Gottlieb was worried:
“I knew Tubbs was up to something idealistic and nasty when he came purring to me, but I did not t’ink he would try to turn you into a megaphone all so soon in one day! I will gird up my loins and go oud to battle with the forces of publicity!”
He was defeated.
“I have let you alone, Dr. Gottlieb,” said Tubbs, “but hang it, I am the Director! And I must say that, perhaps owing to my signal stupidity, I fail to see the horrors of enabling Arrowsmith to cure thousands of suffering persons and to become a man of weight and esteem!”
Gottlieb took it to Ross McGurk.
“Max, I love you like a brother, but Tubbs is the Director, and if he feels he needs this Arrowsmith (is he the thin young fellow I see around your lab?) then I have no right to stop him. I’ve got to back him up the same as I would the master of one of our ships,” said McGurk.
Not till the Board of Trustees, which consisted of McGurk himself, the president of the University of Wilmington, and three professors of science in various universities, should meet and give approval, would Martin be a department-head. Meantime Tubbs demanded:
“Now, Martin, you must hasten and publish your results. Get right to it. In fact you should have done it before this. Throw your material together as rapidly as possible and send a note in to the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, to be published in their next proceedings.”
“But I’m not ready to publish! I want to have every loophole plugged up before I announce anything whatever!”
“Nonsense! That attitude is old-fashioned. This is no longer an age of parochialism but of competition, in art and science just as much as in commerce—coöperation with your own group, but with those outside it, competition to the death! Plug up the holes thoroughly, later, but we can’t have somebody else stealing a march on us. Remember you have your name to make. The way to make it is by working with me—toward the greatest good for the greatest number.”