XXV
The newspapers did nobly. Too many prominent names were involved for them not to print the news. There was an opportunity for using real humor and impressive statistics in describing the new labor-saving machinery. The marvelous efficiency of H. R. as a practical philanthropist, demonstrated by his elimination of people who had money with which to buy food, and the simple but amazing efficacy of his Thirst-Detector raised the story to the realm of pure literature.
There was also a serious aspect to the entire affair. All the hungry men, women, and children in Greater New York that had no money had been fed. Assuming, as was probable, that most of the hungry were not bona-fide residents of New York, it showed that in the metropolis of the Western World less than one-thousandth of the total population were hungry and penniless. No other city in the world could boast of such statistics.
But H. R.'s work was not done. Before he retired for the night, knowing that his position in society and in the world of affairs was established on an adamant base, he nevertheless composed thirty-eight communications for the Public Sentiment Corps to send out the next day to the newspapers. A sample will suffice:
It has been clearly proven that New York is a great big city with a great big heart. As always, it responded generously to the call of Charity. The Hunger Feast at Madison Square Garden was an extraordinary bit of municipal psychology and an illuminating object-lesson. Why not make permanent a state of mind of the public which does so much to dispel the danger of a bloody revolution? Social unrest can be cured by only one thing: Charity! Man does not need justice. He needs the good-will of other men. The newspapers have it in their power to check the hysterical and un-American clamor against individual fortunes. They can throw open their columns! Treat Charity as if it were as important as baseball or at least billiards. Carry a regular Department of Charity every day. Give your readers a chance to be kind. It will be a novelty to many, but it will help all—the giver no less than the beneficiary. If you will agree, Mr. Editor, I'll send check.
Other specimens emphasized the non-sectarian phase of such charities as that conceived and carried to success by one of the most remarkable men in a city where the best brains of the country admittedly resided. Intelligent charity, wisely discriminating, truly helpful, had been placed for all time among the possibilities. Systematized charities were delusions, chimeras, thin air. There was a demand for the opportunity to be decent and kind. Let the newspapers supply it. "If your readers want lurid accounts of murder trials and divorce cases, let them have them. If they want expert advice on how to help their fellow-men give it to them, also. It remains to be seen whether there is one newspaper in New York that knows real news when it sees it!"
There were thirty-eight epistolary models in all.
In the afternoon of the day following the Mammoth Hunger Feast H. R. called at the Goodchild house.
"Frederick, tell Miss Grace—"
"She 'as gone, sir!" said Frederick, tragically.