George Kibbe Turner

“ But in the meanwhile do not let us be deflected from the real issue in this case—by anything so trivial as the mere matter as to whether you or your family have or have not taken a milk bath.
I am not, sir, a lawyer, skilled in niceties of technicality or avoidance—or drawing a herring craftily across the big main trail. I am a plain physician, caring for suffering humanity in its need, pain and illness. ”

“ Melody hoarsely, struggling to his feet.
“Don't! Please, don't!” the younger, curly-headed one was saying in a voice of polite pain.
“Don't waste your breath,” said the square-cut one, his instructress in politics, standing before him with his terrible report card in her fingers.
Mr. Melody sat down again, his lips loose, his face flabby.
“Of course,” she was saying, “we understand that technically we are doing wrong; that by not turning you over to the authorities we are committing an offense ourselves. But we are willing to take that chance—for the purpose of freeing Chibosh.” ”

“ Melody, “that I know.”
“No,” she said, “men don't. They know nothing about the theory or the principles of politics; as we women used fondly to imagine that they did. Nor,” she now continued earnestly, “about the details either; as we now, going on from there, discovered,”
She stopped, She seemed now to Mr. Melody—unsteadied and agitated as he was by his continued waiting for the information he personally so much desired—like a school-teacher of high principles and immense will power, determined while in Rome to do what the Romans do, only much better. ”

“ They saw and recognized again the subtle hand of the most unknown press agent in Chibosh and the publicity factory of Mayor True.
“It's a terrible mystery,” the pretty Mrs. Peters was continuing, now again temporarily drying her tears. “An awful thing to think how they can do this—whoever does—and put it all in the papers all the time. And all because we are in politics. But John won't do a thing. He says he won't be forced out—not this way. He says he'll fight them till his last red hair falls out—as he will. I know him. ”

“ He had in fact been waiting for days and weeks, wondering if he would hear it again—that fatal warning so like a telephone number. After receiving it the first time, he had done exactly what had been asked—he had kept his hands off the drive, the continuing drive for membership in the organization he had founded for pure publicity purposes—the True Women Home Defenders, that last phantom organization of his Phantom Factory. ”

“ Not by politics—by principles, In the various women's clubs of the country—where the men force the women themselves independently in politics, to make their own judgments, to make their own investigations, to make their own efforts for legislation through their own representatives. ”

“ Melody sitting alone between the two sincere judicial likenesses of Mayor True.
Thus was begun the case of Svenson versus Peters, the great milk-bath personal-injury suit which, through the earlier part of March, was to stir the great reading public of Chibosh to its depths.
The press on the succeeding morning rose as one body to this great new legal issue. The Morning Truth, the adviser of the administration and the plain honest common people, carried across its opening page the deep black question:
DID MILK BATH CAUSE VIOLENCE? ”

“ Pictures of Mrs Peters as an infant, at boarding school and on her honeymoon with the former attorney of the milk trust were also shown.
On the other hand, the Morning Truth devoted its first page more to the greater economic and social issues arising out of the case in its larger meanings. Its leading headlines were:
DOCTOR BEAGLE CRUSHES PETERS
“Milk-Trust Lawyer Avoids Issue,” Says the Great Milk Expert in Ringing Challenge for Citizens. Real Question He Says, “Shall Children Die For Rich Men's Whims?” ”

“ Through Her Attorneys, Goldfish & Goldfish, Showing Scientifically How Pores of Skin Are Aided. Mrs. Peters Bars Doors To Interviewers
Photographs of the injured Hilda Svenson, taken, it must have been, before her injury, showed her receiving the milk; others showed its preparation, proper warming, placing in the tub and proper application, as posed for by Janys Joro, the model, who had won the popularity voting contest in the recent Carnival of Undergarment Manufacturers. An illustration of the human skin, showing the beneficial effects of milk baths, followed. ”

“ To secure the knowledge which is contained in this,” she said, again striking the card-catalogue cabinet with her left hand, “and the others just like it all through the United States. Working largely, under the direction of the women leaders who were employed to look after legislation for women in the state and national legislatures.” ”

“ Abraham Goldfish, the father, who sat beneath the portrait which “took no man's bidding,” was president of the Herman J. True Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, without merchants or manufacturers. ”

“ Taking up a desk telephone, he spoke to his operator.
“Get me Goldfish & Goldfish,” he directed.
“Over here?”
“Yes.”
“Must they both come?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Melody, for this was an important job.
II MESSRS. Goldfish & Goldfish, two short, stout figures, sat regarding Mr. Melody on either side of his desk in the Phantom Factory, from under the two great identical campaign portraits of Mayor Herman J. True. ”

“ She Exclaimed. “That's What Politics Does for You?”
Quoting verbatim on an interior page from the legal charges as filed by the plaintiff's attorneys, Peoples Pictures explained that the plaintiff:
——does state, aver and allege that on or about 8:30 o'clock on the morning of Friday, March eighth, being in pursuit of her duties, she did ask Mrs. Peters and afterward Mr. Peters, her employers, what to do with certain and divers milk cans, secured, she believes and avers, for conveying large quantities of milk intended for milk baths in the Peters home and domicile ”