t the
Scoop Club on the map as something more than a mere college boys'
organisation; secondly, because it will lead to civic betterment, if
only temporary--a shaking up where this old burg needs a shaking up ...
right at the court house and in the police station....

"But, make no mistake about it,--it's going to kick up a big dust!

"Also, remember, no one is going to stand by us ... even the Civic
Betterment League, headed by Professor Langworth--your friend,
Johnnie--will be angry with us--say our methods are too sensational.

"And the university authorities will say we shouldn't have done it
because it will give the school a black eye ... it will be Ibsen's
_Enemy of Society_ all over again!..."

Immediately some of our more conservative members set themselves against
the "clean up" ... but Jack Travers and I delivered eloquent, rousing
speeches. And the decision was more for full steam ahead.

* * * * *

"Senator" Blair was easily deluded, and persuaded to turn his paper over
to us, for one day.

Our strong-featured, energetic president, Jerome Miller, together with
the suave, plausible Travers, went to see him, deputation-wise, where he
sat, in the Laurel _Globe's_ editorial office,--white and
unhealthy-looking, a great, fat slug of a man, with the slug's nature,
which battens on the corruption of earth.

He liked the idea of the publicity his paper would get through the stunt
of the "boys." He did not guess the kind of publicity he would really
come into.

During the three weeks that we had before we were to bring out the paper
we grew quite proficient in the tawdry life lived in the "Bottoms."

We found out that most of the ramshackle "nigger" dives were owned by a
former judge ... from which he derived exorbitant rents.

We located all the places where booze was sold, and ascertained exactly
how much whiskey was disposed of in the town's drug stores for "snake
bite" and "stomach trouble." We discovered many interesting
things--that, for instance, "Old Aunt Jennie," who would allow her
patrons any vice, but demurred when they took the name of "De Lawd" in
vain--"Old Aunt Jennie" ran a "house" where the wilder and more
debauched among the students came (in justice to Laurel University, let
me add, very few) girls and boys together,--and stayed for the
night--when they were supposed to be on trips to Kansas City....

Travers and "The Colonel" and I were half-lit for tw