Strong Medicine by Arthur Hailey Page A

she had
    known this might happen but hoped that it would not. To Celia, the faults
    she had described were so obvious and glaring, the reforms so plainly
    needed, it was hard to see how others could disagree when facts were
    pointed out.
    But they had. And almost certainly her employment by FeldingRoth was ended,
    or would be shortly. A pity. Sam Hawthorne would probably say she had done
    what he cautioned her not to do -overreached in trying to achieve too much.
    Andrew, too, had warned her--on the way back from their honeymoon when she
    told him about building a file of doctors' reports. She remembered Andrew's
    words: "You're taking on something pretty big. Also some risks. " How right
    he had been! Yet, a principle was involved, and her own integrity, and
    Celia had decided long ago she would never temporize on that, What was that
    line from Hamlet she had teamed at school? "This above alk to thine own
    self be true You paid a price for it, though. Sometimes a stiff one.
    Moving through the hall, she was aware of sympathetic glances from a few of
    the men still seated. That was unexpected, after all her criticisms. Not
    that it made any difference now.
    "One moment, pleasel"
    Suddenly, startling her, coming from nowhere, a voice boomed strongly over
    the p.a. system. "Mrs. Jordan, will you wait?"
    Celia hesitated, then stopped as the voice repeated, "Mrs. Jordan, wait!"
    Turning, she saw with surprise that the voice was Sam Hawthome's. Sam had
    left his seat, ascended the speakers' platform, and was leaning over the
    microphone. Others were startled too. Irving Gregson could be heard
    exclaiming, "Sam . . . what the hell?"
    Sam passed a hand across his head, shiny under the spotlight; it was an
    unconscious habit when he was thinking a problem through. His craggy face
    was serious. "If you don't mind, Irving, there's something I'd like to say,
    and have everyone hear, before Mrs. Jordan goes."
    65
     

Celia wondered what was coming. Surely Sam wasn't going to endorse her
    expulsion by telling the world about their conversation of this morning
    and his warning. It would be out of character. Yet ambition did strange
    things to people. Was it possible that Sam believed some comment would
    make him look good in the eyes of the assembled brass?
    Looking up at the platform, the vice president of sales asked testily,
    "What is it?"
    "Well," Sam said, close enough to the microphone so his voice could be
    heard again through the now-silent hall, "I guess you could say, Irving,
    I'm standing up here to be counted."
    "In what way counted?" This time the question was from Eli Camperdown,
    now also on his feet.
    Sam Hawthorne faced the Felding-Roth president, at the same time moving
    closer to the mike. "Counted with Mrs. Jordan, Eli. And admitting-even
    though no one else seems willing to-that everything she said is true. As
    we all damn well know, even while pretending otherwise."
    The silence in the hall was awesome. Only minor noises filtered in-the
    sound of traffic, distantly; a rattle of glassware from a kitchen; muted
    voices from a corridor outside. It seemed as if everyone was still,
    rooted, not wanting to move and thereby miss a word. Amid the quiet, Sam
    continued.
    "I'd also like to go on record as wishing I'd had the wit and moral
    courage to make the speech which Mrs. Jordan did. And there's something
    else."
    Irving Gregson interrupted. "Don't you think you've said enough?"
    "Let him finish," Eli Camperdown ordered. "It might as well all hang
    out."
    The sales vice president subsided.
    "In particular," Sam Hawthorne went on, "I agree with the opinion that
    if our industry fails to mend its ways, laws will be passed compelling
    us to do so. Moreover, those laws will be more restrictive by far than
    if we accept the good advice we have just heard and clean house
    ourselves.
    "Finally, about Mrs. Jordan. Several times already she has proved her
    great value to this company. In my opinion she has just done so again,
    and