Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  “Not the least of them,” Walter said with a sudden grimness, “the President of the United States.”

  “Why, yes,” Frankly agreed, obviously a little startled by his guest’s abrupt change of subject and mood. “The President, too.”

  “Mr. Speaker,” Bob Munson said slowly, and this time no chant from the galleries greeted him, only an expectant silence everywhere, “I hesitate to do what I am about to do, yet I think it is necessary in order to put the remarks of the distinguished National Committeeman from Oregon in proper perspective.

  “He has talked to you about two young men, unfortunate victims of a riot in Union Square this morning. I am going to talk to you about them, too. Unlike Governor Croy, I am going to deal in facts, not fictions. Because of the time—no more than half an hour—in which I have had to find these facts, they are not entirely complete. But they will give you the picture.

  “The names of these two youths were William Everett Hollister II and Booker T. Saunders. Both were twenty-two.

  “William Hollister was the product of a wealthy broken home who, the record shows, was ousted successively from six private schools before he finally was able to matriculate at the public high school in Burlingame, California. There he had a record of indifferent scholarship and repeated clashes with authority. At the age of seventeen he entered the University of California at Berkeley, and promptly became associated with all the radical-extremist elements on the campus. He had a record of thirteen arrests for disturbing the peace, seven for malicious destruction of University property, three for illegal breaking and entry. Although considered to have a mind of some brilliance, he did just enough academic work to remain in school. He was a perennial troublemaker, a constant leader of so-called ‘student rebellions,’ a constant protester against anything, apparently, as long as it was something the authorities—any authorities—were for.

  “He was, in short, an academic tramp with a flair for publicity—of which,” Bob Munson said dryly, pausing to take a sip of water before completing his sentence—“certain local newspapers thoughtfully saw to it that he received a great deal.”

  “The Majority Leader,” Frankly Unctuous broke in to say with a deprecating smile to Walter, “seems to disapprove of youthful independence. But I must confess I can’t see how it has any bearing upon the fact that the youth is dead. That is all that really matters, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I am sure it is all that interests the delegates, the country, and the world,” Walter agreed.

  “Booker T. Saunders,” Senator Munson continued, “was born into the poorest economic conditions and never made much attempt to get out of them. He barely managed to get through grammar school where he, too, had a record of constant disciplinary infractions. He dropped out of high school at the end of his freshman year. After that he drifted through a succession of menial jobs, presently joining a street gang and embarking upon a criminal career which in the past four years has made him a familiar figure to police. He was arrested four times for possession of narcotics, three times for attempted rape, six times for breaking and entering, five times for chronic alcoholism, once for suspected murder. On various technicalities, most of these were dismissed though he did serve six months in one rape case.

  “These were the two noble, dedicated youths whom the distinguished National Committeeman of Oregon called upon to buttress his case. I submit to you that their deaths, while regrettable as all violent deaths are regrettable, were perhaps no more than their lives and characters had made inescapable. Certainly I do not think any fair-minded persons can regard them as martyrs to anything but the general chaos and waste of our present society with its general loosening of every restraint required for stability.

  “Now let me turn for a brief concluding moment in this distasteful but, I think, necessary recital, to the riot in Union Square which brought about their deaths.”

  He paused and then went on in a steady, hammering tone.

  “Despite the immediate assumption and assertion by television commentators—made instantaneously without any checking at all, and dutifully echoed by certain powerful segments of the press as soon as they could rush it into print—there is no slightest evidence from any source whatsoever that this riot was started by backers of the Secretary of State. (There was a wild burst of applause from Knox delegates. He went steadily ahead over it.)

  “Not one single, solitary witness of any credibility whatever has come forward to claim, with proof, that it was Knox-inspired, Knox-authorized, or Knox-started. The so-called ‘Knox riot’ is the pure and simple creation of a handful of commentators and a group of powerful journalists, all of them deeply hostile to the Secretary of State and deeply committed to the candidacy of the Governor of California. It is they who have charged the Secretary of State with fostering violence—in order to cover up the violence covering from the other side. That is the truth of it, if anywhere in this convention—or anywhere in this country—or anywhere in this world—men still honor the truth!”

  Abruptly the hall was once again in an uproar with shouts of approval, applause, and a wave of boos, some directed at him, some directed at the press sections and the television booths Olympian above.

  “Well, well,” Frankly Unctuous said directly into the camera with a humorous, candid smile and a mock pretense of wiping his forehead. “I guess we’re to be the villains of the piece once again, eh, Walter? I guess the poor old television and the poor old press must once again serve as whipping boys for those who have no genuine arguments to support them. The really interesting thing, of course,” he added, resuming his judicious gravity, “is that all of this that has happened here in the past few hours seems to place both the Majority Leader and the Speaker squarely on the side of Secretary Knox in this contest, making of this a convention about which one might say, at the least, that it is influenced, if not completely controlled.”

  “Even more interesting than that,” Walter Dobius said with a spiteful distaste he made no attempt to conceal, “is the fact as you noted a few moments’ ago, that these young men are dead. However much he may attack their characters when they can no longer defend themselves, and no matter how much he attacks you or us in the press, the boys are dead. They were murdered, and no amount of personal smearing of them or of the press can change that fact.”

  “And while no one may have come forward to prove that the Knox forces did, in fact, start the riot,” Frankly agreed smoothly, “By the same token, no one has come forward—nor, one suspects, can come forward—to prove that they did not. So there it stands. Our own reporter on the spot is of the impression that they did. I would suggest that his judgment is as good as any—including that of the Senate Majority Leader,” he said, permitting for a second a genuine contempt to break through his careful suavity, “who at the time was some distance from the scene, in a suite at the Hilton Hotel plotting strategy to assist the Secretary of State.…But,” he added swiftly, all smooth, profound, plum-pudding analysis again, “let us see what he has to say now.”

  “I submit to you, my friends of this great convention,” Bob Munson said, “that we cannot in all conscience base our votes upon the crucial issue of foreign policy, or the crucial issue of a nominee for Vice President, upon emotional and unfactual appeals such as those made by the National Committeeman from Oregon. No amount of emotionalism can conceal that the issue is a very simple one: we are for our President or we are against him. We approve what he has done and is doing in Gorotoland and Panama, or we do not. We support him, or we fail him—and we all go down together. It is not a time to quibble or be emotional. It is a time to endorse the only course consistent with the honor and integrity of the United States and this great party.

  “I urge you to reject the minority amendment, adopt the committee recommendation that the convention write its own foreign policy plank, and then write into the platform the courageous and forthright endorsement of our great President that the hour and the crisis demand.”

 
; “Mr. Chairman!” someone shouted from the California delegation as he left the lectern. “Mr. Speaker, California demands a roll-call vote on the minority amendment.”

  “I don’t think there will be much disagreement with that,” the Speaker nodded, and for a moment the convention was laughing together in some relief and reasonable friendliness again.

  “And now we shall see,” Frankly Unctuous said dryly, “whether so-called ‘emotionalism’ or Senator Munson’s notably calm and dispassionate appeal for support of the President carries the day. And also whether the ancient injunction to ‘say nothing but good of the dead,’ so strikingly followed just now by the Senator, is still respected and honored by his countrymen.”

  “Al—a—bama!” cried the Secretary (Anna Hooper Bigelow of New Hampshire, her bony frame clad in a mustard-green sheath, wearing a purple toque topped by ostrich feathers pinned with an enormous rhinestone buckle, exercising the office of glory she had held for three successive conventions).

  “Madam Secretary,” Alabama said in deep bass accents, “the great State of Alabama, where Southun hospitality flourishes and the win’s are sof’ an’ gennle—’

  “All right,” the Speaker said as a few good-natured boos began across the floor, “all right.”

  “—casts 14 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

  “A—laska!” cried Anna Hooper Bigelow.

  “Alaska, the forty-ninth State, where summer’s suns and winter’s snows grace the fastest-growing State in the Union.”

  “All right,” the Speaker said.

  “—casts 9 votes YES for the minority amendment.”

  “A—ri—zona!”

  “Arizona casts 8 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

  “Arkansas?”

  “Arkansas, health resort of the nation, casts 20 votes NO on the minority amendment.”

  “Ca—li—fornia!”—and there was a sudden waiting silence.

  “Madame Secretary,” the strident voice of Esmé Harbellow Stryke announced, “there seems to be some division in the California delegation. We request a poll of the delegation.”

  Twenty tense minutes later Anne Hooper Bigelow announced, “California votes 54 YES, 40 NO on the minority amendment!”

  There were wild yells from the Knox camp, boos from the Jasonites, excited figurings and analyzings everywhere.

  “Colorado?” Anna Hooper Bigelow said.

  “Mrs. Knox,” said a lady from CBS, leaning over the box railing to peer with an intense brightness into Beth’s face, “how have you enjoyed the proceedings so far today?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Beth said coldly. “How have you got the gall to ask me such a thing after what has happened here tonight?”

  “I’m paid for it, Mrs. Knox,” the lady from CBS said, flushing angrily. “Believe me, I don’t enjoy talking to you.”

  “Nor I you,” Beth said, turning away.

  “Mrs. Knox,” the lady from CBS appealed to Crystal in a placating tone, “Mrs. Knox, perhaps you can help me. I don’t mean to offend, honestly, but my network does want me to get a little interview, and I—well, I’m embarrassed and I really didn’t know what else to say to your mother-in-law to start it off. Have you any comment to make?”

  “Just a minute,” Crystal said, pausing to listen as Delaware cast six votes YES on the minority amendment. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think there has been a deliberate attempt to smear my father-in-law, to attach to him blame for something for which neither he nor his people are responsible; to place these whole proceedings on a basis of violence, demagoguery, and fear. I think this is foreign to our way of doing things in this country. I think Governor Jason will live to regret it.”

  “Then you think,” CBS’ lady said, “that these charges against the Secretary of State that we have heard here are exaggerated?”

  “I said untrue,” Crystal snapped, “I didn’t say exaggerated. What are you trying to do, anyway?”

  “Just get an interview,” CBS lady said, apparently close to tears.

  “I think you’ve had enough,” Crystal said shortly.

  Dolly Munson was the only one left, but after a glance at her expression CBS hastily removed her elbow from the railing, got up, and walked away. “Darling,” she said with a chuckle as she met the lady columnist of the Reporter in the walkway beneath the stands, “I’ve just given the Knox women a fit, and am I going to have fun with them in my broadcast!” Five minutes later she was seated before the cameras, oblivious to the roll call still booming along over her head, saying sweet as cream:

  “The women of the Knox family appear to be at the point of anger and tears tonight as the tactics of Secretary of State Orrin Knox are apparently backfiring in this explosively dramatic convention. In a mood of near-hysteria, Mrs. Beth Knox, the Secretary’s wife, refused to answer my questions just now about the violence which has claimed the lives of two young supporters of Mr. Knox’s opponent, Governor Edward M.—”

  “Mrs. Jason,” the lady from Newsweek said with a chatty air on the other side of the auditorium, “isn’t this a thrilling and exciting evening for you!”

  “It’s very interesting,” Ceil said cautiously. “Excuse me, did you hear Florida’s vote?”

  “Against the minority amendment, I think,” Newsweek’s lady said. “Do you think your husband is going to win this roll call?”

  “I have no idea,” Ceil said. “What do you think?”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Newsweek said. “Tell me, how is the Governor? Is he confident?”

  Ceil smiled.

  “All candidates are confident at this stage, aren’t they? That’s part of it.”

  “Mrs. Jason, Mrs. Jason,” Newsweek said coyly. “You’re being evasive with me, now!”

  “No, I’m not,” Ceil said calmly, and after a second her interrogator decided to drop the coyness and try another approach.

  “Are you looking forward to being in Washington?” she asked. Ceil gave her a polite smile.

  “I always look forward to whatever I’m going to be doing, wherever I am. It’s part of leading a full life, don’t you think, to anticipate things rather than look back? I find it so.”

  “Yes,” the lady from Newsweek agreed, momentarily stumped, while over the loudspeakers Idaho could be heard voting NO on the minority amendment. “Did you ever think,” she said doggedly, “when you married the Governor, that someday you might be the wife of the Vice President of the United States—perhaps even the President?”

  “I was sure life with Ted would be interesting and rewarding and not dull,” Ceil said pleasantly. “I was right in that.”

  “I see,” Newsweek said, thinking, God, she’s being a tough bitch. Doesn’t she know we’re on her side, for God’s sake?

  “Tell me, Mrs. Jason,” she said in a deliberately nasty tone, “do you agree that Orrin Knox is a murderer, as your husband’s people said, and do you agree that he is responsible for the violence in this convention?”

  This time, finally, she got a direct response. For just a second Ceil flashed her a look of naked dismay, followed by utter hostility. Then the courteous mask went on again.

  “I think you are completely despicable,” she said politely. “Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

  “Well,” Newsweek said, changing colors like some waspish little chameleon. “Well, I will.”

  And she did, and for several minutes, as she walked back to the periodicals section, had quite a struggle with herself. But discipline and training and knowing what was right decided the issue. “Just saw C. Jason,” she began typing her memo to New York. “She, Ted both confident. Looking forward to D.C. because quote I always look forward, it's part of leading full life, anticipated look back. Always knew life Ted be interesting wherever going, V.P., P. or what.” She had a story, did the lady, in Ceil Jason’s obvious horror of the way her husband was permitting his people to act in the convention, but it wasn’t going to appear in Newsweek even if the editors would hav
e permitted it. She, no more than they, intended to help Orrin Knox with anything.

  “Illinois!” Anna Hooper Bigelow cried sharply. There was a pause and again the great hall hushed to a tense attention. One candidate’s home state was divided, what would the other—yes, there it came:

  “Illinois demands a poll of the delegation, Madame Secretary.”

  “The Secretary will poll,” the Speaker said.

  “I don’t like it, Ted,” Bob Leffingwell said quietly at the Mark Hopkins. Its corridors were deserted now, only one guard remained on the door, no bands thumped and shuddered from below. Everyone was either at the Cow Palace or sitting enrapt before television. The candidate, his manager, a couple of secretaries in the outer office and a cop to bar the door were all that remained at headquarters tonight.

  “I’m sorry for that,” Governor Jason said with an equal quietness. “I think it’s been quite effective so far. We’re leading in the vote right now, aren’t we?”

  “So far,” Bob Leffingwell agreed. “I don’t think we’re going to win it, but—”

  “But it’s going to be close. Very close.”

  “Perhaps so. But I still don’t like—what’s been going on. I think it’s going to turn against you, before long. I think reaction is going to set in. This is an American crowd. They enjoy seeing people pushed, but sooner or later they react against it.”

  “Just let them stay with me another twenty-four hours,” Ted said softly, “and I won’t care.”

  “Won’t you?” Bob Leffingwell said thoughtfully, not looking at him, staring at the television set where Anna Hooper Bigelow was repeating, “Mrs. Harvey S. Rodebaugh, NO.” … “I should think you might.”