Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1910 — THE FOURTH ESTATE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FOURTH ESTATE

Novelized by FREDERICK R. TOOMBS

' f From the Great Play of the Same Name by Joseph Medill Patterson and Harriet Ford. & & COPYRIGHT. 1909. BY JOSEPH MEDILL PATTERSON AND HARRIET FORD.

v SYNOPSIS. Chapter I—Judith Bartelmy. society woman, goes to the office of the Daily Advance to protest against a story which had severely criticised her father, a judge of the United States court. She discovers that the author of the article was Wheeler Brand, a brilliant young writer whom she had promised to. marry. He refuses to cease attacking her father. II —Judith discards her engagement ring. Dupuy, a lawyer, representing big advertisers, calls and demands Brand’s discharge, as his Clients are friends of Judge Bartelmy, 1 111 Brand is discharged by the managing editor, for the paper, long owned by an insurance company, had been friendly to corporations. Michael Nolan, who buys the paper, comes in the office and finds Dupuy to be an old enemy of his. IV—Nolan calls for Brand and makes him managing editor. V—Brand tells Nolan and his socially ambitious family that the dishonest judge, Bartelmy, and his unsuspecting daughter have taken them up socially so as to try to induce Nolan not to attack the judge in his newspaper. Vl—Duptiy aids Bartelmy in endeavoring to have Brand and the Advance avoid attacking the judge regarding a tricky opinion he has rendered in the Lansing Iron case. "Every man has his price, even Brand,” says Dupuy. Vll—Nolan says if Brand will trap Bartelmy in the act of offering him a bribe to keep silent that the Advance will print the story in full. Vlll—Bartelmy agrees to pay Brand $lO,000 to keep quiet about the Lansing Iron case. IX- —Brand lays the trap for Bartelmy. X—Bartelmy arrives at the Advance office to pay Brand the SIO,OOO. Xl—Brand, aided by three reporters, takes a flashlight photograph of Bartelmy offering the SIO,OOO bribe money and obtains by a most ingenious telephone trick an accurate record of the judge’s words as he counted out the money. XU—Sylvester Nolan, son of the paper’s owner, endeavors to prevent publication of the story and photograph in the Advance. Dupuy also proves powerless to influence Brand. Xm—Mrs. Nolan tries to ston the story. Nolan hestitates about' letting the story go to press. Finally he says:“Show the big thieves up, Wheeler. Put the story through.” XIV —Judith Bartelmy and the judge make efforts in the composing room of fihe Advance to stop the story. Brand cannot be swerved, however. Judith must choose between Brand and her father. She chooses Brand. The story is printed. Bartelmy flees to Europe. Judith and Brand are to marry.

CHAPTER XIV, ORAND and McHenry began eagerly to inspect the final proofs of the Bartel my story. Qqß9 Two figures suddenly stood in the doorway of the composing room. Ed Dupuy’s telephone call was beginning to show results. Judge Bartelmy and Judith, ready for a last Effort to prevent the publication of the condemnatory article, quite unobserved, glancdd to where Brand and his associate editor were at work. "Don’t come in yet Wait a few moments,” whispered the judge. The girl slipped down the hall into the managing editor’s little office, the coign»ofvantage from which previously been - able to bear all that took place in the composing room. Bartelmy proceeded directly to the form before which the two editors were working, and Brand saw that be must undergo another unpleasant encounter before the presses began to whirl off his story. He glanced impatiently at the clock and raised his brows questiouingly to the judge.

“Mr. Brand, has Mr. Nolan been her© tonight?** asked Bartelmy.

-Tee. "Have you received instructions about this story?” . ! “Yes.” , “What were those instructions? Is the story to be printed?” “I am not at liberty to discuss with any outside person the communications 1 receive from the owner, but 1 will add for your information that the story will be on the press in a twy few minutes." At this latest declaration of Brand's Judith could restrain herself no longer. She . rushed through the doorway, across the grimy floor, regardless of the flowing train of her silk gown. Brand rubbed the back of bis band across bis eyes as though they were deceiving him. “Good God; it is Judith I” be exclaimed. Then he turned to his assistant. “Here, Mac, hurry-take this form away.” j The girl’s face and eyes were aglow with the effects of the nervous strain under which she labored on that epoch making and epoch breaking night before the startled night shift »f the Advance. “Wheeler, you're not going to use that picture?” she pleaded. * “Take the form away.” again ordered Brand, his voice almost falling him. - “No, no; don’t send it! Wait, wait!” She tiyew herself over the inky form, her arms outstretched. Brand tried to draw her away. “Judith, please!” he protested. “They can’t have”— She was hysterical. •"Go to lunch, boys,” ordered Brand to the typesetters. "We'D miss the mail,” protested McHenry. “I don’t care. Go to lunch.” The compositors ceased work at the linotypes and, wondering and whispering. slowly filed out. “Judith,” Brand besought her, “won’t you”— “Listen to me, Wheqler,” she broke in. “I know everything. Father has told me everything about—his—guilt. You understand what it means to me—what he is to me. Y’ou must spare him for me!” “Judith, it’s Impossible.” “But it is the human thing to do. Oh, forget these ideals. Be j'ust a man—a man who loves a woman and protects her. You do love me, I know, in spite of everything that you’ve done.” “Yes, I love you!” he cried fervently. “And Wheeler, dear, I’ve not changed,” she told him fondly. “I can see how right you mean to be in what you are trying to do, but in this you are wrong. Whatever my father may have done, his intentions were honest. He had been involved by others and when he tried to extricate himself it was too late. They, not he, were guilty. It was for their sakes, not his own, that he offered you that money,

so you see you are wrong. Why, Wheeler, if yoojwloqged to top and

vommitred a crime i wouia me to shield you from the penalty.” Brand answered her quickly. “That is wrong reasoning.” “No. no; it is right. That must always be,” she cried. “It is like —like a law of life. Can't you see that too? I belong to you. Yes, I belong to you, and you should shield me. Yon must feel toward my father as he were your own because he is mine. It’s not possible that you would do this thing to your own father. Think of him that way—your own father! You’ll not regret it. I’H make it up to you with all my love for all the rest of life! Wheeler, say you will do what I ask.” She broke down completely and sobbed brokenly, leaning across the form. “Oh, say you will do what I ask!” Brand tried to raise her. but she clung to him frenziedly. / “Judith, »for God's sake, don’t!” he said. “Yes, yes; you must, you shall!” She

was posing all control of herself in her desperation. “Judith, listen to me,” he said inspiredly. “I’m not the man who loves you or is loved by yon. I’ve no right to think of you or of myself. I’m an instrument to an end in the history of a great God. Can’t you see this thing as I dor -“I can’t reason. I can’t argue. I can onlv feeL” The judge had drawn a few seeps away from the pair during the scene between (hem. He viewed with calculating satisfaction the battle that his daughter was waging so valiantly in his behalf, and he had felt that not even the young stoic Brand could resist this tMJwerful and final appeal of the girl beloved At his daughter’s last outcry heMfew near to the editor. “Brand, are you human?” he demanded strongly, pointing to the prostrated girl with his walking stick. “Human, human, Judge Bartelmy!” he exclaimed. “You are true to yourself to the end. You bring your daughter here so that by torturing me with the sight of her suffering you may escape the penalty of your thievery. I was willing she should think me heartless to spare her the greater pain .of knowing you as you are. But now you bring her here in her innocence to repeat to me your lies. You’re degrading her, dragging her down to your own level, just as you did her mother before her. If she lets you go on using her it will be with her eyes open." Judith raised tier head amazedly. “What are you saying?’’ she asked. Brand turned to her and then to the judge. “Why, he's lied to you just as he’s lied all his life. . He told you he was trying to shield others. He lied. He never shielded any one but himself. Judge Bartelmy, the power of men like you must be destroyed. When justice is corrupted the nation rots. If I keep silent about you and your methods I become your accomplice; I betray my trust just as you have betrayed yours.’’ Bartelmy raised his hand deprecatingly. Brand, however, drew'll deep breath and went resolutely on. He. spoke to both the girl and the judge. “Judith, if at the cost of my life I could spare you this grief I would do it gladly. But even,that would do no good. You would always despise me for failing when my test came and always despise yourself for having cans-, ed me to fait Can’t you see you and I are nothing in all this? The individual does not exist, only the cause. Judge Bartelmy, that story goes to press,” he cried, raising his eyes to meet those of Judith’s father. Bartelmy’Saw' that be had played his last card. It .was his highest

trump, but it had failed to win. What Judith could not do he rarely, under the existing circumstances, could not do. Nolan, the only man who could save' him if he would- had gone, he knew jiot where. And it was now press time. All was over. Bartel my took a single step toward his daughter. : i.,, “Brand, that story is my obituary,*’ he said in low tones. “Oh, no,” was the response in saddened voice. “Men like you don’t finish that way.; You’ll have about six hours, judge, before that story is read by the public.” Judith, too, was ready to admit that her last and culminating effort had been ip vain. Wearied and unstrung, she raised herself from the fatal form that was to besmirch the name and the father that had been her source of pride. She crossed over toward her father, who stood silent and despairingly in the shadow of one of the linotype machines. “Goodby, Wheeler. I am going out of your life forever. lam sorry it had to end like this—all our plans, all our hopes”— The thought of the happy moments that she had spent with Wheeler, building air castles for their future when they would be mau and wife, came over her. It swept down the wall of reserve and determination with which she had deemed it necessary to surround herself. She halted, and gazed steadfastly into her father’s face. Slowly she raised her hands and pressed them against her cheeks as though horror stricken. Then she turned, rushed impulsively back to Wheeler Brand- and. bending tensely toward him, she searched his strong young face as best her tear dimmed eyes would let her. He returned her gaze unflinchingly. Judge Bartelmy saw the girl's struggle to decide between the father who had dishonored her name and the lover who meant a life of happiness, purity, success and inspiration. He

was wise enough in the ways of the world to know that again was Brand to prove a victor over him. , The girl stood immovable a moment. Then she extended her arm toward her lover. Judith Bartelmy had made her choice. . The judge’s features showed but little of the storm into which his emotions had been plunged. His years of practiced self control had come to his aid and enabled him to face the ruin of his career and his life and his name withcrtat the frenzied demonstration in which most men in his position would have Indulged. To the last he was the cool, polished, suave hypocrite that he had been in the beginning, when those who sought to loot the public for private gain found him a willing tool. “He is right,” Bartelmy said to Judith. “He has told you the truth tonight—the absolute truth.” He looked at his WatAi. “Six hours, did you say, Mr. Brand?” he asked. Brand had gathered Judith in his arms. She sighed contentedly as she laid her head upon his shoulder. “Yes,” he answered the judge. Judge Bartelmy stood watching the united couple for a moment before he turned and walked away, muttering as he went: “Six hours. One may travel fir in these days in that time.” *.•♦♦ ♦' * * The great ship heaved and uged through the giant seas that siu,. over her bows, out of the freezing night, out of the cold northeast. The captain and the first officer, lashed to opposite ends of the lofty bridge, choked in the flying spume of wind riven midocean. Somewhere a deep toned bell told of the hour in the sailors' accustomed fashion. From somewhere out of the depths of the vast groaning fabric tumbled the men of the watch who -mere now to go on duty to relieve their storm beaten fellows. And somewhere down in the shivering, rearing hull a gaunt faced, hollow eyed man lay on the saffron hued velvet cushions of a narrow couch at the side of a luxurious stateroom. He was fully dressed in spite of the lateness of the hour and of the fact that he was sleeping—just as 1 rad been the. night before. He toss,.. uneasily. Sometimes he thrust his hands out convulsively as though to ward off a threateniug danger. He began to talk incoherently. The ship rolled, and a tray containing dishes and an evening meal that had gone nntouched crashed to the floor. “The press—the printing press—has started,” he muttered disjointedly as the sound of the breaking dishes penetrated into his wearied

brain. His hand instinctively crept under one of the cushions. It grasped and for a moment fumbled with a blue steel object, which it drew weakly forth—a revolver. The shock of the cold steel roused the sleeper. He opened his eyes and gazed fascinatedly at the instrument of death. With a cry of terror he relaxed his fingers, and the tobject dropped to the floor.

He groan of a lost souTln the anguish of its never ceasing torture. He turned his face to the wall and tried in vain to close his eyes !■ sleep. / • Judgment had been pronounced In the case of “JUDGE BARTELMY VERSUS THE PEOPLE, WHEELER BRAND AND THE ADVANCE.” THE END.

SHE THREW HERSELF OVER THE INKY FORM.

“You’re drugging her down to your own level."

"Six hours, did you say, Mr. Brand?"

[?]DGE BARTELMY. THAT STORY GOES TO PRESS," HE CRIED, RAISING HIS EVES TO THOSE OF JUDITH’S FATHER.