George Kibbe Turner

“ It is electric in the air today, And the coward, the craven, the weakling, who will not make this prime sacrifice, upon which the conscience of the American people is so aroused today—better far for him that he lay in the trenches of the Hun when the armies of the enlightened West, well-fed, full-nourished, invigorated by the free and daily sacrifice of a free people, rise and overwhelm them with freedom's towering tide—strong with the food of pioneers, the strength of civilization's hardy freemen. ”

“ Now Senator Boone broke in at length—to check this extravagance; awaken him from this grandiose and impossible dream of power.
“Jobs, I suppose,” he said sarcastically—“for all!”
“Oh, no. Merely for those we need,” the calm, still apparently reasonable voice of his visitor was proceeding—“only the ones who would be of real consequence in publicity for us. Not the poets, the rank amateurs, the lady publicists—all the ruck that make the most noise but nobody would believe on a bet.”
“I understand. I understand all that,” said Ben Bumpus Boone bluntly. ”

“ Ben Bumpus Boone, the possible future candidate for the presidency, practicing in the twilight his coming speech before the national convention of the Furious Farm Defenders. Dated from that important event, it would be sent in advance to every newspaper of consequence in the United States.
“Fellow citizens in a great republic—Mister Chairman,” the measured voice began: “The bean, sir, is a little thing. It sounds absurd for me to say to this enlightened gathering that the fate of nations, of freedom, of civilization itself hangs today upon so small a thing. ”

“ A bean seems a little thing—a very little thing! But, sir, is it not precisely the little thing today—in science, in medicine, in industry—upon which the mind of man is focused; which, in the providence of God, sums up today in the stupendous totality of human effort, human duty, human achievement? ”

“ But as for the man—if there be such—the glutton, the self-indulgent weakling, the man who, in secret or in public, with unbridled appetite evades or will not enforce upon himself this first, most sacred fast of patriotism—this national conservation of the food of war, the motive power of armies—let him beware! ”

“ But the talented publicity agent responded only absently to her girlish friendliness, thinking his own thoughts—of the last two days' unaccountable softness in the bean market; reverting every now and then to the paragraphs of the press agents of the bean and stock market houses upon the financial pages of his paper:
Our advices are that beans are going lower. Sell beans on all advances; make no commitments on the long side of the bean carriers. The bear drive against beans has not yet touched bottom.—John Henry Cleanout & Co. We look for a stronger market in beans. ”

“ I'll do it!” said Ben Bumpus Boone now heartily, leaping up, as he recalled the whole details of the operations which involved this man and the unfortunate speculation of the aunt of his confidential secretary, John Bunyan Jones.
“I'll do it, gladly!” cried Ben Bumpus Boone's strong hearty barytone.
“That is fine,” said the stranger with the glasses and mild manner, but the sharply shining eyes. “That is fine. But,” he went on, speaking after a slight mutual silence, “we must not forget. We must net deceive ourselves. We are not the only ones who will have this idea.” ”

“ The private wires from Washington to Wall Street were never idle; the tipsters and Washington's financial correspondents did not take their clothes off for twenty-four hours—scarcely took their telephone receivers from their ears. And at the lunch hour at the Rendezvous Restaurant there was talk of nothing else among the sad-faced, discouraged set of publicity men and women who gathered there. There was not a man—scarcely a lady—publicist who did not realize that the end of their wonder-working efforts in the war was come ”

“ Her nephew, John Bunyan Jones, for the past few years the confidential secretary of Senator Ben Bumpus Boone, is named as the sole heir and executor of her estate, estimated at several million dollars. He has already left for Honolulu to take charge of his new interests. Rarely—perhaps never—has Washington been so stirred by publicity as by this brief announcement of the death of that most picturesque operator in the bean and stock markets, the aunt of the secretary of Ben Bumpus Boone. It fell like a thunderclap upon the real judges of real news—the news behind the news in the newspapers. ”

“ At this time, just as he was restarting, his desk telephone rang. He answered in a habitually low and hoarsely whispering voice, “Hullo.”
A low voice answered it. “This is Q. V. 3.”
He saw now who it must be. It was that voice, that whisper that had come so often in the past; the voice of that secret intelligence service operator that he had so often blown to lunch.
“Yes,” he said, and listened eagerly.
The whisper at the telephone had the rhythm of one reading. “General Order 17,263. Cease buying beans!” it said, and stopped, interrupted. ”

“ The struggling farmer, who strives his best to make two beans grow for the world's market where there was but one before; the humblest housewife, who against all pleading rigidly conserves her beans upon the nation's beanless days—who will say that these have not made their sacrifices, done their bit, given their national service? ”

“ The bear pools in both beans and the bean carriers have, in our opinion, done their worst. Buy beans confidently from now on; and the bean carriers on all recessions. Within thirty days we prophesy the strongest bean market of the war.—Spingler & Spanks. It is our belief that the reaction in the bean market of the past few days is utterly unwarranted. ”

“ But all these others—his own staff, the other department staffs, the intelligence officers, home and foreign, the accelerators of public opinion, the general publicity staff! All that magnificent organization of propaganda for the country, going on, cheerful, contented, completely functioning today, and within six months' time, gone—all dissipated; its members precipitated into private life! ”

“ Benmore Hooper turned toward his table with a bitter exclamation.
“Ben Bumpus Boone,” he pledged himself, “will never be President of this country! Not if I can help it!” And looking about the changed and melancholy scene he knew that all these somber lunchers, all these ex-newspapermen and magazine men and poets and lady publicists who had been gathered into the publicity service of their country through the war, would feel the same ”

“ Although by nature retiring and very little seen, Catherine Jones was a woman of great force of character, and her immense fortune has been invested by her in dealings in all the exchanges of the world especially in agricultural staples—of which, although so far removed, she hes bought and sold tremendous quantities by cable during the past half dozen years in the markets of this country. ”