than drunken foolishness to me.”
“Oh, it’s foolishness, all right.” Truman’s eyes flashed behind his spectacles. He wasn’t FDR-not even close- but in his own way he was also nobody you wanted to mess with. He’d make you sorry if you tried. Eyes still snapping, he went on, “You know what would’ve happened if American boys tried that kind of nonsense in 1918?”
“Tell us,” Tom urged, along with two other reporters.
“I will tell you, by God. They would’ve got drumhead courts-martial, they would’ve got blindfolds and cigarettes-miserable French Gitanes, that tasted like horse manure-and
“Can we quote you, Mr. President?” someone asked. Tom swore under his breath; he’d intended to quote Truman any which way.
But the President nodded again. “Go right ahead. The Army’s not a factory. You don’t have the right to strike against the United States of America. Anybody who thinks he does doesn’t think very well. He’s going to be sorry pretty darn quick. That’s just the way things are, and that’s how they’ll stay.”
“So do you think we ought to shoot these strikers?” Tom asked. “Do you think the Communists got to them, or maybe the Nazis?”
“I don’t know who got to them. I don’t know if anybody did,” Truman said. “All that will come out in the courts-martial. I’m sure the military judges will do what the evidence suggests.”
“What will you do if some of the soldiers get sentenced to death?” Somebody else beat Tom to the question, which pissed him off. “Will you let the sentence be carried out, or will you commute it?”
“I’m not going to judge anyone in advance,” Truman answered. “I don’t have all the evidence in front of me now. I’ll see what the courts-martial decide and how they decide it. Then I’ll do some deciding of my own.”
A reasonable response-to Tom, no friend of the administration, too reasonable to be of much use. Well, he could turn the story however he needed it to go. Another reporter asked a question about the civil war in China. Truman said he hoped Chiang Kai-shek’s forces would do better. That wasn’t useful, either. Who didn’t hope Chiang’s soldiers would do better? Getting them to do better was the problem.
Then the questions turned to domestic policy, and Tom almost stopped listening. As far as the
At last, Truman said, “That’s all for today, boys.”
“Bye-bye, donkey,” one of the reporters said as they trooped out of the press room. “The elephant’s gonna be living here as soon as the voters send Harry T. back to Missouri.”
“Dewey? Taft? Stassen? Who do you figure?” Tom asked.
“Whoever makes the most noise about bringing the boys back,” the other reporter answered. “Right now, I’d put my two bucks on Taft, but it’s early days yet. They aren’t even around the first turn.”
“Yeah.” Tom nodded. Then he grinned. “I think I’ve got the lead for my next column.” He wrote it down so he wouldn’t lose it.
If you had to be anywhere in January, Los Angeles was a pretty good place to be. The sun beamed down from a bright blue sky. It was over seventy. Lawns were still green. Flowers bloomed. Every now and then, Diana McGraw saw a butterfly. Birds chirped as if it were spring. Diana even spotted a hummingbird at some of the flowers in front of Union Station.
“My God!” she said to the man who’d organized this protest rally. “Why does anybody live anywhere else?”
“Beats me,” Sam Yorty answered. The California Assemblyman was a Democrat. Not only that, he’d served in the Army Air Force during the war. That made him a doubly terrific catch for Mothers Against the Madness in Germany. He went on, “I was born in the Midwest myself, but the only way they’ll get me out of California again is feet first.”
“What if they send you to Washington?” Diana asked. “Would you go there?”
“If the voters send me to Washington, I’d have to go,” Yorty said. “You’ve got to listen to them.” He might not just listen-he might do some talking of his own. And if he did, they might well listen to him. He was pushing forty, with a handsome face, a fine head of curly hair, and a wry, almost impish sense of humor. “Truman isn’t listening,” he added, “and look what’s happening to him.”
“Not just to him. To the country,” Diana said.
“Sure. I know.” Assemblyman Yorty nodded. “More and more people know. More and more people want to do something about it. We were going to hold this rally in the Angelus Temple, but-”
“In the what?” Diana broke in. Then the name rang a bell, and not one she cared for. “Isn’t that where Aimee Semple McPherson-?”
Sam Yorty nodded again. “She started it, but she’s gone, remember-she died during the war. Anyway, the place only holds 5,300 people. That’s not enough. So we’ve moved things to Gilmore Field.”
“Where’s that?” Diana asked. Unlike the Angelus Temple, she’d never heard of it.
“In Hollywood. It’s a ballpark-the Stars play there. Pacific Coast League,” Yorty said. Diana nodded. The Indianapolis Indians of the American Association were the Hoosier heroes. Yorty went on, “Anyway, we can put 13,000 people in there. That ought to do the job.”
“I hope so,” Diana said. “I never dreamt when I started out that so many people would get behind me.”
“I’m only sorry you had to start out,” Yorty said. He remembered about Pat, then. Not everybody did, even though Diana talked about her son almost every time she spoke.
Gilmore Field was on Beverly Boulevard. It wasn’t that far up and over from her downtown hotel. The rally organizers got Diana earlier than she thought they needed to. When she saw the traffic, she understood. This was a big city, even if it all looked like suburbs.
Picketers marched outside Gilmore Field’s grandstand. Cops kept them from going any farther, and from mixing it up with the people filing into the ballpark.
The cheers she got when she went out onto the field warmed her. So did the weather, which was still perfect. From what the locals said, you couldn’t count on that in January, even in Los Angeles. But God or the weatherman or somebody was smiling on the rally.
Before Diana got to talk, Sam Yorty burned some time introducing celebrities who agreed with her. She’d never imagined she would meet an actor like Ronald Reagan, but there he was, waving up at the people in the stands and blistering Truman in three well-spoken minutes. Several other performers did the same.
“And now,” Yorty said at last, “the lady who started this ball rolling! Let’s hear it for Mrs.-Diana- McGraw!”
Diana got another hand, louder this time. If those picketers were still out there, this one was loud enough to make them grind their teeth. “Thank you very much,” she said into the microphone between second base and the pitcher’s mound. “I think I’ve already been upstaged, but that’s okay. We’re all on the same side here today, right?”
“That’s right!” The cry rolled down on her from all around the single-decked grandstand. She felt as if she’d hit a pennant-winning grand slam in the bottom of the ninth on the last day of the season.
“My son Pat would be proud of you,” she said. “He went to Europe to fight to keep us free. He helped win the war-or he thought he did. But after everybody said it was over, he got killed. And for what? For nothing! That’s all these poor kids who get murdered every day in Germany are dying for. For nothing! Because Harry Truman’s too pigheaded to bring them home, that’s why. There’s no other reason at all!”
Was this what a ballplayer heard when he did something special and won a big game? If it was, it was worth playing for all by itself. Any money the player raked in after that seemed only a bonus.
“Germany can’t hurt the United States any more. We knocked it flat. Even if we hadn’t, we’ve got France and England and the ocean in between,” Diana went on. “And we’ve got the atom bomb, and the Germans all know it. If they even think about making trouble, we can knock them even flatter. Anybody with his eyes open can see that, right? Too bad the President of the United States keeps his shut!”
More cheers. Diana knew they were as much for what she was saying-for what
