by Allen Drury
The human animal, however, is not one to go for long without adapting; and in one benumbed but brilliant mind the glow of a great and growing anger produced presently the action required to get the convention back on course and start the world moving again. One decisive act was needed, and this was it.
The Governor of California stood up.
Instantly the hall fell still.
Slowly, with a terrible controlled tightness, he came to the microphone. The Speaker abruptly left Anna in midsentence to move forward beside him.
“Mr. Chairman!” Ted Jason said in a strained, harsh voice that boomed out with a shocking loudness over the amplifiers. “… Mr. Chairman.”
“For what purpose does the distinguished delegate from California seek recognition?” the Speaker inquired automatically, his own voice strained and uncertain, staring intently, as though he had never seen it before, at the drawn face at his side.
For a second it seemed that the Governor might not be able to go on, so dreadfully was he struggling to control himself.
“To withdraw a candidacy,” he said finally, and a great groan went up from his supporters across the floor and in the galleries.
“Yes!” he said, his voice growing stronger. “To withdraw a candidacy and to withdraw myself from this convention which is now a mockery of all that honorable men hold dear.”
There was a roar of applause, met by some booing and, from the Wyoming delegation, a wild, frantic voice that yelled, “Give it to him, Ted! Oh, damn it, let him have it!”
“Much has been made of honor in the last few minutes,” he said, and now his voice was becoming fuller and stronger as the anger began to take hold and the impact of what had been done to him at last began to sink in.
“It is amazing how the word can be interpreted to suit the purposes of those who use it.
“Honor, the President says—and he allows you to assume that he will favor me so that he can get you to vote a platform endorsing his ill-advised and dangerous policies.”
There was a gasp but he ignored it.
“Honor, he says—and he brings me here to make a Roman spectacle of me before the world, with a cruelty that sits oddly with the picture of a kindly President in love with honor.
“Honor, he says—and he steps cold-bloodedly into the deliberations of a democratic convention and ruthlessly attempts to impose his will upon you.
“Honor, he says—and he nominates a vice presidential candidate whose policies of violence in the world and violence in this convention—”
Now there was a wave of booing that grew as he spoke, but he shouted on into it—
“—have contributed to disaster here and disaster abroad.
“Honor, he preaches,” he said more calmly, “and nothing but dishonor flows from what he does.”
Again there was a gasp and an abrupt, uneasy silence.
“He uses, too,” Ted said slowly, “and he chooses to make a mockery of it, the word conscience.
“He says I do not have one.
“He says I have never had one.
“He says power means more to me than conscience.
“He sneers at my campaign slogan and implies it is nothing but a gimmick to get votes.
“Very well,” he said, and his voice again became uneven with emotion, “he can say what he likes. And I leave you to make what peace you can with your own consciences about what has happened here. But I know what I must do to rest easy with mine.
“I care not what others do, and I make no attempt to direct or influence them, but I know what I am going to do.”
He paused and when he resumed it was in a still-unsteady but stronger voice.
“When I leave the platform now I shall be leaving this convention and I shall not return.”
There was a great groan of protest and anger from his supporters, met suddenly with an equally angry and determined applause from the other side.
“Words cannot express my gratitude to those of you who have believed in me,” he said slowly and with great emotion. “I wish you well in your future endeavors. May God give you strength to do what is best for our beloved country. I shall always do what I can to advance her interests—in decency … in conscience … and in honor.”
And without looking right or left he turned and walked swiftly, brushing aside the tentative hands that reached out to him in pity or approval, off the platform, out of the Cow Palace, out of the convention.
Moments come, and sometimes moments do not wait, and those who would control them must act swiftly or not at all.
“Mr. Chairman!” Cullee Hamilton shouted while all around delegates sat stunned, none yet moving, none rising to follow the Governor as they might in another second do, “I second the nomination of Orrin Knox to be Vice President and I ask you to put the question!”
“Question!” Lafe shouted from the Iowa delegation, and “Question!” Bob Munson shouted from Michigan.
“QUESTION!” a giant yell went up.
“The Secretary will call the roll of the states for the selection of a candidate for Vice President,” the Speaker cried, and Anna Bigelow barked, “Alabama!” so fast she could hardly be understood.
“Alabama,” a tense voice said, and a wild rush of sound went up as floor and galleries sensed instantly what was going to happen, “casts six votes for Orrin Knox and four votes abstain.”
“On this ballot,” the Speaker reported an hour later in a voice heavy with emotion and strain as the clock once again approached the hour of three o’clock in the morning, “there are 763 votes for Orrin Knox of Illinois, 530 abstentions. Orrin Knox is hereby declared to be the choice of this convention for the office of Vice President of the United States!”
He paused for a moment, obviously awaiting a motion to make it unanimous, but of course no motion came; only a harsh laughter, here and there, and a restless stirring across the floor.
“Mr. Chairman!” Senator Van Ackerman called out into the uneasy pause.
“For what purpose does the delegate seek recognition?” the Speaker inquired.
“Just to say one little thing, Mr. Speaker,” Fred said in a savage, mocking voice. “To say that I’m going.” His voice rose in a shout. “ARE ANY OF THE REST OF YOU GOING TO HAVE THE GUTS TO GO WITH ME?”
And he, too, without looking to one side or the other, turned and stalked from the floor; and this time others rose, in many delegations, ignoring the Speaker’s repeated gavelings for order, and made their way to the exits, while on the floor and in the galleries and in the press the entire convention stood to watch them go: almost 500, Frankly Unctuous reported with a pleased excitement five minutes later, enough to hold a rump convention, enough to start a third party—“although the Governor of California,” Walter Dobius cautioned in a voice finally restored to its normal judicious gravity, once more in command of events and busy upon them, “will undoubtedly have to consider many things before authorizing so drastic and fateful a step.”
“The convention will be in order,” the Speaker said finally. “We still have further business to transact, we still have to conclude things in an orderly fashion.…”
He paused deliberately and waited until the room was quiet and they sat, exhausted beyond exhaustion, having endured beyond endurance, silent and attentive at last.
“The Chair wishes to present now,” he said, and his voice dragged and showed suddenly every one of its sixty-two years, “your candidate for Vice President, the Honorable Orrin Knox of the great State of Illinois.”
***
Chapter 8
So it had come at last, his moment of triumph—and what a triumph! The commanded choice of a convention in dissolution—the dictated darling of harassed and embittered delegates—probably the genuine choice of well over half of them, but far from the happily near-unanimous selection he had once imagined in his fonder hopes.
The practical politician’s creed—Don’t look back now, you’ve got it—was not quite enough as he walked slo
wly to the rostrum, Beth and Hal close behind, in the midst of a rising roar of welcome.
It was not until they reached the lectern and a sudden note of genuine warmth surged into the greeting that he began to relax a little; and it was only after the demonstration had lasted for twenty minutes, the delegates finding somewhere some last unexpended ounce of energy to help them dance and rollick along the aisles, the galleries applauding and shouting, that he was ready to say the things he felt must be said on this occasion of such importance to him, the party, the country, and perhaps the world.
But first he had to acknowledge something to his family and he did so as a thousand lights beat down and a thousand cameras clicked.
“I’m beginning to think they mean it,” he shouted to Beth after they had stepped forward and waved for the fiftieth time.
She smiled.
“I’ve always told you, Senator, that things work out.”
“So have I,” Hal said sternly, leaning forward to speak past his mother.
The Secretary laughed.
“All right,” he said as he turned back to wave again, “so have you both. Can I help it if I’m a natural-born disbeliever?”
The sound renewed itself, grew, subsided. He leaned back a little, rested his left arm on the lectern, gripped its front edge with his left hand.
“Mr. Chairman,” he began gravely as the hall became abruptly still, “I could wish—we all could wish—that events in San Francisco had been conducted in a different atmosphere and their conclusion reached in a different mood.
“I regret that the speaker preceding me chose to take the position he did and conclude it with the action he did. I hope that sober reflection will in due time persuade him to come again to stand beside us.”
There was a roar of approval, and in the booth above Frankly Unctuous remarked blandly, “While one of course understands the perhaps rather desperate mood in which Secretary Knox indulges these last-minute afterthoughts for Governor Jason’s feelings, one wonders whether his appeals for help will have much effect.”
“I am afraid,” Walter agreed with a certain spiteful righteousness, “that the split is too fundamental to be healed at this late moment. And in any event, this is rather contrary to the President’s own bitterly expressed feelings, is it not?”
“Orrin the Peacemaker?” Frankly inquired dryly.
“Politics makes strange apostles,” Walter observed, “But this time I am afraid it is much, much too late.”
“Little I can say,” the Secretary went on, “can change the difficult and frequently embittered things that have occurred at this convention. Yet perhaps there are one or two things to be said that can, to some extent, moderate and soften their memories.
“When men contend, as men have here contended, for great ideas and great prizes, they sometimes have a tendency to move beyond the bounds of decent argument and decent treatment of one another. We expect this in other lands, but although we know it has happened many times here, we still, each time, I think, retain the hope that it will not happen in ours.
“At least I do not think,” he said, and his tone was grave and thoughtful and they were listening to him intently, “that many of us consciously start out upon a contest of ideas or ambitions with the deliberate intent to be unfair. At least I think we retain some memory of tradition, some respect for principle, that persuades us that we must, if we can, be decent and just. The hope is there, and I think by far the greater number of us consciously and deliberately try to do the best we can to see that it does not die.
“Yet there are some”—his expression darkened and his voice became sad—“there have been some in this convention—who believe that this is not the way to conduct arguments in America.
“There are some who believe that every means of attack must be used, that every weapon of destruction must be employed, that if you cannot defeat a man on the fair ground of argument, then you must defeat him by assaults upon his character, and by imputing to him beliefs and impulses and actions against which the decencies of mankind cry out.
“Thus it has been said of me that I have deliberately condoned violence in this convention. I did not, but that is no matter: it has been said, and said deliberately, and no doubt some have been convinced by it, and will remain convinced. For this is the kind of lie that feeds on denial and no man, thus impugned, can ever entirely cleanse himself in the eyes of those who would rather believe evil about someone they disagree with than give him the benefit of the actual facts about him.
“It has been said that the President and I have deliberately plunged America into war, that we have deliberately done things in foreign policy that are hurtful to the United States and to the cause of world peace.
“You would get the idea, to listen to some people tell it, that we actually enjoy sending American boys to die; that we actually revel in spending the national treasure upon wars abroad; that we actually sit around in the White House and the State Department clasping our hands with relish at the thought of how much misery and unhappiness we can create.
“What sort of monstrous madness,” he demanded, and his voice filled with a sudden flash of real indignation, “is this? What kind of insanity are some Americans trying to say about other Americans? What kind of nonsense are they trying to persuade themselves to believe?”
His voice became stern.
“I will tell you that not many of them believe it. Just a few, deluded by those who would use their gullibility for their own dark purposes, into believing what a moment’s mature reflection should convince them could not possibly be true.
“Deluded by deluders deliberate and cold-blooded, who know exactly what they are doing. And what they are doing holds no good for America.
“My countrymen,” he said, “the hour is very late and we have been here very long; yet I think we might perhaps take one more moment to consider the principles by which we like to think we live in this country—the principles by which, if this country is to come safely through the situation that confronts her in the world, we have got to live.
“I grant you that all of us would like to forget about the world’s troubles and concentrate on what we have: our fantastic wealth, our fantastic standard of living, our fantastic level of general well-being.
“I doubt if there is an American in the land who does not, in his inmost heart, wish that we could wash our hands of the world and let it go hang while we enjoy ourselves over here.
“We are basically, still, a very isolationist people—and why shouldn’t we be? No people ever had greater reason to be, or more to gain, if they could just forget the world and let it go to hell. We are strong enough so that we could do it, probably, if we really set our minds to it.
“But history does not permit this luxury to those who have power and also have some amount of conscience to go with it. History does not permit us to withdraw and go our own way.
“History has vacuums and it says, You fill them.
“History has needs and it says, You answer.
“History has problems and it says, Get cracking, they can’t be solved without you.
“And so we face the world and we do not have the luxury of running away from it.
“And by the same token, we do not have the luxury of pretending that its problems can be settled by turning and looking the other way. Or by deluding ourselves into thinking that we have a right to intervene when the world’s would-be murderer is named Hitler but have no right to intervene when he changes his name to Tashikov or Mao Tse-tung.
“We aren’t permitted the luxury of being either/or as the moment suits us. We have to be in the world or out of it, all the way. And history made the decision for us long ago, and we are in.
“Now I say to you, my countrymen, that conscience and honor have been discussed at some length here in San Francisco. But conscience and honor are only the way you do things, they are not the things themselves. The things themselves are what history has placed upon us. Conscience and
honor are only the style in which we meet them. Conscience and honor dictate only how we handle them. They do not permit us to escape from them, or to pretend that they are not there.
“Conscience does not decide the issue: the issue has long been decided. It is only how we meet it that matters. It is only from our courage and integrity, our fortitude and grace, that honor springs and conscience is upheld.
“I do not believe,” he said gravely, “that we can do other than we are doing in the world: be steady, be patient, be firm, be willing to talk—but also be ready and calling to act if we must—and then do it, when the challenge comes.
“I cannot, in good faith—or good conscience—persuade you to any other policy. I cannot in decency—or in honor—advocate any other course.
“I call you to a campaign,” he said quietly, “which will determine whether America is to be a sometime-fighter for the right when it suits her, as some would like her to be—or a consistent and steady advocate of mankind’s hopes and decencies whenever and wherever they are challenged, whatever the difficult cost and bitter price of defending them.
“This is what the President and I offer you, I think, this choice, made clear-cut now as it has rarely been by our recent decisions in Gorotoland, the UN, and Panama.
“We hope you will be with us. We hope a majority of the American people will be with us. But regardless, I suspect”—and a wry and almost wistful little smile touched his face for a moment—“neither of us, in all probability, could do any differently, or be any other, than he is.”
And he bowed gravely and waved and turned away, shepherding his family before him; and after a moment, a little puzzled at this rather abrupt and subdued conclusion, this final, personal peroration which raised few flags but touched instead on inner things that they would have to think about a while, the delegates and galleries broke into a generous but somewhat baffled applause.
The Speaker stepped forward, pounded the gavel sharply once, and declared,
“This convention now stands adjourned sine die.”
