1876

by Gore Vidal

  Although the sun was gone, the evening was unnaturally balmy. The traffic in the broad avenue had almost ceased except for the streetcars that continued to rattle back and forth. As we turned the corner just opposite the Treasury Building, Nordhoff showed us a tall elm tree named for the painter-inventor Morse. Apparently some awesome thought like gravity occurred to him in its shade.

  “How lovely,” said Emma.

  Nordhoff made a curious barking sound, which I now recognize is his way of laughing. “The only good thing to be said about this city is that it was worse until five years ago when we got our own Boss Tweed, a local criminal who is stealing the city blind but paving the streets in the process.”

  “Does no one complain?”

  “About the paving? Yes, he’s got the gradings all wrong, so that when it rains much of the city resembles Venice.”

  “I meant, complain about the stealing.”

  “Good God, no! That’s the American way, after all. And improvements are being made. Also, no matter how dreary Washington is, it is still the Heavenly City to most members of the Congress. Compared to where they come from, this is a place of wanton luxury and dazzling architecture. There’s the White House.”

  In the dark, through tall trees, the large white building looked like an abandoned box. “Charming,” said Emma. Since my last visit a number of glass conservatories had been added to the White House; they do not improve its somewhat forlorn appearance.

  “The inside is worse,” said Nordhoff. Then he led us to Fifteenth Street and the restaurant, which is housed in an ordinary brick building about the size of a New York brownstone. How marvellous, by the way, to see nothing brown in this city save the Negroes. Most Washington houses are made of dark red brick, a colour that appeals to me but puts Emma in mind of dried blood.

  Nordhoff led us up the stairs to the main dining room, where a black maître d’hôtel showed us to a corner table. The room was pleasant, with crimson plush curtains and an old-fashioned Turkey rug on the floor. The lighting came only from candles, a relief after New York’s ubiquitous calcium glare.

  Emma took her seat as if perfectly unaware of the interest the other diners showed in her. All round the dining room, mouths were forming small O’s to make the word “who.”

  “I shall get a number of inquiries tomorrow.” Nordhoff was amused. “Everyone will want to know the names of my guests.”

  “Guest,” I said. “It is Emma they’re staring at.”

  “Are they all senators?” Emma’s gaze travelled swiftly about the room, as though at the theatre or viewing a diorama.

  “Senators are upstairs, Madame la Princesse. In small dining rooms, with bottles of wine and long cigars…”

  “And ladies?”

  “Sometimes. But usually senators prefer to dine with other senators and plot ways of emptying the Treasury.”

  “How exciting! Then these people are…?” She indicated our fellow diners.

  “Lobbyists. They only meet the senators in dark alleys, where money changes hands.”

  “It would seem,” said Emma, “that the government here is simply the giving and taking of money.”

  “Amen!” shouted Nordhoff, startling the next table. Then he proceeded, “at Jamie’s expense, of course,” to order us a splendid meal (again terrapin; also, marvellous small crabs from Maryland). The wine list was admirable.

  I could very easily like Washington if I did not have to write about it. Nordhoff has been kind enough to give me his notes on the Babcock affair, and I now have the makings of my first piece, which will be a general physical impression of the city after forty years’ absence, with assorted ruminations on corruption, the Whisky Ring and O.E. Babcock.

  “You’d better meet Bristow, the secretary of the treasury. He’s the one who’s destroying Grant.”

  “His own president?” Emma is surprisingly interested in politics. I am beginning to wonder if I did not make a mistake. For years I always took Emma with me to the Princess Mathilde at Saint-Gratien, where all was art, when she might have been much happier at a political salon or even at the Tuileries, trying to make conversation with the poor Emperor, who was so entirely political, so much of a political genius, in fact, that he was, necessarily, one of the most boring men in France, for he could never speak candidly to anyone of anything that mattered. Happily, Emma did have one year as lady-in-waiting to the Empress and, I suppose, heard some political talk. Unlike Napoleon III, the Empress could talk of nothing else; she, too, was a politician but a bad one and because of her we (“we” or “they”? “We”! That is or was my country) went to war with Prussia and lost our lovely world.

  Note: the incorruptible Benjamin H. Bristow of Kentucky became secretary of the treasury in June of 1874. To everyone’s surprise he turned out to be an honest man. When he discovered that the Treasury Department was manned by thieves, he cleared them out as best he could.

  The so-called Whisky Ring began in 1870, when Grant appointed an old crony named General (naturally) John McDonald as chief of the Revenue Office in St. Louis. Like Babcock, McDonald served with Grant at Vicksburg, and whoever served with the great commander during that celebrated campaign may have, if he wants, the key to the mint. In any case, the tax on whisky in the West did not go to the government but to McDonald and his cronies, as well as to Babcock and, perhaps, to the President himself. To date some ten million dollars have been stolen.

  “Is the President involved?” I am deeply curious.

  Nordhoff shrugged. “I suspect that he is. Certainly, he’s been warned often enough about Babcock, and certainly, he is doing everything possible to stop the investigation.”

  “But it is normal to try to protect your administration.” Emma was practical.

  “So the Stalwarts say. Anyway, the trial goes forward in St. Louis, and Grant has said that he is willing to testify in person on behalf of Babcock.”

  “That sounds like an honest, stupid man,” said Emma.

  “Or a sly guilty one,” said Nordhoff. “Anyway, the Cabinet has talked him out of going to St. Louis.”

  “As he no doubt intended they would.” Emma is getting most eerily the range of these monsters. She has already confessed to preferring Africa to Apgar-land.

  “What makes me think that Grant is guilty has been the behavior of the Attorney General. First, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the Ring was discharged. Then just before Babcock went on trial, the Attorney General ruled that the government may not obtain evidence by promising immunity or leniency to any of the witnesses. Well, that of course has stopped the prosecution cold.”

  “And Grant knew of this order?”

  “Grant himself gave the order, to save Babcock.”

  “And himself?” Emma was fascinated.

  “Obviously. Well, we’ll soon know the verdict. The trial should end this week.”

  “You think that Babcock will get off?”

  Nordhoff nodded. “But not the others. They will go to jail.”

  “Why is everyone so afraid of the President?” My question must have sounded more naïve than it really was, for Emma answered it. “Because he is the President.”

  “But he’s not as powerful as the Congress. Or the courts. He can be impeached easily enough. Look what they did a few years ago to President Johnson, who had committed no crime of any sort.”

  Nordhoff put the matter for me in a different way. “Most of us here have a fair idea that Grant has been involved in a good many shady deals. But we cannot, must not, say so.”

  “Libel?” All things African absorb and delight Emma.

  “No. Because Grant is the country’s hero and the people simply cannot, will not accept that he is corrupt. I suspect a majority may secretly think that he is. They certainly know about his family and his close friends. But he is still Ulysses S. Grant who saved the Union, the greatest living
general in the world—a brave and silent hero, ever so silent, who gives the impression that he knows nothing of politics—”

  “While knowing everything.” Emma nodded to me. “Like the Emperor.”

  “My daughter should write these reflective pieces.”

  Emma laughed. “I don’t think—” But at that point she was interrupted by no other than the Speaker of the House of Representatives (that is, Speaker until last November’s Democratic victory) James G. Blaine of Maine, Conkling’s only serious rival for the Republican nomination for the presidency.

  Emma and I are in disagreement. I feel more force in Conkling, as well as antipathy, than I do in Blaine. She is quite the reverse. “Mr. Blaine is superb! A marvellous actor…like Coquelin playing at an American president-to-be.”

  “But he is nowhere near as beautiful as Mr. Conkling. And surely you are the first to respond to male beauty.”

  “But male beauty is, above all, male. Mr. Blaine positively overwhelms with those black Indian eyes.”

  “You have yet to see an Indian except for your blond Indian father.”

  “Well, I’ve seen pictures. Anyway, I am enchanted with Mr. Blaine. Compared to him, your Mr. Conkling is a provincial repertory jeune premier.”

  The great man had been on his way upstairs for a supper party with some friends when, as he put it, “I saw my very old friend Nordhoff entertaining what looked to me to be the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, so here I am. Yes, I will sit with you for just a moment. Yes, waiter, I’ll have some of the wine. To drink the health of the beautiful Princess from Far-Away, and yours, too, Mr. Schuyler.”

  Apparently he, too, read in school my Machiavelli and the Last Signori. If I had known thirty years ago that I was educating a generation of American politicians, I might have taken more pains to point a moral or two. I think they have understood my Machiavelli too well, and missed the point to certain of the signori.

  Blaine was already full of drink but not drunk. I don’t suppose he is fifty yet. The face is ruddy; the small eyes are like polished onyxes—they look out at you so brightly that you cannot look into them. The ears are elephantine, and often paler or rosier than the rest of the face—do they respond to his moods first or last? The nose is somewhat potato-shaped but, all in all, the face (what one can see of it above the clipped General Grant beard) is pleasing enough, as is the voice, prime requisite for a national politician nowadays (yet everyone tells me that the late revered President Lincoln had a weak, high, unappealing voice).

  “My wife will call on you tomorrow, Princess.”

  “Not too early, please. We are just off the cars.”

  “I shall see that she applies every hour on the hour until you can receive her. Besides, it is no great distance for her. We live just down Fifteenth Street, down the road, as we say here. What an addition she is to Washington, Nordhoff!”

  “Don’t give me the credit. It’s Mr. Schuyler and Mr. Bennett.” Rather to my annoyance, Nordhoff told Blaine what I was doing in Washington, and immediately Blaine became guarded, and though no less charming, the wine that he had allowed to make him glow was suddenly banished from that sharp mind. “Well, I can’t wait to see what you make of our city.”

  “Have you anything to tell him about General Babcock, Mr. Speaker?” Nordhoff surrounded this bland question with those little honks that are his laughter.

  Comically, Blaine looked to heaven. “I am devoted to the President and to every man of our Grand Old Party…”

  “Except Roscoe Conkling.”

  “There is a place in my heart even for that turkey gobbler.” Blaine finished off the wine in his glass; then rose, as did Nordhoff and I (the whole room was now more or less openly watching us, and trying to eavesdrop). “Don’t be too hard on us, Mr. Schuyler. We’re just a bunch of poor country boys come to the big wicked city.”

  “I’ll remember that, sir.”

  “Princess, you shall, I hope, honour our house soon with your presence.”

  In a gracious flurry the great man was gone. Nordhoff was pleased with himself and with us. “I knew he’d be here tonight, and I figured he would do exactly what he did.”

  “And if he hadn’t?” Emma was challenging.

  “Why, I’d’ve sent a waiter to the private dining room and asked him to come down.”

  “You like him?” I asked.

  “It is quite impossible not to,” said Nordhoff.

  “And is he also corrupt?” I inquired.

  “Oh, Papa! Don’t you know the answer by now?”

  Nordhoff first barked, very sharply; then said, “Yes, but with considerable style. I think he’s the most interesting man here.”

  The rest of the evening—there was not much of it, for Emma and I were both exhausted—was taken up with protocol. It is usual for a lady new to this city to remain in her residence and wait for those ladies of her own rank to pay her calls—usually, no more than the ritual leaving of a card. Nordhoff thought that Emma, as a Most Eminent Highness, would be called upon by the ladies of the Cabinet and the wives of the various foreign ministers. The question is what to do about Mrs. Grant. Nordhoff has promised to investigate and let us know whether or not Emma should call first upon her or wait and take her chances.

  Our hotel suite is nowhere near as comfortable as the Fifth Avenue Hotel but we are both too tired tonight to care. I noted, ominously, mosquito netting about the beds but Emma noted, with some relief, wire netting at the windows. She fell into her bed with the faintest of good nights. I forced myself to stay awake long enough to write these notes.

  What a lot of work there is ahead.

  2

  I HAVE FINALLY SENT off my first piece for the Herald, with a good deal of help from Nordhoff, who continues to be of a perfect kindness. The President has also made a considerable contribution to my debut as a Washington observer, for yesterday his personal deposition to the court at St. Louis was published. Grant’s long, rambling defence of Babcock is regarded here with the deepest embarrassment by the Administration and with absolute joy by the opposition. At inordinate length the President—presumably under oath—says over and over again, “I always had great confidence in his integrity…I have never learned anything that would shake that confidence; of course I know of this trial that is progressing.”

  The President knows a great deal more than he deposes. For one thing, according to Nordhoff, Grant has taken at least one gift from the Whisky Ring. Two years ago the ringleader General McDonald gave him a pair of full-blooded horses with a side-bar buggy and gold-mounted harnessings. The President gave McDonald $3 as payment, whilst McDonald gave the President a written receipt for $1,700. This is one of the ways our leaders grow rich. But then Grant feels ill-served by the Union he saved and often remarks upon all the money and property another grateful nation bestowed on Marlborough and Wellington for their victories. Bitter at obtaining not so much as a Blenheim Palace, Grant now thinks it only fair that he take anything offered him, regardless of the source.

  I sent my piece by the early morning car to New York; and have just now received a telegram from Jamie, delivered by Mr. Roose himself. “Well done” is the verdict. So now I move with more confidence through the Washington scene, this gorgeous Africa, where Emma blooms and glows.

  But I am not at all certain what effect my pieces will have on our social life. At Nordhoff’s urging, Emma yesterday paid her call on Mrs. Grant, who was most dignified, although she is, according to Emma, like a rich farmer’s wife with hopelessly crossed eyes. “She ‘allowed’ we ought to enjoy Washington and that we shall be invited to her next large dinner. She emphasized the word ‘large.’ ”

  “If the President has read what I’ve written about him, we may not be allowed in the house.”

  “But you were tact itself.” Emma had gone over every line. We had both agreed that my reflections would
have more force if I were to describe these circles of corruption in a flat straightforward style, rather like that of a cookbook. I think, immodestly perhaps, that the result is quite interesting; certainly, it is unlike the evangelical style of most American journalists, who proclaim their partisanship in such a shrill way that even when they are telling the truth they sound false or, worse, paid for.

  Emma’s success has been considerable. Mrs. Hamilton Fish herself paid a call. As wife of the Secretary of State, she leads the polite society here. She is also a New York grande dame, and related in a complicated way to—how could she not be?—the Apgars. After Mrs. Fish left her card, the other ladies of the Cabinet did the same. In fact, the young and beautiful Mrs. William W. Belknap paid her call in person because, it seems, she had met Emma four years ago in Paris. Mr. Belknap is the secretary of war and was originally married to Mrs. Belknap’s sister. When that lady died, he married the fascinating Puss, as Mrs. Belknap is known even to those who have not met her. Emma recalls her as something of a show-off at Paris. “Very gamine, but amusing in the Western style.”

  In any case, we have been taken up by the fabled Puss, and tonight attended a dinner at her house in G Street. Incidentally, Emma often remarks upon the smallness of the houses of the great. “It is a capital city in miniature.”

  “But of a very large country.”

  “All the stranger, then, that they should live in such small, cluttered, airless rooms.” Emma made a face, “Also, these celebrated rulers of your great country do not often bathe. And the men never seem to have those frock coats and trousers of theirs properly cleaned.” I must say that I, too, have noticed the rather heavy odour that permeates crowded Washington gatherings. The ladies are of course drenched in French perfumes while some but not all of the men are partial to eau de Cologne. Soap, however, has no magic for the majority. I noticed that the fingernails of Blaine were black, while the portion of neck visible above Nordhoff’s immaculate collar was delicately lined with grey, rather like Leonardo’s silverpoint crosshatching.