Gore Vidal - Empire

As Blaise left the room, he heard, once again, the sly sing-song voice of the leprechaun. “And then we’ll be needing a governor all our own, once Teddy’s gone to Washington, a fine famous sort of man, Mr. Hearst, with whom we can do business.”

“I’m for reform, Croker.”

“Who isn’t? As autumn leaves fall and the first Tuesday in November, that precious gift of our brave forebears who fell at Bunker Hill, comes round, and we elect a new governor of this state-a reforming governor-why not William Randolph Hearst?”

Unfortunately, George shut the door before Blaise could hear the Chief’s reply to the siren’s song.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT WELCOMED Blaise heartily into his rail-road car, a somewhat shabby affair for the governor of so great a state, with dirty antimacassars on dirty green armchairs; and filled, for the most part, with aides, journalist friends, and the upright remains of Senator Platt, who seemed to have been dead for some time. The face was pale blue, in nice contrast with the white whiskers, while the upper torso beneath the frock-coat was encased in plaster, giving the effect not only of death but of advanced rigor mortis as well.

“Delighted you could come!” For once Roosevelt did not make three or even two words of “delighted.” He seemed uncharacteristically subdued, even nervous. With a sudden shake, the train started. Blaise and Roosevelt fell together against Senator Platt’s chair. From the chair came a soft cry. Blaise looked down and saw two accusing eyes set in a livid face, glaring up at them.

“Senator. Forgive me-us. The train…” Roosevelt stuttered apologies.

“My pills.” The voice was of a man dying. The pills were brought by a porter. The Senator took them, and sleep-opium, not death-claimed the Republican boss.

“He’s in great pain,” said Roosevelt, with some satisfaction. Then he frowned. “But so am I.” He tapped one of his huge teeth on which Blaise always expected to see engraved “RIP.” “Agony. No time to have it pulled either, with so many speeches to give. Wouldn’t do. Must suffer. I am simply a delegate-at-large, you know. I am not a candidate for vice-president. Why won’t people believe me?”

Blaise restrained himself from saying, “Because you’re lying.”

Roosevelt read his silence correctly. “No, I’m not being coy,” he said. “It’s a complicated business. There’s one thing being a true choice of all the people, and quite another being forced over a convention by,” from force of habit, he struck left hand with right fist, “the bosses.”

The boss of New York heard this; opened his drugged eyes; sneered slightly beneath his white moustache; and resumed his drugged sleep.

“Well, you’ve got Platt and Quay behind you,” Blaise began.

“What is a boss, finally, but someone led by the people?” This was a new variation. “They make judges and mayors and justices of the peace and-deals, yes. I know all that. But he,” Roosevelt lowered his voice and pointed to Platt, whose back was now to them, “didn’t want me for governor, and doesn’t want me for vice-president either, but the people push and push and so the bosses get out in front like… like?”

“Mirabeau.”

“Yes! The very man! When the mob was loose in the street, he said, I don’t know where they’re going but as their leader I must lead them, wherever it is, he said.”

“Or something like that,” Blaise murmured. But Roosevelt never heard what he did not want to hear. Blaise, however, forced him to explain why, if he was not a candidate, he should want to be in Philadelphia three days before the convention started; and Mark Hanna was out of town.

“Senator Lodge says I’m making a great mistake. He always says that, of course. No matter what anyone does.” Roosevelt swung a fat thigh over the arm of his chair. A waiter brought him tea. Blaise ordered coffee. Covertly, the other journalists watched Blaise, waiting for him to vacate the chair beside the Governor. But Roosevelt seemed to need the company of a gentleman at so delicate a moment in his history. Blaise got the impression that the Governor was not only nervous but undecided what to do. In effect, he was arriving at a convention controlled, in McKinley’s name, by his enemy Hanna. The Colonel was a national hero, but conventions were no respecters of popularity of the sort bestowed by a press so easily manipulated and its gullible readers.

Roosevelt acknowledged this. “I got the governorship on a hurrah, after Cuba. But how long can a hurrah last in politics?”

“With Admiral Dewey only a few months.”

“To have thrown all that away.” Roosevelt shook his head with wonder. “I captured one hill. He captured the world. Now they laugh at him, and that permanent victory arch of his is falling to pieces in Fifth Avenue. I just told the Mayor to tear it down. But he doesn’t-the Mayor-listen to me. Because I’m not a war hero any more. I’m just a hard-working governor, who’s taken on the trusts, the Whitneys, the insurance companies…” The Governor’s voice was now a high and, to Blaise, familiar drone. When there was a pause in the litany of brave achievement, Blaise surrendered his chair to the New York Sun , the Roosevelt paper.

Toward journey’s end, Platt opened his drug-dimmed eyes; saw Blaise; motioned for him to draw near. “Mr. Sanford, of the Roman Catholic Sanfords.” A smile’s shadow made hideous the corpse-like face. “How is Mr. Hearst?”

“Expanding, Senator.”

“In circulation? Weight? Politically? As chairman of all those clubs?”

“Into other cities. More newspapers.”

“Well, he knows papers.” Platt sat up even straighter and grimaced with pain.

“I wonder, sir, what you think of Senator Hanna’s support for Cornelius Bliss, as vice-president.”

“I think it shows what a damn fool Hanna is, and always has been.” Two marks of red, like thumb-imprints, appeared at the center of each ashen cheek. “What is Hanna but a stupid tradesman-a grocer? No, don’t quote me. Let me say it in the Senate first-or last. All Hanna knows how to do is raise money for McKinley. But he don’t know nothing about politics. Bliss, damn his eyes, is mine!” Twice, the religious Platt had sworn in Blaise’s presence. The opiates had had an effect; he was also feverish.

“Yours, sir?”

“Bliss is from New York. I am New York. Hanna is Ohio. How can he work for someone from my state?” Platt shut his eyes; and appeared to have fainted. The scarlet thumbprints faded to ash.

Roosevelt insisted that Blaise ride with him and his secretary in a carriage to the Walton. “You’ll be able to tell Mr. Hearst, firsthand, how I have not sought the nomination.” As Roosevelt spoke, he kept poking his head out the carriage window, smiling aimlessly at the crowds in Broad Street. But as no one expected a non-candidate to arrive so early, he was not, to his chagrin, noticed. The secretary sat between Blaise and the Governor, a round black box on his knees.

Blaise had never been in Philadelphia before. For him, the city was simply a stop on the railroad between Washington and New York. Curiously, he stared out the window, and thought that he was in some sort of Dutch or Rhineland city, all brick and neatness; but the people were unmistakably American. There were numerous Negroes, mostly poor; numerous whites, mostly well-to-do, in light summer clothes. Blaise, who was hatless, noted that almost every man wore a hard round straw hat to shield its owner from the near-tropical heat.

As the carriage stopped in front of the Walton, a considerable crowd had gathered, to watch the great men appear, as it were, on stage. There were all sorts of colored placards, among them eulogies to “Rough Rider Roosevelt.” But over all brooded the round smiling face of McKinley, like a kindly American Buddha.