“Hold-ups, pure and simple,” said Andrew Galpin indignantly. “Dana has drummed them up.”
“Can you trace them to him? Safely enough so that we can print it?” asked his chief.
“Print a libel suit against ourselves!” said the general manager, scandalized at this threat against one of the most rock-ribbed principles of a tradition-choked calling.
“All seven of ’em. Tying each one up to Dana. No comment. The public will supply that for themselves.”
The result more than justified the experiment. Dana & Dana, who had not considered the possibility of this simple riposte, hastily withdrew the four weakest suits, amidst no little public amusement. The other three, however, were pressed, causing a continual wear-and-tear of worry and expense, which was their object. Every charge against The Guardian’s exchequer now meant less fighting power later when the test should come.
Politics succeeded politics in Centralia, meantime. Hardly was the legislative campaign over when the presidential election began to loom. Herein Jeremy found fresh source of difficulty and indecision. By training and natural affiliation he was opposed to the party of the President. In so far as The Guardian was committed at all, it was Republican in national politics, and more Republican than anything else in State. Undoubtedly the popular thing to do would be to enter upon a virulent attack against all the presidential policies. Embree urged this. It would go far to reconstitute the paper with the German-Americans who had already instituted the nation-wide campaign of the hyphen in favor of the President’s opponent, taken by them on trust, as nothing was known of him in a world-political sense other than that he was a sturdy and fearless type of American. Possibly it was the very vehemence of the hyphenates that impelled Jeremy to a cool-headed course. Virulent he could not be; there was no venom in him. His first formal pronouncement upon the campaign was to the effect that the United States had never before had a choice between two alternative candidates of such high character and attainment; and this he heartily believed. The Guardian would support Hughes. But it served notice on all and sundry that it would be no party to rancorous, unjust, and un-American attacks upon a President whose path had been more beset with difficulties and perils than any leader’s since the day of Lincoln. In a State so violently preoccupied with political prejudices as Centralia, this course was regarded as weak. It lost support to The Guardian.
Throughout the ensuing campaign, Jeremy never seemed able to get his hands free from politics sufficiently to take up and develop a distinct attitude toward the deepening, threatening problems of the war. Embree deemed this fortunate. So did Galpin, upon whom the financial weight of the burden of conduct was heavily pressing. The fewer superfluous enmities The Guardian now stirred up, the better, to his way of thinking. Verrall was all for peace at any political price. But though the World-War was relegated to a place of secondary importance, in the main, it was not consciously neglected or belittled. Slowly there had grown up in The Guardian’s environment the feeling that, after all, here was the one paper which was honestly undertaking to present the news as it developed. This helped to hold its circulation, even among those who bitterly resented its editorial attitude on the submarine, the bombing of defenseless cities, and similar war enterprises. So the paper won through the summer and fall of 1916, losing but little under the secret unremitting pressure of Deutschtum. When the President was reëlected, Jeremy Robson spoke out frankly and clearly the mind that was in him, calling for a united nation to be ready for what events might come upon it.
Back at the base of Jeremy’s hard-thinking brain there lay a lurking self-accusation. Had he not used the political stress as a convenient alibi? Had The Guardian truly stood on guard against the subtle and powerful inner war being waged across the hyphen? What of the promise, deadly serious despite its quaint Isaian twist, given to Marcia Ames? He sensed the looming conflict. He shrank from the terms of fulfillment to be exacted from him. But take up his pledge he must, when the hour came, though Hell from beneath were moved for him to meet him at his coming.