The Governor’s box was that which Magnus Laurens had occupied in 1912. Sitting well back in it, Jeremy faced the high balcony. In the far corner a fat, steamy German in a fancy waistcoat roared out “Hochs!” of assent and applause to the speakers. But before Jeremy’s wistful vision he dissolved, giving place to another figure; a figure slender, gallant, boyish, erect. Martin Embree’s touch on his knee recalled Jeremy to realities.
“Wake up, Jem! What ghosts are you seeing?”
“None. Nothing,” muttered Jeremy, and stood while the fervid gathering sang thunderously “Die Wacht am Rhein.”
CHAPTER II
STEP by step The Guardian followed the war through its pregnant early days. In presentation of the news, both Jeremy and Galpin strove to be conscientiously neutral. For Galpin, this was simple enough. It accorded with his creed, that the news should stand of itself and for itself and let the people judge. Jeremy took it harder. There were times when, in the security of his den, he fingered his pencil with a fierce and mounting resentment which cried for expression toward Germany’s savagery and terrorism. On the other hand, he knew that to incite prejudices, wrath, and hatred within America, and particularly within so divided a State as his own, was to thrust the nation nearer to that hell’s caldron wherein Europe agonized. The President had prescribed neutrality. That, Jeremy recognized, was the part of statesmanship. He appeased his own soul with the argument that it was equally the part of honorable journalism.
If he had thought by editorial silence to satisfy or even conciliate the propagandists of Deutschtum in the State, he was soon undeceived. The process of the absorption of Centralia by the German-Americans was swiftly progressing, and as a newspaper of influence, The Guardian came within the purview of their programme. Daily the mail deposited upon his desk a swelling flood of proselytizing literature; pamphlets, reprints, letters to the editor from writers whom he had never heard of (and who in many cases had no existence) as well as from his own clientèle, excerpts from the German press, editorials from that great and malign force in American journalism who, already secretly plotting with Germany, was playing the game of Teutonic diplomacy by inciting fear and distrust of Japan and shouting for war upon and annexation of Mexico. He could not have published one twentieth of them. He did not publish one one-hundredth of them. Hardly a day passed without his being stopped on the street by some sorrowful or accusing or indignant subscriber who wished to know why The Guardian had not reproduced Pastor Klink’s powerful editorial on “The Crusader Spirit of Germany,” or how it happened that The Record printed Mr. Woeker’s letter on Belgian provocations while The Guardian had n’t a word of it. Suspicion established itself in the editor’s mind that some person or persons were making daily and scientific analysis of his newspaper for the purpose of forcing propaganda upon it by the power of protest. He suspected, and with reason, the Deutscher Club.
The matter of news soon became an irritant to the apostles of Deutschtum. To the layman, news is simple fact, the product of the world’s activities, finished and ready for the press. To the expert journalist news is a theme and the printed page his instrument whereon he may render that theme by an infinite variety of inflections and with infinitely varying effect upon his public. Headlines and sub-heads alone may vitally alter the whole purport of an article not otherwise garbled. So long as Germany’s record was one of consistent victories, the course of the Centralia newspapers was clearly marked. They had but to print the cables with captions appropriate to the facts, in order to please their self-appointed masters, the German-American public. But Russia now made her sensational advance. Victory in the West was threatened by disaster in the East. Much ingenious and painful juggling of cable news was imposed upon the harassed journalistic fraternity of Centralia by this unfortunate development. Relegating the Russian campaign to nooks and corners of the inner pages and qualifying it by indeterminate or sometimes satiric headlines, was the most generally approved method. The Guardian, however, printed the news. It printed it straight, for what it was worth, and under appropriate captions. Somewhat to Jeremy’s surprise and more to his relief, the Governor had no criticism to make of this course.
“So long as you stick to facts, we’ve got a good defense,” was his view. “They’ll kick. Of course they’ll kick. Let ’em. In time they’ll come to see that they’re really kicking against the facts, not against The Guardian. Just now our German friends are pretty excited and touchy and nervous. If you could give ’em a little more show on the editorial page, while this Russian business is on, it’d help.”