“We have several things to count on here, even when conditions seem intolerable. Let me name them.
“We are all human beings; some of us have inherited the Old Testament righteousness and the passion for justice, and many of us have the New Testament desire for service. These together make a very effective combination, and go a great way towards the glorious results we shall ultimately achieve.”
For once the Herr Director was silent, and as we had reached our hotel, I think I might have slept peacefully that night had not the Nebraskan triumphantly remarked as we were being shot up to the topmost floor: “Say, I did get that lobster à la Milkburgh with pickles and mince pie, didn’t I? I always get what I want when I want it.”
VI
The Herr Director and the “Missoury” Spirit
THE anteroom of the editor’s office was crowded when the Herr Director and I arrived to meet the men of the staff at luncheon.
The Herr Director is a publicist himself, and has edited one of the best known German newspapers. Having called on him when he was trying to mould an already moulded public opinion I made some interesting comparisons which he did not approve. I could not forbear reminding him how, when I once called on him in his office, I had to wait in a similar anteroom over an hour, that I had to pass through a number of other rooms with a longer or shorter period of waiting in each, and was finally admitted to his august presence as if he were a king on his throne.
As editor in chief, he was a more or less cloistered mystery, and not the man of affairs one is likely to be over here. Whatever comparisons I made in spite of the Herr Director’s protest, were not entirely fair; for editors are scarcely a species anywhere, and the particular one upon whom we were calling was an uncommon editor of an uncommon journal. Neither he nor it has a counterpart in Germany if anywhere in the world; they are both products of our Spirit and have had no small share in shaping it and giving it expression.
While I was explaining to the Herr Director the functions of this journal and how intelligently it interprets current events, and was extolling the virtues of its editors who, in spite of being persons of national reputation and great importance, have retained their simple, democratic ways, they emerged from the inner sanctum.
After a vigorous hand-shake all around to which the Herr Director visibly braced himself, the first contact was made, and we were taken to a handsomely appointed dining-room in the same building, where luncheon was served.
Beneath all the outer simplicity and democratic demeanor of our host, beneath his smoothly shaven, well groomed, correctly tailored exterior, the Herr Director recognized a dignified reserve and consciousness of power, which made him whisper to me, “His Majesty and suite,” at the same time soothing with his left hand his aching right hand, just released from the vise-like grip of the editor.