"When there's no news, make it," was Wynand's order. A lunatic escaped from a state institution for the insane. After days of terror for miles around — terror fed by the Banner's dire predictions and its indignation at the inefficiency of the local police — he was captured by a reporter of the Banner. The lunatic recovered miraculously two weeks after his capture, was released, and sold to the Banner an expose of the ill-treatment he had suffered at the institution. It led to sweeping reforms. Afterward, some people said that the lunatic had worked on the Banner before his commitment. It could never be proved.
A fire broke out in a sweatshop employing thirty young girls. Two of them perished in the disaster. Mary Watson, one of the survivors, gave the Banner an exclusive story about the exploitation they had suffered. It led to a crusade against sweatshops, headed by the best women of the city. The origin of the fire was never discovered. It was whispered that Mary Watson had once been Evelyn Drake who wrote for the Banner. It could not be proved.
In the first years of the Banner's existence Gail Wynand spent more nights on his office couch than in his bedroom. The effort he demanded of his employees was hard to perform; the effort he demanded of himself was hard to believe. He drove them like an army; he drove himself like a slave. He paid them well; he got nothing but his rent and meals. He lived in a furnished room at the time when his best reporters lived in suites at expensive hotels. He spent money faster than it came in — and he spent it all on the Banner. The paper was like a luxurious mistress whose every need was satisfied without inquiry about the price.
The Banner was first to get the newest typographical equipment. The Banner was last to get the best newspapermen — last, because it kept them. Wynand raided his competitors' city rooms; nobody could meet the salaries he offered. His procedure evolved into a simple formula. When a newspaperman received an invitation to call on Wynand, he took it as an insult to his journalistic integrity, but he came to the appointment. He came, prepared to deliver a set of offensive conditions on which he would accept the job, if at all. Wynand began the interview by stating the salary he would pay. Then he added: "You might wish, of course, to discuss other conditions — " and seeing the swallowing movement in the man's throat, concluded: "No? Fine. Report to me on Monday."
When Wynand opened his second paper — in Philadelphia — the local publishers met him like European chieftains united against the invasion of Attila. The war that followed was as savage. Wynand laughed over it. No one could teach him anything about hiring thugs to highjack a paper's delivery wagons and beat up news vendors. Two of his competitors perished in the battle. The Wynand Philadelphia Star survived.
The rest was swift and simple like an epidemic. By the time he reached the age of thirty-five there were Wynand papers in all the key cities of the United States. By the time he was forty there were Wynand magazines, Wynand newsreels and most of the Wynand Enterprises, Inc.
A great many activities, not publicized, helped to build his fortune. He had forgotten nothing of his childhood. He remembered the things he had thought, standing as a bootblack at the rail of a ferryboat — the chances offered by a growing city. He bought real estate where no one expected it to become valuable, he built against all advice — and he ran hundreds into thousands. He bought his way into a great many enterprises of all kinds. Sometimes they crashed, ruining everybody concerned, save Gail Wynand. He staged a crusade against a shady streetcar monopoly and caused it to lose its franchise; the franchise was granted to a shadier group, controlled by Gail Wynand. He exposed a vicious attempt to corner the beef market in the Middle West — and left the field clear for another gang, operating under his orders.
He was helped by a great many people who discovered that young Wynand was a bright fellow, worth using. He exhibited a charming complaisance about being used. In each case, the people found that they had been used instead — like the men who bought the Gazette for Gail Wynand.
Sometimes he lost money on his investments, coldly and with full intention. Through a series of untraceable steps he ruined many powerful men: the president of a bank, the head of an insurance company, the owner of a steamship line, and others. No one could discover his motives. The men were not his competitors and he gained nothing from their destruction.
"Whatever that bastard Wynand is after," people said, "it's not after money."
Those who denounced him too persistently were run out of their professions: some in a few weeks, others many years later. There were occasions when he let insults pass unnoticed; there were occasions when he broke a man for an innocuous remark. One could never tell what he would avenge and what he would forgive.
One day he noticed the brilliant work of a young reporter on another paper and sent for him. The boy came, but the salary Wynand mentioned had no effect on him. "I can't work for you, Mr. Wynand," he said with desperate earnestness, "because you ... you have no ideals." Wynand's thin lips smiled. "You can't escape human depravity, kid," he said gently. "The boss you work for may have ideals, but he has to beg money and take orders from many contemptible people. I have no ideals — but I don't beg. Take your choice. There's no other." The boy went back to his paper. A year later he came to Wynand and asked if his offer were still open. Wynand said that it was. The boy had remained on the Banner ever since. He was the only one on the staff who loved Gail Wynand.
Alvah Scarret, sole survivor of the original Gazette, had risen with Wynand. But one could not say that he loved Wynand — he merely clung to his boss with the automatic devotion of a rug under Wynand's feet. Alvah Scarret had never hated anything, and so was incapable of love. He was shrewd, competent and unscrupulous in the innocent manner of one unable to grasp the conception of a scruple. He believed everything he wrote and everything written in the Banner. He could hold a belief for all of two weeks. He was invaluable to Wynand — as a barometer of public reaction.
No one could say whether Gail Wynand had a private life. His hours away from the office had assumed the style of the Banner's front page — but a style raised to a grand plane, as if he were still playing circus, only to a gallery of kings. He bought out the entire house for a great opera performance — and sat alone in the empty auditorium with his current mistress. He discovered a beautiful play by an unknown playwright and paid him a huge sum to have the play performed once and never again; Wynand was the sole spectator at the single performance; the script was burned next morning. When a distinguished society woman asked him to contribute to a worthy charity cause, Wynand handed her a signed blank check — and laughed, confessing that the amount she dared to fill in was less than he would have given otherwise. He bought some kind of Balkan throne for a penniless pretender whom he met in a speakeasy and never bothered to see afterward; he often referred to "my valet, my chauffeur and my king."