Comrade Yetta

CHAPTER XXI
THE STAR

The second summer after Walter had left, a desperate and successful strike of the cloak-makers brought Yetta's name once more into the papers. Mrs. Karner used the opportunity to open a new line of work to Yetta.

Mr. Karner owned The Star– the "yellowest" paper in the city. It was not only vulgar to the edge of obscenity, it was notoriously corrupt in politics. Being a one-cent paper, it of course posed as a "friend of the working-man," but it stood – unless the other side had collected an unusually large campaign fund – for Tammany Hall and the traction interests.

One morning at breakfast – while the cloak-makers' strike was a "live" news item – Mr. Karner spoke enviously of a woman who gave sentimental advice to love-lorn damsels on the magazine page of his keenest rival.

"I wish I could find some counter attraction," he said. "Our circulation among working girls is pitiful."

"Why don't you try Yetta Rayefsky?" Mrs. Karner suggested. "All the East Side girls know her. Do you happen to be advocating trade-unions this month?"

"Mildly – as usual."

"Yetta is keen on that. You remember her. She was out at Cos-Cob last summer. Rather caught your eye, I think."

"That little Jewess? She was good-looking. Has she any other qualifications as a journalist?"

Mrs. Karner shrugged her shoulders.

"I thought you prided yourself on developing raw material."

Two days later Yetta was summoned to Mr. Karner's office. She went to the appointment, wondering what the great newspaper man could want of her – hoping that she might interest him in her girls.

"Glad to see you," Mr. Karner said cordially as she was ushered into his beautifully furnished sanctum. "This cloak-makers' strike is a big story. But we're not making the most of it. There's more in it than news copy.

"There ought to be something for our magazine page. I don't know whether you've ever read it, but it's the page that gets the women. They're not interested in arguments – not much in facts. It's the human interest story – something to make them cry – that gets over with them. About their own people. If they say 'That's just like Sadie or Flossie,' it's the right thing for us. We're always looking for that kind of copy.

"There must be some stories in this strike. Couldn't you give us two or three?"

Yetta was surprised at the offer and decidedly uncertain.

"It won't do any harm to try," he urged her.

He pressed a button, and when a rotund, merry-looking man appeared, he introduced him.

"Mr. Brace, this is Miss Rayefsky. She has just promised to send us some copy about the cloak-makers' strike for your magazine page."

They discussed it for a few minutes, and when Yetta had gone, Karner kept Brace a moment.

"My wife," he said, "thinks we could train this Rayefsky girl to write. If we could get some one to put a crimp in Lilian Leberwurtz' 'Balm for Busted Bussums,' it would help a lot. Look over her copy when it comes in. Buy enough anyhow to pay her for her trouble. And if it shows any promise, see what you can make of her. And keep me informed."

Yetta floated out of The Star office on clouds. In a sudden flame of enthusiasm she pictured herself as a great author. But as she went home a horrible doubt struck her – she might fail. The doubt increased as she laid out a sheet of paper.

After much hesitation and several false starts, she decided to stick as closely as might be to reality. She wrote the story of one of her girls who, although she worked on the highest-priced opera-cloaks, was so poor that she had never worn any wrap but a frayed old shawl.

It was natural for Yetta to be simple and direct. The copious notes she had written in connection with her study had taught her some familiarity with her pen. Above all, her public speaking had helped her. It had taught her to think ahead and plan her climax in advance. The women who would read the magazine page were – or had been – shop-girls, such as the audiences she spoke to night after night. And Mr. Brace had told her to write just as she talked.

At last she mailed three sketches. Within twenty-four hours she received a letter from Mr. Brace asking her to come and talk them over. She had a difficult time looking unconcerned as she entered The Star office. Her stories had seemed rather good when she had finished them, but they had so sunk in her estimation by this time that she wished she had not written them. This sinking process was most rapid during the few minutes she was kept waiting on a bench in the big reporters' room outside the glass door of Mr. Brace's private office.

There were long tables on two sides of the room; they were divided off into sections by little railings. Most of the places were filled by reporters writing feverishly on yellow copy paper or banging away at typewriters. Boys and men rushed about, carrying copy or proof in and out of the various glass doors about the room. Almost every one looked curiously at Yetta and the others on the waiting bench. There were three people ahead of her: a woman who looked like an actress, a white-haired old man, with a beard almost to his belt. He held a heavy manuscript on his knees with great care, evidently afraid some one would steal it. Next to her was a perspiring young curate in a clerical collar.

Presently Mr. Brace ushered a disappointed poet out of his office and called "Miss Rayefsky." "By appointment," he added, as those who were ahead of her moved restlessly in protest.

He pulled up a chair for her beside his desk, and picking up his blue pencil, began a little lecture on the advertising rate of the magazine page. It was ten cents a word. His blue pencil scratched out a sentence from one of her stories. It would certainly not do any one a dollar and a half's worth of good. It began to look to Yetta as if there would be nothing left except blue pencil marks. But he glowed with pleasure during the process. When he had come to the end, he announced with pride that he had killed at least twenty-five dollars' worth of padding. She wished he would let her go quickly. She was afraid she might cry if he jeered at her any more.

"I hope we can arrange for some more of this soon," he said abruptly, handing her a check.

It was for seventy-five dollars! She had never had so much money at one time before in her life. And she had earned it in four days!

But this was a small matter beside seeing her story in print that afternoon. Here was a tangible sign of her progress to send Walter. She was just reaching the end of his outline of study, and she was already writing for the papers! Her pride was somewhat tempered as she reread her story and realized how much it had been improved by Mr. Brace's vigorous slashing.

Her new sense of importance became almost oppressive when, a few days later, they offered her a contract at what seemed to her a magnificent salary – to conduct a column on Working-girls' Worries.

Mabel also was enthusiastic about it. It was a great and unexpected chance to give publicity to their work of organizing women. The Star had more than a million readers. Yetta could never have hoped to reach so large an audience with her voice.

But when Isadore saw the flaring posters which blossomed out on the East Side, announcing that Yetta Rayefsky was writing daily and exclusively for The Evening Star, he was mightily disturbed. Such conscienceless journalism as Mr. Karner's seemed to him the worst crime of our civilization. He could hardly believe that Yetta had thrown in her lot with it. It shook him out of his reserve, and he rushed over to her room.

In her new pride, in the excitement of her new career, Yetta seemed more disturbingly beautiful to him than ever. Face to face with her he forgot all his carefully thought-out arguments.

"Oh, Yetta," he blurted out, "is it really true that you're going to work on that dirty paper?"

"They have offered to let me conduct a column for working girls, and I've accepted," she replied defiantly.

"You know it's a dirty paper," he stuck to his point. "Dirty in every way, – in its news, in its advertisements. Most of all in its rotten politics. These yellow journals are the worst enemy Socialism has to face. They mislead the people. They're paid to. All the editors are crooked – sold out. But Karner's the worst."

"I haven't anything to do with their news nor their advertising, nor with Mr. Karner's politics – I've been talking to working girls as hard as I know how for the last two years. Suddenly I get a chance to speak louder, so that thousands will hear. I might just as well refuse to speak in some of the East Side halls, because on other nights they are used for rotten dances."

"Oh, Yetta," he broke in, "you don't know what you are doing. I know it isn't the salary that makes you do it. But that's sure to be big. And Karner's not a philanthropist; he's not giving you money for nothing. He's buying something. You've got to give him his money's worth. He's buying your name. He's after circulation. He's using your name – have you seen the posters? He's using your popularity, Yetta, to sell his dirty paper to our people. He's paying you to persuade our working girls to read the filthiest paper in New York. Yetta, you don't realize what it means. It's a sort of betrayal – "

"Are you through?" she interrupted angrily.

"No, I'm not. I've got to say it all. Not because it's you and me, Yetta, but Comrade to Comrade, because we're both Socialists. They won't let you say what you want to. No capitalist paper could, least of all this rotten one. If the class struggle means anything at all, it means that they are our enemies. They won't pay you to fight against them. They'll tie you up with some sort of a contract and gag you. They are bribing you, fooling you with the promise of a big audience. But they won't – can't – let you say what you believe."

"Mr. Braun," she said, trying hard to keep her temper, but at the same time to annihilate him, "I've talked this over with a number of friends. They all urged me to accept. So you see there is room for difference of opinion. You are the only one who has opposed it. Much as I respect your opinion in most matters, in this case I must – "

"No. You must not!" he stormed, jumping up and losing control of himself more than ever before. "I say you must not."

"What right have you – "

"Right? Who's got a better right? You know I love you. I'd rather a thousand times see myself disgraced than you, Yetta. What do Mabel Train and the other women care? They see a chance to advertise their pet scheme. What do they care about your reputation, your self-respect? They think it will be good for their little Trade Union League. But I see you, Yetta – selling yourself to a bunch of crooks – not being able to do the good you want to – and always with the shame of it on you! Oh, it's too terrible."

He sank down in the chair, his head in his hands. Yetta's hard words melted as she saw how he was suffering.

"I'm sorry we can't agree on this, Comrade," she said. "We do on most things. Of course I may be making a mistake. But I've got to do what seems right to me – haven't I?"

"Yetta," he said, looking up at her suddenly, "are you in love with Walter Longman?"

She stiffened up at the question, but Isadore cut short her indignation.

"Oh, I know, Yetta. Just loving you doesn't give me a right to ask that question. But sometimes I've thought you loved Walter. He's my best friend. He wouldn't want you to go into this."

He looked at her tensely. It was a minute before she took up his challenge.

"I care a great deal for Walter's good opinion," her voice was low, but even. "I am quite sure he would be glad I had this chance. But even if he thought it was unwise for me to accept it, he would not try to browbeat me."

Isadore had shot his last bolt, it had rebounded on his own head. He fumbled for his hat.

"Good night, Yetta," he said.

"Good night, Mr. Braun."

The first month, Mr. Brace went over Yetta's contributions in detail, cramming into her all the advice he could think of. About the time his stock of journalistic epigrams ran out, the reports from the circulation manager were so favorable, that he decided he could give his attention to other things. Mr. Brace, like all good newspaper men, was a mystic in such matters. God only knows what the public will like. It was his business to scatter seeds. If they took root and grew into "circulation," he had sense enough to leave them alone. And Yetta's column had "caught on."

At the end of three months the contract was renewed with a substantial increase in salary. The posters which advertised her work became more flamboyant. The size of her mail grew daily. The letters dealt with all the worries working girls are heirs to. Some of them were frivolous, most were commonplace. But once in a while among the misspelt, poorly written scrawls, there would be a throbbing story of life. Such letters tore at Yetta's heart – giving her new determinations, new enthusiasm for her work. As their number increased Yetta knew that her audience, her influence, was growing. The Fates were smiling at her. She was earning more money than she had ever hoped. Better still, she had as much time as before for the League work. She was rarely kept in the office after noon. It did not occur to her that she might have demanded an increase in salary on the ground of the free advertising she was giving The Star by her frequent speeches.

She was disappointed, however, not to be able to establish more cordial relations with her fellow-workers. These newspaper people, men and women, worked under as great a strain as any sweat-shop girls, but they seemed more foreign to her – to her class – than the rich uptown women she had met through the League. They had many good qualities which she appreciated – their esprit de corps, their hearty, open manners, the camaraderie with which they lent each other money. But they were shot through with a cynicism which shocked her. The whole situation was typified in the case of Maud Ripley, a special story writer, who tried to "take her up."

She was a tired-eyed, meagre woman of near forty. She was brilliant. Every one in the office referred to her for facts and figures instead of going to the encyclopædia. Some of the things she wrote appealed strongly to Yetta, others were utterly futile. Besides her signed articles, mostly interviews with prominent foreigners, – she was fluent in half a dozen modern languages, – she composed "The Meditations of a Marriageable Maid." She was rather proud of this cheap wit.

She seemed to like Yetta, but always introduced her as "The Star's new sob-squeezer." Apparently she saw nothing in the new recruit but a successful pathos writer – a rising star in the profitable business of starting tears.

This attitude, which Yetta encountered on all sides, hurt her. She read some of "Lilian Leberwurtz'" writings. She had discovered that the real name of this woman with whom she was expected to compete was Mrs. Treadway. It was hopeless slush; it sickened her. She tried vainly to picture the type of woman who could write such drivel seriously.

"Dine with me Sunday," Miss Ripley asked her one day. She always talked in the close-packed style of a foreign correspondent who telegraphs at a dollar a word. "My flat. People you ought to know."

Yetta was essentially inclusive, she did not like to turn her back on any proffered friendship. So at one the next Sunday she rang the bell of the uptown flat where Maud lived alone. There was one woman and three men in the parlor.

"Who are they," Yetta whispered as she was brushing her hair in Maud's bedroom.

"Matthews writes 'best sellers' – doesn't expect his friends to read them. Conklin has money – afford to write high-brow books that don't sell. Have to read between the lines. I'm too busy. Potter's a decadent poet. A bore, but all the rage. Mrs. Treadway – Lilian Leberwurtz – motherly old soul. Never know to look at her that she's the best-paid woman in the game – come on."

Of course Yetta was most interested in Mrs. Treadway. She would hardly have called her motherly, although she sometimes referred to her son in Harvard and frequently used the phrase – "when you get to be my age."

She was a large-bosomed, gaudy person with an almost expressionless face. Her gown looked cheap in spite of its evident expensiveness, and her jewellery was massive. But it was not her appearance nor her ponderous condescension which troubled Yetta. Mrs. Treadway in her first half-dozen words showed herself to be utterly sophisticated. She did not try to hide the insincerity of her work – she seemed to glory in it. Her first concern was to make it apparent that she was not such a fool as one would judge from her sentimental advice.

Matthews exuded prosperity from his lavender socks up to his insistent tie – but the brilliancy did not seem to go higher. Conklin was apologetic in comparison. His face was spare, and when he was amused, deep curved wrinkles formed on either side of his mouth like brackets. The parenthetical effect of his smile was heightened by the fact that the rest of his face remained sombre. The poet looked his part.

When Yetta arrived, they were all looking at the latest number of La vie parisienne. Mrs. Treadway was shaking – like a gelatine pudding – over the predicament in which one of Fabriano's naked women was portrayed. Potter began a ponderous argument on the humor of Audrey Beardsley's lines and the wit of Matisse's color. He pronounced Fabriano "too obvious." He was happily interrupted by the announcement of dinner.

The conversation rambled on through the meal. No one stuck to a subject after their epigrams had run out. Nobody was deeply interested in anything. Much of it dealt with things about which Yetta was proud of her ignorance.

The dinner was almost a disaster to her. "Of course," she told herself as she walked home, "this group is not typical. There are people, there must be people, who take their writing seriously." But the attitude of Maud Ripley and her friends had shocked Yetta deeply. The worst of it was that they respected her in a way – because she was "making good." But the fact that she was in earnest did not interest them. She would not have dropped the least in their esteem if she had been utterly insincere. She felt as if she had been insulted.

The next day a new incident increased Yetta's feeling of foreignness in the office. She was waiting in the reporters' room for a chance to see Brace. Cowan, the gray-haired sporting editor, was telling whimsical stories of the "old days" when he had been a cub. Although older in years than the others, he was the youngest-hearted of them all. Yetta felt more drawn to him than to any one else on The Star.

Suddenly a curly-haired Irishman, O'Rourke, burst in. He always entered a room with a deafening bang.

"Gee," he said – "some story this morning. A greenhorn bank-examiner, who didn't know his A B C, dropped into Ex-Governor Billings' bank yesterday and found a pretty mess. The old boy never had a bank-examiner come in unexpectedly like that before in his long and useful life. It nearly gave him apoplexy. And he just putting up his name for the Senate. But this blundering bank-examiner was not such a fool after all. The story goes that Billings had to come across with an awful wad to hush him up."

"Why? Did the examiner find something wrong?" Yetta asked.

"Yes, my child," O'Rourke said with playful pity. "He was that foolish."

"What did he find?" Yetta persisted.

"Unsecured loans. Billings had been lending himself the depositors' money, using his calling card as collateral."

"What'll happen to Billings?"

"It's a shame for you to go around town without a nurse," O'Rourke teased her. "It was decided a long time ago that Billings was to be the next United States Senator from the glorious State of New York. A little accident like this can't be allowed to interfere."

"It's a rotten shame," Cowan said. He was old enough not to have to try to appear blasé. "They're going too strong – putting over a crook like that on the people. Everybody with any memory knows his record. In the good old days when yellow journalism was just beginning, before we got so respectable we couldn't print the truth, we showed Billings up – how he came through for the railroads on that Death Avenue grade crossing."

"Oh, that's ancient history. It's only six months ago – " another reporter began. One after another they added details to the Ex-Governor's record of infamy. But that afternoon's paper contained a eulogistic article on his patriotic achievement. An editorial which Yetta knew O'Rourke had written praised him to the skies, and said the people of the State were to be congratulated that so worthy a man had consented to accept the nomination. Yetta could not understand the psychology of these men who, having in hand the evidence to defeat an unworthy candidate for public office, did not use it. This was worse than cynicism – it was shameful.

As she was leaving the office a few days later, Cowan rode down in the elevator with her.

"If you don't mind, Miss Rayefsky," he said, when they had dodged the cars and had safely reached City Hall Park, "I'd like to give you a little advice. Perhaps I'm butting in where I'm not wanted. But you see, my youngest daughter is older than you are. And I guess breaking into a new job and a new crowd isn't the easiest thing in the world for a girl. I won't mind if you do snub me."

"Let's sit down a minute," Yetta said. "I'd like to talk to you. I certainly do feel lost."

"Well – " He was evidently embarrassed. He seemed to give up hope of being tactful and dove into his subject. "I overheard one of the men say that you'd been to a dinner at Maud Ripley's. She's a clever woman. But I'd not like to see one of my daughters tie up with her."

"I didn't enjoy myself," Yetta said. "I'm not going again."

"Good. That's all I had to say. She probably wouldn't do you any harm – certainly wouldn't try to. But newspaper men don't think much of her – except her brain. Excuse me for butting in."

He started to get up, but Yetta detained him. She was very deeply touched by his kindly interest in her.

"There are a lot of things I would like to ask you, if you've the time."

She began on the affair of the Ex-Governor. Why did not Cowan and O'Rourke and the others use their knowledge against him? The answer to that was simple. They would lose their jobs. Karner and Billings were friends. But this did not satisfy Yetta. They argued it out for half an hour. Nobody saw the defects and limitations of journalism more clearly than Cowan, and yet he was utterly loyal.

"If my son doesn't turn out a newspaper man, I'll disown him," he said emphatically. "Now don't you go and get sore on newspaper work because it isn't all honest. It's one whole lot better than when I began. The Press is the hope of Democracy, and it is also its measure. Of course Karner's ethics are a bit queer. But no crookeder than the people will stand for. He'd be honest if it paid.

"The people can have just as good and clean a paper as they really want. They get better and more democratic ones to-day than they did twenty years ago, and when they want one that is really straight, they'll get that.

"Of course it's bad if you want to look at it that way. It's a compromise game. But there isn't any class of people in the country who are doing more for progress than this bunch of cynical newspaper men. They are the real patriots. Every new recruit pushes the flag a little farther forward. But you've got to make up your mind to compromise."

"I haven't had to do it yet," Yetta said.

"Perhaps not yet. But sooner or later you will have to, if you're going to play the newspaper game."

"That's the trouble with you people," Yetta exclaimed, as if she suddenly saw a light, "you call it a game. I'm not playing with life. I've got to consider myself and my work serious. I won't compromise. If it's the rule of the game – why, I'll quit playing it."

The surprising thing was that she was not asked to compromise. Mr. Brace seemed to take very little interest in what she wrote. When he spoke to her about it, it was to make some technical suggestion about the use of "caps" or "italics." No party Socialist could have accused her contributions of lack of orthodoxy. She was giving her readers the straight gospel. Day after day Isadore read them and wondered.

Mrs. Karner also wondered. Coming home late one night, she encountered her husband in the hallway; he had just shown out some friends who had been playing poker. She swept by him with a curt "Good night." He was a little drunk. But she stopped halfway up the stairs.

"I say, Bert. Explain to me the mystery of Yetta Rayefsky. Her column this afternoon is straight Socialism. What does it mean? Has a ray of light penetrated into the subterranean gloom of your office? Has the editorial staff fallen in love with her?"

Karner had been winning and was in good spirits.

"That's so. I've forgotten to thank you for suggesting her. She's a gold mine."

"Yes. But how can The Star stand the tone of decency she gives it?"

"Don't worry," he winked profoundly. "There'll be money enough for your trip to Europe. A column and a half won't hurt us."

"But why do you let her do it? What's the answer?"

"As simple as A B C. I'm surprised you don't see it yourself. The little lady's bugs on sweat-shops. And sweat-shops don't advertise. See? As long as she sticks to the East Side, she can damn any one she likes to. And as for Socialism – the girls don't vote."

"It was stupid of me not to understand," Mrs. Karner said as she went on up to her room. "Goodnight – Cynic."

She never realized how much her jibes stung her husband.

"Damn the women," he muttered. "She married me for my money and don't like the way I earn it."

Mr. Karner had loved his wife more than anything – except the pleasure of cutting a figure in the world. His paper made him a power in the community. Presidential candidates bid for his support. No one had dared to blackball him when he had recently put up his name at a club which was supposed to be composed of gentlemen. But his wife neither respected nor feared him. He stood gloomily in the hallway – the fumes of champagne making things oscillate gently – wondering whether he dared to go to her room. He decided he was afraid, and, calling for his hat and coat, went out.

But to the other people who were asking the same question which Mrs. Karner had put to her husband, no answer was given. Isadora's daily amazement at Yetta's outspoken Socialism gradually grew into a conviction that he had been wrong. He wrote her a loyal letter of apology, and Yetta in a condescending reply forgave him.

But trouble came as Christmas was approaching. Some ladies from the Woman's Consumers' League called on Yetta, and, after praising her work for factory women, tried to enlist her aid in the cause of the department-store girls, who are so shamefully overworked in the season of holiday shopping. They wanted her to speak at a mass meeting. It was not hard to interest Yetta in such a cause.

"Give me some of the facts," she said, after she had promised to speak, "and I'll run some stories about it in The Star."

But her first department-store article did not come out. It had been "killed" in favor of a receipt for preserving the gloss on finger-nails. A copy-reader, being wise in newspaper business and anxious to gain favor, had run to the advertising manager with the proof. The advertising manager had rushed angrily to Mr. Brace. Brace had gone to Mr. Karner. Mr. Karner had thrown it into the wastepaper basket and suggested the finger-nail story.

When Yetta called up Mr. Brace about it, she found him inclined to treat the matter as a joke. "After all," he laughed, "you know there are limits. You can't take a man's money for advertisement on one page and spit in his eye on another. There is plenty of work for your scalping knife among people who don't advertise."

Yetta began to understand. It was her first introduction to serious temptation. In six months newspaper work had got into her blood. Besides the pleasant thrill of it, there was the usefulness. There were hundreds of girls who depended on her largely. It was hard to give up such an audience. And it was pleasant work – well-paid. It was a wonderful thing for a sweat-shop girl to have climbed so high. Should she go on "playing the game"? For a while she tried to shift the responsibility to other shoulders. What would people think? She knew what Mabel and Isadore would think. Mabel would tell her to compromise. Isadore the opposite. What would Walter think? And then it suddenly came to her clearly that it didn't matter at all what anybody else thought. She had to decide it by herself. Whatever happened, she would always have to live with herself. Self-respect was more important than the regard of even the closest friend. They were asking her to do just what she had emphatically told Cowan she would never do. She put on her hat and went to Mr. Karner's office.

"This matter does not concern me," he said. "I employ Mr. Brace to edit the magazine page, and I trust his ability and judgment. If he considered it unwise to run your article, that ends it."

"Mr. Karner, if The Star is afraid to touch department stores, I'll resign."

He spun round in his chair.

"Afraid? That's strong language."

"It's very easy to prove it unjustified," she said quickly.

He looked at her sternly for a few minutes, taking her measure. It was his ability at this process which had enabled him to build up his paper from a third-rater to its present position.

"Miss Rayefsky, you want a flat answer. We're in business to make money. We won't attack our heaviest advertisers."

Yetta got up.

"Don't be in a hurry. Nobody gets a chance to resign from my staff twice. Think this over for a couple of days. We've been satisfied with your work; I hoped you were. I hoped that you thought what you were doing was worth while. You can go on doing it indefinitely as far as I can see. You're about to throw up this work because you can't do the impossible. It isn't just The Star. It's a limitation of journalism. No editor in the city could print that story."