Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/153

 room seventeen," said M. C. S. "Please show me." "What do you wish with Justice So-and-so?" inquired the gentleman, politely. "Why," said M. C. S., "some imbecile of a judge has sent my husband to jail." "Madam," said the gentleman—still politely, "I am the judge."

She found Justice So-and-so. His court was in session and he could not be interrupted. But in the South, you understand, anything from a court to a fire-engine will stop to pick up a lady's handkerchief. And moreover, the father of M. C. S. is a judge, so she knows about them. She walked down the aisle and addressed his honor with her quietest smile, and—the court proceedings halted while the necessary papers were signed, and a Socialist muck-raker was released from jail.

The reason for this step was our desire to test in the higher courts the question whether a man whose conduct had been "that of a perfect gentleman" could properly be found guilty of "using threatening, abusive and insulting behavior." In order to appeal the case it was necessary to pay the fine under protest, so I paid one dollar, and came out on the last day—to behold the crowd of ten thousand people, and the mounted policemen, and the moving-picture operators in the windows of nearby office-buildings. And so, day after day, we were enabled to give information about the Colorado coal-strike to a group of reporters for the New York papers!

Several of these reporters were men of conscience. One, Isaac Russell of the "Times," became our friend, and day after day he would tell us of his struggles in the "Times" office, and how nearly every word favorable to myself or to the strikers was blue-penciled from his story. So during this Broadway demonstration, and the affair in Tarrytown which followed it, we lived, as it were, on the inside of the "Times" office, and watched the process of strangling the news. We have seen the tears come into Russell's eyes as he told about what was done. And on top of it all, Mr. Adolph Ochs gave a banquet to the "Times" staff, to celebrate some anniversary of the paper, and got up and made a speech to them—a speech to Isaac Russell!—telling what a wonderful institution he had made out of the "Times," and how it stood consecrated to the public welfare and the service of the truth!

P. S.—Isaac Russell reads the above, and corrects one serious error. He writes in emphatic capitals:

"WE REPORTERS PAID FOR THAT DINNER!"