1876

by Gore Vidal

  “I prayed to our Lady of Santiago that you would return, and our Lady has answered my prayers!” So Madame greeted me.

  “My own cup runneth over,” I said, rallying as best I could. Fortunately, Garfield drew me to one side. “How are things with your friend Tilden?”

  “I suspect he will win.”

  Garfield frowned. “That would be a terrible thing, you know. Not that Governor Tilden is not an honourable man,” quickly added. “But if he does succeed it will be due to a damnable combination of former Confederates, Catholics and the whisky interest.”

  I was amused by Garfield’s sincere bigotry; and liked him no less for so perfectly reflecting the prejudices of his class and party.

  We were eight at dinner, and to my surprise one of the eight was Puss Belknap. “I think she has suffered quite enough,” said Lucretia Garfield, in an aside to me. “Poor Puss,” she added on principle.

  “I have so missed you and your lovely Emma!” Puss was in excellent form. “I will never, truly never forget the way you two rallied round me in my hour of agony, which still goes on, of course.”

  “Will there be a trial in the Senate?” I have not been keeping up with the Belknaps as I should.

  “Oh, yes!” Puss was bitter. “This is an election year, remember? And the Democrats will do anything to blacken us, which is why my angel will go on trial next month even though, as Senator Conkling himself said only the other day, the Senate has no jurisdiction at all because my angel is no longer a member of the Cabinet. Oh, they wish us to know the very depths of disgrace, the absolute bitterness of martyrdom!” But for all Puss’s Southern rhetoric, she seems to be enjoying herself; in any case, there is little likelihood of the Senate obtaining the two-thirds vote needed to convict.

  “Now, of course, that demon from the lower depths, that Mr. Bristow, is after Mr. Blaine, who is as honest a man as ever served his country in the halls of Congress.”

  “I am certain of that.” Puss did not notice my small joke. She blames all of the Administration’s troubles on the ambitions of Bristow combined with the savagery of the Democrats.

  “Why, it is a positive duty of a congressman to help those railroads which have made this country of ours what it is today. Of course Mr. Blaine may have been a little bit careless, now and then, along the way, ’cause he’s got no head for business, you know. And he certainly made a big mistake when he took that mortgage for his Fifteenth Street house—a very good investment, by the way—from Mr. Jay Cooke.”

  This was startling, I have just mentioned the matter to Nordhoff, who will look into it; he was suitably grim; he believes there is no end to Blaine’s corruption. At times I wish that I could take all of this as seriously as Nordhoff does. But I cannot. I regard the politics of the country as an ongoing comedy, which, this evening, has suddenly sheered off into wildest farce.

  After dinner, while the gentlemen were still at table and working their way through a quantity of madeira, a messenger arrived for Garfield, who excused himself. From the parlour I could hear Madame García not only thumping out on the upright piano a ballad of unrequited Argentinian love but singing as well in a voice as piercing and as brazen as Fate, my fate.

  Garfield returned; handsome face very thoughtful. We were expectant.

  “What news?” From a Western senator; long white beard stained with tobacco juice.

  “I suppose everyone will know by tomorrow.” Garfield sat down; manner most grave. “A note from Mr. Blaine. This afternoon he visited Mr. Mulligan at his hotel and they had a—well, a sort of reconciliation. Anyway, Mr. Blaine is now studying the letters and…”

  “Mr. Blaine has got the letters in his possession?” I was not certain that I had heard right.

  Garfield nodded. “Yes. Mr. Mulligan was—obviously—most agreeable. Certainly he realized the importance of those letters to Mr. Blaine, not to mention to the leadership of our party and, of course, to the whole country.”

  The Western senator applauded. “That Blaine has got more nerve than any man I know.”

  “Well,” said Garfield, as though quoting Cicero, “a pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.” I think he meant what he said, assuming that he was listening to himself.

  I could not wait to tell Nordhoff, who was waiting for me in the bar at Willard’s. As usual, Nordhoff knew even more than I.

  “I’ve just been with Mulligan. God never made a greater fool.” Nordhoff was not entirely sober—something very rare with him. He was also in a state of fury.

  Apparently, “Mulligan was having his hair cut in the barber shop at the Riggs House when Blaine appeared. Needless to say, their conversation was overheard.” Nordhoff is a great one for getting people to tell him what he wants to know, but then he has often likened himself to a detective on the trail of a kidnapped heiress; in the present case, the heiress is the republic itself and the abductors are the duly elected representative of the people.

  “Blaine said, ‘Well, you’re an enemy of mine, I see.’ Then Blaine recalled that Mulligan had worked as a bookkeeper for Blaine’s brother-in-law and once, in a dispute between the brother-in-law and Mulligan, Blaine had ruled against Mulligan. Clever of Blaine to bring that up. Setting the stage in advance. Establishing malice.” The black waiter brought us yet another round of whisky—I now have a terrible headache. Incidentally, I find it curious that the sneezing has stopped altogether. But then the season is later here than in the Hudson Valley and the pollen—or whatever it is—has gone away.

  “Blaine then conferred privately with Mulligan. There were no witnesses. Shortly afterward I spoke to Mulligan—we have a friend in common.”

  “Imaginary?”

  A brief yelp. “Almost. Anyway I was able to get him to talk. Not that he made much sense. He just stood there in the lobby of the Riggs House, looking as if he’d been struck on the head with a rock—something I’d like to do to him.

  “How did Blaine get the letters from him?”

  “Tears. Appeals to patriotism. To the flag. Not to mention an offer to buy the letters.”

  “How much?”

  “Blaine does these things with style, and with the Treasury’s money. He offered Mulligan a consulship.”

  “Good God!” I thought for an instant nostalgically of my old rank, conferred on me by President Van Buren simply because we were half-brothers. “So he accepted the consulship, and Blaine got the letters.”

  Nordhoff shook his head. “He got nothing at all. Or so he swears. Oh, he did get Blaine’s promise to return the letters after he and his lawyers have studied them. I ask you, Schuyler, has there ever been such a beguiling monster as Blaine since the Serpent in the Garden?”

  “Surely Mr. Mulligan does not expect ever to see those letters again.”

  “How—how—how does he do it?” Nordhoff slammed his glass hard on the bar, alarming the Negro waiter. Fortunately we were the only customers in the room.

  “Obviously he is a clever man. And, obviously, he means to be president.”

  “No! Never! He’s trapped this time.”

  2

  I AM SITTING in the press gallery of the House of Representatives. Despite the crowding, I am fairly comfortable and able to write without too much difficulty. All the galleries are filled. Most of the Senate has converged on the floor of the House; senators are sitting, standing, leaning. The whole country is waiting for Blaine’s speech.

  It is now June 5. In nine days the Republican Convention will meet at Cincinnati. If Blaine is to be nominated, then today’s speech must be the most eloquent, not to mention plausible, of his remarkable career. There is a sense of history being made in this chamber—certainly, of theatre.

  I have already sent off one piece to the Herald describing how Blaine got Mulligan to give up the letters “for temporary perusal.” Needless to say, Blaine has not only refused to give the lett
ers back to Mulligan but he has also refused to present them to the committee. He is now in danger of being held in contempt of Congress, and there is even a movement amongst certain of the more rabid Democrats to have him expelled from the House of Representatives. To every question of “why” and “what” and “how,” he has said, “Wait until Monday.”

  Well, it is Monday…And Blaine just appeared on the floor. Republican members of both Houses surround him. There is much shaking of hands, pinching of arms, whispers into those large now-rather-red ears. Blaine is poised and serene.

  Blaine has just looked up at the press gallery. When he sees me, he touches his jaw and winks, reminding me of the extracted tooth and the other speech not heard by me. He waves to various friends in the gallery. He sits at his desk. All eyes upon him as he slowly removes from inside his frock coat a thick packet. A long exhalation of breath throughout the chamber: The Letters.

  Casually Blaine places the packet on top of his desk. A sudden expectant hush in the House (I am now writing this back at Willard’s). It was, suddenly, the moment.

  Blaine stood up, and the Speaker, Mr. Kerr (a sickly man recently accused of having sold a cadetship to West Point), recognized the honourable gentleman from Maine on a point of personal privilege.

  Blaine began pianissimo. He spoke, sadly, of partisanship in the House. He felt obliged to remind us that two members of the committee which had been hounding him had seen service in the rebel army during the late Civil War. This brought forth a few jeers from Southern members, and some louder ones directed against the Southerners by Republican partisans. Mr. Kerr pounded for order.

  Blaine struck his usual note: false charges are to be expected when the fevers of a terrible conflict still course through the body politic. Because of his notorious love for the Union, he has enemies. He knows it. He forgives them.

  Letters. Blaine spoke warmly of the sacred and inviolable nature of private communication between gentlemen. What was meant for one man’s eyes was no business of any other man on this earth. He made this somewhat dubious assertion sound as if it were the very foundation of the American Constitution and of all civilized law.

  But then Blaine’s voice began to rise, and his face turned as scarlet as his ears. The black eyes burned. The voice rumbled like an organ as stop after stop was pulled out. “I have defied the power of the House to compel me to produce these letters. But I am not afraid to show the letters.” I write this from memory, and must paraphrase. “Thank God Almighty, I am not ashamed to show them.” He picked up the packet. “There they are!”

  Blaine held the packet above his head for all to see. “There is the very original package. And with some sense of humiliation, with a mortification I do not pretend to conceal, with a sense of”—and the voice now sounded like a trumpet when he let loose the word—“outrage, any man in my position would feel, I invite the confidence of forty-four million of my countrymen while I read these letters from this desk.”

  It was a delectable, impudent performance. Blaine read here and there, skipped about, commented on this and that—all with such apparent candour, such a confiding honest manner, that as we listened, even those of us who are convinced that James G. Blaine is one of the most gorgeous villains in American life, we were, one by one, swept along with the man.

  Although a child of nine would have known that Blaine was reading us only what he chose, it made no difference. One could have listened to that righteous yet charming voice by the hour. And by the hour we did, until I was aware that my left leg had lost all sensation, that I had been too long cramped in the same position. At that exact instant, Blaine, as if in perfect harmony with my leg and consequent diminution of attention, slammed down the letters on his desk, as if thoroughly weary of the whole matter.

  “Enough! The letters are now part of the record of this Congress for the world to read. But will my persecutors continue in their sordid task? Will they?”

  Blaine turned dramatically to the aisle that separates Democrats from Republicans. He pointed to Proctor Knott. “You, sir, are the honourable chairman of the committee that has shown so much interest in my affairs, even to my most private, most sacred correspondence. I trust you are satisfied.” A good stroke not to pose a question but, rather, to make a statement.

  Blaine then said that his innocence hinged on the word of one Josiah Caldwell in London. Blaine asked Chairman Knott if he had heard from Mr. Caldwell.

  Knott rose, obviously irritated. He said that he had not been able to obtain Mr. Caldwell’s address.

  Blaine: But did you receive a despatch from him?

  Knott: I’ll answer that in a moment.

  Blaine: I want a categorical answer.

  Much tension in the chamber: all eyes on the two men.

  Knott: I have received a despatch purporting to be from Mr. Caldwell.

  Now Blaine moved swiftly for the kill. When did the cable arrive? Why was it not admitted as evidence? Knott stammered. Blaine roared, “You got a despatch last Thursday evening at eight o’clock from Josiah Caldwell, completely and absolutely exonerating me from this charge, and you have suppressed it!”

  Blaine sat down to the most extraordinary demonstration. Republicans were on their feet roaring his name. Rebel yells from many Southern Democrats. Gavel pounding from the Speaker. Cries from the ladies’ gallery…

  Nordhoff and I walked slowly back to Willard’s. The day was hot and overcast. Heat lightning flashed at the far end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Nordhoff was in despair. I was elated, the way one is after a good—no, great—performance in the theatre. “It is all bunkum,” was Nordhoff’s verdict. “Caldwell means nothing. The cable was probably a fixed-up job. The letters make no sense, as he read them.”

  “Sense has nothing to do with such—music! What sense is there in Wagner?”

  “The letters will eventually be printed. And they’ll show that he is guilty as sin.”

  “But he’ll be nominated nine days from now. There won’t be time to stop him, at least not with Mr. Mulligan’s letters.”

  “Perhaps. Have you seen this?” Nordhoff showed me a letter in the form of a circular, signed by Tilden as chairman of the New York State Democratic party, and dated October 27, 1868. The text was a request from Tilden to the various Democratic county leaders to telegraph as soon as possible what looked to be the vote in their area to William M. Tweed at Tammany Hall. “The object being to let Tweed know how many false votes he would have to provide to counteract the Democratic losses upstate.”

  “I understand, dear Nordhoff, the object of the letter. I also suggest that it is a forgery.”

  “So your friend Tilden says. Anyway, we’re in for a lively campaign.”

  3

  I AM IN Cincinnati. I cannot think how Jamie got me to make the trip. After all, the Associated Press does this sort of reporting far better than I. But here I am, after a sleepless night in the cars.

  A room at the Gibson Hotel had been prepared for me but when I discovered that I would be obliged to share it with three members of the Indiana delegation (and only two beds), I made my way, pathetically, valise in hand, along the steep streets (the city is built on a series of bluffs overlooking the Ohio River) until I came to a solid blue limestone building with what Mrs. Grant would call a “piazza,” and threw myself on the mercy of the family, whose head, a man of my age, proved to be a native of Wiesbaden in Germany.

  “Half the town is German,” he told me, pleased to be able to speak his native tongue. From my bedroom (three dollars a day), I have a fine view of the Miami and Erie Canal, known to the natives as the Rhine; the area where the German population lives is referred to as “over the Rhine.”

  Today was the first day of the convention. Armed with various identifying documents, I presented myself at the huge Exhibition Hall at Elm and Fourteenth Street, and mingled with the press and the delegates while avoiding,
as much as possible, the oratory. The party is now assembling that platform on which the eventual nominee must stand or run or fall or whatever. The issue that most grips me is monogamy for Utah. Many otherwise quite sane politicians become livid at the mention of the Mormons, a curious sect recently invented by a “prophet” and confined for the most part to the Utah desert, where Mormon women live in harems and breed incontinently. They sound very nice to me, if overly energetic.

  I have just learned that a group of New York Stalwarts headed by “Chet” Arthur has been in town for almost a week, preparing the way for Conkling, who is supported not only by the New York delegation but by some fifteen hundred eager workers, wearing blue badges.

  In front of the Gibson House a FOR PRESIDENT, ROSCOE CONKLING sign has been hung just below that of the New York Reform Club, an elegant high-minded group of some sixty gentlemen who have been in the town for several days, elegantly and high-mindedly working for Mr. Bristow.

  “But the man to watch,” according to Nordhoff, whom I found earlier this evening in the bar of the Gibson House, “is Oliver P. Morton.” This gentleman is a senator from Indiana, an enemy of Conkling and popular at the South. If Conkling and Blaine stop Bristow and then each other, Morton is expected to win. There are a number of other minor candidates, known rather glumly as “favourite sons”; these include the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

  4

  I AM MUCH EXCITED, despite my better judgment. We are in Exhibition Hall. On the platform sit various party leaders. None of the candidates is visible. Apparently, they never are during a convention. They stay at home, awaiting the people’s summons.

  Conkling’s name and face are everywhere displayed. The New York delegation has taken over the Grand Hotel, which they have decorated with a huge, not very subtle banner that warns: “Conkling’s Nomination Assures the Thirty-five Electoral Votes of New York.” This sign has inspired everyone to quote a recent remark of Blaine: “Conkling can’t even carry his own state against Tilden. His candidacy is an absurdity.” There is also a good deal of gossip about the Senator and Kate Sprague. In fact, a pamphlet on the subject has been distributed to each of the delegates. Sanford at work?