"Come back in my office, will you, Mr. Good. There are a few questions I want to ask you."
"Cut out the 'Mister,' Bassett. I'm just one of the staff. I don't own anything, you know."
"That goes with me," said Bassett, "but look out I don't call you something worse. I've got a bad temper."
"Well," laughed Good, "I'm bigger than you." They went into Bassett's private office.
"What I want to get at," said the latter perplexedly, after they were seated, "is what line of thought you intend to follow. What angles do you mean to push?"
"You don't understand," said Good patiently, "all we want is the truth."
"Oh, fiddlesticks," cried Bassett impatiently. "That's fine for a rights-of-man declaration, but we're running a newspaper. You've got to have balance. What's true and interesting and desirable to one class of people isn't to another. What kind of people do you intend to cater to?"
"I see," said Good. He was silent for a moment. "I guess we want to print," he said finally, "what's true to most people. Anything that gives the greatest good to the greatest number, ought to be our field."
"That's what I'm getting at. Now look at this." The managing editor fumbled in his desk and produced a mass of paper. "You probably know that the girls in the department stores are trying to stage a strike. It doesn't amount to much—yet—but the police have pulled some pretty raw work. Now from the girls' standpoint this stuff ought to get publicity. But from the standpoint of those who own the newspapers it shouldn't—and it hasn't had a line except in The World, which, of course, only goes to the working people. Incidentally, The World has been running some pretty good sob-stuff lately."
"Yes," said Good quietly, "I wrote it."