Gore Vidal - Empire

“Oh, no,” said Hearst mildly. “Unless we can tell them something they don’t know-like he’s going to annex the whole place, or burn down Manila…”

“A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight” sounded, unbidden, in Caroline’s head. With both amusement and awe, she watched as Hearst put a number of strips of text and squares of illustration on the floor and then got down on his knees and, like a child happy with a puzzle, began to create-no other word-the next day’s news. But news was not the right word. This was not news but entertainment for the masses. A murder at the bottom of the page began, inexorably, to move higher and higher up the page. A drawing of the murdered woman, idealized to a Madonna-esque purity, found its way to the page’s center while the President sank to the page’s bottom, and a statement by Secretary of State Hay moved to the third page. During this, the Willson girls practiced a new dance step at the far end of the room beneath a large drawing of the Yellow Kid, a cartoonist’s invention for the World which Hearst had appropriated for the Journal (along with the cartoonist), causing the aggrieved Mr. Pulitzer to engage a new creator of Yellow Kids and, in the process, giving the generic word “yellow” to popular journalism.

“The Chief’s amazing,” Blaise murmured in Caroline’s ear. “He’s like a painter.”

“But is it always murder first?” Caroline’s voice was low, but Hearst, now on all fours, heard her. “Rape’s better,” he said, “if you’ll forgive the word.”

The Willson girls shrieked with delight. Hearst received an enlarged headline from a copy-boy: “Murdered Woman Found!” He placed it above the Madonna face. “We also like a good fire.”

“And a good war,” said Mr. Abbott dutifully.

“Look,” said Blaise. On the wall opposite, beneath an American flag, the huge headline “ Journal’s War Won!”

“ Your war, Mr. Hearst?”

“Pretty much, Miss Sanford. McKinley and Hanna weren’t ever going to fight. So we got the war going so they’d have to…” Hearst sat on his heels, a strand of blond dull hair in one eye. “Mr. Abbott, wasn’t the murdered woman found nude?”

“Actually, no, Chief. She was wearing a sort of gingham dress…”

“Well, make that a slip… a torn slip.” Hearst smiled up at Caroline. “I hope this doesn’t shock you.”

“No. Blaise has prepared me.”

“Blaise has got a real knack for this.” The great man then started in on page two, with running commentary to Abbott, mostly asking for more pictures and large headlines; also, “We’re giving too much space to that dude Roosevelt. Remember. We’re for Van Wyck. And sound government, and all that.”

“You mean Tammany, Chief?” Abbott smiled.

“Platt’s better than Tammany any day. But Van Wyck’s our crook. Roosevelt’s theirs. But we’ll clean up this city one of these days.”

“Reform?” asked Caroline, who knew in theory what the word meant; knew, in practice, what it meant when applied to New York City’s politics; knew nothing of what the word meant to Hearst.

“Yes, Miss Sanford. The whole country, too. Bryan’s hopeless. McKinley’s just a front for old moneybags Hanna.” Hearst stood up. On the floor, his masterpiece: the front page for the next morning’s edition of the New York Journal . “So we need somebody new, clean.”

“That’s what they say Roosevelt is.” Blaise was cautious.

“He’s Platt’s candidate. How can Platt be reformed? Anyway, he’s going to lose. Mr. Abbott.” Hearst turned to the editor just as that more than ever weary figure was presenting the intricate mosaic of the front page to the printer.

“Yes, Chief.”

“I’ve decided on our next president.” Even the Willson girls stopped dancing when they heard this. Everyone looked very solemn; even Caroline was impressed.

“Yes, Chief?” The editor was imperturbable. “Who?”

“Admiral Dewey. Hero of Manila. ‘You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.’ That’s as good as ‘Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.’ ”

“But did Admiral Dewey really say those-those inspiring words?” Caroline was now caught up in the excitement of inventing history, not to mention of creating presidents.

“Well, we said he said it, and I suppose he probably did say something like it. Anyway, he hasn’t denied it, and that’s what matters. Besides, he beat the Spaniards and got us Manila. Do you know him?” Although Hearst was looking at Caroline, the question was to Abbott.

“No, Chief. But I suppose we could write or cable him and inquire…”

“Nothing in writing!” Hearst was firm. “Send someone to Manila, to sound him out. If he’s willing, we’ll nominate him to run against McKinley.”

“Is the Admiral a Democrat?” asked Blaise.

“Who cares? I’m sure he doesn’t.”

“But,” asked Caroline, “does he want to be president?”

“Oh, everyone does over here. That’s why we call ourselves a democracy. Fact, just about anyone can be president, particularly if the Journal promotes him right.”

“You, too?” Caroline was bold; despite Blaise’s evident dismay.

But Hearst was bland. “Do you like Weber and Fields?”

“The shoemakers?” Caroline had heard the names before. “In Bond Street.”

The Willson girls giggled in harmonic unison. “No. Comedians. In vaudeville. I can’t get enough of them. We must take her with us sometime,” Hearst said to Blaise; then to Caroline, “Now get this. Weber and Fields are in this fancy French restaurant, and the waiter comes up after dinner and the waiter asks Weber if he wants a demitasse, and Weber says yes. Then the waiter asks Fields if he’d like a demitasse, too, and Fields says, ‘Yes,’ ” at this point Hearst began to laugh, “ ‘Yes, I’d like a demitasse, too, and,’ ” Hearst was now shaking with laughter while the Willson sisters clung to one another, giggling, “ ‘and I’d also like a cup of coffee.’ ” The office echoed with laughter; and Caroline assumed that her question had been dramatically answered.

Blaise drove her back to the Waldorf-Astoria; escorted her to the suite where old Marguerite, in her night-dress, greeted him with a cascade of pent-up French. “She will not learn English,” said Caroline, presenting Blaise with a new bottle of brandy, which he opened. As he filled a glass for each, Marguerite delivered herself of a tirade celebrating the beauties and comforts of Saint-Cloud-le-Duc as contrasted with the horrors of New York; then she went to bed.

Every vase in the Louis XVI sitting room was filled with chrysanthemums despite Marguerite’s piteous pleas that they be taken away, for, as the civilized world knows, chrysanthemums are flowers suited only to memorialize the dead. Although Caroline told her not to be superstitious, she herself was somewhat troubled by those memento mori . But she kept them where they were, all bronze and yellow, as a proof of her new unsuperstitious Americanism.

“Do you like the Chief?” Blaise sipped at his cognac. Caroline poured herself Vichy water.

“I don’t think I’d ever find him very easy to like. But he’s certainly fascinating to watch-to listen to. Is he so powerful?”

Blaise nodded. “He can really make someone president…”

“But he didn’t say some one. He said any one.”

“Well, he exaggerates at times.”

Caroline laughed. “At times? I should think that that’s his power. He exaggerates all the time.”

“It sells newspapers.”

“That’s all that he cares about?”

Blaise refused to be led into deeper waters. “As a publisher, yes. That’s what I want to be.”