Free The Seekers by John Jakes Page A

while to find his way. But surely you have some idea—”
    “Frankly, Mr. Pleasant, about all I’ve been able to determine so far is what I don’t want. I know I’m not a bookman or a scholar. I’m damned if I’d make a good soldier, either—”
    Admitting all that was hard. In fact, he was vaguely ashamed that his accomplishments in Boston thus far consisted of doing his job without too many mistakes, and conducting half a dozen furtive meetings with Elizabeth. That last, and the attendant deception of his father and stepmother each secret hour required, were hardly things to be proud of; yet he was so completely and dizzily in love with the fair-haired girl, all else seemed unimportant.
    Supply Pleasant chewed the stem of his quill a while, then picked up a stack of neatly inked foolscap sheets. “Strikes me you’re like a beggar at a banquet, Abraham.”
    “How so, Mr. Pleasant?”
    “You’re confronted with so many rare dishes, you don’t know which to pick first. The country’s a veritable cornucopia of opportunity—a veritable cornucopia!” Pleasant had a passion for flowery phrases, in conversation as well as in the paper. He wrote every word of the five columns on each of the four sixteen-by-twenty-inch pages of the Federalist.
    He handed the foolscap sheets to the younger man. “Sit ten minutes with this. You’ll see what I mean.”
    “What is it?”
    “A feature I’ve been preparing for some time. A review, if you will, of the remarkable accomplishments of our young country. Of course,” Pleasant added after another bite of the quill, “my employer exercises his right to edit my copy. There are subjects which can’t be mentioned. The very sensible metric measurement system, for example. It’s certain to become a world standard—certain! But it’s deemed an invention of the devil by good Federalists like your father. While other nations go ahead and adopt it, I predict we shall not—simply because the French Jacobins thought it up. Also—”
    He pointed at the sheets with his quill.
    “Mr. Jefferson’s new plow. Experts claim it will revolutionize farming. Not only does it break the soil, it lifts and turns it aside more efficiently by means of the mold-board Jefferson added. I’ve put in some copy on the plow, but I’m sure Mr. Kent will scratch it out.”
    “Don’t you resent that sort of interference, Mr. Pleasant?”
    “Naturally I resent it.”
    “Then why don’t you protest? Or quit? The first amendment to our Constitution in ’ninety-one guaranteed a man’s freedom to speak—or publish—what he wishes.”
    “That’s exactly how it is—Mr. Kent publishes what he wishes,” Pleasant said with a resigned smile. “I don’t quit because I like newspapering. And I’m not shrewd enough on matters of financing to operate my own gazette. You’re too young to realize that much of life is compromise, Abraham. My idealism doesn’t extend to my belly, which is empty several times a day, regular as a clock. Besides, your father and I have reached a state of accommodation. He only interferes on subjects related to politics.”
    “But slanted news is dishonest!”
    “No doubt you’re right. However, don’t forget it was propaganda, not straight news, that rescued us from the morass of the unworkable Articles of Confederation and gave us our Constitution. If Messrs. Jay and Hamilton and Madison hadn’t published their eighty-odd Federalist essays in the New York papers a few years ago, we might still be a gaggle of fractious states instead of a reasonably stable federal union. Like all things, journalism has both its lofty and ignoble sides.”
    Abraham wasn’t persuaded. But he was interested in the article Supply Pleasant had handed him, intrigued by its title and subheadings:
THE YOUNG COLOSSUS!
    A Succinct Review of the Conditions
    Generating Unparalleled Prosperity
    Under Our Federal Government!
    Amazing Advancements
    In The Mechanical Sciences!
    Expansionist Fever