Gore Vidal - Empire

Caroline expressed delight and wonder. She had always heard that Jefferson had had a number of children by a mulatto slave girl; no doubt, this was the descendant of one of them, passing, as perhaps they all did by now, for white. In any case, Caroline knew that she had at least one thing in common with Mr. Josiah J. (for Jefferson?) Vardeman: each was descended, literally, from a bastard. Now it was her task to have something else in common.

“I am interested, as my cousin has told you, in acquiring the Washington Tribune . I have developed a passion for newspapers…”

“Devilish expensive passion,” murmured Sanford, lighting a cigar. Caroline felt like a man; like a business man. This was life. She wished that she knew how to smoke! A cigarette smoked openly in a German restaurant would quite overshadow Mrs. Fish’s girlish capers at lofty Sherry’s. Mr. Vardeman, lineage forgotten, was watching her attentively. “There are,” she said, “five thousand shares in all, and all owned by you or your family,”

“Yes. It’s always been a family newspaper. First, Mr. Wallach owned it. Then he started up the Evening Star . I’m third generation of his family. A cadet branch,” he added, not knowing, Caroline decided, what the phrase meant.

Caroline took a deep breath; and inhaled her cousin’s cigar smoke. No, she would not take up cigarettes, she decided; she coughed once, and said: “I accept your offer of twenty-two dollars and fifty cents for each of the five thousand shares.” Next to her, Sanford coughed. She had taken him by surprise. But she had not taken herself by surprise. She had spent a lot of time in N Street, thinking. She was betting almost everything that she had on a single throw of the dice.

Mr. Vardeman stared at her, as if not certain whether he was being included in a particularly high-toned verbal game. Then, as she gave no signal that she was anything other than serious, he said, “What will you do with a newspaper, if I may ask? They’re not easy or cheap to run, as I can tell you firsthand. The Tribune loses money every issue. We’d have to close down if it weren’t for our printing shop, and all those visiting cards they make for everybody. Mr. Sanford’s told you about our books, I guess.” Mr. Vardeman had finished his stein of beer. At the bottom of the now-empty mug, Caroline noted the ominous legend “Stolen from Gerstenberg’s.”

“Indeed I have,” said Cousin John. “And there’s no doubt that the Tribune’s name is a great one in the city. But the Post and the Star have sewed up the town. What can anyone do to change that?” He looked at Vardeman, who looked at Caroline, who said, “I’m sure there are new things to be done. Who would have thought Mr. Hearst could have revived the New York Journal ?” This was a daring move, because for all that Caroline knew, Blaise and Hearst might already have been in correspondence with Vardeman. On the other hand, she had had tea with Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the sweetly stern mother of the most ambitious man in publishing, if not the United States, and Mrs. Hearst had said, “I have spent all that I intend on my son’s newspapers. I now want to spend money on educating young Americans.”

“So that they will be too clever to read your son’s newspapers?”

The old lady had looked, first, severe; then she had laughed. “I had not thought of that.” Then she had proceeded to speak longingly of California, and of a university at an exotic place called Palo Alto. What her son was doing for journalism, she would do for education. Plainly, mother and son would be forever at cross-purposes.

“Mr. Hearst’s people were down here a few months ago. They looked over the plant, the books, everything. They’re still very interested.” Vardeman’s attempt at selling was perfunctory. He did not expect anyone to pay the price he was asking for what was, essentially, a run-down printer’s shop.

“Do we have,” asked Caroline tentatively, “an agreement?”

Solemnly, Vardeman extended his hand across the table. Solemnly, Caroline shook it. “The Tribune ,” said the now former publisher, “is no longer a Wallach-Jefferson-Vardeman newspaper-after forty-two long, long years,” he added somewhat anti-climactically.

“It is now a Sanford newspaper.” Caroline felt a ringing in her ears which could be either victory, or nausea from too much cigar smoke.

Vardeman himself took her through the Tribune offices, in a three-story brick building with arched windows that looked out on the north side of Market Square, a curiously ill-defined, and hardly square, open area between Seventh and Ninth Streets on Pennsylvania Avenue. “A wonderful location,” said Vardeman, sincerely. “This is the heart of the commercial district, where all our advertisers are.”

“Or will be,” said Cousin John.

Caroline stood on the dirty stoop beneath the faded sign Washington Tribune and looked across the square, a riot of electrical and telephone wires, of turreted red brick modern buildings in the medieval style which she realized that Henry Adams, in his serenely ruthless way, was imposing on the capital city. To Caroline’s left the Center Market loomed, a combination of windowed exposition hall and Provençal cathedral, whose brick walls were the color of dried blood-Washington’s emblematic color, in which were set not stained-glass windows but dusty panes of conservatory glass. Here farmers from Virginia and Maryland brought their produce; and here in the vast interior, democracy reigned, with everyone buying and selling. Vardeman identified two banks in nearby C Street. “The one on the left held our mortgage,” he said. “But not any more.”

They entered a small waiting room, where no one waited. Dusty creaking stairs led to the offices and the newsroom, while a corridor, the length of the small building, led to the presses which were located in a converted stables at the back. Caroline could never get enough of the actual business of printing. Rolls of paper affected her rather the way bolts of silk affected Mrs. Jack Astor, while the smell of printer’s ink gave her not only an instant headache but, equally, swift delight. In a pleasurable haze, she met her new employees. The chief printer was the money-maker; and appropriately grave. He was German; spoke with an accent; came from the Palatinate. Caroline spoke German to him; and was certain that she had won his heart. Cousin John asked to see invoices; and lost the newly gained heart.

The editorial offices overlooked Market Place. The editor was a tall Southerner, with red hair and side-whiskers. “This is Mr. Trimble, the best editor in Washington, and a Washingtonian, too. Almost as much a native as the darkies,” Vardeman added; he was prone, Caroline had noticed, to mentioning darkies rather more often than was entirely necessary. “What,” asked Caroline, “ is a true native?”

“Oh, you’ve just got to be born here. I mean, you don’t have to be like Mr. Sanford’s Apgar relatives, who go back to the first day.” The voice was high but not unpleasant.

“Are there Washington Apgars?”

Cousin John nodded. “Apgars are everywhere. They outnumber everyone else because they marry everyone. Some of them came here in 1800, I think. They were in dry,” said Cousin John sadly, “goods.”

“My family came with General Jackson,” said Mr. Trimble. “You can always tell when us natives got here by our names. The Trimbles, like the Blairs, came with Jackson, and after we settled in, we never went home, any more than the Blairs did. Nobody goes back to Nashville if he can help it.”

“But the President-Jackson, that is-does, or did,” said Caroline, charmed by her new editor.