by Gore Vidal
“What speech was that?” Lucy’s blue eyes shifted from the blue-green Virginia shore to Burden’s imaginary straw.
“About the loan to England. Last month the President was told that without quick help from us, England could no longer support the pound. Fact, in twenty-four hours, they would have had to go off the gold standard, so I said to my fellow statesmen, who don’t much care for foreigners in general and the English in particular, if the pound goes, the dollar’s going to go, too, so we better prop them up, which we did, and which we’re still doing, thanks to Mr. McAdoo and his Liberty Loans, which are gathering up every spare dollar in the country.” The rhetoric of the Liberty Loan campaign—all Hunnish ghoulishness—had got on Burden’s nerves. Even a Republican hack like Harding had complained about it, to no avail.
“To your everlasting credit, Senator.” Mr. Law was slightly overdoing it, for England, of course.
Burden smiled. “Actually, it is to your everlasting debit. Anyway, we’ve got everybody’s money now, which is most satisfying.” He turned to Lucy. “Mr. Roosevelt’s sick. You ought to get him to a doctor.”
For the first time, she looked at Burden with interest. “You could tell?”
“From the way he’s sweating.”
“He says it’s just a sore throat. Yes, I’ll get him to a doctor when we’re ashore.”
“Will the Lever bill pass the Senate?” The diplomat did not believe that sore throats and fevers should be allowed to thwart diplomacy.
Burden nodded. “But we’ll cut it up a bit first.” The President had wanted to control the price and distribution of food; and he had chosen that successful mining engineer Herbert Hoover to be its director. But in a recalcitrant mood the Senate had made it a provision of the bill that a joint congressional committee on the war be set up, to monitor the President. The historian-president was quick to rally his troops in the Senate; and it was Burden who was now in the throes of eliminating Section 23 from the Lever bill.
“Your president has the most extraordinary powers, doesn’t he?” Mr. Law looked somewhat wistful.
“Only in war-time.”
“Then, if I were an ambitious president, I’d keep the country forever at war.”
“It couldn’t be done.” Burden was flat. “Our people don’t like war. Why should they? We’ve got all the space we need right here. All we want is open doors everywhere so we can go and do business. Any president who tried to get us into an unpopular war would soon be an ex-president. Look how hard it was for Wilson to get us into this one.” Burden realized that he had said too much.
Mr. Law looked at him as if he expected him to continue. But Burden was not about to place on Wilson responsibility for a war that he had done rather more than not to stay out of. “If Germany had not been so stupid and provocative, we might still be at peace and the pound sterling …”
“Fallen into the dust,” said Mr. Law.
“Your family’s from Washington, aren’t they?” Lucy diverted the conversation.
Burden nodded. “Part of them. The part that stayed on in the District while my branch went west. I lived for a time with relatives here, when we lost our farm in the panic.” Comfortably, they sank into genealogy, which meant Burden’s connection with the ubiquitous Apgar clan. Lucy, too, was connected to them by marriage, as was Caroline, as was everyone that was worthy from Albany to New York City to Washington, D.C. Burden stared into Lucy’s beautiful eyes and felt a sudden pang, a need to be loved yet again by a girl, not necessarily one who was Catholic, complicated and, probably, virginal. But he must start again, soon. In three years, he would be fifty and at the end of anything remotely like youth. There was Caroline still, but that was known country. Also, with time, she had shown her true nature, which was that not of a wife or lover but of sister and friend. He valued her, but she was not what he now furiously craved, skin, flesh.
Franklin joined them, pale in the heat but supremely jaunty. “The Lock Tavern Club,” he announced. “For a late lunch on the pier. With a sunset.” As the large hand rested idly on Lucy’s shoulder, Burden realized that the two were in love, and he was not.
4
Blaise was also at sea; alone, too, if not in the least furious. Frederika had proved to be the best of all possible wives. She was present when needed and otherwise engaged when not. She was also uncommonly shrewd about people and Blaise was not. From Connecticut Avenue, they presided over the grand life of the capital, their paths intersecting with that of the other Mrs. Sanford, Caroline, who generally chose to emulate the Henry Adams circle, now reduced to Adams himself and a handful of what he called “nieces.”
“At least there is air to breathe.” Blaise turned and saw Mrs. Wilson, in a fresh nautical sort of gown, looking much refreshed. The presidential party had gone aboard the Mayflower just before noon, when all the air had been burned away by a bronze disk of a sun. The President had been unusually subdued. Mrs. Wilson had been flushed and somewhat breathless, while a number of her relatives cooled themselves vigorously with palmetto fans and murmured to one another in their soft Southern accents. The Mayflower was headed toward Chesapeake Bay and, thanks to war-time censorship, no one in Washington suspected that the President, defeated by the heat, had temporarily abandoned the capital.
“Do sit, Mr. Sanford.” Graciously, Edith indicated one of two chairs side by side on the stern. She took the other. “As far as I can tell this is about the only pleasure they allow the President, though I’d say this comes more under medical necessity than anything else. Not,” she was quick to add, “that he isn’t made of the purest iron. I do enjoy your sister.”
“And she you.” Blaise was equally quick at Washingtonese.
“We don’t see enough of her or of you and Mrs. Sanford. She’s in Newport?”
Blaise nodded. “I stay on to memorialize the government, and the war.”
Edith chuckled, a pleasant low sound. “I must say, on the one hand, there is nothing worse for a president than to have Congress in session all summer, making trouble, but then when you think of this terrible heat and some of those terrible men and their wives, I rejoice that they are stuck here with us.”
“Poor Cabot Lodge wanted so much to go to the North Shore, to be near Henry Adams at Beverly Farms …”
“Poor Cabot Lodge,” Edith took up the refrain as if they were part-singing. Then she started a new verse. “Beverly Farms,” and stopped. “Isn’t that the house Mr. Adams built … ?”
“With Mrs. Adams back in the seventies. After she died, he never went back, until now.”
“Of course it wasn’t murder, was it?” Edith looked suddenly eager, like a child about to be told a favorite story.
But Blaise could not satisfy her. “She killed herself, as far as anyone knows. She drank that stuff you develop photographs with. He’s never referred to her since, as far as I know. But then my sister is his great friend. He just tolerates me.”
“He doesn’t even know me.” But Edith did not seem distressed. Astride the world, it is possible to overlook any and every slight. From the beginning Blaise had been amused at how wholeheartedly Edith had taken to her royal estate, sprouting ever more orchids as well as ever more gracious, kindly, regal airs.
“Washington is not a city but a dozen villages,” observed Edith, as everyone who lived there sooner or later observed more than once. “And there are no connections between most of them.”
“Except for Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects all the villages to the White House.”
“That’s what I always thought. But it really isn’t true. We’re very isolated, you know.”
“The war …”
“Doesn’t help. But I think of the presidents as sort of ceremonial prisoners. And my village, the Galts and the Bollings and all the rest, hardly ever notice who’s in the White House. I must thank you, by the way, for your treatment of us, of the President. We don’t get to read much about us that’s pleasant nowadays.”
“Perhaps,
” Blaise remembered to smile, “censorship has something to do with it.”
“Mr. Creel is aboard. You told me you’d like to meet him. See? I never forget.” The smile was, as always, girlish and beguiling. Blaise thanked her. George Creel had suddenly appeared on the national scene in the wake of a storm of legislation, mostly inspired by the President, to establish control over every aspect of American life. Censorship of the press came under Mr. Creel, who had, in April, been designated chairman of the Committee of Public Information. Mr. Creel was a young journalist from the West. As a publisher, Blaise was extremely wary of how the various newly legislated powers of censorship might be used. In the first thrill of war and Hun-hatred, an Espionage Act had been passed, which made it possible to put in jail for twenty years, and to fine ten thousand dollars, anyone who conveyed “false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies.… Or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or … willfully obstructing recruiting or enlistment service.”
When this splendid annulment of the First Amendment became law the previous month, on June 15, Blaise had received direct word from William Randolph Hearst in New York that the law was specifically directed against the two of them. “Do something,” was the Chief’s injunction to his former disciple.
Edith rose, as George Creel, a youthful forty-year-old, appeared, straw hat set on the back of his head. In the presence of the sovereign lady, the hat was removed. Edith made the introductions, then said, “I must help the President with Colonel House’s latest reports. Oh, what a tangled web we weave …” she intoned, mysteriously, and vanished into the salon.
“Whose web?” asked Blaise, indicating for the younger man to sit. Blaise offered Creel a cigar, which he took.
“Colonel House. I suppose Mrs. Wilson thinks he’s been given too much of a free hand in Europe.” Creel put the straw hat back on. As this was news to Blaise, he affected boredom. “I’ve always thought he was just a message-bearer, a sort of courtier.”
“She would agree with you about the courtier.” Like so many energetic young men new to public life, George Creel could hold nothing back that might demonstrate in the most astounding way his own involvement in public affairs. “She thinks he says yes too often to the President.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“I try not to. Of course, I’ve only been in this job three months …”
“What is this job?”
Creel looked surprised. “Information. We try to give the good news about our side, and the bad news about the Huns. In a way, it’s like advertising, though the President doesn’t care for the word.”
Blaise nodded. Creel was now coming into focus. Blaise had expected a bumptious Midwestern journalist; instead, he was faced with a bumptious advertising man, a thinker in slogans, a perfect man for Hearst if not Blaise. “Who decided to abandon press conferences altogether?”
Creel looked away. “Well,” he said—lying?—“I saw no point to them in war-time. I mean, yes, our troops are now in France and, yes, they’ll fight when they’re ready, but what’s the point in not answering that question every time you meet the press? After all, he can’t talk about the military situation, and he won’t talk partisan politics, so why see the press at all? Except someone like you, sir, in a private way.”
“You have the power to shut down a newspaper or arrest an editor who might simply disapprove of the way the war’s being run …”
“That,” said Creel cautiously, “is the purpose of the law that Congress passed and the President must execute.”
“Could this mean the suspension of free speech?”
“In cases where national security so requires, yes. But I’m not the Czar.” Creel laughed without much joy. “I must work with the secretaries of State, War and Navy. Well, Mr. Lansing has already said that he doesn’t trust me because I’m a Socialist! So after one meeting with him, I gave up on the State Department. Now I work only with War and Navy. You know, I’ve already talked to your sister, Mrs. Sanford.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Senator Day arranged it. I told her that it would be a great thing if she were to serve ex officio on my committee.”
“And do what?” Blaise was not surprised that Caroline had told him nothing, since that was her way, but he was surprised that the country’s official censor and propagandist should be interested in her.
“I think the ladies can make all the difference. Look at the Liberty Loans. Mr. McAdoo’s going to get his two billion dollars, thanks to the way he’s been using movie people like Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin to sell the bonds, and important ladies all around the country to organize the sales, showing that women—at least those women—really believe in our democracy.”
“Which the suffragettes don’t?”
“I’ll say!” Creel blew a huge smoke ring at the Maryland shore. “They undermine the picture I want to paint of us as the first democracy in the world, fighting for other democracies everywhere.”
“But it’s not easy for us to claim to be a democracy if women can’t vote.” Blaise was serenely hypocritical. He liked neither votes for women nor democracy.
“So,” Creel beamed, “thank God for Mary Pickford! I’ve asked Mrs. Sanford to go west. To Hollywood. To influence the motion-picture business. I work pretty well with Pathé News. Fact, with all the news-reel companies. But most of those companies are in the East. Problem is, I’ve got no one out there where just about all the photo-plays are being made. So Mrs. Sanford said that she might go out and see what she could do for the cause.”
The ancient competitiveness between half-brother and half-sister now reasserted itself. “What can she do when she doesn’t know any of the movie people?”
“But they all know her. They know the Trib. That’s what matters. Besides, she did meet Mary Pickford the same time I did in New York at that Liberty Bond rally where the stars raised a million dollars in—what was it?—an hour.”
“So she will organize bond rallies …”
“No, sir. She will persuade—as my representative—Hollywood to make pro-American, pro-Allies photo-plays …”
“Which means anti-German …”
“Yes!” Creel’s eyes shone. “The audience for the movies is the largest there is for anything in the world. So if we can influence what Hollywood produces, we can control world opinion. Hollywood is the key to just about everything.”
The lunch with the President was something of an anticlimax after Creel’s revelations. A half-dozen of Edith’s relatives, all named Boiling, and several naval aides took their seats in no especial order, while the President presided at one end of the table and Edith at the other. “You sit here,” she had said to Blaise.
The President now seemed in better health and spirits than Blaise had seen him for some time. “I think any place is better to be than Washington,” Wilson observed; then the sudden surprisingly attractive smile. “The only real pleasure for me is knowing that Congress will be in session straight through the summer.” He looked at Blaise. “And without, thanks to Senator Day, Section 23 to harass me with.”
“We’ll have wine,” Edith said in a low voice to the steward.
“But no one is to tell Mr. Daniels.” Wilson’s hearing was acute. “Actually, Mr. Daniels is turning into quite a sea-dog.” Wilson’s long nose twitched, a premonitory sign of amusement. “Not long ago he was seated one evening aboard a battleship, talking to the admiral, when the officer of the day came to make his report to his superior. The officer stood at attention and said the usual—‘I wish to report, sir, that all is secure.’ So the admiral turned to his superior, the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Daniels, who simply stared at him until, finally, he realized that he was supposed to say something. So Mr. Daniels gave a great smile and said, ‘Well, I declare!’ ” W
ilson mimicked perfectly Daniels’s deep Southern accent. “ ‘That’s just fine! I’m mighty glad to hear it. Mighty glad.’ ” The laughter was genuine. Blaise, who had been several times to the theater with the President, was quite aware of the great man’s incongruous skill as a vaudevillian, mimic and not inexpert tap-dancer. One evening, while courting Edith, he had been seen tap-dancing across Pennsylvania Avenue, singing “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.”
The great big beautiful doll herself helped herself to lobster, and said, “You know, as a boy, Mr. Wilson always wanted to go to Annapolis. He has a real affinity for the sea, which I don’t. When we were in rough water last year, off Long Island, I was so ill that I took down a bottle of brandy from the cupboard just as the boat hit a wave and I fell to the floor—or deck, as we’re supposed to call it. Mr. Grayson found me, on my back, green of face, a brandy bottle clutched to my bosom.”
“A rare sight,” said Blaise, who had taken a liking to both Wilsons, to his own surprise as he was a Republican who would have preferred Elihu Root as president, over-qualified for the post as that brilliant man was. But Wilson was agreeably intelligent; and his first term had been remarkably successful. Now, like the world, he was on an uncharted sea.
“Is it true that Senator Lodge has said that Mr. Wilson is the second-worst president, after Buchanan?”
“He’s never said it to me.” Blaise was tactful. Lodge’s intemperate tongue had caused Henry Adams, at his own table, to shout, “Cabot, I will not allow treason to be spoken in my house.”
“If he did,” Edith was bland, “I shall begin to study the Administration of Mr. Buchanan, who must have had all sorts of virtues if Senator Lodge really hates him all that much.”
Blaise noted, yet again, that the President never mentioned politics at meal-time; also noted that a naval physician, an aide to Grayson, never took his eyes off Wilson, whose chronic dyspepsia had once threatened to make him an invalid.