windmill, arms constantly flailing high and low as he made his points; arms descending at regular intervals to shake, vigorously, proffered hands.
Blaise sat, unobserved, in a corner with an elderly political reporter from the
“What is happening?” asked Blaise. When in doubt, ask someone knowledgeable, was Brisbane’s obvious but too often ignored advice to journalists.
“Everything. Nothing. The dude,” he pointed to Roosevelt, “can’t make up his mind. He thinks if he gets to be vice-president he’s done for. They sort of disappear, by and large. He’d like to be reelected governor, but Platt won’t let him. So should he take on Platt? Fight it out? He don’t dare. This is about all he’s got left.”
“He’s still young.” Blaise was now used to referring to the fat little governor, almost twenty years his senior, as “young.”
“He’s aiming to be president next time around. But he knows that every vice-president’s been passed over since Van Buren. But governors of New York are always in line. Now Platt’s kicking him out-or upstairs. That’s why he’s going around in circles.”
Indeed this seemed a proper description of the Governor, who was now, literally, marching about the room in circles, talking, talking, talking. Senator Penrose had withdrawn, having declared that Pennsylvania’s delegation was for Roosevelt. “Machine,” said the old man from Baltimore. “Funny thing for a reformer, to be the number-one choice of the bosses.”
But the next delegation was un-bossed California. There was cheering from Roosevelt’s supporters, and a brilliant smile from the Governor, as he greeted, by name, a number of the Californians. “We’re with Roosevelt all the way!” shouted the chairman of the delegation.
“The West for Roosevelt!” someone else shouted.
“The ‘rest’?” asked the old man, beginning to make notes on his large dirty cuff.
“The West,” Blaise said.
“I’m a bit deaf.” The old man smiled. Huge dentures moved about his mouth. “There’s your key. That’s what Teddy’s looking for. He doesn’t want people to think of him as Platt and Quay’s invention. But to be the candidate of the West…”
“A cowboy…?”
“A cowboy. A Rough Rider. Now he’s getting it together.”
“Can Hanna stop him?”
“Will McKinley stop him? That’s the question.”
“McKinley can keep him from being nominated?”
“McKinley can put him out to pasture for good-in the badlands. But will he?”
Monday morning Blaise was in the crowded hotel” lobby when Mark Hanna made his not-so-triumphant entrance. The once thick-set, rather doughy political manager, made famous by a thousand cartoons of which the wickedest were Hearst’s, was now a stooped haggard figure who walked with a noticeable limp. Behind him, to Blaise’s surprise, was Senator Lodge, Roosevelt’s closest friend, whose support of Secretary of the Navy Long was considered to be no more than a holding operation for an eleventh-hour strike by the Governor. The eleventh hour was now striking. Blaise tried-but failed-to get near Hanna. He caught Lodge’s eye; and received a courtly nod, no more. But then Lodge had always taken the firm line that if a gentleman were to work for Hearst either he was not a gentleman or the word was in need of redefining.
Blaise then retreated to the marble stairs to the mezzanine, where he knew Hanna would be quartered. The day was oppressingly hot; and the smell of the delegates overwhelming. Blaise felt like Coriolanus as, trying not to inhale, he climbed the stairs to the mezzanine, which was filled with huge portraits of McKinley trimmed with red, white and blue bunting. A large placard, over an exit door to a fire escape, announced, humorously, “Republican National Committee.”
James Thorne, a
“I doubt it.”
“He knows me, so I’m keeping my hat down over my eyes. If I do get kicked out, you’ll take notes, won’t you, Mr. Sanford?”
“I think I probably can,” said Blaise. He was used by now to being treated as a feeble-minded rich boy.
Thorne and Blaise occupied two straight-backed chairs in front of a window. “That’s so the light will be in his eyes,” said Thorne. “He won’t be able to see us. I hope. One thing about a national convention. Nobody’s ever seen anybody before. So you can get away with a lot by just pretending you belong wherever you happen to be.”
Blaise did his best to look as if he belonged in front of an open window in a large room filled with gilt sofas and chairs. In the corner of the room there was-most important of all-a telephone booth. “It’s rigged up to the White House,” said Thorne.
Suddenly the room was filled with politicians, and Hanna was carefully placed in an armchair. He was, Blaise decided, not long for this world. Lodge was nowhere in sight.
One by one the state leaders were admitted to the presence. Hanna questioned each carefully; each questioned Hanna. Was it true that McKinley was taking no position?
Hanna’s response was always the same. He was in close touch with the President. The convention was open. Everyone hoped that the best man would win. Wherever Roosevelt was alluded to as a potential “best man,” Hanna would glower. Then he would speak of Dolliver, Allison, Long, Bliss: seasoned men, good Republicans, reliable. But after each delegation had come and gone, Hanna was more and more drained. He sweated; and the dull red eyes were glazed.
‘One of Hanna’s aides came out of the telephone booth. “No word, Senator.”
“In that case,” said a Roosevelt supporter from the West, whose name neither Thorne nor Blaise had heard, “the convention’s under your control, Senator.”
Hanna glared at the Westerner. “My control? No, it is not. Everyone’s doing what he damn well pleases.”
One of Hanna’s aides tried to stop him; but the fit was upon him. “I am not in control. I should be. But I’m not. McKinley won’t let me use the power of the presidency to defeat Roosevelt. He’s blind or afraid, or something. I’m finished. I’m out. I’m not running this campaign. I’m quitting as national chairman.” The tirade went on. Thorne and Blaise both made rapid notes.
A California delegate entered the room, unaware that he was interrupting Hanna’s definitive performance as King Lear. “Well, Senator, the whole West is now for Roosevelt…”
“Idiot!” Hanna bawled. The Californian reeled back as though struck. With the help of three men, Hanna staggered to his feet. “Don’t you fools realize that there would be only one man’s life between that madman and the presidency?”
At this propitious moment, the madman entered the room, clicking his teeth with what could have been joy or, Blaise thought more likely, a carnivore’s hunger. “Senator Hanna, dee-light-ed.”
Roosevelt seized the hand of the swaying Hanna. The room was now filled with Roosevelt supporters. “I’m sorry to cause so much commotion.” Roosevelt adjusted the Rough Rider’s hat. “I thought I’d just slip into town, as a humble delegate-at-large…”
Softly, Hanna screamed. But no one paid the slightest attention to him. At the eleventh hour the madman held center stage. “I had not realized how undecided everyone is…”
Hanna found his voice. “Undecided? We’re all decided. You’re not going to be the nominee. You come in here, dressed up like a cowboy, and try to stampede the convention, when Long and Dolliver are the true
