by Gore Vidal
Ambassador Francis was also equal to the sea’s turmoil. But he was less equal, he confessed, to the Bolsheviks. “At the beginning, we really did think they were an improvement.” A spray of salt water caused him to wince; he dried his face with the corner of a blanket.
“I know.” Blaise did not remind the Ambassador of his embarrassing comparison of Lenin with Washington and the Czar with George III.
“But how did it all come apart?”
“The French. The English. Clemenceau.” Francis shook his head. “They want Russia destroyed, Russia in any form. I’m convinced it’s not just Bolshevism.”
“No more German Empire, no more Austro-Hungarian Empire, no more Russian Empire … one sees their point. England rules the waves, and France the continent.”
Francis nodded. “But except for Austria, the empires are still where they were. Only the emperors are gone.”
“There will be trouble?”
“There is trouble. Our boys are fighting right now in northern Russia, with the Allies, against the Bolsheviks.”
“How many American troops?”
“Over five thousand.” Francis stared unhappily at the pewter-dull western sky. Then a wave broke over the starboard bow, and the rubber of the sailors’ mackintoshes shone like seals. “Thanks to the War Department, instead of reporting to me in Petrograd, they went straight onto Archangel and reported to the British commander. Now they’re icebound, and the railroad to Murmansk is out, and then when the thaw starts, how do we get them out of there?”
“We fight our way out, according to young Mr. Churchill. He claims there are a half-million anti-Red troops, eager to overthrow the Communist government, if only we’d just stay and help them.”
“It would be nice,” said Francis, sourly, “if he were to lead them. I met with him and the President just before we left. He was full of …” The ambassador, a former governor of Missouri, controlled himself.
“What did the President say?”
“He listened, mostly. Finally, he told Churchill how we are irreversibly—his word—committed to getting our troops out when the weather lets up. Privately, Lloyd George thinks Churchill’s one precious fool and that if we—the Allies—were to get into a full-scale war with the Bolsheviks so as to divide up Russia between us—Clemenceau’s dream—the English people would all go Communist during the war.”
Blaise was grimly amused. “At least Lloyd George understands the nature of tyranny in his own country.”
Francis did not hear—or did not choose to acknowledge—this heresy: the winners were all democracies; thus insuring safety for themselves and everyone else from despots and levellers. “Anyway, we’ll be out of Archangel by summer.”
“But what about Siberia? I’m told that we have eighty-five hundred troops there.”
Francis grinned. “Another War Department error. We told the Japanese that we’d send in seven thousand. So the War Department went and added another thousand, which gave the Japanese an opportunity to break the agreement, and send in tens of thousands of troops to keep us from annexing Siberia.”
“Are we?”
“Going to annex? I don’t see how. We’re too far away and the Japanese are too close, and Admiral Kolchak is still fighting the Bolsheviks, and if he wins, Russia splits in two. It’s a terrible mess for everybody.”
Blaise presented himself at the door to Wilson’s cabin just as the number of bells that meant three o’clock at sea were struck. Admiral Grayson ushered Blaise into a sizeable office with a large mahogany desk on which were placed two telephones connected, Blaise wondered, to what?
The President was dressed as if he were about to go golfing. The sea air had brought color to his face; the pince-nez shone in the light from the overhead lamp. “Mr. Sanford. How good of you to come.” It was part of Wilson’s charm to act as if each of his visitors had made an extraordinary personal sacrifice to call upon him, no doubt a necessary charm when dealing with wealthy Princeton alumni or difficult parents.
Blaise took the indicated chair at Wilson’s right. Through the porthole opposite, he could see Marine guards patrolling; could hear their boots strike, rhythmically, the deck. Wilson noticed Blaise’s glance.
“Mrs. Wilson can’t bear the sound or the thought of those boys marching back and forth all day. But I find it soothing.” The ship suddenly pitched; a telephone began to slide along the desk. The President steadied it.
“Is that your line to the Vice President?”
“The Vice President?” Wilson looked puzzled; then he laughed. “Yes, the Vice President. Well, we do have a wireless link to the War Department and they connect with the White House. So I suppose the Vice President is somewhere—out there—on the other end. Anyway, thanks to the wireless, I’m as much in touch with public affairs here as I was in Paris or even Washington.” Wilson sounded defensive. Many of his own supporters were appalled that a president should leave the country for even a day, much less two months.
“You’ll come back, then?”
“May I speak off the record?”
“By all means, Mr. President.” Over the years, Wilson had come to trust Blaise if only because the Tribune was generally favorable to his Administration while the Post was unreliable, and the Times, now manipulated by Hearst through Brisbane, hostile. Also, Blaise had never betrayed a confidence on those rare occasions when he had been in receipt of one.
“I don’t see how I can abandon the Peace Conference. Colonel House is superb, but he’s not well. The French …” Even off the record, Wilson could not trust himself. “Clemenceau …” he began; and let it go at that. “So much can be undone if I’m not there.”
“But you have your covenant …”
“Right here,” said Wilson and opened his coat so that Blaise could see the famous document folded in his pocket.
“Over my heart. Though Edith maintains it’s my spleen. But I shall not be splenetic, no matter how keen the fight in the Senate.”
“Why should there be any fight at all?”
“They will have it. So I must have it.” The underslung jaw set.
“But they … the Republicans … invented the idea, if anyone can be said to have thought of it first.”
“And they would rather kill it than see us get the credit for this astonishing charter. Oh, there’ll be a fight all right. But then I’ve never found that one could get anything worthwhile without a struggle.” Thus spoke the Scottish clansman on the eve of a border war.
“Surely all western civilization is built on compromise.” Blaise expected to get a rise from the President; and did.
Wilson looked at him sharply, even inquisitorially. “You’ve been talking to Colonel House.”
Blaise nodded. “I was quoting his exact words.”
“… when he quoted Burke to me. Yes. We disagreed. My wife calls me the most obstinate man in America.” The smile was faint and hardly proud. “But I know what I am up against. Lodge will do anything to destroy the League or, indeed, anything else that I propose.”
“If there were a vote now in this particular Senate, you’d win.”
“A two-thirds vote? Which is what I need for a treaty?”
Blaise nodded. Burden had explained it all; even with the new Republican majority, made not so secure by the independent Senator La Follette’s unreliable support, there were enough Republicans and loyal Democrats to give the President his treaty. Blaise then gave the President Burden’s detailed anatomy of the chamber and how the votes would go. To his surprise, Wilson had done no research at all into the Senate’s mood. Burden’s estimate of how this one and that one might vote appeared strange to him. “Well, everything you tell me is comforting, in theory,” he said at last. “But one can never underestimate Lodge’s ingenuity. You know, all during the conference, he was seeing to it that the press and the delegates were constantly reminded that I do not have the support of the American people, that I have lost the Congress, that I represent no one but myself. You ca
n’t think what an effect this makes, and how difficult it is to dispel their doubts, particularly when dealing with those who want me—us—to fail.”
Wilson sat back in his chair, face suddenly white and strained. “I put all this on the head of one man alone, Theodore Roosevelt.” The name on Wilson’s lips was a curse. “Sick in the hospital, about to die, he was plotting with Lodge and Root to destroy this mission. All three wanted the League long before I’d ever appeared on the scene. But out of Roosevelt’s private rage and malice and, yes, malignant evil, he could not bear that anyone else might ever get credit for benefitting the world. He was without the slightest human compassion. He cared only for himself and his ludicrous career. Frankly, I regard his death as a true blessing and I pray that no such monster ever again appears upon the scene, preaching mindless war.”
Blaise was shocked at the intensity of Wilson’s hatred; but hardly surprised. In life, Roosevelt had indeed done everything possible to destroy Wilson, and now, in death, thanks to Lodge, the mischief continued. But Blaise also was certain that the President, trailing glory, would prevail as he had in Paris against far more worldly opponents than mere gentlemen from Idaho and Missouri and even Massachusetts.
The telephone rang. “Little girl,” Wilson murmured, suddenly transformed from Old Testament prophet to uxorious mate. “Yes. Of course we’ll go to the show tonight. Yes.” Wilson hung up. “They were afraid that I was displeased with last night’s program.”
A sailor, dressed as a prostitute, had done a somewhat lascivious dance, and then chucked the President under the chin. The sailors had roared; the presidential courtiers had gasped; and the President himself had turned to stone. “They were a bit high-spirited …” Blaise began.
“I was …” Wilson stopped and frowned. “Well, not pleased, no. For the sake of the office such things ought not to happen. But, personally, I’m relieved that people find me not entirely forbidding. In my life I’ve had very little to do with individuals, except to teach them, by no means a … friendly activity, or discharge the office of an executive, hardly an endearing activity.”
Wilson sat back in his chair, and sighed. “You know, I could’ve done well in vaudeville.” Suddenly, he let his face go loose and Blaise was reminded of the scene at the Capitol before the declaration of war. Slowly, Wilson shook his head. The face, totally slack, was cretinous and comical. The body drooped, complementing the face. “I’m Dopey Dan,” he sang, “and I’m married to Midnight Mary.” With that, he did an expert scarecrow sort of dance across the deck, whistling all the while. When he finished, he bowed.
Blaise applauded loudly. “Do that when you address the Congress, Mr. President, and you’ll sweep the nation.”
“Do that, and they’ll put me away.” Wilson laughed. “Or send me out on the Keith circuit with Midnight Mary, by no means the worst of fates.” Blaise was more than ever confident that the President could easily handle Congress, not to mention the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt.
SEVEN
1
The Senate cloakroom was now divided by an invisible wall across its narrow middle. On one side the Republicans exchanged whispers with their leader Lodge, and on the other the Democrats brooded under the benign if not particularly able leadership of Gilbert M. Hitchcock, Claude Swanson and Burden himself, by no means, in his view, the ablest managers to see the treaty through the Senate.
Outside the cloakroom the sergeant-at-arms had thoughtfully assembled a number of army cots and blankets in case the senators filibustered today as they had the previous day, March 2, when La Follette of Wisconsin took the lead in exploiting the right of any senator to speak as long as he liked. Ostensibly, the bill to be talked to death concerned the leasing of public coal and oil reserves by suspect private interests. But as the Sixty-fifth Congress was obliged to expire March 4 and as a seven-billion-dollar Victory Bond bill had not yet passed, La Follette and his liberal friends were threatening, in effect, to leave the government without funds until the Sixty-sixth Congress assembled in December.
Since Wilson had no intention of calling Congress back between March and December, there was considerable urgency on the part of the Democratic minority to see that the appropriate bills were safely passed and the Congress sent home. If Congress were to come back in an emergency session, Lodge and his allies would then be able, in leisurely fashion, to dismember Wilson’s covenant while the President was still in Paris at work on the final peace treaty.
In full health Burden enjoyed this sort of maneuvering, but nowadays he was in half-health at best. In the flu’s aftermath, he was permanently, mortally tired, with an alarming tendency to fell into a sudden sound sleep no matter where he was. Kitty had begged him to stay away from the Capitol. But the President had begged him to stay at his post. So now he sat with Hitchcock at the Democratic end of the cloakroom, his feet resting on an army cot.
Thus far, everything that Burden and Hitchcock had tried to arrange kept coming undone. La Follette and his friends had given up their filibuster at six-forty on the morning of March 2, at the request of the Republican caucus, which did not want the party blamed for the failure of the Victory Bond issue to pass. There had been a trade-off. La Follette took seriously the stealing of the people’s wealth. Lodge took seriously the destruction of Wilson’s treaty. As party leader, Lodge had promised to aid La Follette later if he would end the filibuster now. La Follette obliged; the bond issue had been passed. But the financing of the government through a general-deficiency bill of $840 million was still pending. The Senate had then adjourned until ten in the morning, March 3, which meant that there would be only twenty-six hours in which to appropriate money to pay the federal government’s debts. If the money was not forthcoming, Lodge would get his wish and Congress would be obliged to come back in the spring.
Burden looked at his watch. It was now eleven thirty-five. In twelve hours, at noon, March 4, the President would come to the Capitol to sign whatever bills Congress had prepared for him.
“Marshall’s ready to recognize us.” Hitchcock stared through the cigar smoke at Lodge, who was holding court from a black leather sofa. Surrounded by Republican senators, he looked most grandly the philosopher-king. “But they don’t quit. When one finishes he signals to another one to spell him, and the Vice President can’t do a thing.”
From back of the swinging doors to the chamber, Burden could hear the slightly hoarse voice of—Francis of Maryland? Yes: the phrase “King Woodrow” was being repeated over and over again, to the gallery’s delight. All Washington had converged on the Capitol to enjoy the fun. Frederika and Caroline were sitting together in the gallery, and Burden felt not unlike a superior rooster gazing upward at his very own hens, side by side, and easily the two most distinguished ladies in the gallery now that Evalyn McLean had dropped off to sleep in the diplomatic section. “At ten to midnight I’ll make my try. I’ve told Marshall that when he recognizes me, I’ll ask for a vote.”
“Let’s hope there’s still a quorum. They could make a run for the depot.”
“We’ll send the sergeant-at-arms after them.”
“We’re not the majority.” Hitchcock was sour.
La Follette entered the cloakroom. He seemed not at all tired after Saturday’s filibuster. A large-headed, stocky man, most able in debate and fierce in his representation of the people against the interests. Burden had always assumed that like most instinctive populists, La Follette had pacifist leanings and so would support the League. But in this he was more Roosevelt-progressive than true people’s man. Finally, he was more La Follette, the histrionic lonely warrior, than anything else. Lodge had cleverly used La Follette’s genuine objection to the leasing bill in order to postpone altogether the vote on the appropriation bill. La Follette had obliged. Now Burden wondered what price he had demanded for his cooperation.
“Will we hear your magnificent voice this evening, Senator?” Hitchcock was orotund.
La Follette shrugged; and mumbled, “I�
�ve got a lozenge in my mouth.”
“We’ll hear you then,” said Hitchcock.
“Will you speak all night?” asked Burden.
“If sufficiently inspired by my theme.” La Follette went onto the floor. Burden noticed that Lodge had been watching La Follette closely—anxiously? No one knew what their common strategy was, other than to keep the Senate from coming to a vote before adjournment.
Burden went to the swinging doors and looked into the chamber. Electric light emphasized more than daylight the prevailing greens. The effect was rather like looking into an aquarium where senators, like large fish, floated and the pages, like so many minnows, followed first one then another. The weary Vice President was in the chair, a study in bad temper.
A Democrat now took the floor, Martin of Virginia. The former majority leader warned his colleagues of the financial panic that would ensue if the finance bill was not passed before adjournment. He was eloquent. The Republican Lenroot of Wisconsin rose to ask if the bill was not passed, would the President call the Congress back before he had returned from France?
Martin was emphatic. “In two conversations, in the plainest possible English, he said that he had made up his mind, and it was final, that no extra session of Congress will be called under any circumstances until his return from France.”
Burden caught the Vice President’s eye. Marshall nodded. As agreed, Burden would be recognized just before midnight; and he would call for a vote. Burden went on to the floor and sat for a moment at his desk. Frederika smiled down at him; her hair had started to grow back, not blond but white beneath her temporary wig. Caroline gave him a sisterly smile.
