Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  “Senator Van Ackerman’s announced intention to ‘restudy’ the ill-omened ‘Bill to curb further acts against the public order and welfare’ and his call upon all liberals to do likewise have to be taken in context with his further remarks that he expects there may be ‘possibly violent right-wing reactions when President Jason really tries to make peace.’

  “Is the Senator implying that this bill, which he rightfully opposed and literally talked to death when he conceived it to be directed at NAWAC and all those who genuinely protested past administrations’ war policies, should now be revised for use against those who might conceivably oppose the peace policies he favors?

  “That way, we submit, lies a dangerous toying with forces so hostile to democracy that we are amazed any United States Senator would espouse them. It is true that they were espoused, briefly, by President Abbott and some of his friends in Congress; but this, we think, was basically just a gesture, ill-advised but in context understandable, to try to calm the violent activities of NAWAC which so disfigured the national convention in San Francisco and the subsequent meeting of the National Committee in Washington. The bill was never designed to be a serious legislative proposal, as witness the way in which all Abbott Administration support for it swiftly ceased and the Senator was permitted to filibuster it to death without opposition or hindrance.

  “Senator Van Ackerman suggests that ‘liberals’ restudy this so-called ‘Riot Control Act.’ We consider ourselves ‘liberal,’ and we do not think any amount of ‘restudying’ of this dangerously undemocratic legislation could convince us of its worth. We most strongly urge all liberals, as we urge the President-elect himself, to repudiate the bill and along with it the shadowed and somewhat unsavory Senator who now appears to be emerging in the surprising and ominous guise of its converted defender.

  “By the same token, we call on President-elect Jason to repudiate once and for all NAWAC and all its works. We note that it has announced that it will give him ‘vigilant and continuing support’ as he moves to turn the country away from war and toward that general peace which is the hope of all mankind. We do not like the word ‘vigilant’ with its overtone of ‘vigilante’; and we suspect, on NAWAC’s record, that this is exactly why that word was chosen. This nation does not need NAWAC’s vigilante vigilance to protect it, nor does Edward M. Jason need it. It is time now, we submit, to put an end to the land of games NAWAC has played with the public order and safety.

  “NAWAC had a worthy birth in legitimate protest against sincerely hated war policies of past administrations. Those policies are about to be ended. They are already, in President Abbott’s and Governor Jason’s delicate phrasing, beginning to undergo a ‘gradual restructuring.’ Without question the restructuring will be speeded as soon as Mr. Jason enters upon the full powers of the Presidential office. He does not need, nor does any of us need, the heavy hand of NAWAC to help in the task.

  “He should, we submit, get rid of this uncomfortable and potentially dangerous organization, with its sinister overtones of theatrical crudity and storm-trooper violence that have marred the pre-campaign and campaign periods. We will support him heartily, as will all true Americans, liberals and conservatives alike.”

  GREATEST PUBLICATION COMPOSING ROOM SHATTERED BY BOMB. THREE DEAD, TWO PRINTING PRESSES DEMOLISHED. POLICE FIND NO CLUES. TOP EXECUTIVES ATTRIBUTE BLAST TO “DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES” DISCHARGED IN RECENT ECONOMY MOVE, DECLARE “TACTICS OF THIS KIND WILL NOT CRIPPLE OR STOP THE PAPER.” PLEDGE FULL PRESS RUN TOMORROW, REFUSE FURTHER COMMENT “NOW OR ANY TIME.”

  “Gentlemen,” the executive chairman of The Greatest Publication said gently to the three troubled faces that stared back at him from the Picturephone link-up between Washington and New York, “I think we all have a problem. I am wondering if we of this paper have your support in trying to meet it.”

  “You certainly have mine,” the general director of the Post said stoutly, and from the worried editorial director of the Times and a Walter Dobius looking grim and upset there came agreeing nods.

  “Then you think it was who we think it was,” the editorial director of the Times said. His friend of The Greatest Publication nodded.

  “Who else?” the Post inquired dryly. “You don’t mean to tell me you didn’t get your quota of threats during the campaign?”

  “We did,” the Times admitted somewhat stiffly.

  “So did I,” Walter Dobius said. “I guess a lot of us did.”

  “And did you yield to it?” the executive chairman of The Greatest Publication inquired in his wispy old man’s voice that could ask such disconcerting questions, as his staff had long ago found out.

  “You know none of us did,” the Post began indignantly. Then he stopped with a shamefaced little smile. “We went a little easy,” he admitted. “Let’s be honest and say we all did.”

  “We expressed concern on several occasions,” the Times said stoutly.

  “But gently,” the Post noted. “Gently. Isn’t that right?”

  “There were so many other things to write about in the campaign,” Walter said, “that I really didn’t find the subject coming to mind very often.”

  “And when it did, you carefully told it to stop bothering you,” the executive director of The Greatest Publication suggested with a little smile. “And that, I guess, is about what we all did.”

  “My first reaction was to tell them to go to hell and do it in a front-page editorial,” the Post remarked.

  “We all felt that way,” the Times agreed.

  “Then,” the Post admitted, “I started to think. And once I began to think, I guess I had lost the battle. I’m not proud of it. I don’t think any of us should be.”

  “No one said we were,” Walter Dobius observed somewhat testily. “It isn’t fun to know you’re being a coward—even if you tell yourself it’s because you’re helping the candidate you like and don’t want to hurt or embarrass him by raising difficult questions.”

  “That’s how we rationalized it too,” the Post said. “We felt we shouldn’t trouble him when it was so important that the public believe in him and give him full support in what he wanted to do.”

  “And doesn’t that rationale still apply?” the executive director of The Greatest Publication inquired. “Should we not perhaps have evaded the point by not raising it, even in our editorial today?”

  “Three would be living and two presses would be running if you had,” the Times observed. “But the question is still valid: what do we do about it now?”

  “Exactly,” the executive director of The Greatest Publication agreed. “At this moment, of course, we have no physical proof whatsoever that NAWAC perpetrated this atrocity this morning. Probably we will never have any. All we have is the call I received after it occurred, in which a mailed fist—these people have a positively Hitlerian sense of staging—simply held the NAWAC emblem up before the Picturephone, and then hung up. And how can I ever prove that occurred, and who would believe me? Things like this simply don’t happen to the American press.” He smiled with a certain irony. “Nor, in fact, do its leading members ever confess, even to each other, that they might have let themselves be intimidated—and that they are actually considering whether or not to let themselves be intimidated further. No one at all would believe it, we have convinced the public so well of our fearless integrity.”

  “That great element of skepticism concerning the evils that do really exist in the world!” the Times said moodily.

  “Which we have done so much to create,” the executive director of the G.P. pointed out quietly. “Let us be really honest, at least with each other, about that.… Well: I am wondering if you think it would do any good for us to form a deputation and ask for a conference with the President-elect. What is your feeling about that?”

  “I think,” Walter Dobius said slowly, “that we could put together an impressive group. Frankly Unctuous and some other friends in the networks have been getting it, too, you know. Frankly told
me he was actually quite badly roughed up on leaving the studio after his broadcast on the Strickland rally in Los Angeles. He had made one or two critical remarks about NAWAC, not very severe by any standard. Of course he never reported the incident.”

  “Nor did he ever really attack NAWAC again, did he?” the Times inquired.

  “No,” Walter said, “because, as he told me, he decided that to do so would be to embarrass Ted Jason and perhaps cost him votes. And none of us,” he pointed out with a dry bitterness, “did any better. None of us wanted to cost him votes.”

  “Now he has the votes,” the executive director of The Greatest Publication observed. “Do we still want to avoid causing him the embarrassment?”

  “I think we must defend the rights of a free press,” the Post said.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” the Times told him.

  “Nor I, of course,” Walter Dobius said. “But do you think it will do any good to call on Ted Jason? Do you think he really has any control over the situation?”

  “If he doesn’t,” the executive director of the G.P. remarked, “then God help America, because she will need it. Yet I suspect you have a point. I suspect he really does not. I suspect he may already have tried and been unsuccessful.”

  “You think more highly of Ted than I do,” Walter Dobius said grimly. “I think he’s an opportunistic lightweight and a weakling. I think if it came to a showdown with NAWAC, he’d give in.”

  “That’s what you think of the man you told your readers they should elect President,” the Times said wryly. “My, my.”

  “We all did that,” Walter said sharply, “and you know why we did it: we didn’t want the other guy. It’s that simple, and that’s the way it always is, isn’t it? So why be smart about it? This is serious business.”

  “Gentlemen,” the executive director of the G.P. said with a pleasant firmness, “at the risk of curtailing fascinating postmortems on how we got where we are, I must remind you that we are where we are, and the question now is how we go about extricating ourselves and the country from it. I am prepared, as I say, to go to Washington immediately and talk to him about it.”

  “If we’re going to do that,” the Post said, “I think the best thing to do would be to get up a deputation that is a deputation—get the American Society of Newspaper Editors in on it, get a delegation from Sigma Delta Chi, maybe some of the Pulitzer Prize judges, invite the top men of the networks—make it really impressive. Because if we’re correct in the way we assess this thing, it’s a most serious threat to all of us. And the time to stop it is now, before it gets any bigger.”

  “It may be too late already,” the Times said in a morose tone, and Walter nodded.

  “It may be. And again we face the question: could we possibly have such a meeting without embarrassing him? Could we possibly keep it a secret from the press?”

  “Could the press keep a secret from the press?” the executive chairman of The Greatest Publication inquired with a wry humor. “I imagine we could if we confined it to a few top people. But that would defeat the purpose, too, wouldn’t it? We don’t want to embarrass him or put him on the spot, yet at the same time the only way we could really be sure of getting action is to do just that: make the appeal public and give it so much publicity that he would have to do something.”

  “Have you considered the possibility,” the Post asked, “that he can’t?”

  “That he may be under physical threat?” Walter responded. “He may be. I know”—and his eyes turned moody at the thought of beloved “Salubria”—“that I am. So are we all, I suppose, directly or indirectly. But if we are to actually contemplate a situation in which the President of the United States hesitates to do what is right for this democracy because someone threatens him—then, gentlemen, we are a long way further down the road than I for one like to think we are.”

  “We may be,” the executive chairman of the G.P. remarked with a moodiness of his own. “Which is why I have called you to raise the question: shall we try to stop it now, or shall we be silent and not rock the boat of a man whose policies we all believe in and want to have succeed—whose policies require unshaken public support?” He shook his head, his fine eyes troubled. “We here on this paper are prepared to act—”

  “Are you prepared,” Walter interrupted bluntly, “to drop this polite cover-up about ‘disgruntled employees’ and state in a front-page editorial your convictions about who bombed you, and what their threat is to this country? And repeat the appeal you have already made to him, in your editorial this morning—the appeal that brought the bombs? Are you prepared to spell it all out so nobody can mistake the import of it?”

  “If one of us does it, we all should,” the Times said. “We ought to get on the phone and call our newspaper friends all over the country, contact the networks, get them to agree to it too, let go with a coordinated nationwide barrage.… Or,” he concluded quietly, “we had better face the honest fact of it, which is that a private appeal probably won’t work, while a public appeal will greatly embarrass and hamper him in the work we all believe in, the search for peace.”

  “The only way it could really embarrass him,” the Post said slowly, “is if the appeal were made to him—and he did nothing about it. And that raises the fundamental question: do we really believe in Ted Jason, and do we really have faith in his ability and willingness to be as tough as he may have to be? Because he, too, has two choices: he can either back down or he can go all out, get the country behind him and give NAWAC real hell. Which do we think he would do?”

  “Do we really have faith in Ted Jason?” Walter echoed somberly, and a silence fell and lengthened as they stared thoughtfully at one another and wondered about it.…

  Finally Walter spoke again.

  “Then if we don’t,” he said crisply, “we had damned well better forget any ideas about appealing to him either publicly or privately, and concentrate instead on protecting his image so he can proceed with full public support to carry out the peace policies we believe in.”

  “And take our chances,” the Times said, “that he will presently, when he feels himself strong enough, deal with NAWAC as we hope he will.”

  “Yes,” the Post said unhappily. “That appears to be about it.”

  “And what do we do in the area of our own responsibility, gentlemen?” the executive chairman of The Greatest Publication inquired. “Do we stand together and fight, or do we become cautious, careful, water down our criticisms of NAWAC, invite no more retaliations—and hope?”

  “Since we seem to be agreed that it would embarrass him if we condemned NAWAC too strongly,” Walter pointed out with a bleak candor, “there is evidently only one answer to that.”

  “I only hope,” the executive chairman said, “that NAWAC will understand our reasons and will not be encouraged to further excesses by what may appear to be its success in intimidating the American media. That is what I hope.”

  “I think we all know how good a hope that is,” the Post said glumly. He sighed. “Perhaps we should have thought a little more carefully before we gave NAWAC so much publicity in its early stages. Perhaps we should have condemned it when it first began, instead of going along half-fascinated and half-admiring. It might not be such a potential Frankenstein’s monster for us now.”

  Walter Dobius made a dry, ironic sound.

  “Yes. But we can always use the great apologia of our age: it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “And of course,” the Times pointed out with a sudden nervous heartiness, “we do have to protect Jason. He’s the only President we’ve got. As you said yourself, Walter, if we aren’t going to appeal to him, we’d better forget all this and concentrate on assuring public support for his peace policies. Those, after all, are a hell of a lot more important than us or our problems.”

  “I thought that might be the final consensus,” the executive chairman of The Greatest Publication said gently. “But I thought I should find o
ut for sure.”

  After they had bade one another farewell and faded from the screen, he turned back to his desk and stared long and moodily, with a deeply troubled face, at its shining surface. And in their own handsome offices, the editorial director of the Times and the general director of the Post did likewise. And at beautiful “Salubria,” Walter Dobius stepped outside on the back lawn and stared, long and far away, down the chill November reach of Virginia countryside, before he turned back with a sudden, involuntary shiver and went in to the typewriter that had done so much in its time to help bring his country to its present parlous and uneasy state.

  It was at times like this, the busy little figure bustling briskly up the curved drive to the East Portico of the White House told himself with a considerable satisfaction, that he really enjoyed being exactly who he was. He wouldn’t, in fact, be anybody else, so interesting did he find his life and so full of surprising and exciting events.

  No one would have dreamed three months ago, for instance, that the President-elect of the United States would be calling in Mr. Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis of the Supreme Court for a private consultation on anything. Three months ago Mr. Justice Davis had ruled against the President-elect when his lawyers, George Harrison Wattersill and Roger P. Croy, had petitioned the Court for an order reconvening the national convention. Mr. Justice Davis had ruled against that petition, and as a result the matter had gone back to the National Committee and Orrin Knox had been nominated. After that, Mr. Justice Davis had heard no more from anyone in the Jason camp.

  He realized now, however, that Ted Jason must have finally understood why that ruling had been inevitable on a point of law. He must have finally acknowledged to himself that Mr. Justice Davis had spoken the truth when he had said from the bench that he would have liked to uphold the Jason petition, but could not in honesty do so. He must have realized that Tommy Davis was what Tommy Davis believed himself to be: a man of consistency, a man of honor and a man with a good head on his shoulders, too. Otherwise, why would the President have sent for him on this gray day to consult on a matter of highest import whose nature Mr. Justice Davis could only guess and speculate about as he trotted briskly along?