Gore Vidal - Empire

The Ambassador said good-morning to Hay and left the room, carrying the medicine ball with him.

Roosevelt mopped his face with a handkerchief. “The Kaiser affects indifference.” He was very unlike his imitators when he was at work; and there was now a great deal to be done. “You have the telegram?”

Hay gave him the draft which he and Adee had just completed. Four days earlier, a junta had declared Panama independent of Colombia. The arrival, the previous day, November 2, 1903, of the USS Nashville , Boston and Dixie had inhibited the Colombians, who might, otherwise, have put down the insurrection. The presence of the American Navy had been necessary, according to the President, because American citizens might have come to harm during the course of a revolution, which had not, as of November 2, taken place. Neither Roosevelt nor Hay had been particularly pleased with their somewhat hollow explanation, but the thing had turned out marvellously well. The revolution, which had started November 3, ended on the fourth, when the Republic of Panama was proclaimed, and now, on the sixth, the United States was preparing to recognize this splendid addition to the concert of nations, freed at least from Colombian bondage.

“ ‘The people of Panama,’ ” read the President, in a grave voice, “ ‘have, by an apparently unanimous movement,’ I like that, John, ‘dissolved their political connection with the Republic of Colombia…’ Very like Jefferson, that.”

“You flatter me.”

“It’s better than these jackrabbits deserve.” Roosevelt read the rest of the telegram quickly; then gave it back to Hay. “Send it.”

“I’m also drawing up a treaty for the canal, which we should get signed before the end of the month. Then, if Cabot allows the Senate to ratify…”

“Cabot will call for a voice vote, and his own voice will be the loudest.” Roosevelt was plainly delighted. “There were casualties, after all,” he said. “Root just sent over a message. One dog was killed, and one Chinaman.” With a laugh, the President settled into his chair. Hay also sat, not with a laugh but a groan.

“The terms for Panama will not be the best, of course…” Hay wondered how much pain the body could take before death provided anesthesia.

“They are independent, aren’t they? Well, we made that possible. So we deserve something, I’d say.”

“I’m thinking of next year.”

Roosevelt nodded; and frowned, as he always did when he contemplated his reelection or, to be precise, his first election to the presidency. “Well, the anti-imperialists can’t really fault us. We must have a canal, and it has to be somewhere along the isthmus.”

“But it could have been in Nicaragua, with no fuss, no fleet, no dead dog or Chinaman; no hint, shall we say, of collusion, between us and the Panamanian junta.”

“Of course there was collusion.” Roosevelt pounded left fist into right hand. “We are for free people everywhere, and against foolish and homicidal corruptionists of the sort that govern Colombia…”

“… and now Panama.”

“You have never favored the canal, have you?”

Hay often forgot that under all the noise, the President was both shrewd and watchful. “I’ve always thought,” said Hay, “that the railroads could do the job quite as well as a canal, which will be difficult and expensive not only to build but troublesome-in the future, anyway-politically. Yes,” Hay added before the President could taunt him, “I’m a large investor in the railroads, but that’s not to the point.”

Idly, Roosevelt spun the globe of the world beside his desk. “The point, John, is that we have done something useful for our country. Our fleets can go back and forth, quickly, between Atlantic and Pacific.”

“You see a future so filled with war?” Hay wished, suddenly, that he had not allowed the President to talk him out of the July resignation.

“Yes, I do.” The high harsh voice was suddenly low and almost, for its owner, mellifluous. “I also see our own mission, which is to lead where once England led, but on a world scale…”

“All the world?”

“It could come to that. But so much depends on the sort of people we are, and continue to be.” He grimaced. “There is a weakness running through our people, a love of ease, a lack of courage…”

“You must continue your demonstrations, and inspire us.”

“That is exactly what I try to do.” Roosevelt was entirely serious. Hay thought of Henry Adams’s phrase, “the Dutch-American Napoleon.” Well, why not? How else is an empire to begin?

“And now, Mr. President, I shall provide the legal underpinnings to our latest acquisition.”

“The Attorney General has assured me that we must not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.” Roosevelt’s laughter was like that of a frenzied watchdog.

As Hay rose, the room appeared to be full of dark green smoke, through which small golden stars shone. For a moment, he thought that he was about to faint. But Theodore was now suddenly at his side, holding him up.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Yes.” The room was itself again. “I’m often faint when I get up too quickly. But the odd thing was-I thought I was in Mr. Lincoln’s office. You know, with its dark green walls, and the gold stars, one for every state, we used to say, that was trying to get away.”

Roosevelt walked Hay to the door, his thick arm firmly through the older man’s. “I see him sometimes.”

“The President?”

Roosevelt opened the door to his secretary’s office. “Yes. That is, imagine him vividly. It’s usually at night in the corridor, upstairs, at the far end…”

“The east end.” Hay nodded. “There was a water-cooler in the hall, outside his office. He would drink cup after cup of water.”

“I’ll look for that next time I see him. He is always sad.”

“There was a good deal to be sad about.”

“My problems are so slight compared to his. Curious, to measure oneself with him. I don’t think I’m immodest when I say I’m very much superior to most of the politicians of our time. But when I think of what greatness he had…” Roosevelt sighed, a most un-Rooseveltian sound. “You must get some rest, John.”

Hay nodded. “Once the treaty’s done, I’m going south.”

“Bully!” Roosevelt was again his own best imitation.

THE GREAT HOLLOW SOUND of metal striking the thick bole of a magnolia tree brought Caroline and Marguerite to the window of the Georgetown house. A motor car had, somehow, got from N Street onto the sidewalk and into the largest of Caroline’s two magnolias. At the wheel was Alice Roosevelt, a feathered hat now jammed over her implacable blue eyes, while at her side Marguerite Cassini, looking both beautiful and terrified, waved her hands in front of her, in a gesture which Caroline took to be, literally, the wringing of hands, something that only her own histrionic Marguerite ever did.

Caroline hurried into the street, where an elderly Negro man was working hard to open the door on Alice’s side of the car; it had jammed.

“The brakes!” Alice was accusing. “They don’t work. It’s your chauffeur’s fault.”

“It’s my fault, when Father finds out.” Marguerite got out of the car. Caroline helped the Negro to free the Republican Princess, who then shoved her hat back in place; leapt to the ground; thanked the Negro; and said, “Tell the police to take this bit of junk back to the Russian embassy, in Scott Circle. It is the ugliest house there. They can’t miss it.”

“My father-” Marguerite began.

“Your father? My father. That’s the problem. He wouldn’t let me buy a car, you know.” Alice led Caroline into her own house, while Marguerite Cassini gave the Negro elaborate instructions. “I can’t fathom him. There are times when he seems to be living in another century. I had picked out this splendid roadster. Too killing. And he said, no. Never. Women are not to drive, or smoke, or vote. I agree on the vote, of course. It will just double the same old vote. Even so… What’s it like, being married?”