Fluke

by Blinder, Martin;

  Obscured by his position behind and off to the side of President-Elect Harding, Fall slips a piece of paper to Jess Smith, who glances at it and passes it on surreptitiously to Daugherty. Daugherty examines it for a moment, smiles to himself, then tucks it in his pocket.

  Nan, crowded in amongst the masses below, looks up in rapture as Harding turns to the microphone and begins his inaugural address. But neither Daugherty, Smith, Fall, nor Forbes will hear a word of it. Their thoughts are elsewhere.

  No President had ever before been swept into office on so high a tide of affection and hope. Yet as we were to later discover, even on that first day of brightest promise the evil termites had already begun their terrible work, chewing at the very foundations of my darling’s presidency, so as to destroy it. Although I could not then have even imagined it, unprecedented treachery and corruption were soon to follow.

  Part Four

  21.

  Mr. Harding’s finding ways for us to steal a little time alone together was challenging enough during the campaign. Now that he was actually President of the United States, our situation became impossible. It was as if I were again that forlorn teenage girl living back in Marion, limited just to seeing my darling’s cherished face in the newspapers. But I resolved to be patient, for I understood that those critical first few weeks in office are when a determined leader is preoccupied with grasping the reins of government, marshaling his troops, and taking command.

  French windows, slightly ajar, open out to an expanse of green running five hundred yards from the White House to Pennsylvania Avenue. It is 1921 and sheep still mow the lawn.

  The new President pauses in the doorway of the Oval Office. Gingerly, he slips inside and over to his desk, stacked high with letters, many more of which spill out of mail sacks piled on an adjacent table. He runs his fingers reverently along the gleaming walnut, then turns and with slow steps circles the room, pausing to gaze up at successive portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and lastly, of Theodore Roosevelt in his rough rider uniform. He touches one of Roosevelt’s boots. “Damn big,” he murmurs.

  The office door opens with a knock and Mrs. Samson, Harding’s new personal secretary, hand-picked by Florence from the White House pool, shows herself in. The most mannish of women, a factor doubtless weighing heavily with the Duchess, she demonstrates the aptness of her name as she effortlessly manhandles another fifty-pound mail sack toward Harding’s desk. “More office-seekers?” Harding asks, as he hurries to lift the sack from Mrs. Samson’s formidable arms and add it to the others.

  “Afraid so, Mr. President. And this batch is mostly Democrats.”

  “Democrats?”

  “Yes, sir. They all claim they switched and voted for you. You’ll see. And your first appointment is here, sir.”

  Harding brightens. “Have him come in, Mrs. Samson, have him come in.”

  As if on cue, Dr. Sawyer appears in the doorway and enters as Mrs. Samson withdraws. “Mr. President, I presume?”

  “Don’t give me any of that ‘Mr. President’ crap you old son of a gun. Come on and sit down. I’d offer you a bourbon but Wilson either didn’t drink or took all the booze with him. Now with Prohibition, the Secret Service tells me they can’t just pop out and get . . .”

  “I’m fine, Warren. Christ, it’s eight in the morning. How long have you been up?”

  “A while,” Harding replies, “quite a while.” They both sit. Sawyer looks up at the cadre of previous tenants staring down at them. “Yeah, Doc — I keep wondering what the hell I’m doin’ here with that bunch.”

  “I’ll bet every new President felt that way,” says Sawyer. “You’ll be getting lots of help, I’m sure.”

  “Maybe. God knows I’m going to need it. Especially from folks I can count on.” Harding pauses. “Folks like you.”

  Sawyer beams. “That’s swell of you to say, Warren. Don’t know what I can do exactly, but you should always feel free to . . .”

  “Doc, I’d like to appoint you Surgeon General.”

  “Whazat?”

  “I need a Surgeon General, Doctor Sawyer. I’m offering you the job.”

  Sawyer looks at him in astonishment. “Warren, I’m just a country doctor. An old country doctor . . .”

  “I don’t want some paper-shuffling bureaucrat. I want a real medical man. I’d like you to try and do for all Americans what — well — what you’ve done for Florence. Whad’ya say? Will you help me out on this?”

  “I, I . . .”

  “This way you’d be here in the White House, keeping a close eye on the Duchess. She won’t let anybody else treat her anyway. Says Washington doctors are all society quacks.”

  “Jesus, Warren, what in hell do I know about running a — a . . . ?”

  “I’ll bet every new Surgeon General felt that way.” He smiles. “I need you, Doc. Give it a try? For Florence’s sake.”

  Sawyer peers unseeing for several long moments at the sheep grazing just outside the window before he answers. “If that’s what you want — Mr. President.”

  “I do, Doc. Gotta have a few familiar faces around. Friendly faces.” He shakes his head. “My pals from the Senate have invited themselves over this morning. Wanna give me a little ‘advice’ on my cabinet appointments.”

  “Hell — you’re President of the United States now, Warren. Once in a while you can actually tell someone ‘no.’”

  “No?” Lodge bellows, nearly apoplectic. “What do you mean ‘no’ — Mr. President?” Now it is Lodge who finds himself at the far and deferential foot of a long table, ringed with some mighty unhappy senators.

  Harding presides at its head, and struggles to make his case. “Henry, I want — I need to surround myself with the best minds this country has to offer. Men with the experience, the — the education I don’t have. Scholars who . . .”

  “Scholars?” snarls Lodge. “Woodrow Wilson was a scholar. A Princeton scholar. What a disaster . . .”

  “And Harry Daugherty?” asks Blair. “Some scholar.”

  Guthrie nods contemptuously. “Some ‘best mind.’”

  “Look, boys,” says Harding, “I’ve depended on Harry since I came to Washington. This is one hell of a job. Didn’t want it. But I’m stuck with it. I’m gonna need Harry’s help. I asked him how he thought he could best serve. He told me.”

  “But,” sputters Blair, “Attorney General?!”

  “Harry’s a lawyer,” says Harding, “and he’s clever in all the ways I’m not.”

  Morris Webb smiles ruefully. “That’s what worries me.”

  Guthrie looks down at the list in his hand. “All right — Al Fall at Interior — now there’s a solid choice, but in all due respect, sir, why Herbert Hoover? And Secretary of Commerce, no less.”

  “Two months,” Blair asserts, “and he’ll have the country’s economy dismantled . . .”

  “Gentlemen,” says Harding, evenly. “Might I be permitted to point out we’re talking here about the President’s cabinet. Not the Senate’s.”

  This simple statement of the obvious only pours fuel on Blair’s fire. “It was the Senate that put you in the White House, Warren. We all cashed in a lot of chips . . .”

  “Called in favors,” adds Paxton.

  “Gosh. I thought the people of America put me in the White House. And what we owe them is nothing less than the best.”

  With that, Harding seems to silence all of them — save Lodge. “I believe, sir, there’s a difference of opinion here as to just who might be ‘the best.’ May I remind you — Mr. President — that each and every one of these appointments of yours is going to require Senate confirmation.” Nods and murmurs of agreement circulate around the table. “Now I can live with Daugherty and with your nominees for some of these lesser posts, but if you want any names to get through the Senate, at a minimum you’re going to have to take Hu
ghes for State and Mellon for Treasury. There are two scholars for you. The right kind of scholars.”

  More nods, more murmurs.

  Morris Webb tries to take some of the sting out of Lodge’s ultimatum. “Accommodate us a bit here, Warren, we accommodate you a bit there. Give us something today, we give you something tomorrow. You know how these things work.”

  “Oh yes, Morris,” says Harding with resignation. “I know how these things work. I surely do.”

  Two days later, Jess Smith and Bobby Burns, both wearing ill-concealed smirks, sit in the last row of a federal courtroom, watching Harry Daugherty place his right hand on a book he’s not touched since childhood. Miraculously, a lightning bolt fails to materialize, and God leaves him undisturbed to swear fidelity to the constitution of the United States, the President, the laws of the land, and the people of America. Then accompanied by his two cronies, Daugherty leaves the room as U.S. Attorney General.

  Right off the bat, my darling found that even a President has to battle tooth and nail for everything he wants. And battle he did. While Mr. Harding accepted the Senate’s advice on some of his cabinet choices, like Mr. Hughes and Mr. Melton, he insisted on appointing one of his closest associates, Mr. Daugherty, to run the Justice Department.

  Across the hall in a small federal hearing room, Charlie Forbes stands before a clerk, hand over his heart.

  He also made sure to find a place for his old friend, Charlie Forbes, putting him in charge of Veterans’ Affairs. (I don’t believe Mr. Forbes was ever a veteran, exactly, but he had spent time with the Ohio National Guard.)

  And no matter how crowded his official calendar, Mr. Harding made sure to have one hour set aside, six afternoons a week, every week, just for his “saying hello” to The People — ordinary people who came to see the White House and who might also want to meet him. It was their White House, after all, and he was their President. He said that they had every right to look the guy over and shake his hand if they wished. It was a marvelous thing, I think, for a President to do. But I must confess, something felt a little unfair — total strangers were free to visit with my darling, when I could not.

  Monday afternoon a radiant President Harding strides out on the White House lawn to greet a couple of dozen boy scouts. Each gets a handshake and an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

  On Tuesday, with Secret Servicemen on their mettle in the background, Harding wades into a mixed group of delighted tourists who can’t quite believe and have no idea why they’re shaking hands with the President of the United States.

  On Wednesday, this time with Florence by his side, he stands in the Rose Garden, beaming broadly as he hands out flowers to a Brownie troop.

  On Thursday, accompanied by the new Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall, he welcomes a disoriented group of Native Americans in full Indian dress. Fall slaps the chief on the back. “Just call me Al,” Fall says to the chief.

  On Friday, Harding gets to clown with Charlie Chaplin in his Little Tramp persona, and shake hands with Al Jolson in black face.

  And, on Saturday, joined by Charlie Forbes, his Director of Veterans’ Affairs, Harding greets a group of disabled young veterans in the company of their Red Cross nurses. Most of the men are missing an arm or leg, or are in some other way disfigured. Harding is moved by this grievous evidence of the Great War’s carnage, his eyes glistening behind his smile. One of the men unselfconsciously offers Harding the stump of his wrist. Without hesitation, Harding grasps and shakes it warmly.

  Spending time with The People each afternoon was one part of the President’s job my darling really enjoyed. Perhaps the only part. As for the rest — he found much of it pretty rough going. Especially his cabinet meetings. Thank the good Lord he had some of the country’s finest intellects to advise him.

  Presiding over his weekly cabinet meeting, Harding does his best to follow what is becoming a running debate between his nineteenth-century Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, and his eighteenth-century Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon. Harry Daugherty, Charlie Forbes, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, Admiral Todd Denby of the Navy Department, Albert Fall and several other appointees listen as well — with varying degrees of attentiveness. Invariably, Vice President Calvin Coolidge sits stiffly upright — and is sound asleep.

  Where Hoover is doggedly well-meaning, Mellon is simply mean; like most Treasury Secretaries of this nascent Republican decade, Mellon husbands a personal fortune the rival of that overseen in his official capacity, and has no plans to share the smallest portion, least of all with the federal government.

  This week it is Hoover who has started the argument. “If we lower import tariffs, Mr. President, then raise upper bracket income tax proportionately to make up for the revenues lost, prices will come down and increase both goods and money in circulation.” Sounds reasonable to Harding, who nods in agreement. Hoover is encouraged. “I’m convinced that this would equalize wealth somewhat, and greatly expand the country’s economy . . .”

  Secretary Mellon stirs. A gaunt, desiccated man, he has a parched rattle of a voice — like rats in the pantry. “I’m afraid, Mr. Hoover, you’re advising the President to take the first pernicious step from capitalism to socialism.”

  Harding frowns and feels tugged the other way. “We certainly would never want to do that. Um, kindly tell us all again, Mr. Mellon, as you see it, the principal difference as might apply here between the two?”

  “Certainly, Mr. President. In a word, capitalism is a cruel economic system wherein one is either very well off or wretchedly poor. Socialism would replace that with a fair and equitable system — wherein everyone is wretchedly poor.”

  “I see,” says Harding. He needs a tiebreaker, and turns to his Secretary of State, distinguished academician and former president of Columbia University. If anyone held a monopoly on unbiased truth, surely it would be he. “What is your view of the matter, Mr. Hughes?”

  Hughes takes several leisurely puffs on his pipe before speaking. “From State’s perspective,” he intones, “both arguments have merit. Equal merit.” He returns to his pipe.

  “Uh huh,” says Harding. His eyes dart around the room, finally coming to rest on Daugherty, pencil in hand, furiously editing some papers. “See any legal implications, Harry?”

  Startled, Daugherty looks up. “Ah, Justice has no position, Mr. President.”

  “I see,” says Harding.

  All eyes are on the President. The seconds tick by. Mellon waits with the patience of a man holding long-term securities. Hughes puffs. Daugherty scribbles. Coolidge sleeps.

  Hoover breaks the silence. “Might I ask your decision, Mr. President?”

  “Gentlemen,” says Harding, “this is your area of expertise. You two settle it, figure out how we could best handle things. Maybe split the difference. Whatever you decide, I’ll back you up.”

  Hoover and Mellon look at each other.

  “Well,” Harding continues, “anything else?”

  They’ve all had more than enough. Except for Daugherty. “It would expedite the new Veterans’ Hospital contracts, Mr. President, if we could have an executive order.”

  “Of course, Harry, of course.”

  Daugherty gives the nod to Charlie Forbes who has the appropriate documents ready to go. He gathers them up and passes them over for Harding’s signature.

  With the country’s business completed, only Harding and Charlie Forbes remain in the cabinet room. Charlie reminisces about the time he tried years ago to teach Harding how to drive and Harding had promptly crashed Charlie’s Fliver into a haystack. They share a good laugh. Then Charlie heads out the door, signed executive order in hand. He almost collides with Dr. Sawyer, bizarrely resplendent in his white and gold surgeon general’s uniform. “’Scuse me. Doc. Hey, that’s one swell outfit. Ever need any extra gold buttons, I can get ‘em cheap.” Charlie gives him a moc
k salute and continues down the hall.

  Sawyer enters the cabinet room and shuts the door behind him. “Never much cared for traveling salesmen,” he grumbles. “Particularly that one.” Then he takes a close look at Harding. His old friend has dropped his smile and appears drawn, tired, every bit his fifty-six years. “Warren — Christ, what’s the matter?”

  “Ah, I’m okay. Doc,” says Harding, wearily. “Only there’s so much I don’t know. And I’m discovering ‘great minds’ cancel each other out.” He flops down heavily in the chair just vacated by Charlie. “Last week Mellon gave me his book on economics — he wrote the darn thing, ya see. So this week Hoover gives me the economics book that he wrote. Both mighty big books. Several pounds each, I’ll bet.”

  “Economics, huh? Whose made the most sense?”

  Harding shakes his head. “Can’t get through either one. The more goddamn pages I read, the longer the goddamn book gets. And Mellon says one thing, Hoover says the opposite.” He sighs. “This is a terrible job.” He pulls himself up from the chair. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Sawyer pats Harding on the shoulder as they pass from the cabinet room into the corridor outside. “Might be easier, Warren, if you didn’t charge at it twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week.”

  “Hell, I don’t mind putting in the time, Doc. It’s the least I can do. Just that I feel . . . I’ll tell ya . . . I feel so . . . isolated. Surrounded by people.”

  Two White House aides, Travis and Blake, nod deferentially as they scurry past. “Mr. President.”