He worked his interest with the press to the utmost, and
paragraphs of a variety that did credit to his ingenuity were afloat
everywhere. Some of them were speciously unfavorable in tone; they
criticised and even ridiculed the principles on which the new departure
in literary journalism was based. Others defended it; others yet denied
that this rumored principle was really the principle. All contributed to
make talk. All proceeded from the same fertile invention.
March observed with a degree of mortification that the talk was very
little of it in the New York press; there the references to the novel
enterprise were slight and cold. But Fulkerson said: "Don't mind that,
old man. It's the whole country that makes or breaks a thing like this;
New York has very little to do with it. Now if it were a play, it would
be different. New York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make or
break a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great mass of the
readers are outside of New York, and the rural districts are what we have
got to go for. They don't read much in New York; they write, and talk
about what they've written. Don't you worry."
The rumor of Fulkerson's connection with the enterprise accompanied many
of the paragraphs, and he was able to stay March's thirst for employment
by turning over to him from day to day heaps of the manuscripts which
began to pour in from his old syndicate writers, as well as from
adventurous volunteers all over the country.
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