But here again the unlucky politician missed fire. Nobody paid much heed to his libel action. For, on the day when it was instituted, the patience of a long-enduring President and people broke and the Government of the United States of America bared the sword between the flag and its insulters overseas.
CHAPTER XI
HOW essential a prop Martin Embree’s influence had been to the threatened fortunes of The Guardian, its editor was now to learn. Where, hitherto, the paper had offended, “Smiling Mart” had palliated, explained, excused, defended, spreading the soothing oil of his diplomacy with expert healing. Now the bland oil was supplanted by salt to rub into the wounds. At this, too, the Governor plied a master-hand. The “firebrand” interview, given to the papers of the State, in which he solemnly and all but officially anathematized The Guardian as an incendiary and anarchical agency, rallied the forces of peace-at-any-price and helped to organize them for the ruin of The Guardian. This was in the interval between the establishment of the State Council of Defense and the declaration of war, a period when Centralia still blundered about in a fog of delusion, blindly discrediting the inevitable.
Vainly a few dailies strove to force the truth upon them; The Bellair Journal, The Guardian, a handful of lesser papers. It was to be read between the lines of the German-language press, exhorting their people to be firm of spirit and stand together whatever might betide, warning them that British agencies were in control of the Administration, openly flouting and vilifying the Government of the Nation at a time when politicians of all parties but the Kaiser’s had forgotten every consideration but loyalty, extolling and exalting Germany, snarling at the military “pretensions” of the United States, appealing to racial divisions in a last-hour attempt to devitalize the war-spirit. But the Centralians, breathing the murky air of their pacifists’ paradise, were in no mood to read between the lines. For them the assurances of the great bulk of their newspapers sufficed. These, either themselves deceived, or fearful of reprisals, or simply accepting that old-time tenet of the pander “Give the public what it wants,” would not admit the possibility of this Nation’s being drawn into the struggle. War? Those who prophesied it were fools playing with fire. They were in Wall Street’s pay. They were traitors to a peace-loving people. And Centralia, for the most part, read and believed.
All that man could do to foster this creed, Martin Embree did. To do him justice, he did not admit to himself the imminence of the conflict. His was the type of mind, characteristic of the self-centered, which translates hopes into expectations and expectations into belief. On the whole he thought the time and opportunity favorable for a brief, preparatory campaign for the senatorship. On anti-war, pro-German sentiment combined, he felt sure that he could ride to victory, when the time came, atop the crest of an irresistible wave. He made a short speaking tour in the Northern Tier, where The Guardian as his representative organ had so prospered. Wherever he now appeared, The Guardian’s circulation withered. He had but to quote from the “Under Which Flag?” editorial, with such intonations as he well knew how to impart, and the Teutonic fury of his audiences did the rest.
At home in Fenchester the paper showed a slight but steady loss of circulation. Verrall went about the office looking, as Andrew Galpin indignantly observed, “like a sob-sister on reduced salary.” The circulation and advertising manager was frankly of opinion that The Guardian was done for. If the hyphen outbreak were not, in itself, enough, the split with Governor Embree was the final madness. Personally he maintained unbroken relations with the Governor. He did not despair, he told Galpin, of bringing about a practicable adjustment if not an actual reconciliation between The Guardian and Embree. How was the Governor to mature his senatorial plans without at least one important newspaper through which to express himself? he argued. The Bellair Journal, never reliably loyal, was now violently opposing him. The Record was out of the question on the political side. He needed The Guardian and The Guardian needed him. The thing ought to be fixed up—he put it squarely to Galpin. Could n’t it be fixed up?
Galpin, regarding him with a sinister eye, opined that it might, what time fried snowballs were a popular breakfast food in Sheol.
Since the publication of the fateful editorial the Deutscher Club had been, officially, mute. Even though, in a later effort from Editor Robson’s pen, it had been invited to gladden the eyes of Fenchester by displaying the Stars and Stripes above its building, it made no retort. Neither did it display the Stars and Stripes. It was quietly busy with other considerations.