Empire

anyone gives a damn about a state constitution, so while he’s dithering, Bryan comes in, praises the constitution, and now they’ve elected nothing but Democrats, including that crook Haskell. They have also, in their infinite Western wisdom, sent us a blind boy for one senator, and an Indian-an Indian!-for another.”

“I know, sir,” said Blaise, “your views on the virtues of the dead Indian, but I didn’t know you took so powerful a line against blind men.”

“I do against this one.” The Roosevelt teeth clicked twice. “A populist demagogue… You’ve read about Haskell?”

“I’ve read everything.”

“What does Hearst want to do? Wreck our political system?”

“If you put it like that, sir, yes, he does.”

Roosevelt did not acknowledge so truthful if radical a response. “What letters of mine has he got?” This was sudden. The President, whose back was to Blaise, turned round. The bright red and yellow leaves of autumn as seen through the window back of him made him look as if he were incongruously trapped in a stained-glass window.

“In themselves, as far as I know, nothing much. But if interpreted …”

“Oh, he’ll interpret! Here.” Roosevelt gave Blaise a typed statement. “Can you run this tomorrow? I’m afraid it’s not exclusive. I’m releasing it to the whole country. But you’ll have it before McLean at the Post.”

Blaise read the short statement and marvelled at the easy even flow of political hypocrisy at its fullest tide. “Mr. Hearst has published much interesting and important correspondence of the Standard Oil people, especially that of Mr. Archbold with various public men. I have in times past criticized Mr. Hearst but in this matter he has rendered a public service of high importance and I hope he will publish all the letters dealing with the matter which he has in his possession. If Mr. Hearst or anybody else has any letters from me dealing with Standard Oil affairs I shall be delighted to have it published.”

Thus, Roosevelt made the best of a bad business by praising the enemy and trying to regain for himself the high ground in what looked more and more like a swamp filled with quicksand. What, Blaise wondered, for the first time, were the President’s relations with Standard Oil? Obviously, there was something that he did not want known; and it probably had to do with the gathering of money for the 1904 election. Although the President had struck a jaunty pose, he looked unnaturally ill at ease.

“I shall publish your statement tomorrow.”

“Good. I gather you’re in communication with Hearst?” Blaise nodded. “When next you talk to him, say that I’d like a word with him here, in the White House, soon. Tell him there are other… forces at work, that he should know about.” The President’s smile was as bright and artificial as his pince-nez; he showed Blaise to the door.

2

ALTHOUGH WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST had been requested to enter the White House from the south side, where private visitors came and went, the great man ordered his chauffeur to drive up the main driveway to the north portico, to the general consternation of the police. Then, slowly, like some huge bear of the sort that the President liked to shoot in quantity while roaring about the necessity of the preservation of wildlife, Hearst entered the main hall of the house which he would never, short of an armed revolution, occupy. Apprehensively, the chief usher received him.

“Tell the President that I am here.” Hearst did not bother to identify himself. He took off his coat, and let it fall, quite aware that someone would catch it before it touched the floor; and an usher did.

“Come this way, Mr. Hearst.” The chief usher led Hearst to the west wing. When told to wait in the secretary’s office, Hearst opened the door to the empty Cabinet room, and took his place at the head of the table. The secretary’s shock was silent; but profound.

Hearst sat back in the chair of state, and shut his eyes, like a man exhausted in a noble cause. He was home. But not for long. As usual, noise preceded the Chief Magistrate. “Delighted you’re here! Bully!” The President was now at the door to the Cabinet room. Hearst opened his eyes, and gravely nodded his head in greeting. For a moment, Roosevelt appeared uncertain what next to do. Then he shut the door behind him. There would be no witnesses to what might follow.

Slowly, majestically, Hearst got to his feet. As the two men shook hands, Hearst deliberately pulled Roosevelt toward him so that the President was obliged to stare straight up into the air at the taller man. “You wanted to see me?” Hearst inquired, as if bestowing a huge favor on a junior editor.

“Indeed. Indeed. We have so much to talk about.” Although Hearst stood between the President and the presidential chair, the tubby but sturdy Roosevelt simply charged the chair, knocking Hearst to one side in the process. Most royally, Roosevelt seated himself; and said, with smooth condescension, “Sit there. On my right. Mr. Root’s chair.”

Hearst’s smile was thinner than usual. “I’d fear some terrible contagion if I were to sit in the chair of so notorious a liar.”

Roosevelt’s face was now dark red; and the smile a snarl. “I’ve never known Mr. Root to lie.”

“Then you’ve had a lot less experience with lawyers than I’d suspected.” Hearst pulled an armchair from its place at center table, putting a considerable distance between himself and the President.

“Root spoke for me in Utica.” Roosevelt was flat.

“Well, I didn’t think he was speaking on oath to God. Of course, he spoke for you when he accused me of McKinley’s murder.”

The conversation was, plainly, not going where Roosevelt had intended. “Your press incited-incites-violence and class hatred. Do you deny that?”

“I don’t deny or affirm anything. Do you understand that? I’m here at your request, Roosevelt. Personally, I have no wish to see you at all, anywhere, ever-unless, of course, we share the same quarters in hell. So I must warn you, no one says ‘Do you deny’ to me, in my country.”

“Your country, is it?” Roosevelt’s falsetto had deepened to a mellifluous alto. “When did you buy it?”

“In 1898, when I made war with Spain, and won it. All my doing, that was, and none of yours. Ever since then, the country’s gone pretty much the way I’ve wanted it to go, and you’ve gone right along, too, because you had to.”

“You exaggerate your importance, Mr. Hearst.”

“You understand nothing, Mr. Roosevelt.”

“I understand this much. You, the owner-no, no, the father of the country, couldn’t get the Democrats to nominate you for president even in a year when there was no chance of their winning. How do you explain that?”

Hearst’s pale close-set eyes were now directed straight at Roosevelt; the effect was cyclopean, intimidating. “First, I’d say it makes no difference at all who sits in that chair of yours. The country is run by the trusts, as you like to remind us. They’ve bought everything and everyone, including you. They can’t buy me. I’m rich. So I’m free to do as I please, and you’re not. In general, I go along with them, simply to keep the people docile, for now. I do that through the press. Now you’re just an office-holder. Soon you’ll move out of here, and that’s the end of you. But I go on and on, describing the world we live in, which then becomes what I say it is. Long after no one knows the difference between you and Chester A. Arthur, I’ll still be here.” Hearst’s smile was frosty. “But if they do remember who you are, it’ll be because I’ve decided to remind them, by telling them, maybe, how I made you up in the first place, in Cuba.”

“You have raised, Mr. Hearst, the Fourth Estate to a level quite unheard of in any time…”

“I know I have. And for once you’ve got it right. I have placed the press above everything else, except maybe money, and even when it comes to money, I can usually make the market rise or fall. When I made-invented, I should say-the war with Spain, all of it fiction to begin with, I saw to it that the war would be a real one at the end, and it was. For better or worse, we took over a real empire from the Caribbean to the shores of China. Now, in the process, a lot of small fry like you and Dewey benefited. I’m afraid I couldn’t control the thing once I set it in