by John O'Hara
They did not go in too deeply. “I don’t want to do anything that looks like politics,” said Joe. “I want people to get to know that I’m alive, but at least for the time being I’m not going to enter into activities that will make people put two-and-two together. That’s why these charities are good. We’ve always given to charity, but until now, it hasn’t been getting in the paper.”
Among non-charitable organizations there existed a timidity about asking Joe or his wife for support. The people of the town, and the people in the circulation area of the Gibbsville newspapers, were becoming familiar with the name, so that as a name it was beginning to mean something more than nothing. But Joe Chapin held no office and had a successful business in the law, and consequently did not have to yield to polite pressure when a free speaker was needed for a high school commencement or the dedication of a drinking font. He continued to lend his name and give his money to such projects as a public swimming pool, public tennis courts, the public library, the Mission (a recreation center for poor children, having no connection with denominational religion, and conducted by young ladies who in larger cities would have been the Junior League), the Children’s Home (an orphanage), the Junior Baseball League, the Gibbsville professional football team, the Gibbsville Historical Society, the Committee for the Maintenance and Preservation of Historical Monuments, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Y.M.H.A., and the Y.W.H.A. A large number of the worthy causes had to do with children, and Joe’s contributions and interest needed no explanation. And in some instances the worthy causes had been supported by two or three generations of Chapins and Stokeses. But now the Chapin name was being used, and the happy circumstance that the name stood high on alphabetical lists made for an increasing public awareness of it.
In less than two years there was scarcely an adult (who was not an illiterate) who did not at least know the name Joseph B. Chapin, and know it in a favorable association. There were poor people in the mill section who had never seen Joe Chapin, but that too was going to be taken care of in its proper time. And the campaign to acquaint Gibbsville citizens with the name was accomplished without a single conference with Mike Slattery. It was all done from 10 North Frederick or from Joe’s office.
Then one evening in ’24 Mike Slattery, reading his Gibbsville Standard, said as though to no one: “Well, now, will you listen to this.”
“What?” said Peg Slattery.
“In the paper. Joe Chapin. According to this he presented an American flag, a silk American flag, to the Joseph B. Chapin Grammar School.”
“He’s always giving to this or that,” said Peg. “The both of them are.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no, my girl. This is different. This isn’t one of those five-dollar donations to St. Isaac’s Hebrew Sodality.”
“Why is this so different, giving a flag to a school?” said Peg.
“This time he went there himself. He presented the flag. He—made—the presentation.” He laid the paper on his lap and gazed up at the ceiling, running his upper teeth over his lip. Peg recognized the signs that her husband made when he was planning an important move, and kept quiet.
“Mr. Joe Chapin and I are about ready to have a private talk,” he said. “He is a much smarter man than I gave him credit for.”
“She’s in it somewhere,” said Peg.
“You’re right she is. She may be at the bottom of it,” said Mike. “That’s neither here nor there at this time. Now what I do, I make the first move. I could wait for him to come to me, but if I make the first move and offer him something, he’ll be flattered and he’ll be one of my men. If I wait for him to come to me, he may come to me with plans of his own and I may have to turn him down, and I don’t want to do that.”
“He may turn down what you offer.”
“That won’t matter. I’ll still be making the offer before he can come to me.”
“Don’t leave her out of your thinking.”
“Oh, you may be sure I won’t,” said Mike. “They have been doing this together, and I wasn’t very smart not to notice it before. The day after tomorrow I’ll see him. I don’t want him to get away from me. I wish there was some way I could find out all the charities and stuff he’s been contributing to. But there isn’t time!”
“Then why don’t you take for granted that he’s contributed to everything? Talk to him and meanwhile you can get someone at your office to examine the back numbers of the Standard.”
“I’ll do that,” said Mike. “We don’t want this fledgling to learn to fly without us.”
“No.”
“And I’ll talk to him day after tomorrow and find out how high he wants to fly.”
It was easy for Mike to obtain an appointment to see Joe. “But I’d rather we met at the Gibbsville Club, Joe. I have a feeling Arthur wouldn’t like us to talk politics in your office.”
“Your feeling is correct, Mike,” said Joe. “I’ll meet you there after lunch. I’m having lunch there.”
“Great! The more casual the better. I’ll eat at the round table and then you and I can have our meeting accidentally-on-purpose.”
At about 1:45 the next afternoon Henry Laubach said he would have to get back to his office, and Joe said he wanted to have a look at the New York papers. With Henry safely out of the club Mike joined Joe.
“Joe, I’ll be blunt,” said Mike. “The time has come for me to talk of many things, and they all concern you. I could fill you up with a lot of high-sounding phrases about the good of the party, and good citizenship, but we wouldn’t have been friends so long if you didn’t trust me, and you trust me because I’ve always been pretty darn frank with you. Am I right?”
“I think so, Mike.”
“Joe, if you say no to what I’m going to ask you, I’ll accept no for your answer. If you say maybe, I’ll accept maybe. If you say yes, I’ll be overjoyed. Is that fair?”
“Seems fair.”
“All right. The question: will you run for Judge of Common Pleas?”
Joe paused, then said, “No.”
Mike nodded. “You have your reasons and I respect them. I won’t even ask you what they are. You’re the first man I’ve asked, and the only favor I ask of you now is, in fairness to all concerned, please keep it to yourself that I asked you. I have two other men in mind, but I wanted to ask you first. Well, that’s all, Joe. Thanks for your time. Highest regards to Edith.”
Mike knew when to leave, and he left. That evening he said to Peg: “Talked to Joe Chapin. I offered him a judgeship, but he wants something bigger.”
“He wants to fly higher,” said Peg.
“That’s right, he wants to fly higher. I wonder how high he thinks he can fly.”
At approximately the same moment, at 10 North Frederick Street, Joe was saying to Edith: “He offered me a judgeship and he was very nice about it when I turned him down.”
“What else can he offer you?”
“Assemblyman, state senator.”
“I know Mike is the state senator. Who is our assemblyman?” said Edith.
“A fellow named Harvey Goodright.”
“You’re not going to take that?”
“No,” said Joe. “I could have been a judge, ten years. And I could resign. But I’ve decided something that I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”
“Which is?”
“No matter what Mike offers me, I’m going to refuse. All the way up to and including the governorship. He’s not going to offer me the governorship, but if he did, I’d say no. Do you know what I’m going to do?”
“What?”
“I’m going to start doing all over the state what we’ve been doing just in this section. I don’t want to have to go to meetings of the state legislature, and run for minor offices every two or four or six years, and I don’t want to be buried in the courthouse. I’m going to start getting to know people all
over the state, and getting myself known. That’s going to take longer than two or three years, the way I want to do it, but it’s going to be worth it in the long run. Look at Gifford Pinchot and his trees. I’m going to make friends all over the state. If I could arrange to be appointed to some Federal office, that would help too, but I’ll have to find out what’s exactly right. I’m what is usually spoken of as a deserving party man, and I’ve never asked for anything in return. There might be something.”
“Federal? Would that mean living in Washington?”
“It wouldn’t mean closing this house, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”
“That’s good.”
“But I hope you won’t mind living in Washington,” said Joe, smiling.
“At the right address,” said Edith.
A fortnight later, at 10 North Frederick Street.
“Did you see tonight’s paper?” said Edith.
“I haven’t had a chance to,” said Joe. “Something interesting?”
“You’ll think so. I think so,” said Edith. “On the third page, the article about City Council.”
Joe read the article to himself, then aloud quoted a passage from it: “‘The regular party organization is proud of the ticket submitted to the voters of Gibbsville,’ said Senator Slattery. ‘It is additional proof that the organization has answered the charge of party insurgents that we are afraid of new blood. The ticket contains the names of four outstanding citizens who are making their first entrance into the local political arena. In next year’s mayoralty campaign there will be further proof of the progressive policy of the regular organization when I hope to persuade Joseph B. Chapin, the well-known attorney, philanthropist and one of Gibbsville’s first citizens, to run for Mayor of his native city.’ And so forth and so on.”
“Did you know anything about that?” said Edith.
“I most certainly did not,” said Joe. “I wonder why he did it.”
“Isn’t that what they mean by smoking you out?”
“Yes, but he knows I’m not going to like it,” said Joe.
“Tell him so,” said Edith.
“I will, but first I want to think about what I’m going to say. I’ll go upstairs and lie in the tub for a while.”
He soaked for a quarter of an hour, toweled himself, and telephoned Mike Slattery.
“Mike, I imagine you were expecting this call. This is Joe Chapin.”
“Good evening, Joe. You mean the article in tonight’s Standard?”
“I mean the article in tonight’s Standard,” said Joe.
“I trust you were pleased with it,” said Mike.
“Pleased with it? Why should I be? Mike, that’s taking liberties that I haven’t given you permission to take. I’m not in politics, except for serving on the county committee. You must have realized that when I turned down the Common Pleas job.”
“I thought you’d be pleased, Joe. I wouldn’t do anything to offend you, you know that. You’re too good a friend and too valuable a man in the party. All I did was think out loud, dream out loud, you might say.”
“Then you must have been smoking opium, Mike. You haven’t the slightest reason to think I’d run for mayor or anything else. I refused the judgeship, and that’s a high honor, higher than mayor, in my estimation.”
“Well, I’m very sorry, Joe. I guess I could get Bob Hooker to print a retraction, although that’s going to make me look like a slob.”
“Never mind the retraction. I could get Bob Hooker to retract it myself. We’ll let the matter die down of its own accord. But in future, before you nominate me for public office, I hope you’ll consult me first. And I’d appreciate it if you would call Arthur and tell him the story is out of whole cloth. I haven’t heard from him, but he’s going to be just as amazed as I was.”
“I’ll do that as soon as we hang up,” said Mike. “But there’s one promise I won’t make, Joe.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not going to give up trying to persuade you to run for office. We need you.”
“That’s very nice, but persuade me, don’t do it by way of announcing it in the Standard.”
“No hard feelings, Joe?”
“Well, they’ll probably soften up.”
They said their good-byes.
Edith, who had been listening to Joe, nodded. “Very good,” she said.
“It is good. Do you know why? Because now I’ll be able to do something I’ve wanted to do and didn’t know how. I’m going to Washington and see about a Federal appointment.” He lit a cigarette. “Does What’s Her Name, the society editor—”
“Lydia Faunce Brown,” said Edith.
“Does she still call you for news?”
“About once a week.”
“Regularly?”
“Quite regularly. Tomorrow or next day it’s time for her next call. Why?”
“When she calls, tell her quite casually that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph B. Chapin expect to spend a few days next week in Philadelphia. Shopping. Business.”
“Philadelphia?” said Edith.
“Well, it’s on the way to Washington, but we don’t have to tell her everything,” said Joe. “If Mike can use the Standard, so can I.”
“Joe, you’re very clever,” said Edith.
“Well, don’t say it with such surprise. There are hidden resources in me that even you don’t know about, Edith.”
“Then it’s all right for me to be surprised.”
“Touché,” said Joe.
Joe deliberately made no appointment with the U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. “You go have a look at the cherry blossoms,” he told Edith. “I’m going to beard the lion in his den.”
“It’s the wrong time for the cherry blossoms.”
“I hope it’s not the wrong time for the Senator.”
He went to the Senator’s office and was told that the Senator was not seeing anyone without an appointment. The secretary, an intelligent-looking woman of middle age, was immediately aware that the caller was not a pest or a time-waster, but a handsome gentleman in well-cut clothes. “Would you take in my card?”
“I’d be glad to, but I can’t hold out any hope that the Senator will see you, sir.”
He handed her his card:
Mr. Joseph Benjamin Chapin
Gibbsville, Pennsylvania
She looked at it and quickly looked up at him. “Oh, Mr. Chapin. The Lantenengo County Committee, is that right?”
“Thank you, yes,” said Joe.
She stepped into the Senator’s office, and came back in less than a minute.
“The Senator would like very much to see you for five minutes,” she said.
The man behind the large desk was white-haired but with a comparatively unlined face. He rose to shake hands with Joe. “Mr. Chapin, this is a long-delayed pleasure.”
“Thank you, Senator. I’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”
“Well, I’d like nothing better than to have a nice leisurely chat with you, but I’m going to be needed on the floor very shortly. How are things in the coal regions?”
“Well, the strike hasn’t helped us any.”
“No. A mess. That union has gotten out of hand. But of course don’t quote me,” he said with a smile. “Do you see much of my old friend Billy English?”
“Oh, yes. Our family doctor, and a close friend of ours.”
“Billy was a fraternity brother of mine at Lafayette. I believe you’re a Princeton man?”
“Oh, no, sir. The higher seat of learning, in New Haven.”
“Forgive me, forgive me. Now you have the advantage, what can I do to make amends?”
“I’m looking for a job,” said Joe.
“Well, those words have a familiar ring, but I have a feeling that Chapin of Mc
Henry & Chapin doesn’t want to be appointed postmaster of—whatever the smallest town in Lantenengo is.”
“No, the time may come, but not now. The kind of job I have in mind would be on some Federal commission that would preferably keep me in our own Commonwealth.”
“I see,” said the Senator. “A man in your circumstances usually wants to be made ambassador—London, Paris, or Rome. I’m glad to hear that you’re not anxious to supplant the incumbents in those posts.”
“They’re quite safe, Senator.”
“Good. Have you got any one commission in mind, or a specific job?”
“No, sir,” said Joe.
“Well, there are some commissions, like Interstate Commerce, that are tough jobs. Then there are others like Battle Monuments that are more or less honorary. The pay varies, too.”
“The pay isn’t an important factor.”
“Then I imagine what you have in mind is more of an honorary type.”
“But not just sitting with my hands folded.”
“Of course not,” said the Senator. “You want to serve the country, and our state, in some worthwhile capacity as a Federal appointee. Is that about it?”
“I think that’s well put, sir,” said Joe.
“Well, I have all sorts of charts and tables of appointive offices, most of them filled, but vacancies do occur, and there may be one or two right now. How long are you going to be in Washington?”
