Gore Vidal - Empire

“I think we’ll win, with three votes to spare.” Dawes had taken a notebook out of his pocket. Hay could see that it contained a list of senators with pluses and minuses and question marks next to each name.

“I think we’ll win it,” said Mr. Day. “Colonel Bryan’s changed a half-dozen votes for you folks.”

“You anarchists ain’t winning nothing today,” said Hanna; and, Hay noted, there was no twinkle in those dull red eyes. A buzzer sounded: a Senate roll-call. “I got to go join the animals. If anybody sees Hobart, tell him I’m looking for him.” Hanna waddled toward the Senate chamber.

Day looked after Hanna, with some distaste. “Personally, I wish Colonel Bryan had let the thing go hang.”

“And let Senator Gorman take over the party? No,” said Dawes, “that’s not in the cards. Bryan’s riding two horses just fine.”

Hay turned to Eddy. “I don’t seem to be needed, after all.”

Dawes took Hay’s arm, companionably. “Let’s go up in the gallery and watch the vote.” He turned to Day. “Come on, anarchist,” he said. “Now’s your chance to throw a bomb.”

Hay took his seat in the front row of the distinguished visitors’ gallery. Nearby, the press had filled up their section; while Washington’s ladies were out in force. As always, on such senatorial occasions, Hay was reminded of the bull-fights in Madrid. Admittedly, Washington’s ladies, all in winter furs, were not so vivid as Spanish women in summer, but there was the same excited focus on the arena-in this case, the Senate chamber beneath them.

A senior senator presided in the Vice-President’s chair, high on its dais. The roll-call was about to begin. Senators were now taking their seats opposite the dais. Hay’s presence had been noted. Graciously, he bowed to this one and to that, as this one and that waved or bowed to him; happily, he had no idea who anyone was. He was getting like the nearly blind Chief Justice Chase, who, toward the end of his life, had taken to greeting everyone with the same, solemn, studied joy on the ground that he did not want to offend anyone who might still see in him a potential president.

As the roll-call was being taken, Dawes chattered: “There’s a story going to break that we provoked those natives to attack us, but it won’t hit the papers till tomorrow, and by then it won’t make any difference.”

“No difference?” Mr. Day was not shy, Hay decided, mildly curious as to how a Bryan Democrat could be holding office in an administration which took very seriously the notion that to the victors belong the spoils. Naturally, Civil Service reform was dear to every progressive Republican heart; but office for the worthy was dearer. “Do you realize what a difference it will make if people find out that it was us who started trouble over there?”

“It meant no difference to the vote today, which is what matters. I’m also not saying we started it. I don’t know. It’s just a rumor.” Dawes turned to Day. “You folks have been getting nowhere with silver since they found all that gold in the Klondike, so now you’ve got to hit us with something new, like going into the empire business.”

“Are you related to my predecessor, Judge Day?” Hay found the young man personable, for an anarchist. From his accent he could have been from Indiana, too; in fact, he was not unlike, Hay thought, his own young self, only taller, stronger.

“No, sir. But I do know your son, Del.”

Hay was not surprised. As he himself saw Del so little nowadays, he had no idea whom his son saw. “Then tell me, what has become of him?”

“I think he’s in New York. I haven’t seen him since last month when he took me over to the White House, to play billiards, down in the cellar.”

Hay was truly startled. “In the cellar of the White House?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a terrible place, too. Slimy-like a dungeon. But there’s a billiard room where some of the staff meet…”

“And the President?”

“He looked in, while we were playing.”

Before Hay could unravel the secret life of his son and the President, Vice-President Hobart, now in his chair, entertained a motion from the floor that the peace treaty be, herewith, voted upon. As the senators answered with an aye or a nay when their names were called, Dawes would scribble in his notebook and mutter “Hell” or “Maria,” presumably “bad” and “good.” When the name Elkins was called, Dawes said, “Now we’ll see if your man Bryan’s done his work.” The whole chamber was still. Elkins was a Democrat; and an anti-imperialist. Elkins allowed the silence after his name to last as long as possible; then he shouted, “Aye!” Applause exploded in the gallery. Hobart, resembling an aged gray walrus, struck his gavel hard on his desk. While a familiar la-di-da voice intoned, “Bravo!”

Day turned to Dawes. “Well, Colonel Bryan’s gone and got you your empire.”

“ You don’t follow your leader?” asked Hay.

“I think he’s made a mistake. We have enough to do here at home without…”

But cheering had again filled the chamber: the necessary two-thirds vote had been achieved, with one vote to spare. The Senate had voted fifty-seven to twenty-seven to uphold the Administration’s peace treaty, and annex the Philippine Islands, now in rebellion against their newly legitimate, by act of Congress, masters.

“Hell and Maria!” shouted the delighted Dawes. “I must go tell the Major.”

Eddy helped Hay to his feet. Various dignitaries shook his hand, as if this had been his treaty rather than the President’s. At the foot of the gallery stairs, Lodge met Hay with the words: “We have done it.” Hay noted that Lodge looked distinctly unwell. “I have never in my life gone through such an ordeal.”

Hay gave him the praise that he wanted; and deserved. In the end, only two Republicans had voted against the treaty: Lodge’s colleague Hoar, who had somewhat startlingly offered to be beheaded in the Senate if that would stop the annexation, and Hale, the hereditary senator from Maine, who had kept his hard head, and said no. Otherwise, Hanna’s money and patronage, Bryan’s eloquence and smile, and Lodge’s perseverance had carried, just barely, the day. “The ship of state is in the open sea at last,” said Hay, bowing to left and right, as he and Lodge crossed the rotunda where Washington’s ladies now mingled with the weary proud legislators.

“Ship is the right image,” said Lodge, somewhat grimly. “And I’ve just spent a month in the engine room…”

“The cloakrooms of the Senate.”

“Exactly. I’m caked with grime.”

At that moment, as if to emphasize the nature of the grime, a tall burly youthful man, surrounded by admirers, all simple Western folk, passed them without a glance, or a pause in his tirade: “I never thought I’d live to see the day when any man dare try to give, openly and in broad daylight, a bribe to a United States senator so as to get him to change his vote.”

“Who,” asked Hay, “was that?”

“The honorable senator from Idaho, Mr. Heitfeld, who in a well-run world would be, at this moment, planting wheat back home.”

“Not, dear Cabot, in Idaho, in February. Was he offered a bribe?”

Lodge shrugged. “Not by me. But Hanna’s been from one end of the cloakroom to the other, whispering. Bryan, too. So who knows? Anyway, all that matters is that the ship is now full speed ahead. We are on the high seas at last, Mr. Hay. What England was, we are now, as of today. Asia is ours.”

“Well, not yet.” They were outside the Capitol. The sky was black; a cold wind blew. Fortunately, the Secretary of State took precedence over everyone but Vice-President and Speaker; and in no time at all, the State Department carriage creaked and rattled to a halt, at the head of a long line of carriages, their waiting horses blanketed against the cold. Hay completed the nautical image. “Let’s hope the barometer’s not falling, now that we’re on the high seas.”