For unknown reasons it was decided to call off the attempt to create public opinion against government ownership of elevators and with the letters aimed at the farmers' trading activities being refused publication, the employers of "Observer" had no further work for him to do.
As they were still paying his interesting salary each month, they offered him $1,500 to tear up his contract, he said. But with more than a year and a half still to run—over $6,000 coming to him—Mr. "Observer" had a certain affection for that contract. Fifteen hundred dollars? Pooh, pooh! He would settle for—well, say So-Much.
"You're talking through your hat!" scoffed his employers in effect.
"It's a six-thousand-dollar hat!" smiled "Observer" pleasantly.
"Well, we won't pay any such lump sum as you say," virtually declared his employers, not so pleasantly.
"Just as you wish, gentlemen. I'll wait, then, and draw my salary—$333.33 1/3 every month, according to contract. I know you don't want me to sue for it; because we'd have to air the whole thing in the courts and there would be a lot of publicity. So we'll just let her toddle along and no hard feelings."
He got his money.
The alleged attempt of these elevator men, whether with or without the sanction of their associates, to make public opinion by means of the "Observer" letters began in the fall of 1909. It lasted but a few weeks.