was true; it was pretty hard on them, but it was true and they all knew it. That ended that.
When I returned to St. Louis and rewrote the facts, and, in rewriting, made them just as insulting as the truth would permit, my friends there expressed dismay over the manuscript. The article would hurt Mr. Folk; it would hurt the cause; it would arouse popular wrath.
“That was what I hoped it would do,” I said.
“But the indignation would break upon Folk and reform, not on the boodlers,” they said.
“Wasn’t it obvious,” I asked, “that this very title, ‘Shamelessness,’ was aimed at pride; that it implied a faith that there was self-respect to be touched and shame to be moved?”
That was too subtle. So I answered that if they had no faith in the town, I had, and anyway, if I was wrong and the people should resent, not the crime, but the exposure of it, then they would punish, not Mr. Folk, who had nothing to do with the article, but the magazine and me. Newspaper men warned me that they would not “stand for” the article, but would attack it. I answered that I would let the St. Louisans decide between us. It was true, it was just; the people of St. Louis had shown no shame. Here was a good chance to see whether they had any. I was a fool, they said. “All right,” I replied. “All kings had fools in 21the
