Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  George opened the door. “Well, it’s home now, Mr. Blaise,” he said. “Practically a palace, I’d say, from the number of rooms I have to look after.”

  Blaise followed George up a flight of mahogany steps to a baronial panelled sitting room filled with crates of unopened art or “art,” while the walls were covered with paintings and tapestries and, sometimes, paintings supported by nails impatiently driven though ancient Aubusson and Gobelins tapestries. Egyptian mummy cases and statues were scattered about the room, like a newly opened pharaonic tomb, loot from the Chief’s winter on the Nile.

  The Chief himself stood in front of a large map of the United States, with numerous red pins in it. Like George, he was in shirt-sleeves. Also, like George, he was somewhat larger than he had been at the Worth House. Otherwise, he was unchanged. He was still loyal to the Willson girls, but not ready to marry. For company, he currently allowed his editor, the courtly Arthur Brisbane, to live in the house. Brisbane reminded Blaise of a somewhat obsequious tutor to a somewhat dim rich boy.

  “National Association of Democrat Clubs. Where they are. Each red pin is one club.” The Chief explained either too much or too little.

  “And you’re the chairman.”

  “I’m the chairman. I don’t know.” Hearst fell onto a sofa and kicked off his shoes: the socks were striped mauve and yellow. “It looks like Chicago,” he said at last.

  “For the Democratic Convention?”

  “Newspapers, too. I agreed. The Chicago Evening American. I like the word ‘American.’ For a paper.”

  “What about ‘Evening’?” Blaise sat in an armchair next to a life-size sphinx, assuming that in life sphinxes were the same size as chorus girls.

  “You may have to start with ‘evening.’ Then you sneak up on ‘morning.’ Takes time. I think I’ve made a joke. By accident. How’s your French lady?” Hearst could never remember any French names.

  “In France. Where French ladies live.”

  “She’s very well-dressed,” said the Chief thoughtfully. “The girls like her clothes a lot. And her, too,” he added, staring at the mummy case, which, Blaise hoped, did not remind the Chief too much of his mistress.

  “Who did you agree with?”

  “About what? Brisbane says that mummy case is a fake, but how would he know?”

  Blaise let Brisbane slip by. “About starting a paper in Chicago.”

  “The Democratic National Committee. They said they won’t have a chance this year without a Chicago paper, so after they made me chairman of all those clubs—all across the country, see? Three million members.” He waved his hand at the map. This was to be his power-base within the party. “So I said I’d start up a paper. First issue is July second, two days before the Democratic Convention. Bryan is going to start up the presses.”

  “Bryan’s the nominee?”

  The Chief grunted. “I’m not,” he said, neutrally. “This is going to cost a lot.” From under the sofa he pulled out the dusty banjo. He ran his thumb across the strings; in defiance of the law of averages, each was out of tune. Happily, Hearst did not try to play.

  Blaise prepared himself for what he knew was the Chief’s next move. But Hearst did not make the expected move. “Mother’s luck is better than Father’s ever was,” he said. “She’s in on the Homestead Mine. South Dakota Gold. They’re making six million dollars a year now and she’s chief shareholder.”

  “That takes care of money.” Blaise was, momentarily, relieved.

  “That could. Croker’s on his way here. He’s got Tammany lined up for Bryan. That’s the city. I’ll get him the rest of the state.”

  “Do you want Bryan?”

  “Can’t stop him. But he’s promised to go easy on silver. He owes me a lot. You’ll come in on Chicago?” That was the way that Hearst got Blaise to invest. Although Hearst maintained full ownership of all his papers, he was obliged to take out personal loans, involving pieces of paper which were, in effect, IOUs. The idea of sharing a newspaper—or power—with anyone was unthinkable. The detail about the Homestead Mine was to remind Blaise that Mrs. Hearst would always bail out her son. According to Hearst’s man of business, Solomon Carvalho, Mrs. Hearst’s fortune was now larger than the one that her husband had left her. Luck was a Hearst family friend.

  “I suppose so. I’ll talk to Carvalho.” Blaise preferred to do business with businessmen and not with—but what was the Chief? A visionary? Hardly. More an innovator, entrepreneur, fact of nature.

  “You do that. How’s the Washington paper?”

  “My sister hangs on.”

  “She can’t forever.”

  “John McLean has said he’ll stake her if she ever needs money, to keep you out of town.”

  Hearst’s thin mouth ceased to be a mouth; a thin fissure now split the white face. “I’ll buy the Post one day. To keep McLean out of town. He wants it. But old Wilkins won’t sell to him. He will to me.”

  Blaise both admired and deplored the Chief’s certainty that, in time, he would have everything that he had ever wanted. “I’m looking at the Baltimore Examiner.”

  “Not bad,” said Hearst. “Cheap. Potential for growth.” He echoed, unconsciously, Carvalho’s businessman’s talk. “They need it—or they could need it—in Washington.”

  George announced Mr. Richard Croker, lord of Tammany and the Democratic equivalent of Senator Platt, with whom he was never too proud to do business. In fact, the Irish-born Croker regarded himself as nothing more than a simple businessman who, for a fee, would work with any other businessman. He controlled the politics of the city. He enjoyed the company and even the friendship of the magnates of the Democratic Party, particularly William C. Whitney. But then each kept stables, and raced horses. Croker had stud farms not only in New York State but in England. He was an impressive figure, all gray from hair and beard to expensive English tweeds.

  Croker shook Hearst’s hand as languidly as Hearst shook his; then he shook Blaise’s hand vigorously. Blaise was somewhat awed by this street youth who had risen so high. He had begun as a henchman of the infamous Boss Tweed, in whose behalf he might or might not have murdered a man on a long-ago election day. The jury—twelve bad men and false—had been unable to make up its mind; and so he was allowed to go free; and rise. “I seen my opportunities,” he would say of his long career, “and I took ’em.” He took “clean graft,” money for city contracts. Dirty graft was the sort of thing that the police went in for, extorting protection money from saloon-keepers and prostitutes. Although Croker highly disapproved of dirty graft and never touched it himself, he had once said, almost plaintively, to Blaise, “We’ve got to put up with a certain amount. It’s only common justice. After all, the police see us doing all this good business, and then they see the Astors making all that money out of all those tenements, and breaking every law, which, Heaven forgive us, we let them do because we do business with the Four Hundred like everyone else who’s respectable, so how can I be too hard on an overworked police sergeant with ten children who asks for ten dollars a week from some saloon-keeper for a bit of protection?” Blaise had had several fascinating talks with Croker; and tended to admire him more than not. Croker was particularly fierce on the subject of the reformers. He now displayed his ferocity to Hearst and Blaise.

  “I have never known such a bunch of hypocrites in my life.” He lit his cigar; puffed smoke at the Chief, who coughed, unnoticed by his guest. “The worst is Roosevelt, because he knows the game. He plays the game …”

  “He takes money?” Blaise regretted his question, as two sets of pitying eyes were turned, briefly, on him.

  Neither man bothered to answer so naive a question. “He acts, every day, as if he’s just discovered sin when his family and every other grand family in this city is supported by us, by the city, by the way we get around the laws he and his sort make, so a man can do business here, and do well here. Who is Platt?” The deep voice rumbled stagily. The gray eyes turned on Blaise, who was wise enou
gh to attempt no answer. “Platt’s Croker and Croker’s Platt, with a brogue and no education. But we do business the same way. We get out the vote of the quick and the dead and the immigrants, including the ones who think they’re living in Australia. Heaven help us! Well, I’ve no heart to tear the scales from their eyes, you can be sure.” Croker continued, comfortably, in this vein until the Chief signalled for him to stop.

  “You know, Mr. Croker, whenever I want to know what the Republicans are up to, I ask you, and when I want to know about the Democrats, I ask Platt.”

  Croker nodded; and nearly smiled. “You’ll get something close to the truth, going round the back way, you might say.”

  The Chief nodded; and put his feet up on the back of the sphinx, a creature plainly puzzling to Croker. “What’s Platt doing about Roosevelt?”

  “He wants him out of the state fast. We all do. It’s not that he does anything. Don’t get me wrong. But he talks so much. He gets the rich folks all riled up on account of us, not that they don’t know better.”

  “He’s a demagogue.” Blaise made his vital contribution.

  Croker nodded. “You could call him that. Poor old Platt’s gone and broken a lot of ribs. He’s in plaster of paris up to here.” Croker indicated the place where his own neck was, assuming that he had such a feature, hidden back of gray beard, gray tweed. “He’s poorly, today. With a fever. But he’s made up his mind he won’t let Teddy run again for governor.”

  “How does he stop him?” asked Blaise.

  “Throw us the election is one way. Teddy didn’t do all that well first time around. It’s not like Platt and me haven’t arranged an election together before. But Platt’s got other plans this year. He wants McKinley to take Teddy on as vice-president.”

  Hearst scratched his stomach, idly; gazed into the middle distance at a cow-headed Egyptian goddess, who stared back. “Dewey’s done for,” he told the goddess.

  Croker laughed, an unpleasant sound. “That interview in the World did the trick.”

  “I could have managed him.” Hearst shut his eyes. “I could’ve elected him president.”

  “But you couldn’t have managed Mrs. Dewey, and that’s the truth.”

  Like everyone else, Blaise had read, with wonder, the Admiral’s interview. After a bit of thought, the Admiral had declared his readiness to be president, an easy sort of job, he declared, where you simply did what Congress told you to do. Mrs. Dewey was given full credit for the resulting farce.

  “No one,” said the Chief, opening one eye and keeping it firmly on Croker, “wants Teddy.”

  “Since when does that matter? Platt wants him out of New York. The only way is to make him vice-president. Boss Quay in Pennsylvania—”

  “Got thrown out of the Senate.”

  “A bag-,” said Croker, enjoying each syllable, “a-telle. Who needs the Senate? But everyone needs Pennsylvania, and Matt Quay’s got that. New York and Pennsylvania will make Teddy vice-president.”

  “Bosses.” Hearst’s tone was neutral; he had now widened both eyes in imitation of the cow-goddess.

  “So what’s Mark Hanna? He’s boss of the whole Republican Party.”

  “No.” Hearst was unexpected. “McKinley runs the show, and lets Hanna collect the loot, and take the blame. Teddy was in Washington last week, begging for the job, and Hanna said, no, never, and McKinley said, may the best man win. McKinley wants Allison.”

  Blaise had yet to learn the entire roster of American statesmen. Vaguely, he was aware of an elderly Iowa senator named Allison, who, with serene fidelity, represented not Iowans but corporations in the Senate. “McKinley won’t get Allison,” said Croker. “Which means he don’t really want him.”

  “Maybe that’s why he says he wants him.” The Chief, each day, sounded more like a politician than an editor. Blaise doubted the wisdom of this metamorphosis. Bright butterflies ought not to change into drab caterpillars. “Dolliver’s the man the White House boys like. Dawes wants him.”

  “Dolliver.” Croker allowed the name to remain in that perpetual limbo from which those who might have been figures of the highest degree in the great republic fail to rise even to the surface, like iridescent scum, wrote Blaise in his head. He was beginning to get the knack of newspaper writing. Whatever phrase came first and most shamefully to the mind of someone who read only newspapers was the one to be deployed in all its imprecise familiarity.

  “Lodge supports Long. New England supports Long.” Hearst plucked at a single string of his banjo, and even the hardened Croker winced at the sound.

  “Lodge works day and night—for Teddy.” Croker stared at the banjo as if it were a city judge whose price had doubled. “He has to be for Long. That’s the cover. The New England candidate, like Dolliver—not Allison—is the real Midwesterner. Now Root …”

  “Yes, Root …” Hearst frowned. Blaise could follow only so far into the maze when politicians lapsed into their own curious vernacular, so similar to that of Paris thieves. Plainly, Root impressed each man. Plainly, Root was a non-starter.

  “Who do we want, Mr. Hearst?” Croker was, finally, direct.

  “Anyone but Teddy.” Hearst was as direct.

  “That’s you, of course. Me, I’m like Platt. I want him out of New York. He’s tiresome to do business with.”

  Hearst turned to Blaise. “I’ve fixed it. He says you’re the only gentleman we’ve got around here. So you can go down with him, in his car. Make all the notes you can every day and telephone them in and we’ll write it up.”

  “By ‘he’ you mean Colonel Roosevelt?”

  Hearst stared at a splendid school-of-Tintoretto painting, the work, to Blaise’s eyes, of a student destined not to matriculate. Anyone could sell the Chief anything if it was Art. “You’re booked into the Walton Hotel, same floor as Teddy. You leave Friday. Pennsylvania Station. Noon. All your badges and so on are at the office. The convention don’t start till Tuesday, so Teddy’s getting a headstart. He’s going to be rushing around telling everyone how he’s not a candidate, too young to be put on the shelf, too poor for the job. You don’t have to take any of that nonsense down. Mr. Brisbane can write the usual Teddy interview in his sleep—in their sleep.” The Chief had finally made something close to a joke. The thin voice was asthmatic with uncontrollable laughter.

  “As good as Weber and Fields,” beamed Croker, suddenly turning before their eyes into a dear wee leprechaun, straight from the Emerald Isle.

  Blaise was less indulgent. “Where’s Hanna in all this?”

  “He’s staying with rich friends in Haverford. He’ll be at the Walton by Saturday. But Charlie Dawes is the man to keep your eye on. He’s the one who’ll be talking on the telephone to McKinley in the White House. If Teddy starts to bore you, head for Dawes.” Blaise had a vague memory of a reddish-haired young man, said to be one of the President’s few intimates. “He’ll be with the Illinois delegation.” Hearst gave a few more instructions; then Blaise said farewell to Chief and Boss.

  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.

  – 2 –

  THEODORE ROOSEVELT welcomed Blaise heartily into his railroad 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 b
lue, 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.