Empire

by Gore Vidal

  “He’ll want him to lose, so that Parker will be beaten by Roosevelt, and the next time-four years from now-Bryan will be back, crucifying mankind on that cross of gold of his.” Blaise was rather proud to have figured out what was so obvious to Brisbane that he did no more than nod, and say, “That’s about the size of it. But if he gets our Illinois delegates seated, that may do the trick.” John Sharp Williams made a stately entrance. Hearst pretended delight. Brisbane said, “I hear you’re buying your sister’s paper.”

  “I’m trying to. That’s really why I’m here. Not that this isn’t,” he stared at Hearst’s alarmingly huge smile, “worth the trip. My sister’s more political than me. She’s here to write about the convention. She actually writes herself, you know.”

  “Many of us,” said Brisbane, sourly, “do.”

  On the Fourth of July, Hearst was nominated by a San Francisco politician, a friend of the late Senator George Hearst. Blaise sat with Caroline and John Sanford in the press gallery of the huge airless hall. A six-foot portrait of Hearst dominated the stage, while a Hearst band played first “America” and then, as a recognition of the South’s importance to the populist millionaire, “Dixie.” Although Thomas E. Watson was, that very day, being nominated for president by the Populist or People’s Party, he had brought a number of Democratic Southern politicians into Hearst’s organization.

  After the nominating speeches for Hearst, the California delegation led a parade around the floor of the convention. Blaise was surprised at how genuinely popular the Chief had become. “Of course he has no chance,” said Caroline, rising from her wooden folding chair.

  Blaise also stood up. “Why not?”

  “His Illinois delegation wasn’t seated. So that’s fifty-four votes for Parker. And Bryan will never support him. Let’s go get some air. I am about to faint.”

  For the delicate business at hand, Blaise had selected a river-boat. The owner had offered Blaise a suite when it was discovered that every hotel in the city was booked, and so he now had, all to himself, the wonders of the Delta Queen, a great Gothic wooden contraption with paddle-wheels of the sort celebrated in John Hay’s “Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell.” The night was airless, damp, hot. The Delta Queen was moored to the levee near Market Street. At the gangplank, a single guard saluted Blaise casually; and bade them all welcome.

  A steward received them on the first deck, and escorted them into an echoing mahogany bar, lit by a single bronze gas-lamp, beneath which sat, ominous in his cheerfulness, dreadful in his jovial smile, the pink-whiskered Mr. Houghteling. Blaise was relieved to find his ally in place. Now it was two to two. Before, he had felt outnumbered by Caroline and John-three rather than two to one, since Caroline had, in a sense, doubled herself through accomplishment while he had diminished himself by non-success. Mr. Houghteling rose, the dentured smile ghastly in the light from overhead. “Mrs. Sanford. Mr. Sanford. Mr. Sanford. At least one has no trouble with names…”

  A figure stepped out of the shadows and said, “I’m Mr. Trimble-not Sanford.”

  Blaise felt, again, outnumbered. But he greeted Trimble politely; then the five of them sat at a round table, and the steward brought them champagne with the compliments of the owner. Blaise noted a spittoon had been fastened to the deck beside each chair. How, he wondered, was it emptied? and what happened if one’s jet of tobacco juice changed its trajectory due to a lurch of the ship? He tried to recall the laws of physics that he had learned in school-and forgotten. Galileo on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Spit on the deck. As Blaise thought, wildly, of spittoons, Sanford and Houghteling were covering the table with sheets of paper, and Caroline and Trimble were talking to each other in low collusive voices. Blaise knew that he should feel elated; instead, he was merely hot, tired, irritable. Sanford began, for the enemy. “You’ve had a chance to study the Tribune’s financial status…?”

  “Yes.” Houghteling looked at Blaise, who looked at Caroline, who was staring now into her glass of champagne. He thought of that other champagne glass, of Del dead on a New Haven sidewalk. “Yes,” Mr. Houghteling repeated, “all is in order, according to my accountant. I’m afraid I can neither add nor subtract. But he’s been with me thirty years, and he does both very nicely, or so I’m told by those who know. He says all’s well, so-all’s well. Now,” Houghteling frowned and smiled simultaneously, “we are willing to pay for fifty percent of the shares…”

  Caroline, not her lawyer-husband, spoke. “Forty-eight percent of the shares are up for sale, not fifty percent.”

  Sweat rolled down Blaise’s left side, tickling him mercilessly. “We agreed to fifty-fifty, you and I.” He stared at Caroline, who stared back at him, in perfect innocence.

  “So we did. So it is,” she said. “I will sell you forty-eight percent of the shares. I will keep forty-eight percent of the shares. That’s fifty-fifty. We-you and I-will own exactly the same amount, as agreed.”

  “Who owns,” asked Mr. Houghteling, sinister smile in place but cordial scowl gone, “the remaining four percent of the shares?”

  “Mr. Houghteling misled us!” Caroline was suspiciously charming. “He adds and subtracts with lightning speed…”

  “I own four percent,” said Trimble, turning his pale blue Brisbane-approved eyes on Blaise. “Mrs. Sanford wanted to give me a bonus when the paper was in profit. I said I’d take the bonus in the form of stock.”

  “It was my understanding…” Houghteling began.

  “I thought it was all cut and dried.” Sanford was now, himself, triumphantly cut, dried, thought Blaise. “Sister would sell brother half her shares for one hundred fifty-six thousand dollars. That was the meaning of fifty-fifty…”

  “That was not my understanding.” Blaise wondered if he should abandon the game right then and there.

  Houghteling tapped his pile of papers. “There was no mention here, according to my accountant, of any owner other than Mrs. Sanford, the sole owner.”

  “You will find the Trimble shares adverted to in section five of the financial audit.” Sanford sounded bored; yet it was his life that was at stake. Blaise found him almost as mysterious as Caroline, whose mystery was to be exactly what she seemed, someone intent on getting what she wanted without unduly distressing those whom she-victimized: he was now casting himself in the role of victim. Certainly, he had been subtly misled from the beginning. Caroline was nothing if not tricky.

  “We,” said Mr. Houghteling, “have acted in good faith from the beginning.”

  “I trust,” said Sanford, “that you are not suggesting that we have not?”

  “I suggest exactly that, yes. My client understood-as did I-that he would become half-owner of the Tribune. Instead, he is, to put it bluntly, a minority shareholder, who can be outvoted by Mrs. Sanford and Mr. Trimble, should they choose to act as one.”

  “Which they will always do.” Blaise got to his feet. “I see no reason to go on with this.” He looked at Caroline, who smiled and said nothing.

  “I am sorry if there has been a misunderstanding.” Sanford did not sound, in the least, sorry.

  “There always is,” said Caroline suddenly. “We specialize in misunderstandings. It is a family trait. What looks to be a one to one of us appears as a seven to the other.”

  Blaise experienced a moment of almost perfect rage, a highly exciting flush of blood to the head, followed by a sudden weakness. He sat down heavily. Caroline acted as if nothing untoward had been said. “If you would rather not buy, I’ll go to Mr. Hearst, who will be a publisher again tomorrow, or to Mr. McLean.”

  This was bluff. Blaise knew that the Chief had no available money (he had spent close to two million dollars in order to secure the nomination), while John R. McLean had already said no to Caroline. “I’ll buy forty-eight percent of the shares, at the agreed-on price.” Blaise heard his own voice as though it were someone else’s, far off, strange. But then this was the most important decision that he had ever made.

  “I draw your
attention, Mr. Houghteling, to the obligation of your client and my client,” John was dry, correct, “in the event of a future sale of these shares, to offer one another, first, the option to buy…”

  “Yes, yes.” Houghteling presented Caroline with a sheet of paper; then he signalled to the steward. “Ask the captain or mate or whoever’s on duty to witness these signatures.”

  In silence they waited beneath the bronze lamp, which swayed, ever so slightly, as the river’s current rocked the ship. Two men in uniform joined them. Caroline signed first. Blaise signed second. The ship’s officers signed. Then Houghteling signalled for more champagne; and Caroline said, “Where is my check?”

  Houghteling laughed; and gave her Blaise’s check. Blaise studied Sanford’s face; but there was no reaction. The cause of Caroline’s embarrassment appeared at ease.

  Trimble raised his glass. “To the Washington Tribune,” he said.

  Solemnly they drank. Then Sanford and Houghteling put away their documents. The ship’s officers excused themselves, and Trimble said, “I don’t know about you publishers, but the editor has to go back to the convention hall.”

  “So will this publisher.” Caroline rose; and turned to Blaise. “Will you join us?”

  Blaise said, “Yes.”

  As it turned out, the only publisher to go to the convention hall was Caroline. Blaise chose to go back to the Jefferson Hotel to confer with the Chief, now in his shirt-sleeves, a telephone receiver close to one ear, as word came from the hall, where Brisbane was reporting what was-and was not-going on. What was going on was the nomination of Alton B. Parker for president. What was not going on was William Jennings Bryan, who had yet to make known his choice. “I’ll get one ninety-four on the first ballot,” was Hearst’s greeting.

  Blaise responded in kind. “I bought half the Washington Tribune.”

  President-to-be Hearst put down the receiver and became Publisher Hearst. “How much?”

  Blaise told him the exact amount. Word always spread; he did not say that he had bought only half of Caroline’s shares. “Too much.” Hearst took off his tie and collar; and looked less presidential by the moment. “I could go in with you. Maybe,” he said, staring at Blaise with the same impersonal intensity with which he would glare at the mock-up of a front page.

  “And then,” said Blaise, lightly, “maybe not. I don’t want to be involved with the Tribune American, and you don’t either.”

  “I guess not. You and your sister friends?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Blaise agreed.

  At four-thirty on the morning of July 8, after all the nominating speeches had been made, Blaise and Jim Day sat side by side in the press section, shelling and eating peanuts, as they tried to stay awake. Others had succumbed to fatigue or alcohol. Figures were slumped over chairs on the convention floor as well as in the galleries. The smell of stale smoke, whiskey, sweat was now so powerful that Blaise, acclimatized, wondered if he could ever again breathe fresh air. The balloting would soon begin. Hearst still had a chance. But Bryan had not come to his aid. Earlier, Bryan had nominated a nullity in the form of a Missouri senator. He did add that he would be happy to support the people’s friend, William Randolph Hearst, should the convention nominate him. Then Bryan had gone back to his hotel, where, Hearst had gleefully noted, he collapsed with what seemed to be pneumonia.

  “Bryan wants us to lose, I’m afraid,” said Jim.

  “Do you care?”

  “Well, I’m safe back home. But it would be nice to have a strong head to the ticket.”

  Suddenly, there was a sound of applause at the back of the hall. The speaker-there was never not someone speaking from the platform-paused as, down the main aisle, William Jennings Bryan made his slow, majestic way.

  “This is going to be something.” Jim was now wide awake. He brushed peanut shells from his trousers; and sat very straight. Even Blaise felt something of the general excitement as Bryan, plainly ill, dark of face and sweating heavily, walked up the steps to the platform. The twenty thousand delegates and visitors were now all alert. There was loud applause. There was also excitement of the sort that Blaise had only observed once before, at a bull-fight in Madrid when matador (Bryan?) and bull (the convention? or was it the other way around?) began their final confrontation. For ten minutes, by Blaise’s watch, the crowd cheered Bryan, who plainly drew nourishment from his people. Then he raised both arms, and the hall was silent.

  The voice began, and, like everyone else, Blaise was mesmerized by its astonishing power. Illness had made Bryan hoarse; but no less eloquent for that. “Eight years ago at Chicago the Democratic National Convention placed in my hand the standard of the party and commissioned me as its candidate. Four years ago that commission was renewed…”

  “He’s going for it!” Jim’s eyes were bright. “He’s going to stampede the convention.”

  The tension was now absolute in the hall. The Parker and Hearst delegates looked grim indeed. The galleries were ecstatic, as were perhaps a third of the delegates, Bryan’s men to the end.

  “Tonight I came back to this Democratic National Convention to return that commission…”

  A chorus of no’s drowned him out. The eyes were glittering now, and not from fever. Again the commanding arms were raised. “… and to say to you that you may dispute over whether I have fought the good fight, you may dispute over whether I have finished my course, but you cannot deny,” and the voice was now as clear as some huge tolling bell, “that I have kept the faith.”

  By the time Bryan was done, he was the convention’s hero and the party’s paladin forever. But, contrary to Jim’s hope, he did not stampede the convention. He received his ovation and was carried off, by concerned friends, to the Jefferson Hotel, and the wild nocturnal pleasures of pneumonia.

  By dawn’s light, the first ballot gave Parker nine votes less than the two-thirds needed to nominate. Hearst was second with, as he had predicted, one hundred ninety-four votes. As the balloting continued, Hearst’s vote became two hundred sixty-three votes, to Blaise’s astonishment. How could anyone in his right mind want the Chief as president? But delegates need not be in their right mind; and money had been spent, particularly in the Iowa and Indiana delegations. If Bryan had come to Hearst’s aid, the Chief would have been nominated. Actually, a race between Hearst and Roosevelt would have been, if nothing else, a splendid-what was the Greek word? Agon. Blaise had taken to the word in school. Agon. Agony. A contest for a prize; a duel; to the death, presumably.

  During the balloting, Jim was with his state’s delegation on the floor while Blaise sat with Brisbane in the press gallery. Caroline and husband had long since retired; only Trimble and Blaise represented the Tribune. Judge Alton B. Parker was duly nominated, after receiving six hundred fifty-eight votes. “We’ll get Bryan,” said Brisbane, furiously. “If it’s the last thing we do.”

  “Bryan’s got himself.” Blaise was flat. “Forget about him. What’s next?”

  Brisbane looked exhausted. “I don’t know. Governor of New York, I suppose.”

  “It’s worse than gambling, politics.” Blaise was aware that Jim was signalling him from the floor.

  “But think of the stakes.” Brisbane sighed. “The whole world.”

  “Oh, I don’t think the White House is the whole world yet.” At the main entrance to the convention hall, Blaise met Jim, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief; yet, even sweating and tired, he was masculine energy and youth incarnate.

  “I’m going to bed,” said Jim.

  “I’ve got a room on the river-boat.” Blaise waved for a cab. “Courtesy of the owner.”

  “You won’t be uncomfortable?”

  “No,” said Blaise, as they got into the cab. “To the levee,” he said to the driver; and turned to Jim. “It’s closer, and why wake Kitty?”

  FOURTEEN

  1

  IN THE BRIGHT WINTER SUNLIGH
T, Henry Adams, like some ancient pink-and-white orchid, sat in the window seat and stared down at Lafayette Square, while John Hay sat opposite him, studying the latest dispatches from Moscow. Hay was delighted to have lived long enough to welcome Adams home from Europe.

  The summer and fall had nearly ended him. On Theodore’s orders, he had been obliged to speak at Carnegie Hall in New York City to sum up the achievements of the Republican Party in general and of Theodore Rex in particular. Hay had enjoyed perjuring himself before the bar of history. Of Roosevelt’s bellicosity, Hay had proclaimed, with a straight face, “He and his predecessor have done more in the interest of universal peace than any other two presidents since our government was formed.” Adams had thought the adjective “universal” sublime. “He works for universal peace-whatever that is-stasis?-through terrestrial warfare. You have said it all.” But Hay was well-pleased with the speech, as was the President. The emphasis was on the essential conservatism of the allegedly progressive Roosevelt. The tariff needed reform, true, but that was best done by the magnates themselves. This went down very well in New York City, where the President had been obliged to go, hat in hand, to beg money from the likes of Henry Clay Frick. Thanks to the essential conservatism of Parker, the great magnates, from Belmont and Ryan to Schiff and Ochs, were financing the Democratic Party. Roosevelt, with no Mark Hanna to raise money, was obliged to make any number of reckless accommodations in order to extort money from the likes of J. P. Morgan and E. H. Harriman. Meanwhile Cortelyou was blackmailing everyone he knew to give to the campaign.

  Hay had never seen anything quite like Roosevelt’s panic: there was no other word to describe his behavior during the last few months of a campaign that he had no chance of losing. Bryan had stayed aloof until October; then he moved amongst his people warning them of Roosevelt’s shady campaign financing practices and of his love for war. Bryan seldom had much to say about Parker, who ended by losing not only the entire West but New York State, the source of his support. It was the greatest Republican victory since 1872. Theodore was-and continued to be-ecstatic. He had also insisted that Hay stay on for the second term.