Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  From then on the story was one of almost monotonous success, threatened now and again by depressions in the nation but never seriously damaged and always recovering to go on to new investments and new profits. Doña Valuela died at a great age in the Nineties, one of California’s authentically legendary figures from the old days. Mathias Edward married flawlessly in San Francisco, produced Herbert and Matthew Edward and the twins, Valuela and Selena, served in the state legislature, went to Washington as Senator for two terms soon after the turn of the century, died in 1930. Matthew Edward in his turn married flawlessly, this time in New York, produced Edward Montoya and Patsy, pushed JM Enterprises into Europe, Asia, and Latin America with the aid and cooperation of the Montoya cousins, died of a heart attack in 1947, leaving Ted and Herbert jointly in control. Herbert relinquished his direct interests in 1965, and a young but capable Ted became sole manager for the family.

  Ted pushed JM Enterprises still further across the globe; established the Jason Foundation which eight months ago honored Terence Ajkaje at “Harmony” in South Carolina and two months ago enhaloed Walter Dobius in Washington; sold off much of “Vistazo’s” excess land for real estate development, diversified the remaining compact ranch, raised it to new profits; married flawlessly, in San Francisco, produced no children, to his and Ceil’s deep regret; decided to run for Governor of California, won; decided to run for Vice President of the United States, won; became President of the United States in 19—

  Or did he? Is that what the history books really said of him, when it was all over? He wonders as he eases out of bed and walks softly into his bathroom to prepare for the day. And if so, where in his life or current course is there to be found warrant for such a golden conclusion?

  After the realization that Jasons were different, he remembers now, came the realization that Jasons had power and that, having power, they were to use it, first for the good of mankind, secondly for the business, and only incidentally for their own financial gain. It had, indeed, been forty years and more since anyone really needed to worry about the company’s stability or the family’s personal fortune, so that by the time he came along it was an established principle that Jasons were, and should be, free to participate in whatever movements for human betterment they deemed worthy of their support. If this occasionally took somewhat erratic forms with Herbert and Selena, if Patsy sometimes seemed to fly off in oddly exaggerated directions, if Valuela now and again appeared to devote her time and fortune to improving the lot of the individual male instead of the species as a whole, these were simply instances of strong character modifying a universal principle. In his own case, for the most part, he had devoted himself to causes and activities that were respected and applauded by a majority of his countrymen. If they generally seemed to lean toward one side of the political spectrum, if they were the sort that automatically seemed to draw the most favorable publicity from such as Walter and his world, certainly no astute and perceptive man could be blamed if a sincere heart and a lively ambition found it easy to make common cause.

  These were considerations, however, that were far from his mind in his earliest years when the family was moving about from house to house, when his father was shuttling over the earth in pursuit of JM’s interests and his mother was riding the crest of society. During that period he was just another little rich boy, acquiring the proper manners, doing the proper things, attending the proper schools, assuming the proper polish of that careless and artificial world of wealth that has its roots in the grubbiest and most realistic areas of American business. It was a world of servants and governesses, constant travel, changing scenes, and changing people, held together by its own seasonal patterns of movement, a list of resorts and institutions that were proper and acceptable, a consciousness that all who belonged to it were automatically superior to everyone else.

  He entered Choate School at the age of six and from the first established himself as a leader. He had a quick and intuitive mind, a commanding air, a physical presence that even at that age brought him an automatic following. His were the blond Jason good looks, aided by some lingering trace of Indian blood that produced deep-set dark eyes and dark eyebrows for startling contrast; a proud and sensitive mouth; and a certain high-boned fineness of feature. It also produced a sometimes mercurial, sometimes secretive and elusive personality that was capable of retreating into itself where others could not follow, to reach decisions that sometimes surprised and even dismayed them.

  His years at Choate passed sunnily enough, with superior grades, good friends, and a recognized position of dominance that caused his headmaster to predict great things for him, over and beyond the achievements that would come automatically from his role as ultimate master of JM. By his own choice—his father, Matthew Edward, was astute enough to realize, in his pauses at home between travels in the company’s service, that his son had an innate independence of judgment that should be encouraged—he decided to leave Choate and complete his pre-college training at Thatcher School near Ojai in California. The East was fine, he said, but his future naturally lay with California, and he thought it was time to come home. He did not realize how much he meant this until he saw again the dusty little river valleys, the startling seacoast, the pines, the oaks, the bare brown hills, and knew that from now on he would remain among them. He felt then that he had indeed come home, and imagined with a thrill of recognition that he was the first Don Carlos, riding through the hot, dry, beautiful land in command of all the thousands of acres that were his.

  From Thatcher, where he maintained his high grades and again asserted almost automatically his easy dominance of his fellows, he went to Stanford, where the story was the same. He was not one of those political fortunates whose early life must be reconstructed out of all recognition for the sake of the legend required by later events. Ted Jason began as a leader and continued as one to the end of his school career. At Stanford he was president of the freshman class, president of his fraternity, president of the junior class, and finally president of the student body. He went out for swimming, tennis, and debating, excelled at all three; took a liberal arts course as an undergraduate, made Phi Beta Kappa, got a graduate degree from the Business School; emerged at twenty-two healthy, handsome, in command of himself and his world and ready to move on to find others to conquer.

  The inevitable one was JM Enterprises, but his success there was hereditary and guaranteed, and neither he nor anyone who knew him had the slightest doubt that he could handle it when the time came. He had other ideas. Although he knew that for some years he would be expected to do his duty for the company and certainly wanted to—for he had great pride of inheritance and family and was not about to break the long parade of triumph from Doña Valuela on down—there were more exciting ambitions that now intrigued him. His classmates had four times given him proof that he was a popular and effective candidate. He put aside the thought of politics for the time being to plunge into business, but he knew when he did so that it was only a temporary farewell. He would pass that way again.

  His first job with the company, his father told him, was to travel, and so he did for a year, familiarizing himself with JM’s offices throughout the country and the world, getting acquainted with its top people, making himself at home with its plans and programs. He came back to settle into the headquarters office in San Francisco with a lively respect for his inheritance and a head full of ideas for its improvement. His father was amused by his impatience but impressed by his grasp of the business. Within a year young Ted was a vice president whose title meant something. He was determined, decisive, forthright, and forceful. No one ever called Ted Jason an equivocator in those days.

  Two years of faithfully attending the opera, the symphony, the art galleries, the theaters, the seasonal round of San Francisco’s balls and parties presently reached their inevitable conclusion one night at the opera when he was guest in the box of a family almost as old and distinguished as his. A heart that had gone through colle
ge mildly interested but seldom really involved suddenly found itself very much involved. A cousin of his hosts was in the City from Redlands for a couple of weeks to do some shopping. She was his partner for the evening, and before it ended he was convinced she should be for life. They were married almost six months to the day. For all that he was never quite sure that she always approved of what he did, he never regretted it.

  The adjectives used by the press to describe Ceil Robertson at the time of their marriage and since were the usual clichés about charm, intelligence, grace, and stunning blond beauty, and of course they were all true; and of course they did not penetrate very far into a mind as shrewd as any he knew and a wry little sense of humor that was constantly challenging his assumptions about himself. “They know you’re intelligent,” he had remarked, tossing aside a typical interview in one of the nation’s major women’s magazines, “but somehow they can’t quite believe anyone as beautiful as you are really has brains.” That’s my secret weapon,” she had replied with her silvery little laugh and a toss of that golden hair that always bedazzled the onlooker. “I early learned not to reveal too much. Only you know what a crafty witch I am.” “Not crafty,” he had said thoughtfully. “Just-aware.”

  And aware she was, in ways that continued to surprise and catch him off balance to this day. She was also rigidly honest in her personal standards and, in the main, the standards by which she judged others. There, too, however, there was a saving grace: she did allow people to be human. Sometimes when she most disapproved she would finally conclude, “Oh, well, I suppose they can’t help it. I guess I’m not perfect, either”—a sentiment given lip-service by many, but used in her case with a genuine tolerance.

  Physically and socially, of course, she could not have been a more perfect wife for Edward Jason, heir-apparent to JM Enterprises, and Edward Jason, candidate-presumptive for public office. She really did look like a movie star. She really did have golden hair, beautiful eyes, a superbly chiseled face, a perfect figure, and the perfect clothes to set it off. She really was a lovely woman. And automatically, from their marriage on, she was the darling of society pages, women’s magazines, photographers, and painters. “When in doubt, use Ceil Jason,” the society editor of the San Francisco Chronicle advised one day when a picture was needed to complete the makeup of a page. The advice was followed there and in a thousand other offices all over the country, all the time.

  “People know you a lot better than they do me,” Ted had said, with a rueful humor when he decided to run for state office. “You’d better be the candidate.”

  “I’ll furnish the glamor,” she said with a certain dryness, because she often got tired of being constantly on exhibition. “You bring the brains.”

  When he finally did decide to run—after all was moving smoothly at JM and he felt his duty was done there—he realized again how lucky he had been to attend the opera that particular night. Despite her self-deprecating remark to Beth Knox when they met at Walter Dobius’ luncheon, there was no better campaigner than Ceil. She was glamorous, and when she added to it her perfectly natural friendliness, courtesy, kindliness, and grace, there was virtually no group or audience she couldn’t take command of in a matter of minutes. “Perhaps of all his many attractive assets,” the Los Angeles Times had remarked during his first campaign, “none is greater than the lovely lady who happens to be Mrs. Jason.”

  In addition, he developed many of his own. As a businessman he was practical, pragmatic, perceptive, and shrewd. Doña Valuela’s descendant was as tough-minded and astute as she had been. In the close-knit financial, social, and political world of California he had been born into a major place, and everything he did after he received his inheritance seemed to enhance it. Being head of JM automatically involved him in many areas of the state’s business, kept his name and picture constantly before the public. Now and again he deliberately sought prominence, there was an occasional artful courting of publicity, but most of the time it came to him without his having to exert any effort.

  Presently there came the time when the idea he had always treasured for his future was first stated definitively by someone else. He could remember the place, the occasion, and the speaker. It was at Bohemian Grove in the summer of his fortieth year, and there, with dull Care cremated and the enchanted canyon echoing in the night to the sound of music everywhere and the laughter of happy voices, he had been walking along River Road after midnight past the camp known as River Road Ramblers when he was hailed and welcomed aboard. Turning toward him from his place by the fire was that complex and brilliant personality who was to precede him in Sacramento and then go on to precede Harley Hudson in the White House. He was then in his fifth year as Governor and beginning to get in position for what he liked to call “the big try.” Now he greeted Ted merrily, and turning to the group around him called out, “You were wondering who you ought to have in Sacramento after I leave? There he is right now! His great-granddaddy made it. Why shouldn’t he?” And although Ted protested that Don Carlos had not actually been his great-granddaddy but only his great-grandmother’s first husband, the Governor had won agreeing laughter from their attentive audience when he said, “Never admit it, Ted! Never you admit it. He was in your family, wasn’t he—some way? And he was a Governor of California, and a pretty damned good and romantic one too. Don Carlos-Don Eduardo! With the romance of Old Spain—and JM—and that wife of yours—and your own good looks and ability—hell’s fire, boy, how can you lose?” There had been much good-natured joking and agreement before someone began playing the piano and River Road Ramblers became diverted again to song. Two days later every political columnist in the state was reporting that, “The Governor exploded a political bombshell at Bohemian Grove this week when he named Edward M. Jason as his handpicked successor.” And for the remainder of the Grove, Ted found himself hailed as “Governor” wherever he went through the lazy days and happy nights among the towering trees.

  Six months later, however, the Governor proved that his jesting had been in earnest when he called Ted one day in JM’s Los Angeles office and asked him to run for state comptroller. “I'll be leaving in a couple of years,” he said, “and we’ve got to give you a little experience up here before you take over.” “I’m not going to take over,” Ted said skeptically. The Governor chuckled. “There’s nothing you want more, at this point. I know the disease, I suffered from it myself until I got the more malignant type I have now—the one that makes you itch for Washington. Let yourself come to Sacramento, Ted. You won’t stop here.”

  So he had run, with Ceil’s quick agreement—“Who am I”—with the elusive little smile she sometimes got in discussing the family—“to stand in the way of destiny?”—and had won without much trouble.

  Two years later, in the election that took the Governor to the White House, he succeeded him in Sacramento.

  “Everything comes easy to the Jasons,” skeptics said sourly. “What can you expect, with all that money?”

  But hard work had gone into it, too, and much planning on his part, both in the selection of a management team he could rely upon to safeguard and improve JM in his absence, and in the organization of his campaign. It was conceivable that money alone could carry a candidate into office, but that had not been his observation of American politics. The candidate had to be attractive, and he did not minimize his own assets, or Ceil’s, in that; and to be sure of the outcome, he also had to have the best organization that could be put together. Here the Jason money was indeed a major factor, because it made all things easy. Top people were hired, top publicity outlets were purchased, California was saturated with the Jason name and record in a way that his more modestly financed opponents could not possibly match. His most effective campaign points were exactly those his shrewd predecessor had outlined at the Grove: the romantic tie-in with Don Carlos (an appearance in Spanish costume at several Southern California parades put his picture everywhere, including the cover of Life); his record as succes
sful businessman, his success as comptroller; Ceil’s beauty, his own good looks, his pleasing personality and excellent record. ELECT A CALIFORNIAN FOR CALIFORNIA his most effective billboard cried. His handsome graying head against a background of misty mountains, caballeros near at hand, and in the distance Indians working the fields of Mission Santa Barbara, made the point in a way his Kansas-born opponent could not answer.

  So he became Governor of California, with an ease that embittered many ambitious men who considered themselves more deserving, and so persisted in attributing his success to his money. But he entered upon office determined to prove that he had the ability as well; and for a time, in a honeymoon period that enabled him to move safely through his first session of the legislature without difficulty, there were no successful challenges. Then what his predecessor had called “the itch for Washington” began to assail him, and from then on, in some subtle, curious, and almost indefinable way, he seemed—to himself at least—to lose something.

  To himself, and to Ceil. “You’re more cautious than you used to be,” she remarked thoughtfully in his second year when he was hesitating to challenge the lumbering interests on an amendment to a bill designed to prevent further destruction of the redwoods by the slide-rule-happy maniacs of the state highway department. “No I’m not,” he had said indignantly, and to prove it, forced the issue and won.

  "You see?” she said after the vote. “It wasn’t much of a battle, was it?"

  But they both knew that another time she would have to make her challenge even stronger, he would have to make his response even more a deliberate effort of will—if he made it at all.

  Some essential of the younger Ted Jason, some automatic and unhesitating response to what was right, that perhaps went back as far as Doña Valuela, was beginning to atrophy. Now he was beginning to pause and calculate, now the pragmatic and forceful approach which, linked with integrity, had been invincible, was beginning to give way to a more devious approach. He was beginning to think of dreams ahead in a way that sometimes hurt realties at hand.