He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed.
He was twenty-one when his career on the Gazette was threatened, for the first and only time. Politics and corruption had never disturbed him; he knew all about it; his gang had been paid to help stage beatings at the polls on election days. But when Pat Mulligan, police captain of his precinct, was framed, Wynand could not take it; because Pat Mulligan was the only honest man he had ever met in his life.
The Gazette was controlled by the powers that had framed Mulligan. Wynand said nothing. He merely put in order in his mind such items of information he possessed as would blow the Gazette into hell. His job would be blown with it, but that did not matter. His decision contradicted every rule he had laid down for his career. But he did not think. It was one of the rare explosions that hit him at times, throwing him beyond caution, making of him a creature possessed by the single impulse to have his way, because the rightness of his way was so blindingly total. But he knew that the destruction of the Gazette would be only a first step. It was not enough to save Mulligan.
For three years Wynand had kept one small clipping, an editorial on corruption, by the famous editor of a great newspaper. He had kept it, because it was the most beautiful tribute to integrity he had ever read. He took that clipping and went to see the great editor. He would tell him about Mulligan and together they would beat the machine.
He walked far across town, to the building of the famous paper. He had to walk. It helped to control the fury within him. He was admitted into the office of the editor — he had a way of getting admitted into places against all rules. He saw a fat man at a desk, with thin slits of eyes set close together. He did not introduce himself, but laid the clipping down on the desk and asked: "Do you remember this?" The editor glanced at the clipping, then at Wynand. It was a glance Wynand had seen before: in the eyes of the saloonkeeper who had slammed the door. "How do you expect me to remember every piece of swill I write?" asked the editor.
After a moment, Wynand said: "Thanks." It was the only time in his life that he felt gratitude to anyone. The gratitude was genuine — a payment for a lesson he would never need again. But even the editor knew there was something very wrong in that short "Thanks," and very frightening. He did not know that it had been an obituary on Gail Wynand.
Wynand walked back to the Gazette, feeling no anger toward the editor or the political machine. He felt only a furious contempt for himself, for Pat Mulligan, for all integrity; he felt shame when he thought of those whose victims he and Mulligan had been willing to become. He did not think "victims" — he thought "suckers." He got back to the office and wrote a brilliant editorial blasting Captain Mulligan. "Why, I thought you kinda felt sorry for the poor bastard," said his editor, pleased. "I don't feel sorry for anyone," said Wynand.
Grocers and deck hands had not appreciated Gail Wynand; politicians did. In his years on the paper he had learned how to get along with people. His face had assumed the expression it was to wear for the rest of his life: not quite a smile, but a motionless look of irony directed at the whole world. People could presume that his mockery was intended for the particular things they wished to mock. Besides, it was pleasant to deal with a man untroubled by passion or sanctity.
He was twenty-three when a rival political gang, intent on winning a municipal election and needing a newspaper to plug a certain issue, bought the Gazette. They bought it in the name of Gail Wynand, who was to serve as a respectable front for the machine. Gail Wynand became editor-in-chief. He plugged the issue, he won the election for his bosses. Two years later, he smashed the gang, sent its leaders to the penitentiary, and remained as sole owner of the Gazette.
His first act was to tear down the sign over the door of the building and to throw out the paper's old masthead. The Gazette became the New York Banner. His friends objected. "Publishers don't change the name of a paper," they told him. "This one does," he said.
The first campaign of the Banner was an appeal for money for a charitable cause. Displayed side by side, with an equal amount of space, the Banner ran two stories: one about a struggling young scientist, starving in a garret, working on a great invention; the other about a chambermaid, the sweetheart of an executed murderer, awaiting the birth of her illegitimate child. One story was illustrated with scientific diagrams; the other — with the picture of a loose-mouthed girl wearing a tragic expression and disarranged clothes. The Banner asked its readers to help both these unfortunates. It received nine dollars and forty-five cents for the young scientist; it received one thousand and seventy-seven dollars for the unwed mother. Gail Wynand called a meeting of his staff. He put down on the table the paper carrying both stories and the money collected for both funds. "Is there anyone here who doesn't understand?" he asked. No one answered. He said: "Now you all know the kind of paper the Banner is to be."
The publishers of his time took pride in stamping their individual personalities upon their newspapers. Gail Wynand delivered his paper, body and soul, to the mob. The Banner assumed the appearance of a circus poster in body, of a circus performance in soul. It accepted the same goal — to stun, to amuse and to collect admission. It bore the imprint, not of one, but of a million men. "Men differ in their virtues, if any," said Gail Wynand, explaining his policy, "but they are alike in their vices." He added, looking straight into the questioner's eyes: "I am serving that which exists on this earth in greatest quantity. I am representing the majority — surely an act of virtue?"
The public asked for crime, scandal and sentiment. Gail Wynand provided it. He gave people what they wanted, plus a justification for indulging the tastes of which they had been ashamed. The Banner presented murder, arson, rape, corruption — with an appropriate moral against each. There were three columns of details to one stick of moral. "If you make people perform a noble duty, it bores them," said Wynand. "If you make them indulge themselves, it shames them. But combine the two — and you've got them." He ran stories about fallen girls, society divorces, foundling asylums, red-light districts, charity hospitals. "Sex first," said Wynand. "Tears second. Make them itch and make them cry — and you've got them."
The Banner led great, brave crusades — on issues that had no opposition. It exposed politicians — one step ahead of the Grand Jury; it attacked monopolies — in the name of the downtrodden; it mocked the rich and the successful — in the manner of those who could never be either. It overstressed the glamour of society — and presented society news with a subtle sneer. This gave the man on the street two satisfactions: that of entering illustrious drawing rooms and that of not wiping his feet on the threshold. The Banner was permitted to strain truth, taste and credibility, but not its readers' brain power. Its enormous headlines, glaring pictures and oversimplified text hit the senses and entered men's consciousness without any necessity for an intermediary process of reason, like food shot through the rectum, requiring no digestion.
"News," Gail Wynand told his staff, "is that which will create the greatest excitement among the greatest number. The thing that will knock them silly. The sillier the better, provided there's enough of them."