Preserve and Protect

by Allen Drury

And so it was, for not even on the most dramatic of Mondays, the day the Court traditionally hands down its opinions, had the dimly lit, dark-paneled chamber known such confusion of reporters, photographers, lights, cameras, correspondents, commentators, publishers, editors, hangers-on. The rule that prohibits photographs and television in the chamber had been relaxed (the Chief Justice, vacationing in Switzerland, had cabled his approval this morning in view of the magnitude of the event; and also, because he wanted to watch it himself via satellite) and a room that normally accommodates 500 comfortably was jammed with almost twice that number, plus equipment. And as they pushed and shoved and squeezed and turned uneasily about, trying to find positions of greater comfort, trying to free their arms from their encroaching neighbors’ so that they could take notes, or broadcast, or, like Walter Dobius, just observe, they gossiped and argued and speculated and shouted back and forth across the chamber to one another with such uninhibited enthusiasm that to Tommy Davis, approaching along the Court’s private hallway with a bailiff in attendance, it sounded like the distant angry hum of giant bees that grew ever louder as he neared until it seemed it must drown out the universe and thought itself.

  Then, as he stepped, still unseen, into place behind the red velvet curtains that form a backdrop for the nine battered old leather armchairs which house the nine supreme judicial bottoms, the noise ceased so abruptly that it seemed a giant hand must have reached down and chopped it off. Out front, at his high desk to the right, the Marshal had suddenly appeared. In his clear, measured tones, he cried out in the old, traditional way:

  “The honorable, the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States!”

  “Oyez, oyez, oyez! All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting!”

  “God save the United States and this honorable Court!”

  And Tommy parted the red velvet curtains and stepped through, as the Justices do, almost before they knew he was there.

  For a moment he stood where he was, alone in the eye of the world, trying to find his particular friends but unable to do so in the harsh glare of the lights.

  Then he stepped forward, his expression grave and thoughtful, in a silence broken only by the steady whirring of the television cameras, and sat down in his chair, two seats to the right of the chair of the Chief Justice.

  He placed several sheets of yellow legal note paper neatly before him on the burnished desk, fussed with them for a moment or two, then folded his arms, lifted his head, leaned forward slightly and began to talk, in a rather thin but steady voice that was carried to the ends of the earth.

  “First of all,” he said, “the Court wishes to apologize for the confusion here, even though it is perhaps inevitable considering the nature of the occasion. The Court hopes you are all reasonably comfortable and may be able to do your work without undue interference by the various extremities of your neighbors.”

  There was a spatter of laughter, tight with the tension of great events that affects even the most experienced of correspondents; yet friendly, for most of them liked Tommy Davis.

  “The Court also regrets,” he went on, “that it has been impossible to prepare printed copies of the Court’s opinion”—there was a groan but he responded with a certain testiness that silenced it at once—“but the Court, after all, has not had long to consider this. The Court felt that it was more important to announce a decision swiftly than it was to make easier the work of the press. The Court is sorry, but that is how it is.

  “Members of the press,” he said, more amicably, “will simply have to revert to being working reporters for the evening. I don’t think it will hurt you.”

  There was a general murmur of amusement and even, though this, too, was against Court rules, a smattering of good-natured applause. The atmosphere became more relaxed and so, for a moment, did he. Then he sat straighter in his chair, his expression again turned grave and thoughtful, again only the whirring of the cameras broke the intent, devouring silence.

  “The issue before the Court is this—” he began, and for five minutes, simply and clearly, he laid it on the record: the temporary injunction, the case below, the National Committee’s decision to appeal, his own decision to hear arguments at the earliest possible moment “to expedite a matter in which, it seems safe to say, there is an almost universal interest.”

  “So, as you know,” he continued, “a hearing was held in chambers this afternoon, attended in physical fact by only a very small handful of individuals; but attended through the wonderful mediums of press, television, and radio, aided by the worldwide communications-satellite network, by a great many peoples of the earth. In fact, I would suspect, the great majority.

  “During the hearing, as all who viewed or heard it are aware, counsel for one faction in the National Committee argued, in essence, that neither the court below, this Court, or any other body of whatever nature anywhere, have any legal right whatsoever to force the National Committee to choose one, as distinct from the other, of the two free and equally democratic options given it by its own rules.

  “The other faction argued—

  (“Come on Tommy, come on,” the Boston Herald whispered impatiently. “We know all that.” But the Court record, as always, had to be made.)

  “—that to permit the National Committee to exercise its option freely might be, in effect, to pre-empt its choice anyway, by making possible a decision by a majority of the Committee to select its new nominees through what counsel chose to refer to as ‘a narrow, limited, possibly emotional democracy of 106’ rather than ‘a vigorous, active, solemn, broadly based democracy of more than 1,000 drawn from all the broad reaches of this broad land.’

  “Whatever one may think of arguments of counsel on this side of the issue,” he remarked with a little smile that brought some uneasy laughter, for many were not sure but what he might be making a little fun of George Harrison Wattersill, and they didn’t like that, “it must be acknowledged that his language is colorful and added much to the interesting nature of the hearing.”

  And he peered over the edge of the bench and did succeed in finding George Wattersill, seated directly down front with Roger P. Croy, who had Senator Munson next to him, and then Bob Leffingwell. George bowed and smiled, clamping an iron control on his suddenly rising uneasiness and appearing as cheerful as could be while the cameras zoomed in on him to find out how he was taking it.

  “Essentially,” Tommy went on, “the Court feels that these two points of view do represent the major, and indeed perhaps the only valid, arguments that the Court can consider in this proceeding.

  “The question then arises: how do they stand before the bar?

  “It must be remembered—even,” he said, and a certain warning note came into his voice, “by the most partisan—that this is a court of law, and that it is only on matters of law that the Court has authority to act.

  “It may well be that one argument or another is valid and superior in an emotional, political, or partisan sense. But it is in the legal sense that the Court must decide.

  “The Court,” he said, and the tension soared as they realized that he was already into his peroration, “will say frankly that he personally hopes that the National Committee will, when it reconvenes tomorrow—”

  (“Oh, NO!” Patsy cried in anguish beside her grimly silent brother in the enormous living room in Dumbarton Oaks. “Hot dog!” Hal Knox yelled gleefully in the drawing room at “Vagaries.” “Oh, damn it, hot DOG!”)

  “—when it reconvenes tomorrow,” Tommy repeated, for there had been an immediate and irrepressible surge of confused sound, mostly angry, in the chamber too, “will proceed in regular order to reconvene the convention.

  “That is the personal preference and desire of the Court.

  “But the Court is not a Court that decides on the basis of its personal preferences. At least,” he said, with
a little smile and a certain gentle irony, “we try not to be. And I think, for the most part, we succeed.

  “Certainly in this instance I am satisfied the Court has succeeded, for I have told you frankly my own feelings. But I put the law above them. As,” he said firmly, “it should be.

  “The Court,” he concluded quietly, “cannot, in all honesty, find precedents or justification for interfering with the normal procedures of the National Committee under its own rules, as is proposed by the temporary injunction from the court below.

  “The appeal is upheld.

  “These proceedings are now concluded.”

  And he stood up, and after one last, straight look into the eye of the world, turned with a suddenly great dignity and disappeared through the red velvet curtains.

  For several seconds there was a stunned, disbelieving silence, and then a great rush of sound as everyone began talking at once, and everyone began to stand up and leave. Cameramen shouted to cameramen, reporters called to reporters, technical crews began to yank out their long, snaking cables, hood the cameras, trundle out the booms. George Harrison Wattersill and Roger P. Croy, dejected but true to their legal training and the customary courtesies of Washington, shook hands with Bob Leffingwell and Bob Munson, who reciprocated without too much visible triumph. From outside on the lawns there came an ominous, growing roar of angry sound from NAWAC which sent many reporters running through the echoing marble hall to the entrance. But the police were on duty, the barricades were up, and despite the noise, no one broke across the lines: there had not been time for any orders to come through, and violence, it seemed, would be averted long enough for the principals to get safely away.

  As Walter Dobius stood between the great white pillars looking across the street at the milling thousands in floodlit Capitol Plaza—already beginning a chant that came clearly through the still-suffocating heat—

  “O Justice Davis!

  “You didn’t save us.

  “Your robes can’t hide,

  “The rat inside!

  “KILL RATS! KILL RATS! KILL RATS!”

  The Marshal appeared at his elbow and said quietly, “The Justice asks that you join him in his chambers, Mr. Dobius, if you’d care to. I’ll take you there.…”

  “What do you want of me?” he demanded angrily when they were alone in the quiet room.

  “Just what I said,” Tommy told him quietly. “I want you to accompany me on a little visit I’m going to make.”

  “Where?” Walter demanded suspiciously. “And why should I go anywhere with you, after what you’ve done?”

  “I have upheld the law,” Tommy said quietly, “which I am here to do. There is no reason to go with me at all, if you don’t want to. But I thought you might.”

  “Where?” Walter demanded again. The little Justice gave him an odd look, filled with many things that Walter could not interpret, though one of them, he thought with an angry refusal to accept it, might be pity.

  “Come along and see,” Tommy said. And taking off his robes, he hung them in the closet; folded his yellow note paper carefully and locked it in the drawer of his desk; and turned to the door.

  “I’m going to have to go out the back way,” he said, “because the crowd may turn violent out front. The President has kindly sent me a military escort.”

  “He has no right to send Federal troops to this sovereign Court!” Walter said sharply.

  “Very true,” Justice Davis said calmly. “But tonight I am glad to have them, all the same.” He opened the door. “Good night, Walter.”

  “No, wait,” Walter said, although by now, in some sick, foreboding way, he was almost certain he knew where Tommy was going. “Wait, I’ll go with you.”

  But his impulse did not last very long, for as they came presently to Massachusetts Avenue and started around Dupont Circle, toward Sheridan Circle and Oak Hill Cemetery beyond, a strange thing happened.

  Abruptly he seemed to shrivel back in his seat, some sort of strange physical contortion appeared to seize him, his whole body set in rigid lines of protest and Tommy could see that he was actually straining back from the door, arms and legs stiff with aversion and a sort of animal horror.

  “I don’t want”—he broke out incoherently—“I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

  And with a sudden and quite awful incongruity, he began to cry, in short, choking, agonizing gulps that sounded really dreadful in the closed-off back seat of the big black limousine as it floated gently along behind its Army escort.

  “Let—me out!” he managed to articulate at last. “You must—let me out!”

  “Driver!” Tommy said sharply through the tube, rapping on the window with his signet ring, “Draw off and let Mr. Dobius out!”

  And after he had, and Walter had somehow tumbled out, Tommy looked back as the car drew away and saw him standing under the misty overarching trees of upper Massachusetts Avenue, his arms at his sides, his face straight ahead, his body quivering and shaking with sobs, infinitely pathetic, terribly alone.

  But when he had finally mastered himself enough to catch a cab and get back to the office they kept for him at the Post, his column came out savage as ever, just the same:

  “WASHINGTON—So the nation and the world must face the prospect of a threatened, browbeaten, controlled National Committee, selecting a hand-picked nominee under the massive threat of armed Presidential displeasure.

  “Rarely has American democracy witnessed so sad a spectacle as it seems likely to witness now that Justice Davis has handed down his ruling.

  “And rarely, it might be said, has American democracy been so bitterly and tragically betrayed by one it had always thought to be its friend, as it has been betrayed by Justice Davis.

  “What will happen now, no one in this fearful capital tonight can accurately predict, but one thing is certain:

  “The prospect of new and ever more violent protest is now almost inevitable—against America’s futile and tragic foreign policy, against the Secretary of State who created it, against the President who with armed troops stationed in the streets of the capital enforces it, against the National Committee whose deliberations can no longer be considered free and democratic as it shakes and trembles beneath the threat of his bayonet-backed displeasure.

  “This is what Mr. Justice Davis has done this night: made inevitable a further tragic tearing-apart of an already tragically torn land. This may make happy his friends the President, the Secretary of State, and the dwindling number of fatally misguided Americans who agree with them.

  “But it cannot make happy any American who truly and honestly loves his country; for his country, now, confronts disaster.…”

  “The Supreme Court of the United States,” the President said in a statement issued shortly after midnight through the White House press office, “acting in the person of Mr. Justice Davis, has ruled that the National Committee is free from legal hindrances and may now proceed to do the work for which it has come to Washington.

  “Therefore I am issuing a call to Committee members to meet with me again in the Playhouse at the Kennedy Center at ten a.m. today to continue our deliberations.

  “Let us get on with the work speedily. The task is imperative.”

  And in the rather old-fashioned, slightly musty, but very comfortable bachelor quarters at the Westchester that he had occupied for thirty years, Mr. Justice Davis fixed himself a cup of hot chocolate, poured into it a jigger of Curaçao, and drank it slowly while he watched Frankly Unctuous damn him up and down on some late panel of experts discussing the awful thing he had done. Then he went to bed.

  He had not, he realized as he turned off the lamp and snuggled into the sheets, felt so much at ease in his mind for many months; perhaps not since all the dreadful things that had happened as a result of his impulse to pick up the envelope Brigham Anderson had dropped after giving him a ride to work that day. Indirectly, but nonetheless inescapably, Brig had died because of that impulse. For a long
time Tommy had not thought about those things, had not permitted himself to, had closed them off from his mind; but now, tonight, he could.

  The mood in which he had mailed Helen-Anne’s notes returned, strengthened by his visit to her grave, quiet and still on its deserted hillside in the hot, humid night. It was a curiously restful grave for one so full of vigorous life and bounce. Walter’s flowers, the President’s, the Knoxes’ and many others, were drooping now. To them he added the roses he had taken from his secretary’s desk as he left the office. They weren’t much, but ever since he had read her notes yesterday for the first time, he had intended to bring them to her himself.

  In some strange way, it all seemed fitting and peaceful in spite of the terrible, unexplained tragedy of her death. He told her good night quietly, smiling suddenly as he recalled what she had said to him years ago when he had been vigorously denouncing Orrin for some piece of social legislation—he couldn’t remember what now, but he was making quite an argument about its Constitutional irregularities. “Constitutional, my hat!” she had said in her raucous way. “You sentimental old coot, Tommy, you can’t fool me!”

  Well, he was a sentimental old coot: sentimental about a lot of people and a lot of things, sentimental most of all about his poor old bumbling, stumbling, unhappy America, which was probably why he had always felt he must work so hard to help her find decency and justice, even when it meant meddling in things that many people thought weren’t fitting for a Justice of the Supreme Court. Even when, once, it had taken him too far and caused the death of a fine young Senator he would give anything to have still alive.

  Tommy had seen a lot, in his years on the Court, and imperfect as he knew himself to be, he had still tried to do what he thought was best for America. So he had tonight. He knew his two friends who rested, one in Oak Hill and the other in Salt Lake City, would approve of him, could they know. They, too, had wanted what was best for America. Most people he knew in this strange, fantastic, mixed-up city did, in spite of the wrong turnings they took and the dreadful confusions they got themselves and the country into, sometimes.