Common Cause Read online

  “You’re the rippawtah from The Record?”

  The accent of the word stirred Jeremy’s bile. He did not know that it was merely a sub-conscious stock trick of Mr. Clark’s; that there were certain words, such as “rippawtah,” “culchah,” “legislaychuh,” and the like, whereby he asserted his superiority of intellectual status, reverting to the comfortable speech of the Middle West for the communication of other thoughts.

  “I’m from The Record,” he said.

  “Take this.” The public-utilitarian began to dictate . . .

  “Got that? Be sure to be accurate. This is important.” To the reporter it seemed neither important nor interesting. It was a statement concerning a projected change, petty, administrative, and technical, in the conduct of the trolley system. Had it been of the most vital significance, the “rippawtah” would still have grilled at the impersonal arrogance of the other’s attitude.

  “Got that?” repeated Mr. Clark, after another passage. “Read it over.”

  Jeremy laid down his pencil. “Don’t you think you’d better send for one of your stenographers?”

  “What for?” demanded the other. “A rippawtah ought to be able to take dictation, if he’s competent.”

  “A ‘rippawtah,’ as you call him, is accustomed to a certain degree of courtesy.”

  Mr. Montrose Clark pressed a button and his hand-perfected private secretary popped in.

  “Garson! Call The Record. Tell Farley to instruct his rippawtah to follow directions and not be insolent.”

  Red to his cheek-bones, Jeremy tore up the sheet of paper on which he had been writing, dropped the pieces upon the immaculate rug of the outraged Mr. Montrose Clark, and marched out. Straight to The Record office he went and sought Wackley.

  “You can have my job. I’m through.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked the astonished and alarmed managing editor.

  Jeremy told him. Wackley laughed. He had no intention of losing so valuable a man as Robson.

  “Between us, Montrose Clark is an ass,” he said. “Don’t let him bother you. We’ll keep you away from his jobs after this. Anyway, we’re going to work you into editorials and specials more, from now on. Trot along now to the Capitol, and keep your eye on Mart Embree.”

  Anticipation was in the air of the Senate Chamber when Jeremy arrived. Something special was expected from Senator Embree. As always, when he was on the programme, the galleries were full. There was reason and precedent for this, for the two local newspapers were wont to report the leader of the Northern Tier in a cautious, not to say niggardly manner. People who wished to savor the full acidity of the young radical’s utterances, would best get seats for themselves, or be dependent upon more provident friends for word-of-mouth synopsis of the proceedings, since the unfortunate instance of the famous “Piracy and the P.-U.” speech on the Special Condemnation Bill, in which Senator Embree had held up that civic godling, Mr. Montrose Clark, to the scorn and reprehension of the impious rabble, and the local press had published the whole matter. Politicians had confidently declared that the speech would terminate the public life of Smiling Mart, who, by the way, had smiled only twice in the whole course of his effort, once at the beginning and again at the end. Montrose Clark, they said, would be too strong for him. It did not so appear. When the tumult and the shouting had died and the captains of industry and the kings of local politics had departed and laid their plans for the elimination of the upstart, it transpired that the upstart had by that one speech crystallized a somewhat indefinite policy of progressive radicalism into a campaign for the rescue of the State from the control of the financial and public utility magnates who had quietly taken it over from an older and far more corrupt purely political management. The man in the street rallied to Martin Embree, as well where the street was a country town thoroughfare as where it was a city’s artery of trade, and the farmers of the north followed almost in a body and without much respect to party. These were unassimilated Americans; Scandinavians, a few Dutch and Italians, but mostly Germans. Martin Embree had the unbounded confidence of these elements, particularly the Germans. He had cultivated it assiduously, and by legitimate political methods. In and out of season he impressed them with their responsibility for the cleansing of politics, and for reform. Now, to your German-American, uplifted in the conviction of racial righteousness, reform is a word sanctified for his own uses. Reform means compelling other people to think as he thinks. Therefore he solemnly adopts it. Reform, to these Northern Tier farmers, meant Martin Embree. By this support alone, if he had enjoyed no other, he was too strong for the powers that were completely to dislodge. He was clean, honest, earnest, fervent, laborious, and the possessor of a direct and winning address. Too late, the “old gang” perceived that he had developed from a “cheap spellbinder” into a “dangerous demagogue”; and largely because they had so ill-advisedly permitted such part of the press as they controlled, to disseminate that telling speech of his. At least, they wouldn’t make that mistake again! Martin Embree was now too considerable a figure to be ignored in print. But no other man in the public life of Centralia was so rigorously “edited.”

  Today, Jeremy Robson foresaw, his own job would be one of reporting orally, rather than writing. This acting as political lookout he quite enjoyed; it gave him a flattering sense of being on the inside of things. Then, too, there was opportunity for finesse. If the speaker of the day got upon slippery ground, Jeremy would have his chance to trip him up editorially, perhaps. He knew that Embree would not resent this in him. It was part of the game, in which they were, for the present, opponents. The Senator’s good-humor and broad-minded acceptance of the matter was one of the qualities which Jeremy most ardently admired in him. And politically he was so right and decent and clear of vision! What would not Jeremy have given for a chance as political expert on a paper supporting Embree’s main policies, a progressive and independent paper such as the Bellair Journal, for example! Perhaps that would come in time; already The Journal had offered him a reporter’s job. Meanwhile he must, in fairness, be loyal to his employers. Embree himself would admit that. Anyone would admit it, except a hare-brained Socialist like Milliken. Jeremy clung to that justification of loyalty.

  Routine business was still in progress on the floor when Galpin of The Guardian came in and seated himself next to Jeremy. There was still a patch over his left eye. His broad and bony face wore an expression of concerned expectation.

  “What’s Embree after this time?” Jeremy whispered to him.

  “Us,” said Galpin.

  “Editorial ‘we’? The Guardian? How?”

  “Don’t know. Can’t pick up much. Martin don’t ever say much beforehand. Pulls his gun and shoots.”

  “And Lord help the bull’s-eye!”

  “Ay-ah,” assented Galpin. “I asked him this morning what’s what, and all he said was; ‘Better get ready to duck in the Press Gallery,’ with that smile of his that may mean fun and may mean murder. Look! There’s Slippery Selden Dana on the floor.”

  “That means the P.-U. is in it.”

  “Not necessarily. But it means something out of the ordinary. He isn’t spending Montrose Clark’s time on any picayune stuff.”

  “You can’t blame Embree if he goes after the newspapers,” said The Record reflectively.

  “Fool trick, though. They always get in the last wallop.”

  “Look what a raw deal he gets, here in Fenchester. The best he gets from The Record is silent contempt, and The Guardian—well, I don’t know why he hasn’t sued The Guardian for libel long ago.”

  “What’d be the use?”

  “You mean The Guardian is right in practically saying he’s a crook?”

  “No. I guess he’s the nearest decent thing we’ve got in this rotten mess of politics,” said Galpin with the experienced political reporter’s cynical view of public men, “unless it’s Magnus Laurens.”

  “Then why won’t they give him a fair shake? I don’t min
d their going after him editorially. That’s opinion. But to cut him out of the news, that gets my goat a little.”

  “Ay-ah? Well, you see, he’s gumming our game.”

  “What ga—”

  “The whole, dam’, slick, polite graft that makes the machine run so smooth and nice and turns out the pretty little dividends for the banks and the railroads and the big companies generally. Haven’t you seen into that millstone yet?”

  “You talk as if you were really on Embree’s side.”

  “Ay-ah. Why not?”

  “But The Guard—”

  “I’m a hired man,” said Galpin impassively.

  “If you had a paper of your own—”

  “Be a hired man just the same.”

  “Who could boss you then?” asked Jeremy in surprise.

  “Same bunch that bosses The Record and The Guardian.”

  “Couldn’t a paper be run independent of them?”

  “Never has been in this town.”

  “But couldn’t it?” persisted the other. “Wouldn’t it be fun to work on a paper like that!”

  “Gee!” murmured Galpin. They were like two urchins savoring a golden and imaginative treat.

  “Mr. President.”

  The resonant tones2 of Martin Embree’s rich and effortless voice roused the reporters from their boyish vision. He stood tall, handsome, easy, confident, but his usually sunny face was grave, and he held in his hand a document, contrary to his custom. Before he had spoken five minutes to the hushed attention of floor and galleries, it became evident that his talk was centering and converging upon that document. His subject was the “cheese check” scandal which had roused the dairy farmers of his region to fury. He traced the steps whereby the commission men’s combine had sought legislation which would have rendered the producer almost helpless in their hands, touched upon alleged bribery in the lower House, referred to the part which two of the Fenchester banking institutions had played (“That’s why Dana was here; Montrose Clark’s in the banking game on the side,” whispered Galpin), and continued:

  “For my own conscientious and repeated attempts to block this nefarious deal, I have been consistently derided as a silly reformer by one of the local newspapers, and denounced by the other in terms which, were circumstances otherwise, I should reply to by a suit for criminal libel. I am enabled to deal with The Fenchester Guardian, in a more effective, swifter, and more relevant manner. Will the clerk of the Senate kindly read this letter, which fell into my hands by a happy accident, and the authenticity of which will not be denied by its author?”

  The clerk of the Senate received the document with a look of interest unusual in his stolid official bearing. He began to read:

  “Editor’s Office of The Fenchester Evening Guardian: Undated. My dear Mr. Dorlon:—”

  “The date is established as of last month by the envelope,” said Senator Embree.

  Profiting by the interruption, the clerk ran his eye swiftly through the one-page letter; but, instead of resuming his reading, left his place and carried it to the presiding officer. Their heads bent over it close together. A whisper passed between them. Its sibilance, though not its purport, could be heard through the silenced chamber. The clerk of the Senate turned away, not toward his desk, but toward the curtained exit.

  “Mr. Clerk!” Martin Embree’s voice was not raised by the iota of a tone; yet it stopped the man in his tracks. “Not one step out of my sight with that document.”

  “The Senator will come to order. The Senator will address himself to the chair,” rebuked the President.

  Embree’s arm rose, rigid as iron, until his stiffened hand pointed with all the menace of a weapon straight into the face of the discomposed presiding officer.

  “Mr. President, I hold you responsible for the safety and integrity of that document. I ask you to direct the clerk to read it.”

  “Read,” said the President after a moment of hesitation.

  “‘My dear Mr. Dorlon,’” repeated the clerk: “‘I have yours of the 19th with directions for claiming the last payment from the Trust Co. Glad you approve the paper’s course and are satisfied with what we have done on the Cheese Commission Bill. Locker and Mayne are O.K. I turned over their balance to them. We can whip Smith into line; Cary, Sellers, and Gunderson, too, in time. In the Senate we owe a great deal to’” (the clerk’s voice faltered) “‘Bellows’” (the clerk’s name was Bellows). “‘Better look after him. Let me know when you come to the Capitol.

  “‘Yours very truly, (Signed) A. M. Wymett.’”

  Dead silence followed, in which the footsteps of the messenger returning the document to Senator Embree, sounded loud and hollow. Then a voice (unidentified) pronounced from the gallery in accents of intensest conviction: “Well, I am damned!” Which inspired another voice (also unidentified) to adjure solemnly, “Burn this letter.” The Senate found relief in nervous, shrill, tittering laughter. “Will the papers print that?” shouted somebody, and the presiding officer recovering, hammered vehemently for order.

  “Gentlemen,” concluded Martin Embree, the damnatory letter raised to the level of his head, “I leave to this honorable body the determination as between the Honorable A. M. Wymett, editor and proprietor of The Fenchester Guardian, and myself.”

  He sat down.

  Jeremy turned to his fellow reporter, with questioning eyes.

  “Knock-out,” said Galpin.

  “Criminal charge, isn’t it?”

  “Guess so. Anyhow, it’s good-bye Guardian. So far as Wymett’s concerned, anyway. The crooked hound!”

  “Didn’t you know he was doing their dirty work?”

  “I knew he took orders. I didn’t know he took money. We all take orders. You’ll take orders when you suppress this story.”

  “Can it be suppressed?”

  “It’s got to be. Honor of the profession and all that sort of thing. Let’s get out. I want some air.”

  Outside they walked along for a block, before either spoke. Jeremy said: “Andy, how’s this going to affect you?”

  “Don’t know. Shut up about it, can’t you! Talk about something else.”

  “All right,” agreed the other cheerfully. “I’ll talk about myself. I’ve got a chance to make a change. What do you think of editorial writing?”

  “Nice, soft job. If you can do it. I couldn’t.”

  “I can.”

  “Go to it, then. Only I wouldn’t stick to it.”

  “Why not?”

  Galpin rubbed his shaggy head. “Oh, I dunno. Too much preaching of the other fellow’s doctrine, I guess.”

  Jeremy’s mind reverted to Milliken’s view and he wondered how nearly the two agreed. Certainly between preaching and the profession to which the Socialist had bitterly likened editorializing, yawned the widest of gulfs. He stated Milliken’s characterization.

  “Rough stuff,” commented Galpin. “I guess there’s something in it, though. Ay-ah. I get his point.”

  “Then you wouldn’t take the job?”

  “You might try it on for a while. But as a permanency—well, it seems to me a fellow that’s settled down to write editorials for another man all his life has sort of given up.”

  “Given up? What?”

  “Everything. He’s licked. Ay-ah. He’s a beaten man. He’s under contract to think another man’s thoughts and make other folks think ’em if he can.”

  “Aren’t we doing that as reporters?”

  “Not so much. Facts ain’t thoughts. You can report and keep your mind independent. That’s why I climb off the desk whenever I can, like today. Whew! I came near having Mr. Wymett go along with me. He was held up at the last minute.”

  Galpin turned into his office. Jeremy went to The Record to report to Wackley and was turned over to Mr. Farley.

  “Nothing about The Guardian can be published, of course,” prescribed that diplomat, who had already been in communication with the local leaders. “Give us half a column of the rest.
And go light. It’s ticklish ground.”

  After finishing, Jeremy went out for a long and thoughtful walk. On his return home he found a letter with the letterhead of Messrs. Hunt & Hunt, Attorneys, of Philadelphia. The firm begged to inform him that, with due allowance for taxes and fees, he was heir, under his great-aunt’s will, to the sum of $86,730.18.

  11

  After listening to Andrew Galpin’s verbal report upon Senator Martin Embree’s painful and convincing characterization of The Guardian’s editorial page as for sale to the highest bidder, backed up by discouraging details regarding himself, A. M. Wymett retired to his house to commune with a bottle and a time-table of the trains to Canada. As a man’s house is his castle and as castles are not connected with a troublous and uncharitable world by wires of communication, he further fortified his position by cutting off the telephone. He then profoundly considered his prospects and as profoundly misliked them.

  As befitted the owner of a pliable daily, Mr. Wymett was thoroughly conversant with the law bearing upon publications. It seemed unpleasantly probable to him that his ill-fated letter laid him open to indictment on any one of three counts. That smiling Mart Embree would push for criminal action, he had little doubt. The Guardian unhappily had nothing on the Senator; he couldn’t be blackmailed. If the financial and political powers in control would stand by, The Guardian could weather the storm, albeit severely battered in reputation. But would they? Could they afford to in view of the definite nature of the exposure? Mr. Wymett supped gloomily and alone with this question and afterward took it into his study with him for the evening’s speculation. His long, grave, immobile, ascetic face grew longer, graver, more immobile, and more ascetic as the facts in their bearing upon him massed a formidable array of cons against a scraggly and wavering handful of pros.

  Upon him thus absorbed, and steadily absorbing (for the bottle was still his counselor), intruded young Robson of The Record.

  “Nothing to say for publication,” snapped Wymett, professionally shocked at the idea of his rival’s making capital of his misfortunes.