MIGHTY was the clash of political lances, that spring of 1916, in
Fenchester. Senate and Assembly alike rang with noble phrases and high
sentiments. The mortal agony of a world across the seas, locked in a
conflict which should determine the future of civilization, became a
quite unimportant matter to those embattled souls on the hill. Let outer
and lesser history take its course; it was theirs to decide whether the
State of Centralia should or should not thenceforth emancipate itself
from the rule of its former and uncrowned dictators. From the front
pages of the local press, a committee vote was likely to evict an
Italian battle, or an interview with Montrose Clark or ‘Governor Embree
take precedence over a peace-hint from Baron Burian. All of which meant,
if you read The Record, that the radical and socialistic element were
undertaking to slay the fairy-babe, Blanket Franchise, and substitute
the horrid changeling, Corporation Control; whereas, if you pinned your
faith to The Guardian, it indicated the final struggle of an oppressed
people to writhe out from beneath the heel of a conscienceless,
tyranny of dollars. Amidst all this sound and fury Judge Selden Dana’s
candidacy, signifying much but saying little, was pressed. Only one
reference had the Judge made to Jeremy’s warning about his past record.
“Remember that libel is criminal as well as civil, my young friend.”
To which Jeremy replied cheerfully: “Let us know when your formal
announcement is made, Judge. We’ll give you a good show.”
“Agreed,” said the lawyer. “And I’ll give you some advertising, too.
I’ve got to convert some of your deluded followers.”
Already the advertising campaign of the P.-U. was in full swing. Part
of it had been offered to The Guardian, in spite of Judge Dana’s earlier
threat. That had been partly bluff. The astute politician knew that
an element, not otherwise attainable, could be reached with argument
through the radical paper. Only with great difficulty had he persuaded
Montrose Clark to this view. Said the public utilitarian, reluctantly
according his assent: “I haven’t forgotten that that cub accused us of
playing the Germans against his paper. I gave him the lie.”
Judge Dana, who knew far more about the Deutscher Club’s internal
operations than he cared to have his principal realize, passed this
observation with a non-committal smile.
“I’m going to advertise my own candidacy there,” he pursued. “To get
converts you’ve got to go after the other side.”
After having prevailed upon the public utilitarian to adopt his view,
Judge Dana was chagrined at having the proffered advertisements rejected
by the owner of The Guardian.
“But why?” he demanded, his sleepy eyes lifted to Jeremy’s with a candid
and injured expression.
“You want too much. I remember your learned and able argument as to
editorial forbearance toward advertisers, Brother Dana.”
The lawyer shifted his ground. “Is it fair to deny the other side a
hearing?”
“That’s where you’ve got me,” admitted Jeremy. “It is n’t. But if I take
your ads and then go after you editorially, you’ll claim that we are
double-crossing you.”
In fact this is precisely what the ingenious Dana had purposed doing,
through the lips of his campaign speakers. But he came back promptly
with “The ads are offered without stipulations.”
Jeremy considered. Setting aside the money consideration, the mere
appearance of the P.-U. advertising in The Guardian would notably add
to the paper’s prestige, as an admission that its advertising pull
was essential even to a hostile campaign. He very much wanted that
advertising. Picking up a pencil he scribbled a sentence, conned it,
amended, elided, copied it fair and full and handed it across to the
other.
“Provided that every ad carries this footnote,” he said.
Judge Dana read. “You young hellion!” he murmured, and grinned aslant
and ruefully. He repeated the words on the paper. “This paid advertising
is submitted and accepted without reference to what may appear upon the
subject in the news or advertising columns of The Guardian.”
“All right, is n’t it?” asked Jeremy, in the tone of innocence.
“You young hellion!” said the Judge again, almost affectionately, this
time. His double-cross accusation was gone glimmering. “I’ll go you,
anyway,” he decided. “Do you want the same footnote on my campaign
stuff?”
“No. That’ll speak for itself.”
“Let it speak fair. That’s all I ask. And see here, young man. Twenty
years ago is n’t a fair basis to judge a man on.”
“It is, if the man has n’t changed,” Jeremy shot back.
At what was judged to be the psychological moment, the news was
permitted to seep into the papers of the State that the eminent jurist
Judge Selden Dana was being urged to become a candidate for the
vacancy on the Court of Appeals bench. The method was sedate almost
to demureness. Immediately there blossomed forth fragrant and colorful
editorials, from all corners of the State to form a wreath for the
blushing and débutante candidacy. These constituted an enthusiastic and
determined public demand. Judge Dana urbanely announced that he would
accede to it. The Guardian carried the announcement as news, giving
it due prominence. Thereafter, for several days, Judge Dana, Montrose
Clark, and a number of other important and interested persons, secured
early editions of The Guardian each day with more interest than they
would have cared to admit. When the attack did come, it was in such
peculiar and indeterminate form that there was a general sigh of relief
over a venture foredoomed to fall flat.
On his editorial page, Jeremy had “boxed” a double-column at the
top, with what was obviously the outline of a half-tone photographic
rectangle. But the interior was a blank. Below it ran the legend:
A CANDIDATE ( Fill in the Picture to Suit Yourself)
This was followed by one of the most biting poems from the grimmest
volume of modern American literature, with the attributive line:
“From Edgar Lee Masters ‘Spoon River Anthology’”
I was attorney for the Q.
And the Indemnity Company which insured
The owners of the mine.
I pulled the wires with judge and jury
And the upper courts, to beat the claims
Of the crippled, the widow and orphan,
And made a fortune thereat.
The bar association sang my praises
In a high-flown resolution
And the floral tributes were many--
But the rats devoured my heart
And a snake made a nest in my skull!
Deeming this a flash-in-the-pan, the Dana partisans reckoned without the
terrible power of allusiveness. Ugly memories rose to meet, identify,
and confirm the portrait. Day after day, Jeremy reprinted it, without
comment. The press in other places took it up, and in an unbelievably
brief time it had spread throughout the State, a strangleweed upon the
growth of the candidate’s tender young chances. Conferences were hastily
called. Ways and means of curbing The Guardian’s destructive activities
were projected, canvassed, and dismissed. Apparently there was no way
either of “handling” Jeremy Robson, or of uprooting a poem once planted
and spreading in the public consciousness. The candidate himself,
depressed but philosophical, pointed the way out. A substitute, stodgy
but honorable, was found, and the regrettable but timely return of an
ancient liver trouble compelled Judge Dana to withdraw from the
exigent demands of a political campaign to the seclusion of certain
reconstructive hot springs.
What effect this might have upon the legislative fight, no man could
foretell. Many thought that the Judge’s candidacy had, in itself,
impugned the P.-U. before the public. Certainly the leaders of the
Blanket Franchise movement missed his shrewd judgment, for he would
never have let them make the first move in a losing fight. In his
absence Montrose Clark forced the issue. Embree’s forces lined up
against him, and beat the Franchise Bill in the Assembly by a round
dozen of votes. Encouraged by this, the other side thrust forward
Governor Embree’s Corporation Control Bill as revised by Professor
Rappelje. Now it was time for the public utilities of the State to
rally to the last man, for this was a battle to the death. The Guardian
did yeoman work in this as in the first action; but the weight of
resources was on the other side. On the final vote the public utility
interests won by a scant but triumphant margin of three. Thus the whole
campaign had resulted in a draw. If Centralia had, on the one hand,
repudiated corporation control, on the other it had balked at the
radical measure put forth by the Governor. All that ground must be
fought over again. The one clear triumph had fallen to The Guardian, in
the ousting of Judge Dana.
How the Judge would take his enforced temporary exile was a speculation
which sprang into Jeremy Robson’s mind when, the smoke of the
corporation battle having cleared away, he met the shrewd jurist, brown,
hearty, and with no slightest liverish symptom, in the hotel restaurant.
Would he ignore Jeremy’s existence? The younger man gave him credit for
being too sound a sport for that. But he rather expected to be held at a
distance. Not at all. Dana came up and shook hands.
“Glad to see you looking so well, Judge,” said Jeremy, and meant it.
“Liver is n’t much if you take it in time,” returned the other gravely.
Then, “You still wield quite a lively pen, my young friend.”
“As a weapon of defense, it’s useful.”
“Look out that the point does n’t turn in on you.”
“Warning or threat, Judge?”
“Professional advice. Something I seldom give gratis.”
“I’ll bear it in mind. No ill-will, Judge?”
“Oh, I can take as well as give,” answered Dana, who prided himself on
never admitting and never forgetting an injury. “This is no kid-glove
game. But I would n’t have thought poetry had such a punch in politics.
I’ll have to look into that line a little closer.”
As an example of what the Judge could give in return for what he took,
there presently descended upon The Guardian a small but lively swarm
of libel suits. All were traceable, directly or inferentially, to the
office of Dana & Dana, a firm which did not ordinarily cater to this
class of business. Four were wholly without merit; two were of the kind
that can always be settled for a hundred dollars and counsel fees, and
the remaining one hinged upon an unfortunate and ambiguous sentence
in the tax-dodging charge against that aged but vigorous lady, Madam
Taylor.
“Hold-ups, pure and simple,” said Andrew Galpin indignantly. “Dana has
drummed them up.”
“Can you trace them to him? Safely enough so that we can print it?”
asked his chief.
“Print a libel suit against ourselves!” said the general manager,
scandalized at this threat against one of the most rock-ribbed
principles of a tradition-choked calling.
“All seven of ’em. Tying each one up to Dana. No comment. The public
will supply that for themselves.”
The result more than justified the experiment. Dana & Dana, who had not
considered the possibility of this simple _riposte_, hastily withdrew
the four weakest suits, amidst no little public amusement. The other
three, however, were pressed, causing a continual wear-and-tear of worry
and expense, which was their object. Every charge against The Guardian’s
exchequer now meant less fighting power later when the test should come.
Politics succeeded politics in Centralia, meantime. Hardly was the
legislative campaign over when the presidential election began to
loom. Herein Jeremy found fresh source of difficulty and indecision.
By training and natural affiliation he was opposed to the party of
the President. In so far as The Guardian was committed at all, it was
Republican in national politics, and more Republican than anything else
in State. Undoubtedly the popular thing to do would be to enter upon
a virulent attack against all the presidential policies. Embree
urged this. It would go far to reconstitute the paper with the
German-Americans who had already instituted the nation-wide campaign of
the hyphen in favor of the President’s opponent, taken by them on trust,
as nothing was known of him in a world-political sense other than that
he was a sturdy and fearless type of American. Possibly it was the
very vehemence of the hyphenates that impelled Jeremy to a cool-headed
course. Virulent he could not be; there was no venom in him. His first
formal pronouncement upon the campaign was to the effect that the United
States had never before had a choice between two alternative candidates
of such high character and attainment; and this he heartily believed.
The Guardian would support Hughes. But it served notice on all and
sundry that it would be no party to rancorous, unjust, and un-American
attacks upon a President whose path had been more beset with
difficulties and perils than any leader’s since the day of Lincoln. In
a State so violently preoccupied with political prejudices as Centralia,
this course was regarded as weak. It lost support to The Guardian.
Throughout the ensuing campaign, Jeremy never seemed able to get his
hands free from politics sufficiently to take up and develop a distinct
attitude toward the deepening, threatening problems of the war. Embree
deemed this fortunate. So did Galpin, upon whom the financial weight
of the burden of conduct was heavily pressing. The fewer superfluous
enmities The Guardian now stirred up, the better, to his way of
thinking. Verrall was all for peace at any political price. But though
the World-War was relegated to a place of secondary importance, in the
main, it was not consciously neglected or belittled. Slowly there had
grown up in The Guardian’s environment the feeling that, after all, here
was the one paper which was honestly undertaking to present the news as
it developed. This helped to hold its circulation, even among those who
bitterly resented its editorial attitude on the submarine, the bombing
of defenseless cities, and similar war enterprises. So the paper won
through the summer and fall of 1916, losing but little under the secret
unremitting pressure of Deutschtum. When the President was reëlected,
Jeremy Robson spoke out frankly and clearly the mind that was in him,
calling for a united nation to be ready for what events might come upon
it.
Back at the base of Jeremy’s hard-thinking brain there lay a lurking
self-accusation. Had he not used the political stress as a convenient
alibi? Had The Guardian truly stood on guard against the subtle and
powerful inner war being waged across the hyphen? What of the promise,
deadly serious despite its quaint Isaian twist, given to Marcia Ames? He
sensed the looming conflict. He shrank from the terms of fulfillment to
be exacted from him. But take up his pledge he must, when the hour came,
though Hell from beneath were moved for him to meet him at his coming.