What is a "whispering campaign"? Is it a pack of slanders deliberately and covertly set afoot by one's political opponents in an organized way? Is it a mixture of fact, exaggeration and gossip on unprintable subjects which one's political opponents know is being passed around and over which they secretly gloat? Is it a parcel of prejudice circulated by the ignorant and the fanatical, which one's opponents would be powerless to arrest however fairminded they might be?
Whatever it is, an anti-Smith "whispering campaign" has been suspected, proclaimed, viewed-with-alarm, pointed-with-shame, loudly flayed by the...