He was unhappily married; his wife was living with another man, and desired a divorce. When this happens in Chicago, they usually agree upon the charge of "cruelty"; their friends, and likewise all Chicago newspaper editors, perfectly understand that this is a conventional charge, having no necessary relation to the facts. I have quoted the case of Mr. Booth Tarkington, returning from Europe and saying to the newspaper reporters, with a smile, "When one's wife accuses one of cruelty, no gentleman would think of replying." The reporters all understood what that meant, and the public which read it appreciated Mr. Tarkington's tact. Mr. Tarkington, you see, is a novelist whose work involves no peril to the profit system; therefore Mr. Tarkington's wife could charge him with "cruelty," without Mr. Tarkington's reputation being destroyed and the sale of his books wiped out. A recent item sent out by Mr. Tarkington's publishers—Messrs. Harper & Brothers, with the eight hundred thousand dollar mortgage reposing in the vaults of J. P. Morgan & Company—stated that they had sold a total of 1,324,900 copies of Mr. Tarkington's novels.
But it was entirely different with this Chicago lecturer; this man, you see, was a Socialist, and therefore a menace to mortgages. In a lecture-room the question came up of a teacher who had switched a child; the speaker remarked playfully that the cave-man had been accustomed to inflict discipline with a club, and that boys, according to biology, were in the cave-man stage of development. So next day the readers of a yellow journal in Chicago read a scare headline about a "highbrow" society lecturer who was preaching "cave-man philosophy" to his students, and applying "cave-man treatment" to his wife, so that she was divorcing him for cruelty! Half a dozen such yarns at this were piled in quick succession upon the head of this Socialist lecturer, with the result that his career was ruined.
By way of contrast, let me tell you about another man—proprietor of a great department-store in New York. I will not name him; he is a worm, poor in everything but money. It happened that through mutual friends I knew about his private life; he kept numerous mistresses, and flaunted them boldly on the "Great White Way," starting them on showy theatrical careers, and otherwise making himself a joke to the
