1876 (33 page)

But we did not smoke. We spoke instead of history. Garfield is a devoted reader of the classics. Baron Jacobi has read the classics but is not devoted to them as history—“only as literature. Who, after all, believes a word that Julius Caesar wrote? His little ‘history’ was simply a sort of leg up for his political career.”

“But if we can’t believe those classical writers whose works have come down to us, then how can we ever know
any
history?” Garfield is passionate on the subject.

“I think, General, the answer to that is very simple. We
cannot
know any history, truly. I suppose somewhere, in Heaven perhaps, there is a Platonic history of the world, a precise true record. But what we think to be history is nothing but fiction. Isn’t that so, Mr. Schuyler? I appeal to you, perversely, since you are a historian.”

“And therefore a novelist?”

“Malgr
é
vous.”

“I agree, Baron. There is no
absolute
record. When I was trying to write about the Communards in Paris —and I was there at the time—I could seldom find out just who was killed by whom.”

“But surely, gentlemen, there is a winnowing process. History is distilled from many conflicting witnesses. We do
know
that President Lincoln was murdered, that General Grant commanded the Union army.”

“But no one knows the name Achilles took when he hid himself among the ladies or the lyrics of those songs the sirens sang. If Mr. Schuyler will forgive me I prefer fiction to history, particularly if the narrative involves people that once lived, like Alexander the Great.”

“I must disagree,” I said, thinking of those dreadful novels by Dumas. “I always want to know what is true, if anyone knows it.”

“But no one does except the subject, and he—like Caesar—is more apt than not to lie.”

“But,” said Garfield, “we now have letters, diaries, newspaper cuttings—”

“Dear General, is there a newspaper in the United States—other than
The New York Times
—whose reports
you
believe?”

Garfield saw the humour. He laughed. “Well, if future historians will read only the
Times
—”

“They will think that the Grant Administration was absolutely superb—as does the minister from Servia,” added the Baron quickly, “and entirely free of corruption. As for letters, journals, who ever writes the truth about himself?”

“You are too cynical for me, Baron,” said Garfield, himself every bit as cynical but in the agreeably open American way.

“I would make a bonfire of all historians, except Mr. Schuyler, and the early fabulists like Livy ...”

“But how then would you learn about the past?”

“From Dante, Shakespeare, Scott—all fiction writers.”

“But Shakespeare’s history is always wrong.”

“But his characters are always
right
.
Anyway if you want to know what Julius Caesar or James G. Blaine or our own delicious James Garfield is really like, then look into a mirror and study with perfect attention what is reflected there.”

After supper, I sat with Nordhoff in the rotunda at Willard’s and repeated to him what Garfield had told me about Blaine.

“Very clever,” was Nordhoff’s verdict, delivered through a half-dozen amused barks.

“Then Blaine did do—favours for the three railroads?”

“Favours! He is in their pocket. He is also in Fisher’s pocket. When Blaine sold his friends all those Little Rock and Fort Smith bonds, Fisher made him a present of a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of land-grant bonds and thirty-two-thousand five hundred dollars of first mortgage bonds.” Also, I learned that Blaine had used his influence as Speaker of the House to see that Fisher’s railroad was awarded a crucial land grant by the Congress. “Then he’s in very deep,” was the most I could think to say.

“Over his head, I’d say. But you can never tell in Washington.”

“Garfield seems to think Bristow is behind this.”

“The Stalwarts think Bristow is behind everything. But if Blaine is destroyed, it won’t be the work of Bristow. It will be because for the first time in years there is a Democratic majority in the House and they are out for blood.”

Blood. Red. I thought of the red bird on the green bough, my good omen. “Garfield is clever, then, to want me to tell the story now, in his version.”

“Yes. Because then the scandal will have come and—he hopes—have gone before the convention in June.”

“I think I must write it, don’t you?”

Nordhoff was thoughtful. “Certainly it is very useful for us—for you—to have General Garfield as a friend.”

“Then I should write the story in such a way as to please both him and Blaine.”

“Yes. Then
I
shall follow up, day after day, with all the terrible details.”

“And that will be the end of Blaine?”

“That
ought
to be the end, but he is very shrewd, as well as the most intelligent, most likeable man down here.”

“So then let us allow him to be the president.”

Nordhoff found this amusing. “I don’t think it’s really up to us, worse luck. The Democrats will take care of him in due course, preferably just before the convention. But, in a way, you
are
helping him by publishing part of the story now. As for letting him be the president—now, really, Schuyler.”

“Yes, yes. I know. He is too corrupt.”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Not, it would appear, for the American people.”

“You are hard on us. I want this election to be a reveille. I want everyone to wake up. And we can do it, too, you and I and a few others.”

“Make history? But there is no history,” I said, trying out in my own voice Baron Jacobi’s theory, “only fictions of varying degrees of plausibility.”

“What?”

“I meant to tell you that I had an amusing conversation with Garfield about history. He assured me that one can learn the truth about the past through old newspapers, letters, diaries. Then he proposed to help me write, as it were, the history of Mr. Blaine, by setting down in the
Herald
all the lies he would like to see in print.”

“But now you know the truth. And the truth always comes out.”

“Dear Nordhoff, in this case I know only what
you
tell me is the truth. And you could be mistaken. As for the truth always coming out, why, I think it never does. But even if it did, who would know?”

JAMIE BENNETT TELEGRAPHED: “Your report on Blaine will insure nomination of Conkling and election of Tilden talk of nothing else in New York congratulations” while a long letter from John Bigelow was most flattering, not to mention promising: “Just an hour ago I was in the Governor’s office and he was reading aloud to several friends your astonishing—well, your definitive—revelations about Mr. Blaine. The Governor was delighted, and praised you highly. Secretly we are both a little sad because we saw Mr. Blaine as the candidate, and an easy one to defeat. Conkling will be more difficult, and Bristow most difficult of all. Fortunately, Bristow is hated by the Stalwarts; in fact, Chet Arthur has told a number of people that Bristow will never hold office again, as a Republican. The Governor said, ‘I did not imagine your friend Mr. Schuyler was going to be such a kingmaker!’ Of course the world has yet to hear from Mr. Blaine.”

Indeed the world had not when Bigelow wrote me. But today—April
24
—the beleaguered colossus of the Republican party rose to his feet in the House of Representatives and, on a point of personal privilege, proceeded to make one of the most eloquent speeches in the history of that body, or so everyone says. I would not know, for I was at the dentist having a back tooth pulled. I am still groggy from the nitrous oxide I was given, and my right jaw, which for some years has not been exactly what Mrs. Southworth would call “lean,” is still grotesquely swollen.

But Emma was at the Capitol with Nordhoff; and when the speech was done, both came to see me on or, rather, in my sick rocking chair. Nordhoff promptly seated himself at the desk and began to write his piece for tomorrow’s
Herald
while Emma described the apotheosis of James G. Blaine, with a bark or two from Nordhoff.

“He was
adorable
, Papa!” Emma is truly stimulated by this city’s peculiar theatre.

“What a word!” Nordhoff said, continuing to write rapidly.

“But he was! You’ve never seen so many enthusiastic people. And everyone was there.”

“Except me,” I mumbled through swollen jaw. “The cause of it all.”

“Poor Papa! I never asked about the tooth. Was it painful?” We despatched the tooth as a subject, and returned to Blaine’s performance.

“His voice shook. He sobbed at one point ...”

“Like an actor,” said Nordhoff, and proceeded, I am sure, to write the phrase at the same time he was saying it, “a
bad
actor.”

“He convinced me.” But then Emma was thoughtful. “Well, perhaps he did not convince but he overwhelmed us all. There were even cheers from the people in the press gallery while in the ladies’ gallery where I was, well, you’ve never seen so many handkerchiefs waved, heard so many hurrays!” With gusto, Emma imitated the nasal brazen sound that my countrywomen make when they publicly express their pleasure.

“I am sure he was marvellous.” I spoke wetly, for blood and saliva have been filling my mouth all day and I must keep mopping my lips with cotton wool. I turned to Nordhoff. “But what did Blaine actually
say
?”

Nordhoff put down his pen. “Very little. He claimed he was being persecuted in the press ...”

“Did he mention the
Herald
?”
I was keen to know if Blaine had made reference to me, but though my article was the very first to expose him, he had named no names. I was, I fear, piqued at this omission. The speech was about political partisans and their unrelenting hostility to good government and to the party that had saved the Union, freed the slaves, and honoured James G. Blaine.

“But what about the charges that I—that we have made?” I would like to take
all
the credit for the bold exposure, but with some effort I acknowledge Nordhoff’s assistance. “Why did those railroads buy the worthless stock of the Little Rock and Fort Smith?”

“He read a letter.” Nordhoff was grimly amused.

“He read that letter superbly well,” added Emma.

“From whom?”

“From the treasurer of the Union Pacific Railroad.” Nordhoff looked down at his notebook. “Dated March thirty-first, saying that the railroad had never paid any money to Blaine.”

“As if the treasurer would have written anything else to Blaine.” I must say the man is bold, the public gullible.

A series of barks from Nordhoff, and a demur from Emma: “There were other letters. But the point is that he was so forthright. So honest. So—well, charming in the African style,” she added, dropping her voice so that Nordhoff would not hear, but he was intent on composition.

I am afraid that neither Emma nor Nordhoff has been able to give me any idea of
what
Blaine actually said, but the way that he said whatever it was that so delighted his listeners has saved at least this one day for him.

Nordhoff finished his story and rang for a page to take it down to Mr. Roose to send on by telegraph to the
Herald.
Then Nordhoff delivered his verdict. “Blaine’s got away with it.”

“And I did the wrong thing? From our point of view?” I must say that I am revelling in a most uncharacteristic and charmless way in my sudden fame. For two weeks I have been known from one end of the country to the other as the brave and fearless journalist who dared to expose the clandestine activities of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wherever I go in Washington, the most celebrated people gather about me, and listen respectfully to my every word. During these last few days it has got so that I want no one to talk of anything else but me, ever again! But after this day’s vivid and historic performance, Blaine’s is now the central rôle and I am eclipsed, at best a pale ghost of a moon hardly visible as his sun blazes.

“This is just the beginning.” Nordhoff assumed his special secret face that I have come to recognize as prelude to some devastating revelation.

“Then there is more?” Emma was intensely curious.

“Oh, yes.” I, too, did my best to achieve a secret face despite a swollen jaw. “There is more to come.”

“Oh, dear!” Emma is now a complete Blaine partisan. She looked at Nordhoff and then at me and back again, but we refused to satisfy her curiosity. Then a second page appeared and presented me with a copy of Washington’s
Evening Star
.

“This was sent to you, sir.”

“By whom?” I gave him a coin.

“Don’t know, sir. Just came. That’s all.”

The vengeance of Mrs. Fayette Snead known as Fay was like that terrible swift sword so savagely celebrated in the bloodthirsty “hymn” of one Julia Ward Howe, a denizen of “the evening dews and damps” of Beacon Hill.

With numerous asterisks and blanks for names and horrendous puns, the P*** d’A*** was linked romantically with the B*** J*** while, in far-off New York, a youthful American suitor did not dream that he had been jilted by this frivolous
French
woman.

Nordhoff was surprised at how lightly Emma and I took Fay’s vengeance. We explained to him about the kerosene. Emma was not at all contrite. “How was I to know that her hair would fall out? It must not have been attached very firmly to the scalp. I shall send her a hat.” Emma went in to dress for dinner. I walked Nordhoff to the door.

“What next?” I asked.

“We accumulate more evidence.” Again the secret look.

“Where do you get it from?”

“Ah!” Nordhoff was maddening.

“From Bristow?”

“Bristow is an honest man. That is a fact.”

“But hardly loyal to his president, to his party ...”

“He is loyal to principle.”

“That!”
I am heartily sick of principles, affected or real.

“Anyway, I’ll let you know in due course. It should be amusing tonight for you to visit the enemy’s camp.”

“I find it hard to think of the Garfields as enemies. After all, he is a devoted reader of mine.”