One reason was that a copy had reached the Angel City “Evening Booster,” most popular of newspapers, printed in green, five editions per day. The second edition, on the streets about noon, carried a “streamer head” across the front page:
Red Nest at University!
Bolshevik Propaganda at S. P. U.
There followed a two-column story, carried over to page fourteen, giving a lurid account of “The Investigator’s” contents, including the most startling of the facts about the hiring of athletes for the university, and the whole text of the satiric poem about God—but alas, only a very brief hint as to what Harry Seager had told about Siberia. A little later in the day came the rivals of the “Evening Booster,” the “Evening Roarer” and the “Evening Howler”; they had been scooped one whole edition, but they made up for it by a mass of new details, some collected by telephone, the rest made up in the editorial offices. Said the “Evening Roarer”:
Red College Plot Unearthed
and it went on to tell how the police were seeking Russian agents who had made use of Southern Pacific students to get their propaganda into print. The “Evening Howler,” which went in especially for “human interest stuff,” featured the ring-leader of the conspiracy:
Millionaire Red in College!
Son of Oil Magnate Backs Soviets!
And it scooped its rivals by having a photograph of Bunny, which it had got by rushing a man to the Ross home, and informing Aunt Emma that Bunny had just been awarded a prize for the best scholarship record in ten years. The good lady was so excited, she sent the butler out to the corner drug-store three times, to see if the “Evening Howler” had arrived with the story of that prize!