“The White House thinks that Hearst will win.” Caroline was at her dressing table, rebuilding her hair.
“So do I. So does he. So does the animated feather-duster.”
“Mr. Root is going to Utica.” Caroline pulled her hair straight back and stared into the mirror, without apparent pleasure.
“What does that mean?”
“The President is sending him. To Hearst.”
“Too late.”
“Mr. Root carries great weight in New York. As the President’s emissary… I would be nervous if I were Mr. Hearst.”
But all Blaise wanted to speak of was Jim, and that, of course, was the only subject that he and Caroline could never again mention to each other.
Blaise was with the Chief in New York City when the Secretary of State spoke in Utica. It was the first of November. The weather was peculiarly dismal, even for New York, and a drizzle that was neither snow nor rain made muddy the streets.
Hearst had his own news-wire in his study, set up between busts of Alexander the Great and-why?-Tiberius. Blaise was at his side as the message from Utica came through, even as Root was speaking. Elsewhere in the room, Brisbane kept a number of politicians in a good mood, an easy task since none doubted that soon they would all be going to Albany in the train of the conquering Hearst.
As read, line by line, the speech was lapidary. Root’s style was Roman, school of Caesar rather than Cicero. The short sentences were hurled like so many knives at a target; and none missed. Absentee congressman. Hypocrite-capitalist. False friend of labor. Creature of the bosses. Demagogue in the press and in politics, pitting class against class.
“Well,” said the Chief, with a small smile, “I’ve heard worse.”
But Blaise suspected that he was indeed about to hear worse; and he did, toward the end. Root read Ambrose Bierce’s quatrain, calling for McKinley’s murder. Hearst stiffened as the familiar words stuttered past them on the wire. Root quoted other Hearstian indictments of McKinley, inciting the mad anarchist to murder. Then Root quoted Roosevelt’s original attack on the “exploiter of sensationalism” who must share, equally, in the murder of the beloved-by-all President McKinley.
Hearst was now very pale, as the thin ribbon of text passed through his fingers to Blaise’s. “I say, by the President’s authority, that in penning these words, with the horror of President McKinley’s murder fresh before him, he had Mr. Hearst specifically in mind.”
“The son of a bitch,” whispered Hearst. “When I finish with him…”
The message went on: “And I say, by his authority, that what he thought of Mr. Hearst then he thinks of Mr. Hearst now.”
So it would be on the charge of regicide that Hearst was to be brought down at last. Blaise marvelled at the exactness with which Roosevelt, using Root for knife, struck the lethal blow.
“Champagne?” Brisbane approached with a bottle in hand.
“Why not?” The Chief, who never swore, having just sworn, who never drank, now drank. Then he turned to Blaise. “I want you to go over the Archbold letters with me.”
“With pleasure, if I can publish first.”
“Simultaneously, anyway, with me.”
3
CAROLINE WAS SHOWN INTO the Red Room, forever referred to by Roosevelt loyalists as the Room of the Great Error. She had received a last-minute invitation to a “family” dinner, which could well mean, considering the Roosevelt family, fifty people. But it was indeed, for the most part, family. Alice and her husband, Nick Longworth, were already there, with, to Caroline’s surprise, the sovereign himself, who sprang to his feet, rather like a Jack-in-the-box, and said, just like his music-hall imitators, “Dee-light-ed, Mrs. Sanford. Come sit here. By me.”
“Why not by us?” asked Alice.
“Because I want to talk to her and not to you.”
“There is no reason,” said Alice, “to be rude, simply because I’m the wife of a mere member of the House…”
But the President had turned his back on daughter and son-in-law, and led Caroline to a settee near the door, so situated that if the door was open, as now, the settee was invisible. Roosevelt practiced several unpleasant grimaces on Caroline, before he began. “You know about the Archbold letters?”
Caroline nodded. Trimble had received copies of a number but not the entire set. “I gather your brother Blaise has seen the lot.”
“We’re not speaking at the moment.”
“But if he decides to publish, they will appear in the Tribune.”
“If I decide to publish, they will appear in the Tribune.”
Roosevelt clicked his teeth three times, as if sending out a coded message to a ship in distress at sea. Then he removed his pince-nez and polished it thoroughly with a scrap of chamois. Caroline noticed how dull the eyes were without the enhancement of shining magnifying glass. “You are the majority shareholder?”
“Mr. Trimble and I are, and he does what I want him to do.”
“Good.” The pince-nez was again in its glittering place. “I hope good. Would you publish?”
“I would have to have a motive. Senator Foraker would have to introduce some legislation, favorable, let us say, to Standard Oil. Then I would publish, of course.”
“Of course! As you know, I have done-the Administration has done-nothing for Standard Oil. Quite the contrary.”
“But,” said Caroline boldly, “there are your letters to Archbold.”
“Which I don’t even recall. He was a friend, from years ago. He is a gentleman. I am certain there is nothing in anything that I ever wrote him that I would not be happy to see on the front page of every newspaper in the country.”
Caroline arranged the spray of hot-house lilies that Marguerite had persuaded her, against her better judgment, to wear on a cold November night. “I’m afraid, Mr. President, that you will probably read those letters on every front page except mine, unless they prove-relevant.” Caroline liked the vagueness of the word.
“You mean that Hearst will publish?”
“Exactly. He wants revenge. Mr. Root-and you-lost him the election.”
“What did he expect? It is hardly usual for a republic to allow its own overthrow.” This was said with such swift savagery that Caroline was taken aback.
“You think Hearst would do that?”
“I put nothing past him. He is outside our law, our conventions, our republic. He believes in class war. That is why I would do anything to finish him off…”
“You did do everything, and he has said that he will never run for office again.” The rage of Hearst had been something to behold. From a commanding lead he had, yet again, because of outside intervention, lost an election that was his: this time to the egregious Hughes. Of one and a half million votes cast, Hearst lost by fifty-eight thousand. Except for Hearst, every Democrat on the ticket had been elected, and the entirely unheard-of was at last heard of: the candidate for lieutenant governor, dimmest of posts, was won by an upstate Democrat, an aristocratic Chanler, hardly known for his appeal to the masses, or anything else. Roosevelt had finished Hearst; would Hearst return the compliment? “I gather,” said Caroline, “that as many Democrats are involved in Standard Oil payoffs as Republicans?”
“Which explains why this noble citizen, with his so-called proofs of corruption, has been delaying publication for what could be years, to help not justice but his own career.” Roosevelt was now speaking for eternity, and Edith, not one to abide too much eternity on an empty stomach, signalled that it was time to go in to dinner.
SEVENTEEN