by John Jakes
“Maybe he’s stuck on you.”
“After one look?”
“With you, Rose—” In the dark she heard lip-smackings, gurglings; Paul quickly downing his champagne. “With you, it’s possible. Roll over here to Papa Paul …”
Rose found that every visit she made to Howley, Haviland only intensified the interest of the young song plugger. He popped out of his cubicle to greet her, to introduce himself with a combination of shyness and nervousness. He must have said “I’m Harry Poland” on six different occasions. She never encouraged him, always high-hatted him with a sniff or a quick turn away, but it didn’t faze him. He kept following her, dancing around and waving his arms like a scarecrow on fire. His energy and enthusiasm wore her out. His perpetual smile had a jolly, infectious quality, but she wouldn’t have admitted that aloud. At supper one night, Paul advised her that Mr. Harry Poland was definitely lovestruck.
“Well, he’d better find himself some nice Miss Rebecca, because Rose isn’t buying.”
Laughing, Paul said, “I told him. He said he didn’t care. He’s writing a song for you. On his own time.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said, so startled her oyster fell off her tiny silver fork.
Paul sighed. “You’ve got to keep working on your vocabulary. What if you’re invited to a really swell party someday? You can’t get away with saying ‘Jesus Christ, Mrs. Astor.’ ”
On a September evening about seven o’clock, with heavy rain falling on Manhattan and a north wind blowing the cold melancholy breath of autumn through the streets, Rose climbed from a hansom and ran for the doorway of Howley, Haviland. She wasn’t performing this week; Pastor had booked a different singer, one Irish Tessie. Tessie was built like a wrestler, and her contralto voice was poor, but she was loved because she encouraged the audience to sing along. She had the number two spot. Mr. Pastor had relinquished the top of the bill to the Four Cohans. Rose’s favorite was young Georgie, who was a smart aleck but quite a hoofer.
With her evening free, she was to meet Paul for supper. Climbing the dark, narrow stair, she heard a piano banging out a march. Probably one of the firm’s new military numbers.
Howley, Haviland closed at six but the main doors were unlocked. Two cubicles were lighted. In one, buck-toothed Theo was blue-penciling typewritten copy. In another—with his back to her, thank God—Harry Poland was furiously playing the march. Rose slipped into a reception chair, hoping to remain unnoticed until Paul showed up.
Light from the street fell through the rainswept windows in the front offices. It cast shifting watery patterns on the walls. Sad patterns, out of key with Rose’s mood. During the two weeks of her last engagement, roses had come from her anonymous admirer every third or fourth night. Always by a delivery boy; he hadn’t returned personally since the first time. Next Monday night she’d be back on the bill. She was full of anticipation.
A desk lamp flashed on Theo’s spectacles as he sat up and stretched and yawned. When he noticed her sitting in the half dark, he stepped into the reception area and switched on the light.
“Hallo, Rose. I didn’t see you there at first.”
“Where’s Paul? He’s late.” She was furious. The sudden glare of ceiling lights immediately stopped the music in Harry Poland’s cubicle. He swung around on his stool and grinned and waved.
“Paul went up to the Broadway Hotel to see a singer about some of our new numbers. Said he might be a little late. Anything I can get you? Coffee’s still on the gas ring.”
“No thank you, Theo.”
“Back to work, then. Tonight I’m the Prophet.” For Ev’ry Month, Theo wrote columns under various pseudonyms including the Prophet, the Cynic, and the Optimist. Soon his typewriter was clicking away slowly. What a ninny.
“Miss French?”
Oh God, she’d been dreading this. She turned toward him with studied hauteur. “Mr. Poland.”
“Won’t you call me Harry?”
She didn’t answer.
“Say, if you’ve got a second, step in here.” He had an accent. A European Jew accent, she supposed; she didn’t know much about such things. It wasn’t heavy. Maybe he was taking English lessons.
“Mr. Poland—”
“Oh, please. I’ve been working on a song of my own. Just the melody so far. Won’t you come listen a minute?”
His bright blue eyes and unquenchable smile battered away her resistance. If she didn’t do it, he’d keep on wheedling and begging. She walked to the door of his cubicle.
“Please, sit,” he said, fairly dancing with excitement. From a straight chair he scooped a stack of Howley, Haviland sheet music and threw it on the floor with a bang. He adjusted the chair carefully at one end of the piano, then with those quick jumpy movements of his, adjusted it again. He gestured to the seat like a cavalier doffing a plumed hat. What a blockhead.
But she sat down.
Transported with joy, Harry Poland planted himself on his stool, frantically leafed through the thick stack of songs and music paper jammed on the piano rack. He found the sheet he wanted. A single page, covered with music notations and many eraser smudges.
“Listen, I hope you like this.” He laced his fingers together, cracked his knuckles, adjusted one cuff, then the other, and started to play.
It was a pretty tune, she had to admit. Melodic but with a certain liveliness, although he played it at a slow tempo. He played it once, jumped back to the bridge and played the last part again, finishing pianissimo. Punctuating the end of the song was the bang of Theo’s shutting his door.
“Well?” Harry Poland said. She could hear the quiver in that single word.
“It’s nice,” she said, about the same way she would have said, Oh, there’s a fly on that wall. “How much is it worth?”
Baffled, he repeated, “Worth?”
“How much money will it make?”
“I don’t know that, I just know I like it.” Harry bravely smiled. “Know the name of it?” He thrust the paper at her. She saw the title block-printed at the top, unnoticed be-fore:
ROSIE.
“I haven’t worked on a lyric yet, my English ain’t—isn’t so good. But soon I’ll try, and then—Miss French! What did I do?”
Standing, she threw the paper at him. “You insulted me. Don’t you know my name? It’s Rose, Rose French, it isn’t Rosie. You wrote this for somebody else.”
“No, for you! Rosie is the right name. Rosie is what you are, even if you don’t call yourself that.”
“Listen—”
“It has a ring—Rosie. It has your sparkle.”
“You little kike, you must be drunk. Kindly don’t speak to me again. Keep your cheap Jew songs to yourself, I’m not interested.”
With her heels beating a rhythm like the march he’d been playing, she banged across the wooden floor of the reception area. Why the hell didn’t the Messrs. Howley, Haviland and Dresser throw the little sheeny into the street where he and his pushy, raggedy kind belonged?
At the main doors she glanced back. Theo was peering from his window in a puzzled way. Harry Poland was hunched on his piano stool with a stricken look. No more jumping around. No more smile. Good. Maybe he’d leave her alone.
Paul came tramping up the stairs and met her on the landing. He wore his usual fine evening suit, with cape. His tall black silk hat glistened with raindrops. “Rose, what’s wrong? You look awful.”
“Oh, I had another conversation with that new plugger. “
“Is Harry bothering you?”
“I cooled him off.” She took his arm at the head of the steep stairs. “I think he got the idea that I don’t like Israelites. Let’s go.”
No flowers arrived the first night she was back at Pastor’s. Nor the second. Unworried, she counted the hours until the third evening of performances. None then, either.
By Saturday night she was despondent. Whoever he was, he’d given up. Found someone else to tweak his fancy, and probably his cock.
Coming offstage after a distinctly limp performance at the second show, she bumped into old Zachary, the doorkeeper. He was practically dancing with excitement. “He brung another basket. Jumped out of a cab, rushed it to the door, said to tender his apologies, he’d been detained in Chicago several weeks. ‘Tender’—’detained’—did you ever hear such grand speech?”
“Get out of my way,” Rose said, already past him.
This time there were three dozen white roses in a big wicker basket. And a shiny white satin bow tied to the handle. And a card.
With a name.
W. V. Elstree III.
78
Joe Crown
IN THE AUTUMN OF 1896, Joe Crown was a man consumed by a single conviction. Bryan had to be defeated. Governor McKinley—the Major, the G.A.R. liked to call him—had to win the election and bring to America the sanity of the gold standard, the benefits of protective tariffs, and the end to the threat of grass roots revolution.
Because McKinley’s wife was in poor health, he declared he would wage what he called a front-porch campaign. He would speak to partisans and well-wishers only from the porch of his white house in Canton, Ohio. Marcus Hanna and his Republican operatives scheduled special excursion trains to Canton seven days a week, while party stalwarts stumped for the candidate elsewhere. Joe met one of these roving spokesmen at a reception in Chicago early in September. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, the police commissioner of New York City.
The evening gave Joe his first close look at Roosevelt. Though he was only thirty-eight and several inches shorter than six feet, he dominated the roomful of older and richer men. He didn’t smile in the conventional way; rather, he seemed to clench his jaws, open his mouth to expose a mass of white teeth, then hold the pose. He wore pince-nez on a ribbon and a large lapel badge resembling a gold dollar. Around the edge were the words IN GOD WE TRUST, IN BRYAN WE BUST.
In his youth, it was said, Roosevelt had been sickly. You would never know it. He was stocky as a sequoia; his burly chest and thick arms seemed about to burst out of his suit. A disciple of what he called the strenuous life, he’d retreated to the Dakota Bad Lands for a while after his first wife died. There he’d punched cattle, dealt with some tough characters who called him “Four-eyes,” and written a book about ranching. He was a meteor in the Republican sky and he knew it.
Roosevelt addressed the gathering from a small dais. His speaking style tended to be declamatory, his voice shrill. It put you off until his charm and the heat of his conviction won you over. After the speech, Joe introduced himself. He and Roosevelt took cups of whiskey punch. Roosevelt took one sip, no more.
On the subject of Bryan, he was a tiger:
“I am absolutely appalled at his ability and willingness to inflame hatred directed at those who are well off. I can describe the people who respond to those appeals. Whether through misfortune or misconduct, they are people who have failed in life.”
Roosevelt’s blue-gray eyes fixed on Joe as if daring him to disagree. Joe put down the thought that Roosevelt’s remark was unforgivably snobbish. He said, “I wouldn’t hazard a guess about that. It’s the silver issue that changed me from a Democrat to a Republican.”
“A commendable outcome, whatever the cause. We must stop that man, Mr. Crown. I’m devoting everything to the task. I’ll be back in the Midwest next month on a whistle-stop tour. My friend Cabot Lodge is going on the hustings. So is Carl Schurz.”
“If I may change the subject just a moment, Mr. Roosevelt—”
“Hah.” Roosevelt had a way of bursting out with that. Not a laugh, exactly; more of a verbal explosion. “Too formal. Call me Theodore, I’ll call you Joe.”
“I’d be pleased, Theodore. I want to ask whether you think there’ll be war with Spain.”
“I fervently hope so. I put Butcher Weyler on a par with Bryan. Another madman to be suppressed. Looking at the larger picture, I believe American interests must be served. The sphere of democracy must be expanded. I’ve been a frontiersman, you know. I’ve experienced the salubrious effects of a challenge. The old West is gone. Six years ago our own Census Bureau declared the frontier closed, and historians such as Francis Parkman concurred. But Americans need a frontier. In Cuba we have one. Cuba calls out to stern, vigorous men with empire in their thoughts. I think war is entirely probable. When it comes, I intend to be there in some capacity.”
The whiskey punch heated Joe’s face. The fumes of fine Havana leaf being smoked by many of the guests was intoxicating—a plutocrat’s incense. “I’d like the same thing,” he said.
“Hah! Capital!” Roosevelt appraised him. “You’re not too old. Not too old by any means. Let’s talk about it further when I come back in October.”
Next morning at the brewery, Joe wrote another draft to the Republicans, this time for five thousand. He compulsively discussed and praised young Roosevelt at home. One evening at supper, he brought up Roosevelt’s attitude toward W?yler. Ilsa held her forehead. “Joe, Joe—not again.”
“What do you mean?”
“This constant talk of Roosevelt, Roosevelt—es ist eirte fixe Idee.”
“An obsession? You’re making it a crime to praise a man of intelligence and strong character?”
“No, but you do it so often, frankly it’s a little tiresome.”
“Perhaps you find everything I do tiresome.”
“Joe, stop. That isn’t it at all.” Seated at the side of the long table, Fritzi nervously traced patterns on the crocheted tablecloth. Ilsa continued, “I don’t like this Mr. Roosevelt and his kind rattling the sword all the time. Why should we contemplate a war in Cuba?”
“Because the Cubans are fighting for freedom.”
“And the sugar trust would like us to fight for their cane fields. Miss Addams says—”
“Miss Addams! Now there’s a real obsession. One we can do without.”
“Joe, I wish you wouldn’t constantly ridicule my friends. They are educated, caring women whose opinions—”
“Are impractical and unrealistic.”
“You don’t even let me finish!”
“—totally unconnected to the world of reality.”
“Are you saying that about me also, Joe?”
“If you agree with them, yes.”
“Well, isn’t that fine. The last time you saw Oskar Hexhammer, you said you called him a warmonger. Now you sound like one.”
“The Cuban matter is different. American interests demand—”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, spare me!” Ilsa exclaimed. She ran out of the dining room while Joe and Fritzi stared at one another.
The Republicans conducted their campaign almost as if they were crusading against the anti-Christ. Every party loyalist with oratorical ability took to the rails and the roads. Roosevelt stumped Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in October, storming into the Coliseum for a rally on October 15. There he appeared before a spellbound audience of some thirteen thousand people. As a heavy donor, Joe Crown sat in a reserved section, two rows from the speaker.
Roosevelt inveighed and sweated, gestured and pounded the podium for two hours. Bryan and his followers were the philosophical heirs of the blood-maddened leaders of the Terror that had nearly destroyed France. Bryan’s ally, Governor Altgeld, had pardoned criminal assassins. Bryan’s operatives included the most dishonest politicians in Chicago.
At the end of the address the hall went wild. “Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!” The Republicans shouted and paraded as loudly and fervently as the Democrats had for the Boy Orator of the Platte. Joe left the Coliseum with a better feeling. Not all of the country had slipped into radical insanity, thank God.
In October the Republicans also resorted to use of a medium condemned by preachers and scorned even by that lowest of social classes, actors. Three days before Roosevelt’s triumph at the Coliseum, Hammerstein’s Olympia Music Hall in New York introduced a new short film from the American Biograph Company titled “McKinley at Home—Canton, O.” With the candidate’s ful
l cooperation, it presented a reenactment of Governor McKinley’s being informed that he’d received the nomination. Money from the campaign war chest was secretly used to strike extra prints for showing all over the Midwest. There the picture was called “Major McKinley at Home.”
Joe couldn’t bring himself to sneak into the Columbia Theater downtown to view it. That was the proper conservative attitude. Still, if even one disciple of Bryan’s would see it and then stop reading Count Tolstoy, comb and cut his hair, and vote for the Major, who cared how disreputable the means of persuasion?
Down from his retreat at Bolton Landing on Lake George in New York State came the aging Carl Schurz, to speak in Chicago in the closing days of the campaign. He attracted only a fraction of Roosevelt’s crowd.
Joe and his friend Schurz dined at Schlogl’s German restaurant after the speech. Joe repeated Roosevelt’s statement that war with Spain was likely in the next year or two. He repeated his wish to take part. “Perhaps an Army commission?”
“I can’t help you, Joe. I’m no longer in government. Haven’t been for years.”
“Come, you have hundreds of friends in Washington. Influential people. And there’ll be a Republican administration.”
“Why not ask your friend Joe Cannon? Since Uncle Joe was reelected three years ago, he’s become one of the most powerful men in the House. Write to him.”
“I did, last week. But I’m also asking you. I look at this the way Grant and Sherman looked at a battle. The objective is to win. You don’t go in with one regiment if you can call up a whole army corps.”
“You’re still speaking to the wrong man. Morally and intellectually, I am against this nation’s trying to impose its political will, or its commercial dominance, on smaller and weaker countries.”
“Why, Carl? Expansionism is an avowed principle of the party. A plank in the platform. It’s also the prevalent mood of the people.”
“The prevalent aberration. It makes the Republicans nearly as despicable as Bryan.”
“Opinions aside, we’ll probably have to fight. All the papers say so.”