Empire

by Gore Vidal

  McKinley liked having it laid on-who does not? thought Hay. But the Major was too shrewd not to anticipate fortune’s capriciousness. “We are going to have to decide, in the next weeks, whether we are really going to set up shop in the empire business or not.”

  “There is a question?” Hay sat up very straight; and was rewarded with what felt like a meat-cleaver fairing hard on his lower spine.

  “Oh, Mr. Hay, there is the biggest question of all in my mind.” McKinley looked oddly bleak for someone whose whole physiognomy was, essentially, cheerfully convex. “I came here to help the backbone of this country, business. That’s what our party’s all about. We are for the tariff. We are for American industry first, last and always, and we have a very big country right here to look after. Now we’ve got to decide if we really want to govern several million small brown heathens, who live half the world away from us.”

  “I think, sir,” Hay was diffident, “that the Spanish converted most of the Filipinos. I think they’re just about all of them Roman Catholics.”

  “Yes.” McKinley nodded; he had not been listening. “All of them heathen and completely alien to us, and speaking-what?”

  “Spanish, most of them. Of course, there are local dialects…”

  “I’ve tried everything, Mr. Hay, including prayer, and I still can’t decide whether or not it’s in our interest to annex the Philippines.”

  “But we must keep Manila, sir. We must have fuelling stations all across the Pacific, and up and down the China coast, too.” Hay began to sound, a bit anxiously, like a state paper. “The European powers are getting ready to divide up China. We’ll lose valuable markets if they do, but if we are entrenched nearby, in the Philippines, we could keep the sea lanes open to China, keep the Germans and the Russians and the Japanese from upsetting the world’s balance of power. Because,” Hay realized glumly that he was parroting Brooks Adams, “whoever controls the land-mass of Asia controls the world.”

  “Do you honestly think we’re quite ready for that?” McKinley suddenly resembled nothing so much as a seventeenth-century Italian cardinal: bland, clever, watchful.

  “I don’t dare speculate, sir. But when history starts to move underneath you, you’d better figure how you’re going to ride it, or you’ll fall off. Well, sir, history’s started to move right now, and it’s taking us west, and we can’t stop what’s started even if we wanted to.”

  The Italian cardinal produced a faint self-deprecating smile. “Mr. Hay, I can still get off the horse, if I need to. I can let the Philippines go.”

  “Would you leave them in Spanish hands?”

  “Between us, I’m tempted to keep Manila. As for the other islands, if they seem incapable of self-government, like most of those natives out there, I’d let Spain stay on. Why not? Oh, Mr. Hay,” the cardinal was now a harassed Republican politician from Ohio, “I never wanted any of this war! Naturally, I wanted Spain out of the Caribbean, and that we’ve done. Cuba is now a free country, and if the Puerto Ricans were capable of self-government, I’d free them, too, because I honestly believe it’s a mistake for us to try to govern so many colored heathens whose ways are so different from ours.”

  Hay now presented his own foreign policy, already rehearsed in the course of several well-received speeches in England. “Mr. President, I have always thought that it was the task of the Anglo-Saxon races, specifically England, now shrinking, and ourselves expanding, to civilize and to,” Hay took a deep breath, and played his best if most specious card, “Christianize the less developed races of the world. I know that England is counting on us to continue their historic role, and they believe, as I believe, that the two of us together can manage the world until Asia wakes up, long after we’re gone, I pray, but with our help now, a different sort of Asia, a Christian Asia, civilized by us, and so a reflection of what was best in our race once history has seen fit to replace us.”

  McKinley stared a long moment at Hay. Then he said, “Colonel Bryan was in here last week.”

  Hay felt deflated; his eloquence for naught. But then he had forgotten the first rule of politics: never be eloquent with the eloquent. “Who is Colonel Bryan, sir?”

  McKinley’s smile was both warm and malicious. “He is a very new untested Army colonel, stationed in Florida. You perhaps know him better as William Jennings Bryan.”

  “The cross of gold?”

  “The same. My opponent. He came here to try to get me to release him from the Army, but as we still have military problems in the Philippines, I took the position that I just can’t let every politician go home when he pleases.” McKinley was enjoying himself. “Particularly when there’s an election starting up.”

  “On the other hand, you let Theodore go home and run for governor.”

  “How could I say no to a genuine war hero? Colonel Roosevelt is a special case.”

  “As well as a Republican.”

  “Exactly, Mr. Hay.” Suddenly, McKinley frowned. “Mr. Platt’s worried. He tells me it’s going to be a pretty close race for us in New York. Of course, the mid-term election’s always bad for the incumbent party.”

  “Not when the party leader’s fought and won a war in a hundred days.” All in all, Hay rather wished that he had not used the now much quoted phrase “a splendid little war,” as if he were a jingo, which he was not. The phrase had come to him as he somberly compared the war with Spain to the Civil War, and found the war with Spain both splendid and blessedly unlike the bloody ordeal of Lincoln’s war to preserve the union. Hay had long known that it was good politics never to try to have the last word in a dispute; now he had begun to see the wisdom of not trying to have the first word either.

  “I have the impression,” said the Major, stumping out his cigar in a cheap ceramic souvenir mug, depicting his own head with a detachable Napoleonic hat for a lid, “that Bryan is going to give us a difficult time on annexation. His people-the South, the West, the farmers, the miners-seem to have lost interest in free silver, which, thank Heaven, he has not.”

  “But the speech is so good he’ll never give it up.”

  “Luckily for us. Even so, there is a feeling out there that we ought not to be like the European powers, with colonies full of heathens and so on, and I understand that feeling because I share it, to a point. But Cleveland-usually very sound-is being very difficult while Andrew Carnegie…”

  “Has he written you, too?” The wealthy irascible Scots-born Carnegie had been bombarding Hay with letters and messages, denouncing the annexation of the Philippines, or anything else, as sins against the Holy Ghost of the Republic.

  “Yes, yes, he has.” McKinley held up the Napoleonic mug, as if searching for some secret message hidden in what, after all, was his own smooth painted face. “I shall go to Omaha,” said the President; he had obviously received a secret message from his ceramic self.

  “Omaha? And what will you do in Omaha?”

  “I shall make a speech. What else?” The small cardinal’s smile was visible again; the large eyes glowed. “Omaha is Mr. Bryan’s city. Well, I shall begin my tour of the West-which I haven’t visited since ’96-with Omaha. I’ll beard him in his own town, and I’ll persuade the folks to…” The President paused.

  “To welcome the annexation of the Philippines?”

  “I’ll see what I find there first.”

  Hay nodded. There were those who liked to think that McKinley was Mark Hanna’s puppet, but anyone who had known either man back in Ohio, as had Hay, knew that the President was the perfect political animal, endlessly cunning and resourceful with a genius for anticipating shifts in public opinion, and then striking the right note. Hanna-now a senator from Ohio-was simply McKinley’s crude moneyman. Currently, he was “milking,” as he put it, every wealthy Republican in the country to ensure Republican majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

  “How are the negotiations in Paris?” Hay realized that McKinley was not going to volunteer anything.

  �
�There are problems. The first is, simply, what do we want? I’ll know that better at the end of October. I’m going to St. Louis, too. When in doubt, go to St. Louis.” The Major looked cryptic; a cardinal again. “The Spaniards will cede whatever we want. But there is bad feeling.”

  “I would suggest a payment for the islands.”

  McKinley looked surprised. “I thought the cost of the war was the cost of the islands.”

  Hay had given the matter some thought. He had also got the idea from his old friend John Bigelow. “If we pay, as we did for Louisiana and Alaska, then there is no doubt of the legitimacy of the ownership. The bill of sale is the proof. Otherwise, we can be accused of theft, or brutal imperialism, which is not our way, or ought not to seem to be our way.”

  “That is a very good idea, Mr. Hay.” McKinley got to his feet. He touched a button on his desk. “Explain it here tomorrow morning, when the Cabinet meets. But I warn you. Foreign relations are now your department. I am free of such entanglements.”

  “Except for the peace conference in Paris.” Hay was dogged. Should he be left out of that, he might as well have stayed on in London; or retired to 1603 H Street.

  “Judge Day likes to deal with me. But while I’m gone, Cortelyou will keep you informed. When does Mrs. Hay join you?”

  “In a couple of weeks.” Cortelyou was now in the doorway. “She has to stop off in New York to do the Christmas shopping.”

  “Christmas shopping? In September?” The Major was astonished.

  “Actually September’s a bit late for my wife. She usually does all her Christmas shopping in August.”

  “We could certainly have used her at the War Department.” McKinley put his arm through Hay’s and they crossed together to the door.

  “How is Mrs. McKinley?“ The delicate subject.

  “She is-comfortable, I think. You will come to dinner, I hope. We don’t really go out. What is your son Adelbert doing now?”

  “I didn’t know you knew him.” Was this the politician’s trick of boning up in advance whenever someone important called? or had Del, unknown to him, got to know the President?

  “He was down here in June, before he graduated. Senator Lodge brought him by. I was most impressed. I envy you, having a son.” The McKinleys’ daughter had died young. It was said that their bedroom was a shrine to the dead child. “Perhaps we can find some work for your boy here.”

  “You are kind, sir.” Actually, Hay had considered taking on Del at the State Department, but then decided against it. They did not, for reasons obscure to him, get on. There was never unpleasantness; there was simply no sympathy. Hay was happier with daughters; as Adams was happiest with nieces, real or honorary.

  As the President and Hay stepped into the corridor, a tall, gaunt figure stared intently at Hay, who stared, bewildered, back. McKinley said, “You remember Tom Pendel, don’t you? He’s been a doorkeeper here ever since your day.”

  Hay smiled, not recognizing the old man. “Why yes,” he began.

  “Johnny Hay!” The old man had no teeth. But his handclasp was like a vise. “I was new here, remember? One of the guards back then when you and Mr. Robert were in the parlor there, when I came in to tell you the President had been shot.” Hay had a sense of vertigo. Was he about to faint? or, perhaps, poetically, die? Then the world righted itself.

  “Yes,” he said, inadequately. “I remember.”

  “Oh, it was terrible! I was the last one here to see Mr. Lincoln into his carriage, and he said to me, ‘Good-night, Tom,’ just like that.”

  “Well, the sentiment, under the circumstances, was not unnatural.” Hay tried to make light of the matter. He had been warned that McKinley did not enjoy hearing about his predecessors.

  “I was also the last man here to see off General Garfield that summer morning when he left for the depot, and said, ‘Good-by, Tom.’ Just like that, and then he was shot, in the depot, and lingered on and-”

  McKinley was growing restive. “Our Tom has seen so many of us come and go.” Cortelyou signalled the President. “I must go to work. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Cabinet meets at ten.” McKinley and Cortelyou vanished into the Cabinet room. A dozen ladies, making a tour of the White House, stared with awe at the President’s back.

  As Hay extricated himself from the highly historic Tom Pendel, he was told that Colonel Crook, who had been Lincoln’s bodyguard, was also still on duty. “But the rest are all gone, sir, like snowflakes upon the river. You were so young back then.”

  “I am not,” said Hay, “young now.”

  THREE

  1

  CAROLINE HAD NOT REALIZED the extent of her own courage as she walked, all alone, in Peacock Alley, a corridor as long as that block of Thirty-fourth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues which was encased-exquisitely entombed, she had begun to feel-by the magnificence of New York’s newest and most celebrated hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria. Even in Paris, the new hotel had been written about with, for the French, wry respect: one thousand modern bedrooms, untold restaurants, palm courts, a men’s café and, most intriguing, the Peacock Alley, which ran straight through the double building, a splendid promenade with walls of honey-colored marble that reflected rows of relentlessly glittering electrified chandeliers. Between potted palms and the mirrored entrances to alluring courts and restaurants, sofas and armchairs lined the alley; here sat what looked to be all New York, watching all New York go by. Like the city itself, the Waldorf-Astoria never slept. There were late-night supper rooms as well as early-morning cafés where men in white tie and tails could be seen drinking coffee with men in business suits, drones and worker-bees all in the same buzzing honey-filled hive.

  Caroline had been warned that no proper young lady could ever be seen alone in Peacock Alley. But as she was there to meet a gentleman, she would not be alone for very long; and so she took pleasure in the interest that she-and her Paris Worth gown-aroused, as she proceeded from lobby to Palm Court, all eyes upon her progress. So, she decided, animals in the zoo watch their human visitors. Certainly, the notion that it might be she who was on display in the monkey house, and the fleshy ladies on their divans and the stout gentlemen in their armchairs were the human audience, she found perversely amusing; also, she noted, in their general grossness, the New York burghers were more like bears than monkeys: upright and curious, dangerous when disturbed.

  Just ahead of Caroline, two by no means fleshy girls were walking, arm in arm, like sisters. Were they, she wondered, prostitutes? Worldly ladies had told her that even in the most splendid-or particularly in the most splendid-of New York’s extraordinary hotel lobbies, businesswomen patrolled. But now with the invention of the Waldorf-Astoria, it had become fashionable not only for respectable women but for grand ladies to be seen, properly escorted, in hotel lobbies and even, though this was very new, to dine in a hotel restaurant, something unknown to the previous generation. In a fit of charity, Caroline decided that her dark suspicions about the “sisters” in front of her were simply that, and that they were indeed, like herself, young ladies curious to see and be seen.

  Two-thirds of the way down the Alley, John Apgar Sanford sprang to his feet; promptly, his head vanished in the fronds of the palm tree that shaded his chair. “Are you hiding from me?” asked Caroline, delighted.

  “No, no.” Sanford emerged from the fronds, his thin curly hair in disarray. He shook her hand gravely; he had her father’s small mouth-were they second or third cousins?-but the rest of him was all his own, or an inheritance from ancestors not shared with Caroline. At thirty-three he lived with a chronically ill wife in Murray Hill. “I’ve made a reservation in the Palm Garden. How was your trip?”

  “When not terrifying, very dull. There is no middle way on a ship. How wonderful!” The Palm Garden was a wonderful jungle of palm trees set in green Chinese cachepots. From the high ceiling crystal chandeliers were all ablaze though it was daytime. Noon on a tropical island, thought Caroline, half expecting to hear a parrot sh
riek; then heard what sounded like a parrot shrieking but was merely the laughter of Harry Lehr, young, fair, fat and damp; he was leaving the Palm Garden in the company of a thin elderly lady. “You’re expected,” he said, clasping Caroline’s hand. “At five sharp.” He looked at Sanford appraisingly. “Alone,” he added; and was gone.

  “That… cad!” Sanford had turned the color of Murray Hill brick. Caroline took his arm protectively; and together they followed the headwaiter to a table set in front of a gold-velvet banquette for two, on which they could sit side by side, close enough to be able to speak in low voices, far enough apart to emphasize the innocent decency of their relationship in the eyes of that considerable portion of the great world, having tea in the Palm Garden. Much more opulent than Paris, Caroline noted; but also more coarse. “Why is Mr. Lehr a cad?”

  “Well… I mean, look at him.”

  “I have looked at him. I have also listened to him. He is a bit on the fantastic side. But very amusing. He’s always been kind to me. I can’t think why. I’m not yet fifty. Or rich.”

  “What-where are you expected at five? Of course, it’s none of my business.” Sanford suddenly stammered. “I’m sorry. But I thought you were just off the boat. I mean, he seemed to be expecting you.”

  “I am just off the boat; and I haven’t seen Mr. Lehr since spring; and, yes, he always seems to be expecting you, and so I shall have tea with him. That’s all.”

  “At Mrs. Fish’s?”

  “No. At Mrs. Astor’s. When he mentions no name like that it is always Mrs. Astor. The Mystic Rose, as they call her. But why a rose? Why mystic?”

  “Ward McAllister called her that. I don’t know why. He was court chamberlain before this-this little brother of the rich, as they call his sort.” Tea was brought them, followed by liveried waiters, bearing cakes.

  “Well, he makes me laugh, which is probably his function in life. I suppose he makes Mrs. Astor laugh, too. Hard to imagine.”