“Bryan wants us to lose, I’m afraid,” said Jim.
“Do you care?”
“Well, I’m safe back home. But it would be nice to have a strong head to the ticket.”
Suddenly, there was a sound of applause at the back of the hall. The speaker-there was never not someone speaking from the platform-paused as, down the main aisle, William Jennings Bryan made his slow, majestic way.
“This is going to be something.” Jim was now wide awake. He brushed peanut shells from his trousers; and sat very straight. Even Blaise felt something of the general excitement as Bryan, plainly ill, dark of face and sweating heavily, walked up the steps to the platform. The twenty thousand delegates and visitors were now all alert. There was loud applause. There was also excitement of the sort that Blaise had only observed once before, at a bull-fight in Madrid when matador (Bryan?) and bull (the convention? or was it the other way around?) began their final confrontation. For ten minutes, by Blaise’s watch, the crowd cheered Bryan, who plainly drew nourishment from his people. Then he raised both arms, and the hall was silent.
The voice began, and, like everyone else, Blaise was mesmerized by its astonishing power. Illness had made Bryan hoarse; but no less eloquent for that. “Eight years ago at Chicago the Democratic National Convention placed in my hand the standard of the party and commissioned me as its candidate. Four years ago that commission was renewed…”
“He’s going for it!” Jim’s eyes were bright. “He’s going to stampede the convention.”
The tension was now absolute in the hall. The Parker and Hearst delegates looked grim indeed. The galleries were ecstatic, as were perhaps a third of the delegates, Bryan’s men to the end.
“Tonight I came back to this Democratic National Convention to return that commission…”
A chorus of no’s drowned him out. The eyes were glittering now, and not from fever. Again the commanding arms were raised. “… and to say to you that you may dispute over whether I have fought the good fight, you may dispute over whether I have finished my course, but you cannot deny,” and the voice was now as clear as some huge tolling bell, “that I have kept the faith.”
By the time Bryan was done, he was the convention’s hero and the party’s paladin forever. But, contrary to Jim’s hope, he did not stampede the convention. He received his ovation and was carried off, by concerned friends, to the Jefferson Hotel, and the wild nocturnal pleasures of pneumonia.
By dawn’s light, the first ballot gave Parker nine votes less than the two-thirds needed to nominate. Hearst was second with, as he had predicted, one hundred ninety-four votes. As the balloting continued, Hearst’s vote became two hundred sixty-three votes, to Blaise’s astonishment. How could anyone in his right mind want the Chief as president? But delegates need not be in their right mind; and money had been spent, particularly in the Iowa and Indiana delegations. If Bryan had come to Hearst’s aid, the Chief would have been nominated. Actually, a race between Hearst and Roosevelt would have been, if nothing else, a splendid-what was the Greek word? Agon. Blaise had taken to the word in school. Agon. Agony. A contest for a prize; a duel; to the death, presumably.
During the balloting, Jim was with his state’s delegation on the floor while Blaise sat with Brisbane in the press gallery. Caroline and husband had long since retired; only Trimble and Blaise represented the Tribune. Judge Alton B. Parker was duly nominated, after receiving six hundred fifty-eight votes. “We’ll get Bryan,” said Brisbane, furiously. “If it’s the last thing we do.”
“Bryan’s got himself.” Blaise was flat. “Forget about him. What’s next?”
Brisbane looked exhausted. “I don’t know. Governor of New York, I suppose.”
“It’s worse than gambling, politics.” Blaise was aware that Jim was signalling him from the floor.
“But think of the stakes.” Brisbane sighed. “The whole world.”
“Oh, I don’t think the White House is the whole world yet.” At the main entrance to the convention hall, Blaise met Jim, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief; yet, even sweating and tired, he was masculine energy and youth incarnate.
“I’m going to bed,” said Jim.
“I’ve got a room on the river-boat.” Blaise waved for a cab. “Courtesy of the owner.”
“You won’t be uncomfortable?”
“No,” said Blaise, as they got into the cab. “To the levee,” he said to the driver; and turned to Jim. “It’s closer, and why wake Kitty?”
FOURTEEN
1
IN THE BRIGHT WINTER SUNLIGHT, Henry Adams, like some ancient pink-and-white orchid, sat in the window seat and stared down at Lafayette Square, while John Hay sat opposite him, studying the latest dispatches from Moscow. Hay was delighted to have lived long enough to welcome Adams home from Europe.
The summer and fall had nearly ended him. On Theodore’s orders, he had been obliged to speak at Carnegie Hall in New York City to sum up the achievements of the Republican Party in general and of Theodore Rex in particular. Hay had enjoyed perjuring himself before the bar of history. Of Roosevelt’s bellicosity, Hay had proclaimed, with a straight face, “He and his predecessor have done more in the interest of universal peace than any other two presidents since our government was formed.” Adams had thought the adjective “universal” sublime. “He works for universal peace-whatever that is-stasis?-through terrestrial warfare. You have said it all.” But Hay was well-pleased with the speech, as was the President. The emphasis was on the essential conservatism of the allegedly progressive Roosevelt. The tariff needed reform, true, but that was best done by the magnates themselves. This went down very well in New York City, where the President had been obliged to go, hat in hand, to beg money from the likes of Henry Clay Frick. Thanks to the essential conservatism of Parker, the great magnates, from Belmont and Ryan to Schiff and Ochs, were financing the Democratic Party. Roosevelt, with no Mark Hanna to raise money, was obliged to make any number of reckless accommodations in order to extort money from the likes of J. P. Morgan and E. H. Harriman. Meanwhile Cortelyou was blackmailing everyone he knew to give to the campaign.
Hay had never seen anything quite like Roosevelt’s panic: there was no other word to describe his behavior during the last few months of a campaign that he had no chance of losing. Bryan had stayed aloof until October; then he moved amongst his people warning them of Roosevelt’s shady campaign financing practices and of his love for war. Bryan seldom had much to say about Parker, who ended by losing not only the entire West but New York State, the source of his support. It was the greatest Republican victory since 1872. Theodore was-and continued to be-ecstatic. He had also insisted that Hay stay on for the second term.
“I should get a telescope.” Adams squinted in the bright sun. “Then I could see who pays calls on Theodore. I’ve been waiting for a glimpse of J. P. Morgan’s incandescent nose ever since I got back.”
“That particular incandescence is probably already out of joint. I don’t think Theodore will humor him, or any of the others.”
“Betrayal?” Adams’s eyes shone.
“Fidelity to… earlier principles. You know, Bryan’s in town, holding court at the Capitol. He’s been praising Theodore…”
“A bad sign.”