"What the world needs, Miss Wynrod, is not charity, not the kind of altruism that polishes off effects, but a force that will remove and eliminate causes. Money causes most of the evil in the world. Money can cure it. But it won't do to fill stomachs or even heads. When they die the job has to be done all over again. We've got to sweep the old world off the boards, and build a new one in its place. And the new world must be for _all_. The people must rule and be ruled. There are lots of panaceas on the market. There's the single tax--giving the land back to its owners--the people. That will help. But it's not enough. Then there's Socialism. I worked for a Socialist paper, but I wasn't a Socialist. Socialism isn't enough. It's too narrow, too material, too bigoted. It isn't spiritual enough. It isn't elastic enough. We don't want dogma, we want light. We don't want to stop exploitation. We want to tell the people _how_ they're exploited. They'll stop it for themselves, when they know--when they know their own power. They've got to know what is going on in the world. Germs can't live in sunlight and oxygen. And the germs that cause poverty and disease and misery of all kinds can't live in the sunlight and the oxygen of publicity. Publicity, publicity, what magic would it wreak!" There was almost ecstasy in his voice, in the flicker of his eyes, fixed in space. "But don't we have publicity--now?" she asked timidly, not wholly grasping the significance of his talk. "Of a sort, yes," he admitted, "but not the kind I mean. Most of the avenues of publicity are the avenues for special pleaders. The owners of newspapers and magazines have axes to grind, they have policies--some good, some bad--always policies. They present what happens so as to bolster up some preconceived theory. That's not truth--it's propaganda." "Is the press all dishonest?" she asked in surprise, somewhat tinged with irritation at what seemed like a crude generality. "Not dishonest, no. The average newspaper would rather be honest than not. And those who wouldn't, find that honesty pays better than dishonesty. But they're honest about things that don't matter and silent about those that do." "For instance--" "Well, you remember our first meeting--how I came to interview you about the Algoma mine trouble?" "I'm not likely to forget it," she said a little sadly. "Well, what do you know about the situation there?" "There was a little in the papers a month or so ago." "And--" "And?" "Yes, isn't there something else?" "Oh, you mean the letters from the directors?" "Exactly. Your sources of information are first from those interested only in a 'story,' without much regard for getting to the disagreeable bottom, and second from those interested in getting a verdict for their own side." "Is there any other source?" "There is. Congress sent a special investigating committee out there--" "What did it find?"