“Oh, but I don’t want to be in the papers!” she cried “Surely, you wouldn’t advise it!”
“I don’t see how you can avoid having something appear. Your name is given out, and if the man can’t get anything else, he’ll take our literature, and write up your doings out of his imagination.”
“And they’ll print my picture with it!” she exclaimed. I could not help laughing. “It’s quite possible.”
“Oh, what will my husband do? He’ll say ‘I told you so!’”
It is a hard thing to have one’s husband say that, as I knew by bitter experience. But I did not think that reason enough for giving up.
“Let me have time to think it over,” said Sylvia. “Get him to wait till to-morrow, and meantime I can see you.”
So it was arranged. I think I told Sylvia the truth when I said that I had never before heard of a committee member who was unwilling to have his purposes discussed in the newspapers. To influence newspapers was one of the main purposes of committees, and I did not see how she could expect either editors or readers to take any other view.
“Let me tell the man about your trip down town,” I suggested, “then I can go on to discuss the bill and how it bears on the evils you saw. Such a statement can’t possibly do you harm.”
She consented, but with the understanding that she was not to be quoted directly. “And don’t let them make me picturesque!” she exclaimed. “That’s what my husband seems most to dread.”
I wondered if he didn’t think she was picturesque, when she sat in a splendid, shining coach, and took part in a public parade through Central Park. But I did not say this. I went off, and swore my reporter to abstain from the “human touch,” and he promised and kept his word. There appeared next morning a dignified “write-up” of Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver’s interest in child-labour reform. Quoting me, it described some of the places she had visited, and some of the sights which had shocked her; it went on to tell about our committee and its work, the status of our bill in the legislature, the need of activity on the part of our friends if the measure was to be forced through at this session. It was a splendid “boost” for our work, and everyone in the office was in raptures over it. The social revolution was at hand! thought my young stenographer.