“You’re goldarn right she did,” said Miller, “because she hates him like she hates her father, our biggety Nigra President. Anyway, Murdock wanted to know if she could prove her brother was a Turnerite. She said sure she could, and she would, but only if she had to. She told Murdock if he wanted to know more, go and talk to Julian personally. So Murdock rode out to Trafford, cornered our President’s son, and accused him of the Turnerite membership. Julian got sullen, then downright nasty, and said it was a lie to hurt his father, and he was never a Turnerite in his life, and Murdock couldn’t prove it, and his sister couldn’t prove it, and besides she was a psychopathic liar, and so forth. So our kid reporter, Murdock, he hotfooted it back to New York and got to Mindy again, and said she was a liar, because Julian said so and had denied everything. Mindy was pretty keyed up that day, I mean on some kind of pills or something, and she got pretty hysterical against her brother. She went and dug out some letters, and held them while Murdock read them. They were from Julian, and the first one, with the oldest date, was full of resentment about being stuck in the Nigra school, and his father being too yellow to act for the Nigra race, and Mindy turning her back on her people, but he was going to be different, the one in the family who wasn’t yellow, because he was planning to join up secretly with a new outfit called the Turnerites who were going to give all Nigras equality. Well, there it was. In the other letters, written later, when he was involved with Hurley and learned his membership was supposed to be secret, I guess, he wrote his sister he’d been kidding, and denied ever joining, but he wasn’t kidding. There it was in writing. Is that proof, Arthur, or is it not?”
Eaton put down his empty cognac glass. “Can you get that first letter?” he asked.
Miller grinned. “I got it, my friend.”
“You have? How?”
“Mindy agreed to turn it over to Murdock for his written and signed pledge that he would never disclose her identity, that he would leave her alone, leave her keep passing, so’s she can give some poor white Christian young fellow her nigger blood in a coon baby. Murdock gave me the letter, and all his statements are to be made into affidavits tomorrow, on the condition that Mindy’s passing not be exposed and his fiancée, Miss Foster, and her diary with the facts, not be dragged into this in any way.” Miller paused, and added solemnly, “I gave the lad my word, and I gave him the job. And now we got the goods on our biggety Nigra President.”
Senator Hankins coughed and wheezed. “Mighty powerful case, gentlemen.”
Talley echoed, “Mighty powerful case.”
“For what?” asked Arthur Eaton. He stood up, and went to find a cigarette. Not bothering about his holder, he lifted a silver table lighter before him as he said to Miller, “What do you intend to do with all that-that research?”
Zeke Miller opened his hands and raised his shoulders. “Simple. I intend to go-or have you and the Governor go-straight to our beloved President Dilman and say, Mister, you’re here ruining the country, and we’re here with our minds made up to save the country. The way for you to help us save the country, Mr. President, is for you to become incapacitated and be forced to resign because of ill health-maybe you been pretty sick since that assassin almost got you-maybe you got a heart condition and it’s been kept hushed, but now your family physicians say you can’t go on-so you resign because of disability, for the sake of the country, and the Party, and your health, and let the next in line, namely, our able Secretary of State and close friend of T. C., Mr. Arthur Eaton, become President for the rest of this term. If you won’t resign, Mr. President, we got to tell the country the truth about your son being a Commie Turnerite, and you condoning it and giving those subversives aid and comfort, and we got to tell about your wife’s death, and your past, your unreliability because you’re a drinking tosspot of a Nigra, and we got to tell your own people how you’re so ashamed of being a nigger you encouraged your daughter to pass deceitfully for a white girl. Now, what’ll that do for you and your family, Mr. President, all that coming out? So for reasons of your health, you better resign.”
“Impressive,” said Eaton with irony.
“You betcha,” said Miller, pleased.
Suddenly Eaton ground out his cigarette and said, “And what if Dilman refuses to quit?”
“Aw, Arthur, cripes, you know he’ll shrink up and have to.”
“American Presidents don’t resign,” said Eaton flatly. “Not a single one ever has, not even Woodrow Wilson when he was bed-ridden by a stroke. They die. They are killed. They become ill, even incapacitated, but they do not resign. And Vice-Presidents, they’re the same. Only one ever resigned, Jackson’s Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, and that was with only two months to go and he had already been elected to the Senate, and that was as far back as 1832.” Eaton shook his head. “No, I’m afraid President Dilman might not fold up and quit. He might prefer to have you expose him, suffer his family to go down the drain, rather than give in to your pressure. Have you allowed for that?”
Before Miller could reply, Senator Hankins snorted and trembled on the sofa, as he raised his hand. “I allowed for it, Mr. Secretary. Actually, so did Zeke. We talked about it with our friends before coming here. We decided this. If that nigger won’t leave the White House on his two feet, then we’ll carry him out.”
Eaton contracted his brow. “Carry him out?”
“Remove him, sir, remove him by force,” said Senator Hankins. “Your Constitution, young man-never forget your Constitution. Article II, Section 4. ‘The President… of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ The law of the Founding Fathers, young man.”
Arthur Eaton tried to maintain his poise, but he was deeply shaken. He stood still, eyes averted, staring at the carpet. He had never before, not until this moment, heard the monstrous word impeachment used in this way by men elected to high offices of responsibility. He had heard it employed in gossip, he had read it in the columns of the lurid tabloid press, but he had not heard it used by members of the United States Congress. It was as impossible an American word to him as secession or revolution or assassination. All of his background and breeding-his intelligence, his faith in orderly settlement of any crisis, his belief in the give and take of gentlemanly compromise-was offended by this word.
“That’s right,” he heard Miller saying, “if Dilman won’t get out, we’ll evict him out under due process of law.”
“Gentlemen,” Eaton said, “I find even consideration of such a solution repugnant. I think such a solution could do the country as much injury, in these times, as Dilman’s own bumbling. Even if I stand to gain by the outcome, I’m afraid I could not support you in such a drastic act.”
“But the Constitution-” Miller said.
“The Founding Fathers, riding to their meetings in horse-drawn carriages, creating the Constitution with their quill pens, could not have anticipated what every article of it would mean in a nuclear age, with Communists in front of us, with racial strife behind us,” said Eaton. “No, impeachment would be dangerous. Jefferson said it was merely a ‘scarecrow’ in the Constitution, presumably not to be used except as a scarecrow. But Jefferson aside, and given real cause to use impeachment powers, and even if it could be managed quickly and safely, I do not believe that Dilman would merit removal, at least not on the evidence you have at hand. What you possess is criticism of the character of a man in high office, what you have is scandal, but that is not evidence of treason, bribery, or high crimes against his country.”