_THE CLARION_
Yetta found the strike of the paper-box makers more serious than she had
expected. The conditions of the trade were appalling. The half dozen
factories were only the centre of a widespread sweating system. More
than half of the work was done in the tenements of the districts where
the Child Labor Law could be evaded and where women could be driven to
work incredibly long hours beyond the reach of the Factory Inspectors.
The strikers were not only isolated--lost in a backwater district of
Brooklyn, out of touch with labor organizations, ignorant of the laws
and of their rights--they were also weakened by the division of
languages. All were "greenhorn" immigrants, who had not yet learned
English. They belonged to diverse and hostile races--a disunited medley
of Slovaks, Poles, Italians, and Jews. The bosses have been quick to
discover how serious an impediment to organization is a mixture of
races.
Yetta came to them in the same way that Mabel, three and a half years
before, had come to the striking vest-makers--bringing detailed,
practical knowledge of how to manage a strike. As soon as she had
telephoned in a first story to _The Clarion_, she took up the work of
bringing order and hope into the despairing chaos of the struggle. She
called on the police captain, and her threat of publicity made him
change his mind in regard to the right of the strikers to hold meetings.
Before supper-time the effect of the _Clarion_ story was evident. Half a
dozen labor organizers and Socialist speakers turned up. With this
outside help the paper-box makers were able to organize their picket,
arrange meetings, and start plans for money-raising. A Socialist lawyer
took up the cases of the dozen odd strikers who had been arrested.
By ten o'clock the situation was immensely improved. Yetta escaped to a
typewriter to get out her big "follow-up" for the next day's paper. She
went at it with a peculiar thrill. She was realizing for the first time
what a power in the fight a working-man's paper might be.
While she was working out her story, the semi-annual stockholders'
meeting of the Coöperative Newspaper Publishing Company was called to
order in one of the halls of the Labor Temple on East Eighty-fourth
Street.
Walter had spoken of _The Clarion_ as "Isadore's paper." In reality it
was a coöperative enterprise. In the days when the working-men nearly
elected Henry George as Mayor of New York, they had started to raise
money to found a newspaper which would represent the interests of their
class. It was decided that fifty thousand dollars was necessary, and a
committee had been formed. In the first enthusiasm they had collected
five thousand. Fresh efforts had been made intermittently, and the sum
had grown to eight thousand.
When Isadore had returned from his vacation with the Pauldings, he had
decided to centre his efforts on this project. He had studied the ways
and means carefully, he had infused new life into the committee, and at
last he had succeeded in organizing this coöperative publishing company.
At their first meeting they had decided that fifty thousand was
hopeless, and that they could begin with twenty-five. But after
straining every nerve for six months, arranging balls and picnics and
fairs, they had raised only twelve thousand. _The Clarion_ was started
on that amount. Every one who knew anything about modern journalism told
Isadore he was a fool.
At first the paper ran on its capital. But after a few months the income
from circulation, advertisements, and job-printing reduced the weekly
deficit to about five hundred dollars. This was met in part by the
Maintenance Pledge Fund. About two thousand people, mostly members of
the Socialist party, had pledged weekly contributions ranging from ten
cents to a few dollars. The remaining deficit was met by pure and simple
begging and by rebates from the wages. Never was a paper run on a more
strenuous and flimsy basis. The lack of economy of such poverty-stricken
operation would have shocked any business man, would have caused
apoplexy to an "efficiency expert." The cost of every process was twice
or thrice what it would have been if they had had more money.
But financial worries were only a small part of what Isadore and his
little band of enthusiastic helpers had to contend with. _The Clarion_
was the property of the democratically organized shareholders, who
elected an Executive Committee of five to manage it. Of all phases of
public life, Democracy has shown itself least prepared to deal sanely
with this business of newspapers. As a whole the stockholders of the
company were deeply dissatisfied with the regular newspapers and
ardently desired one which would truly represent their class. But
although they were making great sacrifices, were putting up an amazingly
large share of their earnings to support _The Clarion_, their idea of
what to expect from it was very vague. They knew nothing at all of the
technical problems of journalism.
The Executive Committee had stated meetings every week, and seemed to
Isadore to be holding special meetings every ten minutes. More of his
time went to educating this board of managers, teaching them what could
and what could not be done with their limited resources, than in actual
work on the paper.
When the meeting of the shareholders had been called to order,
Rheinhardt, the chairman of the Executive Committee, read his report.
The circulation had reached twelve thousand. The weekly deficit had been
reduced to $400. The Maintenance Pledge Fund had brought in $310. Gifts
to the amount of $66.50 had been received. The office force had
receipted for $23.50 which they had not received. For the first time in
the history of _The Clarion_ a week had passed without increasing the
indebtedness.
Then the meeting fell into its regular routine of useless criticism. One
desperately earnest Socialist vehemently objected to some of the
advertisements which, he said, favored capitalistic enterprise. He was
immediately followed by another Comrade who accused the advertising
force of rank inefficiency in not securing more of it. A third speaker
said it was foolish to waste space on sporting news. The working-class
had more serious things to think about. Three or four others at once
clamored for the floor. They all told the same story: the men in their
shops bought the papers to see how the Giants were coming along in the
race for the baseball pennant. They would not buy _The Clarion_ because
its athletic news was weak. So it went on as usual--every suggestion was
combated by a counterproposal--and so it would have gone on till
adjournment, if one of the Executive Committee had not lost heart in the
face of this futile criticism and resigned.
Wilhelm Stringer jumped up.
"Ve haf in our branch a comrade who is one gut newspaper lady. She has
vorked mit a big yellow journal. I like to see gut Socialist on the
komität, but alzo ve need some gut newspaper man. Und I nominate Comrade
Yetta Rayefsky."'
No one sought the nomination, for it was a hard and thankless job, so
Yetta was elected by acclamation.
"Ve vill nearly kill her mit vork. Yes?" Stringer said to Isadore as the
meeting broke up.
"Do you think she'll accept?" Isadore asked dubiously.
"Sure, she vill. It is a gut girl. I haf not as yet asked her, but now I
vill write a letter und tell her."
He gave the note to Isadore to deliver.
Yetta finished her copy about midnight, but finding much detail still
needing attention at the strike headquarters, she decided to make a
night of it and sleep in Brooklyn with a family of strikers. It was
three in the morning before she turned in--too tired to remember with
any clearness that her butterfly wings had been broken. More than once
during the day she had had to fight against her tears--to struggle
against the desire to drop all this work and rush back to Manhattan and
Walter. But always at the weak moment some one who was weaker had asked
her help.
It all had to be fought out again when she woke. She might not have won,
if the conviction had not come to her during her sleep that somehow it
must all turn out right in the end. When she reached "headquarters" she
found so much to do that she had no time to mourn. The first mail
brought in more than fifty dollars--the result of her yesterday's story.
But better still was the fact that _The Clarion's_ glaring headlines had
forced the attention of the regular papers. The strike was receiving
wide publicity. There is no other class of evil-doers who so ardently
love darkness in their business as "unfair" employers. The bosses had
not been much worried by the revolt of their workers, but they did not
like to read about it--to have their acquaintances read about it--in
their morning papers.
It was ten o'clock before Yetta could get away. Coming across on the
elevated, she had her first chance to look at the yesterday's issue of
_The Clarion_. It caused a revulsion from her feeling of enthusiasm over
a working-man's paper. What a pitiful sheet it was! How different in
tone and quality from the one Walter had talked of so glowingly! It was
not only unattractive in appearance. There was not a detail which, to
Yetta's trained eye, seemed well done. The headlines of her own story,
which spread across the top of the front page, were crude. A dozen
better ones suggested themselves to her. The mistakes they had made in
expanding her telephone message to two columns were ludicrous and
vexatious. What else was there in the paper? The rest of the front page
was filled with telegrams which had been news several hours before it
had gone to press! The second page--it was headed "Labor News"--offended
Yetta especially. It was mostly "exchange paragraphs" clipped from trade
journals. The original matter was written by some one who did not
understand nor sympathize with the Trade-Union Movement, who evidently
thought that every worker who was not a party member was mentally
defective. The only spark of personality on the last page was Isadore's
editorial. It was a bit ponderous and long-drawn-out, but at least it
was intense and thoughtful. The cartoon was poorly drawn and required an
analytic mind to discover the point. Yetta found it hard to believe that
twelve thousand people had been willing to buy so uninteresting a paper
when they could get the bright, snappy, sixteen-page _Star_ for the same
money.
She was tired and discouraged when she reached the office.
"I'm not a headline writer," she said as she tossed her copy on Levine's
table, "but I've ground out some that aren't quite so stupid as those
you ran yesterday."
Without waiting for his retort she went on to Isadore's desk.
"Here's a note from Stringer," he said as a greeting.
She tore it open listlessly.
"Well! That's a nervy piece of business," she said, throwing it into the
waste-paper basket. "Electing me without asking my consent."
"Won't you serve?"
"No."
Isadore leaned back in his swivel chair and puffed nervously at his
cigarette.
"Don't you think the job's worth doing?"
"It's worth doing well--but not like this."
It seemed to Isadore that a word of encouragement from her would have
put new life into him. But she--like everybody else--had only criticism.
He had a foolish desire to cry and an equally insane desire to curse. He
managed to do neither.
"Well, what would you suggest? To bring it up to your standard of
worth-while-ness?"
"It'll never be a newspaper till the front page gets over this
day-before-yesterday look--for one thing."
"If you knew what we're up against," he said, laboriously trying to hide
the sting her scorn gave him, "I think you'd be proud of our news
department--as proud as I am. In the first place, of course, we have to
subscribe to the very cheapest News Agency. Until we can afford some
more delivery wagons--we've only got two now--we'll have to go to press
by one. That means that the telegraphic copy must be in at
twelve-thirty. The flimsies don't begin to come in till eleven. We can
receive only one hour and a half out of twenty-four. And it's a rotten,
unreliable, dirty capitalistic service--the only one we can afford. Half
of it has to be rewritten. Harry Moore, who also reports night meetings,
clips the labor papers, attends to the make-up, runs the 'Questions and
Answers,' and collects jokes and fillers, has to read every despatch and
rewrite most of them. Yes, I'm rather proud of our telegraphic
department."
"Is the financial side so hopeless?" Yetta asked.
"Well, I don't call it hopeless. You're a member of the Executive
Committee--at least till you resign--so you'd best look into the books."
For half an hour they bent their heads over balance-sheets. It was an
appalling situation. The debt was out of all proportion to the property.
To be sure much of it was held by sympathizers, who were not likely to
foreclose. But there was no immediate hope of decreasing the burden. Any
new income would have to go into improvements. The future of the paper
depended not only on its ability to carry this dead weight, but on the
continuance of the Pledge Fund and on Isadore's success in begging about
a hundred dollars a week.
"It's hopeless," Yetta said. "You might run a good weekly on these
resources, but you need ten times as much to keep up a good daily."
"Well, if you feel that way about it, Yetta, I hope you'll resign at
to-night's meeting." His eyes turned away from her face about the busy
room, and his discouraged look gave place to one of conviction. A note
of dogged determination rang in his voice.--"Because it isn't hopeless!
Our only real danger is that the executive committee may kill us with
cold water. If we can get a committee that believes in us, we'll be all
right. A paper like this isn't a matter of finance. That's what you--and
the other discouragers--don't see. You look at it from a bourgeoise
dollar-and-cents point of view. It's hopeless, is it? Well, we've been
doing this impossible thing for more than a year. It's hopeless to carry
such indebtedness? Good God! We started with nothing but debts--nothing
at all to show. Every number that comes out makes it more hopeful. The
advertising increases. The Pledge Fund grows. Why, we've got twelve
thousand people in the habit of reading it now. That habit is an asset
which doesn't show in the books. Six months ago we had nothing!--not
even experience. Why, our office force wasn't even organized! And now
you say it's hopeless--want us to quit--just when it's getting
relatively easy. We--"
Levine's querulous voice rose above the din of the machines--finding
fault with something. A stenographer in a far corner began to count,
"One! Two! Three!" Every one in the office, even the linotypers and
printer's devil beyond the partition took up the slogan.
"O-o-oh! Cut it out and work for Socialism."
The tense expression on Isadore's face relaxed into a confident grin.
"That's it. You think we need money to run this paper? We're doing it on
enthusiasm. And nothing is going to stop us."
"I'll think it over," Yetta said. "If I can't see any chance of helping,
I won't stay on the Committee to discourage you. I've got to go up to
the League now and make peace with Mabel. I was so busy in Brooklyn last
night I forgot all about a speaking engagement she'd made for me."
As she rode uptown Yetta was surprised by a strange revulsion towards
her old work and workmates. Why the shattering of her romance should
have changed her outlook on life she could not determine. She seemed
somehow to have graduated from it all. Even with wings broken a
butterfly does not want to crawl back into the chrysalis. All her old
life had become abhorrent to her. She hated the steps in front of the
League office as she walked up them. She realized that she was
dangerously near hating Mabel. More sharply than ever before she felt
the chasm between this finely bred upper-class woman and herself. No
matter how hard she tried she would never be able to climb entirely out
of her sweat-shop past. Jealousy made her unjust. She attributed
Walter's preference--which was purely a matter of chance--to this
difference in breeding.
Mabel, sitting within at her desk, was in no more cordial a mood. Walter
had not called the night before. This had affected her more than she
would have believed possible. It seemed typical of the way she was being
deserted. A hungry loneliness had been gathering within her of late. The
process of growing old seemed to be a gradual sloughing off of the
relationships which really counted. Old age with Eleanor was a dreary
outlook. She had not had many suitors this last year--none that
mattered. As she had sat at home waiting for Walter to call, realizing
minute by minute that he was not coming, the loneliness which had been
only a hungry ache had changed to an acute pain. She was no more in love
with him than before. But--although she had not admitted it to herself
in so many words--if he had come, still seeking her, she knew she would
have married him out of sheer fright at the doleful prospect of being
left alone.
At the office that morning she had found a letter, which he had written
the day before. He was sorry to have missed her. He was to be in the
country only a few days, was leaving that afternoon for Boston--a
collection he wanted to look over in the Harvard Museum--and was sailing
from there to England. He told of the Oxford professorship he was
accepting, and he was "Very truly yours." He did not even give his
Boston address.
It was his formal "_adieu_." It was the concrete evidence--which is
often so distressing, even when the fact is already known--that another
chapter was finished.
She had hardly finished this letter when a telephone message had come,
asking why Yetta had failed to appear at the meeting. It was a small
matter, but it seemed important to Mabel. Yetta, the reliable, the
dependable, had failed her. Was this a new desertion?
The stenographers had made more mistakes that morning than was their
general average for a week.
At last Yetta came in. Her haggard face shocked Mabel. She forgot her
own discomforts in a sudden flood of sympathy.
"What's the matter?" she asked anxiously. "Are you sick? Is that why you
didn't speak last night?"
"No," Yetta replied shortly. It irritated her to think that her
heartbreak showed in her face. "I'm not sick. I forgot."
"Forgot?"
"Yes. I forgot all about it till it was too late to do any good
telephoning. I was over in Brooklyn. And even if I hadn't forgot, I
couldn't have come. This paper-box strike is a lot more important than
that meeting."
"Paper-box makers? I did not know they were striking."
"If you read _The Clarion_, you'd find out about such things."
Yetta tossed her copy on Mabel's desk. The edge of each word had shaved
a trifle off the traditional friendship between them. Mabel had not
intended to lose her temper. The sight of Yetta had touched her deeply.
But it seemed to her--from Yetta's first word--that she was being
flouted. _The Clarion_ was the last straw. Below the glaring headlines
was Yetta's name at the head of the story.
"So, you thought it more important to write an article for _The Clarion_
than to keep an engagement for the League? I'd like to know whether
you're working for me or for Isadore Braun."
Yetta had not intended to lose her temper, either. But she had been too
tired and storm-tossed to be thoughtful. She was flooded by an insolent
recklessness. Mabel Train did not need to put on airs, just because she
had had a better education.
"Neither," she said defiantly. "I'm drawing my salary from the Woman's
Trade Union League. If they don't like my work, all they've got to do is
to tell me."
A stenographer giggled.
Yetta walked over to her letter-box and looked over her mail.
"Am I to understand that you are offering me your resignation?" Mabel
asked.
"Oh, no! I was just making a general statement. Any time the Advisory
Council want my resignation they can get it by asking."
Suddenly Yetta wanted to cry.
"What's the use of quarrelling?" she said contritely, coming over to
Mabel's desk. "I'm all done up. Haven't had any sleep lately. Cross as a
bear. I'll go home--a couple of hours' sleep will do me good. I'm sorry
I--"
Her eye fell on the envelope of Walter's note. His well-loved
handwriting stared at her--jeeringly. What did he have to say to Mabel?
The apology died on her lips.
Mabel was too deeply offended to make peace easily. She had felt
humiliated by the snicker of her secretary. She kept her eyes turned
away and so did not see the sudden spasm of pain which twisted Yetta's
face. She waited a moment for the apology which did not come. Then she
turned back to her work without looking up.
"I will certainly present the matter to the next meeting of the Advisory
Council," she said coldly.
Yetta turned without a word and slammed the door as she went out.