“And then,” said Ricker, “you'd begin to clean up, little by little,—let up on your murders and scandals, and purge and live cleanly like a gentleman? The trick's been tried before.”
They had arrived at the oyster-house, and were sitting at their table, waiting for the oysters to be brought to them. Bartley tilted his chair back. “I don't know about the cleaning up. I should want to keep all my audience. If I cleaned up, the dirty fellows would go off to some one else; and the fellows that pretended to be clean would be disappointed.”
“Why don't you get Witherby to put your ideas in force?” asked Ricker, dryly.
Bartley dropped his chair to all fours, and said with a smile, “He belongs to church.”
“Ah! he has his limitations. What a pity! He has the money to establish this great moral engine of yours, and you haven't. It's a loss to civilization.”
“One thing, I know,” said Bartley, with a certain effect of virtue, “nobody should buy or sell me; and the advertising element shouldn't spread beyond the advertising page.”
“Isn't that rather high ground?” inquired Ricker.
Bartley did not think it worth while to answer. “I don't believe that a newspaper is obliged to be superior in tone to the community,” he said.
“I quite agree with you.”
“And if the community is full of vice and crime, the newspaper can't do better than reflect its condition.”