t, at times, to cling to his
dogged hopes. But it was worth while fighting it out to the last dollar.
So much he was assured of by the messages of praise and support which
began to come in to him, not from "representative citizens," but from
the earnest, thoughtful, and often obscure toilers and thinkers of the
city: clergymen, physicians, laboring-men, working-women, sociological
workers--his peers.

Then, too, there was the profound satisfaction of promised victory over
the pest. For at the end of six weeks the battle was practically won; by
what heroisms, at the cost of what sacrifices, through what
disappointments, reversals, and set-backs, against the subtleties of
what underground opposition of political influence and twelve per cent
finance, is not to be set down here. The government publications tell,
in their brief and pregnant records, this story of one of the most
complete and brilliant victories in the history of American hygiene. My
concern is with the story, not of the typhus epidemic, but of a man who
fought for and surrendered and finally retrieved his own manhood and the
honor of the paper which was his honor. His share, no small one, in the
wiping-out of the pestilence was, to him, but part of the war for which
he had enlisted.

But though the newspapers, with one joyous voice, were able to announce
early in August, on the authority of the federal reports, "No new case
in a week," the success of Old Home Week still swayed in the balance.
Outside newspapers, which had not forgotten the scandal of the smallpox
suppression years before, hinted that the record might not be as clear
as it appeared. The President of the United States, they pointed out,
who was to be the guest of honor and the chief feature of the
celebration, would not be justified in going to a city over which any
suspicion of pestilence still hovered. In fact, the success or failure
of the event practically hung upon the Chief Executive's action. If,
now, he decided to withdraw his acceptance, on whatever ground, the
country would impute it to a justified caution, and would maintain
against the city that intangible moral quarantine which is so disastrous
to its victim. Throughout, Hal Surtaine in his editorial columns had
vigorously maintained that the President would come. It was mostly
"bluff." He had nothing but hope to build on.

Two more "clean" weeks passed. At the close of the second, Hal stopped
one day at the hospital to see Mc