“IF PEOPLE ONLY KNEW!”

A little after three o’clock on the afternoon of the day which first saw Judith Wynrod a newspaper proprietor, Good walked into the office of The Dispatch and asked to see Mr. Bassett, the managing editor.

“Will you be good enough to indicate the purpose of your visit on this slip,” said the old pensioner at the information desk.

Good took the pencil held out to him and in a bold hand wrote: “Mr. Good wishes to see Mr. Bassett.”

Cerberus smiled faintly, as if courtesy alone prevented him from totally ignoring so feeble a jest. “That will hardly suffice, Mr. Good. We have our rules, you know,” he said firmly.

“Of course,” admitted Good patiently. “But all rules have exceptions.”

“We know none here, sir,” said the old man pompously, while loungers in the ante-room smiled their enjoyment of the scene.

“But, my dear man,” cried Good in exasperation, “I don’t want to write him a letter. I want to talk to him. Will you take this in, or will I have to take it myself?” He seemed so capable of carrying out the latter alternative that after some further protestation the disgusted warder disappeared into the private offices.

Almost immediately he reappeared, a faint but plainly triumphant smile curling the corners of his lips.

“Mr. Bassett says ” he paused significantly. Then he added suavely, “He regrets that he is very busy and is unable to see you.”

Good smiled. “That’s old stuff,” he said placidly, with his hand on the wicket. Without further parley he opened it and marched in.

A small man in his shirt sleeves, his thin lips grimly compressed, sat at a desk piled high in disorderly confusion, chewing an unlighted cigar. He did not look up as Good entered. But at the latter’s deprecating cough he wheeled around in his chair and glared savagely.

“How the hell did you get in here?” he demanded.

“Through the doorway,” replied Good mildly.

“That door says ’private’ and I’m busy.”

Good sat down and leisurely drawing his pipe from his pocket filled it.

“I suppose you didn’t see that sign outside?” inquired the small man sarcastically. “It said ‘no smoking.’”

“That was outside,” said Good shortly, without looking up. “I’m in now. But look here, Mr. Bassett,” he continued with a quizzical smile, “don’t irritate me. It ...”

“Don’t irritate you?” Bassett stared blankly. “Who the ...”

“No it might cost you your job.”

The editor laughed harshly. “Hell, you must want a story suppressed.”

“What makes you think so?”

“They all begin by threatening to get my scalp.”

“Well, that’s a bum guess this time.” Good drew his chair up beside the desk and pushed a cleared place among the papers. “Now see here, Mr. Bassett, I have something to tell you.”

“It’s about time you began telling it,” said Bassett dryly.

“I had to get you in a receptive mood before I could begin. Now I’m ready.”

“Fire away.” The editor lit his cigar and waved his hand resignedly.

“Quick is quick. To get to the point, this paper has changed hands.”

The expression on Bassett’s face changed immediately. “You mean it’s sold?”

“Just so.”

“Who got it the Le Gore crowd?” It was Bassett’s profession always to be prepared for the unusual, but it was manifest from his knitted eyebrows and his nervous drumming on the desk that he was astonished.

“No, Miss Judith Wynrod.”

“The millionaire kid!” cried Bassett. “What the devil does she want a newspaper for? Is she going to run it?”

“No,” said Good calmly, “I am.”

“You? Who in thunder are you?”

Good leaned back and put his thumbs in his waistcoat. “I,” he said without smiling, “am the crafty bunco-steerer. With misguided confidence the boss is going to let me run her paper for her. In future, my profane friend, you’re going to take your orders from me.”

“Do you know anything about newspapering?”

“Quite a bit, yes.”

Bassett rose and clasping his hands behind his back, strode rapidly back and forth, without speaking, for several moments. Finally he stopped and shifting his cigar savagely from one side of his mouth to the other, stared vacantly into space.

“Well,” he said slowly, “the first thing a new owner usually does is to fire the staff. I suppose I might as well begin getting ready and packing up my things. That’s one of the beauties in this newspaper game. There’s no monotony in your job.”

Good laughed cheerfully. “I wouldn’t be in any hurry about it,” he said; “nobody’s slated for the blue envelope yet.”

“What’s the policy going to be?” asked Bassett after a pause.

“None,” said Good shortly.

“I don’t get you.”

“You will.”

“The orders’ll come from downstairs as usual, I suppose?”

Good betrayed himself for the first time during the interview. “No,” he cried, bringing his fist down on the desk so that the papers fluttered, “that’s one place they won’t come from.” Bassett laughed, not very pleasantly.

“Good stuff, old top. I love to hear that line of talk. It’s inspiring. But they all start that way. I’ve been in the game a long time. I’ve pulled the Washington on tank town weeklies, trimmed boiler plate on all-home-print, and attained the eminence of space writer on county seat dailies. I’ve done time in the newspaper game from soup to nuts, and I’ve yet to see the sheet that isn’t run from the business office.”

“You’ve got something to live for then, haven’t you?” said Good sweetly.

“I’ve always said that there weren’t any surprises in a newspaper man’s life,” continued Bassett thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m wrong.”

“Life’s full of surprises. That’s what makes it interesting. But that butters no turnips. I didn’t come here to give you some new ideas about life. What I want is for you to get your staff together in the city room, say about five o’clock, for fifteen minutes. I want to talk to the boys. Can you arrange it?”

“I guess the world won’t stop moving.”

“All right. See you later.” Good put his hand on the door.

“Say,” said Bassett, sharply biting his lip, “have you been stringing me?”

Good laughed. “Call up John Baker, Miss Wynrod’s lawyer, and get it straight. Don’t be so suspicious.”

“That’s my business,” said Bassett, sourly. As the door closed on his strange visitor, he sighed heavily. “It’s a great business ... sold up the river damned slave!” Then he sighed again and fell to sharpening a pencil.

Promptly at five Good returned. “Got them all here?” he demanded.

“Nearly all.”

“That’s fine. Let’s break the news.”

Bassett led the way to the city room, and with a clap of his hands achieved silence. “Boys,” he said in a tone which was curiously unfamiliar to them, “you probably all know by now, being good news-hounds, that the paper has been sold. Mr. Brent Good, the new managing editor, wishes to say a few words.”

Good rose and stood looking thoughtfully at the crowd for a moment before he spoke.

“Gentlemen, the habit of a lifetime is hard to break. Mr. Bassett proves it by the way he’s coloured the facts. I’m not to be managing editor. Mr. Bassett will continue in that capacity as long as his editing and managing seems to be satisfactory. I am merely to be the personal representative of the owner of the paper. Now I have one or two things to say to you.

“To begin with, I want to say that nobody is going to get fired, with the possible exception of several men from the advertising department, the reason for which will appear later. The first question that Mr. Bassett put to me was about the policy of the new paper, and I replied that there wouldn’t be any policy. All we have is a purpose, and that purpose is, in one single word, to tell all the truth all the time.

“We haven’t any axes to grind. And there’s only one boss. For the first time in your lives, I guess, you can write the truth without being afraid of stepping on somebody’s toes. From now on, the business office gives no orders. And if the advertising department can’t sell space without editorial influence thrown in, then we’ll get a new advertising department or do without advertising. Instead of looking at every story with your mind on ‘who will it hurt,’ from now on I want you to look at every story with your mind on ‘who will it help or what.’ You boys have a chance to run the kind of a newspaper that every newspaper man wants to run. It’s up to you to make it or break it.” Good’s voice broke a little and he turned away. There was silence for a moment. Then a cheer shook the room. When it subsided, Bassett’s dry voice was heard.

“Kindly don’t overlook the fact, gentlemen, that we put the paper to bed to-night as usual. You can celebrate when that’s done.” Then he turned to Good.

“Come back in my office, will you, Mr. Good. There are a few questions I want to ask you.”

“Cut out the ‘Mister,’ Bassett. I’m just one of the staff. I don’t own anything, you know.”

“That goes with me,” said Bassett, “but look out I don’t call you something worse. I’ve got a bad temper.”

“Well,” laughed Good, “I’m bigger than you.” They went into Bassett’s private office.

“What I want to get at,” said the latter perplexedly, after they were seated, “is what line of thought you intend to follow. What angles do you mean to push?”

“You don’t understand,” said Good patiently, “all we want is the truth.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” cried Bassett impatiently. “That’s fine for a rights-of-man declaration, but we’re running a newspaper. You’ve got to have balance. What’s true and interesting and desirable to one class of people isn’t to another. What kind of people do you intend to cater to?”

“I see,” said Good. He was silent for a moment. “I guess we want to print,” he said finally, “what’s true to most people. Anything that gives the greatest good to the greatest number, ought to be our field.”

“That’s what I’m getting at. Now look at this.” The managing editor fumbled in his desk and produced a mass of paper. “You probably know that the girls in the department stores are trying to stage a strike. It doesn’t amount to much yet but the police have pulled some pretty raw work. Now from the girls’ standpoint this stuff ought to get publicity. But from the standpoint of those who own the newspapers it shouldn’t and it hasn’t had a line except in The World, which, of course, only goes to the working people. Incidentally, The World has been running some pretty good sob-stuff lately.”

“Yes,” said Good quietly, “I wrote it.”

Bassett looked up quickly. “Oh are you one of that socialist outfit?”

“No more socialist than you are plutocrat. I’m just a newspaper man like yourself.”

“Conscienceless, eh?”

“Consciences are expensive.”

“Yes,” said Bassett pensively, “most of us have to let the little darlings starve to death. I bet if we slipped into the next life with a murderer and a thief, St. Peter’d give ’em both a golden harp and ...”

“Oh, cheer up,” laughed Good, “let’s not worry about preferred positions in the next edition. We’ve got plenty to do with this one.”

“Well, then,” said the small man, “how about playing up this working girl stuff as a starter on the new idea? That ought to appeal to you.”

“I’m afraid you don’t quite understand,” explained Good patiently. “This isn’t going to be an organ of the working classes.”

“That’s all right, too, but in your talk out there to the boys you said you were going to print all the truth all the time. Well, this is true and people certainly ought to know about it. Those girls are getting a hell of a rotten deal. What about it?”

Good was silent. “Frankly, I don’t know,” he murmured.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Bassett with a suggestion of a sneer. “We’re carrying full pages for Corey’s and the rest. But I thought you weren’t going to take orders from the business office.”

“We’re not,” said Good. “But we have to take our orders from Miss Wynrod.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bassett. “I hadn’t thought of that. Well, why don’t you put it up to her?”

“By Jove,” cried Good, “I will! I’ll do just that. You get your stuff together. I’ll see her to-night and get her O.K. if I can.”

“Here’s a suggestion,” said the managing editor; “it may help to get her interested. The girls are going to hold a meeting out on Dempsey Street. Why don’t you take Miss Wynrod out there and let her see for herself? If she’s any kind of a girl she’ll hear some yarns that’ll wilt her collar, I’ll bet.”

Good was thoughtful. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ll see what I can do.” He turned to go. Then he looked back from the doorway. “By the way, Bassett, I forgot to tell you Miss Wynrod has a young brother. He’s been a waster so far, but I think he’s got some good stuff in him. Anyway, he’s coming into the paper too. Of course he doesn’t know anything about newspapers he doesn’t know anything about anything but he can learn. I thought it would be best to start him in the business office. What do you think?”

“That’s the most important place to him,” said Bassett sourly. “Keep him out of this end of it, for the love of Mike! Jenkins loves cubs; I don’t.”

“I think you’re right; anyway we’ll start him with Jenkins. And I’ll let you hear from me to-night in plenty of time about this story.”

“The bull-dog closes at eleven.”

“I’ll let you know by ten.”

As Good ate his frugal dinner in a cheap restaurant, he debated seriously as to the best method of attaining his end. If he went straight to Judith and boldly requested her acquiescence in the course planned, he felt quite confident of securing it. But that did not appear to him sufficient. Her sympathies, thus gained, would be superficial. To be of lasting value they must be spontaneous. Finally he took his resolution and went to the telephone.

“Miss Wynrod,” he said immediately when she answered, “there is to be a meeting on the west side to-night that I’d like very much to have you attend. I am sure it will interest you. Will you come?” And when she hesitated momentarily he added, “I am quite sure you won’t regret it.” To his great delight she assented readily enough, and half an hour later he found himself in her limousine with her, bound for a section of the city that was probably as unfamiliar to her as the heart of China.

Briefly he explained the character of the meeting, but diplomatically he held back his real purpose in taking her to it. She was frankly interested, nevertheless, and plied him with questions regarding its circumstances and causes, to which he was not slow in making reply.

“If all these dreadful things are true, how does it happen that I have never heard about them? There has never been anything in the papers.”

“No,” he assented, smiling in triumph under cover of darkness, “there hasn’t been anything in the papers. That is,” he added, “not in any of the papers you would be likely to read. The World has had some stuff.” But before they had had time to discuss the question further the car had reached its destination. Good led the way to a place in the balcony where they not only had a good view of the platform but could see the crowd below as well.

A red-headed girl was playing a very much out-of-tune piano and playing it very badly. But over the music, and almost drowning it was the steady shuffle of feet, and a rising wave of whispers and laughter as the hall rapidly filled. The air was heavily odorous and the gas lights flared garishly, thrusting the stark shabbiness of the hall and its occupants into high relief. But all that was forgotten in the indefinable emotion which surcharged the atmosphere. Without knowing exactly why, Judith felt her throat tighten and her heart thrill. But it was an old story to Good and he spent his time surreptitiously watching the effect of the scene upon his companion.

Presently the speakers of the evening filed onto the platform, and one of them, stepping up to the table, rapped sharply with her gavel. She was a woman just approaching middle age, very plainly but neatly dressed, with a face not handsome, but so full of quiet determination as to make one look twice.

“That’s Myra Horgan,” whispered Good, “President of the Women’s Trade Union League. She’s a wonder.”

Miss Horgan, with a few words, introduced the first speaker, one Casper, of the Building Trades Council. He was a little man with a beaming red face, and stiff, close-cropped white hair.

“When they talk about women and the right to vote,” he began, surveying the audience with twinkling eyes, “I think of you and what fools you be. But you’re no worse than unorganized men. Do they work us brick-layers and masons twelve hours a day, nights too? They do not. Do they pay us six dollars a week? They do not. Do they fire us for having opinions of our own? They do not. Do they treat us as human beings entitled to the same respect as themselves? They do, and why? Because we ain’t one but many. If we deal with them as individuals they smash us as you’d smash a toothpick. But they can’t deal with us as individuals. They’ve got to deal with us altogether. But one thing remember, my girls. It’s a fine thing to have a union but a hard thing to get it. You’ve got to suffer. You’ve got to give up things. I guess you know that already. But you’ve got to keep at it. It’s great when you have it, but it’s hell getting it. And don’t forget this. You’ve got to stick by the other fellow if the other fellow is going to stick to you. If one goes out, you’ve all got to go out, and stay out if you starve.”

He sat down, wiping his brow carefully, amid a thunder of applause from the audience. Suddenly a thought seemed to strike him and he jumped up with hand uplifted. The crowd silenced at once. “I forgot to tell you the main thing for why I came here to-night,” he said sheepishly. “I’m no orator, as you all can see. Your handsome young faces drove the thought clean out of my mind. But this I will say, I am here to-night to tell you that we of the Federation will back you to the limit with money and influence and all we’ve got. Go to it!” Again he sat down, amid a repeated burst of clapping and cheers.

“No,” said Good. “He’s no orator. But he’s a big man. They’ll get somewhere if they follow him.”

Speaker after speaker followed one another in rapid succession, each with her message of fear, or hope, or encouragement. There was surprisingly little denunciation, thought Judith, of the powers against whom they were in revolt. All the speakers were too intent upon means and methods to waste breath in idle denunciation. She expressed her astonishment.

“Their feeling for their employers goes without saying,” said Good shortly.

Suddenly Judith gave a little cry. “Why, there’s Mrs. Dodson.” A woman, inconspicuously dressed and well on in years, but with such a spirit of youth and kindliness in her face as to belie her grey hairs, had begun to speak. Her first words were the signal for such a storm of applause that she had to halt momentarily.

“What a favourite she is!” exclaimed Judith.

“She has cause to be,” said Good. “These girls have no better friend.”

“Isn’t it strange,” said Judith in amazement. “I’ve known her all my life. I had no idea she was so interested in this sort of thing.”

Good smiled. “She doesn’t talk much about it, does she?”

Mrs. Dodson, speaking with trained eloquence, was laying out a plan of campaign so bold in conception that Judith, acquainted only with the more obvious side of her life, was dumfounded.

“If the people who know her uptown could hear her now,” she cried, “they’d be stupefied. They’d call her a traitor to her class.”

“She is a paradox,” admitted Good, “but I think this is her truest side.” And the prolonged cheering which accompanied the conclusion of her words seemed to indicate that her auditors thought so too.

There was a little pause after Mrs. Dodson had finished, and the red-headed young person at the piano resumed her activities. But the delay was only momentary. A slender girl, plainly dressed, apparently not over nineteen years of age, with her arm in a sling, made her way to the front of the platform.

“I’m no speaker,” she began in a low voice but which penetrated to the farthest part of the hall, “and there ain’t many of you as knows me. I’m only a picket. I can’t give you union backing like Mr. Casper, and I can’t give you money like Mrs. Dodson, and I can’t give you ideas like Miss Horgan. All I’ve got is my two feet and my two hands and my tongue though my tongue ain’t as good as my legs, as the cop that pinched me will tell you. But you’ve all been thinking and talking about what you was going to do. Now I want to tell you what’s being done while you’re talking. Look at this ” She pointed to the arm that was in the sling. “This is what the police do. The copper that twisted my arm gets his pay from the taxpayers, but he gets his orders from our bosses. I got this for talkin’ to girls as they came out of the stores. I was lucky not to get anythin’ worse, as some of the other girls can tell you. I want to tell you girls,” she clenched her fist and her voice shrilled, “that the only way you’ll get respect out of these capitalists is to force it out of ’em, and a good many of you is goin’ to get hurt in the job.”

“How horrible!” exclaimed Judith softly. “Is that really true?”

“Yes,” said Good, “it is. I happen to know the case. The doctors say that her arm will probably never be of much use to her again. A detective twisted her wrist for not moving on when she was ordered to. He claimed she kicked him.”

“And I hope she did!” snapped Judith vindictively. Good smiled quizzically, but before he could say anything the girl on the platform had resumed speaking.

“I wish I could tell you what’s in my mind,” she said slowly. “I ain’t no speaker, but this is the principal thing I want to say to you girls. If I can stick it out I guess you can. That’s about all I’ve got to say.” She turned and fled precipitately. There was not much handclapping after her exit, not because she had not aroused sympathy but because exaltation had given place to a grim determination better expressed in silence. There was a momentary pause in the proceedings. Then a girl stood up in the crowd.

“I want to tell you that that girl is right,” she declared fiercely. “My sister was knocked down by a copper and kicked and broke one of her ribs. If you’re going into this thing you want to go with your eyes open.” As she sat down, another rose, and another and another, until half a dozen girls had given their experiences, each one of which brought a gasp of horror to Judith’s lips.

“Why, this is dreadful,” she cried. “I never dreamed ...”

But Good merely smiled to himself. “They’ve only told one side of it,” he said. “There are things much worse.”

Judith shuddered understandingly but said nothing further until they were in the motor on the way home. “I never heard anything more terrible,” she cried, “or more surprising. If people only knew, such things couldn’t take place. Decent people wouldn’t countenance such brutality.”

“No,” admitted Good, “but decent people don’t know anything about it.”

“And why don’t they?” she demanded. “Why aren’t they told? Why aren’t they forced to know about it?”

“Would you suggest a house-to-house canvass?” he asked ironically.

“Don’t be silly. Why don’t the newspapers take it up?”

“It isn’t news to them.”

Then the obvious thought struck her. “Why,” she laughed, “I almost forgot. We have a newspaper of our own. Why can’t we tell the story those girls told, in The Dispatch?”

“For the same reason that the other papers can’t,” he said softly.

“And what is that?”

“They don’t dare.”

“Don’t dare? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Who has the keenest interest in keeping wrist-twisting out of sight?”

“The police?”

“No. Who loses if the girls win? Who suffers if they organise, raise wages and improve conditions?”

“Their employers, I suppose.”

“Just so. And who are their employers?”

“The department stores?”

“Well, then, isn’t it perfectly clear? Who are the newspapers’ heaviest advertisers?”

“Oh, ”

“Miss Wynrod,” said Good seriously, “to champion the cause of those girls and to tell the truth about what they are suffering might cost The Dispatch a great deal of money.”

Judith was silent for a moment. “In other words, we are hired by the department stores to be neutral.”

“Precisely,” said Good.

“Suppose we snapped our fingers at them?”

“I’ve already told you what would happen.”

“But I thought you wanted a free newspaper?”

“I did and do, Miss Wynrod.”

“How many curious things I’m learning,” said Judith. Then, with a shudder, she added, “What a dreadful neighbourhood this is. Did you ever see so many children?”

“Do children make neighbourhoods dreadful?” he asked sarcastically, nettled by her irrelevance. But she was silent, remaining so until they reached downtown.

“I think, if you’ll let me off at The Dispatch office ...” said Good stiffly.

Mechanically she gave the order to the chauffeur but made no reply. He wondered what was going through her mind. Her silence seemed to indicate that his great dream had been shattered before it had been well launched. She had broken at the first pressure. He might have expected as much. Environment and training could not be so quickly counteracted. But none the less it was bitterly disappointing. He dreaded the word he would have to give to Bassett.

“Good night, Miss Wynrod,” he said quietly as the car stopped and he got out. “I hope you found the evening not unprofitable.”

“Mr. Good,” said Judith slowly, looking at him steadily, “I want everybody who reads The Dispatch to-morrow to read about that girl and her broken arm. Do you understand?”

His eyes widened. “And you know the consequences?” he whispered huskily.

“I think you have made them quite clear.”

“You have friends among the department store owners, Miss Wynrod.”

Judith smiled, but it was a grim smile. “I think I can venture where Mrs. Dodson has ventured,” she said. Good seized her hand and his voice trembled.

“I was afraid for a moment, but you’re a wonder! Good night.” His emotion communicated itself to her and she did not venture to say anything in reply. She merely shook his hand firmly and sank back in the cushions. He turned and sped for the office.

“Bassett,” he said, with simulated indifference a minute later, “let’s see that stuff you’ve got on the girls.”

“You mean,” cried Bassett, “you’re going to run it?”

“Double leaded,” said Good shortly. “Got any pictures?”

“Say,” said Bassett, “I’ve got some stuff that would make dynamite look like lemon candy. We’ll make The World look like a gospel messenger. I’ll make you a bet, Good.”

“Yes?”

“I’ll bet you a stein of imported Muenchen that there’ll be hell let loose to-morrow in several advertising offices we know of.”

“Why not ask me for it outright?” asked Good with a smile.