by Gore Vidal
Roosevelt’s smile was gone; the high color had returned to normal; the voice was matter-of-fact. “You will have an easy time with the Sibleys and Haskells. You will have an impossible time with me.”
“You fight the trusts?”
“As best I can.”
“Have you ever objected to Standard Oil’s numerous crimes against individuals, not to mention the public?”
“I have spoken out against them many times as malefactors of great wealth.”
“But what,” Hearst’s voice was soft, “have you done to bring Standard Oil to heel? You’ve been here six years. What have you done, except rant in public, and take their money in secret?”
“You will see.” Roosevelt was very calm indeed. “Next year, we bring suit against them in Indiana …”
“Next year!” Hearst slapped the table gleefully. “Who says this is not my country? I’ve forced you, of all people, to act against your own kind. Because of what I’ve revealed this year, you’ll do something next year. But you don’t ever really lead. You follow my lead, Roosevelt.” Hearst was on his feet, but Roosevelt, not to be outdone, had done his special Jack-in-the-box rapid leap to the perpendicular so that, technically, the President had risen first, as protocol required, ending the audience.
At the door to the Cabinet room, Hearst got his hand on the doorknob first. “You’re pretty safe, for now.”
“I wonder,” said Roosevelt, softly, “if you are.”
“It’s my story, isn’t it? This country. The author’s always safe. It’s his characters who better watch out. Of course, there are surprises. Here’s one. When you’re out of a job, and need money to feed that family of yours, I’ll hire you to write for me, the way Bryan does. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
Roosevelt produced his most dazzling smile. “I may be a hypocrite, Mr. Hearst, but I’m not a scoundrel.”
“I know,” said Hearst, with mock sadness. “After all, I made you up, didn’t I?”
“Mr. Hearst,” said the President, “history invented me, not you.”
“Well, if you really want to be highfalutin, then at this time and in this place, I am history—or at least the creator of the record.”
“True history comes long after us. That’s when it will be decided whether or not we measured up, and our greatness—or its lack—will be defined.”
“True history,” said Hearst, with a smile that was, for once, almost charming, “is the final fiction. I thought even you knew that.” Then Hearst was gone, leaving the President alone in the Cabinet room, with its great table, leather armchairs, and the full-length painting of Abraham Lincoln, eyes fixed on some far distance beyond the viewer’s range, a prospect unknown and unknowable to the mere observer, at sea in present time.
NOTE
Although I keep the historical figures in Empire to the generally agreed-on facts, I have changed the time of Del Hay’s defenestration from mid-night to mid-day. While the final meeting between Theodore Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst did take place within the context of the Archbold letters, no one knows what was actually said. I like to think that my dialogue captures, if nothing else, what each felt about the other.
G.V.
March 18, 1987
BOOKS BY GORE VIDAL
BURR
Alternating the narrative of journalist Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler with the Revolutionary War diaries of Aaron Burr, this novel begins Vidal’s history of the United States on a note of intrigue and scandal.
“A dazzling entertainment … a devastating analysis of America’s first principles.”—The New York Times Book Review
Fiction/0-375-70873-1
LINCOLN
This novelistic portrait of Lincoln and his era—which nearly created its own civil war among historians when it was first published—is perhaps the pivotal work of the series, illuminating Vidal’s theory of the transformation of America from a republic to an imperial state.
“An astonishing achievement.”—Harold Bloom
Fiction/0-375-70876-6
1876
The centennial of the nation’s founding is the occasion for Vidal to bring back the narrator of Burr, Charlie Schuyler, and reintroduce his family line as a force in the history of the nation.
“Superb.… Simply splendid.… A thoroughly grand book, must, must reading for anyone.”—Business Week
Fiction/0-375-70872-3
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