Empire

“I think, sir, the Chief was there to listen to Mr. Bryan.”

“I can’t think why a newspaper publisher, who went to Harvard, should want to involve himself in politics when he has, as far as I can tell, no politics at all.”

Although Blaise had been more amused than bemused by the Chief’s sudden obsession with politics and the holding of high office, he could not tell Roosevelt that much of the Chief’s interest had been created not, as many thought, by the career of his father, Senator George Hearst, but by that of the thick small restless shrill-voiced man who was marching about the room like a toy soldier that someone had wound up but forgot to point in any particular direction. Blaise had now given up on conducting an interview with the Governor. Those whom Roosevelt regarded as social equals, and Blaise was one, were not treated as a part of the solemn consistory of reforming angels at work with bucket and shovel in the stables of the republic; rather, they were treated as a fellow boy by a boy who despite-or because of-small stature and bad eyesight, was a born bully and, perhaps, leader, too, if anyone could be persuaded to follow him. Certainly, whatever crossed his plainly quick mind, he felt obliged to express.

Hearst now ceased to interest the Colonel. Instead, he was distracted by a model of a battleship, not, Blaise was reasonably certain, a treasured possession of Mrs. Robinson’s. “I was given this when I was assistant secretary of the Navy. Build more, I said. Have you read Admiral Mahan on sea-power? Published nine years ago. An eye-opener. I reviewed it in the Atlantic Monthly. We are fast friends. Without sea-power, no British empire. Without sea-power, no American empire, though we don’t use the word ‘empire’ because the tender-minded can’t bear it. Like Andrew Carnegie, that old scoundrel, who says that if we don’t give freedom to our little brown brothers in the Philippines, we will be cursed. By what? His money? He told Mr. Hay that if an American soldier fires-as they’ve had to do-on the Filipinos, we will lose our republic at home. Incredible! Thanks to Mr. Carnegie and his friends our government was obliged to fire on a great many American workers at the time of the Haymarket riots, and the old fraud was dee-light-ed. Hypocrite. But Mahan’s not. He’s a patriot. The torpedo boats. I have him to thank for the theory. The Navy has me to thank for arming us, in time…”

“… and you to thank for Admiral Dewey.” Blaise took advantage of a pause during which Roosevelt clicked his teeth together three times, like a dog; the sound was as disconcerting as the expression of the face was alarming. “Well, I did get him the job in the Pacific. Took a bit of doing. Had to get a senator to sponsor him first. Imagine! What a country! If we hadn’t found us a senator to sponsor him, another officer would have got the job, and we’d not be in Manila. Good man, Dewey. Good officer. They’ll try to run him for president, of course. I hope he’s wise. And stays out.”

“Mr. Hearst thinks the Admiral would be better than Bryan…”

“Dear boy, you’d be better than Bryan. Didn’t my sister Anna visit your father a few years ago?”

“Did she go to Allenswood?” Suddenly Blaise remembered a charming, excessively plain, large-toothed woman, very much at home in France.

“No. But she studied with Mlle. Souvestre when she still had her school in France. Before she moved to England…”

“My sister Caroline was there, too. In England…”

Roosevelt talked through him. “… did wonders for Bamie’s French and general knowledge but I’m not so sure of morals. She’s now a freethinker, like Mlle. Souvestre…”

“Who’s an atheist, actually.”

Roosevelt ground his teeth in a lively imitation of rage. “So much the worse for my sister. And yours…” Like so many politicians who never ceased to talk, he heard what others said even through the comforting cascade of his own words. “At least mine learned perfect French. What about yours?”

“She already spoke perfect French. She was obliged to learn perfect English, which she did.”

“We’re sending my niece to her this year. We have hopes…” But the Governor looked grim.

“That would be the daughter of Mr. Elliott Roosevelt, sir?”

“Yes. My brother is well known to your readers.” The Governor threw himself into an armchair; and glowered at Blaise, as if he were Hearst, the devil. Four years earlier, Elliott Roosevelt had died, under an assumed name, in 102nd Street, where he had been living with his mistress and a valet. Although he had been a heavy drinker for years, Blaise’s father had always said that if any Roosevelt could be said to have true charm, it was Elliott, who had spent quite a lot of time in Paris, much of it at the Chateau Suresnes, a place of refuge-or containment-for wealthy alcoholics. Some years earlier, the Governor had publicly declared his brother insane, to the delight of the press. The Chief, in particular, found it almost impossible to let the Roosevelt family skeleton rest peacefully in its closet; he also never let pass an opportunity to remind New Yorkers that in order to avoid taxes, Theodore Roosevelt used to give as his place of residence not New York State but the District of Columbia. Because of this confusion over residence he had come close to losing the nomination for governor; but then the brilliant Elihu Root, a lawyer without peer, as the Journal would say, had talked the nominating convention around. All in all, Blaise was pleased that he himself had no political ambitions. Between private life and public, there was, for him, no contest. What, he sometimes wondered, would they do with the Chief’s private life when he decided to enter the arena?

Roosevelt wondered the same. “He’ll find all the newspaper fellows will be treating him the way he’s treated everybody else.” Roosevelt removed his spectacles; and stared near-sightedly at the buffalo, which stared into eternity, a place just above the door to the hall. “I suppose he’ll support Bryan again. That would make things easy for us. McKinley’s a shoo-in.”

“What about you, sir?”

“I am a good party man. McKinley’s the head of the party. I’ve been offered the editorship of Harper’s Weekly. You can write that. You can also say I’m tempted to take it next year, when my term’s up.” An aide entered from the hall; and gave the Governor what Blaise could see was a newspaper slip. He wondered from which paper; probably the Sun. As the aide left, Roosevelt was on his feet again, marching up and down, with no precise end in view other than the pleasure that vigorous motion of any kind appeared to give him. “The President has unleashed General MacArthur on the rebels. I’ve proposed unconditional surrender on our terms, not that the humble governor of New York has anything to say in such great matters.”

“But they listen to you, sir.” Blaise was beginning to work out a theme if not a story. “You are for expansion- everywhere?”

“Everywhere that we are needed. It is to take the manly part, after all. Besides, every expansion of civilization-and we are that, preeminently in the world, our religion, our law, our customs, our modernity, our democracy. Wherever our civilization is allowed to take hold means a victory for law and order and righteousness. Look at those poor benighted islands without us. Bloodshed, confusion, rapine… Aguinaldo is nothing but a Tagal bandit.”

“Some people regard him as a liberator,” Blaise began, aware that the Governor could thunder platitudes by the hour.

But there was no braking him now. Roosevelt was now marching rapidly in a circle at the center of the room. He had been seized by a speech. As he spoke, he used all the tricks that he would have used had Blaise been ten thousand people at Madison Square Garden. Arms rose and fell; the head was thrown back as if it were an exclamation mark; right fist struck left hand to mark the end of one perfected argument, and the beginning of the next. “The degeneracy of the Malay race is a fact. We start with that. We can do them only good. They can do themselves only harm. When the likes of Carnegie tell us that they are fighting for independence, I say any argument you make for the Filipino you could make for the Apache. Every word that can be said for Aguinaldo could be said for Sitting Bull. The Indians could not be civilized any more than the Filipinos can. They stand in the path of civilization. Now you may invoke the name of Jefferson…” Roosevelt glowered down at Blaise, who had no intention of invoking anyone’s name. Blaise stared straight ahead at the round stomach whose gold watch-chain quivered sympathetically with its owner’s mood, now militant, imperial. “Well, let me tell you that when Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he did not include the Indians among those possessing our rights…”

“… or Negroes either,” said Blaise brightly.