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V AS IN BARNUM 303 Then, he said quietly, "If you don't think our country is in danger you should have been at last night's meeting." A weekly series of syndicated articles with DeMille's by- line began to appear in newspapers under the heading, CECIL DEMILLE SPEAKING. At one period, the articles were being pub- lished by more than sixty outlets, reaching an estimated 20 million readers. This occasioned a real sense of triumph in view of Hollywood's traditional practice of feeding the press with great quantities of material free of charge. Through the syndi- cate, General Features Corporation, the client newspapers were paying us for the articles. We were the envy of rival press agents, who assumed we would use the columns to "plug'* our own movies, but this was rarely done. For material, we dug deep into Mr. DeMille's past film activi- ties for anecdotes and humorous episodes, for it was on that basis—light, airy articles—that we were able to sell the idea of a series to General Features. Now a new upheaval threatened, induced by the AFRA and Guild conflicts. Mr. DeMille made it clear that he wished to strike a blow for freedom through the weekly series. In New York, the Syndi- cate was disturbed over this proposal; political articles would not be advisable, and would we please communicate that thought to Mr. DeMille. When we did, he said no one was going to tell him what he would write and would we please com- municate that thought to the Syndicate. There were weekly deadlines to meet, and in shuttling be- tween the two parties, we continued writing memoirs for the boss. With each submission, he inquired about the political arti- cles until their preparation could be put off no longer. DeMille had suggested a series of three articles on the AFRA controversy. Once more Robert Pearsall, the Syndicate's gen-