by Allen Drury
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Roger Croy said. “Only to repeat again that it seems to those of us who will support this motion that it is manifestly more democratic and more in keeping with the very great seriousness of our responsibility here to recall the convention. Obviously, Mr. President, more than 1,000 people are going to furnish a broader base than 106, however perfect the 106 may be. Mr. Justice Davis chose to regard this as not a valid point of law, but it is a valid point, period. And it is on that basis that I make my motion and now, Mr. Chairman, request a vote.”
“Mr. President!” Asa Attwood said, “I should like to speak to the motion for a moment myself.”
(“Oh, for God’s sake, let’s stop all this yakking and have a vote!” CBS exclaimed, not too quietly, to NBC, and Asa Attwood was onto it at once.)
“Yes, Mr. President!” he cried, swinging about and staring with a genuinely hostile expression at the press tables. “That’s exactly what’s wrong with trying to work in this fishbowl, and it’s exactly what’s wrong with the convention, and it’s exactly why some of us are absolutely determined to block recall of the convention if we can. The press and television have done nothing but meddle, meddle, meddle, since the first day of the first committee meeting in San Francisco. They’ve been biased, slanted, unfair, one-sided, they’ve done everything they could to push Governor Jason, they’ve tried everything they could to blackguard and demean Secretary Knox.
“They tried to do a snow job on the convention, and they’re trying to do a snow job here. We’ve all seen the sort of coverage that preceded this Committee meeting, and we’ve seen what’s come out since our meeting began. It’s no secret they want the convention called back so that they can try to pressure it again. And now they even have the gall to make their comments in loud tones so that the whole Committee and the whole world, even, can hear them do it. They’re in contempt of this Committee and we ought to send them out!”
“Mr. President,” Roger Croy said quickly, “does the Committeeman wish to make that in the form of a motion?”
“Well,” Asa Attwood said, slowing down a little. “Well … No, of course not! We have a responsibility to the public, these proceedings have got to be public, they’ve got to be here to report them.”
(“Bastard,” CBS said, relaxing. “Typical of the United Friends of Orrin Knox,” NBC remarked.)
“But I will say this to the Committeeman from Oregon,” Asa Attwood went on. “Nothing better illustrates the reason why the convention should not be recalled than the sort of smart-aleck comment we heard from the press just now. If there’s a better argument, I don’t know it! What it does is emphasize very vividly exactly the sort of atmosphere that we can’t afford if we’re to do the kind of job the country has a right to demand of us.”
“Mr. President,” Ewan MacDonald MacDonald said, “does the Committeeman from California also argue that the 106 of us are somehow superior and more intelligent and more responsible and more patriotic than the full convention would be? Does he say we’re so much better and so much superior to the rest of our countrymen? Are we supposed to be the elite? Is that his concept of democracy?”
“I am saying,” Asa Attwood said, “that 106 people, working under difficult conditions but God knows not one-tenth as difficult as in convention, can come up with a more sensible, reasoned, responsible decision than 1,000-plus at a convention. Now, if this shocks you, I will say to the Committeeman from Wyoming—”
“And 106 are easier to pressure into voting for Orrin Knox than 1,000 would be, too, aren’t they, Asa?” Ewan MacDonald interrupted.
“And 1,000 are easier to pressure into voting for Ted Jason than 106 would be!” Asa Attwood shot back.
Faintly came the fetid wind of booing, and in the room a furious gabble.
“On which note,” the President remarked with a quick wryness that concealed a purpose, though in the angry rush of the moment no one realized it, “I think if there are no further comments that we had better have the vote. Mrs. Bigelow?”
And for a moment it all hung in the balance, while he held his breath and maintained a bland expression. But with a sort of grumbling return to a minimal good humor, everyone settled down and no one challenged.
“Alabama!” Anna Hooper Bigelow said, and again the split voting began and for a necessary moment engaged attention.
“On this motion, as on the others,” Helen M. Rupert said, “I’m afraid, Mr. President, that Alabama remains divided. I vote Aye.”
“And I vote Nay,” said Henry C. Godwin.
“Alaska!” Anna said.
“No!” said Tobin Janson, and,
“No!” said Mary V. Aluta.
“Arkansas!” said Anna Bigelow, and at that point Roger P. Croy came suddenly to life.
“Mr. President!” he cried, leaping to his feet. “Mr. President!”
“Yes?” the President inquired blandly, and he and Roger Croy knew that Roger Croy was beaten before he began. But he made the attempt anyway.
“Mr. President,” he said, his tone an odd combination of anger, dismay, and the reasonableness necessary if he was to have any chance at all of carrying his point, “this vote is irregular, Mr. President, I submit! This is a matter of the utmost importance. This may very well be the most important vote we cast here! It cannot be decided by simple majority, Mr. President. It must be decided on the basis of a weighted vote, on the basis of the votes cast by each state delegation at San Francisco—”
Immediately the room was in pandemonium as at least thirty Committee members jumped to their feet shouting for recognition; as the audience instinctively if irregularly lent its voices to the din; as the television cameras swung frantically here and there to zoom in on contorted, angry faces; as the press clambered onto its tables for a better view and also, instinctively and irregularly, added its excited cries to the uproar.
From outside, harsh and insistent, came shouts, boos, screams, the beginnings of chants, the angry animal wail of a mob on the verge of going amuck.
In the center of it all stood the President, his expression impassive as it had been on so many hectic occasions over the years in the House, his aspect solid, immovable, and, finally, indomitable. When, after some five minutes of wild confusion, it became apparent that he was not going to move, look frightened, act uncertain or show the slightest sign of appeasing anyone, the clamor began to die; and presently, when it had terminated altogether and Committee, audience and press had all resumed their seats, and even outside the chaos had sunk to a distant, ominous groan, he spoke.
“The Chair is sorry, Governor,” he said calmly, “but the Chair sees no way in which you can be accommodated. The Chair raised this point two days ago when our meetings began. I said that it seemed to me that there were certain procedural matters that should logically be decided by simple majority vote, and I asked the Committee’s opinion. I gave the Committee a perfectly fair and open chance to discuss it and pass upon it, and even have a vote on it if anyone wanted, and nobody objected, Governor. Not even you.
“And now we have followed a simple majority on two votes so far, the vote day before yesterday on the motion to appeal, and the vote this morning to reduce security precautions. So we have created precedent on these procedural matters. And furthermore, Governor, you know as well as I do that in parliamentary practice a vote once begun cannot be interfered with or recalled, it must be completed. The roll call has begun.
“I’m sorry you are too late to make your points, but you are too late. Mrs. Bigelow, please continue the roll call.”
“But this is not a simple procedural matter!” Roger Croy exclaimed in an anguished tone, his stately white-haired dignity for once considerably shattered. “This is the most important—this is the most vital—”
“I’m sorry,” the President said. “Mrs. Bigelow, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” Anna Hooper Bigelow agreed with a nervous haste. “California!”
“Yes!” cried Esmé Harbello
w Stryke with a bitter emphasis, and “No!” triumphantly replied Asa B. Attwood …
And presently, as they all knew, and as the nation knew and the world knew, the President announced calmly:
“On this vote the Yeas are fifty, the Nays are fifty-six, and the motion is not agreed to.”
But Roger Croy was not down yet.
“Mr. President,” he said, trying hard to control his anger and disappointment and succeeding reasonably well, “since you have based your action on an appeal to parliamentary law, I wonder if you are going to permit a little more of it and allow a motion to reconsider the vote, now that it has been completed?”
“If it comes from a supporter of the motion, as is our practice in Congress,” the President said, “certainly.”
“Mr. President,” said Ewan MacDonald, “I move to reconsider the vote just taken.”
“Mr. President,” Pete Boissevain said promptly, “I move to lay that motion on the table.”
“I had forgotten,” the President said with a smile, not having forgotten for one moment, “that the distinguished Committeeman from Vermont used to be a distinguished Congressman from Vermont. The gentleman is entirely correct, and the vote now comes on the motion to table the motion to reconsider. If Mr. Boissevain’s motion to table is approved, the matter is closed.”
“Second!” Lizzie Hanson McWharter said sharply. “Question!” said Lyle Strathmore of Michigan and Luther Redfield of Washington.
“If there is no further discussion—” the President offered slowly, but it was obvious that for the time being, at least, the heart had gone out of Roger P. Croy and his friends. “Mrs. Bigelow, please call the roll.”
The lines held.
The vote was fifty-six to table, fifty to reconsider.
And so ended the attempt to reconvene the convention.
“Mr. President,” said Perry Amboy of New Hampshire into the exhausted silence that followed, “I think we’ve had enough for one day. I think we ought to recess until tomorrow.”
“What’s the Committee’s pleasure?” the President asked.
“I move we recess until ten a.m. tomorrow,” said Ewan MacDonald, sounding tired.
“Second,” said Asa Attwood.
“Question,” said Esmé Stryke.
“Question,” said Mary Baffleburg.
“All those in favor—” said the President.
“Aye!” shouted the Committee.
“The Committee will stand in recess until ten a.m. tomorrow,” the President said; secretly relieved, as were they all, because the situation had reached that psychological point that comes so often in democratic contests, when no one quite knows what will happen and no one quite dares push his luck without a chance to withdraw and regroup and recoup. Out of the votes taken today no really clear-cut pattern had developed. The Jason forces had lost heavily on the motion to reduce security, but there were many individual reasons for that. They had come back up very substantially on the vote to reconvene the convention, and though they had lost, there were many individual reasons for that, too, including Tommy’s ruling. It did not necessarily mean that they could not win a vote to make Ted the nominee. Nor did it necessarily mean that the Knox forces were in command. The vote that would show the real relative strength of the two candidates had not come, and nobody wanted to force it just yet.
There was an obvious feeling of relief in the air as they prepared to leave the Playhouse, though millions watching could not understand the subtle but imperative conditions that had made them decide that it was best not to go on immediately to a showdown.
“Look at those bastards,” Pete Boissevain said to Asa B. Attwood as the Army convoy started away from Kennedy Center to take them to Fort Myer, moving slowly through the menacing ranks of NAWAC, many now standing silent and ominous in their black uniforms, the rest shouting, chanting, screaming obscenities, flinging filth and ox blood at the cars. “They’re spoiling for it. We’re in for a rough time, I’m afraid.”
“So be it,” Asa Attwood said grimly. “If that’s the way it’s got to be, that’s the way it’s got to be. If that bastard Croy had had his way, we’d all be murdered now.”
“Daddy Croy may have lost himself a Vice Presidency today,” Pete Boissevain said with relish. “He just wasn’t alert enough when the old fox got to operating.”
“He’ll never be Vice President because Ted Jason will never be President,” Asa Attwood said flatly. He looked out the window with intense contempt. “Even though they think they can scare us into taking him.”
“They may murder us yet,” Pete Boissevain said grimly, “but I’m damned if I’m going to vote any differently than I want to.”
“Me either,” said Asa B. Attwood.
And so, too, said Roger Croy and his friends, in a different cause but in the same spirit, as the long line of cars passed through the tunnel of hate to the comparative safety of Fort Myer. The events of the day had stiffened determination, strengthened attitude, made position more inflexible; and curiously it was NAWAC that seemed to be putting the final touches to it.
All of the Committee members left the Center determined to vote as they pleased. Even the most timid and worried found themselves hardening into an adamant courage as NAWAC howled and threatened. They suddenly seemed to realize in some way they had not before that this was a matter for them to decide. With a stubbornness that was still characteristic of their nation under pressure, they made up their minds that they were going to do it the way they wanted to, regardless of what might happen.
But this was not known to NAWAC or to the clever, sick minds that controlled it, and so well-prepared plans went into effect, not only in Washington, where an ominous, getting-ready sort of quiet descended on the tent towns along the river, but in a number of other cities across the continent. By six p.m. bitter demonstrations for Ted Jason and against Orrin Knox, erupted in the capital, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, New York. By six-thirty counterdemonstrations had begun, and by seven p.m. at least four persons were dead and the rioting gave no signs of diminishing. Anonymous threatening telephone calls were received by many, including Orrin Knox, Justice Davis, Bob Leffingwell, Bob Munson; the White House received eighteen in half an hour, from widely separated points across the country. Shortly before nine p.m. a terrific thunderstorm hit the District of Columbia and all the demons of hell seemed to have been loosed upon it: a nice touch offered by nature which made the President and many others smile somewhat grimly as they looked out at the roiling clouds and the great shards of lightning that clattered down the sky.
Not even with armed escort did members of the Committee venture out of Fort Myer that night, and in Washington and in the riot-torn major cities, no one who did not have imperative business went upon the streets. In America, as all over the world, the feeling grew that tomorrow would be the day; and what it would bring, not even the desecraters of the night could know for sure, although they were fools enough to think they did, and to congratulate each other that they were somehow helping to bring it about with their insane idiot violence.
8
Next morning, with TWENTY-THREE DEAD IN NATIONWIDE POLITICAL RIOTING, with heat and humidity rapidly climbing toward record levels for the summer, the Committee returned to Kennedy Center under a leaden, rain-swollen sky to keep its appointment with history.
It was not an easy passage.
Fifty demonstrators wearing skeleton costumes flung themselves into the road as the President’s entourage approached: they were dragged out of it, but their howling hatred accompanied him as he rode swiftly by.
Moments earlier, Lathia Talbott Jennings of North Dakota and Henrietta McEwan of Nevada, arriving in an Army car together, found themselves the recipients of rotten eggs, putrefying tomatoes and a very dead cat which landed on the hood and exploded all over the windshield so that their driver could hardly see: the car lurched and tottered for sever
al seconds before he righted it and drove on, Lathia and Henrietta crying out in horror and disgust meanwhile.
Helen Rupert and Henry Godwin of Alabama, riding together despite their political differences, narrowly missed being pelted by balloons filled with ox blood as they left their car to hurry into the Center: the balloons burst just behind them and left a great red slick dripping slowly down the marble steps.
Jessie L. Williams and Blair Hannah of Illinois, their car slowing to a near-halt behind that of Roger Croy and Esmé Stryke, found themselves being rocked from side to side and almost overturned: soldiers using rifles as clubs finally drove off their screaming attackers.
Cullee Hamilton, arriving with the Munsons and Lafe Smith, was struck by a large rock in the left shoulder: his left arm suddenly hung limp and useless as he clutched it and ran up the steps after his friends while a triumphant snarl echoed after him.
Seconds later William Everett and Ruth Thompson Jones of Nebraska, impelled by a sudden shout, turned back at the door to see a Molotov cocktail hit the roof of the car they had just left, bounce onto the steps and explode, leaving a huge dirty gouge near the still-dripping smear of blood.
Though none but Cullee suffered actual physical hurt—and his soon proved to be only a temporary paralysis and not a serious wound—the gauntlet they all had to run was wild and foreboding enough so that many arrived inside the comparative safety of the Playhouse in a condition needing only a little more to tip it into hysteria.