第148章

The forces of "privilege and corruption"were not much alarmed.Perry Blackwood accused the newspapers of having agreed to a "conspiracy of silence";but,as Judah B.Tallant remarked,it was the business of the press to give the public what it wanted,and the public as yet hadn't shown much interest in the struggle being waged in its behalf.When the meetings began to fill up it would be time to report them in the columns of the Era.Meanwhile,however,the city had been quietly visited by an enterprising representative of a New York periodical of the new type that developed with the opening years of the century--one making a specialty of passionate "muck-raking."And since the people of America love nothing better than being startled,Yardley's Weekly had acquired a circulation truly fabulous.The emissary of the paper had attended several of the Citizens meetings;interviewed,it seemed,many persons:

the result was a revelation to make the blood of politicians,capitalists and corporation lawyers run cold.I remember very well the day it appeared on our news stands,and the heated denunciations it evoked at the Boyne Club.Ralph Hambleton was the only one who took it calmly,who seemed to derive a certain enjoyment from the affair.Had he been a less privileged person,they would have put him in chancery.Leonard Dickinson asserted that Yardley's should be sued for libel.

"There's just one objection to that,"said Ralph.

"What?"asked the banker.

"It isn't libel."

"I defy them to prove it,"Dickinson snapped."It's a d--d outrage!

There isn't a city or village in the country that hasn't exactly the same conditions.There isn't any other way to run a city--""That's what Mr.Krebs says,"Ralph replied,"that the people ought to put Judd Jason officially in charge.He tells 'em that Jason is probably a more efficient man than Democracy will be able to evolve in a coon's age,that we ought to take him over,instead of letting the capitalists have him.""Did Krebs say that?"Dickinson demanded.

"You can't have read the article very thoroughly,Leonard,"Ralph commented."I'm afraid you only picked out the part of it that compliments you.This fellow seems to have been struck by Krebs,says he's a coming man,that he's making original contributions to the people's cause.Quite a tribute.You ought to read it.

Dickinson,who had finished his lunch,got up and left the table after lighting his cigar.Ralph's look followed him amusedly.

"I'm afraid it's time to cash in and be good,"he observed.

"We'll get that fellow Krebs yet,"said Grierson,wrathfully.

Miller Gorse alone made no remarks,but in spite of his silence he emanated an animosity against reform and reformers that seemed to charge the very atmosphere,and would have repressed any man but Ralph....

I sat in my room at the Club that night and reread the article,and if its author could have looked into my soul and observed the emotions he had set up,he would,no doubt,have experienced a grim satisfaction.

For I,too,had come in for a share of the comment.Portions of the matter referring to me stuck in my brain like tar,such as the reference to my father,to the honoured traditions of the Parets and the Brecks which I had deliberately repudiated.I had less excuse than many others.

The part I had played in various reprehensible transactions such as the Riverside Franchise and the dummy telephone company affair was dwelt upon,and I was dismissed with the laconic comment that I was a graduate of Harvard....

My associates and myself were referred to collectively as a "gang,"with the name of our city prefixed;we were linked up with and compared to the gangs of other cities--the terminology used to describe us being that of the police reporter.We "operated,"like burglars;we "looted":only,it was intimated in one place,"second-story men"were angels compared to us,who had never seen the inside of a penitentiary.Here we were,all arraigned before the bar of public opinion,the relentless Dickinson,the surfeited Scherer,the rapacious Grierson,the salacious Tallant.I have forgotten what Miller Gorse was called;nothing so classic as a Minotaur;Judd Jason was a hairy spider who spread his net and lurked in darkness for his victims.Every adjective was called upon to do its duty....

Even Theodore Watling did not escape,but it was intimated that he would be dealt with in another connection in a future number.

The article had a crude and terrifying power,and the pain it aroused,following almost immediately upon the suffering caused by my separation from Nancy,was cumulative in character and effect,seeming actively to reenforce the unwelcome conviction I had been striving to suppress,that the world,which had long seemed so acquiescent in conforming itself to my desires,was turning against me.

Though my hunger for Nancy was still gnawing,I had begun to fear that Ishould never get her now;and the fact that she would not even write to me seemed to confirm this.

Then there was Matthew--I could not bear to think that he would ever read that article.

In vain I tried that night to belittle to myself its contentions and probable results,to summon up the heart to fight;in vain I sought to reconstruct the point of view,to gain something of that renewed hope and power,of devotion to a cause I had carried away from Washington after my talk with Theodore Watling.He,though stricken,had not wavered in his faith.Why should I?

Whether or not as the result of the article in Yardley's,which had been read more or less widely in the city,the campaign of the Citizens Union gained ground,and people began to fill the little halls to hear Krebs,who was a candidate for district attorney.Evidently he was entertaining and rousing them,for his reputation spread,and some of the larger halls were hired.Dickinson and Gorse became alarmed,and one morning the banker turned up at the Club while I was eating my breakfast.