Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  At the State Department, Hay himself dictated his instructions to the consul general at Tangier: “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” The telegrapher beamed: “Good for you, sir! That’s telling those niggers where to head in.”

  “Yes,” said Hay. “It has a nice lilt to it. I can’t think why I gave up poetry.” Then he returned to his office, and locked the Perdicaris file in his desk. From Lincoln to Roosevelt had not been, exactly, an ever-upward spiral.

  – 2 –

  THE JEFFERSON HOTEL in St. Louis was the headquarters of “The William Randolph Hearst for President Committee.” Hearst himself had a suite on the floor directly above the humble, single room of William Jennings Bryan, a lowly delegate-at-large from Nebraska.

  Blaise pushed his way through the crowded anterooms to Hearst’s command post, a large salesman’s sample room, with a view of the river in the distance. The heat was terrible; the odor of sweat and tobacco and whiskey oppressive. Blaise tried not to breathe as he plunged through the crowd of delegates and hangers-on, all enjoying Hearst’s hospitality.

  Blaise knocked on the ultimate door, which was opened a crack. Brisbane’s suspicious face appeared; then, appeased no doubt by the definite manly blueness of Blaise’s eyes, he admitted him to the presence.

  Despite the heat, Hearst was dressed in a black unwrinkled frock-coat, unlike his brow, which was very wrinkled indeed as he spoke into a telephone. “But my Illinois delegates are the legitimate ones,” he said, acknowledging Blaise’s arrival with a wave of his hand. A dozen political types, in shirt-sleeves, sat about the room, reading newspapers, making calculations of delegate strength. A New York City appellate court judge named Alton B. Parker was the candidate of the party’s conservative wing, headed by August Belmont now that Whitney was dead.

  Even Blaise had been impressed by the efficiency of Hearst’s political operators. Although the Eastern leadership of the party found Hearst intolerable, he had managed to collect so much support in the South and West that he had an excellent chance of winning the nomination if Parker failed to be nominated on the first ballot. At the moment, the Credentials Committee was faced with the problem of two delegations from Illinois. One had been put together by the Chicago boss, Sullivan; the other was committed to Hearst. “Then get Bryan. He hates Sullivan. He’ll stop this.” Hearst hung up. He looked at Blaise. “I can’t get through to Bryan. He’s staying right here in the hotel. But he won’t support me …”

  “He won’t support Parker either,” said Brisbane, soothingly.

  “He’s waiting for a miracle.” Hearst sat on top of a long display table. “There won’t be a miracle. For him, anyway.”

  “What are your chances, on the first ballot?” Blaise had already made his own estimate.

  “With Illinois, I’ve got two hundred sixty-nine votes, and Parker’s got two hundred forty-eight, without Illinois.”

  James Burden Day, in shirt-sleeves, entered the suite. “I’ve just been with Bryan. He’s on his way to the convention hall. He’s going to fight for the seating of your delegates.”

  The men in the room applauded; and Brisbane danced a small jig. “But,” asked Hearst, unimpressed, “will he support me?”

  Day shrugged. “He’s not supporting anybody, so far. He wants to stop Parker, that’s all.”

  “I’m the only one who can do that.” Hearst’s eyes seemed to have been electrified; they shone, balefully, at Day. “Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he know there’s only me now?”

  Brisbane answered for Day. “He still thinks that when he gets up in front of that audience, all will be forgiven.”

  Hearst turned to Day. “Make him any offer.”

  “I’ll try. But he’s in a bad mood.” Jim left. He had not even noticed Blaise. Politics had that effect on everyone involved. Blaise had seen the same sort of total absorption only at gambling casinos, where men were so absorbed in the turn of a card or the throw of a pair of dice that not even the end of the world could distract them.

  A number of delegates were then admitted, and the Chief received them with magisterial calm. Would he bolt the party if he failed to get the nomination? Of course he would not, he said: this was the party of the people, and he would never turn his back on what after all was the nation itself. Also, only the Democratic Party could keep peace in a world made more dangerous by the bellicosity of Theodore Roosevelt. But hadn’t he been impressed by the swift assurance of the President when, with a single telegram, he had freed an American citizen from his Barbary Coast kidnapper? Hearst shrugged this off as “mere sensationalism.” For Blaise, the Chief’s new respectability was as irresistibly comic as any Weber and Fields sketch.

  Brisbane drew Blaise aside. “He’s got the nomination if only Bryan …”

  “What’s wrong with Bryan?” Blaise was genuinely curious; but then he had no political sense, the turn of a card meant nothing to him.

  “Oh, vanity, I suppose. The peerless leader of ’96 and 1900, wandering about the convention like a lost soul, his only power to help the Chief win—or lose.”

  “He’ll want him to lose, so that Parker will be beaten by Roosevelt, and the next time—four years from now—Bryan will be back, crucifying mankind on that cross of gold of his.” Blaise was rather proud to have figured out what was so obvious to Brisbane that he did no more than nod, and say, “That’s about the size of it. But if he gets our Illinois delegates seated, that may do the trick.” John Sharp Williams made a stately entrance. Hearst pretended delight. Brisbane said, “I hear you’re buying your sister’s paper.”

  “I’m trying to. That’s really why I’m here. Not that this isn’t,” he stared at Hearst’s alarmingly huge smile, “worth the trip. My sister’s more political than me. She’s here to write about the convention. She actually writes herself, you know.”

  “Many of us,” said Brisbane, sourly, “do.”

  On the Fourth of July, Hearst was nominated by a San Francisco politician, a friend of the late Senator George Hearst. Blaise sat with Caroline and John Sanford in the press gallery of the huge airless hall. A six-foot portrait of Hearst dominated the stage, while a Hearst band played first “America” and then, as a recognition of the South’s importance to the populist millionaire, “Dixie.” Although Thomas E. Watson was, that very day, being nominated for president by the Populist or People’s Party, he had brought a number of Democratic Southern politicians into Hearst’s organization.

  After the nominating speeches for Hearst, the California delegation led a parade around the floor of the convention. Blaise was surprised at how genuinely popular the Chief had become. “Of course he has no chance,” said Caroline, rising from her wooden folding chair.

  Blaise also stood up. “Why not?”

  “His Illinois delegation wasn’t seated. So that’s fifty-four votes for Parker. And Bryan will never support him. Let’s go get some air. I am about to faint.”

  For the delicate business at hand, Blaise had selected a river-boat. The owner had offered Blaise a suite when it was discovered that every hotel in the city was booked, and so he now had, all to himself, the wonders of the Delta Queen, a great Gothic wooden contraption with paddle-wheels of the sort celebrated in John Hay’s “Jim Bludso of the Prairie Bell.” The night was airless, damp, hot. The Delta Queen was moored to the levee near Market Street. At the gangplank, a single guard saluted Blaise casually; and bade them all welcome.

  A steward received them on the first deck, and escorted them into an echoing mahogany bar, lit by a single bronze gas-lamp, beneath which sat, ominous in his cheerfulness, dreadful in his jovial smile, the pink-whiskered Mr. Houghteling. Blaise was relieved to find his ally in place. Now it was two to two. Before, he had felt outnumbered by Caroline and John—three rather than two to one, since Caroline had, in a sense, doubled herself through accomplishment while he had diminished himself by non-success. Mr. Houghteling rose, the dentured smile ghastly in the light from overhead. “Mrs. Sanford. Mr. Sanford. Mr. Sanford
. At least one has no trouble with names …”

  A figure stepped out of the shadows and said, “I’m Mr. Trimble—not Sanford.”

  Blaise felt, again, outnumbered. But he greeted Trimble politely; then the five of them sat at a round table, and the steward brought them champagne with the compliments of the owner. Blaise noted a spittoon had been fastened to the deck beside each chair. How, he wondered, was it emptied? and what happened if one’s jet of tobacco juice changed its trajectory due to a lurch of the ship? He tried to recall the laws of physics that he had learned in school—and forgotten. Galileo on the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Spit on the deck. As Blaise thought, wildly, of spittoons, Sanford and Houghteling were covering the table with sheets of paper, and Caroline and Trimble were talking to each other in low collusive voices. Blaise knew that he should feel elated; instead, he was merely hot, tired, irritable. Sanford began, for the enemy. “You’ve had a chance to study the Tribune’s financial status …?”

  “Yes.” Houghteling looked at Blaise, who looked at Caroline, who was staring now into her glass of champagne. He thought of that other champagne glass, of Del dead on a New Haven sidewalk. “Yes,” Mr. Houghteling repeated, “all is in order, according to my accountant. I’m afraid I can neither add nor subtract. But he’s been with me thirty years, and he does both very nicely, or so I’m told by those who know. He says all’s well, so—all’s well. Now,” Houghteling frowned and smiled simultaneously, “we are willing to pay for fifty percent of the shares …”

  Caroline, not her lawyer-husband, spoke. “Forty-eight percent of the shares are up for sale, not fifty percent.”

  Sweat rolled down Blaise’s left side, tickling him mercilessly. “We agreed to fifty-fifty, you and I.” He stared at Caroline, who stared back at him, in perfect innocence.

  “So we did. So it is,” she said. “I will sell you forty-eight percent of the shares. I will keep forty-eight percent of the shares. That’s fifty-fifty. We—you and I—will own exactly the same amount, as agreed.”

  “Who owns,” asked Mr. Houghteling, sinister smile in place but cordial scowl gone, “the remaining four percent of the shares?”

  “Mr. Houghteling misled us!” Caroline was suspiciously charming. “He adds and subtracts with lightning speed …”

  “I own four percent,” said Trimble, turning his pale blue Brisbane-approved eyes on Blaise. “Mrs. Sanford wanted to give me a bonus when the paper was in profit. I said I’d take the bonus in the form of stock.”

  “It was my understanding …” Houghteling began.

  “I thought it was all cut and dried.” Sanford was now, himself, triumphantly cut, dried, thought Blaise. “Sister would sell brother half her shares for one hundred fifty-six thousand dollars. That was the meaning of fifty-fifty …”

  “That was not my understanding.” Blaise wondered if he should abandon the game right then and there.

  Houghteling tapped his pile of papers. “There was no mention here, according to my accountant, of any owner other than Mrs. Sanford, the sole owner.”

  “You will find the Trimble shares adverted to in section five of the financial audit.” Sanford sounded bored; yet it was his life that was at stake. Blaise found him almost as mysterious as Caroline, whose mystery was to be exactly what she seemed, someone intent on getting what she wanted without unduly distressing those whom she—victimized: he was now casting himself in the role of victim. Certainly, he had been subtly misled from the beginning. Caroline was nothing if not tricky.

  “We,” said Mr. Houghteling, “have acted in good faith from the beginning.”

  “I trust,” said Sanford, “that you are not suggesting that we have not?”

  “I suggest exactly that, yes. My client understood—as did I—that he would become half-owner of the Tribune. Instead, he is, to put it bluntly, a minority shareholder, who can be outvoted by Mrs. Sanford and Mr. Trimble, should they choose to act as one.”

  “Which they will always do.” Blaise got to his feet. “I see no reason to go on with this.” He looked at Caroline, who smiled and said nothing.

  “I am sorry if there has been a misunderstanding.” Sanford did not sound, in the least, sorry.

  “There always is,” said Caroline suddenly. “We specialize in misunderstandings. It is a family trait. What looks to be a one to one of us appears as a seven to the other.”

  Blaise experienced a moment of almost perfect rage, a highly exciting flush of blood to the head, followed by a sudden weakness. He sat down heavily. Caroline acted as if nothing untoward had been said. “If you would rather not buy, I’ll go to Mr. Hearst, who will be a publisher again tomorrow, or to Mr. McLean.”

  This was bluff. Blaise knew that the Chief had no available money (he had spent close to two million dollars in order to secure the nomination), while John R. McLean had already said no to Caroline. “I’ll buy forty-eight percent of the shares, at the agreed-on price.” Blaise heard his own voice as though it were someone else’s, far off, strange. But then this was the most important decision that he had ever made.

  “I draw your attention, Mr. Houghteling, to the obligation of your client and my client,” John was dry, correct, “in the event of a future sale of these shares, to offer one another, first, the option to buy …”

  “Yes, yes.” Houghteling presented Caroline with a sheet of paper; then he signalled to the steward. “Ask the captain or mate or whoever’s on duty to witness these signatures.”

  In silence they waited beneath the bronze lamp, which swayed, ever so slightly, as the river’s current rocked the ship. Two men in uniform joined them. Caroline signed first. Blaise signed second. The ship’s officers signed. Then Houghteling signalled for more champagne; and Caroline said, “Where is my check?”

  Houghteling laughed; and gave her Blaise’s check. Blaise studied Sanford’s face; but there was no reaction. The cause of Caroline’s embarrassment appeared at ease.

  Trimble raised his glass. “To the Washington Tribune,” he said.

  Solemnly they drank. Then Sanford and Houghteling put away their documents. The ship’s officers excused themselves, and Trimble said, “I don’t know about you publishers, but the editor has to go back to the convention hall.”

  “So will this publisher.” Caroline rose; and turned to Blaise. “Will you join us?”

  Blaise said, “Yes.”

  As it turned out, the only publisher to go to the convention hall was Caroline. Blaise chose to go back to the Jefferson Hotel to confer with the Chief, now in his shirt-sleeves, a telephone receiver close to one ear, as word came from the hall, where Brisbane was reporting what was —and was not—going on. What was going on was the nomination of Alton B. Parker for president. What was not going on was William Jennings Bryan, who had yet to make known his choice. “I’ll get one ninety-four on the first ballot,” was Hearst’s greeting.

  Blaise responded in kind. “I bought half the Washington Tribune.”

  President-to-be Hearst put down the receiver and became Publisher Hearst. “How much?”

  Blaise told him the exact amount. Word always spread; he did not say that he had bought only half of Caroline’s shares. “Too much.” Hearst took off his tie and collar; and looked less presidential by the moment. “I could go in with you. Maybe,” he said, staring at Blaise with the same impersonal intensity with which he would glare at the mock-up of a front page.

  “And then,” said Blaise, lightly, “maybe not. I don’t want to be involved with the Tribune American, and you don’t either.”

  “I guess not. You and your sister friends?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Blaise agreed.

  At four-thirty on the morning of July 8, after all the nominating speeches had been made, Blaise and Jim Day sat side by side in the press section, shelling and eating peanuts, as they tried to stay awake. Others had succumbed to fatigue or alcohol. Figures were slumped over chairs on the convention flo
or as well as in the galleries. The smell of stale smoke, whiskey, sweat was now so powerful that Blaise, acclimatized, wondered if he could ever again breathe fresh air. The balloting would soon begin. Hearst still had a chance. But Bryan had not come to his aid. Earlier, Bryan had nominated a nullity in the form of a Missouri senator. He did add that he would be happy to support the people’s friend, William Randolph Hearst, should the convention nominate him. Then Bryan had gone back to his hotel, where, Hearst had gleefully noted, he collapsed with what seemed to be pneumonia.

  “Bryan wants us to lose, I’m afraid,” said Jim.

  “Do you care?”

  “Well, I’m safe back home. But it would be nice to have a strong head to the ticket.”

  Suddenly, there was a sound of applause at the back of the hall. The speaker—there was never not someone speaking from the platform—paused as, down the main aisle, William Jennings Bryan made his slow, majestic way.

  “This is going to be something.” Jim was now wide awake. He brushed peanut shells from his trousers; and sat very straight. Even Blaise felt something of the general excitement as Bryan, plainly ill, dark of face and sweating heavily, walked up the steps to the platform. The twenty thousand delegates and visitors were now all alert. There was loud applause. There was also excitement of the sort that Blaise had only observed once before, at a bull-fight in Madrid when matador (Bryan?) and bull (the convention? or was it the other way around?) began their final confrontation. For ten minutes, by Blaise’s watch, the crowd cheered Bryan, who plainly drew nourishment from his people. Then he raised both arms, and the hall was silent.

  The voice began, and, like everyone else, Blaise was mesmerized by its astonishing power. Illness had made Bryan hoarse; but no less eloquent for that. “Eight years ago at Chicago the Democratic National Convention placed in my hand the standard of the party and commissioned me as its candidate. Four years ago that commission was renewed …”