Verrall, reserving himself for editorial problems. Even Verrall, of the twittering nervous system, was now ready to admit that the paper was winning and would soon be an established property, if Jeremy would tactfully refrain from further and gratuitous depredations against Teutonic sensibilities. Verrall did not appreciate, to the full, the unforgiving tenacity of Deutschtum.
Fortunately for Jeremy Robson, the campaign for the State offices of Centralia, in the fall of 1915, took precedence over everything else in the public mind. The reelection of Governor Embree on the anti-corporation issue was all but conceded. But it was not the issue that insured him victory. The solid German vote did that. Orders had gone forth to the German-language press that Governor Embree, even where special conditions made it impracticable to support him, must be recognized as an authority on international complications and a statesman of national caliber. For Embree’s reelection meant that he would be next in line for the Senate vacancy, three years hence, and Deutschtum needed sympathetic souls, such as it deemed Martin Embree to be, in the high places of government. The real fight of the old-line crowd was for control of the State Legislature. For this they were quite ready to sacrifice their gubernational candidate, one Tellersen, a stock war-horse of the political stables. A safe representation in either legislative house would mean that Embree’s pet corporation measure, aimed specially at the P.-U. and its branches, but affecting all railroads in the State, was scotched. It might even mean that the Blanket Franchise Bill could be put through. As a further safeguard to corporate interests, the P.-U. intended to put forward, later, its own legal adviser for a place on the Court of Appeals bench.
The campaign drew the Governor and Jeremy Robson closer together than they had been since the Lusitania editorial. Where no vital matter of principle was involved, The Guardian was quite willing to keep off German toes. On his side, the campaigning Governor consented to emphasize Americanism while still maintaining his attitude of sympathy for the sentiments of the German-Americans. Embree won by a large majority, the German districts giving him a preponderance of votes which gravely troubled Jeremy when the figures were analyzed. But on the legislative side it was conceded that only the brilliant campaign of The Guardian in Fenchester and The Journal in Bellair had averted a signal defeat. Widespread “trading” of the German-American vote had favored the P.-U. plans. So close was the result that, when the figures were all in, no man could say which side had won. Taking both houses together there were at least ten indeterminate votes. Plainly the battle for control of the State would be fought out in the spring session between the corporation interests, locally represented by Montrose Clark and Judge Selden Dana, and the radicals led by Governor Embree. Through that winter Jeremy, scenting the lesser battle from afar, cried “Ha-ha!” editorially with frequency and fervor, relegating the greater cause to the background for the time. Herein he was honest enough, as well as politic. He believed that the action and course of the United States was in abeyance until the people should have opportunity of making themselves heard in the presidential decision of the upcoming year. Hence he was content to wait, always providing that no major issue imperatively called for an expression of policy. For a time, too, Germany seemed more inclined to respect the dictates of humanity1. Locally, Jeremy found the atmosphere clearing. The Governor’s triumphant reelection had pleased and appeased the Germans, and they were inclined to accord a certain measure of credit to The Guardian. Jeremy was sensible of an improved temper in many members of the Deutscher Club as he met them casually. But Blasius was still out of the paper; Stockmuller as well. And Emil Bausch, when he encountered Jeremy on the street, became absorbed in the contemplation of the Beautiful as exemplified in cloud-shapes.
Virtuously unconscious of any backsliding or suspicion thereof, Jeremy was surprised at being made the target of a direct attack by Miss Letitia Pritchard, whom he was passing with a bow on Bank Street one March day of 1916, when she held him up with a lowered umbrella.
“Mr. Robson, have you gone over?” she inquired, her eyes snapping fire into the query
.
Naturally, Jeremy asked what she meant.
“I’ve been taking The Guardian again ever since the Lusitania editorial, because I just had to have an American newspaper in the house. Are you still that?”
“Do you doubt it?”
“Could anybody help but doubt it!” challenged the vigorous lady. “Politics, politics, politics! Nothing but stupid politics! Don’t you know that the greatest war in history is coming closer to use every day?”
“I hope not closer to us.”
“A fool’s hope! Do you know your Bible, Mr. Robson?”
“Not as well as I ought.”
“Better read it more. Those writers weren’t afraid to speak their minds in a good cause.”
At the ugly adjective Jeremy flushed.
“But that’s beside the matter,” she pursued, twinkling at him suddenly. “I came across a quotation that the Deutscher Club ought to send you, suitably illuminated. Isaiah, 14, 8; the last sentence. Look it up.”
“I will,” promised the editor.
“And you can come and tell me how well it fits,” she threw back at him over her departing shoulder.
Important telegrams claimed Jeremy’s attention on his return. Having disposed of them, his mind reverted to Miss Pritchard’s suggestion for a Deutscher Club quotation for him.
“Buddy,” he said to the industrious Mr. Higman, “look up the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah, copy the last sentence of the eighth verse and bring it to me.”
Protesting under his breath that this was no time for Sunday-School exercises, Buddy interrupted the composition of a Social Jotting, and set about the errand. When he returned there was a pleased expression upon his face. He presented his chief with a slip of paper thus inscribed:
“Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.”
“What’s this, Buddy?” demanded the chief sternly. “I said the Bible.”
“That’s where I got it,” returned the appreciative Buddy. “Some of those old guys could sure sling the up-to-date stuff.”
“Bring me the Old Testament.” Jeremy looked up the text and, to his surprise, verified the exact words. But when he saw the context he laughed. And that evening he made one of his rare calls.
“Isiah is no prophet so far as The Guardian is concerned,” he declared to Miss Pritchard. “And the style of that sting rings familiar. Where did you get it?”
“It was written on the margin of an old Guardian.”
Jeremy raised questioning eyes to her face. Miss Pritchard nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “She was back in Berne when that was sent.”
“All right?” Jeremy was conscious that his voice was less insouciant than he could have wished.
“Quite. She will go back to Germany after the war, I suppose.”
“Will you give her a message for me?”
“If you wish.”
The dry, slightly hesitant tone meant, “If you will be so foolish.”
“Tell her for The Guardian,” said Jem, “that this feller hasn’t laid down. Tell her that he won’t lay down”—he paused, and then completed the paraphrase—“though Hell from beneath is moved for him to meet him at his coming.”
“Put that on your editorial page,” said Miss Pritchard, with a thrill in her voice. “I’d like Marcia to see it there.”
“Perhaps I will when the day comes,” he answered and took his leave.
It was the first message that he had sent to Marcia Ames since they had parted at the door of the Pritchard mansion nearly four years before. Every sense of her, every thought of her, was as vivid, unblurred, untainted by time as if she had gone from him yesterday: “the loveliness that wanes not, the Love that ne’er can wane.” Now, even by so tenuous a thread as his impersonal message for The Guardian, he held to her again. And in his heart sang something lesser but sweeter than hope.
27
Words occasionally take epidemic form. Such was the course of the word “hyphen” through the United States in the year 1916, with its alternate phases, “hyphenate” and “hyphenated.” Centralia, however, established a quarantine against the terms. They were checked at the borders of the State. Where they did creep in and break out into print, it was but a sporadic appearance, the references being both cautious and resentful that such a characterization should be allowed to the license of an unbridled Eastern press. None was willing to admit that the hyphen could be an issue in the future.
It fell to The Guardian to make the first use of “hyphenate” as a term carrying a suggestion of reproach. Quite casually, indeed carelessly, it was written in a sentence of no special import in one of Jeremy’s editorials. Where bolder and more direct offense might have passed with no more than the usual retaliation, this by-word was seized upon by the enemy. It came in the more pat in that, since Jeremy’s talk with Miss Pritchard, The Guardian had assumed a more positive tone upon war issues. Now the hyphenated press again fell upon him tooth and nail. The Marlittstown Herold und Zeitung sounded the keynote in declaring that The Guardian, not content with playing England’s game and misrepresenting Germany’s part in the war, had now descended to calling the loyal German-Americans foul names. “Hyphenate” didn’t seem to Jeremy a very villainously foul name. He was much inclined to dismiss the whole thing from mind as a petty excuse for renewed hostilities, had not the flood of letters in his mail apprised him that the chance word had been salt upon the raw surfaces of the Teutonic skin. Selecting a typical letter, he replied to it in a moderate and good-tempered editorial, pointing out that in the hyphen1 itself was no harm; but that essentially the Nation had a right to expect every German-American, Irish-American, Swedish-American, or other adoptive citizen, to consider the interests of this country as paramount in any crisis. Far from soothing the exacerbated press, this seemed rather to inflame them. Their principles were not clear (other than that they were not to be “dictated to” by Jeremy or anyone else), but their temper was. That one misstep had landed The Guardian in a hornet’s nest.
Just about the time when the buzzing and whirring were the loudest, Judge Selden Dana called to see Jeremy, and requested the favor of half an hour’s uninterrupted conference upon a subject of importance. When the long-jawed, sleepy-eyed, crafty-spoken lawyer settled down to his topic, it manifested itself as the imminent fight in the Legislature over the public utilities bills. On behalf of certain clients, Judge Dana would be pleased to know what attitude The Guardian might be expected to assume.
“Don’t you read The Guardian, Judge?” inquired its editor.
“Always. I may add, carefully.”
“Then do you have to ask where we stand?”
“Circumstances change, Mr. Robson. Conditions also. Sometimes opinions.”
“Changed circumstances or conditions might alter The Guardian’s opinions. Is that the idea?”
“I suppose that The Guardian’s circumstances are changed,” murmured the lawyer.
Jeremy’s easy smile vanished. “The Guardian is able to take care of itself.”
“Up to a point. That I will concede. But, all things considered, would not the paper do well to make some friends now, instead of enemies?”
“That depends on the price to be paid.”
“Small. Ridiculously small.” Judge Dana spread out a pair of candid hands. “Mr. Robson, I’m not going to ask that The Guardian oppose the Corporation Control Bill when it comes up.”
“Indeed!”
“Nor that you’ll support the Blanket Franchise Bill.”
“I appreciate your forbearance.”
“But The Guardian has professed a profound regard for neutrality.”
“As to the war only.”
“Neutrality,” repeated the lawyer, “as to the war. Whether you have practiced what you preach is another matter. Some of our most influential citizens and business men—and business men—appear to think not. I don’t know,” he continued with intent, “whether The Guardian’s note for a considerable am
ount—say, well, twenty thousand dollars—would be considered safe today by the best of our local banks. I say, I don’t know.”
“There’s very little you don’t know, isn’t there, Judge?” retorted the editor evenly.
“I try to keep informed; I try to keep informed.” The long jaw relaxed a trifle. “Now, Mr. Robson, a reasonable neutrality as to these pending measures would be greatly appreciated by us.”
“Appreciation is a vague sort of thing.”
“Don’t think you’re going to trap me, young man,” warned the visitor keenly. “I’m not here to make offers. Every man may have his price, but I don’t happen to be fool enough to think that I know yours or could pay it if I did. I want to appeal to your sense of fairness.”
Jeremy laughed, not unpleasantly. “Don’t scare me, Judge.”
“No. This is plain talk. The P.-U. intends to open up soon its extensive educational campaign of advertising, to instruct the public on these new issues.”
“Through the newspapers?”
“Through the newspapers. Would The Guardian refuse that advertising?”
“I don’t see any reason why it should.”
“Very good. Would it accept the advertising and take our money in payment for value received, and then turn about and destroy all the value to us by attacking our arguments editorially?”
“Very ingenious,” smiled Jeremy. “But we’ve been over that before, haven’t we?”
“Not ingenious. Simple fairness. Isn’t it?”
“Maybe it is.”
“Then—”
“Then it’s quite plain that we can’t take your aids. In other words, Judge Dana, you can’t buy our editorial opinions.”
“See, now, how you divert my meaning,” reproached the lawyer. “I’ve distinctly said that all we expected in The Guardian is neutrality.”
“You can’t buy our silence, either.”
“What’ll you take for The Guardian?” asked the lawyer abruptly.
“The Guardian’s not for sale.”
Common Cause Page 26
