“Oh, there’s a friend of mine got arrested to-day. Some farmer had him took in for fraud or something. He’ll make good, I guess; I know, in fact. He ain’t a bad fellow, and it would hurt him if this got printed.”
I asked him for particulars; saw a reporter who had the story; learned that the man was a sharp-dealer with a bad reputation, who had been detected in an attempt to cheat a poor farmer out of $260—a bare-faced fraud indeed. I learned that the man had long been suspected by public opinion of semi-legal attempts to rob the “widow and the orphan,” and that at last there was a chance of “showing him up.” I went back with a bold face.
“I find, though the case has not been tried, that the man is undoubtedly guilty.”
“Guilty?” said my advertiser. “What of that? He’ll settle.”
“That hardly lessens the guilt.” I smiled.
The clothing man looked astounded. “But if you print that he’ll be ruined,” he sputtered.
“From all I can learn, so much the better,” I answered.
Then my man swore. “See here,” he said, when he got back to written language. “He’s just making his living; you ain’t got no right to stop a man’s earning his living. It ain’t none of any newspaper’s business. Just a private affair between him and the farmer, and he’ll settle.”
“I don’t see how,” I put in somewhat warmly, “it isn’t the business of a newspaper to tell its public of a dangerous man, arrested for fraud, caught in his own net so badly that he is willing to settle, as you claim. It is my obvious duty to my constituents to print such a case. From the news point of view—” I was going on smoothly, but he stepped up and shook his fist in my face.
“Constituents? Ain’t I a constituent? Don’t I pay your newspaper for more advertising than any one else? Ain’t I your biggest constituent? Say, young man, you’re too big for this town. Don’t try to bully me!” he suddenly screamed. “Don’t you dare bully me! Don’t you dare try it. I see what you want. You’re trying to blackmail me, you are; you’re trying to work me for more advertising; you want money out of me. That game don’t go; not with me it don’t. I’ll have you arrested.”