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Samuel Hopkins Adams - The Clarion

S >> Samuel Hopkins Adams >> The Clarion




"Good man!" said Ellis. "Telephone to Dr. Merritt at the Health Office
to meet me instantly at the hospital. Tell him why. Now, Mr. Hale," he
added, "come on. Let's get along. You can tell me on the way."

Still rapt with his vision the minister rose, and permitted himself to
be guided to the carriage. Once inside he fell into a semi-stupor. Only
at the hospital, where Dr. Merritt was waiting to see him safe within
the isolation ward, did he come to his rightful senses, cool, and, as
ever, thoughtful of everything but himself.

"You've got your chance for a diagnosis at last, Doctor," he whispered
to the health officer.

Half an hour later, Dr. Merritt came out to the waiting journalist.

"Typhus," he said, with grievous exultation. "Unmistakably and
officially typhus. We've got our case. Only, I wish to God it had been
any of the rest of us."

"Will he die?" queried Ellis.

"God knows. I should say his chance was worse than even. He's worn out
from overwork."

For assurance, Dr. Elliot was sent for and added his diagnosis. Ellis
got authoritative interviews with both men, and the "Clarion's" great,
potential sensation was now fully ripe for print. Denton the reporter
had done the previous work well. His "story," leaded out and with
subheads, ran flush to two pages of the paper, and every paragraph of it
struck fire. It would, as Ellis said, set off a ton of dynamite beneath
sleepy Worthington. That night Veltman "pulled" a proof, and Ellis
stayed far into the morning, pasting up a dummy of the article for Hal's
inspection and final judgment.

It was on Thursday that Norman Hale was taken to the hospital. Friday
noon McGuire Ellis laid before his principal the carefully constructed
dummy with the brief comment:

"There's the epidemic story."

Hal accepted and read it in silence. Once or twice he made a note. When
he had finished, he turned to find Ellis's gaze fixed upon him.

"We ought to run it Monday," said Ellis. "We can round it all up by
then."

Monday is the dead day of journalism, the day for which news articles
which do not demand instant production are reserved, both to liven up a
dull paper and because the sensation produced is greater. However, the
sensation inevitable to the publishing of this article, as Hal instantly
realized, would be enormous on any day.

"It's big stuff," said he, with a long breath.

Ellis nodded. "Shall I release it for Monday?"

"N-n-no," came the dubious reply.

"It's been held already for ten days."

"Then what does it matter if we hold it a little longer?"

"Human lives, maybe. Isn't that matter enough?"

"That's only a guess. I've got to have time on this," insisted Hal.
"It's the most vital question of policy that the paper has had to face."

"Policy!" grunted Ellis savagely.

"Besides, I've given my word to the Chamber of Commerce Committee that
we wouldn't publish any epidemic news without due warning to them."

"Then it's to be killed?"

"'Wait for orders' proof," said Hal stonily.

"I might have known," sneered Ellis, with an infinite depth of scorn,
and went to bear the bitter message to Wayne.

While the "Clarion" policy trembled in the balance, Dr. Surtaine's
Committee on Suppression was facing a new crisis brought about by the
striking down of Norman Hale, of which they received early information.
Should he die, as was believed probable, the news, whether or not the
full facts got into print, would surely become a focus for the
propagation of alarmist rumors. In their distress, the patriots of
commerce paid a hasty visit to their chief, craving counsel. Having
foreseen the possibility of some such contingency, Dr. Surtaine was
ready with a plan. The committee would enlarge itself, call a meeting of
the representative men of the town, organize an Emergency Health
Committee of One Hundred, and take the field against the onset of
pernicious malaria. This show of fighting force would allay public
alarm, a large fund would be raised, the newspapers would be kept in
thorough subjection, and the disease could be wiped out without undue
publicity or the imperiling of Old Home Week.

"What about the 'Clarion'?" inquired Hollenbeck, of the committee.
"They're still holding off."

"Safe as your hat," Dr. Surtaine assured the questioner with a smile.

"At the meeting you told us you couldn't answer for your son's paper,"
Stensland recalled.

"I can now," said the confident quack. "Just you leave it to me."

He went direct to the "Clarion" office, revolving in his mind the
impending interview. For the first time since the tragedy he anticipated
a meeting with his son without embarrassment, for now he had a definite
topic to talk about, difficult though it might be.

Finding Hal at the editorial desk he went direct to the point.

"Boy-ee, the epidemic is spreading."

"I know it."

"I'm going to take hold of the matter personally, from now on."

"In what way?"

"By organizing a committee of one hundred to cover the city and make a
scientific campaign."

"Are you going to let people know that it's typhus?"

"Sh-sh-sh! So you know, do you? Well, the important thing now is to see
that others don't find out. Don't even whisper the word. Malaria's our
cue; pernicious malaria. What's the use of scaring every one to death?
We'll call a public meeting for next week--"

"Publicity is the last thing you want, I should think."

"Semi-public, I should have said. The epidemic has gone so far that
people are beginning to take notice. We've got to reassure them and the
right kind of an Emergency Health Committee is the way to do it, Belford
Couch is working up the meeting now. I've kept him over on purpose for
it. He's the best little diplomat in the proprietary business. And Yours
Truly will be elected Chairman of the Committee. It'll cost us a
ten-thousand-dollar donation to the fund, but it's worth it to the
business."

"To the business? I don't quite see how."

"Simple as a pin! When it's all over and we're ready to let the account
of it get into print, Dr. Surtaine, proprietor of Certina, will be the
principal figure in the campaign. What's that worth in advertising to
the year's business? Not that I'm doing it for that. I'm doing it to
save Old Home Week."

"With a little profit on the side."

Dr. Surtaine deemed it politic to ignore the tone of the commentary.

"Why not? Nobody's hurt by it. You'll be on the Central Committee,
Boy-ee."

"No; I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"I think I'd better keep out of the movement, Dad."

"As you like. And you'll see that the 'Clarion' keeps out of it, too?"

"So that's it."

"Yes, Boy-ee: that's it. You can see, for yourself, that a newspaper
sensation would ruin everything just now--and also ruin the paper that
sprung it."

"So I heard from Elias M. Pierce sometime since."

"For once Pierce is right."

"Are you asking me to suppress the epidemic story?"

"To let us handle it our own way," substituted the Doctor. "We've got
our campaign all figured out and ready to start. Do you know what the
great danger is now?"

"Letting the infection go on without taking open measures to stop it."

"You're way wrong! Starting a panic that will scatter it all over the
place is the real danger. Have you heard of a single case outside of the
Rookeries district, so far?"

Hal strove to recall the death-list on the proof. "No," he admitted.

"You see! It's confined to one locality. Now, what happens if you turn
loose a newspaper scare? Why, those poor, ignorant people will swarm out
of the Rookeries and go anywhere to escape the quarantine that they know
will come. You'll have an epidemic not localized, but general. The
situation will be ten times as difficult and dangerous as it is now."

Struck with the plausibility of this reasoning, Hal hesitated. "That's
up to the authorities," he said.

"The authorities!" cried the charlatan, in disdain. "What could they do?
The damage would be done before they got ready to move. You see, we've
got to handle this situation diplomatically. Look here, Boyee; what's
the worst feature of an epidemic? Panic. You know the Bible parable. The
seven plagues came to Egypt and ten thousand people died. The Grand
Vizier said to the plagues, 'How many of my people have you slain?' The
plagues said, 'A thousand.' 'What about the other nine thousand?' said
the Grand Vizier. 'Not guilty!' said the plagues. 'They were slain by
Fear.' Maybe it was in 'Paradise Lost' and not the Bible. But the
lesson's the same. Panic is the killer."

"But the disease is increasing all the time," objected Hal. "Are we to
sit still and--"

"Is it?" broke in the wily controversialist. "How do you account for
this, then?" He drew from his pocket a printed leaflet. "Take a peek at
those figures. Fewer deaths in the Rookeries this last week than in any
week since March."

This was true. Not infrequently there comes an inexplicable subsidence
of mortality in mid-epidemic. No competent hygienist is deceived into
mistaking this phenomenon for an indication of the end. Not being a
hygienist Hal was again impressed.

"The Health Bureau's own statistics," continued the argumentator,
pushing his advantage. "With Dr. Merritt's signature at the bottom."

"Dr. Merritt says that the epidemic is being fostered by secrecy,
suppression, and lying."

"All sentimentalism. Merritt would turn the city upside down if he had
his way. Was it him that told you it was typhus?"

"No. We've got a two-page story in proof now, giving the whole facts of
the epidemic."

"You can't publish it, Boy-ee," said his father firmly.

"Can't? That sounds like an order."

Adroitly Dr. Surtaine caught at the word. "An order drawn on your word
of honor."

"If there's any question of honor to the 'Clarion,' it's to tell the
truth plainly and take the consequences."

"Who said anything about the 'Clarion's' honor? This is between you and
me."

"You'll have to speak more plainly," said Hal with a dawning dread.

"Boyee, I hate to do this, but I've got to, to save the city. You gave
me your word that the day you had to suppress news for your own sake,
you'd quit this Don Quixotic business and treat others as decently and
considerately as you treated yourself."

"Go on," said Hal, in a half whisper.

"Well--Milly Neal." Dr. Surtaine wet his lips nervously. "You saved
yourself there by keeping the story out of the papers. Of course you
were right. You were dead right. You'd have been a fool to do anything
else. But there you are. And there's your promise."

A nausea of the soul sickened Hal. That his father, whom he had so loved
and honored, should make of the loyalty which had, at the cost of
principle, protected the name of Surtaine against open disgrace, a tool
wherewith to tear down his professional standards--it was like some
incredible and malign jocosity of a devilish logic. Of what was going on
in the quack's mind he had no inkling. He could not know that his father
saw in the suppression of the suicide news, only a natural and
successful effort on the part of Hal to conceal his own guilt in Milly's
death. No more could Dr. Surtaine comprehend that it was the dreadful
responsibility of the Surtaine quackery for which Hal had unhesitantly
sacrificed the declared principle of the "Clarion." So they gazed darkly
at each other across the chasm, each seeing his opponent in the blackest
colors.

"You hold me to that?" demanded Hal, half choked.

"I have to, Boy-ee."

To Dr. Surtaine the issue which he had raised was but the distasteful
means to a necessary end. To Hal it meant the final capitulation to the
forces against which he had been fighting since his first enlightenment.

"I might as well sell the 'Clarion' now, and be done with it," he
declared bitterly.

"Nonsense! If you stuck to this foolishness you'd have to sell it or
lose it. You'd be ruined, both in influence and in money. How would you
feel when Mac Ellis, and Wayne, and all the fellows that stuck by you
found themselves out of a job because of your pig-headedness? And what
harm are you doing by dropping the story, anyway? We've got this thing
beaten, right now. It isn't spreading. It's dropping off. What'll the
'Clarion' look like when its great sensation peters out into thin air?
But by that time the harm'll be done and the whole country will think
we're a plague-stricken city. Don't do all that damage and spoil
everything just for a false delusion, Boyee."

But Hal's mind was brooding on the fatal promise which he had so
confidently made his father. One way out there was.

"Since it's a question of my word to you," he said, "I could still
publish the truth about Milly Neal."

"No. You couldn't do that, Boyee," said his father in a tone, half
sorrowful, half shamed.

"No. You're right. I couldn't--God help me!"

To proclaim his own father a moral criminal in his own paper was the
one test which Hal lacked the power to meet. It was the world-old
conflict between loyalty and principle--in which loyalty so often and so
tragically wins the first combat.

After all, Hal forced himself to consider, he was not serving his public
ill by this particular sacrifice of principle. The official mortality
figures helped him to persuade himself that the typhus was indeed
ebbing. For himself, as the price of silence, there was easy sailing
under the flag of local patriotism, and with every success in prospect.
Yet it was with sunken eyes that he turned to the tempter.

"All right," he said, with a half groan, "I give in. We won't print it."

Dr. Surtaine heaved a great sigh of relief. "That's horse sense!" he
cried jovially. "Now, you go ahead on those lines and you'll make the
'Clarion' the best-paying proposition in Worthington. I'll drop a few
hints where they'll do the most good, and you'll see the advertisers
breaking their necks to come in. Journalism is no different from any
other business, Boy-ee. Live and let live. Bear and forbear. There's the
rule for you. The trouble with you, Boy-ee, has been that you've been
trying to run a business on pink-tea principles."

"The trouble with me," said his son bitterly, "is that I've been trying
to reform a city when I ought to have been reforming myself."

"Oh, you're all right, Boy-ee," his affectionate and admiring father
reassured him. "You're just finding yourself. As for this reform--" And
he was launched upon the second measure of the Paean of Policy when Hal
cut him short by ringing a bell and ordering the boy to send McGuire
Ellis to him. Ellis came up from the city room.

"Kill the epidemic story, Mr. Ellis," he ordered.

Red passion surged up into Ellis's face.

"Kill--" he began, in a strangled voice.

"Kill it. You understand?" The associate editor's color receded. He
looked with slow contempt from father to son.

"Oh, yes, I understand," he said. "Any other orders to-day?"

Hal made no reply. His father, divining that this was no time for
further speech, took his departure. McGuire Ellis went out with black
despair at his heart, a soldier betrayed by his captain. And the
proprietor of the "Clarion," his feet now set in the path of success and
profit, turned back to his work in sodden disenchantment, sighing as
youth alone sighs, and as youth sighs only when it foregoes the dream of
ideals which is its immortal birthright.




CHAPTER XXVIII

"WHOSE BREAD I EAT"


Having yielded, Hal proposed to take profit by his surrender. With a
cynicism born of his bitter disappointment and self-contempt, he took a
certain savage and painful satisfaction in stating the new policy
editorially.

"As the 'Clarion' is going to be a journalistic prostitute," said he to
his father, across the luncheon table, where they were consulting on
details of the new policy, "I'm going to go after the business on that
basis."

Dr. Surtaine was pained. Every effort of his own convenient logic he put
forth to prove that, in this instance, the path of duty and of glory
(financial) was one and the same. Hal refused the proffered gloss. "At
least you and I can call things by their right names now," said he.

But however Hal might talk, what he wrote met his elder's unqualified
approval, as it appeared in the proof sent him by his son. It was a
cunningly worded leading editorial, headed "Standards," and it dealt
appreciatively, not to say reverently, with the commercial greatness of
Worthington. Business, the editor stated, might have to adjust itself to
new conditions and opinions in Worthington as elsewhere, but nobody who
understood the character of the city's leading men could doubt their
good purpose or ability to effect the change with the least damage to
material prosperity. Meantime the fitting attitude for the public was
one not of criticism but of forbearance and assistance. This was equally
true of journalism. The "Clarion" admitted seeing a new light.
Constructive rather than destructive effort was called for. And so
forth, and so on. No intelligent reader could have failed, reading it,
to understand that the "Clarion" had hauled down its flag.

Yet the capitulation must not, for business reasons, be too obvious. Hal
spent some toilful hours over the proof, inserting plausible phrases,
covering his tracks with qualifying clauses, putting the best front on
the shameful matter, with a sick but determined heart, and was about to
send it up with the final "O.K." when he came out of his absorption to
realize that some one was standing waiting, had been standing waiting,
for some minutes at his elbow. He looked around and met the intent gaze
of the foreman of the composing-room.

"What is it, Veltman?" he asked sharply.

"That epidemic story."

"Well? What about it?"

"Did you order it killed?"

"Certainly. Haven't you thrown it down?"

"No. It's still in type."

"Throw it down at once."

"Mr. Surtaine, have you thought what you are doing?"

"It is no part of your job to catechize me, Veltman."

"Between man and man." He stepped close to Hal, his face blazing with
exaltation. "I must speak now or forever hold my peace."

"Speak fast, then."

"It's your last chance, this epidemic spread. Your last chance to save
the 'Clarion' and yourself."

"That will do, Velt--"

"No, no! Listen to me. I didn't say a word when you kept Milly's suicide
out of print."

"I should think not, indeed!" retorted Hal angrily.

"That's my shame. I ought to have seen that published if I had to set it
up myself."

"Perhaps you're not aware, Veltman, that I know your part in the Neal
affair."

"I'd have confessed to you, if you hadn't. But do you know your own?
Yours and your father's?"

"Keep my father out of this!"

"Your own, then. Do you know that the money that bought this paper for
you was coined out of the blood of deceived girls? Do you know that you
and I are paid with the proceeds of the ad. that led Milly Neal to her
death? Do you know that?"

"And if I do, what then?" asked Hal, overborne by the man's conviction
and vehemence.

"Tell it!" cried the other, beating his fist upon the desk until the
blood oozed from the knuckles. "Tell it in print. Confess, man, and warn
others!"

"Veltman, suppose we were to print that whole wretched story to-morrow,
including the truth about your relations with her."

"Do it! Do it!" cried the other, choked with eagerness. "I'd thank you
on my knees. Penance! Give me my chance to do penance! I'll make my own
confession in writing. I'll write it in my own blood if need be."

"Steady, Veltman. Keep cool."

"You think I'm crazy? Perhaps I am. There's a fire at my brain since she
died. I loved her, Mr. Surtaine."

"But you sacrificed her, Veltman," returned Hal in a gentler tone, for
the man's face was livid with agony.

"Don't I know it! My God, don't I know it! But _you_ can't escape the
responsibility because of my sin. It was your paper that helped fool
her. She believed in the paper, and in your father."

"The Relief Pills advertising is out. That much I'll tell you."

"Now that it's done its work. Not enough! You and I can't bring Milly
back to life, Mr. Surtaine, but we can save other lives in peril. God
has given you your chance, in this epidemic."

"How do you know about the epidemic?"

"Hasn't it taken Mr. Hale, the only friend I've got in the world? And
won't it take its hundreds of other lives unless warning is given? Why
doesn't the 'Clarion' speak out, Mr. Surtaine? _Why is that story
ordered killed?_"

"Consideration of policy which--"

"Policy! Oh, my God! And the people dying! Harrington Surtaine,"--his
eyes blazed into the other's with the flame of fanaticism,--"I tell you,
if you don't accept this opportunity that the Lord gives you, you and
your paper are damned. Do you know what it means to damn the soul of a
paper? Why, man, there are people who believe in the 'Clarion' like
gospel."

Hal got to his feet. "Veltman, I dare say you mean well. But you don't
understand this."

"Don't I!" The face took on a sudden appalling savagery. "Don't I know
you're bought and paid for! Sold out! That's what you've done. A
bargain! A bargain! Pay my little price and I'll do your meanest
bidding. I'd rather have hell burning at my heart as it burns now than
what you've got rotting at yours, young Surtaine."

The tensity of Hal's restraint broke. With one powerful effort he sent
the foreman whirling through the open door into the hall, slammed the
door after him, and stood shaking. He heard and felt the jar of
Veltman's body as it struck the wall, and slumped to the floor; then the
slow limp of his retreating footsteps. With a seething brain he returned
to his proof--and shuddered away from it. There was blood spattered over
the print. Hurriedly he thrust it aside and rang for a fresh galley. But
the red spots rose between his eyes and the work, like an accusation,
like a prophecy. Of a sudden he beheld this great engine of print which
had been, first, the caprice of his last flicker of irresponsible and
headlong youth, then the very mould in which his eager and ambitious
manhood was to form and fulfill itself--he beheld this vast mechanism
blazingly illumined as with some inner fire, and now become a terrific
genius, potent beyond the powers of humanity, working out the dire
complications of men, and the tragic destruction of women. And he beheld
himself, fast in its grip.

He thrust the proof into the tube, scrawled the "O.K." order on it for
the morrow, and hurried away from the office as from a place accursed.

That night conscience struck at him once more, making a weapon of words
from the book of a dead master. He had been reading "Beauchamp's
Career"; and, seeking refuge from the torture of thought in its magic,
he came upon the novelist-philosopher's damning indictment of modern
journalism:

_"And this Press, declaring itself independent, can hardly walk for
fear of treading on an interest here, an interest there. It cannot
have a conscience. It is a bad guide, a false guardian; its abject
claim to be our national and popular interpreter--even that is
hollow and a mockery. It is powerful only when subservient. An
engine of money, appealing to the sensitiveness of money, it has no
connection with the mind of the nation. And that it is not of, but
apart from the people, may be seen when great crises come--in
strong gales the power of the Press collapses; it wheezes like a
pricked pigskin of a piper."_

Hal flung the book from him. But its accusations pursued him through the
gates of sleep, and poisoned his rest.

In the morning he had recovered his balance, and with it his dogged
determination to see the matter through. He forced himself to read the
leading editorial, finding spirit even to admire the dexterity with
which he had held out the promise of good behavior to the business
interests, whilst pretending to a sturdy independence. Shearson met him
at the entrance to the building, beaming.

"That'll bring business," said the advertising manager. "I've had half a
dozen telephones already about it."

"That's good," replied Hal half-heartedly.

"Yes, _sir_," pursued the advertising manager: "I can smell money in
the air to-day. And, by the way, I've got a tip that, for a little mild
apology, E.M. Pierce will withdraw both his suits."

"I'll think about it," promised Hal. He was rather surprised at the
intensity of his own relief from the prospect of the court ordeal. At
least, he was getting his price.

McGuire Ellis was, for once, not asleep, though there was no work on his
desk when Hal entered the sanctum.

"Veltman's quit," was his greeting.

"I'm not surprised," said Hal.

"Then you've seen the editorial page this morning?"

"Yes. But what has that to do with Veltman's resignation?"

"Everything, I should think. Notice anything queer about the page?"

"No."

"Look it over again."

Hal took up the paper and scrutinized the sheet. "I don't see a thing
wrong," he said.

"That lets me out," said Ellis grimly. "If you can't see it when you're
told it's there, I guess I can't be blamed for not catching it in proof.
Of course the last thing one notices is a stock line that's always been
there unchanged. Look at the motto of the paper. Veltman must have
chiseled out the old one, and set this in, himself, the last thing
before we went to press. How do you like it? Looks to me to go pretty
well with our leading editorial this morning."

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