her, nor did the newspapers ridicule her. Was it because she was a woman? No, for I have seen the police beat and club women doing picket-duty—working-women, you understand. I have seen the newspapers lie about working-women on picket-duty; in the course of this Colorado campaign I saw them print the vilest and most cowardly slanders about the wives of some strikers who went to Washington to make appeal to President Wilson. No, it was not because my wife was a woman; it was because she was a "lady." It was because in the files of the New York newspapers there reposed a clipping recording the fact that her father was "one of the wealthiest men in this section and controls large banking interests."
Please pardon these personalities, for they are essential to the thesis of this book—that American Journalism is a class institution, serving the rich and spurning the poor. It happens that M. C. S. is conspicuously and inescapably what is called a "lady"; she not merely looks the part, she acts it and speaks it in those subtle details that count most. All her young ladyhood she spent as what is known in the South as a "belle"; incidentally, of course, as an ungodly little snob. She has got over that; but in case of an emergency like our Broadway affair, she naturally used every weapon she had. Against the New York reporters and the New York police department she used the weapon of snobbery—and it worked.
In the South, you see, a "lady" takes for granted the slave-psychology in those she regards as her "social inferiors." Not merely does she expect immediate obedience from all members of the colored race; she feels the same way about policemen in uniform—it would never occur to her to think of a policeman as anything but a servant, prepared to behave as such. I assured her that she might not find this the case with the husky sons of St. Patrick who lord it over the New York crowds. But M. C. S. answered that she would see.
Far be it from me to know to what extent she did these things deliberately; my advice in such matters is not sought, and I am allowed to see the results only. What I saw in this case—or rather learned about later—was that M. C. S. arrived in front of 26 Broadway an hour late, clad in supple and exquisite white broadcloth, military cape and all; and that on sight of this costume the New York City police department collapsed.
