Instead, his paper, and the other two town papers, tried to turn off the affair as a mere college joke, played on a whole community....
But we had expected just such action—rather the executive genius of Jerome had expected it—for which reason we had confronted the readers of the Globe with damning facts and statistics, carefully gathered, which presented an insurmountable barrier to evasion.
And as we also had expected, the Civic Betterment League was also dead against us....
"Why," cried Langworth to me, "why didn't you bring all the evidence to us, and let us proceed calmly and soberly with the case?"
"Professor Langworth, you are a friend of mine, and a very good one—but you know very well that the conditions exposed you people knew of all along ... and for years you have dallied along without acting on it."
"We were biding the proper time!"
"The reason you never started something was your fear of involving the university in the publicity that was sure to follow!..."
Langworth was a good man, but he knew I had him. He hemmed and hawed, then covered his retreat in half-hearted anger at me....
"You know well enough, Johnnie Gregory, that all you boys did it for was to 'pull a stunt'—indulge in a little youthful horseplay."
"Granted—but we have effected results!"