Gore Vidal - Empire

“May I quote you, Governor?” Root’s killer’s smile gave Hay great joy.

“No, you may not, Mr. Root. I have enough troubles…”

“The Albany mansion is comfortable,” said the Admiral thoughtfully: plainly, housing was much on his mind.

“Perhaps you might want to be governor of New York,” Hay proposed, “when Colonel Roosevelt’s term ends, next year.”

“No. You see, I don’t like New York. I’m from Vermont.”

Hay changed the delicious subject. After all, the Admiral was a McKinley-made hero, and to tarnish him would, in the end, tarnish the Administration. “How long do you think it will take us to pacify the rebels in the Philippines?”

It was hard to tell whether or not the Admiral was smiling beneath the huge moustaches, like a snowdrift on his monumental face. “Forever, I suppose. You see, they hate us. And why not? We promised to free them, and then we didn’t. Now they are fighting us so that they can be free. It’s really quite simple.”

Roosevelt was very still in his self-control. “You do not regard Aguinaldo and his assassins as outlaws?”

Dewey looked at Roosevelt with something dangerously like contempt. “Aguinaldo was our ally against Spain. My ally. He’s a pretty smart fellow, and the Filipinos are a lot more capable of self-government than, say, the Cubans.”

“That,” said Root, “will be the position the Democrats take next year.”

“Damnable traitors!” Roosevelt exploded.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s quite right.” Dewey was mild. “There’s a lot to be said for good sense, Governor.”

Adee was again at the door. “Admiral Dewey, the reporters are waiting for you in the Secretary’s office.”

“Thank you.” Dewey turned to Roosevelt. “So you agree with me that when it comes to the presidency we just bide our time until the nation calls?”

A strangled cry was Roosevelt’s only response. Smiling graciously, Admiral Dewey bade the three men of state a grave farewell. When the door shut behind him, Hay and Root broke into undecorous laughter; and Roosevelt slammed Hay’s desk three times with the palm of his right hand. “The greatest booby that ever sailed the seven seas,” he pronounced at last.

“I’m told that Nelson was also a fool.” Hay was judicious; and highly pleased that he had witnessed Theodore’s embarrassment, for he had, from the beginning, taken full credit for Dewey’s career and famous victory.

“Let’s hope,” said Root, mildly disturbed, “he’ll keep quiet about the Philippines in front of the press. Let’s also,” he smiled sweetly, “hope that he remembers to tell them about that house.”

“The man’s mad.” Roosevelt was emphatic. “I hadn’t realized it. Of course, he’s old.”

“He’s my age,” said Hay gently.

“Exactly!” boomed Roosevelt, not listening.

“At the moment,” said Root, “Dewey could probably have the Democratic nomination.”

“And McKinley would win again,” said Roosevelt. “I am not, by the way, gentlemen, at all interested in the vice-presidential nomination next year. If nominated, I warn you, I won’t accept.”

“Dear Theodore,” Root’s smile glittered like sun on Arctic ice, “no one has even considered you as a candidate because-isn’t it plain?-you are not qualified.”

That does it, thought Hay, Theodore will bolt the party and we shall lose New York.

But Roosevelt took this solid blow stolidly. “I’m aware,” he said, quietly, for him, “that I am considered to be too young, not to mention too much a reformer for the likes of Mark Hanna-”

“Governor, no one fears you as a reformer.” Root was inexorable. “ ‘Reform’ is a word for journalists to use, and the editor of The Nation to believe in. But it’s not a word that practical politicians need take seriously.”

“Mr. Root,” the voice had attained now its highest register, “you cannot deny that I have the bosses on the run in New York State, that I have-”

“You don’t have breakfast any more with Senator Platt. That’s true. But if you run again, you and Platt will work together again, as you always have, because you’re highly practical. Because you’re full of energy. Because you are admirable.” Root’s fame as a lawyer rested on an ability to pile up evidence-or rhetoric-and then, to his opponent’s consternation, turn all of it against the point that he appeared to be making. “I take it for granted that you must be president one day. But today is not the day, nor even tomorrow, because of your passion for the word ‘reform.’ On the other hand, the day that you cease to use that terrible word, so revolting to every good American, you will find that the glittering thing will drop-like heavenly manna-into your waiting lap. But, for now, we live in the age of McKinley. He has given us an empire. You-you,” if air could bleed, Root’s razor-like smile would now so have cut it that there would be only a crimson screen between him and the stunned Roosevelt, “you have given us moments of great joy, ‘Alone in Cuba,’ as Mr. Dooley expressed it, referring to your book on the late war. You also gave us Admiral Dewey, a gift to the nation we shall never cease to honor you for-or let the nation forget. You say unpleasant things about arrogant corporations, whose legal counsel I happen to be. And I thrill at your fierce words. You have been inspiring in your commentaries on the iniquities of the insurance companies. Oh, Theodore, you are a cornucopia of lovely things! But McKinley has given us half the islands of the Pacific and nearly all the islands of the Caribbean. No governor of New York can compete with that. McKinley, working closely with his God, has made us great. Your time will come, but not as vice-president to so great a man. It is also too soon to remove yourself from the active life of strenuous reformation, not to mention the vivacious private slaughter of animals. You must allow yourself to grow, to see points of view other than the simple, deeply held ones that you have evolved so sincerely and so publicly. Work upon understanding our great corporations, whose energy and ingenuity have brought us so much wealth…”

With a cry, Roosevelt turned to Hay. “I said it was a mistake to put a lawyer in the War Department, and a corporation lawyer at that…”

“What,” asked Root, innocently, “is wrong with a corporation lawyer? What, after all, was President Lincoln?”

“What indeed?” Hay was enjoying himself hugely. “Of course, Lincoln was just beginning to make money as a railroad lawyer when he was elected president, while you, Mr. Root, are the master lawyer of the age.”

“Do not,” whispered Root, with a delicate gesture of humility, “exaggerate.”

“Oh, you are both vile!” Roosevelt suddenly began to laugh. Although he had no humor at all, he had a certain gusto that eased relationships which might have proven otherwise to be too, his favorite word, strenuous. “Anyway, I don’t want the vice-presidency, which others, Mr. Root, want for me, starting with Senator Platt…”

Root nodded. “He will do anything to get you out of New York State.”

“Bully!” The small blue eyes, half-hidden by the plump cheeks, shone. “If Platt wants me out I must be a pretty good reformer.”

“Or simply tiresome.”

Roosevelt was now on his feet, marching, as to war, thought Hay. He never ceased to play-act. “I’m too young to spend four years listening to senators make fools of themselves. I also don’t have the money. I have children to pay for. On eight thousand dollars a year, I could never afford to entertain the way Morton and Hobart did.” At the mantel, he stopped; he turned to Hay. “How is Hobart?“