Irving Wallace - The Man

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.”