Capable of Honor (54 page)

And then inside to the great hall itself, the orchestra playing “Dixie,” the faces of Hudson, Knox, and Jason dancing everywhere on poles and placards in time to the music, the banners flying, the streamers stretching across the rafters, the escaped balloons floating around them, the party dignitaries gathering on the long ramp out to the podium, the enormous pictures of the party’s heroes on the wall, the spectators in the galleries eager and ready, the delegates taking their seats on the floor, the newsmen and TV cameramen jamming the aisles, moving restlessly up and down, the hissing, rustling sound of a thousand typewriters, the electric tension and excitement, the insistent, incessant, pulsating roar of sound—sound—sound …

And then the temporary chairman and keynoter, veteran Governor of Kentucky grown gray in his party’s service, raising the gavel and bringing it down with a thundering crash; and the mellow tones of the Bluegrass bellowing, “I hereby declare this great convention of this great party to be in session!” And a roar of applause, quickly silenced as the band played the national anthem, the vast assemblage stood silent, and the first churchman—a Jew, who would be followed in due course at later sessions by a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Mormon, so that all God’s chillun would be happy—delivered the invocation.

Then the ritual disposition of minor details of necessary business, the resolutions of thanks to the host city, to the arrangements committee, to the chairman of this and the chairman of that, the resolutions of praise and tribute to the departed great, the chance to reward all the good little party workers, each of whom in his or her turn was allowed to step to the microphone and shout his little portion of the ritual into the great sea of faces before him and receive its good-natured, perfunctory applause.

And the waves of competing applause and boos, still basically good-natured but with an increasing edge to them as the convention moved inexorably forward, when the names of Jason or Knox were tossed slyly out by their partisans at the podium. And the applause—“dutiful, troubled, and uneasy,” Walter and his friends gravely interpreted it for the millions who were watching—that rolled up at each mention of “our great President” or “our great leader.”

And the only really solid opportunities for partisanship, the arrivals of the families: Patsy, Valuela, Selena, and Herbert taking their seats in a box on one side to great shouts, cheers, spotlightings, and picture-snappings; and Beth, Crystal, and Hal taking theirs in a box on the other side, to great shouts, cheers, spotlightings, and picture-snappings. And surprisingly and electrifyingly, her entrance causing great excitement in the press and among the more knowledgeable delegates, startled wonderment and concern in two headquarters which found her appearance completely unexpected and quite disturbing, (for who knew what it meant at this particular early moment)—Lucille Hudson, all alone, rosy, dimpled, and smiling, waving to the roar of greeting that went up as she was led forward to the podium to take a bow.

Then the last minor resolution offered by the last minor party-worker-to-be-rewarded, and the voice of the Bluegrass once again: “This convention will now stand in recess until 2 P.M. tomorrow!” And everybody pouring out into the late afternoon sharpness to go back over the freeways to the city, to the banging bands, the great hotels, the lobby conferences, the corridor gossip, the drinks, the comparings of notes, the guesses and speculations and rumors; the exciting knowledge that tomorrow the real blood-letting would begin; and then, finally, the going out, showered and lotioned and dressed to the nines, into the cool foggy night, the drive to the Palace of Fine Arts, and Dolly’s party.

There were a great many, of course, who were not invited; who went out into the excited streets, in the sharp, exhilarating night, under the scudding fog-black skies, to ride the Powell Street cable car to the Top o’ the Mark or the outside elevator at the Crown Room of the Fairmont, and then on to Fishermen’s Wharf, there to stand in line for hours waiting to eat; who met one another, laughing and exchanging cordial greetings or cordial hostilities depending upon who wore which campaign button, at Ernie’s or the Blue Fox or Jack’s or Tadich’s or Omar Khayyam’s or Johnny Kan’s or Mingei-Ya or Ritz Old Poodle Dog, or whatever; who then emerged to wander along the streets or back to their hotels, well-oiled, raucous, good-natured, and happy.

These were what the press liked to refer to as “rank-and-file delegates,” already, though they would have been offended to know it, statistics: carefully annotated cards in files at Knox and Jason headquarters, impersonal digits on big charts where numbers were written excitedly, erased forlornly, put back with whooping joy, erased with growing disillusion, put back with—

These were the dark, mysterious, unknowable herd, whose motivations the analysts thought they could understand, whose reactions the experts thought they could predict, whose final decision the managers thought they could rely upon—who yet remained, right down to the very last minute, no matter how analyzed, no matter how interpreted, no matter how predicted, dark, mysterious, and unknowable, possessing the power, at any second of wild emotion or bitter reaction, to overtime all plans, cancel all triumphs, blast all hopes.

Tonight, unaware of many things moving beneath the surface of the waters, they were generally happy and lighthearted; and of course quite a few of them did get to Dolly’s party, some by invitation, some (like the rather disorganized group of Jason demonstrators who swirled angrily out of the night, forced their way through the door, and were promptly overwhelmed with drinks and food ordered by their quick-thinking hostess) in less formal fashion. There they were privileged to socialize with many a famous figure.

Mary Buttner Baffleburg of Pennsylvania and her three lovely sisters were there, Lizzie Hanson McWharter of Kansas stunning in a stringy gown of yellow, Anna Hooper Bigelow of New Hampshire smashing in a gaunt-sized purple sheath, Esmé Harbellow Stryke of California eye-stopping in a black silk-and-sequin concoction as pursed and pinched and expensive-looking as she was. The Smitters, the Smatters, the Smutters, and the Smotters were there (the Smetters had relatives in Berkeley and had to cross the Bay for dinner but would be back later, Vangie assured Dolly); Roger P. Croy of Oregon was sidling about, Senator August and Representative Swarthman came in together, the Maudulaynes, Krishna Khaleel, and Raoul and Celestine Barre could be seen circulating busily with others of the diplomatic corps. All in all, it was a striking, distinguished, and significant group, “the cream of the convention” as the
San Francisco Examiner
put it, who gathered more than fifteen hundred strong in the handsome room where two orchestras played softly, and where the constant yelps of greeting, the rising babble of voices, and the steady clink of ice against glass gave proof through the night that the political processes of the world’s greatest democracy were functioning smoothly and well—that The Opportunity Was Being Seized, The Challenge Was Being Met, The Future Was Being Faced, and The Great Problems Which Confront Us Were Being Successfully Overcome.

If there were some attending who had a more serious aspect—if the Speaker and the Majority Leader looked, now and then, a little worried—if Tom August and Jawbone Swarthman looked a trifle belligerent—if the two candidates for Vice President and their families watched one another somewhat warily behind the outward show of cordiality they presented to the avid, insistent eyes of all around them—if everyone appeared to be treating Lucille Hudson as though she were a case of dynamite being passed gingerly from hand to hand around the room—these were things of which the happy revelers in the heart of the city, and even a good many at the party, were entirely unaware. Tomorrow in the newspapers and on the air they would learn surprising things about the evening and would ask one another with an envious dismay, “Was that going on? We didn’t know about that!” But it is unlikely that, even had they been sober enough to notice, they would have known about it. This was the inner business of the convention, the sort of thing that always takes place behind the screen of rollicking bands and roistering delegates, behind the backs and only rarely before the eyes of the innocent or at least uninformed pawns in the game who get moved about by its masters—as long as they allow its masters to move them.

So it was that several separate conversations came together to make a whole; that the Speaker and the Majority Leader, just happening to step aside for five minutes privately with the First Lady, discovered that she did indeed bear words of recommendation and even compromise from her husband; that Secretary Knox and Governor Jason, posing together with a dutiful show of good-fellowship upon their almost simultaneous entries, found themselves approached separately later, Orrin by Senator Munson, Ted by the Speaker, with Lucille’s suggestions; that Cullee Hamilton, dancing with Sarah Johnson, still later found the Speaker murmuring in his ear, while Lafe Smith, happily getting reacquainted with Mabel Anderson in an evening that was turning out to be quite enchanted for them both, received the same message from Bob Munson; and that Joe Smitters and Bob Smutters and Roger P. Croy and even Mary Buttner Baffleburg, Lizzie Hanson McWharter, Anna Hooper Bigelow, and Esmé Harbellow Stryke were permitted to receive intimations, before the evening was over, that something was in the wind; and that Walter Dobius and his colleagues, moving diligently through the crush buttonholing, questioning, hunch-gathering, came rapidly to the alarming conclusion that bad people might be cooking up something that could conceivably hurt their hero, and rushed accordingly to their typewriters and microphones to sound the tocsin and call upon all Right Thinkers to come to the aid of the righteous before a carefully planned steamroller went off the tracks.

HINT PRESIDENT OFFERS COMPROMISE ON JASON-KNOX COMMITTEE FEUDS, the first-edition morning-paper headlines said when the jovial throng, considerably better-fed and better-lubricated than it had been five hours before, began to straggle from the Palace of Fine Arts around 1 A.M.…JASON FORCES SEE ATTEMPT TO UNDERCUT GOVERNOR … KNOX DELEGATE STEAL (no longer in quotation marks) MAY GET HUDSON SUPPORT … KNOX WAR PLANK (similarly unfavored with quotes) MAY BE FORCED INTO PLATFORM … CONVENTION TAKES PRO-WAR TURN AS KNOX STRENGTH GROWS.

“SAN FRANCISCO—What is happening here in this lovely city (Walter Dobius typed swiftly at 3 A.M. in the press room at the Hilton, where a wandering
Life
photographer conveniently came upon, and recorded, genius at work for next week’s convention roundup) is so old and obvious a replay of the shabbiest closet dramas of American politics as to leave one almost as stale and jaded as the thing itself.

“The old pros are moving in on the young idealists, and the young idealists may soon find themselves fighting back-to-wall to rescue their young, idealistic candidate from one of those murderous deals that sicken democracy and move it some appreciable distance further on the road to its ultimate self-destruction.

“Secretly and surreptitiously, with an almost Renaissance cleverness that goes surprisingly with his rather monotonous middle-class mentality, the President of the United States has apparently sent his wife on ahead of him as a sort of advance guard to prepare the way for his own direct interference in a convention he stoutly proclaimed he would not control. The First Lady has not heretofore been considered to belong to that history-shaping sorority that includes the first Elizabeth, Catherine the Great, and Madame Pompadour. Yet unlikely as it seems, this is the role her husband apparently has assigned her. She has performed it, and from it events of dire potential to the hopes and fortunes of Edward M. Jason have immediately begun to flow.

“Now it appears that an attempt by supporters of the Secretary of State to assume control of the delegations of Ohio and Mississippi may succeed—because of a compromise proposed by Harley M. Hudson.

“Now it appears that a foreign policy plank that betrays international morality, defies collective security, and gives endorsement to two of the most inexcusable and foredoomed interventions in American history may be riveted into the platform of this convention—at the insistence of Orrin Knox and Harley M. Hudson.

“Now it appears possible—only, at this moment, just possible, but nonetheless possible—that Edward M. Jason may be defeated for the vice presidential nomination, and the candidacy of one of the most devious Secretaries of State ever to grace the Cabinet may thereby win an endorsement that could permit him to succeed at some later moment, without hindrance or challenge, to the Presidency.

“It is a somber hour here in this delightful metropolis, perhaps the most gracious and charming, sharing only with Washington the title of most beautiful, of all American cities.

“In Gorotoland and Panama the wars drag on, increasingly wasteful, increasingly deadly, as the President—and Orrin Knox—step up the American commitment to fifty thousand troops in Gorotoland, seventy-five thousand in Panama—and no end in sight.

“In the United Nations, United States prestige sinks ever lower, as the President—and Orrin Knox—reject attempt after attempt by its desperately worried member-states to bring about negotiations that could end the bloodshed.

“Every day the nation is taken further into a darkness from which only the most enlightened and liberal leadership can extract it.

“Now the only possible means of securing that leadership is threatened. The one man who could bring some restoration of sanity into Administration councils—the one man who, should events take at some time some tragic turn that placed upon him unsuspected burdens, could return America to the high point of influence, honor, and prestige that America possessed before little men betrayed her—may be defeated here in San Francisco.

“It is a time for all Americans to search their hearts and decide what they would like this convention to do—what their own futures and those of their children, and their children’s children, make it imperative that the convention do.