Samuel Hopkins Adams - The Clarion

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The evening papers got out special bulletins on McGuire Ellis. None too
hopeful they were, for the fighting journalist, after a brief rally, had
sunk into a condition where life was the merest flicker. Always a
picturesque and well-liked personality, Ellis now became a species of
popular hero. Sympathy centralized on him, and through him attached
temporarily to the "Clarion" itself, which he now typified in the public
imagination. His condition, indeed, was just so much sentimental capital
to the paper, as the Honorable E.M. Pierce savagely put it to William
Douglas. Nevertheless, the two called at the hospital to make polite
inquiries, as did scores of their fellow leading citizens. Ellis,
stricken down, was serving his employer well.

Not that Hal knew this, nor, had he known it, would have cared. Sick at
heart, he waited about the hospital reception room for such meager hopes
as the surgeons could give him, until an urgent summons compelled him to
go to the office. Wayne had telephoned for him half a dozen times,
finally leaving a message that he must see him on a point in the
tenement-ownership story, to be run on the morrow.

Wayne, at the moment of Hal's arrival, was outside the rail talking to a
visitor. On the copy-book beside his desk was stuck an illustration
proof, inverted. Idly Hal turned it, and stood facing his final and
worst ordeal of principle. The half-tone picture, lovely, suave,
alluring, smiled up into his eyes from above its caption:--

"_Miss Esme Elliot, Society Belle and Owner of
No. 9 Sadler's Shacks, Known as the Pest-Egg."_

"You've seen it," said Wayne's voice at his elbow.

"Yes."

"Well; it was that I wanted to ask you about."

"Ask it," said Hal, dry-lipped.

"I knew you were a--a friend of Miss Elliot's. We can kill it out yet.
It--it isn't absolutely necessary to the story," he added, pityingly.

He turned and looked away from a face that had grown swiftly old under
his eyes. In Hal's heart there was a choking rush of memories: the
conquering loveliness of Esme; her sweet and loyal womanliness and
comradeship of the night before; the half-promise in her tones as she
had bid him come to her; the warm pressure of her arms fending him from
the sight of his friend's blood; and, far back, her voice saying so
confidently, "I'd trust you," in answer to her own supposititious test
as to what he would do if a news issue came up, involving her
happiness.

Blotting these out came another picture, a swathed head, quiet upon a
pillow. In that moment Hal knew that he was forever done with
suppressions and evasions. Nevertheless, he intended to be as fair to
Esme as he would have been to any other person under attack.

"You're sure of the facts?" he asked Wayne.

"Certain."

"How long has she owned it?"

"Oh, years. It's one of those complicated trusteeships."

Hope sprang up in Hal's soul. "Perhaps she doesn't know about it."

"Isn't she morally bound to know? We've assumed moral responsibility in
the other trusteeships. Of course, if you want to make a difference--"
Wayne, again wholly the journalist, jealous for the standards of his
craft, awaited his chief's decision.

"No. Have you sent a man to see her?"

"Yes. She's away."

"Away? Impossible!"

"That's what they said at the house. The reporter got the notion that
there was something queer about her going. Scared out, perhaps."

Hal thought of the proud, frank eyes, and dismissed that hypothesis.
Whatever Esme's responsibility, he did not believe that she would shirk
the onus of it.

"Dr. Elliot?" he enquired.

"Refused all information and told the reporter to go to the devil."

Hal sighed. "Run the story," he said.

"And the picture?"

"And the picture."

Going out he left directions with the telephone girl to try to get Miss
Elliot and tell her that it would be impossible for him to call that
day.

"She will understand when she sees the paper in the morning," he
thought. "Or think she understands," he amended ruefully.

The telephone girl did not get Miss Elliot, for good and sufficient
reasons, but succeeded in extracting a promise from the maiden cousin at
Greenvale that the message would be transmitted.

Through the day and far into the night Hal worked unsparingly, finding
time somehow to visit or call up the hospital every hour. At midnight
they told him that Ellis was barely holding his own. Hal put the
"Clarion" to bed that night, before going to the Surtaine mansion,
hopeless of sleep, yet, nevertheless, so worn out that he sank into
instant slumber as soon as he had drawn the sheets over him. On his way
to the office in the morning, he ran full upon Dr. Elliot. For a moment
Hal thought that the ex-officer meant to strike him with the cane which
he raised. It sank.

"You miserable hound!" said Dr. Elliot.

Hal stood, silent.

"What have you to say for yourself?"

"Nothing."

"My niece came to your office to save your rag of a sheet. I shot down a
poor crazy devil in your defense. And this is how you repay us."

Hal faced him, steadfast, wretched, determined upon only one thing: to
endure whatever he might say or do.

"Do you know who's really responsible for that tenement? Answer me!"

"No."

"I! I! I!" shouted the infuriated man.

"You? The records show--"

"Damn the records, sir! The property was trusteed years ago. I should
have looked after it, but I never even thought of its being what it is.
And my niece didn't know till this morning that she owned it."

"Why didn't you say so to our reporter, then?" cried Hal eagerly. "Let
us print a statement from you, from her--"

"In your sheet? If you so much as publish her name again--By Heavens, I
wish it were the old days, I'd call you out and kill you."

"Dr. Elliot," said Hal quietly, "did you think I wanted to print that
about Esme?"

"Wanted to? Of course you wanted to. You didn't have to, did you?"

"Yes."

"What compelled you?" demanded the other.

"You won't understand, but I'll tell you. The 'Clarion' compelled me. It
was news."

"News! To blackguard a young girl, ignorant of the very thing you've
held her up to shame for! The power of the press! A power to smirch the
names of decent people. And do you know where my girl is now, on this
day when your sheet is smearing her name all over the town?" demanded
the physician, his voice shaking with wrath and grief. "Do you know
that--you who know everybody's business?"

Chill fear took hold upon Hal. "No," he said.

"In quarantine for typhus. Here! Keep off me!"

For Hal, stricken with his first experience of that black, descending
mist which is just short of unconsciousness, had clutched at the other's
shoulder to steady himself.

"Where?" he gasped.

"I won't tell you," retorted the Doctor viciously. "You might make
another article out of that, of the kind you enjoy so much."

But this was too ghastly a joke. Hal straightened, and lifted his head
to an eye-level with his denouncer. "Enjoy!" he said, in a low tone.
"You may guess how much when I tell you that I've loved Esme with every
drop of my blood since the first time I ever spoke with her."

The Doctor's grim regard softened a little. "If I tell you, you won't
publish it? Or give it away? Or try to communicate with her? I won't
have her pestered."

"My word of honor."

"She's at the typhus hospital."

"And she's got typhus?" groaned Hal.

"No. Who said she had it? She's been exposed to it."

Hardly was the last word out of his mouth when he was alone. Hal had
made a dash for a taxi. "Health Bureau," he cried.

By good fortune he found Dr. Merritt in.

"You've got Esme Elliot at the typhus hospital," he said breathlessly.

"Yes. In the isolation ward."

"Why?"

"She's been exposed. She carried a child, in convulsions, into the
hospital. The child developed typhus late Saturday night; must have been
infected at the time. As soon as I knew, I sent for her, and she came
like the brave girl she is, yesterday morning."

"Will she get the fever?"

"God forbid! Every precaution has been taken."

"Merritt, that's an awful place for a girl like Miss Elliot. Get her
out."

"Don't ask me! I've got to treat all exposed cases alike."

"But, Merritt," pleaded Hal, "in this case an exception can't injure any
one. She can be completely quarantined at home. You told Wayne you owed
the 'Clarion' and me a big debt. I wouldn't ask it if it were anything
else; but--"

"Would you do it yourself?" said the young health officer steadily.
"Have you done it in your paper?"

"But this may be her life," argued the advocate desperately. "Think! If
it were your sister, or--or the woman you cared for."

Dr. Merritt's fine mouth quivered and set. "Kathleen Pierce is
quarantined with Esme," he said quietly.

The pair looked each other through the eyes into the soul and knew one
another for men.

"You're right, Merritt," said Hal. "I'm sorry I asked."

"I'll keep you posted," said the official, as his visitor turned away.

Meantime, Esme had volunteered as an emergency nurse, and been gladly
accepted. In the intervals of her new duties she had received from her
distracted cousin, who had been calling up every half-hour to find out
whether she "had it yet," Hal's message that he would not be able to see
her that day, and, not having seen the "Clarion," was at a loss to
understand it.

Chance, by all the truly romantic, is supposed to be a sort of
matrimonial agency, concerned chiefly in bringing lovers together. In
the rougher realm of actuality it operates quite as often, perhaps, to
keep them apart. Certainly it was no friend to Esme Elliot on this day.
For when later she learned from her guardian of his attack upon Hal
(though he took the liberty of editing out the _finale_ of the encounter
as he related it), she tried five separate times to reach Hal by 'phone,
and each time Chance, the Frustrator, saw to it that Hal was engaged.
The inference, to Esme's perturbed heart, was obvious; he did not wish
to speak to her. And to a woman of her spirit there was but one course.
She would dismiss him from her mind. Which she did, every night,
conscientiously, for many weary days.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE VICTORY

Nation-wide sped the news, branding Worthington as a pest-ridden city.
Every newspaper in the country had a conspicuous dispatch about it. The
bulletin of the United States Public Health Service, as in duty bound,
gave official and statistical currency to the town's misfortune. Other
cities in the State threatened a quarantine against Worthington.
Commercial travelers and buyers postponed their local visits. The hotel
registers thinned out notably. Business drooped. For all of which the
"Clarion" was vehemently blamed by those most concerned.

Conversely, the paper should have received part credit for the extremely
vigorous campaign which the health authorities, under Dr. Merritt, set
on foot at once. Using the "Clarion" exposure as a lever, the health
officer pried open the Council-guarded city tills for an initial
appropriation of ten thousand dollars, got a hasty ordinance passed
penalizing, not the diagnosing of typhus, but failure to diagnose and
report it,--not a man from the Surtaine army of suppression had the
temerity to oppose the measure,--organized a medical inspection and
detection corps, threw a contagion-proof quarantine about every infected
building, hunted down and isolated the fugitives from the danger-points
who had scattered at the first alarm, inspired the county medical
society to an enthusiastic support, bullied the police into a state of
reasonable efficiency, and with a combined volunteer and regular force
faced the epidemic in military form. Not least conspicuous among the
volunteers were Miss Esme Elliot and Miss Kathleen Pierce, who had been
released from quarantine quite as early as the law allowed, because of
the need for them at the front.

"We could never have done our job without you," said Dr. Merritt to Hal,
meeting him by chance one morning ten days after the publication of the
"spread." "If the city is saved from a regular pestilence, it'll be the
Clarion's' doing."

"That doesn't seem to be the opinion of the business men of the place,"
said Hal, with a rather dreary smile. He had just been going over with
the lugubrious Shearson a batch of advertising cancellations.

"Oh, don't look for any credit from this town," retorted the health
officer. "I'm practically ostracized, already, for my share in it."

"But are you beating it out?"

"God knows," answered the other. "I thought we'd traced all the foci of
infection. But two new localities broke out to-day. That's the way an
epidemic goes."

And that is the way the Worthington typhus went for more than a month.
Throughout that month the "Clarion" was carrying on an anti-epidemic
campaign of its own, with the slogan "Don't Give up Old Home Week." Wise
strategy this, in a double sense. It rallied public effort for victory
by a definite date, for the Committee on Arrangements, despite the
arguments of the weak-kneed among its number, and largely by virtue of
the militant optimism of its chairman, had decided to go on with the
centennial celebration if the city could show a clean bill of health by
August 30, thus giving six weeks' leeway.

Furthermore, it put the "Clarion" in the position of champion of the
city's commercial interests and daily bade defiance to those who
declared the paper an enemy and a traitor to business. In editorials, in
interviews, in educational articles on hygiene and sanitation, in a
course of free lectures covering the whole city and financed by the
paper itself, the "Clarion" carried on the fight with unflagging zeal.
Slowly it began to win back general confidence and much of the
popularity which it had lost. One of its reporters in the course of his
work contracted the fever and barely pulled through alive, thereby
lending a flavor of possible martyrdom to the cause. McGuire Ellis's
desperate fight for life also added to the romantic element which is so
potent an asset with the sentimental American public. Business, however,
still sulked. The defiance to its principles was too flagrant to be
passed over. If the "Clarion" pulled through, the press would lose
respect for the best interests and the vested privileges of commercial
Worthington. Indeed, others of the papers, since the "Clarion's"
declaration of independence, had exhibited a deplorable tendency to
disregard hints hitherto having the authority of absolutism over them.

In withholding advertising patronage from the Surtaine daily, the
business men were not only seeking reprisals, but also following a sound
business principle. For according to information sedulously spread
abroad, it was doubtful whether the "Clarion" would long survive. Elias
M. Pierce's boast that he would put it out of business gained literal
interpretation, as he had intended that it should. Contrary to his
accustomed habit of reticence, he had sought occasion to inform his
friends that he expected verdicts against the libeler of his daughter
which would throw the concern into bankruptcy, and, perhaps, its
proprietor into jail. No advertiser cares to put money into a
publication which may fail next week. Hence, though the circulation of
the "Clarion" went up pretty steadily, the advertising patronage did not
keep pace. Hal found himself hard put to it, at times, to cling to his
dogged hopes. But it was worth while fighting it out to the last dollar.
So much he was assured of by the messages of praise and support which
began to come in to him, not from "representative citizens," but from
the earnest, thoughtful, and often obscure toilers and thinkers of the
city: clergymen, physicians, laboring-men, working-women, sociological
workers--his peers.

Then, too, there was the profound satisfaction of promised victory over
the pest. For at the end of six weeks the battle was practically won; by
what heroisms, at the cost of what sacrifices, through what
disappointments, reversals, and set-backs, against the subtleties of
what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent
finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell,
in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most
complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My
concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who
fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the
honor of the paper which was his honor. His share, no small one, in the
wiping-out of the pestilence was, to him, but part of the war for which
he had enlisted.

But though the newspapers, with one joyous voice, were able to announce
early in August, on the authority of the federal reports, "No new case
in a week," the success of Old Home Week still swayed in the balance.
Outside newspapers, which had not forgotten the scandal of the smallpox
suppression years before, hinted that the record might not be as clear
as it appeared. The President of the United States, they pointed out,
who was to be the guest of honor and the chief feature of the
celebration, would not be justified in going to a city over which any
suspicion of pestilence still hovered. In fact, the success or failure
of the event practically hung upon the Chief Executive's action. If,
now, he decided to withdraw his acceptance, on whatever ground, the
country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain
against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous
to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had
vigorously maintained that the President would come. It was mostly
"bluff." He had nothing but hope to build on.

Two more "clean" weeks passed. At the close of the second, Hal stopped
one day at the hospital to see McGuire Ellis, who was finally
convalescent and was to be discharged on the following week. At the door
of Ellis's room he met Dr. Elliot. Somewhat embarrassed, he stepped
aside. The physician stopped.

"Er--Surtaine," he said hesitantly.

"Well?"

"I've had time to think things over. And I've had some talks with Mac.
I--I guess I was wrong."

"You were right enough from your point of view."

"Think so?" said the other, surprised.

"Yes. And I know I was right, from mine."

"Humph!" There was an uncomfortable pause. Then: "I called names. I
apologize."

"That's all right, then," returned Hal heartily.

"Woof!" exhaled the physician. "That's off my chest. Now, I've got an
item for you."

"For the 'Clarion'?"

"Yep. The President's coming."

"Coming? To Old Home Week?"

"To Old Home Week."

"An item! Great Caesar! A spread! A splurge!! A blurb!!! Where did you
get it?"

"From Washington. Just been there."

"Tell me all of it."

"Know Redding? He and I saw some tough service together in the old
M.H.S. That's the United States Public Health Service now. Redding's the
head of it; Surgeon-General. First-class man, every way. So I went to
see him and told him we had to have the President, and why. He saw it in
a minute. Knew all about the 'Clarion's' fight, too. He went to the
White House and explained the whole business. The President said that a
clean bill of health from the Service was good enough for him, and he'd
come, sure. Here's his letter to the Surgeon-General. It goes out for
publication to-morrow. There's a line in it speaking of the 'Clarion's'
good work."

"Great Caesar!" said Hal again, rather weakly.

"Does that square accounts between us?"

"More! A hundred times more! That's the biggest indorsement any paper in
this town ever had. Old Home Week's safe. Did you tell Mac?"

"Yes. He's up there cursing now because they won't let him go to the
office to plan out the article."

To the "Clarion," the presidential encomium was a tremendous boom
professionally. Financially, however, it was of no immediate avail. It
did not bring local advertising, and advertising was what the paper
sorely needed. Still, it did call attention to the paper from outside. A
few good contracts for "foreign" advertising, a department which had
fallen off to almost nothing when Hal discarded all medical "copy," came
in. With these, and a reasonable increase in local support which could
be counted upon, now that commercial bitterness against the paper was
somewhat mollified, Hal reckoned that he could pull through--if it were
not for the Pierce suits. There was the crux of the situation. Nothing
was being done about them. They had been postponed more than once, on
motion of Pierce's counsel. Now they hung over Hal's head in a suspense
fast becoming unbearable. At length he decided that, in fairness to his
staff, he should warn them of the situation.

He chose, for the explanation, one of the Talk-It-Over Breakfasts, the
first one which McGuire Ellis, released temporarily from the hospital
for the occasion, had attended since his wound. He sat at Hal's right,
still pale and thin, but with his look of bulldog obstinacy
undiminished; enhanced, rather, by the fact that one ear had been
sharpened to a canine pointedness by the missile which had so narrowly
grazed his life. Ellis had been goaded to a pitch of high exasperation
by the solicitude and attentions of his fellows. It was his emphatically
expressed opinion that the whole gathering lay under a blight of
superlative youthfulness. In his mind he exempted Hal, over whose
silence and distraction he was secretly worried. The cause was explained
when the chairman rose to close the meeting.

"There is something I have to say," he said. "I've put it off longer
than I should. I may have to give up the 'Clarion.' It depends upon the
outcome of the libel suits brought by E.M. Pierce. If, as we fear, Miss
Cleary, the nurse who was run over, testifies for the prosecution, we
can't win. Then it's only a question of the size of the damages. A big
verdict would mean the ruin of the paper, I'm telling you this so that
you may have time to look for new jobs."

There was a long silence. Then a melancholy, musing voice said: "Gee!
That's tough! Just as the paper pulled off the Home Week stunt, too."

"How much of a verdict would bust us?" asked another.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars," said Hal, "together with lawyers' fees.
I couldn't go on."

"Say, I know that old hen of a nurse," said one of the sporting writers,
with entire seriousness. "Wonder if it'd do any good to marry her?"

A roar went up from the table at this, somewhat relieving the tension of
the atmosphere.

Shearson, the advertising manager, lolling deep in his chair, spoke up
diffidently, as soon as he could be heard:

"I ain't rich. But I've put a little wad aside. I could chip in three
thou' if that'd help."

"I've got five hundred that isn't doing a stitch of work," declared
Wainwright.

"Some of my relations have wads of money," suggested young Denton. "I
wouldn't wonder if--"

"No, no, no!" cried Hal, in a shaken voice. "I know how well you
fellows mean it. But--"

"As a loan," said Wainwright hopefully. "The paper's good enough
security."

"_Not_ good enough," replied Hal firmly. "I can't take it, boys.
You--you're a mighty good lot, to offer. Now, about looking for other
places--"

"All those that want to quit the 'Clarion,' stand up," shouted McGuire
Ellis.

Not a man moved.

"Unanimous," observed the convalescent. "I thought nobody'd rise to
that. If anybody had," he added, "I'd have punched him in the eye."

The gathering adjourned in gloom.

"All this only makes it harder, Mac," said Hal to his right-hand man
afterward. "They can't afford to stick till we sink."

"If a sailor can do it, I guess a newspaper man can," retorted the other
resentfully. "I wish I could poison Pierce."

At dinner that night Hal found his father distrait. Since the younger
man's return, the old relations had been resumed, though there were
still, of necessity, difficult restraints and reservations in their
talk. The "Clarion," however, had ceased to be one of the tabooed
subjects. Since the publication of the President's letter and the saving
of Old Home Week, Dr. Surtaine had become an avowed Clarionite. Also he
kept in personal touch with the office. This evening, however, it was
with an obvious effort that he asked how affairs were going. Hal
answered listlessly that matters were going well enough.

"No, they aren't, Boy-ee. I heard about your talk to-day."

"Did you? I'm sorry. I don't want to worry you."

"Boy-ee, let me back you."

"I can't, Dad."

"Because of that old agreement?"

"Partly."

"Call it a loan, then. I can't stand by and see the paper licked by
Pierce. Fifty thousand won't touch me. And it'll save you."

"Please, Dad, I can't do it."

"Is it because it's Certina money?"

Hal turned miserable eyes on his father. "Hadn't we better keep away
from that?"

"I don't get you at all on that," cried the charlatan. "Why, it's
business. It's legal. If I didn't sell 'em the stuff, somebody else
would. Why shouldn't I take the money, when it's there?"

"There's no use in my trying to argue it with you, Dad. We're miles
apart."

"That's just it," sighed the older man. "Oh, well! You couldn't help my
paying the damages if Pierce wins," he suggested hopefully.

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