CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
Edward Norman, editor of the Raymond Daily News, sat in his office room Monday morning and faced a new world of action. He had made his pledge in good faith to do everything after asking, “What would Jesus do?” and, as he supposed, with his eyes open to all the possible results. But as the regular life of the paper started on another week’s rush and whirl of activity, he confronted it with a degree of hesitation and a feeling nearly akin to fear.
He had come down to the office very early and for a few minutes was by himself. He rose and shut his door, and then did what he had not done for years. He knelt down by his desk and prayed for the Divine Presence and wisdom to direct him.
He rose with the day before him and his promise distinct and clear in his mind. He opened his door and began the routine of the office work by writing an editorial. The Daily News was an evening paper, and Norman usually completed his leading editorial before nine o’clock.
Fifteen minutes later the managing editor called out from his desk in the adjoining room, “Here’s this press report of yesterday’s prizefight at the Resort. It will make up three and a half columns. I suppose it all goes in?”
“Yes—no. Let me see it.”
Norman took the typewritten matter just as it came from the telegraph editor and ran over it carefully. Then he laid the sheets down on his desk and did some very hard thinking.
“We won’t run this today,” he said finally.
The managing editor stood in the doorway between the two rooms. “What did you say?”
“Leave it out. We won’t use it.”
“But—” The managing editor stared at Norman as if the man were out of his mind.
“I don’t think, Clark, that it ought to be printed, and that’s the end of it,” said Norman, looking up from his desk.
Clark seldom had any words with the chief. The circumstances now, however, seemed to be so extraordinary that he could not help expressing himself.
“Do you mean that the paper is to go to press without a word of the prize fight in it?”
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
“But it’s unheard of. What will our subscribers say? Why, it is simply—” Clark paused, unable to find words to say what he thought.
Norman looked at Clark thoughtfully. The two men had never talked together on religious matters, although they had been associated on the paper for several years.
“Come in here a minute, Clark, and shut the door.” Clark came in, and the two men faced each other alone.
Norman did not speak for a minute. Then he said abruptly, “Clark, if Christ were editor of a daily paper, do you honestly think He would print three and a half columns of prizefight in it?”
“No, I don’t suppose He would.”
“Well, that’s my only reason for shutting this account out of the News. I have decided not to do a thing in connection with the paper for a whole year that I honestly believe Jesus would not do.”
Clark could not have looked more amazed if the chief had suddenly gone crazy. “What effect will that have on the paper?” he finally managed to ask in a faint voice.
“What do you think?” asked Norman with a keen glance.
“I think it will ruin the paper,” replied Clark promptly. “It’s too ideal. You can’t make it pay. If you shut out this prizefight report, you will lose hundreds of subscribers.”
Norman spoke gently but firmly. “Clark, in your honest opinion, would you say that the highest, best law for a man to live by was contained in asking the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ And then doing it regardless of results?”
Clark turned red and moved uneasily in his chair before he answered the editor’s question. “Why—yes—I suppose if you put it on the ground of what men ought to do, there is no other standard of conduct. But to succeed in the newspaper business, we have got to conform to custom and the recognized methods of society.”
“Do you mean that we can’t run the paper strictly on Christian principles and make it succeed?”
“Yes, that’s just what I mean. We’ll go bankrupt in thirty days.”
Norman did not reply at once. He was very thoughtful. “We shall have occasion to talk this over again, Clark. Meanwhile I think we ought to understand each other frankly. I shall continue to do as I have pledged in the belief that not only can we succeed, but we can succeed better than we ever did.”
Clark rose. “The report does not go in?”
“It does not. There is plenty of good material to take its place, and you know what it is.”
Clark hesitated. “Are you going to say anything about the absence of the report?”
“No, let the paper go to press as if there had been no such thing as a prizefight yesterday.”
When the Daily News came out that evening, it carried to its subscribers a distinct sensation. The presence of the report of the prizefight could not have produced anything equal to the effect of its omission. Hundreds of men in the hotels and stores downtown, as well as regular subscribers, eagerly opened the paper and searched it through for the account of the great fight; not finding it, they rushed to the newsstands and bought other papers. That evening, as Mr. Norman walked out of the office and went home, he could not avoid that constant query, “Would Jesus have done it?” It was not so much with reference to this specific transaction as to the entire motive that had urged him on since he had made the promise.
He came to the conclusion that Jesus would have done either what he did or something similar in order to be free from any possible feeling of injustice.