Gore Vidal - Empire

At that moment the band struck up “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Roosevelt removed his hat and waved it like a plume. Under the Ohio banner, Senator Hanna fell back in his chair, and shut his eyes.

On Thursday, the matter was settled. Blaise had talked to Dawes, whom he found to be intelligent as well as charming, a rare combination in a professional courtier. “It’s no secret the President started out not wanting Roosevelt. Now he thinks it’s all for the best.”

From the press section, the convention floor was, suddenly, colorful as plumes of red, white and blue pampas grass were waved, worn, held. The Kansas delegation, wearing yellow silk sunflowers, demonstrated for Roosevelt. Then Lodge banged his gavel for order; and introduced Senator Foraker of Ohio, who proceeded with due pomp and collegial zeal to renominate for president William McKinley. A demonstration resulted. The band played “Rally ’Round the Flag” in memory of the Civil War, of the origins of the party itself and of Major McKinley. Afterward, there was silence, as Lodge took his place at the lectern, and the elegant voice sounded throughout the hall, “To second the nomination of President McKinley, the Governor of New York…”

With that, the hall was in eruption. Even Blaise found himself excited. Whoever had stage-managed Roosevelt was a master. Again the band played “There’ll be a Hot Time,” by now the anthem of the Spanish-American War. Rough Rider hat held high, the stout small near-sighted man raced down the corridor from his post beneath New York State’s banner and up the steps to the stage. Again, the ovation was fortissimo, and Roosevelt seemed to grow ever larger as the cheering filled him up, as hot air does a balloon. The teeth shone (the pain must somehow have been killed); the hat was held above his head like victor’s laurel.

Lodge, much moved, shook his hand and led him to the lectern. Roosevelt’s shrill voice resounded throughout the hall. He said nothing memorable; but he himself was memorable as… Blaise could not think what. Taken detail by detail, he was as absurd a creature as Blaise had ever met, but taken as the whole that was now being presented to the nation, he seemed all high-minded probity, fuelled by the purest energy; he was, literally, phenomenal. As Roosevelt seconded the nomination of McKinley, he himself seized the crown. At last he was at the center of the republic’s stage, and he would never again leave it, Blaise thought, suddenly conscious of history’s peculiar inexorableness. The speech was mercifully short. History does not enjoy too close an examination of its processes.

The roll-call of the states began. But there were so many cries to make unanimous the renomination of McKinley that Lodge, in a general storm of confused parliamentarianism, did precisely that, and Iowa jumped the gun and nominated Roosevelt for vice-president. There was more confusion. Finally, Lodge declared that Governor Roosevelt was indeed the unanimous choice of the convention for vice-presidential candidate, having received every vote save one. The Governor, in a paroxysm of modesty, had declined to cast a vote for himself. At that glorious moment, a huge stuffed elephant appeared in the hall, attended by waving red, white and blue pampas grass. History had been made.

As Blaise entered the Walton Hotel, Senator Platt was leaving, surrounded by members of the press. The Easy Boss was more than ever easy; and the ashen color of the weekend had been replaced by his normal pallor; but he moved stiffly, carefully, as though afraid he might break. “Are you pleased at Governor Roosevelt’s nomination?”

“Oh, yes. Yes,” murmured Platt.

“But, Senator, weren’t you for Woodruff?”

“We are all of us for the Republican Party,” said Platt gently. “And the full dinner pail.”

“The full what?”

“Dinner pail,” another reporter answered.

This must be, Blaise thought, a campaign phrase, to emphasize the new prosperity in the land, thanks to McKinley’s policy of expansion and, of course, high tariffs.

“Any other thoughts, Senator?”

“Naturally, I am glad,” said Platt, now at the door, “that we had our way.”

“What?” asked a journalist, affecting surprise. “I mean, who’s ‘we’?”

Platt covered himself smoothly. “The people have had their way.” The Senator disappeared through the door.

Blaise found Thorne in the bar, not yet crowded with delegates. The convention was still in session. The two men sat at a small round marble-topped table, more suitable for an ice-cream parlor;than a serious hotel bar-room. Blaise joined Thorne in whiskey, not his favorite drink. “I’ve already filed,” said Thorne, contentedly. “In fact, I filed this morning before the convention. The whole story.”

“You knew what would happen?”

Thorne nodded. “Easy to see it all coming. Now I’ve sent on the details. The Examiner’s going to have everything first. In the West, that is.”

“I just telephoned Mr. Brisbane. Then he makes it all up.”

“Same thing. Now Bryan will be renominated in July, and we’ll have the election of ’96 all over again. I can write that one in my sleep. Sixteen to one silver versus solid money…”

“What about imperialism?”

“The party of Lincoln,” said Thorne quickly, “has freed from the yoke of Spanish bondage ten million Filipinos.”

JOHN HAY SAT with the President in the Cabinet room.

Dawes had finished his report of the convention. McKinley was seated at his usual odd angle to the end of the Cabinet table, left elbow resting on the table, his legs, as always, off to the right and never under the table. He even wrote with his weight on his left elbow, his right arm crossing the considerable waistcoated paunch. He seemed to regard the entire seating arrangement as being, in some way, temporary. Hay occupied his usual Cabinet chair. Dawes sat across from them. Overhead, an electrical fan slowly stirred the humid air. To Dawes’s left the large globe of the world needed dusting. In fact, thought Hay glumly, the entire White House needed a thorough cleaning. It was curious how quickly in the absence of an energetic presidential wife the place took on the appearance of a politician’s somewhat sleazy clubhouse.

“I suppose, all in all,” said McKinley at last, “it was the hat that did it,”

Hay laughed inadvertently. The President could be mildly droll, but seldom humorous. “The acceptance hat, it was called.” Hay quoted a newspaper story.

“What’s the proper name for those Rough Rider hats?” McKinley seemed genuinely curious.

“I think they’re called sombreros,” said Dawes. “Teddy never took it off, the whole time. Except to wave it, of course.”

“A curious creature,” said McKinley, stretching his legs so that the great paunch, as large and round as the globe of the world itself, rested comfortably on his huge thighs. “I suppose we can live with him. Of course, we’re going to hear a lot about the bosses from Bryan.” McKinley frowned; removed his eyeglasses; rubbed his eyes.

“Mark Hanna’s taken the whole thing very well,” said Dawes, picking up rather too rapidly, thought Hay, on the President’s reference to Platt and Quay.

“He’s poorly, I think. He’s a bad color. I worry about him. What did he say?” McKinley looked over his left shoulder at Dawes, who was nicely reflected in the glass of a mahogany credenza, containing documents that no one, as far as Hay could tell, had ever examined.

Dawes chuckled. “He said he was going along with the party, as always. But with Roosevelt as vice-president, it was your constitutional duty to survive the next four years, to save us from the wild man.”