Page:The Brass Check (Sinclair 1919).djvu/349

 In connection with this Maurer episode, there is a curious story which should be told. You remember "Collier's Weekly," a magazine "run on a personal basis," and the many young writers who had been debauched by "Collier" prosperity. One of these writers was Richard Harding Davis, and you would have to hunt a long time to find a more perfect incarnation of capitalist prosperity and success in literature. It happened that Davis was at his country home when he read in the "New York Times" that Maurer had said, "To hell with the Stars and Stripes!" Davis flew into a rage, and drafted a telegram to the mayor of New York, calling upon him to use the power of the government to put down these preachers of sedition. He went to the telephone to dictate the message, and before he was half-way through, fell dead of an apoplectic stroke!

Ten years ago I produced in California a one-act play called "The Indignant Subscriber." The editor of a great newspaper is found walking on the shore of an imaginary lake. A stranger invites him for a row in a boat—the "boat" consisting of two chairs and a board tied together, the "oars" being brooms. The stranger rows the editor out into the middle of the lake, and then announces himself as the Indignant Subscriber. "For twenty-five years," he says, "I have listened helplessly, while you set forth your views on every subject under the sun. Now for once I mean to tell you my views on one subject—yourself!" So he speaks his mind, and at the end upsets the boat and swims away, leaving the editor floundering in the water.

Now I am the Indignant Subscriber, who has been taking the "New York Times" for twenty-five years. I propose to give the "Times" a taste of its own medicine—by writing some headlines and letting the "Times" see just how it feels. Here goes:

"NEW YORK TIMES" KILLS FAVORITE AUTHOR

Death of R. H. Davis Caused by Reporter Seeking High-ball

Lie Occasions Fatal Shock

Reads "Times" Incitement, Drops Dead in Home

Now, how's that?