Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  “Don’t bother to try to control this mob of two-bit would-be storm troopers, Mr. Speaker,” he said scornfully. “This is the New Day and this apparently is how it’s going to be from now on in our national life. We might as well get used to it. I fear for America because of it, but apparently they don’t. So let them howl down opinions they don’t like, if they really think that’s worthy of what used to be a great Republic—if they really think that’s the way to make themselves safe, when the day comes that somebody doesn’t like their opinions.… Now,” he went on more calmly into a sulky but subdued silence, “there is an obligation resting on this House, in my estimation, and that is for us to do whatever we can to help this President extricate himself and us from the situation we find ourselves in—the situation, to state it truthfully because God knows I didn’t do it—that he got us into. And how can we do that?

  “We can do it, it seems to me, by first of all passing a resolution stating most strongly the position of the House that we do not agree in toto with the President’s policies but that we support him 100 per cent in his efforts to repel this unprovoked vicious Soviet aggression—” There came again the rumble of disagreement through the chamber and with a sudden blaze of anger he snapped, “For God’s sake, what do you call it? What is your fancy term? What is your rationale, if it isn’t aggression? By God, I think there is insanity in this House and in this nation today, to try to excuse and cover over such inexcusable acts of naked aggression! How can you do it and still hope to have this nation survive?” And now they were shouting, many members were on their feet trying to get the floor. In the galleries the black-jacketed knights of NAWAC were standing, booing, gesticulating angrily at the stubborn old man who glared up at them, unimpressed and unafraid, from the well of the House.

  “Yes!” he cried into the uproar, and some last vestige of respect quieted them long enough to hear his final words. “Look at them and listen to them, my fellow countrymen! Here they are on this floor, and there they are in the galleries, these Americans who would give up their own country because they don’t have the guts to defend her! Listen to them rationalize, listen to them pussyfoot, listen to them tiptoe and hide and evade and duck out from under the burden history has put upon them! Listen to them howl down dissent! It is all they can do in a crisis, Mr. Speaker. It is all they have left.…

  “Mr. Speaker,” he said when the uproar had ended as suddenly as it began, as though someone somewhere had turned a switch, “I will not proceed further with this, because it is obvious the House has made up its mind. But I will say this: I was Speaker of this House for more than a decade. I have but lately been the President of the United States. I say to you most solemnly that unless the policies of the new President are reversed, unless he moves drastically and at once to restore America’s position in the world, then this Republic is lost and all our liberties will very rapidly be lost with it. And once this process has begun,” he said into the skeptical and mocking laughter that greeted this most time-worn and hysterical cliché of America’s doom-saying conservatives, “it will proceed far more swiftly, my scornful, all-knowing and self-confident ones, than you can possibly imagine.…

  “President Jason at this hour is a confused, uncertain and desperately frightened man. He has been handed the worst challenge any new President has ever been handed. He needs a powerful Congress behind him. Not a Congress bemused and knocked off base like he is, but a tough-minded Congress that will help to push him in the way he has got to go to save the country.

  “If anybody has any doubt that I would provide tough leadership for a tough House,” he said, with a little smile and a brief return of something of his accustomed wry humor, “he hasn’t followed my career.…

  “This is a fundamental decision you are going to make here this afternoon, I say to the House. This time, I think, God has stopped being patient with America. This time we aren’t going to have the luxury of being able to take our own sweet time to reverse mistaken decisions. This time it’s now or never.”

  And raking galleries and floor with a last grim, challenging, unyielding look, he sat down amid the frantic applause of what an experienced ear told him was well under half the members of the House.

  And of course, Jawbone Swarthman thought as he jumped to his feet and strode down the aisle to the lectern on a wave of warm, appreciative, enthusiastic applause that drowned out Bill’s meager claque, uniting floor and galleries in a bond of welcoming brotherhood, how could it be otherwise? What made Bill think he could swing the House, particularly this new Ted Jason House, with that kind of antiquated, outworn, demagogic oratory? Bill, Jawbone realized with a sudden thrill, was all through—finished—kaput—out to pasture at last. And who should be waiting right here to take over but happy, excited, progressive, forward-lookin’, peace-lovin’ ole Jawbone hisse’f?

  Never, in all the months since he had reached the difficult decision that he would stay in the House instead of seeking the empty Senate seat of the late Seabright B. Cooley, had Jawbone been so absolutely certain that his decision had been right. Seab and a lot of other folks had always considered Jawbone something of a fool even if he did have a mind certified by Duke and Phi Beta Kappa to be bright as a pin. But he bet ole Seab wasn’t laughin’ at him from the grave right now, any more than ole Bill was laughin’ at him from the front row, there. Because Jawbone Swarthman had what it takes: he had the backing of the President. And that meant that Jawbone Swarthman, sure as God made little green apples and brand-new coattail-ridin’ freshmen Congressmen, was about to become Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. There wasn’t any way to stop him now. Not no way, no how.

  Secure and elated in this knowledge, he stood for a moment beaming and smiling as he leaned an arm comfortably on the lectern, surveying the House. He could see ole Bill lookin’ grim in front, and ’way toward the back he could see that young smart-aleck Hal Knox lookin’ dismayed, and there were quite a few others he remembered from past battles who had looked down on Jawbone Swarthman but weren’t lookin’ so superior now. This was his day and everybody knew it. But if they expected him to act the buffoon for them this time, they were downright mistaken. He knew that Bill, sensing his own defeat, was playing for a constituency far beyond the confines of this chamber. It was up to Jawbone, as the President’s man in the House, to play to the counterconstituency—the one which even now, although uncertain and frightened by the shattering events of the past twenty-four hours, was still desperately anxious to believe in, trust and follow Edward M. Jason. Jawbone’s task was one of reassurance. He intended to discharge it so that the President would know he had made no mistake when he sent the letter that made certain Jawbone’s imminent victory.

  “Mr. Acting Speaker, sir,” he began gravely, deliberately making his approach somewhat less cornpone than usual, “I’m sure everybody in this House loves and respects our former President and former Speaker—” there was a skeptical titter from somewhere in the back but he frowned and repeated firmly, “yes, sir, loves and respects our former President and former Speaker. And that’s why, Mr. Speaker, all of us here who have admired and followed him all these years can only feel sad, yes, sir, downright sad, when we hear him say the sort of things he has just said here today.”

  From the general area of the titter there came a spurt of approving applause, quickly joined by the galleries. Jawbone let his tone become more stern.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Speaker,” he said reprovingly, “downright sad and upset and per–turbed, that’s what we are. We just don’t see how any man who has held the highest office in the gift of this House, plus the highest office in the gift of this people—even though, Mr. Speaker, he of course didn’t get it as the gift of the people, like some have done, most recently our great new President, Edward M. Jason, he just got it in the line of succession—” this time the applause came as he wanted it to, quick, loud and spontaneous—“anyway, Mr. Speaker, we just don’t see how any man who has held these offices ca
n be so pinchin’ and minchin’ and yes, Mr. Speaker, downright sub–versive to the President of the United States. We just don’t see, Mr. Speaker.

  “Now, Mr. Speaker!” he cried with a sudden indignation, banging his hand sharply on the lectern while the ex-President studied him with a cold and ironic regard that didn’t faze him the least little bit, he told himself, not the least little bit, “what is he tryin’ to do to our great President? He’s tryin’, and I say deliberately tryin’, to weaken public faith and confidence in the President, that’s what he’s doin’. And I say it’s vicious, Mr. Speaker, right down vicious!

  “What’s he sayin’ to us here? Why, he says, he stayed with the President until four o’clock this morning, and how does he describe him to us? Why, he says he’s ‘a confused, uncertain and desperately frightened man.’ Yes, sir,” he cried as the dutiful boos began, “that’s what he says about our great President and I wrote it right down so I’d have it straight—‘a confused, uncertain and desperately frightened man.’ What a thing to say, Mr. Speaker! For shame, now, what a thing to say!

  “Supposin’ it were true, Mr. Speaker and I deny 100 per cent that it is, but just supposin’ it were—is that how to comfort and encourage the country, Mr. Speaker? Is that how to keep us calm when we got such big things worryin’ us as we got right this very minute, right out there ‘beyond our doors,’ as he puts it? Is that how to make us feel better and help us along, by tearin’ down our great President and tryin’ to picture him to the American people as some sort of weaklin’, Mr. Speaker, some sort of scaredy cat? That’s helpin’ America? For shame, I say again, for—shame!

  “He wasn’t the only one who was with the President until four o’clock, I’ll say to this House. Some of the rest of us were, too. I was there, Mr. Speaker! And I see another who was, too. The new Representative from the Third District of Illinois, that fine young man who is the son of his late great daddy, Mr. Harold H. Knox. No, wait a minute, now!” he exclaimed hastily as booing began. “Wait a minute, now, I want him to corroborate me in something here!” Obediently the booing stopped and a little tentative applause began. “I say to Congressman Knox, isn’t it true, now, that our great President was perfectly calm and perfectly steady this morning? Wasn’t he in complete command of everything, now? Your daddy wouldn’t lie about something like that and I don’t think you will, either! Isn’t that true about our President? I yield to the gentleman to tell me if I’m not tellin’ the truth to the House!”

  Hal looked white, tense and upset as he got to his feet and came forward a couple of paces to the nearest microphone. But he spoke in a steady and straightforward voice.

  “He impressed me at first as an extremely agitated man,” he said, and at once the hypersensitive booing began. His head came up sharply and a cold anger came into his tone. “Damn you,” he said flatly, “let me finish!… So were we all, Mr. Speaker—all agitated. Later, when he began to outline his plans for the message he has just sent to Moscow, it seemed to me that he became much calmer, almost serene. I do not know why,” he said dryly, “but that was my impression. Extremely agitated first—calmer later. Whether this was bravado or will power or real conviction, I have no way of knowing. Nor do I have any way of knowing how he really felt underneath. President Abbott has known him longer and more intimately than I have. He may be the better judge.”

  Again the booing came, puzzled, uncertain, annoyed at his lukewarm comment, as he smiled a quick, humorless smile and returned to his seat.

  “Very well, then, Mr. Speaker,” Jawbone cried indignantly, “if that is the best the gentleman can do for our great President, I thank him and wish him well for being so ungracious. I guess I have to ask you to just believe me, then, when I tell you President Jason was calm, confident, every inch the leader America elected him to be, Mr. Speaker. Yes, sir, just as calm and confident and every inch a leader as anyone could possibly wish! Do you believe me when I say that,” he demanded with an abrupt harshness, “or am I lyin’ to you?”

  “NO!” roared House and galleries.

  “You do believe me then, that he’s our calm and confident leader?”

  “YES!”

  “All right, then!” he said with an indignant satisfaction. “All right, then!… Now, Mr. Speaker, let me dispose of a couple of other things our beloved ex-Speaker and ex-President is tryin’ to do here, and then I’m through and we can vote on him or me, Mr. Speaker—him or me.

  “He says the President has failed already, Mr. Speaker, failed in the things he set out to do in his inaugural yesterday, and goin’ to fail in his message to the Soviet Union today. Well, has he failed? And is he goin’ to fail? Let’s see about that for a minute, members of the House, let’s just see about that.

  “Just because they’s a little group in Moscow doesn’t want peace and friendship with the U–nited States, does that mean Edward M. Jason is any less a fine and worthy man who wants to save the world from war and bring it peace, Mr. Speaker? Does that mean he’s any less to be admired for tryin’ to save mankind from all these horrors we’ve been sufferin’ through in recent years? Do you condemn him for what they did? How can you be so unfair, Mr. Speaker? How can you treat this great man like that?

  “Now, then, I grant you he’s received a little setback, Mr. Speaker. They’s a good-sized monkey wrench been thrown in by our friends in Moscow, Mr. Speaker, can’t nobody deny that. But, Mr. Speaker, that’s only some of our friends in Moscow, it isn’t all. And it doesn’t mean that if we proceed patiently and firmly and keep our goal of world peace every minute in mind, we can’t come out of this in good shape with everything right side up again.

  “That’s all he wants to do, Mr. Speaker, just take it easy—just keep calm—just be patient and give ’em a chance to come around and work it all out. Not with war, Mr. Speaker, because that isn’t what Edward M. Jason was elected to do—and elected by one of the biggest landslides in history, I’ll remind this House and the ex-President. He was elected to make peace, Mr. Speaker, and he’s tryin’. In the name of God, let’s give him a chance!”

  Excited applause, shouts, whistles endorsed him. He nodded his head vigorously, shot a quick look of satisfaction at William Abbott watching somberly in the front row, and plunged on.

  “The ex-President says this House should pass a resolution condemning the Soviet Union, Mr. Speaker. Talk about what was said at 4 a.m. this morning! You should have heard him, breathin’ fire and brimstone, sendin’ out ships and bombers and American boys, Mr. Speaker, yes, sir, American boys! God save this House from that sort of thing, Mr. Speaker! God give this House sense enough to keep hands off when our President is tryin’ to make peace! We elected him, now let him do the job! Keep this House off his back, Mr. Speaker! That’s our job! Keep this House off his back!”

  Again he was endorsed and again he tossed a triumphant look at Bill Abbott, whose expression did not change.

  “And finally, Mr. Speaker, what does the ex-President say when he gets a little feedback from these fine and honorable Americans sitting on this floor and in the galleries? When he finds his warlike ideas don’t have the support of this body or his countrymen? Why, he gets nasty, Mr. Speaker. He doesn’t believe in America’s right of dissent. He calls us a mob. He says we’re insane. He loses his temper and rants and raves, Mr. Speaker. I never thought I’d live to see the day,” he said with a sudden sorrow, “when Bill Abbott, my old, dear friend Bill Abbott, would talk like that to his fellow Americans, Mr. Speaker. I never thought he would say such terrible things to this House which has given him so much.

  “Mr. Speaker,” he concluded gravely, “I expect a lot of this here today is quite confusin’ to new members who have come here, elected in the first flush and idealism of their youth, elected in the traditional processes of this great democracy, elected to support a great President, only to find him attacked and degraded and have their own motivations and even their sanity questioned. I say to them: don’t you be dismayed, hear? This House has
a function all right, and it is a noble function and you have a noble part to play in it.

  “That function is to support what may well be the greatest President we’ve ever had as he attempts to lead this nation and this world to peace. Don’t be ashamed of that, I say to the House, and don’t be afraid to do it. He’s countin’ on you and America’s countin’ on you. Don’t you let ’em down, no matter what anybody says!”

  And with one last triumphant look at William Abbott, he left the lectern and returned to his seat halfway up the aisle as House and galleries again burst into prolonged and vociferous applause. In the midst of it the ex-President got to his feet. Instantly the applause changed to a heavy, hammering chant of VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! After a moment during which he turned and stared around the chamber as though he were seeing it for the first time and was appalled by what he saw, he sat down again.

  Now, in fact as well as assumption, it was Ted Jason’s Congress, and it was obvious that it would support him by overwhelming majority in whatever he found necessary to do.

  The thought was profoundly heartening at this moment, late in the evening of his first full day in office. He was busy with many things, for the machinery of the United States Government ground on in a thousand areas large and small, whatever outside crises might impend. But basically he was doing just one thing as he sat alone in the Oval Office going over studies, reports, proposals, problems: he was waiting for Moscow to reply to his message.

  And the clock had dragged slowly on from 9 p.m. … to 10 p.m. … to 11—and there was no reply.

  Nor, as the intelligence reports coming steadily up to him from the Situation Room indicated, was there any diminution in the harassment of withdrawing American troops in Gorotoland and Panama, or the steady outflow of Soviet naval and air power through all the arteries of the queasy globe.