news side of every American newspaper--wrote uneasily under a
mysterious, hidden censorship. It was possible that even the young woman
who gleaned society news might, by some unfortunate slip, offend the
invisible proprietor. But as time passed nothing happened. The
imaginable opaque pane that separated the owner from the desks of the
"Courier's" reporters and philosophers had disclosed no faintest shadow.
Occasionally the managing editor was summoned below by the general
manager, but the subordinates in the news department were unable, even
by much careful study of their subsequent instructions, to grasp the
slightest thread that might lead them to the concealed hand which swayed
the "Courier's" destiny. It must be confessed that under this ghostly
administration the paper improved. Every man did his best, and the
circulation statements as published monthly indicated a widening
constituency. Even the Sunday edition, long a forbidding and depressing
hodge-podge of ill-chosen and ill-digested rubbish, began to show order
and intelligence.

In October following his visit to Professor Kelton, Harwood was sent to
Fraserville, the seat of Fraser County, to write a sketch of the
Honorable Morton Bassett, in a series then adorning the Sunday
supplement under the title, "Home Life of Hoosier Statesmen." The
object of the series was frankly to aid the circulation manager's
efforts to build up subscription lists in the rural districts, and
personal sketches of local celebrities had proved potent in this
endeavor. Most of the subjects that had fallen to Harwood's lot had been
of a familiar type--country lawyers who sat in the legislature, or
county chairmen, or judges of county courts. As the "Sunday Courier"
eschewed politics, the series was not restricted to Democrats but
included men of all faiths. It was Harwood's habit to spend a day in the
towns he visited, gathering local color and collecting anecdotal matter.