Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  While Theodore was turning out biographies of Thomas Hart Benton and Gouverneur Morris and essays in celebration of Americanism of the sort that had given Henry James such exquisite pain, he was also busy president-making. One president thus made was Benjamin Harrison; and Theodore’s political carpentry was rewarded with a place on the Civil Service Commission.

  Both President and Theodore had been eager for him to be undersecretary of state, but the secretary, James G. Blaine himself, had the usual politician’s long memory, and Theodore was forced to content himself with Civil Service reform, an Augean stable where not even Hercules would have dreamed of putting hand to shovel. Although Theodore was no Hercules, he was, by nature, busy. In 1889, at the age of thirty, he made himself the commission’s head. He railed against the spoils system, and the press enjoyed him. When Republican President Harrison was replaced by Democratic President Cleveland, Roosevelt was kept on. During the six years he served on the commission, he entered the lives of the Hearts. In 1895, a reform mayor of New York City appointed Roosevelt president of the board of police commissioners. Roosevelt proved to be a fierce unrelenting prosecutor of vice; and the press revelled in his escapades. Since the law that forbade saloons to dispense their poisons on the Sabbath was often flouted, Roosevelt closed down the saloons, which meant that the saloon-keepers need no longer pay protection to Mr. Croker of Tammany Hall. But Mr. Croker was more resourceful than Roosevelt; he got a judge to rule that as it was not against the law to serve alcohol with a meal, a single pretzel ingested while drinking a bottle of whiskey made lawful the unlawful.

  Roosevelt was also introduced to a world from which he had always been sheltered, the poor. He took for his guide a Danish-born journalist named Jacob Riis, who had written a polemical book called How the Other Half Lives. Roosevelt was shown not only the extent of poverty in the great city but the complacence of the ruling class, which included his own family.

  Hay had never been much impressed by Theodore’s occasional impassioned denunciations of the “malefactors of great wealth”; after all, as Henry Adams liked to say, they were all of them consenting parties to the status quo. Though the Police Commissioner got himself a reputation for the disciplining of dishonest policemen, when the journalist Stephen Crane—previously admired by Roosevelt—testified in court against two policemen who had falsely arrested a woman for soliciting, Roosevelt had sprung to the defense of the policemen, and denounced Crane, an eye-witness to the arrest. Since Crane was much admired by the Hearts, Roosevelt had been taken to task. But he stood by his men, like a good commander in a war.

  In March, 1897, the thirty-eight-year-old Roosevelt met, as it were, his luck. The new president, McKinley, appointed him assistant secretary of the Navy, ordinarily a humble post, but with a weak and amiable secretary, Roosevelt, in thrall to the imperial visions of Captain Mahan and Brooks Adams, was now in a position to build up the fleet without which there could be no future wars, no glory, no empire. The next four years were to wreathe with laurel the stout little man who now stood, if not like a colossus athwart the world, like some tightly wound-up child’s toy, dominating all the other toys in power’s playroom, shrill voice constantly raised. “Germany, John. There’s the coming problem. Coming? No, it’s here. The Kaiser’s on the move everywhere. He’s built a fleet to counter us—or the British, one or the other, but not—not both together—yet. Also, if he makes the bid, he will have to look to his rear, for there is savage Russia, huge and glacial, waiting for the world to fall like a ripe fruit into its paws.” Theodore smote together his own paws. Hay tried to imagine the world smashed in those pudgy hands. “Russia is the giant of the future,” Theodore proclaimed.

  Hay felt obliged to intervene. “I don’t know about the future—but at the moment the only kind of giant that Russia is is a giant dwarf.”

  Theodore laughed; and clicked his teeth. Bamie was now pouring coffee, with Edith’s assistance. Neither paid much attention to Theodore; but their absent-mindedness was benign. “I’ll use that, John, with your permission.”

  “Don’t you dare. I can say such things in private. But you can’t, ever. We have enough trouble here with Cassini, with Russia. You may think such things,” Hay conceded, “but the president must always avoid wit …”

  “And truth?”

  “Truth above all, the statesman must avoid. Elevated sentiment and cloudy tautologies must now be your style …”

  “Oh, you depress me! I had hoped to make a brilliant State of the Union address. Full of epigrams, and giant dwarfs. Well, all right. No dwarfs.”

  “We must extend the hand of friendship,” Hay intoned, “through every open door that we can find.”

  Roosevelt laughed; or, rather, barked; and started to march about the room. “The thing to remember about the Germans is this. They simply haven’t got the territory to support their population. They’ve got France and England to the west—and us back of them. They’ve got your giant dwarf to the east, and back of it China. There’s really no place, anywhere, for a German empire …”

  “Africa,” Hay broke in.

  “Africa, yes. But Africa what? A lot of territory, and no Germans willing to go there. In the last ten years, one million Germans—the best and the pluckiest of them all—moved out of Germany. And who got them? We did—or most of them. No wonder the Kaiser’s eager to set up his own empire in China. But he’ll have to deal with us if he moves into Asia …”

  “Suppose he moves into Europe?” Hay’s back pains had returned; and Bamie Cowles’s coffee had created turbulence in a digestive system more than usually fragile.

  “Spring-Rice thinks he might, one day. I like Germans. I like the Kaiser, in a way. I mean, if I were in his situation, I’d try for something, too.”

  “Well, we did not like them in ’98, when they tried to get England to join them to help Spain against us.”

  “No. No. No. But you can see how tempting it must have been for the Kaiser. He wanted the Philippines. Who didn’t? Anyway, the British were with us.” Roosevelt suddenly frowned.

  “Canada claims,” Hay began.

  “Not now! Not now, dear John. The subject bores me.”

  “Bores you? Think of me, hour after hour, day after day, in close communion with Our Lady of the Snows …”

  “Boring Lady, in my experience.”

  “Now, Thee.” Edith’s warning voice was a bit lower than her normal voice; but no less effective.

  “But, Edie. I was just commiserating with John …”

  “I suppose,” said young Ted, “that I will be able to endure Groton another term.”

  “Is this a cry for attention?” asked the father, balefully clicking his teeth.

  “No, no. It was just an observation …”

  “Where is Alice?” asked the President, turning to his wife.

  “Farmington, isn’t she?” Edith turned to her sister-in-law.

  “In my house, yes. Or she was. She’s very social, you know.”

  “I don’t know where she gets that from.” Theodore appealed to Hay. “We are not—never have been—fashionable.”

  “Perhaps this is an advance, a new hazard for an old fortune—”

  “No fortune either!” sighed Edith. “I don’t know how we’ll live now. This black dress,” she slowly turned so that her husband could appreciate her sacrifice, “cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars at Hollander’s this morning. That’s ready-made, of course, and then I had to buy a truly hideous hat with black crepe veil.”

  “One can only hope that there will be numerous similar funerals for you to attend,” said Hay, “of elderly diplomats, of course, and senators of any age.”

  Theodore was staring at himself in a round mirror; he seemed as fascinated by himself as others were. Then he confided, “I have to go to Canton after the services here.” Then he spun around, and sat in a chair, and was suddenly still. It was as if the toy had finally run down. He even sat like a doll, thought Hay; legs outstretched,
arms loose at his side.

  “Shall I go?” asked Hay.

  “No. No. We can never travel together again, you and I. If something should happen to me, you’re the only president we’ve got.”

  “Poor country,” said Hay, getting to his feet. “Poor me.”

  “Stop sounding old.” The doll, rewound, was on its feet. “I’ll meet with the Cabinet Friday, after Canton; the usual time.”

  “We shall be ready for you. As for Alice, if she does decide to visit Washington, Helen says that she can stay with us.”

  “Alice worships your girls,” said Edith, without noticeable pleasure. “They dress so beautifully, she keeps reminding me.”

  “Alice doesn’t like having poor parents,” said the President, as he led Hay to the door.

  “Give her to us. There’s plenty of room.”

  “We might. Pray for me, John.”

  “I have done that, Theodore. And will, again.”

  – 3 –

  BLAISE found the Chief in, of all places, his office at the Journal. As a rule, he preferred to work at home when he was in New York, which was seldom these days. In Hearst’s capacity as presiding genius of the Democratic clubs, he travelled the nation, rallying the faithful, preparing for his own election four years hence. He had been in Chicago when McKinley was shot.

  Brisbane was seated on a sofa while the Chief sat feet on his desk, and eyes on the window, through which nothing could be seen except falling, melting snow. Neither man greeted Blaise; he was a member of the family. But when Blaise asked, “How bad is it?” Hearst answered, “Bad and getting worse.” Hearst gave him a copy of the World. Ambrose Bierce’s quatrain was printed in bold type. Hearst’s deliberate incitement to murder was the theme of the accompanying story. As Blaise read, he could hear the steady drumming of Hearst’s fingers on his desk, always a sign of nervousness in that generally phlegmatic man. “They’re trying to make out that the murderer had a copy of the Journal in his pocket at Buffalo. He didn’t, of course.”

  “They will invent anything,” said Brisbane sadly. The two founding fathers of invented news were not pleased to find themselves being reinvented by others no less scrupulous. The irony was not lost on Blaise.

  “The Chicago American’s got close to three hundred thousand circulation.” Hearst’s mind worked rather like a newspaper’s front page, a number of disparate items crowded together, some in larger type than others. “I’m going to add the word ‘American’ to the Journal here. Particularly now. Croker’s leaving Tammany Hall. Murphy’s taking his place. The saloon-keeper, who was also dock commissioner. The one we caught owning stock in that ice company.”

  “Even so,” Brisbane sounded confident, “I’m willing to bet he’ll nominate you for governor next fall.”

  “I’m not so sure.” The right foot now began to waggle, and the drumming fingers were still as the energy moved to the body’s opposite end. “Maybe you should try him out. See if he’ll nominate you for Congress in the Eleventh Ward. All you have to pay is your first year’s congressional salary. After that, they leave you alone in Washington, except on votes that concern the city, which nobody else cares about.” The Chief stared at Blaise.

  “But I don’t want to go to Congress,” began Blaise.

  “I was talking to Brisbane.” The Chief was equable.

  “We’ve discussed it before.” Brisbane’s urbane whiskerless face looked, suddenly, statesmanlike. He had, it was rumored, socialist tendencies. “A sort of trial balloon. The Chief needs to win one high office before 1904, and governor of New York is the one that will put him in the White House.”

  “What about Colonel Roosevelt? He’s bound to run again.” Blaise could not imagine the Chief, for all his journalistic skills, as a match for the dynamic, evangelical Roosevelt. More to the point, the Chief hated public speaking; hated crowds; hated shaking hands—his limp damp grip was much imitated along Newspaper Row.

  A sub-editor entered with a newspaper proof. “The President’s message to Congress. We just got it on the wire.” Hearst took the long sheets of paper, and read rapidly; found what he was looking for; read aloud, imitating Roosevelt’s falsetto, not so different from his own: “Leon, however his name’s pronounced, was, according to our new president, ‘inflamed by the teachings of professed anarchists …’ ”

  “Poor Emma Goldman,” said Brisbane.

  “ ‘… and probably also by the reckless utterances of those who, on the stump and in the public press,’ that’s me, I hope Mother doesn’t read this, ‘appeal to the dark and evil spirits of malice and greed, envy and sullen hatred. The wind is sowed by the men who preach such doctrines, and they cannot escape their share of responsibility for the whirlwind that is reaped.’ ”

  Hearst made a ball of the sheets of paper, and aimed it, successfully, at the waste basket beside Brisbane. Then he swung his feet off the desk, opened a drawer and withdrew a revolver, which he slipped into his coat pocket. “I’ve been getting death threats,” he said to Blaise. “And Mr. Roosevelt’s speech won’t help. Well, we’ll get him, too, one of these days.”

  “With another bullet, to put him on his bier?” Blaise found dark comedy in the Chief’s melodramatic view of the world.

  “Heaven forbid.” Hearst turned pale. “I hate violence. I was sick to my stomach when I heard about McKinley. Frightful. Frightful.” Blaise realized that, in some curious way, Hearst lived in a kind of dream where real people were turned, by his yellow art, into fictional characters that he could manipulate as he pleased. On those rare occasions when his fictions and the real world coincided, he was genuinely shocked. It was all very well for him to report that one Jack had taken a ride into Heaven aboard a bean stalk and quite another thing for an actual bean stalk to lift him up above the world.

  Brisbane left them. The President’s message must be printed and commented on. Then Hearst asked for news of the Baltimore newspaper, and Blaise told him the truth. “It’s just a stepping-stone.”

  “To where?”

  “I want Washington. After all, you have everything else worth having.”

  “You could run one of my papers.” Hearst stared at the snow, which was now sticking to the glass of the window. The room was filled with an odd refracted blue light.

  “You run them. I want my own.”

  “In Baltimore?”

  “The Examiner’s a beginning until …” But Blaise did not know where or what the “until” would be.

  “She’d probably have sold, if the Hay boy hadn’t been killed.” Hearst liked to analyze Caroline. By and large, women did not interest him as people. But Caroline was now beyond mere womanhood, she was a publisher.

  “I’m not so sure. She likes owning a newspaper.”

  “I know the feeling.” Hearst made one of his rare mild jokes about himself. “Well, I’ll miss you around here.” With that, Blaise was dismissed. He was no longer of financial use to the Chief, whose mother’s fortune was even larger than when her son first set out to spend it all. Now that Blaise was himself a publisher, there was no need to continue the master-apprentice relationship. “Are you going to live in Baltimore?” The Chief seemed genuinely curious.

  “No. The management’s good enough as it is, without me.” This was untrue, but Blaise was not going to tell Hearst that he was already planning a raid on the Chicago American’s editorial staff. He had an excellent managing editor in view, who would have to be paid more than Hearst paid him, which was far too much, but if anyone could salvage the Baltimore Examiner it would be one Charles Hapgood, a native of Maryland’s eastern shore and eager to abandon Chicago’s arctic winters and tropical summers for equable Baltimore.

  “You should do well.” Hearst did not sound passionately convinced. “I mean, you’ve got the money, that’s what counts. Buy the best people and—that’s the ticket.” The pale gray eyes glanced for a brief instant in Blaise’s direction; and Blaise decided that the Chief knew about Hapgood. “You been giving any thought
to the magazines?” This was the Chief’s new interest. He had been impressed by the amount of advertising that certain ladies’ magazines could command. But when he had tried to buy one of them, he had been put off by the cost. He would now have to start one—or two, or a thousand.

  “I don’t know enough about how they work.” Blaise was direct. “Neither do you. Why bother?”

  “Well, we could learn the business, I reckon. I’ve been thinking about, maybe, a magazine called Electrical Machine or something …”

  “For ladies?”

  “Well, they drive, too. But I’d aim that at men. Just a thought. I’m marrying Miss Willson one of these days.”

  Blaise was surprised. “Before the election?”

  “Well, that part’s up in the air. Maybe I’ll …” The thin voice trailed off. Obviously, Hearst was afraid that scandal might be made of his long liaison with a showgirl; although marriage would silence the sterner moralists, might it not draw attention to the earlier liaison?

  Blaise rose to go. The Chief gave him several limp soft fingers to squeeze.

  “Which one?” asked Blaise, as he walked toward the door. “Which one what?”

  “Which Miss Willson are you marrying?”

  “Which …?” For an instant, Hearst seemed entirely to have lost his train of thought. Marriage often had that effect on men, Blaise had noticed. “Anita,” said Hearst. Then corrected himself. “I mean Millicent, of course. You know that,” he added, with a hint of accusation. Hearst was that rare thing, the humorless man who could recognize humor in others, and even at his own expense. “Your French lady,” Hearst began a counter-attack.

  “She has retired to the country. I am to see her no more.”