Modern Journalism
The "Progressive Workers" has been especially busy in arranging for the
joint debate between their own and the Republican candidates, and they
were in full force and early at the meeting. When eight o'clock came and
Gertrude Van Deusen had not appeared, they felt no anxiety, but as the
moments passed and she did not come, they began to be surprised and then
alarmed.
"Gertrude is always prompt," said Mrs. Bateman, as they waited in the
ante-room. "I cannot imagine what is keeping her. Telephone over to her
house, Anna, and see if she has left, won't you? I have to attend to
things here."
Mrs. Stillman hurried to the telephone, coming back later with a puzzled
expression on her aristocratic features.
"Her cousin says she left there at half past seven in an automobile,"
she said. "It is half past eight now."
"An automobile?" said Mrs. Bateman. "Did anybody send for her, I
wonder?"
No one seemed to know. Their candidate had always been transported in
her own carriage and no one had thought of sending for her. Still, some
friend might have done so--and in an automobile, Bailey Armstrong, for
instance--who had a new one. Nothing was more natural than--
But just then Bailey came into the ante-room.
"It's the strangest thing," he began, "Miss Van Deusen does not come,
and nobody seems to know where she is. And Jack Allingham is missing,
too. None of his friends can account for his absence. What are we going
to do?"
"Do?" repeated Mrs. Bateman. "What can we do?"
"The audience--a crowded one--is getting impatient," Bailey went on.
"We've got to begin somehow. The other side have a speaker whom they can
put on, but we--"
"Go on yourself, Bailey," said Mrs. Mason. "You'll have to. We can fill
up the time somehow until Gertrude comes."
After a hurried consultation with the representatives from Allingham's
committee, the meeting was opened and the speaking began. But although
those who addressed the audience were eloquent enough, they were
unprepared, and moreover, were conscious that their listeners were
keeping one eye upon the door; in short, everybody present desired only
to hear the two appointed speakers; so that the affair was most
perfunctory. The minutes grew into hours, and these did not arrive. Mrs.
Mason, Mrs. Bateman, even Mary Snow, were sent out to the platform to
represent the woman's side, and although they were well received, the
meeting broke up at eleven o'clock with a distinct sense of
disappointment, not to say failure. The audience dispersed with but one
question:
"Where are they? and why have they not come?"
A little after two, Gertrude called up Mrs. Bateman and told her of the
events which had transpired since she had started out for the joint
debate; but it was too late to send explanations to any other member of
the committee.
"Are you going to let it get into the newspapers?" asked Mrs. Bateman.
"Not I," said Gertrude. "Think what a miserable sensation it would
make."
"Then I must call up Allingham's house and ask them to suppress it,"
answered Mrs. Bateman. "But what excuse can we make? Something must be
said in explanation."
"I don't know," said Gertrude wearily. "I leave that to you and Judge
Bateman. I do not want it to get into the newspapers."
"Very well; then I will call up the Allingham's" responded Mrs. Bateman.
Which she did, and found that Mrs. Allingham was horror-stricken at the
bare suggestion that the kidnaping of her son should be written up for
the press.
"He is asleep," she said, "and has been since the doctor put on his last
bit of plaster; but as soon as he wakens I will ask him what I shall
tell you to say. Anyhow, we will keep it out of the papers, if
possible."
But all the same the next morning the story was featured in every
journal in town, with more or less display according to the style of
each individual paper. Naturally, the more conservative of them strove
to tell the story correctly and insinuated that the Burke party were
behind the "contemptible trick;" but the sheet which upheld the "City
Hall crowd," as all Roma termed its municipal authorities, gave a most
sensational account, telling it with a flippant and gleeful inaccuracy
which spoke volumes for the accomplishments of modern yellow journalism.
It headed its article thus:
"CANDIDATES IN COLLISION"
"Handsome Woman Candidate and Aristocratic Aspirant for Mayoralty
Flee from Joint Debate, only to Crash Together in the Woods and
Return in Electric Cab Together."
A portion of the article ran as follows:
"For weeks the advocates of higher education for women and the
shriekers for female suffrage who have been pushing the daughter
of the late Senator Van Deusen forward in her attempt to become
Mayor of Roma, have been laboring to arrange a joint debate in
which their candidate should take the platform and discuss the
issues of our city campaign with that scion of would-be American
Royalty, Jack Allingham. They have left no stone unturned to
interest the public in this expected clash of argument and trial
of brain-power. (We refrain from commenting here upon the minimum
quantity of the latter necessary to such a debate.) Finally they
had, with great flourish of trumpets and beating of drums--(we
are speaking politically, not literally now)--arranged for such a
debate on the very evening before election day.
"Last night Brocklebank Hall was crowded with the usual audience
of mixed social position and nationality in attendance at mass-
meetings of the Republican and Independent parties in Roma. They
had gathered to hear the accumulated perorations of wit and
wisdom on the part of their two candidates. They were to decide,
finally, which one to vote for today; to make up their little
minds whether to put into the mayor's chair a stiff, conservative
aristocrat who cares no more for the laboring classes of Roma
than he does for its work-horses--(or its mules) or a young woman
of good ancestry, but no actual knowledge of municipal affairs--
only an inherited cock-sureness of opinion on any and every
subject that may come up.
"Did they hear this great joint debate?
"No. Why? Because during the hours while the impatient
audience were beguiled by feeble arguments from mushroom
speakers, who attempted to amuse them while they waited, the
principal actors in this farce were miles away, chasing each
other about in electric cabs, which at a distance of twenty miles
or more from Brocklebank Hall collided and threw the aspiring
occupants out in a deep wood. Thus doth fate pursue the over-
ambitious and wreck their plans.
"When the chauffeurs returned from the farmhouse whence they
had gone for help in extricating their machines, Allingham, the
aristocrat, lay prone on the ground with his head in the lap of
her who had been his whilom opponent for the mayor's chair. A
sight fit for the gods, truly--and also for the voters of
Roma.
"The couple, erstwhile at swords' points, but now tucked
cosily together in one electric cab, were later brought back to
Roma at one o'clock in the morning--she none the worse for her
skillful evasion of the platform contest, and he with a slight
scalp wound only, to show that he had been worsted.
"It remains now for the voters of Roma to consider whether
such candidates as these are to be considered fit to be trusted
with the affairs of our enterprising young city--and to vote
accordingly."