By noon of the day, hints of what was coming were riding the winds of general report....
Carefully we read the proofs.
At last there it was—all the data, statistics, and details of the town's debauchery and corruption ... damning, in cold type, the administration, and the aquiescent powers in the university.
We ourselves had not as yet begun to perceive what it would lead to—a state-wide scandal that would echo in the Chicago, San Francisco and New York newspapers, and result in severe criticism of the university faculty for remaining blind to such a condition of affairs ... and how there would be interrogations in the Kansas Legislature and a complete shake-up of the political power in Laurel.
News of the forthcoming exposé spread mysteriously in "The Bottoms" before the paper was off the press. To avoid the coming storm, already negro malefactors and white, were "streaming" as Travers phrased it, "in dark clouds" out of town, for brief sojourns, beyond reach of the compelling subpoena, in Kansas City, Missouri.
By five o'clock the edition, an extra large one, had been almost exhausted, and people were lining up at the newspaper office, paying five cents a copy....
"Senator" Blair rushed back, having heard of what he called our "treachery" and abuse of his confidence, over telephone....
He looked sick and worried, as if he had run in all the way from the little lake, five miles from town, where he had gone for his week-end of idyllic, peaceful fishing....
"You've ruined me, you boys have!" he almost sobbed, collapsing fatly in his chair, then he flamed, "by God, I'll have you each investigated personally and clapped in jail," ... which threat, however, he did not even try to carry through....