The New Colossus

by Marshall Goldberg

They were seething with frustration, but there was nothing to be done. “The Columbia faculty was right to reject you,” said Ingram.

  “I don’t care about them. Look around you. Why would I need a faculty?”

  “I will make sure the truth is known within the entire medical community. No self-respecting physician will ever refer a patient to you again.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll get plenty from the rest. Hudson, please see them out. I think I’ll straighten up here.”

  “Certainly, doctor.”

  They had no choice and followed the security guard out. Their driver had waited, at Ingram’s instruction. That was about the only thing that went right that evening, rued Nellie.

  “Is there no other way to prove she was poisoned?” she asked.

  “Not scientifically.”

  Ingram could see the wind go out of her.

  “What about a witness?” he asked, trying to boost her spirits. “Or a letter?”

  “No one has come forward as of now. I’m afraid someone suddenly appearing a year later would seem highly suspicious.”

  They rode on in silence. Nellie was now convinced that cancer had not killed Emma; Barker’s hurried trip to the hospital during the opera was proof of that.

  “Maybe if we stop thinking like scientists,” said Ingram, “there is a way.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Well, as a scientist, I deal in verifiable fact. But not everyone is so demanding before reaching a conclusion.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as readers and writers of newspapers. They embrace positions with the greatest of fervor when often there is no basis in logic for doing so.”

  “I suppose I should be insulted, but let me understand your point. You are saying if I wrote an article that was speculative but compelling, people would be as persuaded as if I had written one filled with facts?”

  “Many people, yes. Most, in fact. And public opinion can be every bit as powerful as scientific opinion.”

  “I can’t resort to innuendo, Ingram. I’m a reporter.”

  “Your readers trust you. If you are convinced there was foul play, they will give you the benefit of any doubt. And some of them may even come forward with supporting evidence.”

  She knew he was right. Readers didn’t mind if you took liberties as long as you strove for the truth and treated them with respect. When she wrote about the working conditions in factories, she didn’t have every fact right. But the picture she painted was accurate, and that was all people cared about. No one quibbled with details. And once the articles hit the streets, the paper was flooded with corroborating letters of mistreatment.

  The purpose, as Ingram was saying, was to get to the truth. She knew how to write a story that would stir people. After tonight, she certainly had the raw material to work with. She was ready to write. She would have a story for Cockerill in the morning.

  Chapter Eight

  It took less than two hours to write it.

  WAS EMMA LAZARUS MURDERED?

  Poet May Have Died from Unnatural Causes

  Emma Lazarus, the celebrated poet who passed away tragically at the age of 38 on November 19, 1887, may have died from other than natural causes.

  Her doctor at the time of her demise, Nathaniel Barker, signed a death certificate stating the cause of death as cancer. Within the past several weeks, however, rumors have begun to circulate that Miss Lazarus may in fact have been poisoned with arsenic, and her cancer not as advanced as previously thought.

  Upon her return from England in March 1887, Miss Lazarus was placed under the care of Dr. Barker at the New York Cancer Hospital. Dr. Barker, according to several sources, treated Miss Lazarus with arsenic, which he called a “wonder drug” that is “used extensively around the world” for the treatment of that disease. However, medical experts contacted by the World questioned the efficacy of arsenic when a patient suffers from advanced cancer and almost universally agreed that arsenic in an acute cancer patient can only accelerate death.

  Attempts by the World to assess the amount of arsenic in Miss Lazarus’s blood were to no avail. Normal protocol at the Cancer Hospital is to preserve blood of cancer patients for several years after death. When asked for samples of Miss Lazarus’s blood, however, Dr. Barker said that all flasks containing her blood had been destroyed. Pressed for an explanation as to why hospital procedures were not followed, Dr. Barker offered none.

  Dr. Barker’s role as physician to Miss Lazarus has also raised serious questions. Dr. Barker acknowledged that he was not Miss Lazarus’s normal physician but only became so at the behest of Mr. Charles DeKay, the arts critic for the Times, a close friend of both Miss Lazarus and Dr. Barker.

  Although we may never learn the actual circumstances surrounding the death of Miss Lazarus, the World will continue to pursue all avenues regarding the demise of one of America’s finest poets. Anyone with information on the matter should contact the editors at the World. Anonymity will be protected.

  Nellie left Ingram’s house just before dawn. He was in a deep sleep, and she almost crept away without saying good-bye but then caught herself. The story was his idea, after all, and she owed him a kiss of gratitude if nothing else. Once again she had to remind herself that Ingram was not like other men, who always kept an accounting. She kissed him, whispered thank you, and slipped out.

  She took the Elevated up Ninth Avenue to Harlem. Very few women were on the train, none by themselves, and none in a formal opera dress, but she managed to make it home after contending with only some odd stares and nothing more. She changed clothes, awakened her mother, made breakfast for them both, then rode the Elevated and horsecar (a fifteen-foot carriage pulled by two horses along a rail embedded in the street) back to the office. Between writing the story, the robust lovemaking—she and Ingram were unable to contain themselves the moment they walked through his door—and the train ride back, she’d had very little sleep, but she was exhilarated. Barker and DeKay had thought they were free of worry. It would be a treat to watch them squirm.

  She was already waiting for Cockerill when he arrived at his desk.

  “Good morning,” she announced as she handed him the piece.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “The first Emma Lazarus story.”

  He was impressed. “I didn’t expect something so soon.” He sat down and started reading.

  “Shall I come back?”

  “No, no. Stay here.”

  She resumed her seat. Nellie wasn’t used to an editor reading her copy while she waited. Most editors preferred time to gather their thoughts, but Cockerill was not one to dawdle. He sat at his desk, engrossed, nodding and even grunting now and then with approval. Finally he looked up.

  “Well-written, Miss Bly. It makes the reader sit up and take notice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I only wish we could print it.”

  Her heart sank. “What do you mean?”

  “There are laws in this country against destroying a man’s reputation.”

  She knew, of course, that a man’s most valuable commodity was his reputation, and in a land based on opportunity and second chances, an attack on a man’s reputation was an attack on America itself. It was only in the past thirty years that truth had become a valid defense in criminal defamation cases—you could no longer be thrown in jail for telling the truth. But protecting a man’s reputation ought only go so far.

  “There are also laws against men committing murder,” she snapped.

  “You don’t know they committed murder. All you know is that a doctor at a hospital—one of New York’s finest hospitals—threw away the blood of a patient seven months after she died.”

  “After hurriedly departing in the middle of a concert.”

  “Suspicious, I grant you. But we can’t publish a story about a respectable doctor and a writer from a rival paper based on susp
icion alone. Within twenty-four hours we would have a nasty lawsuit on our hands.”

  Nellie expected more from the editor of New York’s most aggressive paper, especially since the assignment had come from Pulitzer himself. Suddenly it dawned on her that Cockerill might be considering factors other than a lawsuit.

  “You’re trying to protect them, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Who? Barker and DeKay? I’ve never even met them.”

  “But you sympathize with them. You don’t like putting them in a bad light,” she continued with increasing vehemence.

  “You have quite a tongue on you, Miss Bly.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re protecting your own—”

  “I am protecting no one other than this newspaper,” he shot back with indignation.

  “Then why refuse to publish this story? I have only so many means at my disposal to learn what happened to Miss Lazarus. I need to apply pressure to those who might be responsible and to draw out those who might know more about it. This story would accomplish both—yet you won’t allow it. I don’t see how I can meet Mr. Pulitzer’s request if you won’t publish this story.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to find a way,” he retorted.

  And at that, he moved on to other work at his desk. For a moment she thought of going straight to Pulitzer and laying out the situation, but Cockerill would never forgive her, and as much as Pulitzer wanted to find out what had happened to Emma, he would never choose her over Cockerill, at least not until she had a much stronger case.

  “Anything else, Miss Bly?” he asked, looking up from his work impatiently.

  “No.”

  “Then that will be all.”

  There was no getting Cockerill to change his mind; that was clear. But Nellie was nothing if not resourceful, and by the time she returned to her desk, she had come up with another way to turn the screws, one that didn’t require Cockerill’s approval.

  She proceeded to the New York Times offices for her meeting with DeKay.

  At first she’d thought it would be pointless, certain that DeKay would not honor the appointment. Most people suspected of murder would keep their distance from a newspaper reporter. But she felt that DeKay, arrogant and confident that Nellie could never connect him to Emma’s death, would savor engaging a celebrated investigative writer. And so Nellie kept their date, convinced something would come of it.

  The New York Times was only thirty years old and very much a Republican paper. To establish itself among its older competitors, its owners had constructed the tallest and most garish building on Newspaper Row, an eight-story red building with twisted iron trim. Nellie shuddered as she approached the building—the Times had led the campaign against voting rights for Irish immigrants, famously proclaiming, “Only taxpayers should be able to vote.” She was admitted immediately—a far cry from her treatment only months before—and shown into the plush downstairs sitting room, portraits of sober male editors and investors looking down at her from the dark wooden walls. DeKay was comfortably settled into a winged green leather chair, scanning his own review of Otello while an attentive steward poured him coffee.

  “Good morning, Miss Bly,” he said with a brilliant smile, rising to greet her.

  “Good morning, Mr. DeKay,” she returned with great poise.

  “Please.” He directed her to a matching winged chair and waited as she sat, ever the solicitous gentleman. As he relaxed back into his own chair, she observed that he had no fear of her whatsoever. Nor was he interested in lording the events of last night over her. He was here to charm her out of any mischief she might be up to and seduce her in the process if he could.

  “I am so glad you kept our appointment,” he said intently, his blue eyes focused keenly on her. “Barker told me you were upset when you left the hospital last night.”

  “I was. Very much so.”

  “I’m so sorry.” He reached for her hand to console her. She let him take it.

  “In fact,” she allowed, “I was so upset that I wrote a story for today’s edition.”

  “Oh?”

  She took the story from her large purse and handed it to him.

  “Mr. Pulitzer wanted to give you the opportunity to respond, to make the story as fair as possible.”

  A shadow flickered across his face, as she intended. As a member of New York’s newspaper community, DeKay might trust Cockerill, the World’s editor, to protect him, but he could expect no such treatment from the immigrant half-Jew Pulitzer.

  “My instructions,” Nellie said with infinite politeness, “are to wait while you read it and write down whatever you say.”

  DeKay squirmed. He hadn’t expected Nellie to write a story, and he certainly hadn’t expected Cockerill to be powerless to stop it.

  “May I?” he asked, reaching for the manuscript while trying to maintain his composure.

  “Certainly.”

  He read it through without further conversation. She watched as his face soured and the arrogance disappeared. She had to move deftly now. A desperate DeKay might press Cockerill to get the story killed, and she needed to head off that possibility.

  “I am to take down your reaction verbatim,” she reminded him. “That was Mr. Pulitzer’s directive.” Nellie hoped that, in his panic, DeKay would let slip information she could use for the story. At some point, Cockerill had to publish it; he was still a newspaperman, after all, and loyalty to class went only so far. The stronger her case, the less choice he would have.

  DeKay was unnerved. No longer a predator planning to beguile her, he was suddenly at her mercy.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “You cannot publish this.”

  “Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “You make it sound like there was some type of conspiracy to kill Emma. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “Then what is the truth?”

  He bit his lower lip and shook his head. “I cannot tell you.”

  “Then I will simply tell Mr. Pulitzer you refused all comment. Our printers will be grateful. They are already setting type for the story.”

  She gathered her things.

  “Please,” he said. “I implore you not to publish it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She put the papers back in her bag and stood up. DeKay’s fists clenched. He wanted to stop her. She saw the look in his eye and suddenly became wary. Quickly she moved toward the door, but he blocked her way.

  “Please, sir. Do not make matters worse for yourself.”

  “I will tell you the truth if you promise not to publish the story.”

  “I will make no such promise.”

  “You must!”

  He grabbed her arm, but she pushed him aside and reached for the door, wanting distance from his desperation.

  “We gave Emma the arsenic at her own insistence!”

  Nellie stopped. “She asked you for it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she know it was killing her?”

  “Yes. That was the point.”

  She hadn’t expected this. She looked closely at DeKay. His charm had evaporated, and in its place was a man revealing a most private secret.

  “Emma knew she had the cancer,” he said. “But a dark cloud had descended over her even before she went to England. It was something she lived with all her life. In fact, that is why she went abroad so often, to try and escape her mood. When the doctors in England diagnosed the cancer and prescribed arsenic, she saw an opportunity for the darkness to finally end. But as she became increasingly ill, the English doctors refused to continue the prescription, and the darkness returned.”

  “And that is where Barker came in.”

  “Yes. She begged me to find a doctor in New York who would obtain it for her. Her own doctor never would. Barker was an old friend, and I introduced her. She told him that if he did not give it to her, she would simply find someone el
se. Barker was convinced he could treat her with less pain than anyone else, and so he took her on.”

  Nellie, nonplussed, had never conceived of this. It made no sense. “Why keep it such a secret after her death?”

  “Emma was revered, for both her poetry and her charity work. If people learned of a suicide, they would think less of her, and she worried their foolish biases would eclipse her accomplishments and causes.”

  Nellie was flabbergasted. How could she have been so wrong about DeKay? She studied his face for signs of lying or manipulation.

  “A melancholia I understand,” she said. “But suicide …?”

  “You don’t know how she suffered. You never saw such dark moods. Her friends would try to get her out of them, but they would last for months at a time. She fought them as long as she could, but the prospect of battling both her moods and a cancer was too much for her.”

  “That is why you had Barker destroy the bottles of blood.”

  “I wanted to protect him, but I wanted to protect Emma even more. I don’t want this to be her legacy. This is not how the world should remember her … You won’t write about this, will you, Miss Bly?” He spoke earnestly, without any flirtation or vanity.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please. I beg you.”

  She was still a reporter, though she had surely come to admire Emma. “Who else knows about this? Who can verify it?”

  “No one else knows she took her own life. It was a secret among the three of us. But ask her friends about her moods. Ask her family. Ask her editors. You’ll see I’m telling the truth.” He gazed at her directly, beseechingly. “You cannot publish this story.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jewish Cemetery

  At the Dispatch, Nellie had covered several suicides of both men and women.

  Even though more men committed suicide in the nineteenth century than women—four times as many—the act itself was always associated with women. Suicide was seen as a weakness, a feminine malady. Women were even condemned for the way they killed themselves—usually by poison rather than something more assertive, such as a knife or a gun. Her editor had little interest in considering what might drive a woman to take her own life. Suicide was simply confirmation that women were the weaker sex.