Peering upward over the heads of the page boys, Abrahams’ eyes roved across the three sides of the galleries visible to him. As in Andrew Johnson’s time, the House had ruled that public admission to the trial would be by ticket only, a different-colored ticket to be printed for each succeeding day. The top-priority tickets had been passed out according to rank. Of the 1,250 tickets printed daily, 50 were given to President Dilman, 60 distributed among the foreign diplomatic corps, two went to each senator, one went to each representative, and only a few hundred were made available, on a first come, first served basis, to the quarter of a million persons, the public, who had been applying for them by telephone, telegram, and letter.
Except for the space requisitioned by the television cameras and technicians, the five steep tiers of the public galleries on high, with a sixth row for standees, were jammed tightly with humanity, and had been so for over an hour. Even the aisle steps above were occupied, and in the doorways could be seen the conservatively attired, ever-watchful agents of the Secret Service. By squinting, Abrahams could make out several familiar faces, among them Hugo Gaynor’s and Lou Agajanian’s. Then, as last-minute arrivals appeared with their dripping umbrellas, removing their wet raincoats, he could distinguish other persons known to him—Dilman’s chubby housekeeper, Crystal, the lobbyist, Gorden Oliver, the Party chairman, Allan Noyes, and then, dressed smartly in flagrant red, as if for an afternoon’s party, Sally Watson. In vain, Abrahams tried to locate his wife, and then gave up.
Turning slightly, to take in the desks of the press gallery directly over the Acting President pro tempore’s rostrum, Abrahams could see the reporters, feature writers, and columnists squeezed elbow to elbow, strips of their long white writing pads hanging down over their desks as they bent to their notes. Side by side, chatting, laughing, were Reb Blaser, of the Miller chain, and a young man whom Abrahams guessed to be George Murdock.
Now his gaze dropped to the floor of the Senate Chamber, shortly to be the arena of ceremony and then fierce conflict.
Never in its venerable life, Abrahams supposed, had the Senate Chamber undergone such a chaotic physical transformation as this. The comfortable, spacious, clubroom seating was no more. Within the biege walls and veined marble pillars of the Chamber, the spacious semicircle of proud senatorial desks had been rudely shoved together and pushed forward to the very lip of the rostrum. Every senator, ailing or not, appeared to be in his brown leather straight-backed armchair. On each mahogany desk, as if a last determined genuflection to tradition, sat those hangovers from the quill pen period, the paperweights that were once crystal shakers of blotting sand. Arranged on almost all the desks, also, were notepads as well as copies of the Articles of Impeachment. At each senator’s feet rested an unused polished cuspidor. Here and there, Abrahams could identify a juror he must soon confront: the smiling visage of the Majority Leader, Senator John Selander, the testy countenance, decorated with its pince-nez, of Senator Bruce Hankins, the vaguely Negroid features of Senator Roy Sampson, the perpetually snarling face of Senator Kirk Bollinger, the unexpected feminine profile of Senator Maxine Schultz, the leonine head of Senator Hoyt Watson.
Arrayed behind the jurors, standing, sitting, kneeling in conversation, but compressed like so many sardines, were the less dignified members of the House of Representatives.
Suddenly Abrahams heard a Capitol policeman to his left announce, “Well, fellers, here she goes.”
Abrahams’ gaze swung directly ahead. Everyone on the Chamber floor who had been standing or crouching was now finding a seat. The Acting President pro tempore of the Senate, John Selander, and his colleagues, Hankins and Watson, were marching single file toward the rostrum. Immediately in front of the elevated bench, with the marble counter beneath which the clerks sat, they closed ranks. They passed the empty long oak table and tooled leather chairs at the right of the podium—similar long wooden table and chairs were on the opposite side, and Abrahams remembered these were reserved for the managers—continued past the vacant seat perched between the rostrum and the counter, where the witnesses would sit in turn, and they disappeared through the two doors opened for them. The doors remained open.
The august Chamber was hushed, as if a mammoth blanket had been thrown over it and smothered it. Senators and representatives alike leaned forward attentively. The occupants of the gallery were stilled, craning their necks to see what would come next. The reporters in the front row of their gallery were half on their feet, hanging over the cream-white rail of the balcony.
Through the gaping doors that led from the Senators’ Private Lobby into the Senate Chamber there materialized the lone, erect figure of a patriarch, as imposing and aloof as an austerely draped statue of Eternal Lawfulness and Righteousness. Abrahams recognized him at once. This was Noah F. Johnstone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, resplendent in his billowing black robe of office. For a fraction of a second, his keen, sunken eyes took in the scene before him, and then, as his committee of escorts, Selander, Hankins, Watson, clustered around him, Chief Justice Johnstone entered the Chamber proper.
Immediately, in a human wave that broke from the front to the back of the auditorium, senators and representatives came respectfully to their feet. In the balcony above, the spectators and journalists also rose.
Gathering the skirt of his judicial robe in one hand, Chief Justice Johnstone climbed to the summit of the rostrum, then wedged himself between his high-backed chair and desk, and waited. His escorts had hurried back to the door, where a second robed figure, the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Irwin Gray, a younger, smaller judge, waited. Speedily, Senator Selander showed him up to the top of the rostrum.
Now the two justices of the Supreme Court were alone, with every pair of eyes upon them. Justice Gray held forth a Bible, and Chief Justice Johnstone placed his right hand upon it and raised his left hand high.
In his rumbling bass, the Chief Justice intoned, “I do solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws: so help me God.”
And now Chief Justice Johnstone, dismissing his associate with a nod, settled into the high-backed chair of the presiding officer, and held his silence while the congressmen and visitors and press followed his lead and sat down.
The Chief Justice lifted a heavy gavel, struck it once, and its wooden sound echoed throughout the Chamber.
“The Senate will come to order,” the Chief Justice announced. “Since the senators present did yesterday take the oath required by the Constitution, the Senate is now organized for the purpose of proceeding to the trial of the impeachment of Douglass Dilman, President of the United States. The Sergeant at Arms will make proclamation.”
Chief Justice Johnstone sat back, and directly beneath him the Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, Harold L. Greene, clearing his throat, bellowed out, “Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of imprisonment while the Senate of the United States is sitting for the trial of the Articles of Impeachment against Douglass Dilman, President of the United States.”
Immediately after the Sergeant at Arms had lowered himself to his chair, Senator Selander came to his feet from behind his front-row desk. “I move that the Secretary of the Senate notify the managers on the part of the House of Representatives that the Senate is now organized for the purpose of proceeding to the trial of the impeachment of Douglass Dilman.”
The Chief Justice assented with a nod. “Since the rules of proceeding were adopted unanimously by the Senate yesterday, to the effect that the Senate is now organized as a separate and distinct court of judgment rather than as the Senate sitting in its legislative capacity, the Secretary of the Senate may now notify the managers of the House of Representatives that the Senate is ready to receive them.”
As the Secretary of the Senate, officious as a dapper Pekinese, hastened into the Priv
ate Lobby, and the Chief Justice pulled at his nose and then inspected his gavel, many members of the Senate fell to putting their heads together and consulting in whispers.
Nat Abrahams touched a wide-eyed, neatly dressed adolescent page boy on the shoulder. “Young man, I’m one of the attorneys for the President. Will you go to the Formal Office of the Vice-President where three of my colleagues are waiting—tell them, ‘Nat Abrahams says it’s time’—and you bring them right here. Do you know your way?”
“Yes, sir!” The page boy was off at a run.
When Abrahams gave his attention to the Chamber again, he saw that the five managers of the House had aligned themselves in a straight row before the bar. The Sergeant at Arms was once more standing, announcing the presence and readiness of the prosecuting managers of the House, and introducing them by name, one by one.
Narrowly, Nat Abrahams studied his opponents in this death struggle. The easiest to identify was their leader, Representative Zeke Miller, because of his semibald head, his cocky spread-legged stance and continually fidgeting fingers, and his customary showy attire, this afternoon an inappropriate (almost defiant) unseemly Glen plaid suit in shades of blue and green. To his right, more conservatively garmented, standing ramrod-straight, was the veteran Majority Leader of the House, Representative Harvey Wickland. Beside him, scratching a thigh, was the gawky, uneasy Minority Leader of the House, Representative John T. Hightower. Next to him stood the stunted, potbellied Representative Seymour Stockton, renowned for his drawling, long-winded oratory. Finally there was the boyish, intellectual, new-breed Southerner (“new-breed meaning they quote University of Virginia geneticists instead of Calhoun to prove Negroes are inferior,” one liberal newspaper had remarked), Representative Reverdy Adams, with his pyramid tuft of hair, thick sideburns, horn-rimmed glasses.
Nat Abrahams counted noses: two Southerners, one Easterner, one Northerner, one Westerner; three Protestants, one Catholic, one Mormon; five graduates of Law Schools who had become politicians and members of the House of Representatives. A formidable and colorful crew, Nat Abrahams decided, thinking of the President’s own managers who were, like himself, relatively staid.
There would be a problem here, Abrahams foresaw: since the Senate was not a usual courtroom, it would be more receptive to emotional argument and pleadings. The House managers had been schooled by countless campaigns to speak the Senate’s language, which was also the people’s language. Dilman’s managers possessed no elective political experience, and their legalistic pleadings might be considerably less effective. Nat Abrahams promised himself to remind Hart, Tuttle, and Priest that they had better incorporate into the wisdom of Blackstone some of the wisdom of such eminent American philosophers as Dale Carnegie, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bruce Barton, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Robert Ripley, and Artemus Ward.
He realized that Chief Justice Johnstone was speaking. “The managers of the impeachment on the part of the House of Representatives will please take the seats assigned to them.”
Led by Zeke Miller, the five opposition managers made their way to the chairs behind the oak table to the right of the rostrum at the far end. Of the group, only Representative Miller did not sit. Instead, he raised a hand to catch the Chief Justice’s eye.
“Mr. President of the Senate,” Miller called out, his voice highpitched, “we are instructed by the House of Representatives, as its managers, to state that since the Senate has already taken process against Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, that he now be made to appear at the bar of the Senate in his answer to the Articles of Impeachment heretofore preferred by the House of Representatives through its managers before the Senate.”
The Chief Justice plainly scowled. “Are you suggesting, Mr. Manager Miller, that the President of the United States be present to answer the Articles against him?”
“Mr. President of the Senate, I am suggesting that he appear in person, or have competent persons appear on his behalf, so that his trial may proceed with punctuality.”
“I am quite well acquainted with the proper procedure, Mr. Manager Miller,” said the Chief Justice, sniffing. He waited, while Miller shrugged and sat down. Johnstone then squinted at the rows of senators. “I have been informed that the President of the United States has retained competent counsel, and that counsel was duly sworn in at noon. I understand that the President’s counsel have been awaiting notification to appear. They are in the Vice-President’s suite attached to this wing of the Capitol. Will the Secretary of the Senate bring them before the bar?”
Seeing the Secretary of the Senate clamber down from his marble counter and start toward the doorway behind which he stood, Nat Abrahams nervously turned to seek his associates. He almost bumped into Felix Hart, directly behind him, as Priest and Tuttle quickly joined them.
“Okay, gentlemen,” said Abrahams, “what’s the look of the defense counselors to be—cheerful confidence? Remorseless concentration? Benign aloofness?”
“Unalleviated terror,” said Hart with a grin.
“Well, if you’re going to quake, Felix, restrict it to your boots, not your jowls. Set, Walter? You ready, Joel? Swell—”
Abrahams turned around just as the police and page boys parted for the hurrying Secretary of the Senate. He stopped short breathlessly at the sight of Abrahams.
“We couldn’t hold back,” Abrahams said with a smile. “We’re raring to go.”
The Secretary did not smile. He beckoned them with his hand. “This way, gentlemen.”
Nat Abrahams walked into the Senate, followed closely by Tuttle, then Priest, with Hart bringing up the rear. Abrahams directed his gaze to the back of his escort’s neck, trying to avoid any and all of the almost two thousand pairs of eyes following his progress past the senators at their desks. He came to a halt, arms stiffly at his sides, while his three colleagues formed a group around him.
The Secretary of the Senate announced the appearance of the defense managers, and identified each of them aloud by name. When he had finished and returned to his first-level chair, the Chief Justice squinted down at Abrahams.
“You are the authorized counsel retained by the President?”
“We are, Mr. Chief Justice,” replied Abrahams. He extracted a document from his left coat pocket, and unfolded it. “I have here, Mr. Chief Justice, President Dilman’s authority to enter his appearance which, with your permission, I shall read.”
“Proceed.”
Abrahams read aloud, “ ‘Mr. Chief Justice. I, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, having been served with a summons to appear before this honorable court, sitting as a court of impeachment, to answer certain Articles of Impeachment found and presented against me by the House of Representatives of the United States, do hereby enter my appearance by my counsel, Nathan Abrahams, Walter T. Tuttle, Joel B. Priest, and Felix Hart, who have my warrant and authority therefor, and who are instructed by me to ask of this honorable court that they fully represent me in this court of impeachment. Signed, Douglass Dilman.’ ”
Abrahams folded the document, handed it up to the Secretary of the Senate, who lifted himself from his seat to receive it and turn it over to Chief Justice Johnstone.
“The court stands so instructed,” said the Chief Justice. He gestured toward the vacant chairs and oak table to his left. “Will the managers of the President of the United States please take the seats assigned to them.”
As Abrahams and the other three promptly found their places, the fifth chair was quickly occupied by Leach, the perspiring White House stenotypist, who hoisted a weighty briefcase to the table, unstrapped it, and then shoved it toward Felix Hart. While Abrahams’ partner began to distribute legal papers, pads, pencils, Leach located a note in his breast pocket and passed it down the row. Tuttle handed it to Abrahams, who opened it.
The lettering at the top of the half sheet read The White House. Beneath it, hastily penned, was the following:
Dear Nat, Before going to work, I got down on m
y knees beside the Lincoln bed and I prayed for the Lord Almighty to join in judging our cause and our worth. I don’t know if He heard, but I was kind of loud, so maybe He did, or maybe St. Christopher did. Anyway, make yourself heard beyond the Senate Chamber, just on the chance He is Up There listening. Win or lose, you try for Heaven. But give them Hell. Your eternally grateful friend, Doug Dilman.
Tenderly, Nat Abrahams refolded the note and deposited it in his pocket. He would be heard loud and clear, he silently pledged, but first the traducers and haters would have to be heard.
Chief Justice Johnstone’s bass was booming across the Chamber. “The Senate is now sitting for the trial of the Articles of Impeachment. The House of Representatives and the President of the United States appear by counsel. The court is now prepared to hear the opening arguments.” He bent to his right and looked below. “Gentlemen managers of the House of Representatives, you will now proceed in support of the Articles of Impeachment. . . . Senators will please give their undivided attention. Proceed—proceed—Mr. Manager Miller.”
Had Zeke Miller dared to wear galluses and snap them before this dignified assembly, as he had often been pictured doing during campaigns in the Deep South, they could have been no more real than the illusion of them at this moment. He exuded humble folksiness, as he hooked his thumbs into his lapel buttonholes and came in short, uneven strides to center stage. His stained teeth were bared, and his thin lips curled in an attempt at a winning, self-deprecating smile, as he examined the faces of the expectant senators.
(1964) The Man Page 75
