PHENOMENA do not occur upon legislative flag-staffs without due
process. The astonishing manifestation of a sardonic intent above the
unconscious lawmakers of Centralia was not the fruit of magic, black or
white, but of a simple and easy substitution. The legitimate ornament
of the staff was lowered each evening into a box, where it lay, still
attached to its halyards, and was raised therefrom in the morning by an
assistant janitor who, operating the rope from within the dome, never
saw the flag as it mounted to the peak. What more easy, since the dome
was always open and unguarded, than for some demoniac-souled satirist
to ascend to the repository and substitute an alien banner, always
supposing him able to lay possessive hands upon such a thing? Since
the Lusitania rejoicings, German flags had blossomed broadcast in the
streets of Fenchester, and each new submarine success had brought
them forth afresh. As a matter of fact, the satirical substituter had
borrowed the Deutscher Club’s proud insignium.
How would the German-Americans take it? That was the first question in
the minds of Jeremy Robson and Andrew Galpin alike. When the first shock
of amazement wore off, it began to appear that they were taking it with
a certain gusto. A joke? Oh, certainly! But a joke with a deserved sting
in it for the “Know-Nothings,” the jingo-patriots who could admit
no other nationality than their own to any rightful say in American
affairs. Privately they were much inclined to chuckle. The forehanded
among them hastened forth with cameras to perpetuate the spicy relish
of their flag exalted in the high place of the State. While the click
of shutters was at its height, the flag came down. Somebody in the Main
Square shouted “Hoch der Kaiser!” and there was a burst of laughter and
applause.
But for that, casual and insignificant as it was, Jeremy Robson might
have treated the matter tactfully, or jocularly, as did The Record. But
that heavy, Teutonic mirth roused a dogged wrath within him. What he
composed for a “box” on that evening’s editorial page was unpleasant
writing and extremely unpleasant reading. There were but few sentences,
but they stung. And that which rankled was the suggestion that the
insult to the State and the Nation was fittingly typified in the flag
from that organization which had jubilated in wine and song over the
murder of American women and children aboard the Lusitania.
Before the editorial had been out two hours there were rumors of a
mob that was to be raised against The Guardian. Jeremy returned to
the office. So did Galpin; also Verrall, white with consternation and
chagrin over the reckless challenge of the editorial which could not
fail to prejudice the circulation and advertising of the paper; and a
dozen other of the staff. At eight o’clock the rhythm of marching feet
sounded, and the tumult of voices. Five hundred undergraduates from Old
Central massed in the street before the office and gave the University’s
three times three for The Guardian and its owner. The rumor had come to
them. They were there to tackle any mob that arrived seeking trouble.
None materialized. The students stayed and sang and cheered until
midnight, and then dispersed. More than the protection offered, to those
of The Guardian, was the proof that Young America at least was still
American to the core, without taint of doubt or hyphen!
The mob-rumor had been a canard. Organizations such as the Deutscher
Club do not raise mobs. They sit in solemn conclave, when action is
called for, and appoint proper committees. Insult gross and profound
having been offered Fenchester’s leading social organization, its
president summoned the Board of Governors, which in turn appointed a
Special Committee with instructions. The first act of the committee
was to advertise a liberal reward for the “apprehension of the criminal
miscreant”--to such heights of expressiveness did righteous indignation
run--who had filched the club’s flag. The second was to send a
sub-committee to call upon Mr. Jeremy Robson, owner and responsible
editor of that libertine sheet, The Guardian. Chance may or may not
have dictated that two of the committee, Arnold Blasius, the hatter, and
Nicholas Engel, the grocer, should be important local advertisers. The
chairman was Emil Bausch.
Forewarned of their coming, Jeremy had Andrew Galpin on hand. The two
young makers of The Guardian, shirt-sleeved and alert, received the
black-coated delegation of clubmen, formal and accusing, in the inner
den.
“We have come to demand a full retragtion,” Emil Bausch opened the ball.
Unhappily, since his first interview with that dignitary, Jeremy had
been invariably afflicted with mingled exasperation and amusement at
Bausch’s every action. The apostle of Deutschtum roused within Jeremy
an impulse of perversity which flatly refused to take the heavy German
seriously.
“All right. Go ahead and do it.”
“Do what?” Bausch’s eyes goggled at the editor suspiciously.
“Do what you came to do. Make your demand.”
“I do do it.”
“You make a formal demand on behalf of the Deutscher Club for a
retraction of my editorial?”
“We do.”
“Declined, with the editor’s thanks.”
Mr. Bausch’s neck showed signs of swelling beyond the confines of his
collar. “You refuse to accebd the rebre-sentations of this commiddee?”
he inquired, with a thickening accent.
“Don’t know. Let’s hear ’em.”
The chairman produced from the official pocket a document which he
proceeded to render vocally. It was quite grave and awful in verbiage,
and there was a great deal of it, rising through a spiral of whereas-es
to a climax of denunciation. At the conclusion the editor held out his
hand.
“If you please.”
“You want this?” queried Mr. Bausch doubtfully. “What for?”
“For to-morrow’s paper.”
“You wish to publish it? Why?”
A glint appeared in Jeremy’s eye. “It’s so prettily worded,” he
explained with sweet simplicity.
Bausch turned the characterization over in his heavy mind. “Pretty,” he
said. “_Pretty?_ I do not think--”
“He’s making a fool of you, Mr. Chairman,” broke in Engel, a little,
neat, nervous man. He turned on Jeremy. “You insult our club and now you
insult us.”
“Apropos of insults,” retorted Jeremy: “what about this document that
Mr. Bausch has just read so expressively? Murder seems to be about the
only thing that is n’t charged in it. Would you call that a testimonial
of regard?”
“Consider the provocation,” said Blasius. “Be square about this thing,
Mr. Robson.”
“Give me a chance,” returned the editor promptly. “Don’t begin by
holding a gun to my head.”
“The case is blain,” stated Bausch in his heavy accents. “You cannot
deny the editorial charching that we made a festivity over the
Lusitania.”
“Evidently not.”
“We demand a retragtion of that.”
“On what ground?”
“Because it was an outrache on a high-toned, representative
organization, a private--”
“Was n’t it true?” Andrew Galpin’s sharp-edged voice injected a new and
brisker element.
“Huh?” The interrogation seemed to have been jolted out of Chairman
Bausch’s volume from somewhere below the Adam’s apple.
“Was n’t it true that there was a dinner at the club to celebrate the
Lusitania?”
“That is not the question.”
“It’s my question.”
“It’s the only question,” put in Jeremy.
“You refuse to apologize--”
“For commenting on fact? Certainly.”
“While we ’re on the subject,” pursued Galpin, “is n’t it true that
Professor Brender, of Old Central, came in when the dinner was half
over, and gave you all hell for pulling such a rotten stunt?”
“Gott im Himmel!” muttered Blasius. He turned to Bausch. “Is that true?”
“That he said his heart was all for Germany, and that if submarine
warfare was necessary to her success it must go on; but that the man who
rejoiced over its necessary tragedies was a reckless fool who put every
decent German-American in a false light? Isn’t that true?” continued
the relentless voice of Galpin.
“Are you going to prind that?” muttered Bausch.
“A newspaper does n’t print everything it hears. If we could have
verified it, we’d have printed it, at the time.”
“We shall come back to the point,” said the chairman, recovering
himself. “The Guardian editorial is an affront to a respected and
valuable element of the community.”
“We don’t respect child-and-women murderers,” flashed Jeremy, “nor those
who honor them.”
“It all comes to this, Mr. Robson.” This was Blasius. “Is your paper for
or against Germany in this war?”
“The Guardian is neutral.”
“Neutral!” snorted Bausch. “A straddler.”
“Is that editorial neutral?” demanded Engel.
“Not neutral as regards piracy,” answered its writer steadily. “Neutral
as regards legitimate warfare.”
“Of which you are the jutch,” sneered Bausch.
“So far as my paper is concerned.”
Bausch returned doggedly to the charge. “The Deutscher Club is a private
organization of gentlemen. For what goes on within its doors we are not
resbonsible to any outsider. The Guardian has traduced and defamed us--”
“Sounds like an action for libel,” interpolated Galpin. “Who drew that
up: Judge Dana?”
Again the chairman gulped in unpleasant surprise. But he recovered and
continued: “--and in the name of the club we demand a full and fitting
apology--”
“Hold on!” cried Jeremy. “It was a retraction just now.”
“Retragtion or apology,” amended the baited chairman. “It is all the
same.”
“Quite different. A retraction admits an untruth. An apology merely says
we’re sorry.”
“I guess either will do,” muttered Engel uncertainly, perceiving that
matters were not improving by discussion. “We’ll leave it to you which.”
Jeremy stood up significantly. “Neither,” said he.
The other two committeemen led out their chairman whose Adam’s apple,
though pumping furiously, was missing fire so far as vocal result was
concerned. Their excited interchange of views died away in the hall.
“I guess we’ve invited Old Miss Trouble in to tea this time, sure,”
observed Galpin.
“You didn’t tell _me_ about the Brender outbreak, Andy.”
“You were away at the time and had enough troubles, anyway. We could n’t
get it in any such shape that I dared print it.”
“Would n’t Brender talk?”
“Tried him. Tight like a clam. Murray, who was assigned to tackle him,
said he looked like a man who had lost something.”
“His country, maybe,” surmised Jeremy.
“Ay-ah. I would n’t wonder. I tell you, Boss, there’s a type of
German-American that is going through hell and out the other end before
this thing is over. Me, I’m glad I’m not one!”
“I’d rather be that kind than belong to the Bausch species, though.
Let’s start a Back-to-Germany movement in The Guardian, Andy, and
nominate Bausch for the first departure. Would n’t that qualify us for
the Suicide Club!”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Boss. The Dutchers will save us the trouble of
suicide, if they can.”
And on the following day, he bore the news of the first attack to his
chief.
“Boss, prepare! The blow has fell!” he proclaimed tragically.
“Who’s been denouncing us now?”
“Worse. We’re excommunicated. The Deutscher Club has expelled the paper
from its sacred precincts. Out we go, lock, stock, and barrel: bell,
book, and candle. Two whole copies lost to circulation at one swoop.”
“Mild, Andy, mild! Verrall’s got a list of thirty-seven quits by
this morning’s mail. He’ll die of heart-failure superinduced by bad
circulation if you and I don’t stop running this paper into the ground.”
“Verrall’s an earnest soul,” observed the general manager, “but he’s
always on the borderland of hysteria, and if an advertiser looks cross
at him, over he flops.”
“Yes. He had an ‘attack’ this morning. Blasius is out.”
“Entirely?”
“Five inches double; three times a week. Gone glimmering into the jaws
of Hun ruthlessness.”
“Any one else?”
“Threats of reduced space. If only they dared, Andy, what would n’t they
do to us! But they need us in their business.”
Confirmation in part of Verrall’s dismal forebodings came from Arthur
Betts, of Kelter & Betts, who dropped in to see Jeremy. Since the first
struggle with the Retailers’ Association, Betts had proved himself a
“good sport,” as he would have wished to have it put, in admitting The
Guardian’s right to editorial independence, which did not in any measure
inhibit him from trying to “put one over” on the paper whenever he
thought that he saw a chance. That was part of the game. Though usually
worsted, he sometimes succeeded in landing a bit of free advertising.
But, like a sound opponent, he had become a strong partisan of Jeremy as
against the field.
“You sure put it to the German lot in that editorial,” he observed with
a shining eye.
“They had it coming to them,” returned Jeremy.
“Right! But they’re sore clean through. Any cancellations?”
“Blasius.”
“Yep. He’s a dachshund all right. Do you know what they’re stirring up
in the Retailers’ Association?”
“No.”
“This is rank treason and betrayal of secrets and so on; but they’re
talking down your circulation. Are you losing much?”
“Some.”
“Enough for ’em to demand a lower rate?”
“They can demand. They won’t get it. We’ve got a comfortable margin
left.”
“Well, of course I’m for it, officially. Here’s another point. Some of
our customers are beginning to talk to the salespeople and department
heads about The Guardian. ‘Do you advertise in that paper? What do you
do that for? It’s no good. Waste of money. I would n’t believe a thing I
read in it, not even an ad.’ You know the line of stuff.”
Jeremy did know it and knew how dangerous it was. “Who are they?” he
asked.
“Hans, Fritz, and Wilhelm,” grinned the other. “They are n’t scaring
us. But you may get a kick-back from some of the other stores that are
timider than we are.”
“I’ll keep an eye out, Betts,” said the editor.
Thus the anti-Guardian campaign simmered, bearing testimony to a steady
fire and a slow boiling beneath the surface. Said Judge Selden Dana to
Montrose Clark: “Our young cub of The Guardian is getting in wronger
every day. I think a polite call is about due.”