by John Jakes
They stopped a couple of minutes in the half-dark, to let their heartbeats slow, and to gather strength. They made it the rest of the way without incident. Near the top there was dim light coming through a series of round windows at the base of the torch.
The door to the outer catwalk was less than five feet high, and narrow. Ollie had to force the door open with his back; when he did, more light spilled in, making things a bit easier. Bending, twisting, pushing, struggling, Paul got the camera through the door, safely into Ollie’s hands, and climbed out on the catwalk after him.
They were three hundred and five feet above the ground.
Paul clutched his cap; up this high, the wind seemed formidable. Grasping the rail and looking down, he found the perspective of the statue strange and dizzying. It occurred to him that if he chanced to fall, he might impale himself on one of the spikes of her crown.
With Ollie’s help he moved the camera around the catwalk to a point overlooking the ship channel. Paul unfolded the tripod. Ollie said, “Damned if we didn’t make it”
“You’ll tell your grandchildren about this day.”
“What ship is it again?”
Paul said, “Statendam. Holland America line, from Amsterdam.”
“Immigrants, right?”
“Plenty. I contacted the local office to make sure.”
“When’s she due?”
He snapped open his pocket watch. “Now.”
But she was not yet in sight, so Paul stepped to the rail again, gazing around him. New York and the harbor traffic and the sea channel were patterned with sun and shadow. Mist clouds flashing with yellow sun flew by the torch. He gulped when he felt the copper lady sway. He held the rail with both hands until the swaying stopped. He remembered old Valter when Rheinland steamed in past the statue. How excited he was, reading from his little guide book … but no less excited than the boy Pauli.
What did it all mean, this journey of his, this search, this passage through time and distance and hundreds of experiences, thousands of people, different identities—Pauli, Paul, Heine, Dutch? He thought he could answer the question because the answer flowed back to the very beginning, when he was adrift in Berlin, asking himself where he belonged—if there was any place at all. Asking where home was—if he really had one.
Yesterday he had seen the sign. His place was with Julie, here in America. Here he was loved, and here also men were free. Free to do good, and free to do evil, but free. Freer, perhaps, than in the repressive and decaying autocracies of the Old World. Hundreds of thousands were still coming from the Old World, lured by the promise of freedom symbolized by the torch whose frozen copper flame rose up behind him.
Michael Radcliffe, who dwelt in clouds of pessimism, said there was a new world threat, a new outbreak of an old sickness of nationalism, and millions would die of it before many more years passed. The increasingly willful Kaiser and his military clique were prime carriers. So were certain Americans such as Colonel Roosevelt, now the Vice President. Paul himself was infected with it to a degree. This statue, the vista before him, and what was in his heart because of them, gave proof.
The land he’d chosen wasn’t perfect, but neither was he. There was something more important. America had given him his love, his family, and his purpose. And the freedom to search for all three. The old doubts, the old questions, the old warnings of the baker of Wuppertal were laid to rest.
A great whistle blasted in the ship channel. Out of the mist came the prow of the Dutch ship. “You’re right,” Ollie said, “I can see them all over the deck down there.”
A tug small as a toy sped toward the steamship, tossing up a wake. Another followed. Statendam’s whistle blew again, so resoundingly, Paul thought he felt the statue vibrate once more.
Out of the glowing mist came the ship. Paul crouched behind the camera on the catwalk high above the harbor. He swiftly turned the bill of his cap to the rear.
“I’m cranking.”
He was home.
Afterword
For I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize history to yourself and to others.
Admiral MAHAN
ONE DAY IN THE spring of 1991, in the midst of work on this book, I had lunch with a friend from the history department of the University of South Carolina. We talked about the art and craft of presenting history in a class or a book, and of scholars who write to promote a personal theory or viewpoint, arranging details and slanting the text to validate a certain interpretation of a life, a major event, an epoch. Marxist, perhaps; or Freudian. My friend shook his head over that. He said, “Our first responsibility is to tell what happened.”
So it is with this novel, and the cycle of novels to follow. Homeland begins at the point where The Kent Family Chronicles concluded, 1891. Its purpose is to introduce a new cast of characters—a new family taking its place alongside the Kents, the Mains, the Hazards, and the descendants of Mack and Nellie Chance—and through them, to relate in an entertaining way some of the history of the twentieth century. “To tell what happened.” Given America’s global role in the last hundred years, sometimes called “the American Century,” that amounts to tackling world history.
The first step is Homeland. Its development and preparation were made possible by the unstinting help of various people and institutions I called on. Before I thank them, I should add a couple of footnotes to the story itself.
The state of women’s health is not exaggerated. Ignorance and inattention were epidemic, treatments bizarre, inappropriate, or altogether absent. No one raised an eyebrow if a woman was repeatedly afflicted by the popular “neurasthenia”; it was almost expected. Men placed themselves in charge of women’s bodies with little more than their egos to guide them. The so-called new women helped bring the issue into the light.
We have descriptions of cardboard ships “blown up” in tanks of water, for the camera, to simulate the sinking of the Maine. Shadow’s little film is adapted from these contemporary accounts. Audiences of ninety-six years ago weren’t really fooled by such fakery, but the medium was so new and novel, the pictures thrilled them anyway.
Pioneer filmmakers Albert E. Smith and Billy Bitzer carried cameras to Cuba in 1898, as did the reportedly obnoxious William Paley of the Eden Musée. Some of Paul’s experiences are drawn from memoirs Smith and Bitzer published in later life. Film buffs will recognize Bitzer as the cameraman who shot The Birth of a Nation and many other D. W. Griffith pictures. He was Griffith’s indispensable right hand for years.
General Joe Crown’s report after the Las Guásimas fight is a free adaptation of reports written by General S. B. M. Young and Colonel Leonard Wood.
The shingle weavers in the Pacific Northwest succeeded in organizing their first union in 1901. But this did little to mitigate the perils of their strange trade.
The iron ladder leading up to the torch catwalk of the Statue of Liberty was closed to the public in 1916.
Here are the people and institutions so generous with their time and information. I deeply appreciate their help and their many kindnesses. But I have to say, as I always do, that they are in no way responsible for the content of this book; the manner in which the research material was put to use. Any guilt, creatively speaking, is mine.
I have always had a special affinity for libraries and librarians, for the most obvious reasons. I love books. (One of my first jobs was shelving books at a branch of the Chicago Public Library.) Libraries are a pillar of any society. I believe our lack of attention to funding and caring for them properly in the United States has a direct bearing on problems of literacy, productivity, and our inability to compete in today’s world. Libraries are everyman’s free university.
On a more personal level, libraries are the places to which I turn for basic research. So, starting close to home, I salute the small but dedicated staff of the Hilton Head Island library, especially Ruth Gaul, Librarian, and Mike Bennett and his predecessor, Sue Rainey, specialists in tracking do
wn hard-to-find volumes.
Thanks also to Alan Amoine, Chief, Special Collections Division, United States Military Academy Library, West Point; Paul Eugen Camp of Special Collections at the Library of the University of South Florida, Tampa; Peter Harrington, Curator of the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University; my dear friend Mrs. Joyce Miles of the Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, Public Library; Barry Moreno, Librarian at the Statue of Liberty National Monument; Eric L. Mundell, Head of Reference Services at the Indiana State Historical Society, Indianapolis; my friend and fellow delegate to the 1991 White House Conference on Libraries and Information, Robert E. Schnare, who helped me first with The North and South Trilogy when he was head of Special Collections at West Point, and this time as Director of the Library at the Navy War College, Newport; Jeff Thomas, Archivist at the Library Division of the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus; Evelyn Walker, Rare Book Librarian at the Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; Ray Wemmlinger, Curator of the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library at The Players in New York—“that certain club” to which I’m proud to belong; and the Westminster Reference Library in London, England.
I gratefully thank the Landesarchiv Berlin for providing many helpful maps and explanations of the city circa 1890. With their help, my walking tours of Berlin fell into proper perspective.
Most of the basic preparation for the book was done at the Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina, Columbia. I thank the professional staff, as well as the dean, Dr. Arthur Young, and Dr. George Terry, who directs the work of all USC libraries and collections.
The man who opened the door to a close association with the university is not here to receive proper thanks. In the fall of 1989, after I delivered a public lecture sponsored by the USC Department of History, the departmental chair, the late Dr. Tom Connelly, invited me to accept an appointment as a Research Fellow in the department. I leaped at the chance, because it opened to me not only a fellowship with working scholars, but faculty privileges at the various Carolina libraries—no small boon. Tom Connelly was a tall, lanky Tennessean with an acerbic wit that overlaid a generous nature. He was also a Civil War scholar of distinction; and he could write superbly. His study of the real person behind the legend of Robert E. Lee, The Marble Man, is a great book. Racked by disease, he was strong till the end. I knew him just a little more than a year, but I treasure that association, and his kindness.
Other USC historians who have been equally kind, and have helped in specific ways, are the current Chair of the History Department, Dr. Peter Becker, and two special friends, Dr. Lawrence Rowland of the USC at Beaufort, and Dr. Tom Terrill at Columbia. I must also thank Dr. Carol McGinnis Kay, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, who has supported and encouraged my increasingly strong connection with the university.
Cutting across departmental lines, I owe a debt to Dr. Bert Dillon, Chair of the English Department, who offered help, and answers, when I urgently needed them.
Valuable research work was done at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, our national monuments in New York Harbor. For facilitating this, I am indebted to Superintendent Ann M. Belkov and Assistant Superintendent Larry Steeler. Park Ranger-Interpreter George Tonkin was a helpful guide to Ellis Island. Supervisory Park Ranger Peter Stolz demonstrated an impressive knowledge of the Statue of Liberty, its design, construction, and history. I thank all these good people for their help and hospitality.
Others who aided in important ways are Dr. Sarah Blackstone of the School of Drama, University of Washington, Seattle, author of a valuable and entertaining dissertation on the vicissitudes of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show on tour; Philip L. Condax, Senior Curator, Department of Technology, George Eastman House International Museum of Photography in Rochester, New York—in whose theater my wife and I received an incredible education in film, for fifty cents a showing, from I960 to 1965; my brother-in-law, Dr. Luther Erickson of Grinnell College; Paul Fees, Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody, Wyoming; Robert Fisch, Curator of Arms at the Museum of the Military Academy, West Point; Peg Hamilton of the faculty of Hilton Head Prep; my dear friends Carl and Denny Hattler; my son, J. Michael Jakes Esq. of Washington, D.C.; Philip C. Katz at The Beer Institute in Washington; Robert Keene, President of the Southampton Historical Museum and town historian of Southampton, New York; Siegfried and Ilsa Kessler of Hilton Head Island and Aalen, Germany, who reunited me with my long-lost family and thereby planted the seed for this story; two Southern friends, Wayne Loudermilch of Point Clear, Alabama, and composer Mel Marvin of New York City and Walterboro, South Carolina. Charles Miller of the Cartographic Division of the National Geographic Society; my son-in-law, Michael H. Montgomery Esq.; Jay Mundhenk, who generously shares his Civil War expertise whenever I ask; Kate Parkin, my wonderful U.K. editor whom I will sorely miss at HarperCollins, London; Rosalind Ramsay of Andrew Nurnberg Associates, London, my overseas agents; my cousin, Thomas Rätz of Aalen, and his dear wife Elfriede; our friends Richard and Barbara Spark; Linda Wilson of the office of Senator Strom Thurmond in Washington, who cut through miles of bureaucratic red tape to answer questions about citizenship requirements a hundred years ago; and Dr. Lewis N. Wynne, Executive Director of the Florida Historical Society.
When I had special questions or problems, expert detective work was done by David Follmer, who really knows his native city of Chicago (his only flaw seems to be an unfortunate preference for the White Sox over the Cubs), and by the ever-reliable wizard of libraries and data bases, Dan Starer of New York City.
And lastly, but very importantly, there is Kenan Heise, who supplied a basic library of city history from his Chicago Historical Bookworks, Evanston. Kenan also gave me valuable guidance at several key points.
At Bantam Doubleday Dell, I’ve received unstinting support and encouragement from Jack Hoeft, now CEO of the organization; Steve Rubin, who heads Doubleday; Linda Grey, in charge of Bantam when I signed on; and Lynn Fenwick, associate editor and keeper of order in the domain of my editor—of whom more momentarily.
My attorney, Frank R. Curtis Esq., kept my spirits up at a particularly dark time before this project began. His counsel and good humor have continually sustained me.
Of course I always owe an unpayable debt of love to my wife, Rachel, who endures book after book, the dark and the light, with courage, forbearance, and affection. Friends, too, have been supportive, and uncritical, when forced to listen to my all too frequent kvetching. I refer particularly to Carl and Denny Hattler and Bud and Doris Shay of Hilton Head.
Now for the most unique acknowledgment in any of my novels—perhaps in historical novels generally. The wonderful ragtime piano piece appearing on pages 1162—1165 was of course not written by the fictitious Harry Poland, but was done at my request—enthusiastically—by a musician who studies and loves ragtime, and the whole period in which it flowered. He is an internationally recognized star in the firmament of composers for musical theater. One of his greatest scores was written for the musical Rags, a double-edged title which referred to immigrants in the period of the show (which was the period of this novel) and also to the music they found in America; music lovingly recreated in new and captivating songs. Broadway critics sent the show to an early—too early—grave, largely because of an unwieldy script. But the show has become something of a legend, and is still being performed. Some call it “the musical that won’t die.” The composer of Rags, and of “Ragtime Rose,” is my friend Charles Strouse. Charles, my deepest thanks.
Finally, what to say about the strongest helper of all, my editor and longtime friend, Herman Gollob? Words really are inadequate, but I can try to find a few.
In pursuit of a good book, Herman rigorously applied—to borrow the phrase of another great editor of mine, Howard Browne—“patience, cajolery, and the knout.” Very much like a skillful psychiatrist, Herman drew out of me a book I didn’t know was there.
That is what makes a great editor great.
&nb
sp; In 1901, William Dean Howells wrote the following warning. “Paradoxically, our life is too large for our art to be broad. In despair at the immense scope and variety of the material offered it by American civilization, American fiction must specialize, and, turning distracted from the superabundance of character, it must burrow far down in a soul or two.”
In other words, we must be satisfied with American miniatures because we can’t paint American murals.
Well, we can try.
While I was at that task, one of the political polls in the spring of 1992 put forth this depressing statement. “Over 60 percent of those polled think America is a nation in decline.” Similar polls continue to tell us Americans believe that never again will their children and grandchildren live better lives than did the generations preceding them.
It gives me pause. Perhaps it’s folly to write a novel about hope in a time of profound national confusion, even despair. But I try to mirror the realities of the past that I explore. “To tell what happened.” At the time of this story, people were swept along on a flood tide of hope. America symbolized virtually limitless opportunity. Here, no problem was unconquerable. Here, children and grandchildren would prosper, and rise, to heights beyond the most extravagant dreams of their forebears who struggled to make the journey to these shores.
Hope brought my grandfather to America. My grandfather and millions of others. Surely that hope was in some ways uninformed; naive, sentimental. Given so much freedom, an American could be as cruel, devious, venal, unprincipled as the next. If not more so.
Some went home, disillusioned. But more stayed; many more. Hope was in the air.
I hope Americans will be able to say that again someday.
—JOHN JAKES
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Greenwich, Connecticut
May 1990-October 1992