Part 65 (1/2)

”There's the difficulty. She doesn't seem to want to take care of herself. She's lost interest in the club. For a time she was drinking heavily at some of the all-night places. And this news of her quitting here is worst of all. She seemed so enthusiastic about the work.”

”Her job's open for her if she wants to come back.”

”Good! I'm glad to hear that. It gives me something to work on.”

”By the way,” said McGuire Ellis, ”how do you like the paper?” Sooner or later he put this question to every one with whom he came in contact.

What he found out in this way helped to make him the journalistic expert he was.

”Pretty well,” hesitated the other.

”What's wrong with it?” inquired Ellis.

”Well, frankly, some of your advertising.”

”We're the most independent paper in this town on advertising,” stated Ellis with conviction.

”I know you dropped the Sewing Aid Society advertis.e.m.e.nt,” admitted Hale. ”But you've got others as bad. Yes, worse.”

”Show 'em to me.”

Leaning forward to the paper on Ellis's desk, the visitor indicated the ”copy” of Relief Pills. Ellis's brow puckered.

”You're the second man to kick on that,” he said. ”The other was a doctor.”

”It's a bad business, Mr. Ellis. It's the devil's own work. Isn't it hard enough for girls to keep straight, with all the temptations around them, without promising them immunity from the natural results of immorality?”

”Those pills won't do the trick,” blurted Ellis.

”They won't?” cried the other in surprise.

”So doctors tell me.”

”Then the promise is all the worse,” said the clergyman hotly, ”for being a lie.”

”Well, I have troubles enough over the news part of the paper, without censoring the ads. When an advertiser tries to control news or editorial policy, I step in. Otherwise, I keep out. There's my platform.”

Hale nodded. ”Let me know how I can help on the epidemic matter,” said he, and took his leave.

”The trouble with really good people,” mused McGuire Ellis, ”is that they always expect other people to be as good as they are. And _that's_ expensive,” sighed the philosopher, turning back to his desk.

While Ellis and his specially detailed reporter were working out the story of the Rookeries epidemic in the light of Dr. Elliot's information, Hal Surtaine, floundering blindly, sought a solution to his problem, which was the problem of his newspaper. Indeed, it meant, as far as he could judge, the end of the ”Clarion” in a few months, should he decide to defy Elias M. Pierce. Against the testimony of the injured nurse, he could scarcely hope to defend the libel suits successfully.

Even though the a.s.sessed damages were not heavy enough to wreck him, the loss of prestige incident to defeat would be disastrous. Moreover, there was the chance of imprisonment or a heavy fine on the criminal charge. Furthermore, if he decided to print the account of the epidemic (always supposing that he could discover what it really was), practically every local advertiser would desert him in high dudgeon over the consequent ruin of the centennial celebration. Was it better to publish an honest paper for the few months and die fighting, or compromise for the sake of life, and do what good he might through the agency of a bound, controlled, and tremulous journalistic policy?

For the first time, now that the crisis was upon him, he realized to the full how profoundly the ”Clarion” had become part of his life. At the outset, only the tool of a casual though fascinating profession, later, the lever of an expanding and increasing power, the paper had insensibly intertwined with every fiber of his ambition. To a degree that startled him he had come to think, feel, and hope in terms of this thought-machine which he owned, which owned him. It had taken on for him a character; his own, yet more than his own and greater. For it spoke, not of his spirit alone, but with a composite voice; sometimes confused, inarticulate, only semi-expressive; again as with the tongues of prophecy. His s.h.i.+p was beginning to find herself; to evolve, from the anarchic clamor of loose effort, a harmony and a personality.

With the thought came a warm glow of loyalty to his fellow workers; to the men who, knowing more than he knew, had yet accepted his ideals so eagerly and stood to them so loyally; to the spirit that had flashed to meet his own at that first ”Talk-It-Over” breakfast, and had never since flagged; to Ellis, the harsh, dogged, uncouth evangel, preaching his strange mission of honor; to Wayne, patient, silent, laborious, dependable; to young Denton, a ”gentleman unafraid,” facing the threats of E.M. Pierce; even to portly Shearson, struggling against such dismal odds for _his_ poor little principle of journalism--to make the paper pay. How could he, their leader, recant his doctrine before these men?

Yet--and the qualifying thought dashed cold upon his enthusiasm--what did the alternative imply for them? The almost certain loss of their places. To be thrown into the street, a whole officeful of them, seeking jobs which didn't exist, on the collapse of the ”Clarion.” Could he do that to them? Did he not, at least, owe them a living? Some had come to the ”Clarion” from other papers, even from other cities, attracted by its enterprise, by its ”ginger,” by the rumor of a fresh and higher standard in journalism. What of them? For himself he had only reputation, ethical standard, the intangible matter of existence to consider. For them it might be hunger and want. Here, indeed, was a conflicting ideal.

His mind reverted to the things he had been able to get done, in the few months of his editorial tenure; the success of some of his campaigns, the educational effect of them even where they had failed of their definite object, as had the fight for the Consumers' League. One article had put the chief gambler of the city on the defensive to an extent which seriously crippled his business. Another had killed forever the vilest den in town, a saloon back-room where vicious women gathered in young boys and taught them to snuff cocaine, and had led to an anti-cocaine ordinance, which the saloon element, who instinctively resented any species of ”reform” as a threat against business, opposed.