candidates.”
“Senator Lodge tells me that Mr. Long is not all that serious, and…”
“If I say he’s serious, Governor, he’s serious.”
“What does the President say?” Blaise admired this instinctive leap for the jugular.
“May the best man win. That’s what we all say. That’s what’s going to happen, too. All you’ve got, Governor, is Platt and Quay. Well, we can’t go into an election with Bryan with a candidate who’s the invention of the big-city machines. McKinley speaks for the heartland, not Boss Platt, not Boss Quay…”
“Not Boss Hanna?” asked a voice in the doorway.
“Boss? Me, a boss! I do like I’m told. Don’t go believing what you read in those Hearst papers. I follow orders, and I’ve got one from the President which I’m going to follow to the end. No deal with the big-city bosses.
Roosevelt was now very red in the face and breathing hard. “My support is from reform; from the West…”
“Platt and Quay. Platt and Quay!” Hanna drowned him out, and Blaise could tell that Roosevelt had been, momentarily, beaten back.
“Naturally, I stand where I’ve always stood.” Roosevelt’s hand touched the tooth which Blaise knew to be aching. “I would like renomination as governor of New York…”
“Make a statement to that effect. By four this afternoon, we’ll want it for the wire services.” Hanna had pulled himself together. “I’ll get the word to Platt, and the New York delegation. You may think you have the West, but we have the South, and Ohio.” Hanna was now in the doorway, surrounded by his revivified troops. “May the best man win!” he shouted at Roosevelt, who was staring at Blaise, and not seeing him, or anyone else. The teeth that had been clicking so ominously were now set close together. Behind the gold pince-nez the small dull blue eyes were unfocussed. What next? Blaise wondered.
The next day was Hanna’s. He was given an ovation when he appeared on the stage of the convention hall, a vast hot building set in West Philadelphia. Blaise was seated in the press section, with a good view of the state delegations below him. New York’s banner was close to the stage; but there was no hatted Rough Rider to be seen. The Governor had indeed done as he was told by Hanna; he had given a statement to the press that he would prefer to continue as governor. When asked to comment, Senator Platt had said that he was in such exquisite pain that he no longer cared who was elected what. According to Roosevelt’s secretary the Governor had made no move to woo the Southern delegates away from Hanna; instead, he was searching desperately for a dentist who could stop the pain in his tooth without removing it. The thought of a huge gap in those tombstone teeth was terrifying to all Roosevelt supporters.
As the speeches began, Blaise sat next to Thorne. During the night Thorne had spent some time with Dawes, who was now the President’s eyes and ears at the convention. “Something’s happened between McKinley and Hanna.” Thorne was mystified. But Blaise, who knew nothing of politics but a good deal about human vanity, had the answer. “He’s tired of those cartoons of ours, showing him being led around by Boss Hanna.”
But Thorne suspected all sorts of dark intrigue. Meanwhile, the New York State delegation was trying to make up its mind whom to endorse. For some mysterious reason, Theodore Roosevelt was not even considered; then, on the second day of the convention, word swept the hall that the New York delegation had selected as a favorite-son non-candidate Lieutenant Governor Timothy L. Woodruff, one of Platt’s less gorgeous inventions. Simultaneously came the news that Roosevelt had defied Platt. “This makes no sense,” said Blaise to Thorne, as each tried to cool himself with a palmetto fan in the airless hall.
But for once the political reporter could instruct the man of the world. “Teddy’s pulled it off, and so has Platt. Teddy can’t ever appear to be Platt’s candidate, so they cooked this up to make the West and the South and the country think that Roosevelt’s fallen out with the boss of his own state.”
“This is all Platt’s doing?”
Thorne nodded; and smiled. “It’s smooth work, Mr. Sanford. Seamless, you might say.”
By afternoon, the West and Wisconsin had come out for Roosevelt. Then the permanent committee chairman, Senator Lodge, was escorted to the platform by his old friend the Rough Rider himself. As Roosevelt and Lodge appeared on stage, the convention hall exploded with sound. “It’s all over!” Thorne shouted into Blaise’s ear.
Roosevelt stood to one side of the lectern where Lodge had been installed. Roosevelt appeared to be genuinely surprised by the ovation. First, he looked at Lodge; then he gestured for Lodge to take a bow; but the elegant Lodge merely smiled a small smile, and folded his arms, and bowed to Roosevelt.
At that moment the band struck up “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” Roosevelt removed his hat and waved it like a plume. Under the Ohio banner, Senator Hanna fell back in his chair, and shut his eyes.
On Thursday, the matter was settled. Blaise had talked to Dawes, whom he found to be intelligent as well as charming, a rare combination in a professional courtier. “It’s no secret the President started out not wanting Roosevelt. Now he thinks it’s all for the best.”
From the press section, the convention floor was, suddenly, colorful as plumes of red, white and blue pampas grass were waved, worn, held. The Kansas delegation, wearing yellow silk sunflowers, demonstrated for Roosevelt. Then Lodge banged his gavel for order; and introduced Senator Foraker of Ohio, who proceeded with due pomp and collegial zeal to renominate for president William McKinley. A demonstration resulted. The band played “Rally ’Round the Flag” in memory of the Civil War, of the origins of the party itself and of Major McKinley. Afterward, there was silence, as Lodge took his place at the lectern, and the elegant voice sounded throughout the hall, “To second the nomination of President McKinley, the Governor of New York…”
With that, the hall was in eruption. Even Blaise found himself excited. Whoever had stage-managed Roosevelt was a master. Again the band played “There’ll be a Hot Time,” by now the anthem of the Spanish-American War. Rough Rider hat held high, the stout small near-sighted man raced down the corridor from his post beneath New York State’s banner and up the steps to the stage. Again, the ovation was fortissimo, and Roosevelt seemed to grow ever larger as the cheering filled him up, as hot air does a balloon. The teeth shone (the pain must somehow have been killed); the hat was held above his head like victor’s laurel.
Lodge, much moved, shook his hand and led him to the lectern. Roosevelt’s shrill voice resounded throughout the hall. He said nothing memorable; but he himself was memorable as… Blaise could not think what. Taken detail by detail, he was as absurd a creature as Blaise had ever met, but taken as the whole that was now being presented to the nation, he seemed all high-minded probity, fuelled by the purest energy; he was, literally, phenomenal. As Roosevelt seconded the nomination of McKinley, he himself seized the crown. At last he was at the center of the republic’s stage, and he would never again leave it, Blaise thought, suddenly conscious of history’s peculiar inexorableness. The speech was mercifully short. History does not enjoy too close an examination of its processes.
The roll-call of the states began. But there were so many cries to make unanimous the renomination of McKinley that Lodge, in a general storm of confused parliamentarianism, did precisely that, and Iowa jumped the gun and nominated Roosevelt for vice-president. There was more confusion. Finally, Lodge declared that Governor Roosevelt was indeed the unanimous choice of the convention for vice-presidential candidate, having received every vote save one. The Governor, in a paroxysm of modesty, had declined to cast a vote for himself. At that glorious moment, a huge stuffed elephant appeared in the hall, attended by waving red, white and blue pampas grass. History had been made.
As Blaise entered the Walton Hotel, Senator Platt was leaving, surrounded by members of the press. The Easy Boss was more than ever easy; and the ashen color of the weekend had been replaced by his normal pallor; but he moved stiffly, carefully, as though afraid he might break. “Are you pleased at Governor Roosevelt’s nomination?”
“Oh, yes. Yes,” murmured Platt.
“But, Senator, weren’t you for Woodruff?”
“We are all of us for the Republican Party,” said Platt gently. “And the full dinner pail.”
“The full what?”
“Dinner pail,” another reporter answered.
This must be, Blaise thought, a campaign phrase, to emphasize the new prosperity in the land, thanks to McKinley’s policy of expansion and, of course, high tariffs.
“Any other thoughts, Senator?”
“Naturally, I am glad,” said Platt, now at the door, “that we had our way.”
